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queenshelby · 7 months

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Daddy Issues (Part One)

Pairing: Dominant!Cillian Murphy & Shy!Reader (& Jamie Dornan)

Warning: Smut, BDSM, Daddy Kink, 4-Somes, 3-Somes, Sugar Baby Arrangements

Summary: Through your best friend, you meet actor Cillian Murphy and come to some kind of arrangement involving intimacy in exchange for being spoiled financially.

Written with: my beautiful wife @darkshelbyfiction

Ever since school, Emma had been your best friend and now that you were both in your early twenties, and studied law at the prestigious Oxford university, nothing really changed.

Your friendship had grown even stronger despite differences in personalities – you being introverted and reserved, she boldly exploring her newfound independence.

Emma was always full of surprises - from her unexpected move to New York City without telling anyone and then coming back six months later, to now referring to herself as Jamie Dornan's sugar baby when you were on your own while, otherwise, keeping it discreet.

When alone with you, she would often talk about having "intimate encounters" with him and sometimes even others, keeping you amused while leaving you curious about what exactly happens behind closed doors. You were often thinking about 50 Shades of Gray, spiking your curiosity, although Emma assured you that it was nothing like that.

When talking to Emma and her sugar baby experience, it felt like one day she decided to break all boundaries – whether social or moral – as if embracing freedom beyond comprehension. Despite her brazen behavior, deep down inside, she still cared deeply about your opinion which made things interesting when discussing such topics together over coffee late into the night, sitting among the humming crowd of the cozy London Cafe.

The coffee shop filled up quickly around lunchtime, making it harder for Emma to continue sharing stories confidentially.

You eventually moved outside underneath the shade of a large tree, sipping their drinks while enjoying the cool evening air. Again, your conversation turned towards the subject of sex which was something your life was lacking.

To you only, Emma often opened up about her time spent with Jamie, the man who had become what she calls her "sugar daddy".

Their relationship was nothing serious and it was that, just after his messy and rather public divorce, he sought solace in younger women whom he could provide financial stability for. In return, they agreed upon fulfilling his needs discreetly and you knew that Emma was not the only one.

As she shared more explicit details of their sessions, which she only did with you, the way she spoke became increasingly sensuous. She had fun, it seemed, and it was just last week that she had engaged in her first ever threesome with Jamie and another man.

"A threesome, with two men?" you asked incredulously, gripped with curiosity as she mentioned it for the first time that day. You only ever had sex with one man, and it was nothing short of boring to say the least.

"Yes. Jamie had a friend over, and it just happened. It wasn't really planned. But we had lots of fun and probably too much to drink as well" she giggled seductively, leaning forward slightly as if divulging a juicy secret. The sunlight reflected off her soft skin causing her silhouette to waver rhythmically against the foliage behind her.

"Uhm, okay..." you began. "So who was the guy? Was he an actor too?" You queried, genuinely intrigued.

"Yes, he is an actor too, but I really shouldn't talk about this." Her tone implied reluctance to share further details.

Curiosity peaked, you probed, "But come on, tell me! Who is he? You know I won't tell!"

She hesitated before speaking again, seemingly caught between excitement and fear. "His name is Cillian," she finally revealed, and your chin dropped.

"It's not Cillian Murphy though, is it?" you clarified, thinking of the renowned Irish actor who portrayed one of your favourite TV characters, namely Thomas Shelby.

"Jepp," she replied simply, confirming your suspicion.

"Oh my god...Cillian Murphy? Is he actually single enough to do that kind of thing? Like wow..." you couldn't help feeling shocked. Even considering you hadn't met him personally, there was undeniable respect and admiration attached to Cillian's image as he tried to stay out of the tabloids as much as possible.

"Well yeah, apparently he filed for divorce two weeks ago. Weird timing, right?" Emma said, looking almost surprised herself before you took up the courage to probe her with more questions.

"So, you actually had full on sex with them both? At the same time? In the same room?"

Your head swam with visions of those three intertwined bodies, imagining the erotic chaos taking place beneath the sheets. "Wasn't it weird?" you then asked. You had so many questions.

"Yes, we had sex at the same time and it was crazy," Emma admitted, smiling mischievously. "And no, it didn't feel weird at all. It was exciting, surprisingly so."

Her frankness startled you somewhat, used to living within societal norms, yet also fascinated by how freely Emma discussed these experiences. Perhaps it was because of your conservative background that she never judged your naïveté regarding intimacy.

"I mean, Cillian Murphy is pretty fucking hot, so I do not blame you," you said, catching yourself off guard with your sudden audacity.

Emma laughed lightheartedly. "You want details don't you?" Emma teased, already aware of your insatiable curiosity. Your cheeks flushed crimson in embarrassment, partly due to her keen observation, partly due to the explicit nature of our conversation.

"Yes, of course," you stammered nervously, clearing your throat. You could barely look at Emma straight in the eye anymore, instead fixating on the ground, afraid that your face might betray you completely.

"What do you want to know about?" Emma continued, unperturbed.

"Everything. All the dirty details," you confessed honestly, unable to suppress your voyeurism any longer. "I mean, did they both, you know, at the same time, you know..." you stammered, wondering whether they simply took turns or penetrated her at the same time.

"Put their dicks in me?" Emma laughed, seeing how shy and embarrassed you were, causing you to nod.

She proceeded, "Yes, eventually. They took turns first but then both of them wanted to be with me at once. At first, I thought it was a bit awkward, but after getting comfortable, it became thrilling and liberating."

You chin dropped, speechless. How could someone like Cillian Murphy be entangled in such debauchery?

"You look really shocked right now," observed Emma, watching your expression carefully. "Is it because I told you or because of who it was with?"

Though you were tempted to ask about Jamie, your mind remained fixated on Cillian. As far as you were concerned, he was practically handsome. To think he was capable of participating in these types of wild escapades was surreal.

"A bit of both," you responded, half questioning and half affirming, hoping she wouldn't sense your growing interest.

"You know, he is single and I could get Jamie to introduce you sometime, maybe. If you want to meet him," she added nonchalantly, as if suggesting dinner plans.

This left you stunned momentarily. You considered the possibility, envisioning yourself engaging in similar carnal acts.

"I don't think so, no... I mean, I am not like you," you protested timidly, attempting to regain composure.

"I think you are thinking too much about moral standards which are absurd concepts, developed by society to control people and maintain certain order," Emma chuckled, referring to your prudish nature.

"Cillian is single and he was clearly intrigued by what Jamie and I have going, because it is simple. There is no hassle. No feelings. Only pure physical satisfaction. That's the arrangement between us. No strings attached. And he takes care of me financially which is really helpful seeing that I am, just like you, a student with a huge student debt," Emma went on matter-of-factly.

"That sounds nice," you commented, trying to understand why Emma would agree to being part of such arrangements without seeking a deeper connection. "But, don't you find it degrading sometimes?"

Emma gave you a sidelong glance, understanding perfectly well where your concerns stemmed from. "No, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with having sex for personal gain, especially when consent is given mutually. Despite, I actually really enjoy the sex. It's different than anything else, more intense and raw - and I feel closer to myself afterwards. There's just something powerful about it, you know? Sometimes I wonder how long this will go on, but then I remember that as long as everyone gets what they need, nobody gets hurt. This keeps everything simple and fair game, which suits me fine.”

You listened quietly, struggling to process all the information. It was difficult to imagine Emma – sweet, innocent Emma – as someone who enjoyed these kinds of arrangements. Yet somehow, hearing her describe it made it sound logical, even reasonable.

After all, money was tight for students. If consensual adults found pleasure in such arrangements, why should anyone judge them? You understood why Jamie paid for expenses in return for sexual favors – he wanted to compensate Emma for services rendered, plain and simple. Still, you marveled at how easily she glossed over potential consequences associated with such liaisons.

She always had nice, expensive things nowadays, clothes and shoes alike and she spent most nights with him, having fun and enjoying her life.

Their lifestyle seemed enviably easy and carefree compared to yours, stuck with heavy books and a mountain of debts piled high. Maybe it was worth exploring, you mused fleetingly. Still, you knew deep down inside that this wasn't the path you wanted to take. The idea felt morally corrupt, and it terrified you.

Back in reality, however, the fact still remained that you lacked the confidence needed to approach someone like Cillian Murphy let alone sleep with him. You were too scared of rejection and failure.

It was hard to believe that someone like Cillian Murphy could ever give you the attention you desired. Besides, it wasn’t as if you would suddenly become desirable just because you slept with him. Deep down, you worried that you weren't good enough. Your insecurities consumed you. However, the more you talked to Emma, the more curious you grew. How would it feel to be with such a person? What would happen during the act itself? Would they dominate you entirely? Or perhaps be gentle? So many questions filled your mind as you tried to grasp onto reality.

"Maybe dinner would be alright. I mean, nothing bad can come from meeting new people, right?" You countered cautiously, your heart racing slightly. Meeting someone like Cillian Murphy was indeed exciting, yet nerve-wracking simultaneously.

"Right. I will organise it then!" Emma said excitedly and, to you, agreeing to meet Cillian Murphy felt monumental, almost surreal.

You couldn't help feeling excited, hopeful that he would notice you among others and throughout the night, you couldn't stop reflecting upon the encounter with Emma. Her stories sparked countless fantasies that tormented your imagination, leaving you eager to experience pleasures beyond conventional boundaries. Even though it meant facing risks and challenges outside your comfort zone, the prospect of indulging in passionate encounters captivated you.

After all, hadn't dreaming been harmless until it turned into reality? Confronting your fears allowed you to grow stronger. As you sipped on another cup of coffee, lost in thought, Emma noticed your contemplation.

"So, are you really really sure?" Emma asked, seeing how nervous you were already.

"Yes. It's just dinner, right?" you said and Emma chuckled and agreed.

"Yes, but these things can lead to more. There is no pressure though," Emma reassured you as a mischievous grin spread across her lips.

"Exactly," you nodded vigorously, although doubts crept into your head when you looked up his soon to be ex-wife and the women he had dated before, all of whom were extremely attractive.

How could anyone possibly compete against those women? Why would he bother with somebody like me? These negative thoughts flooded your brain but nevertheless, you decided to push through these anxieties. After all, life was full of surprises and opportunities. Who knows, you may end up liking each other!

"Alright, we're doing this, then. Let's see where it leads," you confirmed firmly, looking determined despite your lingering insecurities.

Emma grinned broadly, pleased with your decision as she picked up the phone and called Jamie.

To be continued....

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strangefellows · 15 days

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excuse me for a moment while i go on a little rant about my limbus theory under a cut (and untagged because fandom scares me) bc i went on this rant earlier to a friend i want to post it

So one of the biggest complaints I've seen people have with the Dante-is-Ayin theory is that it's "bad writing to repeat the twist from the first game" and objectively, yes, but that's not what they're doing at ALL and I've said it before and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. It's actually giving Ayin a chance to be a character with agency, and give him closure/a real ending.

Like. Okay. In Lobcorp. he has NO actual dialogue beyond player choices sometimes - which we know doesn't count thanks to games like Persona who have similar arguments about their PCs - and we never see his face until the very last Day of the game....and it's not even really 'him' it's basically his shadow talking to him! And even the flashbacks are almost certainly narrated by that shadow rather than the X/A we're playing as. Not to mention the amnesia for the first half of the game; and even after he remembers they call him A rather than X -- and we don't even get his full name until the very last lines of the game.

And let's be real here, I think it's very telling of his lack of agency that the last lines are "Your name is Ayin. Now close your eyes and fade away."

As he disappears into the Light he just spent the entire game generating.

Left on its own, and especially with the entirety of Ruina giving Angela closure and a place to overcome her trauma and issues, it's grievously unfair.

When half the plot of the game is Ayin helping save and guide the people in hell with him into closure and moving forward-- what does he get? Someone else telling him to fade away his role is over bye.

He doesn't get to get that closure and forgiveness and chance to move on that Angela does! He spends the whole game acting on someone else's last wish, someone else's dream, trying to save the people he'd condemned to hell and make up for his actions, and then he doesn't get to be saved with them.

He has no voice, no face, barely a name. No agency -- everything he does in Lobcorp is because of Carmen's wishes. Everything we hear about him is from the perspective of other people, and incredibly biased; even the flashbacks aren't from the POV of the X/A we're playing as but the 'shadow' (mirror self? haha looks at yi sang) from Day 50.

And more than that -- we don't know Ayin outside of Carmen. We don't know anything about his life before he met her. We don't know who he is, what he likes, what he wanted, what he studied, what he did before her. Everything Ayin has been in this series so far is from the lens of someone else. (So any theory tying him to Demian - even if Demian isn't related to Enoch, which is still possible - can still apply; because we don't know him outside Carmen, there could very well be a tie from before then.)

So Dante's faceless, voiceless nature, how they're just kind of forced into the situation they're in and how they're slowly gaining their own agency and deciding on their own will what kind of person they are and what they want to do, from their own perspective, as they seek to regain their voice and face and Self...

It's perfect.

It's not "bad writing" at all. It's like that quote from George Lucas: “Again, it’s like poetry, so that they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.” It's poetry.

A mirror of the first game, not a rehash of the same twist, a continuation of the story of the one character who never got his ending, who was never allowed to be a character, a person, who was never given his own choices on his own will, who was never given the opportunity for closure and moving on everyone else got. It's Ayin's chance for an ending, a real ending, one he's allowed to make with his own hands for himself. Face the sins and all that.

[Sits back with my 90+ page evidence document and sighs.]

#projmoonblogging #chara: the (A)lpha and the omega #listen. LISTEN. L I S T E N.#it's not bad writing!!!!#i know ayin's unpopular with a lot of the fandom but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a PROPER ENDING AND CLOSURE #especially after ruina like cmon guys. cmon.

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voxtrendy · 1 year

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Music is an important part of our lives. It can make us feel inspired and happy, or it can help us get through difficult times. But how does music work on your brain? And what exactly does it do?

A good song can help a person get through a difficult situation.

Music can help you learn to focus on something positive. When you're feeling stressed, music can help calm you down by giving your body and mind a break from the ups and downs of daily life.

It also gives people an outlet for expressing feelings that might be difficult to talk about in person (like how much they love their pet). So if someone is having a hard time dealing with an issue at work, playing some music could make them feel less anxious about it and give them some relief from stressors in their life.

Music can inspire you to do things you never thought you did before.

Music can change your mood, which in turn helps you feel more positive, confident, and motivated. In addition to making people more energetic and excited about doing something new, music also has the power to help us feel happier.

It's no surprise then that many people listen to music when they want their spirits lifted or need some cheering up after a bad day at work or school!

It has been shown that music can help us lose weight and benefit our health.

Music has been shown to help you lose weight, benefit your health and make you feel happier. It can also be used as a way of exercising longer, as well as helping with relaxation and clearing your mind.

Some studies have found that listening to music while exercising can increase the amount of time spent doing the activity by up to 50%. This is because it helps block out negative thoughts or feelings which might otherwise get in the way of completing an exercise session. It’s also thought that listening to music may help reduce muscle soreness after exercise because it provides an alternative focus for attention away from pain/discomfort experienced during exercises such as running on hard surfaces or carrying heavy weights overhead (see below).

Listening to music can help you relax and clear your mind.

Music can be used as a distraction from everyday stressors, helping you relax and clear your mind. It may also help you sleep better, focus on what you are doing and think more creatively.

Listening to music is an enjoyable way to unwind after work or school, especially when it's performed by talented musicians who know how to bring emotion into their playing.

Music can help you avoid negative thoughts by blocking them out.

When you listen to music, your mind is forced to focus on the present moment and not on what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. The music itself is an escape from your thoughts and feelings, which can be helpful when trying to clear your mind of negativity or anxiety.

Music can also help you relax and clear your mind so that there's less room for other thoughts to come into it when they shouldn't be there at all!

The right song at the right time could inspire you to pursue a goal or achieve something new

The right song at the right time could inspire you to pursue a goal or achieve something new. Music can help you get through a bad day, it can help keep you motivated and on track when things are going well, and it can even help avoid negative thoughts by distracting from them.

Here are some ways that music has inspired me:

To get through tough times in my life (this includes everything from being upset about something to feeling down about myself) I've found that listening to some kind of upbeat music makes me feel better and helps me focus on what I need to accomplish. If I'm having a bad day where I'm not doing well at all then sometimes listening to motivational songs will motivate me enough so that even though there might still be feelings of sadness lingering around somewhere inside myself they don't seem as strong anymore than they would otherwise have been without those extra "motivational" benefits from listening straight into my ears all afternoon long! So overall, if there's no other way out except through then maybe this method could work for everyone else too because, after all,l everyone wants happiness right? Right?"

Conclusion

We hope these tips will help you find your next favorite song.

#music #inspiration #grammys

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emergentrelationshipcenter · 10 months

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The Best Couples Therapy That You Have Never Heard Of: Couple Intensives

Relationship Boot Camps or “Couple Intensives” are quickly becoming my favorite approach to treating relationship issues for couples.

These day-long sessions are ground breaking for those seeking to implement changes right away. They also serve as an effective alternative for the many couples who struggle to keep up with the long-term schedule required to attend traditional couple’s therapy.

While traditional couple’s therapy or marriage counseling doesn’t work for everyone, a relationship boot camp is a way to get the benefits of effective couple’s therapy in a hurry and avoid the pitfalls of traditional therapy! This new innovative approach that I, along with a handful of colleagues, are really honing!

For some time, churches and laypeople have offered couples 3 day retreats or a weekend. While these experiences may provide some benefits to couples, they are no match for sessions facilitated by masters of The Couples Institute.

For the last 35 years, the founders, Drs. Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson, have trained therapists in over 50 countries. They’re trusted experts on The Today Show, The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, and more. And they’re sought after guests for the world’s preeminent couples therapy conferences. They are considered pioneers of couples therapy, and they have developed a new intensive apprenticeship program to pass their knowledge off to a few carefully chosen therapists.

Each year, Ellyn and Pete interview and select only 5–10 therapists for their advanced Master Mentoring program. Over the course of a year, we study closely under Drs. Bader and Pearson, learning what they do, why they do it, and how to do it.

There is no other couples therapy training program like it on the planet, and the therapists who graduate are exceptional at identifying couples’ real issues and treating the underlying issues. Many couples who work with therapists from the Master Mentoring program experience massive and lasting relationship transformation and healing, especially after a Couples Intensive experience.

Traditional therapy is time intensive (think weekly meetings for months), involves interruptions (having to get current with therapist about the latest fight and only getting half way through an issue only to wait until the next session to bring it up again), and requires a skilled counseling therapist.

It’s no wonder the average couple doesn’t pursue outside help for healing of their relationship issues.

Couple Intensives provides a welcome alternative.

The term “Couples Intensive” is gaining attention, but the term isn’t widely known among the general population. In my practice, I am still experimenting with the search term and am partial to the term “relationship boot camp” because of my background and time spent in exercise and triathlons.

I am releasing a series of articles where I am going to be providing details on these advantageous sessions. Basically, we set aside a day to work on the relationship.

One couple, one day, with one exceptionally trained therapist!

