#he has immense pretty privilege and needs to be put in check

[sun-undone]

i really wanna make a long ass post judging matteo’s outfits based on whether they’re actually good or if they only look good because michelangelo is attractive

#he has immense pretty privilege and needs to be put in check #matteo florenzi #druck #druck s3 #og druck #michelangelo fortuzzi

[shootybangbang]

Can i request an Arthur/sadistic female reader please？i really want to see him all messed up because of...you know🥺

(btw, pls check out the requester's art. her arthur content is 😩👌)

[Oneshot]: In which you still don't know how to tie an overhand knot

[Rating]: Explicit

[Note]: this is so fucking horny that i feel i have to apologize in advance. unedited and a little rough around the edges, feel free to point out errors or give criticism

———

“Huh,” you muse aloud. “Looks like the gallery’s putting up a new exhibition this weekend.”

With one hand, you spread the newspaper across the bed and skip to page three. With the other, you continue to stroke Arthur’s cock, twisting your wrist a little to smooth your palm against its dripping tip. The man himself groans as you touch him, and the frame of his body trembles beneath where you’ve straddled yourself over his thighs.

His breaths are quickening again. “Please,” Arthur rasps, his voice hoarse with exertion and desperation alike. You indulge him with another slow, teasing pump of your fist as you continue to pick through the St Denis Tribune, humming thoughtfully as you peruse the newspaper’s Arts and Entertainment section.

“I’m beggin’ you, girl.” He sounds as though he’s teetering on the very edge of agony and ecstasy, and venturing perilously close to the latter. “C’mon. Please.”

“Looks like it’s mostly Impressionists this time. Let’s see here… a selection of Seurats and Monets… a couple Renoirs… oh, some Degas too?” With a mild expression that belies the depth of torture you’ve been putting him through, you slow your hand to a stop. He makes a choked, unhappy noise in the back of his throat that you heartily ignore. “That’s pretty bold of them, considering the reception they gave that Chatenay fellow you told me about.”

Growling, Arthur starts fumbling with the (admittedly badly tied) restraints securing his arms behind his back, twisting his wrists in an attempt to find a loose end.

“Easy there.” You run the pad of your thumb along the ridge delineating the head of his cock, slicking against the precum beaded at its tip. “I’ll give you what you want soon enough.”

“Been hearin’ you say that for almost half an hour now,” he replies, glaring. “You enjoyin’ yourself?”

“Immensely.”

“Better savor it while you can, because I promise you — I’m gonna remember this the next time I get you beneath me.”

You laugh. “Oh yeah? What‘re you gonna do then?”

“Untie me and I’ll show you,” he says.

“No,” you reply with a beatific smile.

He narrows his eyes and lowers his voice to something smooth and dangerous: the sort of tone you’ve known him to use for threats he actually intends to follow through on. “When it’s my turn,” he says. “I ain’t gonna tie you up. Won’t need to. Because with you, all I need is my hands.”

A shiver runs down your spine. The man’s wrists may be bound, but you’re still very much at his mercy. In all actuality, your authority here amounts to only a length of rope and his own good humor.

You let out a soft, involuntary whimper at the very thought of it.

“Gonna pin you down when I fuck you,” he continues. He’s smirking now, clearly enjoying the demonstrable effect his words have on you. “Lay you down on your stomach and keep you under me, where you belong.”

You’re half-tempted to loose the rope and let him do just that. Instead, you grab the hem of your shift with both hands and pull the garment over your head in a single fluid motion. It’s 1899, after all. High time for a woman to take charge of her own pleasure.

The dim glow of the oil lamp bathes your bare skin in a wash of gold and amber as you settle yourself against him, pressing the wet line of your slit along the length of his cock. “Go on,” you tell him. “What else?”

Arthur swallows hard and licks his lips, then draws in a sharp intake of breath as you roll your hips forward — just a brief stir of movement, but more than enough to make him twitch beneath you. “Drive you to the brink the same way you’re doin’ to me now,” he says weakly. “Take my time with you, nice and slow. Make you really beg for it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Another roll of your hips, this time with just enough pressure to grant him a touch of warmth.

Finally, he breaks. And it’s truly a sight to behold: Arthur Morgan, a man who you’d thought would break your spine like a toothpick the first time you’d met, openly begging for the simple privilege of being allowed between your thighs.

“God, please,” he groans. “You can’t do this to me. Can’t let me feel how wet you are and just leave me like this.”