The couple does some preparation work and then comes in ready to get to work. We establish a laser focus on the agreed upon issue and incorporate interventions that are grounded in many experiences of the Developmental Model approach.

Just last week, I completed one of these marathon sessions with a couple. The couple was able to make a weeks’ worth of progress in one day on an issue they struggled over for the last few years.

In this example, the wife was able to identify and articulate the real reason for her strong desire to save money. She was able to unpack her fear and talk about how scary it was for her to think of not being prepared for the future.

The husband was dealing with his own existential crisis; he didn’t want to have worked so hard only to be told he should be sacrificing more.

Through the session, he was able to express his fear of “dying without living” and his need to be able to experience certain things. The couple was able to understand the other’s desires and they were finally able to negotiate in a way that worked for each of them.

It would have taken at least a month’s worth of traditional therapy to get this far with this issue — that is, if they didn’t have anything else come up in-between counseling sessions.

The above scenario is just one example of a relationship issue that can be quickly and effectively dealt with during a Couple’s Intensive. There is no limit to the potential benefit and healing to couples who participate in these relationship boot camp intensives, provided they are willing to put in the work!

If you are not sure how to go about negotiating difference or there is a real conflict of important values, consider getting personalized Marriage Counseling in Harrisburg with a professional counselor to help you deal with this issue. Schedule your initial therapy session now or inquire about the new Couple Intensives Service available here in Harrisburg PA (completing one of these is like a fast-tracked 3 months of weekly therapy).

#couples therapy #couple therapy #couples therapy in camp hill #individual therapy #relationship therapy #couples intensive therapy #marriage therapy

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yoshimonster · 10 months

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Blog Post #4: It’s Dance Time

So I didn’t write a blog earlier, even though I definitely could have after all of the dancing I did. It was a standard Friday and honestly I can’t wait to not go back next week. I honestly hope that I have significantly turned over my life in other aspects so that my default the ongoing dance sting will reduce. I’ve heard that bad things only get better if you put enough time and energy in other aspects of your life.

Well, honestly things can’t get any worse. They probably can but I am really hoping they don’t. I actually spent forever today cleaning my room and it was quite an intense endeavour. I think I’ve probably cleaned about 50% of it and honestly I have to keep it this way to avoid future conflicts and issues with finding stuff. The way that I’ve just been so unaware yet aware of random stuff in my room is actually ridiculous. And to be honest, the only reason I am moderately aware is because of unavoidable developments that happened in my life over the past year/year and a half.

The (post?) pandemic boredom is actually hitting pretty hard – it feels like I’ve woken up from a long slumber where I was the only one dreaming. Like those dreams you have where you fall but never really hit the ground at all. Constantly in between two locations; your neither on the ground or on the cliff – just up the air somewhere sort of lost, floating like the breeze. Unfortunately, the pandemic made me re-evaluate more than just surviving studies wise, it also made me re-evaluate my life habits at home and definitely we still spend way too much time at home with this recession happening all around the world. I guess this is actually a blessing in disguise but as usual I’m so very accustomed to that instant gratification lifestyle.

Right now, I’m cram watching Haikyuu, a sports volleyball anime, which is extremely popular, though I’m fairly late to the train, so I can talk about more with my friend. The origin story in Episode 1 is so heartwarming and the animation is so beautiful; to draw like that would actually be so cool! Alas, it really isn’t my forte.

Besides that, I tried to have an honest conversation with parents but it did turn into a lecture as usual. I think my point was mostly about expressing care in various ways, which if I’m being completely frank, they have done more than enough. It just sucks that things weren’t more clear to me earlier in life and I really missed quite a few experiences with them. It also has to do with how much I use technology and how I never really was physically bored enough to try to be more creative. These days I’m working on it and sometimes time just flies and other times it really doesn’t. There’s so much to catch up on!

Finally, just a quick update from this morning and Saturday, have sort of resolved the money situation with the Taylor Swift tickets it will cost me quite a bit but hopefully will be able to be a bit more conscious moving forward. Another thing, I have been feeling much better about my room – I finally cleaned more than half of it and am going to finish up while catching up on YouTube/Barbie movies. The amount of plans I’m making is actually insane – like this is what I get for being a hermit all semester long. I also am going to do more maths revision, haven’t done so for a few days now because of the room situation.

If you guys made it till this end, thank you so much, although I’m pretty sure no one in reading this update about my life. But yep as usual, will be dreading dance again every Friday – it’s basically a weekly humbling/ridiculing session directed at me. What a high case of self-consciousness that is. I honestly found it better to perform when I was in newer environments.

-yoshimonster-

#daily blog #haikyuu #dance practice #self introspection #humble #ridicule

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mh-07 · 2 years

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“COVID- Trick or treat – how has COVID impacted on the mental health people and your reflections on returning to normal”

A study conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (2020) stated that 33% of South Africans were depressed, 45% were fearful, and 29% were experiencing loneliness during the first lockdown period. This horrifying review depicts the large number of South Africans alone that have been suffering from mental health issues since the onset of Covid-19 and considering that some cases are not reported or/and unnoticed adds to the horror of the statistics.

While the provision of and access to essential services, including mental health care, was permitted during the lockdown, as announced by the government, some mental health care users were unable to access services due to risk and fear of physical contact and in-person consultations (Pillay & Barnes, 2020). Naidu (2020) states that due to public biological, psychological, and social predispositions in South Africa, COVID-19 may lead to mental health presentations such as post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. From my observations, it was quite clear that our government's attention was mostly geared toward the biomedical treatment of the effects of the virus and neglected the large impact the virus has had on the mental health of our people. Some people are still having to face the aftermath mental effects of covid-19. I believe that the government could have done more and prioritized the mental health of people and not just the government, but it would also help if the society could understand that mental health is as important as physical health in that way, we would support each other more when pandemics like these arise.

My personal experience of covid-19 has been both good and bad. It has been good because I had gotten a pause in life and had a chance to interact more with my family, even though that eventually led to us getting tired of being in each other's spaces 24/7. It was a good time to reflect on myself and discover new indoor hobbies that I was not quite aware of. The virus forced us to think of more innovative ways and use technology to progress with our studies. The year 2020 was certainly a challenging one, with having to transition from high school to university and having to feel as if you are alone due to limited interactions spent with classmates made it hard. The struggle of having to do a practical course online was not the easiest but as we are slowly moving to normal daily life, it will add a slight sense of relief mostly in my academics as I feel more prepared with the help of physical practical sessions. The presence of this virus has also made me realize that we are stronger than we imagine, having to push through this pandemic and adapt to change so quickly shows how great we are.

Leventhal (2020) reveals how covid-19 has bought us together as people, from companies donating to those in need to restaurants and shopping stores showing their gratitude to healthcare workers. The presence of Covid-19 has taught me how short life is and the importance of immersing yourself at the moment and living your life the best way possible. It made me realize that each day is a blessing and an opportunity to appreciate those people we value.

References

Human Sciences Research Council. (2020). HSRC responds to the COVID-19 outbreak. http://www.hsrc.ac.za/uploads/pageContent/11529/COVID-19%20MASTER%20SLIDES%2026%20APRIL%202020%20FOR%20MEDIA%20BRIEFING%20FINAL.pdf

Pillay, A. L., Barnes, B. R. (2020). Psychology and COVID-19: Impacts, themes and way forward. South African Journal of Psychology, 50(2), 148–153.

Naidu, T. (2020).��The COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(5), 559–561. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000812

Leventhal, D, H. (2020). Seven positive outcomes of Covid-19. The lighthouse. https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/april-2020/seven-positive-outcomes-of-covid-19

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nevenabadr · 3 years

Text

50 Shades of You! Tom Hiddleston X Female! Reader

Note: This is my first ever fanfiction for Tom Hiddleston. I have not written fiction for ages. English is not my first language.

Inspiration: this is inspired by:

“I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.”

–Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Word count: 2660

Warnings: Romance, sweet words, and smut–this is +21 and not for everyone.

Enjoy reading and please comment with your feedback. 💚

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During the summer Cambridge University was having a conference "Gothic Elements In John Milton's Paradise Lost." As you the young professor of literature, the coordinate manager suggested that the University alumnus could join for not just attending, but acting a piece of the tragedy. Amongst the candidates was the Classic department graduate and famous actor, Tom Hiddleston.

You know that he might have scheduled issues or time conflicts, but you suggested the committee email him. To your surprise, he accepted the offer.

The scene of choice was casting the devil out of hell.

On the stage during the conference eve, you did not have the perfect time to watch him, but you took a glimpse of acting from far.

He even caught your show and face attending the rehearsals.

The conference day was pressuring. You were trying to get everything right, in the middle of your so-close meltdown. A voice brought you to reality, "Hello, is this professor Y/N)?"

You turned to find the British handsome alumni smiling peacefully at you. "Yes, how can I help you?"

"Indeed, I am the one offering help." As he adjusted his glasses, I asked the committee manager to take upon some errant backstage. Maybe I can assist with the front ceremony?"

"Of course," you paused for a moment, "can you help me with the dinner's seats arrangement? My assistant is absent and I have to print and arrange them myself."

"Just show me a computer and all will be done."

Both of you took your time arranging an evening missing up some seats.

"Here comes my name. You will be seated with the professors, of course!" He was busy putting name tags over the table.

"Oh! Don't remind me." You replied as if it is a conversation with an old friend and continued "the Classic department and Literature."

"They might start a war." Both of you started laughing

"I have an idea." He took a tag from his table and moved yours next to his. "Now you will be with a friend"

The presentations finished, you had to go for the gym showers to change and wear your conference and dinner dress.

By the time you arrived, the scene from the tardy was about to be played. You took your place in the front seat.

Tom was playing Satan. He noticed that you were reciting the lines with him. He even almost smiles at you. Could not hold himself from looking at you in the front row while playing the scene of...

"All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield; (And what is else not to be overcome?) That glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me to bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee and deify his power, Who from the terror of his arm so late Doubted his empire[.] (I, 106–114)"

Your facial expressions captured his eyes, the movement of your lips and then the flame of your applause.

At the dinner, he was interested to hear all about your work and writings. His eyes could not able to leave you.

By the end of the dinner, he walked you to your car, "this was lovely, thank you for tonight"

You smiled at him, "thank you for accepting our invitation."

You shake hands and opened your car door like the gentleman he is.

"Would you like to go out with me, for a coffee? Books and coffee, maybe." He did not hesitate to ask.

"I would love to. You already have my number within the conference contact information." You raised an eyebrow and smirked.

As your car drove away, he knew he was up for an adventure.

Three months later, you are happily dating and sharing sweet kisses. He suggested a film marathon. Each week one of you chose a topic.

That Saturday's topic was Russian Literature and you had to add: "or inspired by it"

"Excuse me, but Tolstoy has no comparison!" He grimaced

"Shadow and Bones, love!" You teased him, "it the Netflix adaption of the era"

"After Anna Karenina, please," he sounded like an old professor.

"Alright then, deal." You tickled him and kissed his lips softly

Both of you enjoyed Anna Karenina, however, you were crying in his arms.

"That dreadful ending."

He hugged you "Hey, Shadow and Bones will make it up to you, let me make extra popcorn." Once again, he kissed you.

He came back with popcorn that will at least survive three episodes. You snuggled between his arms.

"Look at Alexie, how he said 'Make me your villain.'"

You were swooning as a fangirl.

"I beg your pardon, I am literally a villain," he complained

Oh! I would literally," stressing upon the last word, "let him have me"

His face was irritated and you not coming close to making love made him anxious, that you might not be ready. He never inquired about you.

You caressed his tummy, "hey, a penny for your thoughts, sir." It sounded like one of the Jack the Ripper prostitutes, about which you have constantly been talking.

His voice evolved deeper and his eyes did not leave yours "your deepest sexual desire. What do you crave?"

Comparing to your age, you were nervous and inexperienced. "My life was spent between books. I..."

He did not let you continue speaking and took your lips between his drawing your body closer to him, uttering between his hot kisses "I am not just a villain" his lips made the earth move "I am a God" whispering against the sport skin of your nick " a king" his hands were moving down the same tomes his lips reached the line of your bosom whilst his hand slides prevailed touching down pussy and dug his fingers driving you till the edge.

"I want you," you whispered between your soft moans.

He neglected your cravings and maintained his rhythm, watching your complexion and closed eyes till you arched your back in awe.

You collapsed between his arms heavily breathing "that was extremely wonderful, but I need you"

He kissed your lips playfully. "you are a delicious girl, Y/N, but..."

You hashed him with a kiss that he pulled from "if your life was between books, I want you to write me your deepest desire."

"Darling, it was a series, Alexie is fictional." You wrapped your arms around his neck.

"Fictional or not, he is a man, you are paying for this."

He was deadly serious "write me your longing."

You laugh "What? Like the 50 Shades of Y/N?"

He gazed into your eyes "aiming to please and punish you, darling, avenging my honour"

The next morning when you were with your family on Sunday's lunch, he opened an email titled "50 Shades of Y/A"

The content was as follows:

"You!"

He grinned to himself and determined to show her how fiction can become real.

Your week was busy. He had signed a new contract for a mini-series and was supposed to film soon.

Not replying to your email made you nervous, even went meeting for dinner. He was quiet about it.

You checked your sent box millions of times to make sure it arrived. Still, you knew he was busy working, and you were busy with the finals coming soon.

Thursday’s dinner, nothing yet, nothing but gaggling and discussing your days and current reads.

"Darling, we did not decide this week's marathon"

He did not take his eyes off the menu "Are not you having a big family week, you should go" he was confident and calm.

Deep inside you wanted to grab his neck and jiggle him, but for the lady you are and the restaurant, you were calm.

"Wonderful!"

The dinner was over; he drove you home, kissed you goodnight.

Saturday morning, a ringing at your door. Apparently, you received a package, a big one.

You kept thinking that some books might have come early from your publisher. Unwrapping it to a surprise satin 1950 coat with Ruby red entourage and black heels.

There was also a note, she recognised the handwriting:

"Wear nothing but this for your punishment. If other pieces were found upon your body, then fear my fury and vengeance.

Love,

So, it was her version of Mr Grey. But have you ever been ready to comply with anyone?"

Suddenly, a message arrived on your phone

"Reminder, a black will pick you tonight at 8, don't disobey me, Princess."

Your heel clicked on the floor as a man dressed in an old fashion suit opened the car for you. The windows were blacked out, so you did not see where it was heading.

"Welcome, Princess," he greeted you as if you were royalty, "My master is awaiting your presence."

You took his hands. The place was carved out of one of your favourite dark fantasies, a mansion with gargoyles, dark lighting, and a vast garden.

You could not believe your eyes. Tom knew your deepest desires indeed.

But that is not the end.

The inside was as of a dark enchantment with deep red flowers and candles. The servant showed you the way to a dining room fit for a feast. Tom was not there.

"My master requires you to await his arrival." The servant bowed and left.

You were like a child been left inside her favourite toyshop. The ornaments, the lighting, and even the shapes of the food. That aesthetic you only could dream of but never reach.

"Enjoying yourself already?" You turned to find your man dressed in a black Victorian suit. His face was shaved, shorter hair, no glasses. Just all of the handsome glory.

You took a step forward "no princess, I shall come for you"

He kissed your hand and then sat on the table's head, while it sat on the opposite side and faced you away indeed.

"Are you pleased, princess?" He raised his glass of red wine.

"Yes, my Prince." You smile.

"In here, you shall address me as your king." His eyes lit with fire, and his voice was harsh.

You played along and raised an eyebrow "my king."

"This is not a game, princess, you are my prisoner"

You dined quietly, as he did not drop his eyes from you.

"Enjoying yourself?"

You flirted "deeply, my king"

He left his chair and came closer to you, his fingers left your chain so you can gaze into your eyes.

He asked, "care for a dance?"

You smiled "I would love to."

You stepped forward and took his hand to a ballroom, just for you and him, the dark king.

The following piece of music was sensual and moving.

"The coat, princess, I want to see nothing but heels on your body,"

You obeyed the king, but for a tick. When you took it off, underneath it a short emerald green strapless corset dress tight upon the curves of your body and pushed your bosoms to their glory.

He grinned and his eyes darken "looking for further punishment, I suppose?"

"Anything to please the king." You took his hand and kissed it. He did not expect it.

He turned furiously and the next song was romantic. He wrapped his arms around you once again, waltz, you sneaky woman, deserved joy before being punished.

Twirling you on the dance floor like the earth has no one but the two of you.

By the end, he carried you "to my chambers, little one"

You were nervous and anxious. What if he did not like what was underneath the dress?

He entered a candlelight room with a four-poster bed in the centre. The curtains of the bed were black and emerald.

He laid you in bed, kissing your lips and playing with your hair.

His breathing was heating against your skin.

"You won't miss that dress, will you, princess?"

He did not wait for your reply as he lifted a dagger amongst the layers of his suit and cut the corset down to the last piece of the dress.

You wore nothing else. You were lying exposed as he stood to look upon your naked curves for the first time.

You spontaneously tried to cover your bosom and private parts.

"No, do not you dare" he was angry and you could not distinguish reality from fantasy.

You throw the rest of the dress away. Hands laying by your head and he stood there for a juncture, gazing at every inch of your body.

"Turn," he ordered angrily as if the soul of Loki took over him, "I said, turn"

You nearly dropped tears "here my king"

You felt the softness of his lips upon your delicate shoulders.

Kissing the line of your spine. He knows this will work like magic. You tickle from your back, now trying to lick you, taste you, slap you.

He flipped you to face him. You were sobbing. He could hear it under your moans.

"You are not a princess, you are not a queen."

He wipes her tears from her cheek "you are a goddess and I am your slave."

You giggled between your tears, wrapping your arms around his neck "my king"

"Your, slave" As his voice became softer, he hushed you with a finger.

He kissed every inch of your body. You were playing with his short blonde locks.

"Let me worship your bosom, my goddess" he kissed, licked and played with your nipples and cupped your bosoms gently.

Kissing down till he reached your pussy, "Let me worship your temple" as he licked your clitoris.

You were moaning loader now

“Not this time, my king I want you inside me."

"Alright, as the pleasure of my goddess, I shall obey."

He adjusted his weight on you and asked, "wider for me, my goddess of beauty"

You opened for him as he enters you for the first time. You let out a loud breath "are you alright" he took your hands between his.

"Continue, my king."

He is just thrusting himself gently inside you. Your moans filling the room

"I am a villain, a king, a god, and a man"

Your hands were free to run along his back as he continued, "a man, no, a slave for my goddess"

You were moving with him and moaning louder, "my king, what else?"

Thursinting himself harder and moving with a faster pace.

"My goddess, the sculptures of beauty," between his breathing and moaning "Da Vinci would not be able to capture your grace"

You were kissing as your nail dug inside his shoulders.

His last whispers as moving himself inside your pussy which was clutching around his manhood. He moved with pace, as you rocked your lap against him

"I will live in thy heart," kissing your lips as you bite his lower lip between your steamy breath. "Die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes.”

He was going faster now and you were in tremendous awe and your skin was heating up with your pleasure.

"Look at me goddess" you were closing your eyes as you become close to you your orgasm "look at me," he ordered

"I love thee, Tom," you said as your pussy was clutching around his manhood and trembling underneath him. His enormous climax followed your orgasm.

You were shaking. He used his hands to keep himself from crushing you with his weight.

He rested his forehead on yours till both of you caught your breath. Gently took you between his arms as resting on his side "and I love thee, Y/N"

kissed you and as you were falling asleep, yet muttered, "I made you my villain, did not I?"

He giggles, "I beg your pardon, your God, King, and lover"

You kissed for the last time of that night and snuggle between peacefully each other's arms.

----------------------------------------------------

Tag list:

@shafverani

@imsebastiansta-n

@brokenwitty

@221bshrlocked (awaiting your feedback)

@sinner-as-saint

@zemosimp05

@buckys-fairy

#marvel #fan fiction #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x you #Loki #loki fic #Loki Smut #tom hiddleston × reader #Crimson Peak #Thor #loki laufeyson #Disney Loki #tom hiddelston x reader #tom hiddelston imagine #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fandom #tom hiddleston one shot #Tom Hiddleston OneShot #Tom Hiddleston x you

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heyitsmerose · 3 years

Text

Letting Go

Pairing: Broken!Reader x Stranger!Yunho

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt Comfort

Word Count: 12.1k

Summary: You've never felt more down. Despite having a loving family and studying at a good school you still aren't happy. You may have many objective luxuries, but you don't have anyone to talk to. The stress from all around you is getting to you and you finally break. You can't take this anymore. Deciding to finally take matters into your own hands and end this for good, you go to your favourite bridge one last time to say your goodbyes to the world. Until someone stops you that is...

Warnings/Disclaimer: In no way do I mean to romanticise mental illness. Through this oneshot, I want to show depression and other mental heath issues for what they are. I will not sugar coat anything and will show them for how exhausting and painful they are. Again, I am not writing this to romanticise mental illness, rather provide comfort and create a safe space to talk about mental health. Remember, it's never too late to get help, and I'm always here for you. It can be as small as personally messaging me how you're feeling today, I'm here to listen :) This oneshot will obviously be talking about suicide, depression, obsession and mental health in general. If these topics trigger you, this oneshot may not be for you.

Suicide

Depression

Swearing

Mentions of Sexual Abuse

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Youtube Playlist

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*I've spent a few weeks on this, I'm sorry if there are spelling errors, I've read the entire thing maybe 5-6 times.

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Facing the window in front of you, you sighed. You felt numb. It was raining and was around 6 pm. It was cloudy outside and the rain made the sky a few shades darker than normal. One of your windows was opened and you could smell the rain. The earth smell that made you feel all giddy inside. Excitement used to bubble inside you whenever you recognized the familiar scent of the wet earth, it indicated that it was going to rain. You loved the rain. It felt so comforting and the sound of the raindrops calmed you. At least that's how it used to feel. Now, you feel numb. Unaware of your surroundings and unfazed by a natural phenomenon that once caused you joy.

You sighed looking outside. It was frustrating. The rain that once comforted you was now frustrating. The constant pitter-patter noises bothered you and you were unable to get anything done. You slammed the window shut with all the force you could muster and plopped yourself back on your chair, redirecting your attention to what was on the desk. Ahh right, you had homework to finish. The bright screen of your laptop burned your eyes and caused them to feel sore but you couldn't care less.

You had 2 essays due tomorrow and although that didn't sound like a lot it was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did you have 2 essays to start (and finish on the same day), you also had an oral presentation you had to give tomorrow for your music class. You didn't have your presentation ready and you were presenting to over 50 other people.

You had everything you could have possibly wanted. Your parents were not too rich but you were quite well off with a duplex in a multi-story apartment. Your dad had a stable career and was the country manager of a company giving him a good amount of power. Your mother was a social butterfly and had many connections. They sent you to a private school and let you study what you wanted. Although you didn't have any close friends in school, you had a few people you sat with.

See? You had everything you could have possibly wanted but you were still miserable. You knew this wasn't normal. For the past few months, you felt numb. There wasn't a better word to describe it. You felt apathetic and unfazed by everything. You were slowly starting to lose interest in the things you once found thrilling and fun and felt disconnected from reality. Your own parents felt like strangers and you felt like you couldn't talk to them. In actuality, your parents were loving and provided you with everything you could have possibly wanted. They took really good care of you and regularly showed affection. They were also quite understanding and were easy-going and fun. The fact that your parents are so caring makes you feel all the more guilty about telling them. You can't tell anyone.

You huffed, running your hands through your hair roughly. You gripped the roots of your hair and began to feel it again. The feeling of darkness creeping into your mind.

"what's the point of this?"

"I want this to stop"

"When will it get better?"

"Does it ever get better?"

In all honesty, you felt hopeless. You had to begin and finish 2 whole essays and prepare your presentation. Listening to music, eating anything, or even taking a break were useless, they would just distract you. You chewed the end of your pencil enough to make the end of it dent. Your teeth hurt but you continued doing so. At least the physical pain would distract you from this crazy workload. Or so you thought... You began to type on your laptop. You were writing your mid-term paper and were given the freedom to pick whatever topic you wanted as long as you felt like it expressed your emotions.

You typed the first thing that came to mind.

"I want to escape. I keep wanting for this to stop, I keep expecting everything to get better. It never does. It's an endless cycle of work and just more work. I feel like a robot and in all honesty, the lack of emotion is the only thing I'm feeling"

Your face had a stoic expression as your fingers fluttered across the keyboard. The gentle noise of keys clicking was the only thing heard for another hour or so. You didn't take any breaks and just wanted to get it done. At this point, you didn't care if it was good or even decent, you just wanted to get it done. That was very unlike you though. You were no topper, but you considered yourself quite hardworking and diligent. You were slowly falling behind though, but you couldn't care less. You just wanted to get it over with.

In the essay you wrote, you didn't get too personal, you simply wrote about your feelings and personified them. You spoke about your feelings as if they were an obstacle in your way. Despite being quite specific, you made it seem as though you were not talking about yourself. You fixed up the grammar and printed out your paper, stapling it, ready to submit it tomorrow. You looked outside and by now it was way darker. It was around 8:30 and it was time for dinner.

You went downstairs to get your plate of dinner and greeted your mom.

"Y/n, you're finally here, I almost forgot you were even living in this house" She chuckled and your dad joined in. You didn't laugh though.

"Hey, cheer up, your mom was just kidding, is everything alright?" Your dad chimed in.

In all honesty, you knew your mom didn't mean it, she was just kidding, but mocking you for the amount of workload you had didn't seem right. The question by your dad, however, completely caught you off guard. In your heart, you knew you weren't. You noticed how you started drifting off and spacing out while someone was talking to you. You noticed how you stopped feeling joy and noticed how you never had time for anything but school. Your face was glued to the ground and you nodded. You didn't want to lie, but you couldn't help it. You'd feel guilty for possibly making them feel like it was their fault.

Your parents both just sighed and your mom held your hand. She brought you to sit at the dining table and looked at you with nothing but love in her eyes.

"Y/n... We know something is bothering you. You know you can tell us anything right?" Your mom asked as she cupped your cheek. You looked back up at her and saw both of your parents looking at you worriedly.

You could feel the back of your eyelids stinging. Your throat got dry and you felt a burning in your nose. This was it. This was your chance to finally tell them how you felt. You wanted to tell them everything. From how you felt incompetent, to the constant stress and pressure. You wanted to finally break down your walls and tell them that you lacked the feelings you felt before. But you couldn't. The lump in your throat grew and you felt the corners of your eyes getting wetter. You couldn't get any words out. You badly wanted to just let it all out, but the words were stuck in your throat.

You also couldn't just break down all of a sudden or they would get really worried. You couldn't let them watch you break down. You would never forgive yourself if they ever thought the way you were feeling was because of them.

You simply sucked in a deep breath of air and looked away before they noticed anything was wrong.

"I just have a lot of work. I have more to do though, so if you could excuse me." You said, your voice wavering as you walked away from them.

"What about your dinner?" Your mom asked pointing at the counter. You just sighed and picked up a plate of food. Your hands trembled and your lip quivered from the overwhelming situation and you rushed to your room as fast as you could. As soon as you left, your mom just sighed and looked at your dad and her face showed immense concern. He brought her into his warm embrace reassured her. You would come to them when the time was right. You would eventually tell them what was bothering you. right? Although you didn't want them to feel guilty, they already did.

The second you reached your room upstairs you locked the door behind you. You tossed the food into the dustbin near your desk and put the plate aside. You felt guilty. Every day your mom would make you a full course meal only for you to throw it away without even having a bite. You couldn't help it though. You had a lot of work to do and eating was not your first priority. Besides, you already had lunch. This was not a rare occurrence. You would usually skip breakfast and dinner, directly eating lunch. Your stomach growled but you couldn't care less.

You rushed into the bathroom in your room and closed the door behind you. Your back slid down the door and your hands flew to your face. You almost blew your cover. It was quite an overwhelming situation. Your hands covered your mouth as the first sob wracked through your body. You were lucky that you were in the bathroom, in your room, on the second floor, it was practically impossible for anyone to hear you.

Your hands moved up to your hair as you gripped it tightly in between your fingers. Slowly, more cries came out. The bathroom echoed with your sobs and heavy breathing. You tried muffling your cries to no avail. You sobbed loudly while you shoved your palm against your mouth trying to stop yourself from crying but nothing worked. You tried digging your fingernails into your palm to distract yourself from all the emotional pain with physical pain but it still didn't work.

You tried breathing steadily only to break out into sobs a few seconds later. You let out gut-wrenching sobs that had been bottled up for too long now. Your throat was raw and your nose was red.

"Make it stop" You whispered to yourself. Were you being dramatic? Were you overreacting? You didn't know and you didn't care. Your sobs slowly died down but your hands were still clamped over your mouth trying to get them to stop completely.

After a few minutes, you went to wash your face. You noticed your eyes were red and your hair was not in a bun anymore but was now all over the place. You sighed and washed your face with cold water trying to remove any traces of that sudden breakdown. Besides, you just wasted around 20 minutes of your time, crying when you could have been working and finishing off your other essay.

You didn't care to change your clothes and sat back on your desk. You sighed and looked out the window again. The rain had died down and there was now just a cool breeze. A layer of mist had collected after the rain coating the trees and plants outside. Despite living in the city, your window faced a big green space. In the mornings there were usually only around 3 people at max, making it quite empty. At night it was even more serene and lonely.

You drew shapes on your windows while trying to think of a topic to write your essay about. Your second essay was supposed to be an analysis report about any experiment of your choice.

You chose to write about the expectancy-value theory.

The Expectancy Value Theory suggests that motivation for a given behavior or action is determined by two factors: (i) expectancy, ie, how probable it is that a wanted (instrumental) outcome is achieved through the behavior or action; (ii) value, ie, how much the individual values the desired outcome.

You scoffed as you read it. Lies. All you've been taught to do is the work you've been given in school. You didn't want to do it. You didn't find it interesting and you couldn't care less about failing if it was up to you. The only reason you were working was because school wanted you to. If you had the option, you would gladly stop. So no, the expectancy-value theory, in your mind was not correct, since for some people, ie. you, motivation didn't come from yourself, rather it came in the form of forced requirements from others. Others have high expectations and expect good quality work from you, but if you were given the choice, you would take care of yourself instead of focussing so much on your studies. The expectancy theory, in your mind, as false as the only thing influencing you to work was other people forcing you.

You decided that was the perfect thesis for your essay and began to write. Although the point of the essay was to discuss the findings of the experiment, you went in a different direction. You wrote your entire essay about disproving that stupid experiment. You didn't discuss the data results but instead countered them with your own data. After another hour or so of aggressive typing and writing shit about Martin Fishbein, you decided you were finally done and decided to finish off your essay. You were happy with the way it turned out, although it was certainly not what was asked of you.

You wrapped up your essay by simply restating your points and you printed that too. By this point, it was already 11 pm and although you weren't sleepy, you just wanted to get this over with and rest. Your final task for tomorrow was your music presentation. All you had to do was pick your favorite classical piece and write a bit about it.

Music was one of the only hobbies you liked. You took pride in composing and making music, however, your school had ruined it for you. The only things they made you do were to analyze pieces of music and discuss the elements of music and their implication. You never got to actually compose or make your own music so you started to dread it as a subject too.

You picked up the first piece that came to mind. Dvorak's 'Humoresque'. Wow, how original, you thought. You began to listen to the piece and understand it better. As a kid, this used to be your favorite piece. Now? It just feels bland. It doesn't feel the way it used to. You began scribbling a few quick points about the song before beginning your presentation.

After taking notes, you finally began working on your presentation. In total, it took around 4 hours to finish and it was exactly 4 am. You sighed and uploaded your presentation to a pen drive before packing up your bag for school.

You had to be up for school by 7 anyway, so you'd get 2-3 hours of sleep at max. You hopped into bed as soon as you were done, not caring about putting anything back or even changing your clothes.

Unfortunately, unlike you hoped, you weren't able to fall asleep as soon as your head crashed onto the pillow. Instead, your mind preoccupied with other things was way too clouded with stressful thoughts to let you relax enough to fall asleep.

You tossed and turned in bed as your stomach growled. You huffed and tried blocking out the feeling. You didn't regret skipping dinner, it was necessary to finish off your work. You sighed and closed your eyes, trying to sleep. You lied for at least 10 minutes simply doing nothing. You tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, but nothing worked. Your mind was simply too preoccupied to let you rest. you closed your eyes trying to calm yourself, only for your thoughts to go back to yesterday evening. You remembered the short conversation with your parents and how they seemed genuinely concerned. Did they know what was happening to you? They were your parents, after all, they probably figured something was wrong.

Thinking about your relationship with them, you felt guilty. You realized how your conversations were never longer than 5-10 minutes and you were always the one to cut them short. You didn't spend as much time with them as you used to, instead of dedicating all your time to studying.

All of a sudden, you remembered how they used to take care of you when you were a child. You remembered the first time they taught you how to ride a bike, your first day of school, and your middle school graduation. You can't remember the last time you all were together as a family and enjoyed yourselves. You were usually too busy and you regretted it.

Unconsciously, you sniffled, your eyes getting watery again. You huffed, roughly wiping and rubbing your eyes, embarrassed that all it took for you to get emotional was a few memories. You sighed shakily, trying to get your thoughts away from that, or else you knew you'd have another breakdown. Still not being able to fall asleep for another 45 minutes, you gave up.

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You got up and checked your phone, only to see that the time was 6:30 am. How perfect. You didn't bother combing your hair and tied a messy bun, too tired and too unbothered to even attempt to look decent. You hopped into the bathroom, brushing your teeth and grabbing a towel. You looked back into the mirror as you did yesterday during your mini breakdown. You had dark circles under your eyes, your eyes were red and your nose was tinted pink. You couldn't care less though.

You hopped into the shower and turned the temperature to max coldness, trying to wake yourself up to make yourself look less tired and well... less dead. You shivered at the temperature but bared it for the sake of looking slightly presentable and more awake.

You grabbed your soap and began to lather some on your hands. A few seconds later though, you felt a mild stinging sensation on both of your palms. You quickly washed away the soap as it was starting to burn and inspected your hands. Your palms. They were bruised and cut slightly. You stared at your palms and the crescent-shaped cuts on both of your palms. There were exactly 4 crescent-shaped cuts on each palm with a bunch of bruising around it. You realized it was from digging your fingernails into your palms yesterday. You did so in an attempt to stop crying but it didn't work. Oh well, now you have this to worry about as well, could your life get any worse? You made sure to carefully lather on the soap being wary of the cuts on your palms.

After you took a bath and got ready, you made sure to double-check that you had packed both your essays and the presentation pen drive. After confirming, you grabbed your backpack and hurried downstairs. Although you felt guilty for randomly rushing out during dinner, you didn't want to confront your parents. The nerves from your upcoming presentation were creeping up onto you and you were beyond terrified. You didn't feel hungry and didn't want any confrontation.

You quickly hurried down the stairs and avoided your parents' eyes. At this point, it had become regular for you to leave the house without a word. Your mom wouldn't bother too much since she knew you'd usually buy yourself something to eat at school itself. Or so she thought. It was a lie you told her a long time ago. Despite this, due to your unfinished conversation yesterday you feared they would come after you or confront you so you avoided them at all costs and rushed outside. Lucky for you, your parents didn't mind too much and carried on with what they were doing.

Outside, you noticed how the mist from yesterday had settled and was now fogging up the roads slightly. The mist collected on the grass on the side of the sidewalks in the form of dewdrops and you could smell the same earthy smell. You checked your phone once to get a glimpse of the time and realized you were quite early. Despite this, you still couldn't calm your nerves.

You gripped both straps of your backpack, not lifting your head. You stared at the ground kicking small pebbles along your way. The entire walk to school was quite uneventful and not too interesting. You mainly stayed on the same side of the sidewalk and luckily nothing came in your way. It was a 5-7 minute walk to school since you lived quite close to school and didn't see the point in wasting gas.

Once you reached your school, you tried ignoring everyone in your way, just trying to submit your essays. You were quite nervous and just wanted to remove some burden from your shoulders so submitting your essays early in the morning would be the best option. You rushed into the school building immediately setting your target on your science class that was a few floors up.

Fortunately, the hallways and stairways were mostly empty with just a few teachers and staff and maybe 5-7 students. That was one of the perks of being this early, you could get things done freely without being rushed by the students. You decided to stop at the principles office first, and then drop off your science essay.

You had to drop off your mid-term essay outside the principles office where a few teachers were collecting them. You made your way to the outside of your principal's office to drop off your paper. While walking there, the pace of your heart quickened, although you were simply dropping off your essay, something about being this close to the principles office didn't sit right with you. As you got closer you could feel the tingly feeling in your stomach, caused by the nerves. You carefully walked right in front of the drop-off desk and greeted the teacher. You were asked to fill in your name and the date dropped off, so you were handed a pen.

You were mindful not to let the pen put pressure against the cuts in your palm, but couldn't help but wince softly as the pen brushed against them as you picked it up. The teacher simply looked at you and you forced a smile. As soon as you dropped off your essay, you rushed away from there as soon as possible to a less scary area.

You made your way to your science class and dropped off your essay about expectancy value and took your seat in class. You were quite proud of the essay you wrote since you felt like you portrayed your opinion quite well. You also had science first period anyways, so you took your usual seat near the window in the front of the class and started to unpack.

You waited for at least 10 to 15 minutes before your science teacher came into class. He wasn't surprised that you were early since you usually came quite early. When you noticed he entered class, you immediately averted eye contact and looked somewhere else. In all honesty, your science teacher scared you.

All the other girls gushed over how he was just 5 or 6 years older than you and was handsome. You didn't see what they saw in him as you knew he had ulterior motives. You noticed the blatant sexism in class and how he always paid more attention to the girls, explaining it to them in detail while just brushing off the guys. You noticed how whenever everyone left class, he would stare at the exposed legs of the female students caused by the knee-length skirt that was a part of the school uniform. You noticed how he would favor the girls in general, letting them have their way, even letting them use their phones in class from time to time.