“Of course I can.” You relent. “But I won’t. So be a good boy and stay still for me, alright?”

His cock weighs heavy in your hand as you guide him between your thighs. Arthur lets out a harsh gasp and instinctively thrusts upwards — but you immediately withdraw, and he finds nothing but the cruel emptiness of absence waiting to receive him.

“Thought I told you to stay still,” you repeat sternly.

He nods with the frantic desperation of a badly-trained dog begging for a meal. Hungry and eager, but standing to attention with as much obedience he can muster. Which isn’t much, even on the best of days, but he is trying. And for that, he deserves something in return.

You take him in slowly, both out of principle and necessity. Just a taste of him first, then the gradual descent, a long and drawn out consumption that he has barely the means to endure.

His gaze still hasn’t left you. There is an intensity in it that once might have frightened you, an azure bright as broken glass and twice as sharp. The purity of emotion in them strikes you to the bone, makes your throat tighten and your dominance waver — there is a depth of devotion there that borders on the absolute.

When you move against him, he squeezes his eyes shut against the sheer force of sensation that floods through. Arthur makes a low, pained noise in the back of his throat and confesses, “I ain’t gonna last long.”

You lean forward and kiss him, then start a slow, rocking motion with your hips that spurs him to whimper your name against your lips, a small cry of warning before you feel the first twitches of his cock. Arthur bucks up once, twice, then shudders beneath you as his seed pulses deep, blooms hot and slick inside your core.

“Goddammit,” he hisses. “Didn’t think I’d— ah, fuck…”

You ride on, grinding through the last, weakening throbs of his orgasm and until he lets out a final, heavy sigh. Arthur regards you with loose-limbed exhaustion, lolling his head against your pillows as he flashes you a drained, weary grin. “Alright,” he says. “Untie me and get up here so I can—”

“No need,” you say brightly, then lift your hips in a brief mockery of release before sheathing him again and sending him reeling into oversensitivity.

Arthur’s eyes roll back in his head. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he gasps, wincing. “What’re you—”

“Too much?”

“Didn’t say that,” he says. His jaw is clenched tight and his voice is faint, but the look on his face is one of stubborn determination.

You test him with another slow, sinuous slide of your hips. This time, he meets you with a shallow thrust of his own. He’s breathing hard, each exhale shivery with exertion. “Keep goin’,” he urges. “I can take it.”

The added lubrication of his come eases the friction of him, soothes the inevitable ache of penetration. You settle for an unhurried, leisurely rhythm that allows you to fully appreciate the slickness of each stroke, the accompanying warmth of his seed still spread through your core.

Arthur’s gaze darts downwards to the base of his shaft, where the drip of his come has begun to pool. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. “Just beautiful.”

He snakes his right arm free from his bonds and abruptly flips you onto your back with a well-timed shove.

“What— how did you…?”

“Sweetheart,” Arthur says, his voice warm and affectionately condescending. “You still can’t tie an overhand knot for shit.”

“But I double-checked this time!”

“Not very well, apparently.” He hitches your thighs around his waist and cages you in beneath him, then lowers his mouth to the slope of your neck. A brief, gentle nip — not hard enough to hurt, but more than enough to convey his renewed authority. “God, but you’re a greedy little thing, ain’t you?” he growls against your skin. “Just one load of my spend ain’t enough?”

“Thought you’d appreciate the challenge, since you’re always so— oh, shit,” you gasp, clutching at his shoulders when he drives himself downwards with a sharp, savage thrust.

“Go on.” Arthur says. He’s panting now, his dark blond hair slicked against his forehead with sweat. “Weren’t you sayin’ somethin’ about me?”

You let out an indecipherable whine that bears only a passing resemblance to human language.

“My poor girl,” he murmurs, low and tender. Arthur cups the side of your face against his palm and traces his thumb over your cheekbone, then presses a chaste kiss to your brow. “Can’t even talk right when I’m fucking her proper.”

He’ll no doubt be insufferably smug about this later, but you can’t quite bring yourself to care, distracted as you are by the view of him rutting against you, his shaft still streaked with his previous release. He’s fucking his own come back into me, you think to yourself, and that thought alone blinds out all else and leaves you blank with pleasure.

Arthur takes you hard and fast. Far rougher than his usual handling, which can sometimes be almost excruciatingly cautious. He kisses you clumsily, then lowers his mouth to the junction of your neck and shoulder, sucking and biting until the first, faint traces of tomorrow’s bruises begin to darken.

And with this, it’s not long before the first delirious ripples of your own orgasm begin to crest.