Although he hadn't made any advances, he was still really sleazy in general, and the very thought of him creeped you out. You didn't have too many personal encounters with him, just a few weird looks here and there, so you tried to avoid him as much as you could. When he noticed that you were not paying attention to him he sighed and collected his things. Usually, he would simply leave you alone, knowing school would start soon, but since the both of you were quite early he tried making conversation.

"Hey Y/n, Good morning!" He said all of a sudden. You whipped your head up, surprised that he was talking to you since he had never done so before.

"Hi" You hesitantly replied making sure to not seem too nervous, but also look a little busy so he would leave you alone.

"How's everything going? Are you feeling okay?" Although you knew he asked you that question simply wanting to ask you how you were feeling, you couldn't help but think to last night when you had a similar conversation with your parents.

"U-um, I'm fine, yeah, I'm good" You stuttered, diverting your attention elsewhere indicating you were done with the conversation.

He simply sighed and sat back down on top of his desk. He noticed that you had submitted your science essay/report and decided to read a bit of it before class started hopefully to give you someone on one feedback.

He picked up the paper and the rustling of the pages alerted you. You looked back at him only to notice that he was reading your essay. You felt nauseous and giddy all of a sudden. He wasn't supposed to be reading your essay now, especially in front of you. Your mouth got dry and you tried to calm yourself. You looked away so he wouldn't notice your stare as he continued reading for the next 2 or 3 minutes.

You looked back at him from time to time and noticed how his eyebrows were scrunched. You saw his somewhat disappointed expression and your stomach dropped. Was your essay not okay? Was he going to fail you? Your breaths got shallower and you looked around trying to calm yourself. All of a sudden, your science teacher spoke.

"Y/n, this was not what was asked of you" He stated matter-of-factly. You felt frustrated and embarrassed and your heart was in your throat. You tried clearing your throat to be able to speak. You looked back up at him, finally making eye contact, and gulped.

"I don't- I don't understand, I did what was-" You finally got out, only to be interrupted by him again.

"No, you didn't. It seems like you're disproving the experiment instead of proving it true. Meet me after class, we can discuss how to fix it." He stated, looking at you with a distressed smile. You forced back a smile and quickly looked away.

Eventually, students began to fill up the class and around 10 minutes after that dreadful conversation, the class had finally started. Unfortunately for you, you kept spacing out and couldn't pay attention to what was being taught due to your mind lingering on your stupid science essay. You began to think it was your fault. Maybe you hadn't studied hard enough? Maybe you just weren't smart enough? You put your head down and proceeded to bear the next 85 minutes or so, absentmindedly.

Luckily for you, your teacher hadn't called on you even once. He simply kept teaching and asking other students questions. You noticed how he tried to make jokes from time to time while all the girls giggled, and although your head was down, you knew he most likely had a smug smile on his face. You scoffed and kept getting lost in your thoughts. After what felt like an eternity, you finally through the class.

Now, it was time to finally confront your science teacher after class and you were not looking forward to it. You acted as if you were packing your bag so the other students wouldn't suspect anything. The last thing you wanted was for them to think you were spending time outside class with your science doing god knows what.

After everyone left, you sat back at your desk and waited for him to call on you, or notice you hoping, to get this over with as soon as possible. He grabbed your paper again and went through it again. You sighed and looked down. He slowly shifted his gaze towards you and ushered for you to grab a chair and sit next to his desk.

You huffed and picked up your chair dragging it to his desk. You plopped it down and took a seat on it. He sighed and brought his chair next to yours sitting on it as well. He began to explain that the experiment that he expected was a 'scientific' one with tangible results instead of a "social experiment" to quote directly. You huffed getting annoyed, how could he say that psychological studies weren't as valid? They were equally important. You sighed and looked away getting frustrated.

He wanted to explain it better, and went to get his pen that was next to you. Instead of asking you to give it to him, like a normal person, he rested his hand on your knee, reaching over to get it. On the outside, you kept your cool but inside you were freaking out. You glared daggers at his hand which was on your knee and didn't lift your gaze, as if staring at his hand was going to make him take it off.

Even after he reached over and got his pen, his hand was still on your thigh. He began to talk about some random experiment but you weren't paying attention. Why wasn't he taking his hand off you? You tried adjusting and moving your leg, crossing them over, to get him to let go, but his grip was firm.

"Hey, Y/n are you listening?" He clarified all of a sudden. You slowly pulled your gaze away from your knee and looked him dead in the eye. You glared at him, indicating you didn't want this. Despite this, he just didn't know when to stop, did he?

"Hey, calm down, what's wrong?" He asked sincerely. If only his actions reflected the same care, you knew he knew what he was doing. In an attempt to calm you down, his hand moved further up, grasping your thigh. You gasped and looked up at him with your mouth agape.

"Let go." You said sternly, you knew he was your teacher but he had to know his limits.

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that, it's alright," He said, the grip on your thigh becoming tighter. No, this was most definitely not okay. Due to the thin fabric of your school uniform skirt, you could feel his hand completely. You scrunched your eyebrows in disgust as you tried scooting backward. He got up though, towering over your shorter figure. You tried pulling away only for him to grip tighter.

"I didn't do anything" He stated firmly, grasping your wrist. He held your wrist tightly, not letting go. You cowered under him, still trying to pull yourself away.

"You don't want this?" He asked shamelessly. You shook your head rapidly, tears stinging in your eyes. He scoffed, roughly releasing your arm. You sighed, instantly getting as far away from him as possible, grabbing your backpack. You quickly shoved your remaining stationery in the first zip you found and threw your backpack over your shoulder, rushing out.

As you were about to leave though you heard him speak up again.

"Do not speak of this to anyone. I'm afraid I will have to fail you for this paper" He said trying to make you feel guilty. You couldn't care less though, without looking back, you nodded your head and left the class.

You cleared your throat as it had closed up. You realized you were crying in the middle of the hallway, so you quickly rushed to the toilet. Luckily, no one saw you, but you still wanted to get away, to freshen yourself up. You splashed water on your face trying to forget what happened in class a few minutes ago.

After that terrifying incident with your science teacher, the rest of the day was quite uneventful. You eventually got through your other subjects including music, and your presentation was a disaster. You weren't able to pay attention to what you were saying since your mind was still in different places. You stuttered your words and kept repeating the same thing.

Your peers realized you were distracted and your teacher knew you were bothered since your presentations were usually quite clear and informative. Thus, this time, they decided to let you off the hook. You were thankful that no one commented on that crappy presentation and simply went back to your seat.

Since you had music for the last period itself you were able to call it a day right after. You decided to skip your after-school commitment since you simply had too much on your mind.

After that shitty day, you decided to try to get your mind off of it by taking a walk in the green space near your apartment. You knew that it would mostly be empty right now as it was a weekday and because it was almost 4 pm, meaning it would most likely rain again.

You were still 5 minutes away from home, so you decided to walk home to the green space nearby. The entire walk there was quite silent. You took this time to try to process and understand the emotions you were feeling. It was getting fairly chilly due to the cold breeze, wind, and mist blowing. You folded both of your arms, rubbing them up and down, trying to get rid of the coldness.

The walk was quite short and you reached there in no time. Since the green area was right in front of your apartment, you could see your window from it. As soon as you reached, you saw your car leaving the apartment. Peeking around the corner, you realized it was your car. Your dad must have just left to go see your grandparents. You tried to hide a little, just in case. If your mom saw you here she would be disappointed that you lied to your dad about meeting your teacher after school.

You found a bench that faced away from your window just in case, so no one from your apartment could see your face. By the time, you found a good spot and settled and sat down, it was around 4:30 pm. You didn't really have a reason for coming to the park. You simply wanted to get your mind off of school, the workload, the stress, and what happened in the morning, so now that you were here, you didn't know what to do. Fortunately, tomorrow was slightly lighter. You didn't have any assessments due tomorrow, but you wanted to check in with your peers to ask them what you missed in the after-school session today and revise that before tomorrow.

Other than that though, you didn't know what to do. Due to this, you ended up spacing out. You simply sat on the bench rubbing your knees from the freezing wind from time to time just staring into the abyss. Quite honestly, it didn't feel forced, awkward or uncomfortable, it felt... calming. You felt a lot of comfort in the fact that you could just take time to process everything. Your way of doing that? Sitting out in the cold breeze, staring at nothing, mind blank. It didn't feel like a waste of time and you definitely didn't regret spending your time gazing at the nature.

Ever since you were young, you had a habit of counting the birds in trees or on the ground. Today was no different. Now that you were out in the nature, it made it easier to count them. You didn't do it for any particular reason, it was just a way of coping and de-stressing. You sat for a good 2 hours just observing everything around you and not doing anything. This included counting birds, staring into nothingness, daydreaming, and spacing out. You were suddenly interrupted by a honking car nearby.

You checked the time and realized it was 6 already. You freaked out and instantly got up, picking your bag. You didn't even realize it had started to drizzle and your sweater/school uniform started collecting water in the form of small droplets. You grabbed your bag, slinging it over your back, walking home, which was just a minute away, right opposite the park. You looked around making sure nobody saw you. Although you quite liked sitting out and simply doing nothing, you could understand how other people might have thought you were absolutely crazy for sitting out and doing nothing for 2 and a half hours.

You sighed looking around. You didn't want to go home just yet and didn't have anywhere else to go. The rain started getting a little heavier and you just gave up, looking up at the sky. Your clothes instantly clung to your figure and you shivered at the coldness.

You decided to take a walk around the nearby neighborhood since you didn't have anywhere else to go. This was actually quite rare. You usually never had the time to come outside and think about your life or reflect on anything as you were always cooped up in your bedroom doing work.

You huffed, rubbing your hands together. By now, your hair and clothes were drenched and your face was covered in water drops. You decided to visit the Mapo bridge to view the Han river from above. Ever since childhood, it was one of your favorite places as you were able to see the Han river below you, the Yeongdeungpo district to your left, and the Mapo district to your right. It had always been a calming sight.

It would take around 10-15 minutes to get there by car from your house but since you didn't really have access to a car right now, you had to walk. You knew it would take at least 45 minutes to get there but you still didn't care.

Unlike the two hours you spent at the park doing literally nothing, this felt different. You thought about the events happening in your life over the past few days, weeks, and months deciding to reflect on them during your journey.

You thought about your parents. How they always welcomed you with open arms while you often gave them the cold shoulder. You felt guilty that was for sure.

You thought about your friends. You had no close friends and the ones you had were slowly starting to drift away. You hadn't sat with them or even talked to them in over 2 weeks.

You thought about your studies. How you always stayed up late doing homework and taking notes while it never paid out. Instead, your crappy work just got you in more trouble.

You thought about the incident with your teacher today. How he touched you inappropriately and gripped your thigh. You shivered, pulling your skirt down slightly.

Unconsciously, tears had started to fall from your eyes. Luckily it was raining so nobody noticed anything too out of place. Despite this, you definitely got some weird stares. At first, the tears were silent. Your face was stoic while tears poured out of your eyes. Eventually though, recalling the painful memories and feelings was too much and your eyebrows furrowed. Your bottom lip trembled as you tried to contain your cries. It started off as light whimpers and occasional gasps.

You rubbed at your eyes and felt yourself losing control. Your cries got louder and you had to clasp a hand over your mouth. At this point, you didn't really care about anything else in the world and were overwhelmed by pain.

You threw your backpack onto some random chair god knows where, and continued walking. No without your backpack you felt freer, and both your hands flew to your face, as you walked in the cold rain.

Meanwhile, you had reached Mapo bridge and began to walk across the pedestrian section. Since it was raining, almost no one was on the bridge and you could finally let your emotions out freely. Your gasps got louder and you let out a strangled sob. Your hands flew to your face trying to cover it up, only for it to be followed by more cries.

As you walked to the middle of the bridge, stumbling across your steps not paying attention to what you were doing. You read the signs on the bridge.

"많이 힘들었구나" (It must be very hard)

"잘 지내지" (How are you)

"파란 하늘을 봐 봐" (Look at the blue sky)

They were mocking you. It was hard, you were not okay and nothing could make this pain better. Your eyes unconsciously closed your eyes and you let out a string of sobs. You choked on your tears, covering your face with your hands sobbing into them.

You rubbed at your eyes but nothing would stop this pain. You looked up at the Han river and thought for a moment. You looked down over the railing of the bridge and noticed the drop.

This was your chance. This was your chance to let go of all your pain and finally be free.

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Yunho was out with his friends. It was a rainy day and he had just gotten back from practice. On rainy days such as this one, he would often simply go on a drive with Hongjoong, Seonghwa, and Wooyoung. They were the three that enjoyed the rain and loved going on long drives. Their building was in Mapo but they decided to take a drive over to Yeongdeungpo since they had the rest of the day off.

The Mapo bridge was actually quite empty today. There weren't any cars or any people on the bridge. Since this was quite a rare occurrence, they decided to savor the moment and drive slowly enjoying their playlist while listening to the rain.

Wooyoung was driving while Seonghwa and Yunho were in the back, eating snacks and Hongjoong was picking a playlist. After popping a gummy bear in his mouth, Yunho decided to look outside and observe the Han river. All of a sudden though, around a hundred meters in front of their car near the left railing, a moving figure caught his eye. He was surprised that anyone would be out in the rain at this time. As they got slightly closer he realized they didn't have an umbrella either. As the car got even closer he realized that the figure was a girl. Your hair was drenched and so were your clothes. He stared at you weirdly wondering what on earth you were doing. You simply slid down the railing sitting on the floor, sobbing your eyes out and Yunho's eyes widened. He realized you were crying as your entire body was shaking with sobs and your hands were over your face.

He suddenly felt the urge to help and spoke up.

'Woo, slow the car for one second" He whispered softly and Wooyoung simply looked back and Yunho shrugging. He obliged and slowed down the speed of the car. Yunho continued to observe you. He didn't want to get out of the car since it was raining and he didn't have an umbrella but continued to watch you.

He watched the way your hands came up from your face and you gripped the roots of your hair. He watched how you tried to cover up your cries by cupping your hand over your mouth from time to time only for your to cry harder as your eyes squinted shut.

While they were driving past slowly, everyone was minding their own business while Yunho was still staring at you. Hongjoong had realized how Yunho was giggly before and then became silent all of a sudden and decided to check up on him. Hongjoong looked up at Yunho from the rear mirror, only to find his gaze locked on something outside. Hongjoong followed his gaze and found you as well. He saw that you were crying and stayed silent not knowing what to do.

Yunho was still looking at you and didn't notice how his leader was now also intrigued. He noticed how you roughly rubbed at your eyes getting up. He thought that you were done crying and that this was just a mini breakdown. Besides, everyone had bad days and maybe your way of letting it out was crying in the rain. Hongjoong averted his eyes as he saw you get up, giving you some privacy while Yunho kept his gaze locked on you.

He noticed how you were now facing the railing and looking out at the river. All of a sudden though, he saw you take off your shoes and a sudden wave of urgency washed over him.

"Stop the car!" He yelled at Wooyoung, while everyone in the car visibly flinched at his sudden voice, looking at him with concern. Wooyoung abruptly stopped the car, causing everyone to jerk slightly. The door immediately flew open and Yunho ran out of the car not caring whether his clothes got wet. Seonghwa had gasped and scooted to Yunho's side, peeking through, looking at what was going on.

Meanwhile, Yunho's intuition was correct. He knew something was wrong and the second you took off your shoes, he knew what you were trying to do. After you took off your shoes, you firmly grasped the railing of the bridge, hoisting yourself up, to sit on it. You looked around you, making sure no one was watching, although you didn't care at this point. Your mind was made up.

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You slowly scooted to the end of the railing, your hand tightly gripping the railing. You looked down, all that was below you was a 60-foot drop and lots of water. You sighed out shakily and looked back one last time. Your hands slowly let go and you breathed in a deep breath of air. You looked up at the sky and let out a wave of sobs before pushing yourself off the railing.

You expected to immediately feel the cold breeze hitting you as you fell over the bridge but you didn't. Instead, you felt a strong force pulling you backward.

The back of your head roughly collided with the concrete ground of the bridge and you let out a yelp. You looked around you processing your surroundings. You expected to be in the water by now, taking your final breaths. Instead, you were still back on the bridge and you fell back instead of forward.

You looked around suddenly, gripping the back of your head wanting to know who or what the fuck stopped you from doing so. Although you were mad you couldn't help but cry.

You sat up on the ground, knees close to your chest as you covered your hands and sobbed. You let out such painful cries, guttural noises, filled with pain. You cried, each cry letting out more sorrow than the last.

Little did you know, someone was scanning all your actions on the side, not knowing how to process the situation that just happened. He just witnessed someone who almost committed suicide.

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The second, he realized you took off your shoes, he knew that you were going to jump. It was a common occurrence, especially on this bridge. His intuition was proven correct when he saw you hoist yourself onto the railing. You were going to jump.

His body was moving on its own at that point and kicked the door open, rushing out as fast as possible. He didn't care about his clothes or his very expensive shoes, keeping only one goal in mind. As you scooted closer to the edge of the railing his heart stopped. He sprinted to the railing as fast as he could, almost slipping along the way. He roughly wrapped his big arms around your waist and he yanked you backward. He fell back onto the bridge and let go of your waist, catching his won fall, while you simply fell backward with force.

As you broke down in front of him, he felt a stinging in his heart. By now, Hongjoong and Seonghwa had also stepped out of the car with an umbrella, a little more cautious as they stood near the car itself, giving you a little space.

Yunho decided to slowly make a move to check up on you. He called out softly, but you didn't hear him.

"Excuse me?" He asked carefully, bottom lip caught in between his teeth from nervousness. You couldn't hear him over the rain and your sobs and frankly didn't care about anything else but the overwhelming pain in your heart.

He looked around nervously, before lifting a hand. He hesitantly brought it closer to you, doubting whether to touch you. He was wondering if you'd be comfortable, but he really wanted to help. He resorted to gently tapping your shoulder with his hands to alert you of his presence.

The second you felt his touch you immediately flinched, not noticing another person's presence. You looked up at him, before clasping your hand over your mouth. Although you knew that it was futile at this point, you still tried your best to cover up your sobs. You let out a string of sobs before squeezing your eyes shut and muttering apologies nonstop.

You kept stopping yourself with your cries but continued to whisper apologies. Yunho's eyes widened as he rapidly shook his head. Why on earth were you apologizing to him? As you looked up at him he noticed how strands of your wet hair clung to your face, your swollen and red eyes as well as your pink-tinted nose. He knew you must have been crying for a long time as your eyes reflected nothing but pain as they were completely bloodshot.

"Hey, hey, hey, I've got you" He whispered as he started patting your back. You nodded as you scooted closer. At this point, you didn't care how you were acting, simply trying to process what was happening. You pulled yourself together trying to get words out.

"May, I lean on you?" You softly whispered, voice breaking in the middle. Yunho hesitantly agreed, opening his arms up for you. You broke down again. You knew that you had been crying a lot that day, and maybe you were overreacting a bit, but in the heat of the moment, you simply couldn't stop.