Every muscle drawn and tensed, dissolving into an inward ache of arousal that spurs you to grip him tight and whimper, eyelids fluttering as you struggle to keep his face in view. With a fierce satisfaction, you savor the sudden weakness in his expression when he feels you contract against him, then his harsh groan and the stutter of his hips as he follows, spilling what seed he has left.

Arthur keeps himself hilted until the very last shivers of exhilaration fade, then pulls away with a reluctance usually reserved for long farewells. The overflow of his come is thick and heavy as it drips from between your thighs, and the look on his face as he beholds it is one of tired appreciation.

Then he flops onto his side, totally spent. “You’re a real demon,” he sighs. “You know that?”

“A real demon would go for round three,” you reply faintly, staring dreamy-eyed up at the ceiling.

Arthur groans at the mere suggestion of it. “I think that’d actually kill me.”

When you curl up against him, he automatically throws an arm over your side, the action at this point an instinct secondary only to breathing, and brushes his mouth over the back of your neck.

As you ebb towards sleep, you murmur as an afterthought, “Didn’t you say you were gonna make me beg?”

He lets out a weary chuckle. “Well,” he says, “There’s always tomorrow.”

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan/reader #arthur morgan/oc #rdr2 #red dead redemption #fic #smut #my work #this makes my kinks so apparent that i want to crawl into a hole and die #sorry for being gross :’^)

[tearsofellen]

One Way or Another (yandere!Dabi x f!Reader)

Pairing: Yandere!Dabi x f!Reader, Hawks x f!Reader

Synopsis: Being a doctor at the hero hospital is stressful enough. However, what happens when your beloved friend Hawks begins to take a liking to you? And what if he isn’t the only one who has his eye on you? An evil Dabi starts to fall for you immensely after one dark night. Nothing can hold him back from his urge to have you.

Part 1 / ?

Words: 3.5k

Warning: This story will eventually have mentions of stalking, violence, gore, language, and hard smut. Viewer’s discretion is advised.

________________________________________________________________

The sounds of birds tweeting filled your ears. Today your bed seemed just that more comfortable as the sunlight dripped though your curtains. The sound of the traffic in your city was at a minimum as you sighed into your pillow. Finally, a day off from work. This week had kicked your ass hard. Your job at the Hero hospital was a privilege and a burden. While you were one of a very small group who could treat and aid the top heroes, it was a very stressful job. The hours weren’t exactly nine to five and some nights you were heading home with your head low in complete exhaustion. However, you still loved your job. You had a great sense of pride knowing that you could give back to the heroes who protected you and everyone around you. 

But today is your day off.  You knew how to separate your job and your personal life.  You lay in bed thinking of what you planned to do with your free time.  Your kitchen could do with a cleaning, but the idea of sitting on the couch watching bad reality television sounded more appeasing to you. You smiled into your pillow, finally a day to relax and do absolutely nothing.

Then your phone buzzed.

You opened one eye to see your boss’ caller ID on your screen. You grabbed the phone from your nightstand and reluctantly answered. Before you could even say hello, the sound of your boss yelling over the phone broke the silence in your room.

"_______ get in here now we need you!"

 With your shoelaces undone and a piece of toast in your mouth, you dashed outside of your apartment with your work bag tossed on your back. Your boss informed you of a villain attack in the city centre which caused some heroes to be injured. Fire injuries were your specialty, so you were called immediately. Your legs were running to the train station, hoping not to miss the train to the hospital and having to wait another ten minutes for the next train.

While you were fixing your tie around your neck, your eyes caught sight of a small red object flying across in front of you. After a small moment of confusion, you heard the sound of wings flapping behind you and immediately knew who it was.

"Hey hey hey, didn’t know you were into running these days ______?"

You scoffed, swallowing the last bit of your toast as you dodged hitting into a random person in the street.

"Not now Hawks" You yelled up at him. "I’m running late."

Hawks. Number 2 Hero. You both met each other when he had only just graduated from this hero training. He survived a nasty attack from a villain, resulting in his feathers being pretty damaged. You were the one who took care of him and patched him up.  He was in the hospital for two days straight and most of that time was spent with you monitoring his health. His determination to become a top hero and his snarky charisma allow you two to immediately have a connection. After he was discharged, he still kept in contact with you and now he could consider you one of his closest friends. Till this day, he is forever grateful for you helping him, but these days teasing you seems more fun to him.

The man was now gliding alongside you, clearly mocking your lack of speed.