You leaned into his warm chest taking in his musky scent that was slowly being washed away by the rain as he slowly crept a hand up to your back, rubbing it up and down.

"I'm here, I've got you, You're alright" He whispered into your hair. He knew you weren't in the right mind, but let you have your way just for now. You scrunched his now wet hoodie in your smaller fists as you tried to regain your composure.

You pulled away from a little embarrassed and looked away, knowing very well that he had already seen you, so there was no point. Yunho scooted further a little embarrassed too.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked softly and you shook your head, looking back up at him. You were surprised to see that his nose was slightly pink and his eyelashes were glistening in tears too. You felt guilty and apologized, a little embarrassed.

"I'm sorry for upsetting you," You said all of a sudden, and he shook his head rapidly.

"No, please don't apologize. I can't even begin to imagine the pain you must be in to want to take your own life." He whispered the last part, still not wanting to agitate you. You nodded and backed away. Yunho suddenly then realized the situation he was in, it was raining and the coldness was starting to get to him, he couldn't even imagine how much pain you must have been in to completely feel numb to it.

"It's raining and it's cold outside, do you want to sit inside our car, we have a heater" He interjected all of a sudden. You got nervous all of a sudden not knowing how to respond.

"I- I- can't-, I'm not sure" You stuttered your words and he noticed your discomfort, trying to divert the topic.

"Do you have anywhere else to go?" He asked looking at you sincerely and you shook your head. You couldn't go home like this. You averted your gaze while he tried to come up with a solution that you were comfortable with. All of a sudden though, you spoke up.

"Where are you going?" You asked and he tried to come up with a comforting answer real quick, one that would convince you to go with them.

"We are just heading to Yeongdeungpo, would you be interested in tagging along?" He asked sincerely. Your grandparents lived there, and you knew they would welcome you without asking questions, so you could go stay at theirs if you wanted to, so you nodded your head.

"Are you sure?" He confirmed with you and you nodded.

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It was safe to say the car ride there was anything but comfortable. You were in a car full of strangers wherein 2 of you were soaking wet.

"What on earth were you thinking?" One of them asked you all of a sudden, and you noticed the male who was with you earlier glared daggers back at them.

"I- um, I didn't- I'm not-" You kept fumbling over your words.

"She's not obligated to answer that." The man from earlier said sternly. You mumbled a thank you and continued to look outside. A few more minutes of silence passed as he tried to break the awkward silence.

"I never got your name by the way," He said all of a sudden, and without looking back you answered.

"Y/n," You said, cutting the conversation short. You weren't in the mood to talk. The other male nodded and introduced himself and the others.

"Well, I'm Yunho, this is Hongjoong, Seonghwa, and Wooyoung" He pointed at them but you didn't look at them, simply nodding, facing the other direction. Through the side mirror of the car, you noticed the boy in the front, the one that had slightly longer hair in the back, and was significantly shorter, glaring at Yunho. You assumed they were not comfortable introducing their identities just yet and you were okay with that.

Most of the car ride was quiet. You let out occasional sighs and whimpers due to the cold but there were no other comments or conversations.

Halfway through the ride though, the boy from earlier, the one who asked you what you were doing on the bridge, Seonghwa, spoke up again.

"Are you okay though?" He trailed off at the end. The other three boys looked at him with wide eyes, presumably glaring, telling him off, when you suddenly cut those thoughts off.

"I don't know" You answered sincerely. In all honestly, nobody had expected you to speak up, so when you did, they were all ears. You sighed before continuing.

"Everything is just so hard on me" You sighed out, as your voice broke at the end of the sentence. You decided that was enough or else you knew you wouldn't be able to stop if you said more. Although your answer was somewhat ambiguous, they didn't want to pressure you.

They all just nodded trying not to make it seem like a big issue. You noticed how Yunho sighed silently next to you before scooting closer to you. This didn't go unnoticed by you. His knees made contact with your fingers which were on either side of you, on the seat, and you looked back up at him questioningly.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it? I'm all ears, you don't have to worry about feeling vulnerable. In all honesty, it's best to let your feelings out. You seem like the type to bottle everything up, but you clearly have a lot on your mind, you can tell me if you're comfortable." He whispered sincerely, only of you to hear. You were still looking into his eyes, and unconsciously tears started welling up in your eyes again at the sincerity and care in his voice. You had never told anyone about your problems and this was your chance. A tear slipped down your cheek and you roughly wiped at it, scoffing softly.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into me today" You let out a soft breathy laugh, but the both of you knew it was not funny. He looked at you sternly, faux anger on his face as he felt frustrated that you were treating yourself this way, frustrated that you were reducing yourself to an emotionless robot.

"Don't say that. Emotions are what make you human, you don't need to feel embarrassed." He said and you nodded, slowly scooting closer to him. He didn't mind. Although the proximity was making him a little nervous, he was trying his best to comfort you.

He decided to test the waters by putting his arm around you. He slowly and slyly snaked his arm behind your back, since you were leaning forwards and slowly made contact with the small of your back. When he noticed that you were comfortable with it, he tried putting a little pressure to pull you closer and you went with the flow. You leaned into him, with your head on his shoulder, as one of his arms was around you. You both needed the warmth anyways as you were freezing. It was silent for a bit before you decided to speak up.

"My science teacher molested me." You said breathily. His eyes widened as he tried pulling away from you. With this new bit of information, he realized that the close proximity of you two could be making you nervous. He wasn't able to pull away though since your back was flush against the back of the seat, and you didn't seem too uncomfortable so he decided to keep it there. He rubbed your back up and down urging you to continue.

"I don't- I'm not sure what I did wrong. I disproved the experiment instead of verifying it and he got mad." You paused and took in a shaky breath of air. At this point, your voice sounded pathetically weak and vulnerable but you knew only Yunho could hear you since you were whispering to him, so you had nothing to worry about. He just let out a hum into your hair as you continued.

"He called me to stay after class the discuss the paper and I stayed. I fucking stayed. I stayed despite knowing his sleazy ass would try to pull something on me. After all the students left he called me over to his desk..." You stopped yourself off as you felt your voice wavering. At this point, Yunho could feel his stomach doing flips just thinking about the situation you were in. The fact that it seemed like you were blaming yourself made him feel even worse. Nonetheless, you continued.

"He grabbed my knee and then my thigh and when I told him to let go, he didn't. He even had the audacity to ask me whether I wanted to go further. When I said no, he- he said I would fail. This is all my fault, what the fuck is wrong with me." You let out breathily into Yunho's wet hoodie. His heart broke when he heard you blaming yourself, you couldn't be further from the truth.

"Hey, please don't blame yourself. You have no reason to blame yourself, Y/n. You put your heart into that essay and he didn't like it because his narrow-minded brain couldn't accept new ideas. Furthermore, I'm sure he only used it as an excuse to hurt you. I'm sure your essay was great, and please don't blame yourself for him touching you. What he did was wrong and is all his fault." He paused finally, a little breathless from rambling. You nodded thinking he was done, only for him to continue speaking.

"I'm going to give you my number... Feel free to call me after today, I want to help you. I want to help you speak your side and arrest your science teacher for he did to you" You mumbled a soft okay as you leaned deeper into his embrace.

"I shouldn't feel like this" You suddenly said. Yunho had assumed the conversation was over when you told him about your science teacher but regardless he was ready to listen, no matter what it was.

"Why?" He asked sincerely, ready to scold you again for putting yourself down for having emotions.

"I have loving parents. I study at a good school. I usually get decent grades. I have 2-3 friends who I talk to sometimes. My family can afford the resources I need to feel content. Then why the fuck do I feel like this?" You asked more to yourself than Yunho and he knew this, but he had an answer.

"So?" He countered, waiting for a reaction from you but you had none.

"Even the most privileged people are not happy hun. Satisfaction and content come from within. You may have everything you need but still not feel satisfied with yourself. Is there anything about yourself that is bothering you?" He asked and you furrowed your eyebrows. What he was saying made a lot of sense...

"You- I-, I guess... I feel stressed all the time, and I'm not happy with the work I produce since I'm stressed and overwhelmed, but how did you know-"

"How do I know?" He interrupted you while you looked at him with wide eyes.

"Because I've felt the exact same way a few years ago." Now it was your turn to be shocked.

"I'm training to be an idol and I spent countless nights practicing my dancing and singing, but I never felt happy with my skills. I always thought I could get better, and that led to a sort of addiction. I stayed up late at our studio practicing and my sleep schedule was fucked up." You chuckled breathily at his word choice and how he let a curse word slip in. He noticed and smiled back down at you.

"When I finally understood and accepted the problem I got better. My mental health took a turn for the better and I was more proud of my accomplishments. Besides, I consider myself a decent singer now" He laughed at the end as you joined him.

"I'm proud of you for reaching your goal and bettering yourself," You said honestly as you patted his chest.

"I just hope I can fix myself one day too." You said honestly.

"I'm sure you will be able to. It takes time and perseverance, so please never give up. You're a beautiful, talented, and valuable person, never doubt yourself." He said and you nodded in his embrace.

That's where the conversation ended for now. The silence was not awkward at all. Instead, it was quite comforting as you had a lot to think about and process. Yunho's words definitely shifted the way you looked at life.

Yunho got a little more confident and trailed his arm upwards of your back and into your wet hair. He ran his hands through your wet hair as you scooted closer to him. He gently rubbed his hands across your scalp relaxing you. Despite him being a stranger, from the way he listened to you, saved your life, and comforted you, you knew he was someone you could trust.

Meanwhile, the boy in the front, Hongjoong looked through the rear mirror, looking at the position you and Yunho were in. He and Yunho suddenly made eye contact through the mirror, and Yunho got nervous, his eyes widening as he realized his leader had seen the position he was in, but that went away as he realized Hongjoong was smiling back at him with a soft smile across his face.

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Unknowingly, you had fallen asleep in Yunho's arms. When Hongjoong realized you fell asleep he patted Seonghwa's shoulder pointing to the two of you. You had fallen asleep on Yunho's shoulder, resting your head against it, while his head was on top of yours, also asleep. Seonghwa almost squealed when he saw the position you were in. They exchanged a few knowing looks before you finally arrived at your stop.

Yunho woke up before you and you were awoken by a messy-haired, still sleepy but smiley Yunho, ushering you to go outside. You got up, rubbing at your eyes as you looked around. You realized you were still in the car with all of the boys looking at you. You got embarrassed and quickly fixed yourself before shooting a confused look at Yunho. Suddenly, the man driving, Wooyoung, spoke up.

"I dare you and Yunho to go to 7/11 to get us snackssss" He playfully said and you smiled.

"Don't forget to get yourself a new pair of clothes too, you're soaking wet and probably cold. Although, I don't think that was much of a problem considering you were practically on top of eachoth- OOF" Seonghwa was cut off but Yunho roughly shoving his side. For the first time in the past week, you let out a genuine laugh and all the boys turned to look at you, as you bent over in laughter. Their eyes widened and Yunho swore it was the most melodious sound he had ever heard.

Feeling empowered and having a new perspective on life, you decided to go with the flow. Besides, you were given a second chance at life, you weren't going to waste it, moping around. You decided to make a change, and that change started today.

"Well big boy, are you coming with me or not?"

114 notes · View notes

felassan · 3 years

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DA4 Lead Producer Scylla Costa’s BIG Festival talk, “Challenges of Dragon Age production during the pandemic”, can currently be rewatched on YouTube here starting roughly at timestamp 8:57:02 after a lil presenter blurb/intro. It’s 1 hour long. When it was streamed live, there was an English translation ‘voiceover’. There isn’t in this vid, however I want to post the link for Portuguese speakers, and also it’s neat for everyone to be able to see all the slides he presented with for themselves in context.

I don’t know if an English-language version will get put up so I’m sharing the notes I took during the talk below, in case anyone’s interested and because I might as well since I wrote them. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

Edit: Found a place to re-watch the English version of the talk

(Quick note: I didn’t note down everything, mostly things that caught my interest, so this isn’t exhaustive, and when I was watching I was real tired, so pls bear that in mind and don’t take these notes as bullet-proof 100% accurate gospel or direct quotes. If you watched it and think I’ve written down something wrong/misunderstood, let me know and I’ll fix. Also if you’re a Portuguese speaker and I’ve gotten something incorrect or missed something important etc, again just let me know.) **

** Edit: I’ve now gone through my notes while watching the talk again. I’ve filled in some of the gaps (although they still don’t cover everything said) and so forth, and now I’m no longer worried about there being possible errors in this post.

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For some context, this slide contained the breakdown of the talk’s structure. Bear in mind there are other slides present in the talk than the ones I’ve posted here, I didn’t include caps of all of them, just ones which were of note to me.

In the talk, chief Producer Scylla goes over challenges of DA4 production during the pandemic. He discusses the adaptations - necessary skills and learning from remote work - and he ponders on the future of teamwork.

After the launch of ME3 he became a producer, all his MMO and other experience helped a lot. He was on DAI for 3 years and MEA for 9 months, then Anthem. Today, on DA4, Scylla and another Lead Producer were the heads of the whole project, and there is his boss is the Executive Producer Christian Dailey.

^ the usual AAA game development cycle (brief introduction)

AAA games are games that are launched for several platforms simultaneously.

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase of the game development cycle can have from 5 - 30 people, and up to almost 60 people when they’re just about to go through the gate to production.

In the pre-production phase, they go through the game’s concepts and prototypes and start developing systems. They seek the game’s concept and focus, and its key features. They do lots of market research. In the case of BioWare, all their games are strong in narrative, so they have lots of tools related to game narratives and supporting the development of a narrative (cinematic design, dialogue system etc) that get focused on in this phase. Other parts of the team such as writers and cinematic design need these systems to do their own roles.

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase through to launch can take 4 - 6 years, but it does depend on the size of the team during development.

With regards to Dragon Age 4, they were coming close to the time when they would shift from pre-production to the production stage when the pandemic hit.

During the production phase is when the development of content and features takes place, with the systems mostly already existing from the pre-production phase. A few new systems may be developed in this phase. In the production phase is when things start escalating, and the team really starts growing, to like 2- or 3-fold the prior pre-production phase size.

(DA4 is currently in the production phase.)

In the alpha phase, features have to be fully implemented and systems all have to be running / working. All the game features should already be in the game by now. They test from pre-production onwards, but this phase is when they run heavy technical tests with lots of players trying to play at the same time. In the beta phase, the idea is that you should now have full content and that now you’re balancing it and running more and lots of different tests with players before launch. There are final tweaks and then the final launch, when in the weeks prior to launch, all the different business units and areas e.g. marketing team, technology team, publishing team, get together once a day and all of the game’s issues are reported and brought to the table to be prioritized. Then they decide the next steps re: these issues (this is known as ‘the war room’).

After the launch there are usually patches like day zero patches and other patches, this being standard industry practise. The last stage is the new content stage where there are DLCs and a game with more content.

On March 12th 2020, the team gathered to review the DA4 story in the new office. Everyone was very excited. (They had spent over 10 years in their last building and had noticed that with the team growing they needed more space. In August 2019 they found the new studio in the city center.)

Anyway that evening, they got an email from the CEO which contained instructions and said that due to the pandemic, they should from now all start working remotely. They had known that this happening was a possibility so they had been planning on how to have all the devs working from home, but initially less than 50% of the devs were able to work from home successfully/efficiently due to various issues e.g. you need a VPN to be able to log in remotely to do your job normally, varying home office setups. The day after this, the office was basically deserted, except for Scylla, the IT infrastructure people and one or two odd devs.

Scylla was part of the team that was working on allowing the devs to work from home. They first started looking at the short-term changes they needed to make to allow this.

“First, take care of our developers”.

When the pandemic first hit, their and Scylla’s [as Lead Producer] first priority was to look after the devs. Many of them are parents (schools and day-cares were shut, children were studying from home), others have relatives living with them, others have other personal circumstances which of course need to be taken into account when it comes to assessing what needs to be taken into consideration for this new scenario. So, they looked at each dev on a case-by-case basis in order to evaluate, speaking to each one and asking them what they could do to support them.

One of the first changes/adaptations they could implement was flexible working hours and flexibility around deadlines. Generally speaking the devs got a lot of support, EA was really good and really supported the devs especially in the first months of the pandemic (and they are still supporting them). Initially not all devs had suitable office spaces at home, some were working from the living room from laptops or at the kitchen table. The whole covid situation basically just happened over night and nobody was really ready to deal with that change. So their first step was to enable their devs to work remotely. As a producer, Scylla’s main task is to communicate with the team such as via a number of daily meetings. He doesn’t depend so much on powerful hardware.

“Enable developers to work remotely”.

This slide shows some of a BioWare audio team. Different teams have varying and specific needs in order to do their jobs and therefore in order to do them remotely. For example, the audio team need good-quality speakers and amplifiers, while the lighting and art teams need other specific equipment such as tablets and large screens. So there was a lot of work they had to do to go through each dev to understand their individual needs and what needed to be done for them. ‘Could they download the builds? Did they have the right performance [tech-wise]? Could they submit their changelists, their codes to the server?’

Some devs needed a more powerful internet connection as it would take 6-8 hours to download a build (some devs live rurally). Some needed a lot of cable, as they were working far away from their routers (sometimes up to 50m). As time went by things got better and better.

The chair devs work from is also important; a kitchen able chair etc is not suitable to sit in for long-term desk work, possibly leading to health issues like back ache and blood circulation problems in the legs.

Every 3 months they had money given to help devs buy new mice, keyboards, monitors - anything they needed really in order for their office setting at home to be improved. For a while, because lots of people [generally, in society] were needing and buying them, it was quite hard to buy things like webcams and microphones.

On mid- and long-term changes:

In terms of DA, we have to look at this from 2 perspectives, the change in the personal and the professional environments.

As a consequence of working from home, people tend to be less active during the day (even in an office, you go between meeting rooms, up and down stairs etc). Physical activity supports life quality and therefore work quality. Scylla noticed that he began to feel listless and such, and found that he needed to change his routine that he had initially developed when he started working from home, for example; having a normal start time (as in, have a semblance of structure in your day as if you were still working in the office site), get dressed at the normal time, not having meetings over lunch etc. This wasn’t just him, lots of other devs encountered this and had this experience too. Devs which adapted faster had better productivity and became more productive faster.

Scylla bought a stand-up desk which he can raise up and down, and at meetings he would be delivering a talk while standing or even while walking on a treadmill. Other devs also got stand-up desks. He tracked his body’s data on a Fitbit. These sorts of things helped improve physical and mental wellbeing. Other devs did similar things, like starting going out for jogs or began practising yoga. Essentially, everyone needed to make changes to their daily routine in comparison to what they had been doing prior to the pandemic.

The pandemic has been a thing for over a year now. In their location, every couple of weeks a new restriction is put into place or a rule is changed, and every two weeks there’s a new thing that you can and can’t do. Scylla also started moving around his property. He worked on his desk, fixed it up and painted - taking up a new hobby. Other devs picked up new hobbies too. These are good ways to be active and also to be somewhere else, i.e. to break up the working day and not be spending it all in one home office-type location. Scylla found that when he made these sorts of changes to his routine to improve his lifestyle, the data output by his Fitbit as indicators of his health/wellbeing etc improved, e.g. number of steps taken in a day, heartbeats per minute while at rest. As stated many of the other devs went through a similar process.

On the professional side of things:

They had to improve remote delivery of builds. Accessing things from home as a dev requires a VPN. They need to download a build every day and then upload it to the server after making their changes to the game. They had to work with infrastructure and research other tech, such as streaming tech to allow remote console access, in order to better facilitate this process. For remote access, they also had to work on adapting communications channels.

“Adapting channels of communication.”

In this slide, the team are working on the storyboards. Before you can implement motion capture & performance capture, you have to ‘run the storyboards’ like this. These are small illustrating drawings which reflect the drafts and are meant to quickly reflect the intention of the scenes that are to be built. Before the pandemic, the team would go to meeting rooms like this, sit down, talk and interact in person. After the pandemic, the question became ‘How do you do this over Zoom?’ You can, but it’s not quite the same; it’s harder to see peoples’ expressions, some people are embarrassed speaking over Zoom etc. Therefore they had to adapt their communications systems, and unlearn the ways in which they developed before in order to relearn and learn new ways of communicating.

Slack was a tool that they adopted on this front. Communications channels can be confusing on Slack, so there was a need to develop structure. For example, how quickly should someone reply (as a recommended convention for the purposes of work)? They had to define the process/procedures for the channels so it was clear for the team as a whole how it would all flow (this is important especially if you have a team with say 30 people or as a whole hundreds of people). Before the pandemic, they had stand-up meetings where they’d go around in a circle every morning and talk about their activities - what they’re going to be working on, any roadblocks they had encountered etc. The question arose ‘How do you replace these?’ They ended up doing Slack messages at a certain time of day and updating their statuses with some details on what they’re working on and color-coding (green - fine, yellow - need help, red - busy/blocked out).

Another issue that they faced was unforeseen - the number of meetings that devs were having really shot through the roof. When there wasn’t a good structure of communications channels, any conversation would become a meeting. Everybody began scheduling meetings left and right, and at the end of the day they would have little time left in which to actually work on their to-do lists. Hence, they had to work with the team to really analyze and be very pragmatic. ‘Which meetings needed to happen? Which didn’t? Is a specific meeting really necessary? Which meetings should be recurring? What can be done over Slack?’ This guideline had to be given to the team to help, and it improved things a lot. The number of meetings decreased a lot and they got more effective. For example, by making sure to set an agenda for meetings beforehand, and by having meeting notes (then a dev who didn’t really need to be at a meeting could skip attending and just quickly review the notes output after instead). They also decreased the standard length of meeting times from the default Outlook blocks of 1 hour and 30 mins to 55 mins and 25 mins respectively. This 5 minute change gave devs time for things like bio breaks (also 4 hours in a row at a computer in a home office with one meeting after another just isn’t good for a person).

“Adapting p-cap and mocap”.

On content:

From a content point of view, the most difficult thing in terms of the pandemic was adapting p-cap and mocap (performance capture and motion capture). They hire actors and it’s a large studio. The pandemic meant big limits to what they could and couldn’t do. The actors had to be masked and 5 meters apart in distance (although it doesn’t look like it in some of these shots due to angles). Also there could be no other person around in the studio - only the actors. The directors instead would ‘patch’ in remotely on big screens (you can see this in the second photo in the top right).

Before the pandemic, they felt that they wouldn’t be able to do p-cap or mocap properly remotely, as the directors would usually stand right next to actors giving guidance on their performance. The techs would also usually be near. But they adapted! The keyword is adapting, changing process. It’s harder and it’s different, but it is possible, and people start rethinking what is possible. What was said to be impossible before now is possible.

P-cap differs to mocap in that it also captures voice and facial expressions.

On the future of work after covid:

There will probably be more working from home and more flexibility for workers e.g. being able to work say 3 out of 5 days from home. It does depend on what a dev’s specific job is however. For example, the audio engineers require lots of specialist equipment and said equipment is of higher quality and quantity in the office. So, depending on role, devs might be working more often or less often from home.

Another development is that lots of devs are moving house. In lockdown etc people started reassessing what’s most important in life. Some are moving further away from the studio to get a cheaper rent or for example couples who both needed an office space to work from home from but their current place only had one area. Others are moving closer to nature for a better quality of life, and still others have other different reasons for doing so. Over 10 devs that he knows in fact have recently moved, including Scylla himself.

The pandemic changed certain skills being used by people on a daily basis. Scylla used as an example of this one of his soft skills, being able to tell from looking/interacting in-person with someone if they are stressed out. Obviously it’s less easy to tell if someone is stressed out when you’re remote, so you adapt different ways of checking in with people in the new situation. To continue carrying out his role as Lead Producer, he began checking in with his team pro-actively on the new comms channels and asking how they were doing.

Also, now that companies are more open to working remotely, there is going to be increased competition for hiring devs. They saw both sides of this coin at BioWare. They were able to hire devs from many places that they couldn’t hire from before e.g. Montreal, Vancouver, the US, as there’s less need for devs to relocate to Edmonton or Austin. This opens up opportunities to hire really intelligent and skilled people that they would not have had access to before.

Question and answer segment:

The pre-production phase has been concluded. They’re in the production phase.

They are not giving out a lot of details yet but Scylla is really excited as a big fan of the whole series. He thinks that with DA4, they will have the opportunity/possibility to launch the best story out of all DA games. He feels that the characters they’re making are amazing. He’s dying to say more but can’t.

When you work from home you need to keep your team as productive as possible. During the pandemic, when people started working from home, they noticed that some people became more productive and some people became less productive. They were analyzing it on a case-by-case basis so as not to make assumptions. They were interested in seeing what they could do to help. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were looking at the devs as people and seeing what they needed.

Production of DA4 still needed to continue during the pandemic because they want to be able to launch the game.

This slide shows a writer. Writing is an example of a role which is more able to work from home easily.

Their productivity did go down in the first month of the pandemic. After adaptations, some people then became more productive than they were before (this was role and personal situation-dependent, examples of this being artists and coders who were able to art and code at home without being interrupted, thereby being able to produce more). Covid has affected productivity in general, but this is part of our new reality. They have adapted and adjusted some deadlines. They have enough data (Scylla LOVES data) now to understand how long it will take them/how long they’ll need to launch the game. They have always had historical data for this purpose, but they’re doing more of this sort of thing now to ensure that they are doing things at the right time.

Remote hiring opens up the door to more talent joining, so if someone has talent geography will hold them back less. Some companies though may choose not to hire people from other countries due to labor issues, cumbersome legal aspects, time zones. But even in such cases there are activities for example that can be carried out while the rest of the team is asleep such as testing or working on the build, or there are cases where those companies still will want to hire a specifically/highly talented person even in spite of the potential legal aspects and so on.

On mental health: People were affected. There is the mental, physical and social impacts of the pandemic situation on people. EA supported them during the pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing, there are specific companies (services offered, speaking to a therapist) that they can contact if they need something or help. EA had always been good at supporting them with this sort of thing but this has improved further during the pandemic. Another change was that they could/can take a couple of days off if they needed/need to because of the pandemic e.g. to take care of children, who were obviously not at school at the time. As a producer he had to be very mindful of all of this. How much they were monitoring peoples’ wellbeing really went up during the pandemic.

A question that was asked - in terms of DA4′s storybeats, is there anything in there that they decided to change due to the pandemic as it wouldn’t be sensitive or appropriate to include anymore, for example a plague plotline or something? Scylla’s answer is that DA and ME are games in which they try to have narratives that are relatable, which include things which people will identify with, so that players understand what characters are going through etc. Nothing in DA4′s plotline/storybeats has been changed (in the frame of this question, relating to the pandemic), as it didn’t have anything in it that could be specifically or a directly connected to a pandemic-type situation or anything. Of course the DA story has Blights and the Taint, but these are different & fantastical things and existed long before the pandemic situation. So this wasn’t the case with DA4 and there was no need to change anything, but this has happened to other games where they decided to change a storyline due to a strong correlation with something in the real world.

There were then concluding/closing remarks. The message he wants to send is that a crisis will always spark opportunities. Look at a crisis and try to see how you can grow.

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[☕ found this post interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #wanted to write these up properly and post them yesterday but wasn't able to #mass effect #anthem

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bisexualcrowley · 4 years

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Undercover

Pairing: Harry Hart x Fem! reader

Summary: While doing surveillance at a gala, Y/n and Harry's identities are threatened to be uncovered and they take to a rather intimate method of hiding their faces

Content/warnings: smutty themes? nsfw, fluffy stuff, cursing, suggestive themes, semi-public foreplay/teasing, making out, Merlin’s still alive bc i want him to be

Word count: 3,729

“A Gala. In the middle of winter, this means I might have to fight in heels, is this really necessary Merlin?” Y/n sighed, glancing out at the light drifting of snow that had begun to flutter down from the sky. Its not that she had anything against winter, the woman mused to herself, just that it makes this sort of work so much more difficult.

The year had been tough enough already, having lost Harry to Valentine, getting Harry back, the whole issue with the Golden Circle, and the constant stress was getting to Y/n, the smallest thing now able to piss her off, and unfortunately for her, this latest mission seemed to be more than a small thing. “C’mon Y/n, i know we all could use some rest but this is important, the target is threatening to release catastrophic amounts of classified government information. I’m not asking you to be on the front line here, I just need you and Galahad on the sidelines, more as surveillance and backup than anything else.”

Y/n had been less than impressed with Merlin’s words, wanting to stay as far away as possible from field work until she had gotten a decent amount of sleep, but her ears perked up at the mention of her best friend and previous partner at Kingsman.

“You’re letting Harry in the field again?”

She asked, surprised at the man’s words. “I thought you said he wasn’t ready yet, after the problems he had while working alongside the American agents.

“Not fully, as i said, the two of you will just be keeping tabs on him from the crowd, not making contact unless absolutely necessary.” Merlin must have picked up on Y/n’s eagerness to work alongside Harry again and allowed himself a slight smile as he spoke, sliding the paperwork across the table to the younger agent. “This place is fancy, i mean really fancy, you’re gonna want to look your very best. Go over his papers today and be here dressed and ready at 20:30 tomorrow. And I mean it, y/n, be dressed to kill, in more than just the metaphoric sense”

Most of her annoyance having melted away at the mention of Harry, Y/n agreed, taking the papers and shaking Merlin’s hand before turning on her heel and jogging down the hall of the Kingsman offices, hoping to find her friend. Luckily Y/n didn’t need to search far, finding him in the actual tailor section of the building being fit for a tuxedo.

Y/n caught Harry’s eye in the mirror in front of him and she shot him a grin, leaning casually against the door frame. “Lookin’ good, Galahad. Excited to be headin’ back into it?” She asked, affection shining in her smile at the sight of Harry Hart suiting up for battle once again.

It was no secret among many of the Kingsman agents that Y/n had fallen hard for the man, her feelings becoming clear to them when Harry was shot as she had broken down in tears at the news despite being one of Kingsman’s toughest agents, however she did manage to keep the secret from Harry himself, terrified of losing the relationship they already had by revealing her feelings only to find that they weren’t reciprocated.

Eggsy and Merlin, of course, had required a fair amount of bribery to be convinced to keep their mouths shut, finding the whole situation more than amusing and wanting nothing more than to spill the beans to Harry, whom they were fully convinced shared y/n’s feelings. Y/n didn’t crack though, and eventually the men had settled on the childish teasing of Y/n and placing bets on who would make the first move. Eggsy had put 50 pounds on Y/n cracking first, but Merlin put his money on Harry, having said something about Eggsy underestimating the woman.

At the moment, despite her refusal to share her feelings with Harry, Y/n feared that Eggsy was going to be the one to win the wager as she felt her heart beat faster at the happy smile Harry had offered her in return. “Looking forward to be working alongside you again, Y/n, it’s been lonely without my partner”

Y/n felt her face heat up at the compliment, but determined not to let her resolve fail she once again held back the words she wanted so badly to tell her friend, instead choosing to push herself off the doorframe and saunter over to Harry’s position in the center of the room. “So... A gala. Haven’t done one of these together in ages, have we.” Y/n’s hand came to rest on Harry’s shoulder, still not having broken their eye contact through the mirror. “It has been a while, although luckily, I never forgot how to dance”

Y/n’s confident exterior faltered at his words, tilting her head to the side and eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “We have to dance?” She asked, voice coming out far quieter than she had hoped. Harry let out a very ungentlemanly laugh at her shock, turning his gaze from the mirror to meet his friend’s eyes properly. “I’d assume Merlin didn’t tell you for this very reason, y/n” He chuckled. “We’d stick out too much, standing in the middle of a ballroom. To draw the least amount of attention to our position, we’re gonna have to dance”

Y/n froze for a moment, weighing her options. On one hand, she thought, I’m dancing with Harry. On the other hand, i’m dancing. In public. What a terrifying thought, i should just tell Merlin i won’t do it. But if i don’t do it, i don’t dance with Harry.

She squinted slightly, fighting herself for which option was better, but in the end decided that the upside of pretending to be Harry’s date outweighed the negatives in the situation, and after another moment of hesitation, Y/n nodded, nervously drumming her fingers on the man’s shoulder.

“Alright then. If we’re gonna dance, we’re gonna do it right. I’m gonna go find a dress, i guess. See you tomorrow, Galahad” Y/n breathed, a hint of humor making it’s way into her words as she went on, which to her luck Harry picked up on, and replied with an exaggerated salute, earning him a giggle and smile from Y/n before she slung on a coat and took off again.

Lucky for her the London streets were nearly empty, most seeking cover from the bitter cold within the comfort of their homes, and the trip to her own home was quick for Y/n. Almost immediately upon arriving, she threw open the doors of her closet, flicking through hanger after hanger of clothes that Merlin would be less than happy about her wearing to such a prestigious event. It appeared that luck was still on her side, however, as Y/n paused, pulling out a dress previously hidden behind a thick winter coat. It was beautiful, a slim gown of deep green velvet with a loose, plunging neckline and thin black straps with a shimmering gold woven throughout, and y/n smiled, knowing it would be perfect for the following night.

The next day passed quickly, Y/n having to study the target’s file, shower, do her hair and makeup, fit a variety of concealed weaponry on her person, and what felt to her like a million other things, and it felt like no time at all before she found herself outside the Kingsman Tailor shop, glittering heels clicking along the icy sidewalk leading up to the building. Y/n reached for the door handle, shivering slightly in the cold but was met with the door swinging open in her face, Merlin staring down at her with Eggsy, Tequila and Harry behind him.

“Y/n, you’re late, c’mon, there’s a car waiting in the back, c’mon lets go” Merlin ushered her along, the group rounding the building to find a black towncar waiting in the alley. It took a bit of maneuvering to fit everyone into the vehicle, coats bunching up in the small space, but eventually the group situated themselves in a somewhat comfortable fashion, and they were off.

The drive was longer than Y/n had expected, but no time was spent relaxing, having found herself rather distracted by her body being pressed against a very well dressed Harry, the cramped space forcing her leg to shift up onto Harry’s so that she was sitting partially on his lap, a position that had the both of them blushing furiously and Tequila chuckling from Harry’s left.

Hoping to distract from the uncomfortable and unfortunately mildly arousing way she was seated, Y/n leaned forward to peer past Harry and raised an eyebrow at the American agent, who in return mimicked her expression, which brought a mix of annoyance and amusement to the still blushing woman. “Mind if i ask why Harry was forced into the middle seat? Last time i checked, i’d fit a fair bit better” Y/n asked, Harry humming in agreement with her statement.

“Why, you wanna sit on my lap instead?” Tequila smirked, earning a snort of laughter from Eggsy and Merlin in the front seat and a glare from Y/n, where Harry shifted uncomfortably and blushed harder.

Y/n’s snapped back, but her retort was cut short at the feeling of the car slowing to a stop and Merlin leaning over the drivers seat to run over the night’s details one last time.

The plan went smoothly from then, Eggsy and Tequila positioning themselves near the main doorways and Merlin settling himself behind a computer, leaving Harry and Y/n to shed their coats and make their way further into the ballroom. A string quartet was set in the middle of the north wall, playing what y/n recognized immediately to be a slower rendition of the seal lullaby, and she fought the urge to twirl around a couple times, instead smoothing out her dress and holding out a hand to Harry.

“Well Mr. Hart, may i have this dance?” Y/n spoke calmly, careful to avoid appearing overly enthusiastic so as not to draw unnecessary attention to the pair, but the warmth shining in her eyes was undisguisable to Harry, who took her arm with a smile and led her to their position in the ballroom.

The image of the two Kingsman agents settling into a graceful mix of a waltz and a simple slow dance was reflected off the marble floors, creating what would have been a beautiful photo had there been a photographer near them and y/n relished in the moment, hand clasped with Harry’s, his hand pulling her waist to his as they swayed to the music.

Harry caught Y/n’s eye as he caught her after a spin, a grin breaking through his character that made her heart flutter. The song slowed to it’s end and the couple for the night paused, the taller figure dipping y/n and freezing, their faces inches apart. Y/n felt her breath hitch in her chest, heart pounding at the intimate position they had paused in.

Her eyes met Harry’s again, the latter panting slightly, his pupil dilated and face flushed red, and dear god it turned Y/n on. Biting her tongue to hold back what would have been a rather humiliating moan, she rested her weight into Harry’s arms, allowing herself a second to catch her breath. As the next song began, Harry shook himself out of whatever state he was in and pulled y/n back up against him, resuming the dance like nothing had happened. Y/n, still flustered, tried to distract herself by shooting a glance towards their target, who had moved from lingering by the side entrance to scanning the crowd from a nearby refreshment table. As the song reached a peak Harry spun y/n around again, but this time around her heel caught on the seam of her dress and she stumbled, accidentally turning away from her partner. Quickly righting herself, Y/n returned to her previous stance, but not before making brief yet intense eye contact with the man they were watching. “Shit... Merlin do you have eyes on the target? I might have just fucked us over” Y/n’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper, eyes blown wide with horror at the prospect of ruining Harry’s first real taste of action since the Golden Circle incident.

“Hang on, hang on, don’t abort mission yet” Merlin muttered through her earpiece, y/n hearing the clacking of keys as the older agent fussed with the security cameras

“Fuckin hell, Galahad, Y/n, he’s coming your way. Hold your position, we don’t blow your cover unless we’re 100% sure he knows who you are. Keep dancing, but don’t let him see your face”

Merlin’s voice cut across the earpiece again, and by the way y/n felt Harry's shoulders tense she knew he heard the message too.

“Shit, what do we do?” she hissed back, watching her partner risk a glance to the left and finding the target moving smoothly through the crowd, eyes set on the couple.

“Keep dancing, stay inconspicuous for as long as possible, if we’re lucky he’ll just pass on by. Now i’ll say it again, don’t let him see your bloody faces.” Merlin’s voice was low, and Y/n couldn’t stop the nervous feeling they caused from setting in as she watched the man grow nearer out of the corner of her eye.