"Why am I not surprised?" He chuckled, eyeing you.

You sent him a stern glare. Unfortunately, you could not argue with him and run at the same time without losing your breath.

"You know, sweetheart, the train is about to leave in a minute, and unless you just gained a speed quirk, chances are you're not going to make it," he teased.

You held your tongue at his words. When you first told him you didn’t have a quirk, he thought you were joking and laughed in your face. Needless to say, you weren’t too happy about that. So whenever he sees the chance, he always enjoys pointing it out.

Hawks continued to fly beside you, now sighing and crossing his arms behind his head.

"Only if you knew someone who could get you to the hospital in time." He groaned.

He raised his eyebrow at you. You knew what he was trying to imply. Your stomach immediately started to do flips at the thought of it. You hated heights and Hawks knew this about you. But he also knows about how much your work matters to you.

You eyed your watch on your wrist, already you were ten minutes late. You glanced down to see Hawks’ red feathers tying your shoelaces. You finally stopped running and stood trying to catch your breath.  You ignored the rational thoughts in your head and returned back to glare at Hawks.

"I swear Hawks if you do anything funny." You sneered at him.

His face immediately lit up with glee and a smirk spread across his face.

"Trust me _____. It will be like floating on a cloud. " He reassured you by putting his hand on his heart.

"Just don’t throw up on me again." He hushed quickly. 

Before you even had time to swear at him, he whooshed behind you and lifted you up in his arms. You immediately let out a squeak in fear, earning a laugh from Hawks. Your hands gripped his neck and your body tensed up as you both started to rise to the sky. You both were now above the skyscrapers and the whole city seemed so small. It was truly breath taking and you wondered if Hawks ever just spent his days looking down at the city.  

You cast a quick glance down at the people who had turned into ants. Your stomach dropped and you turned your face into hawks’ chest for the rest of the journey to avoid throwing up.

"You can look up now doll."

You cranked your head to see if Hawks was telling the truth. You were relieved to see that his feet were touching the ground. He had landed on the hospital roof, a perfect spot.

"Nice landing" you jerked at him.

"You’re welcome Miss." He said, rolling his eyes.

You hopped out of his arms and stood attempting to fix yourself up before you entered the hospital. You could tell the wind messed up your hair quite a bit.

"You look fine ____."

Now you were the one to roll your eyes. Last time he said that you walked into your meeting with your lipstick smeared across your face.

"Shouldn’t you have been helping save your colleagues from that villain attack?"

"Had to make sure my _____ was safe first." Hawks was always skilled at avoiding questions he didn’t want to answer. You chalked it up to his media training.

You made your way to the door leading down to the hospital as soon as you felt you had put yourself together decently. Hawks' mouth dropped at your actions. He flew to block the door to prevent you from leaving.

"Nothing else you want to say?" He pestered at you. "No thank you, hawks or hawks; you are my hero; you are incredible?"

He really made a poor impression of you.

"Thank you, Hawks. Now shove it. " You snapped thinking of the time you are wasting with him up here. Your words, however, did not convince the young hero.

"How about takeaway and a movie at your place?" He questioned.

"Did you just invite yourself over to my place?" You sneered at him; your arms now crossed.

"Is it a deal?" He spoke. You were beginning to realise that there was no way hawks was going to let you though unless you said yes. You both haven’t done anything together in a while, you thought to yourself.

"Deal." You nodded.

Hawks’ feathers fluttered and he busted into a sing-song voice.

"Perfect! I’ll buy the food and you can pick the movie. Bye _____! " He yelled, tossing himself over the building as he flew away into the clouds.

Your mouth dropped at how he was able to make you agree to invite him over to your house within a minute. You sighed, rolling your eyes as you pushed the door open to enter the hospital.

As you entered your unit of the hospital, your boss was stood there waiting for you and your co-workers busily hurrying around.

"Look who finally decided to turn up."

You did your best not to glare at him.  You apologised profusely about being late to him and how it wouldn’t happen again.

"I heard she was seen with her boyfriend Hawks" A staff member piped up with a sneer.

You cringed at her words and her attempt to cause drama in front of your boss. Hawks is many things, but your boyfriend is definitely not one of them. 

"He is not my boyfriend. He was helping me to work. " You defended yourself. 

"I don’t want to hear anymore of the bird boy. Get working now _____. " Your boss yelled. 

You gave a low nod and immediately jumped into work, making your way over to your first patient.

 _______________________________________________________________

When you actually finished with the last patient, you had no idea what time it was. You gathered your belongings and exited the building, only to find the city engulfed in darkness. You sighed, your shoulders heavy from fatigue. The thought of a relaxing bath and a comfortable bed appealed to you. You checked your phone to find that the train station had closed long ago. Your eyes darted across the street for a taxi, but you had no luck. Walking it was, you thought.

You tried your best to stick to bright lit areas of the city. It was one of the disadvantages of being quirkless, you were practically defenceless. If a villain wanted to kill you, they would have no problem with doing it. That is why you prefer to work behind the scenes helping the heroes rather than being at the front of the violence.

Your walking stopped as you reached an alleyway. You debated or not if you should enter it. If you stuck to the bright areas, you wouldn’t reach your apartment for another fifteen minutes. However, if you went down this dark alleyway it would only take you five minutes. You stood listening for any noise to indicate if there was anyone down the dark path. After standing in silence, you made the decision to chance it. You took a breath and made your way down the narrow street.

All was well and you finally started to calm down as you walked. You thought of what leftovers you had in your fridge to eat when you heard the noise of glass breaking behind you. Your blood turned to ice as your body froze into place. When you looked to the source of the racket, a single drop of sweat ran down your brow.

A man with his head hanging low sat beside one of the big trash bins. You quickly realised the man wasn't all there when he didn't acknowledge you as you walked by. Your brain was screaming at you to keep walking. Your heart and morals, on the other hand, told you to check on the man's safety. You bit your lower lip, carefully weighing your options. Your morals came out on top.

"Sir?" you asked.

You were met with silence since the man did not respond. As you got closer, it became clear that the man was in pain. When you were within arm’s reach, you cautiously put your hand on the individual's neck to check for a pulse. Fortunately, it was at a consistent rate. You now knelt beside him. You tapped his shoulder lightly. Finally, the man let out a groan. You breathed a sigh of relief.

You gently pushed his head back, allowing you to see his face in the moonlight. You immediately noticed the faulty stitching and staples all around his face and body. The damaged deep purpled skin contrasted sharply with his pale skin. His eyelids hung low, but the brightness of the moon resulted in the stranger opening his eyes halfway. You were almost in shock at his bright blue eyes as they stared into yours.

"Am I dreaming?" He mumbled painfully.

You shook your head as you examined his body.

"What is the problem sir?" You questioned.

He sent a sly grin at you. Your concern was able to amuse the man. His finger weakly pointed at his opposite arm. One of the stitches on his arm had obviously ripped open and blood was steadily pouring out and onto the dirty ground.

You stared at the wound for a moment and considered if he needed to be taken to the hospital.

Almost as if he were reading your mind, he said, "No hospitals."

You chose not to question him and began to act on your feet. You removed your bag from your back and pulled out your first aid kit and some tools you used at work. You began to place a thread into your incision needle and prepared the medical stapler for use.

You could sense his apprehensiveness as he eyed your needle.

"Trust me sir, I’m a doctor." You explained to him.

"You'd better cut the sir crap; you're making me feel like an old man." He laughed lightly,

Feeling like you were getting somewhere with him, you continued the conversation. 

"Do you have a name?" You asked, hoping to distract him from the pain about to happen.

The man had a slight hesitation as his name fell from his mouth.

"Dabi."

You placed some hydrogen peroxide onto a cotton ball as you continued to talk to him.

"You have a lovely name, Dabi."

"I bet you say that to all your patients."

You smiled at his words and you placed the cotton on his wound. He immediately tensed up and hissed in pain as the alcohol did its job.

"I can promise you I don’t, Dabi." His name fell off your lips with such ease.

After you felt the wound was disinfected, you grabbed the needle and began to stitch his skin together. Dabi was now sat up straight admiring your concentration with the needle. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared for him like this.

"Did you get caught up in that villain attack this morning? “You asked him.

Dabi's mouth turned into a smirk, "I guess you can say I was."

"I bet it was scary," you said.

Dabi raised his eyebrow at you. "Do I look like the sort of person who gets scared?"

You took your attention from his wound and looked at his unamused face. You giggled slightly at his expression.

"You can tell me. I promise I won’t tell anyone. " You teased him.

He chuckled at your humour. You really did do a good job at distracting him from the pain.

"Those villains are pieces of shit, aren’t they?" He said, hoping for your opinion.

As you took the stapler in your hand, you moved on to the staples of the wound.

"Hmm, I don’t know if I would say that." You mentioned focusing on placing the stapler in the right position on his skin.