“Merlin i don’t know what you expect us to do here if it’s so imperative we don’t move from this spot, we can’t just-”

Y/n tuned out Harry’s urgent whispers as a solution came to mind, eyes widening at the ridiculousness her own mind had come up with, but not seeing a better solution she shushed him, placing a finger over his lips.

Harry looked confused but went along with it, cocking an eyebrow in silent questioning and giving her shoulder a soft squeeze as the man drew closer, nearly close enough to get a good look at the pair, and y/n knew she had to make her move. With a quick whisper of “forgive me for this Harry”, Y/n brought her hands up to cup her friend’s face and pulled him into a kiss. Harry froze momentarily, his jaw tensing in shock before he followed her lead and returned the kiss, their lips moving against each others perfectly in sync and y/n couldn’t keep herself from sighing into the kiss, unconsciously pressing her body closer to his.

Harry deepened the kiss, his hands moving to thread through her hair and a vague thought reminded Y/n he was just helping to conceal her face, but it was shoved quickly to the back of her mind with a particularly passionate movement from Harry which she met enthusiastically. Her hands inched upwards to tug at his perfectly styled hair, which earned Y/n a low moan against her lips, and she pressed closer again, unconsciously slipping her leg between Harry’s. She felt his cock twitch against her thigh and all thoughts of what they were there to do flew out the window, one hand clasping at the collar of his tuxedo’s jacket and the other cupping his cheek, pulling his face down to her own.

Feeling bold, Y/n made a move to nip at Harry’s lower lip but before she had the chance, they were interrupted by a more than amused Eggsy clearing his throat beside her. The pair flinched in surprise and pulled quickly out of the heated embrace, leaving Y/n wiping speared lipstick from her face and fixing disheveled hair, Harry somewhat discretely adjusting his clothing to hide the now quite sizable bulge in his trousers with a deep blush across his cheeks and Eggsy watching from the side, eyes tearing up from the effort of holding in his laughter.

“Merlin says good thinkin’, Y/n. The two’ve you were a bit busy to notice but Tequila got the guy, he went down nice n’ quiet, we’re supposed to get to the car as soon as possible” Eggsy had a shit eating grin plastered across his face as he spoke, which only got wider when Y/n gave Harry an awkward smile, which he returned briefly before shoving his hands in his pockets and staring down at his shoes.

Snickering, Eggsy escorted the pair through the crowded room and through a series of side doors, which after a seemingly unnecessary number of hallways led to a back exit where the towncar that had brought them to the gala was waiting. Dreading what was sure to be an uncomfortable conversation with Harry, y/n winced at the thought of how inappropriate her actions towards her friend were, and she moved to open the passenger side door but was stopped by Eggsy once again, who flung open the door and threw himself in next to Merlin, who quite to her displeasure shared Eggsy’s smirk.

Y/n’s eyes locked with his, silently pleading to switch seats but her weak attempt proved to be in vain as Eggsy winked and pointed over his shoulder to the back of the car, where Harry was already seated. Y/n glared at Merlin but didn’t argue, and took a deep breath before sliding into the car, which to her luck was no longer so cramped due to the third agent having stayed behind with the target. The space was still smaller than she would have wished, but the cover of darkness provided a touch of comfort that y/n was endlessly grateful for.

Shadows crossed across her legs as the car rolled into gear, Merlin driving out of the alley and beginning the long journey back to the Kingsman headquarters. Y/n sighed, leaning her head against the window and closing her eyes, hoping the cold glass against her skin would help to drown out her racing thoughts.

Much to her dismay, however, they had been traveling for less than ten minutes when Eggsy turned around, leaning over his chair with the same wicked smile stretched across his face as he had worn before.

“So, you two had some fun t’night, didntcha?” Merlin let out a snort of laughter from beside him, Eggsy nodding his head suggestively between the pair in the backseat. Too tired to come up with a snarky reply, y/n simply rolled her eyes at Eggsy, and went back to working up the nerve to say something to the uncharacteristically silent figure seated beside her.

The realization that Harry was rarely this quiet around y/n outweighed her fear of confrontation, concern for her friend pulling her focus from Eggsy to the older man, and she turned to face him. Harry was sitting stiffly, hands clasped in his lap and head straight forward, but he must have been watching y/n out of the corner of his eye, as he looked to the side to meet her eyes when she turned from her position by the window to look up at him.

In that moment, the car was silent aside from the low rumble of the engine, the tension between the two growing from tolerable to an absolute peak, hanging thickly in the air between their bodies. It was thick enough, apparently for Eggsy to pick up on it, and with a chuckle about “giving you two some privacy”, he pressed a button beside his seat that caused a black divider to come up behind him, separating the front from the back of the car and leaving Y/n and Harry in silence.

Both Harry and Y/n stayed frozen in place, faces turned to each other and her eyes locked on his. Hesitantly, y/n placed a hand on Harry’s knee, a motion that years of friendship had taught him meant she had a lot to say, but didn’t yet know how to say it, and Harry nodded, the silent exchange sharing more than words would be able to.

“...I... I’m sorry, Harry, i shouldn’t have...” Y/n’s voice was low, barely above a whisper as she spoke, trailing off as the words caught in her throat.

"No, y/n, it was my mistake, i just...” Harry's voice faltered as well, fingers coming up to fuss nervously with the strap of his eyepatch, a habit y/n had noticed Harry picked up when he felt flustered.

Neither of them knew what had happened; one moment they were sitting in silence, y/n’s hand on his knee and tension high, and the next moment y/n found herself being pulled into Harry’s lap, her hands once again tugging at his hair as they met again in a heated kiss. Her dress had hiked up to her hips at this point, allowing Y/n to straddle her lover properly, and this time she didn’t hesitate to grind down against him, Harry’s hands coming to grip her smooth hips as she rubbed her barely covered sex along the bulge in his trousers, both letting out groans of pleasure at the friction.

Harry’s fingers trailed down y/n’s body as they made out like horny teenagers in the backseat, moving from her hair down to cup her covered breast, and down further to trace along the slick fabric of her panties. Y/n whimpered at the touch and moved to return the favor, her own hand coming to palm at his cock through his pants, at which Harry gasped and yanked her down onto his lap once again, hips thrusting up to grind against y/n’s cunt.

She moaned against his mouth once again, pulling away for just long enough to strip off Harry’s coat and unbutton his shirt before returning to her position on his lap. The two were so caught up in the moment that they didn’t notice the car pulling up to the curb and stopping, however they did take notice to the door flying open and the flash of a camera, followed by Eggsy’s delighted voice and a deep laugh from Merlin. Embarrassed, y/n quickly tugged her dress back into place and slid out of the car, holding out a hand for Harry to take as he climbed out, looking as red faced as y/n felt.

“Go on, buggers, we took you to Galahad’s place. I’ll find out who won the bet tomorrow, go have some fuckin’ fun.” Eggsy laughed at their dumbfounded expressions at his words, but chose not to respond, instead returning to his seat beside Merlin who drove off a few seconds later, leaving two very sexually frustrated agents on the sidewalk.

“Well then... Wanna take this inside?”

#harry hart smut #kingsman smut #kingsman imagine #kingsman fluff #harry hart x reader #harry hart imagine #harry hart fluff #wlm imagine #fanfic #oneshot #kingsman the golden circle #kingsman harry

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adobe-outdesign · 3 years

Text

The Big Grand TIOL Review/Critique

I’ve been covering my thoughts on this a bit during my liveblog, but I figured I should punch out a proper review.

No spoilers review: This one’s a bit tricky in terms of reviewing it. The reason for this is that, in a way, I feel like some its weaknesses are part of its design, so it’s not fair to critique them.

Basically, DCTL is the essential BATIM novel, in that it does exactly what you’d expect a BATIM novel to do. Don’t get me wrong, it was by no means paint-by-the-numbers, but you had all the BATIM staples in there. Game-canon characters, the machine itself, people getting turned into cartoons, the Ink Demon killing shit, ect ect.

TIOL is different because it’s basically an in-universe memoir written by Joey about his life and philosophy. So the thing is, when you boil this book down, it’s kind of almost not a BATIM book in a way. It features a game-canon character and dives deep into his backstory, but most of the book has little to do with the studio until like the last 4/5s or so.

So on the one hand, I feel like that’s a problem, and we needed more game-canon characters, more about the cartoons, ect. But then again... it wouldn’t make sense for Joey to spend his entire life rambling about the studio instead of talking about his early years at all, would it? So in a way I can’t really fault the book for it.

In terms of flaws, it honestly has less than DCTL--while DCTL had some major glaring problems, TIOL is fairly solid all around, but is less of a satisfying read due to its premise, making it hard to compare the two.

In terms of whether or not you’d enjoy the book, I guess it’s most important to know what you’re going to get out of it. If you’re like me and like extreme character studies and backstories, de-fictionalized in-universe media, and long philosophical talks, you’ll probably really enjoy it. If you don’t and want something more standard for BATIM, stick with DCTL.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, though I do like DCTL more at the end of the day. I’ll give this one a solid 6/10.

Spoilers below the cut:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Okay, I lied. I’m not gonna include an ugly section this time, mostly because, as I said before, this book has less glaring issues than DCTL did. With that said:

The Good

If you like Joey, you will love this book. I’ve said before that Joey is the best character (strictly speaking) in BATIM because he by far has the most depth, showing a layered and interesting character. This book takes that and runs with it, giving a deep look into his psychology, philosophy, and overall explaining a lot about why he does what he does and his way of viewing the world. It’s legitimately well done and makes you look at his character in a new way, and as someone who loves character studies this whole thing was a real treat for me.

They do a very good job making this feel like an actual memoir. Nathan is editing and leaves footnotes, he wrote a foreword explaining this is a reprint, Joey blatantly lies a few times because that’s what he’d do, ect.

Also, if you enjoy foreshadowing dialogue--which I do, very much--there is more than enough of that here.

This one might be cheating because it’s probably unintentional, but there is a ton of Joey being gay in this book, some of it really overt. I’m not going to go into it much here as Dreamfisher already summarized everything for me, but yeah, there is no way this man is straight.

Everyone who was OOC in DCTL seems to be better here. Sammy, while still an asshole, is neither as big of an asshole as he was in DCTL nor is he being racist. Bertrum is still affable towards Joey, but here it makes sense because they literally just met, and unlike in DCTL he even corrects him on his name.

Other characters get some screentime, and while brief, it’s nice to get some more characterization for them, especially because a few of them never showed up in DCTL. Jack Fain in particular gets some much-needed characterization and really shines here, as well as Nathan.

While it’s not overtly ha-ha funny, I did chuckle a few times. Most at Nathan’s notes, as half of them are just blatantly contradicting Joey’s lies.

We get a bit more info on Henry and Joey’s relationship, as well as how the cartoons were made.

The Bad

As mentioned above, there’s weirdly not a ton of BATIM content in this. Sure, it’s about Joey, but the bulk of the novel features book-canon characters only and is more focused on how he got where he ended up than stuff regarding the studio. It doesn’t really feel like a BATIM novel until about 4/5s of the way through. Like I said above though, I don’t know how much I can critique that, as it’s kind of inevitable with a memoir.

There is a lot of navel gazing in this. If you like philosophy you’ll enjoy it, but if you don’t it might get irritating, especially when it’s just Joey’s opinions over and over.

While we get more info about Joey and Henry and how they met, there’s not much info given on their relationship. Joey just talks about how much he totes didn’t need Henry while Nathan indicates that it was way more personal than that, but we never learn how personal. It makes sense as Joey’s the one writing this, but it still would’ve been nice to hear some more remarks from Nathan on the matter or something.

There’s like a 50 page or so detective mystery that I didn’t really care for. There was nothing really wrong with it, but it didn’t feel like it told us a ton about Joey, and there’s not a lot of emotional investment as we don’t know these people. Combine that with the mystery being unsolvable to the reader (because Joey leaves out crucial information until the reveal) and it just kind of felt like a pointless side detour, and like that time could’ve been spent on something more interesting. Most we get out of it is the origin of Bendy’s name.

There’s a weird inconsistency where Joey claims he made Bendy (not surprising), but he also goes over the moment when Bendy was made and it blatantly shows the two collabing, so at best he would’ve been Bendy��s co-creator. It’s just strange that he would describe the process like that instead of changing it to fit his lie. I think the implication is that the process itself is fake--that Henry had nailed Bendy’s design when he first showed it to Joey--but like I said, the scene contradicts Joey’s claims regardless.

There’s not really a... plot? Not surprising as it’s a memoir, but some memoirs do a good job of building a climax by showcasing an important moment in the person’s life. Here, because things are being told out of order, we never really get a climax, as there’s no action and Joey’s little emphianys are scattered throughout. There’s kind of just a lot of people standing around and talking and not much actual action going on.

I was kind of hoping this book would go into Joey’s black magic stuff. I need to make this clear: I don’t think BATIM should ever go into this too much, as it’s really just the macguffin that explains the plot, and it wouldn’t make sense for Joey to sit there talking about all the cool satanic bullshit he’s been doing lately anyway. However, Joey’s mentioned the “Gods” before, so I was kind of hoping for something about his thoughts about religion or something that would hint at the demonic stuff. He thinks about the afterlife a lot, but that’s about it.

Overall

Like I said, you have to know what you’re getting into when you pick up the book. If you read this and it sounds like something you’d enjoy, then grab it. If not, then don’t bother. For me, personally, I’m glad I read it, even if it wasn’t quite on the same level as something like DCTL.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batim: illusion of living #the illusion of living #joey drew #liveblog #kind of #outdesign posts things #outdesign analyzes things #also I didn't include this one because it's more of an aesthetic thing but it is nicely printed and presented

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janiedean · 3 years

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First off, I'm a HUGE fan of I'll be the frosting to your cupcake, one of the first fics I reread and a comfort fic staple of mine from the on.

Having said that, I recently learned English isnt your first language, and I'm shook. How do you write in such a flowy ample vocabulary precise english? Are you half British or sth? Have you live outside of Italy? What's your secret? What are your tips, please help a sister in need!

first of all thank you so much you're too kind ;v; and I'm really happy that it's been... ALMOST TEN YEARS and it still holds up ;v;

that said hahaha well I'M VERY HAPPY I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MASTERED THE POWER OF NOT MAKING IT KNOWN ENGLISH IS NOT MY MOTHER TONGUE MUAHAHAH but in all seriousness:

no I'm not half british, my aunt was a high school english teacher but that was it and she definitely didn't speak english to me growing up beyond giving me the basics

no I haven't lived outside Italy just been on vacation in english speaking places so those two guesses aren't correct but

take into account that I'm 33 and I started learning english srsly when I was like twelve and I started writing in english when I was.... nineteen going on twenty so the way I write now is because I pretty much wrote in english nonstop since then, obviously whatever I wrote in 2007 had a worse vocabular/wasn't as good as it is now so count that a lot of that is practice

now basically i know it'll sound like ARE YOU SERIOUS but: I learned first translating songs by hand which meant I spent two years with a vocabulary translating bruce springsteen's and bon jovi's opera omnia that I had booklets for (YES THE INTERNET WAS ON 56K I HAD THE DAMNED LYRIC BOOKLETS RIP) and that.. I mean it didn't give me the widest vocab ever but it got me started, and then I jumped the bridge and started reading in english at.... eh I was 15 but like I got into stephen king, read a few of his books in italian, then got one I already had in italian in english for kicks and realized it... was better not translated so I swallowed the whole OH GOD I WON'T UNDERSTAND 1/5TH OF THE WORDS thing and went for it and like I can 100% assure you that if you get through the dark tower's second book and the indecent level of nyc slang in it you won't ever go back

(then being a masochist I went straight for steinbeck and if you manage the grapes of wrath at the level I was you're good X°D)

now like... that shows because every single time I take english tests like HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE WORDS/WHAT IS YOUR WORDING CHOICE/WHAT DOES YOUR WRITING SOUND LIKE I without fail get as results that I pronounce like someone from new jersey/pennsylvania and I use words like someone from maine and that I read like king which... LIKE I LEARNED 95% OF MY ENGLISH on all of that so that makes sense

now the thing is after king I basically went like okay if that writer's english or writes in english I'm not checking the translations so basically I've read in english for twenty years and like... if you want to write you have to read and like I swear that when I was in high school I didn't need to open grammar books beyond the basics or actually study english at all bc having actually read stuff I like... having seen the word/expressions used on paper meant I knew how to use them so there was that but like the point is that if you read a lot your vocabulary automatically gets wider and if you see how published people you like write that helps you too because it gives you the background, makes you see how people break the rules etc

with this I mean... like you know everyone is like YOU HAVE TO WRITE SHORT SENTENCES IN ENGLISH UNLESS YOU'RE A CLASSICAL AUTHOR OR YOU'RE WRONG? okay like I always struggled with it bc I tend to be long-winded, then one day I ran into michael chabon who not only has the kind of refined vocab I can only dream of, but he also has no issue dropping six-lines long sentences (or a 12 pages stream of consciousness of a parrot without a dot bless him) and he won a pulitzer prize and while I am certainly not michael chabon and I can only dream of being 10% as good when it comes to that mix of craft, if he can do that then who stops me from six-lines sentences? yeah, no one XD

and I mean like... just to say one re how you re-elaborate things, the whole thing I do with using parentheses on another new line to say how characters are feeling or switch pov for a moment etc etc is a thing I absolutely lifted from king bc when I read him doing it I decided it was genius, but like at some point I started doubling or tripling the parentheses if I wanted to show what someone was thinking superficially and subconsciously which is a thing king doesn't do but at some point it happened and I liked it so I did it, and that's like the only conscious example I can give you but like you develop your style also based on what you like reading and what comes easy to you but that's things you find out through practice and again... if you like specific writers most likely it'll show up in your writing but that's fine everyone has their role models

also like... I personally don't gaf if supposed english tradition says I can't do something I'd do writing in italian ie abusing semicolons and long-winded sentences, like... if you're good at specific thing that your language allows and english doesn't don't gaf and write it in english anyway who cares

tldr the tips are: read a lot in english, consume a lot of media in english, practice a lot because you get better/get the hand of it with time (again if you read my lost fanfic on lj written in 2008-2011 it's nowhere near the same level as what I write now but not even the stuff I wrote in my spn days is at the level I am now etc), read a lot also in your own language or in any other you know, write as much as you can, if you feel like you're copying your favorite writer don't gaf and go ahead anyway at some point you'll sound like you and not like whoever your fave writer is and be constant because again 50% is reading a lot and 50% is practice, I know it sounds like the discovery of hot water but I swear I managed that without living anywhere else and only reading/writing/talking to people on the internet so... it does work X°D

#ask post #walterwitch #janie rants

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uwuwriting · 4 years

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Hawks w/ fem!reader who’s struggling to conceive

Request: If you're still accepting bnha requests, I was hoping you can write one for Hawks and his s/o (defs can be gender neutral, trans, etc.). I've become attached to the kiddos you have written for them and I'm wondering, what if they had trouble conceiving? From IVF to surrogacy, not everyone has an easy time making kids. Whatever route they take is up to you (whatever fits best), but I think it would be a sweet moment where they dont think they can ever have kids then BAM! Suddenly, twins. - @sykandron

I’ve been reading some hc from other fandoms *cough* Haikyuu *cough* and I felt that it was about time to tackle this ask. Since I’m a 17 year old toddler you would assume that I know nothing about this. But I study biology and that doesn’t make this any easier bc I don’t know a single thing about this topic. So I did my research and I tried my best. Hope you like it. Love yaa. 💖💖💖

warnings: triggering content, trouble conceiving, some depressive thoughts.