"What? You side with the League of Villains? " Dabi pried at you, staring at you with interest.

"Not exactly." You explained, "I believe a lot of the villains didn’t exactly have a choice of which side they wanted to be on. Also, working with Heroes, you begin to see that quirks determine what society thinks of you. If you don’t have a quirk, then you must be useless. If you have a dangerous quirk, then you are destined to be a villain. I find it all very frustrating if I am honest. "

Dabi listened intently to your rambling. It was nice to see someone agree with some of his opinions. You were obviously very intelligent. As you continued to work on his arm, he made note of your face and its beauty.

As you had just finished the last staple, you asked him, "Did you patch your skin up yourself?"

"Yeah, I did. I prefer to do it my own way because the majority of my skin is brunt to a crisp.” He explained.

"You have a fire quirk?"

He nodded as your eyes moved across his body to look at his skin. Your eyes finally meet his face. Without even thinking, you reached your hand out to cup in check and brushed your thumb along the staples in his face.

Dabi let out a small gasp. It had been a while since someone had touched him. You finally realised what you did and immediately yanked your hand away from him and stood up, hoping he wouldn’t see you blush in embarrassment.

"I’m really sorry Dabi" you said, putting your face in your hand, "I’ve just never seen anyone with a fire quirk like this."

He smiled at your embarrassment.

"Don’t worry. There is no need to be sorry. I didn’t mind it. " He reassured you.

You sighed and reached a hand out to help him up off the ground.

As he towered over your frame, you suddenly realised how tall he was in comparison to you. As soon as you realised your work was done, you let his hand out of yours.

"Well Dabi" you said, "I guess I better be heading home."

"Thank you" was all he said.

While your arms hugged you around your stomach, his deep blue gaze on you made you feel even more insecure.

"Are you going to be okay?" You asked him.

A small smile was on his face.

"Don’t worry about me."

You nodded to let him know you understood.

"Then I better go." You said, turning away from him.

Before Dabi could open his mouth to say anything to you, a black car drove into the alleyway with a large honk of its horn.  The tinted window rolled down the slightest bit and a voice called out Dabi’s name.

"That’s my ride," Dabi explained.

He didn't want to abandon you in the dark, but he also knew that you getting into the car would be impossible.

"Well take care Dabi", You said your last words and turned the corner away from him and the car.

You knew that it wouldn’t have been a good idea if you stayed any longer. You did your duty and left without anything else occurring. You had visions of the man’s blue eyes and face. You could tell from his body and face he was probably conventionally attractive before his burn scars. You ignored the flutters you had in your stomach as you took the stairs up to your apartment floor.

After entering the code to your apartment, you quickly tossed your bag to the floor and threw your jacket off. You sighed with relief to finally be home alone. Peace and quiet was the thing you needed after your long day.

"Finally home sweetheart?"

When you saw the man behind you holding a plate of takeaway sushi, you shrieked and nearly fell to the floor in shock.

"Hawks you little-!"

________________________________________________________________

Dabi threw up his hands in frustration as he approached the LOV's hideout. He completely forgot to ask for your name. After you had taken care of his injuries, the very least he could do was ask for your name.

He sighed and sat on the grimy couch. His thoughts returned to the events of your and his meeting. He was still bewildered that you chose to help a random stranger in the dark. Dabi knew that if it hadn't been for you, he would have bled out until he passed out and died. His fingertips traced the stitching on his arm that you had done. It was noticeably better done than his own work.

"What are you smiling about?" Toga spoke up, breaking Dabi of his thoughts.

His face immediately dropped, and he muttered a nothing. Toga shrugged off his reply and reached for the TV remote. The sound of the TV made Dabi’s head throb, so he stood up and headed out of the room to find somewhere more peaceful to rest for the night.

"What was the situation like in the hospital tonight Doctor?" the interviewer asked.

"Well, I would personally like to thank the heroes who were able to transport the citizens and other heroes who were harmed in the attack to the hospital so quickly."

The sound of your voice echoing throughout the room made Dabi freeze in place. He turned around to face the TV and ordered Toga to turn up the volume.

Dabi barely heard your voice as he continued to stare in a trance at your lovely face.

"We would like to thank you and your unit for all your help today. We are all grateful. " The interview told you.

You nodded and smiled at the camera as you wished everyone well.

Your name suddenly appeared at the bottom of the screen.

"Doctor _____ ______"

Dabi's face lit up with a big grin, and he couldn't help but laugh. He figured it wouldn't be that difficult to find you after all.

#bnha #bnha smut #bnha imagine #hawks #dabi #yandere dabi #yandere hawks #hawks x reader #dabi x reader #hawks x reader x dabi #yandere #hawks smut #dabi smut #stalker #stalker dabi #dabi is a huge creep #anime #anime smut #dabi edit #mha #mha smut #tw dubcon #mha x reader #bnha x reader #yandere mha #smut #tw noncon #yandere touya #bnha headcanons #yandere imagines

[pmeofficial]

The Sixteen Deadliest Tik Tok challenges Ever (DailyDot)

So, it’s not everyday a social media platform run by Chinese people and designed to basically duplicate snap chat, except video only, becomes popular, in fact tik tok is so popular, that it has millions of users, well,  TikTok has 689 million monthly active users, whereas its twin Douyin (China’s version of TikTok) has 600 million daily active users. Combined, the TikTok/Douyin apps have over 1.29 billion monthly active users in 141 countries. Still, dumb, clout chasing teenagers have claimed this beloved social media sensation for themselves, however, clout is deadly, literally, people die from TikTok challenges, but hey, don’t take our word for it, check out the 16 dealiest tikrok challenges, with a 101% chance of decimating the insurance you wasted on your kids

The choking challenge Anything that involves choking a friend—or yourself—into near-unconsciousness is, unsurprisingly, ill-advised. Considering this is the very idea behind the choking challenge, it’s safe to say that anyone and everyone should steer clear of this particular trend.

This challenge, in one form or another, has been around for a long time. Teens have been partially strangling themselves for decades, just to feel the brief euphoria that follows that first, desperate gasp of air. The game ebbs and flows in terms of popularity but reached its viral zenith in 2017. Since then, the dangerous challenge has cropped up on various social media platforms, including TikTok. Risks of participating in the choking challenge are pretty much what you’d expect. Do it too long, and participants risk loss of brain cells, permanent brain damage and even death.

The condom challenge Another challenge that can lead to asphyxiation, the condom challenge hasn’t been around nearly as long as the choking game. This dangerous TikTok challenge requires a condom, some water, and at least two willing participants.

Performing the challenge is simple: One person fills the condom with water and drops it over the second person’s head. Thanks to the durability of most condoms, the dropped water “balloon” rarely pops. This means that many people participating in this challenge end up with an airtight seal over their noses and mouths. Bad idea.

The fire challenge You might be wondering why anyone would ever participate in something called the fire challenge. Clearly, you don’t remember being a teenager. Most common among younger users, the fire challenge is exactly as dangerous as it sounds—which has in no way stopped people from attempting it.

Performing the challenge is as simple and foolish as you might assume. Participants douse a portion of their body—usually the chest or hands—with a flammable liquid. Then they light it up and record the effects, which often lead to first- or second-degree burns. Videos of badly burned teenagers are all over the web thanks to this particular viral challenge.

The skullbreaker challenge The skullbreaker challenge is another fresh viral craze that, to most, seems completely ridiculous. The challenge has already proven itself immensely dangerous after a Venezuelan teen reportedly ended up in the ICU. Authorities have issued warnings about this particular trend, but that won’t stop some from attempting it.

You need at least three people to perform the skullbreaker challenge. All three stand in a row—in front of the camera, of course—and jump. The two on either side jump first, simultaneously, followed by the person in the center. When the center person’s feet leave the ground, however, their companions knock their feet out from under them. This typically leads to the middle person crashing backward to the ground, often striking their head in the process. It’s in the name, people: You can literally break your skull doing this. So don’t.

The outlet challenge One of social media’s newest trends, the outlet challenge is also one of the more dangerous TikTok challenges we’ve seen. This viral sensation can easily result in electrical system damage, fires, and electric shock.

To perform the—extremely inadvisable—outlet challenge, people use a phone charger partially plugged into the wall. Then they touch a penny to the exposed prongs, creating a large spark. The challenge has already caused property damage at a high school in Massachusetts. Thankfully, the teens weren’t injured, but if this challenge keeps up for much longer, someone will doubtless get hurt.

The hot water challenge Another dangerous challenge that can lead to severe burns and injury, the hot water challenge has been around for a while. Back in 2017, in fact, an 8-year-old girl died after attempting a version of this trend. The new version, which is just as dangerous, has been cropping up online.