-Keigo and you have been together since high school and he married you last year.

-Even though he’s a pro hero which is a very stressful and time consuming job, it doesn’t take him much time before he wants to start a family.

-You are in love that’s for sure so a person made form your love is not hard to imagine but you are beyond concerned.

-Keigo doesn’t have much time for himself and as much as you don’t mind not seeing him for long amounts of time but a child needs to see their father.

-And you don’t believe that you can raise a child on your own.

-Your relationship has been built on trust and communication, so you sit down and talk everything through him.

-If he’s being honest he has been concerned about the time he will get to spend with his child as well because he’s number 2....and that’s a handful.

-So you made an agreement.

-You would make a schedule that Keigo would have to follow unless something urgent came up and he would try to minimize his time spent at work.

-You would give this schedule a try for a month and if he could keep it up you would begin to try for a baby.

-Surprisingly he made it work and had to leave for an emergency only four times.

-So you got to baby making and you went at it for months.

-When you got no results even after trying the “best” positions and eating specific foods that would make you more fertile, you started getting discouraged.

-Keigo suggested going to the doctor to check if something was wrong, with both of you.

-After your appointment you had to wait for some days before you could get your results back.

-And boy if they weren’t disappointing.

-Turns out that you both had problems of your own, Keigo not having a strong enough seed and you having an overly hostile environment so conceiving would be a challenge.

-To say your were devastated was an understatement.

-You closed yourself off and for the first time in your relationship, there was no communication.

-Keigo tried talking to you, tried to pull you out of your own thoughts, but to no avail.

-Your brain was working against you and it showed.

-You wouldn’t eat, you slept longer and became sloppy in the workplace.

-He would find you bawling your eyes out in the bathroom and then coming out with a hollow look.

-It was killing him as much as it was killing you.

-So he did some research.

-And when I say some I mean that he went to like 15 doctors and bought 50+ books about the issue and he came up with around 10 solutions to your problem.

-Of course the last two on the list were the ones you wanted to avoid, adoption and sperm donation, not that you minded adopting but you wanted a small Keigo to be honest and the idea of donation was off the table.

-You felt very uncomfortable with the idea.

-So after he talked to you and convinced you to try what he found, you agreed to try for a year.

-If nothing came of it you would adopt.

-And that’s how it all started.

-Vitamins and special pills, doctor appointments and hormonal treatments.

-Nothing seemed to work and you were staring to get disappointed.

-It was nearing the end of the deadline you had set when you started throwing up in the morning.

-Your appetite changed and everything smelled awful, your feelings were all over the place and you couldn’t seem to control your tears.

-Keigo was the logical one for once and took you to the doctor.

-When he came inside the room with the results of your tests with a smile so wide and bright that it blinded you, you knew something was up.

- “I’m happy to announce that you made it! You are pregnant dear.”

-You swear that the whole clinic heard your squeals.

-Keigo went full dad mode even though it would be some time before the baby could actually be seen on a sonogram.

-He changed his work schedule even more, staying home longer and minimizing his patrols.

-Sure he was the number 2 hero but his baby is his top priority and you cannot change my mind.

-When you got your first sonogram and saw them, Keigo had been called in for an emergency and try as he might he couldn’t avoid it.

-You had to push him out of the clinic because he wouldn’t leave.

- “The public is in danger you dumb bird!”

- “I AM NOT MISSING MY CHILD!”

-What in the world??

-You got home before him and you waited patiently, sonogram in hand and two champagne glasses one for actual champagne and one for some apple juice.

-The moment he stepped through the door he rushed to you and would’ve tackled you if you weren’t pregnant.

- “Are they healthy? Is everything alright? I don’t like that smile you’ve got. Is it the baby or because I ate your Doritos, I swear I’m going to buy you more!”

- “YOU ATE MY DORITOS????”

-When you raised your hands in the air he saw the pictures you were holding and he focused on that and that alone.

-You followed his gaze and giggled, patting the space next to you and pecking him on the cheek.

-He looked at the images in front of him and....was confused beyond belief.

-Is..is that a baby? It looks like a shadow. Is it a shadow? Are all babies shadows? Shadow babies....

-Seeing the look on his face you let a hearty laugh before grabbing his hands and making them into fists.

-You brought them together and traced one of them with one finger while your other hand was tracing one shadow on the sonogram.

- “That’s one baby and that’s another baby.”

-He froze, looking at his fists with his brows furrowed until it hit him.

-Twins.

-He was having twins.

-All this hard work for a baby and he had been blessed with two.

-He looked at you then, tears forming in the corners of his eyes as a smile made its way on his face.

-He hugged you tightly, his tears wetting his your shirt and a string of ‘thank you’s and ‘I love you’s spilling from his mouth.

-He was truly happy with his family.

-Just him, you and your two nuggies against the world.

BONUS:

- “Weak sperm my ass I got you pregnant twice in one go.”

- “It doesn’t work that way you dumb KFC meal.”

- “Chicken nugget juniors disagree with you. Ain’t that right my little chicks??”

TAG TEAM AY: @brattyquirks , @the-arcana-fan-fic

#my hero academia keigo takami #keigo takami x reader #bnha keigo #keigo x you #hawks x reader #mha hawks #domestic hawks #hawks #bnha

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not-reagan · 3 years

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milf: man i love forests

pairing: deforester boo seungkwan x frat boy mirror demon han jisung (side pairing reagan x rainbow)

genre: crack, strangers to friends to lovers, non-idol au

warnings: cursing, brief supernatural elements, i don’t know if this applies but all lcase, and i listened to christmas music and abba while writing this

word count: 2.7k

authors note: happy birthday @miyuuraiura !! i am so sorry about this monstrosity being your birthday gift but you asked for it so it's your fault entirely. i was gonna include some context on this story for those who are not rainbow and i but actually i don't think i will.

seungkwan did what he could to get by. he loved nature, he really did, but sometimes you have to make moral sacrifices to survive. he was a college kid strapped for cash, and when he saw a sign reading “GET RICH QUICK, INVEST IN DEFORESTATION” in the summer going into his freshmen year, he jumped at the opportunity. sure, he would have rather been a freelance singer, hired for bar-mitzvahs and children's parties, but that job market was flooded at the moment.

jisung, on the other hand, had no care for nature. actually, he didn't care for any human things, apart from “banging parties, booze, the boys™, and bitches”. he hated quite a bit about earth, the worst of all to him being college. as a demon, he had no reason to attend university, but after he was summoned in the bathroom of a frat house by the school’s power couple; rainbow and reagan, he felt obliged to follow the two around and keep them company.

for seungkwan, his main job rarely required in person work. he usually just chose plots of land to demolish, and sent plans to local managers. the only time he actually had to knock down any trees himself was during his summer break. he has a part time job of course, but it didn't provide him enough cash to survive. for someone with a job as a deforester, he truly did do what he could to save the environment. he joined his schools environmental club, becoming vice president his sophomore year because of his work with them. he kept his job a secret, not even telling his parents where the influx of cash was coming from. he kept a low profile and went through the motions of life. he didn't have much of a social life, with his small amount of friends being from the environmental club.

han jisung found joy in witnessing his professors and fellow students lose their minds over his lack of effort in class. he did the bare minimum and still passed with flying colors. most of all, it angered his seatmate in earth science, who happened to be none other than boo seungkwan. seungkwan was a hard worker in everything he did, particularly in school. he didn't get the best grades, but by no means was he the worst. averaging a steady B+, seungkwan spent most of his nights studying or working, rarely going to parties and enjoying himself only through one person karaoke rooms.

this fact upset jisung. he didn't know why, but seeing seungkwan so tired every day made him feel sad(? jisung wasn't sure what it made him feel. it was an emotion he had never experienced before. rainbow told him it meant he had a crush. to this he threw an empty soda can at them). not to mention seungkwan’s upsetting karaoke addiction, which he knew all about the danger of because of reagan, who spent most of her weekends drunk and singing. jisung didn’t know why he took such a liking to seungkwan. what he did know was that he was ecstatic to find that they would be paired together for a project. a project that required quite a bit of teamwork, and a lot of after school work sessions.

seungkwan liked to think that he didn’t hate anyone. he hated evil people, like hitler and stalin and jyp, but he didn’t really hate anyone besides the worst of the worst. that was until he experienced jisung. he wasn’t sure why jisung always talked to him when he was trying to take notes in class. he especially wasn’t sure why he was so excited to be partnered up together for the project that was worth 25% of their grade. seungkwan was less than happy to have to cooperate with jisung for an extended period of time, and he was not looking forward to letting him into his dorm room, or going anywhere near jisung’s frat house. seungkwan had no idea what he was pushed into.

they planned to meet at the cafe on campus at 5:00 pm after class. seungkwan was less than happy. jisung was thrilled. when jisung arrived seungkwan was sitting at a table drinking an americano and working on an english essay. he wasn't sure how to approach him, slowly walked closer before tapping on his shoulder. seungkwan jolted in his seat.

“jesus fuck jisung. you scared the crap out of me,” seungkwan gasped. jisung’s ears flushed as he brought his hand to the back if his neck.

“sorry,” he started, pausing for a second before starting again, “why don't we get started?”. he swung his bag down to the ground as he took a seat. seungkwan offered a small, non genuine smile before pulling out the project’s guidelines.

“let's try to finish this as quickly as possible. im pretty busy and don't have much time to fool around.” seungkwan said. jisung felt his heart drop. did seungkwan really think that little of him? granted, he always dozed off in class but he got his work done on time and in an orderly fashion. he felt his mind begin to wander. if seungkwan felt this way about him now, how would he feel when he found out that jisung was a demon. would seungkwan start to like him if he knew him better? jisung couldn't figure out why he cared so much about how seungkwan perceived him. he had never had an issue with others opinions of him before, so what made seungkwan so different? for some reason, jisung felt the need to connect with seungkwan. if not for himself, then at least to help him let loose.

after working silently on each of their portions of the projects for 3 hours, jisung finally spoke up. “do you want to maybe come to my party next month? well, it's not my party, it's for rainbow’s birthday. i know you're not one for social interaction but it would be cool to see you there. i’ll give you the details if-”

“i’d love to go,” seungkwan cut off jisung’s rambling. to be honest, he wasn't exactly sure what he was agreeing to, but he knew it would shut jisung up, and seungkwan valued his peace and quiet. part of him also just felt downright bad for the other. he seemed to be trying awfully hard to become friends with seungkwan, and he wouldn’t admit it, seungkwan had started to warm up to the boy. he really wasn’t as much of an issue as he had thought before, and was actually really respectful of seungkwan’s wishes. maybe i’ll give him a chance, seungkwan thought before going back to his work.

over the next month, jisung and seungkwan continued meeting to work on their project. seungkwan was less short with the other, and jisung was still red faced every time seungkwan decided to talk to him, which became quite frequently over the next few weeks. jisung was starting to realize that the feelings he had for seungkwan were not simply platonic, and that he didn’t just want to be friends with him. with the help of rainbow and reagan, he had come to the conclusion that he really, really liked seungkwan, and that he was going to do something about it. remembering that he had invited seungkwan to the party, he devised a plan to not only tell seungkwan about his whole “i’m actually a demon” thing, but also about his true feelings. it wouldn't be easy, but it was what he had to do.

a month later, seungkwan still wasn’t exactly sure why he had agreed to go to jisungs frat house at 9:00 pm on a saturday night. yet there he was, standing on the front porch of a large house, wondering if he should bite the bullet and walk in, or spare himself and leave right then. he didn't get a choice, however, as rainbow and reagan stepped out of the house giggling while clutching onto each other. both stopped in their tracks when they saw seungkwan. the couple and seungkwan stared at each other for a good minute before seungkwan shook himself from his trance.

“hey rainbow!” seungkwan started, “and reagan too. i know we aren’t super close, but jisung invited me and i thought i’d just drop by and wish you a happy birthday.” he passed her a birthday card filled with $50 bucks and then turned to leave. “i’ll leave you guys now. have a great birthday!” before seungkwan could get very far, however, rainbow grabbed him by the arm.

“hey, i’d love if you’d stay! at least go say hi to jisung. i’m sure he’d like to see you,” she said, silently making note to have jisung pay her back for being a great wingwoman.

“he’s probably hiding in the second floor bathroom. if you don't see him in there, just say his name three times in front of the mirror. he’ll appear.” reagan explained. seungkwan thought she was joking. how wrong he was.

following his entrance to the house, he had to refuse not one, not two, but three different people who were looking to give him bottles or cups of something which seungkwan presumed to be various types of alcohol. navigating through the house was difficult, reaching the stairs to the second floor only after running into numerous people borderline fucking on two large couches in the living room, a smoke circle taking place in what seungkwan assumed to be a dining room, and a very aggressive makeout session against a wall. once he finally reached the second floor, he had some difficulty finding the bathroom, accidentally walking in on reagan and rainbow, who had miraculously made it upstairs faster than he had.

“if you don’t stop shitting constantly i am going to break up with you! also, stop taking feet pics! it’s weird!” he heard rainbow shout.

“at least i can eat seafood! how does it make your head hurt? you’re the weakest link! that fucking seafood platter was delicious. and you know what, i’m glad i didn’t have to share it with you!” reagan responded. seungkwan quickly shut the door, not wanting to get involved in whatever drunken argument was going on there. after a bit more searching, he finally stumbled across the right room. knocking first to see if anyone was in there, he entered, and to his surprise, nobody was there. jisung was nowhere to be seen. seungkwan reviewed his options. he could a) leave the party, or b) continue to look around the packed house. but there was another option. he thought about it for a second.

“what's the harm in trying,” seungkwan thought out loud, before staring directly into the mirror.

“han jisung, han jisung, han jisung.”

nothing happened. that's what seungkwan thought, until a minute later the lights in the bathroom flickered off and the mirror began to glow. “what. the. fuck,” seungkwan managed to squeak out before falling backwards into the tub. first a leg emerged, then two arms, and finally the rest of jisung’s body.

“i feel like the genie in aladin every time i have to get into a fucking mirror,” jisung complained before seeing seungkwan toppled over. to that view, he jumped down off the counter and moved to help him up. seungkwan, aside from falling, seemed to be reacting well to the whole situation, at least in the sense that instead of freaking out he seemed to be in a state of shock. jisung took this as a good sign, and lifted the motionless body up onto the toilet seat.

“hey seungkwan, you there?” jisung waved his hand in front of seungkwan's face as he slowly came to his senses.

“what kind of twisted party trick was that?” seungkwan asked, pretty seriously. jisung just laughed.

“you summoned me from the mirror. i’m like a funny version of michael jackson except i'm a demon and not a man in the mirror.” jisung explained. seungkwan just stared. “are you ok kwan? do you want me to get you some water?”

“it was… kind of sick.” seungkwan stated. he didn't know why he wasn't scared. under any other circumstance like this one, he probably would have shit his pants. for some reason he felt comfortable around jisung. he felt warm. he felt seen. it was something he hadn't felt before. that's when he realized. he wondered why it took himself to long to figure it out. he never hated jisung. he just didn't know what to do with the fact that he made him feel special, and that he felt as though he belonged when they were together. it had hit him why he was so nervous the whole night, why he had wanted to make such a good impression, and why he was willing to embarrass himself by calling out jisungs name as opposed to just choosing to go home. it was because he loved him.

“can i tell you something?” both of the boys said at the same time. jisung giggled and seungkwan flushed red. **authors note! bonus starts here**

“you first,” seungkwan offered. he wasn't exactly sure he would be able to make it through a sentence without getting any redder than he already was.

jisung took this opportunity to finally get his true feelings out into the air, “i like you… uhh like, i like like you. i have since we first became seatmates. well, i think that's when i've liked you since. i knew whe-”

“you're rambling again,” seungkwan told him. jisung flushed a dark shade of pink. “it's a habit of yours. i think it's cute actually.” seungkwan wasn't sure where his sudden surge of confidence came from, but he was glad it came. he was standing up now, holding jisungs hands in his. jisungs heart was racing a mile a minute as he looked down at their intertwined hands and them back up, catching seungkwan looking directly at his lips. “can… can i kiss you?” seungkwan stuttered out. jisung couldn't find his words, so he opted to just nod.

when their lips connected, seungkwan could have sworn he heard fireworks. he did later find out that someone was setting off a firework in the back yard, but it was the thought that counted. their lips melted together perfectly, and seungkwan wondered why it took him so long to admit his feelings to himself. he could have been kissing jisung for a month before this.

once they finally parted, seungkwan spoke softly, “i like you too. i think that's pretty obvious now but just in case you didn't know.” jisung had the dumbest, most confused face on, and seungkwan had the brightest smile he'd ever had. seungkwan had rendered jisung speechless, for once in his life. not long after, they started kissing again, content with their emotions and their new relationship.

seungkwan was never one to believe that good things were permanent. he was overdramatic, stubborn, and hated interacting with people outside his small social circle. that was until han jisung came along. he was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he could let someone else into his life.

jisung was a simple man. well, not a man, but he was simple nonetheless. he liked banging parties, booze, the boys™, and bitches. well maybe there was one more thing he liked. he knew for sure he liked boo seungkwan. maybe he loved him. maybe seungkwan even felt the same way.

-fin

**BONUS**

reagan and rainbow leaned up against the door to eavesdrop on their matchmaking work.

“holy shit!” reagan gasped.

“what is it?? tell me what happened. you're hogging up the door!” rainbow hissed.

“our boy is so grown up,” reagan pretended to cry. “put your goddamn ear up here.” rainbow felt her ear connect with the cold door just as jisung confessed his feelings.

“i like you… uhh like, i like like you. i have since we first became seatmates. well, i think that's when i've liked you since. i knew whe-” his next words were cut off on the girls side of the door as reagan squealed.

“shut your mouth! seungkwans saying something!!” rainbow said, obviously annoyed that reagan was obstructing her ability to hear the exchange.

“can… can i kiss you?” they heard seungkwan say. both looked at each other in shock.

“oh. my. god.” was all rainbow could say.

“i think we should give them some alone time,” reagan suggested as she tugged rainbow down the hall.

“i think we need some alone time for ourselves,” rainbow said as reagan pushed her into a random room and locked the door behind them.

#kpop #seventeen #stray kids #svt #skz #fanfic #guys i am so sorry #seungkwan #jisung #boo seungkwan #han #han jisung #a birthday gift #miyuuraiura #for you 💕#han jisung x boo seungkwan #jisung x seungkwan #han x seungkwan

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