The old version of the challenge involved drinking boiling water through a straw. The revamped challenge more often features participants pouring boiling water on themselves or their friends. Unsurprisingly, it has led to some serious injuries. One teen, whose friend poured boiling water on him while he slept, told Fox 59 that his skin “just fell off my chest.”

The snorting challenge Some of these challenges are supremely dangerous. Others are upsettingly disgusting. The snorting challenge has the unfortunate privilege of being both. It involves snorting a foreign object—usually a condom—up your nose and pulling it out of your mouth. *shudder*

This dangerous TikTok challenge, like many others on this list, is nothing new. It has cropped up multiple times over the last few decades, but in the age of doing dumb shit for followers, it has reemerged. When this challenge goes wrong, it can result in infection or damage to the lining of the nasal passage, CBS News reported. In really bad cases, it has the potential for choking, which could cause far more severe issues. Even when nothing goes wrong, it looks painful and extremely uncomfortable, so… why?

Ghost pepper challenge If you’re a big fan of hot food, the ghost pepper challenge—also called the hot pepper challenge—might be right up your alley. Blessedly less dangerous than many of its fellows, the ghost pepper challenge has nonetheless resulted in some major side effects among its participants.

Participation in this challenge merely requires that you locate and consume a hot pepper that lands high on the Scoville scale and upload your reaction online. Usually, people select between ghost, cayenne, and habanero peppers. The majority of people manage to walk away from this challenge unscathed, thankfully, but ghost peppers are nothing to mess with. Medical Daily reported in 2016 that a 47-year-old California man was hospitalized after he ate a ghost pepper–pureed hamburger during a local eating contest and ended up continuously vomiting and experiencing an esophageal rupture.

Pass out challenge Anytime a person passes out, it has the potential for negative side effects. Teens, however, are all over the trend of forcing themselves to pass out. Rather than partially asphyxiate themselves—like in the choking challenge—this dangerous TikTok challenge just involves swaying your head repeatedly from side to side.

Based on the TikTok attempts at the challenge, it seems to work. Unfortunately, a number of risks go along with successfully knocking yourself out—including simply falling and injuring yourself.

Concussion challenge Doesn’t this just sound like a great idea? The concussion challenge, also referred to as the “how to get a concussion” challenge, has been making the rounds on TikTok for several months now.

This utterly idiotic TikTok challenge requires a group. All the participants stand in a circle around the camera, which faces upward. Facing down, foolish teens then throw an object—which has ranged from a basketball to tricycles and ladders—into the air above their heads. The “challenge” is to stay put, risking a concussion when the object comes hurtling back to Earth. Why? Just… why?

The honorable mentions of dangerous challenges: These challenges came around before TikTok made its global launch, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous or worthy of a spot on this list. Absolutely idiotic, sometimes deadly and always painful, the internet is clogged with far too many of these viral challenges.

The Tide Pod challenge We’ve likely all heard of the Tide Pod challenge. It swept the nation in early 2018, making headlines across the country. In case you were wondering, consuming soap in any form, no matter how colorful, is not a good idea. Complications from ingesting Tide Pods has led to serious health issues.

The Tide Pod challenge, as far as anyone can tell, started with a joke. Memes and jests about Tide Pods’ pretty colors and candy-like appeal were around long before people were downing the product itself. Then, people started doing just that. Younger YouTube users, in particular, fell victim to this ill-advised trend. Videos of teens and pre-teens eating laundry detergent packets briefly drenched the web before the pressing dangers of this challenge became common knowledge.

The blue whale challenge Despite the clear danger, a few of the challenges on this list might seem tempting to try out. The blue whale challenge, which has allegedly been linked to deaths on far too many occasions, is not one of them. The actual number of deaths that can be attributed to this viral trend is questionable—some speculate it’s simply an internet hoax—but its brief time in the spotlight terrified parents nationwide.

The blue whale challenge is, to put it simply, a suicide challenge. Participants are given 50 tasks to complete over 50 days. The tasks, which begin as rather benign, gradually increase in danger. To complete the challenge, anyone taking part must ultimately kill themselves. Similar challenges have cropped up over the years, but few garnered as much attention as the blue whale challenge.

The Kylie lip challenge Loads of online tutorials outline methods to mimic Kylie Jenner’s enviable look. Usually, this involves contouring and the careful application of makeup. Back in 2015, however, a very different method arose to try to imitate the young model’s full lips.

The Kylie lip challenge skyrocketed to popularity, mostly thanks to how easy it was to pull off. All participants needed was a small jar, cup, or shot glass. Placing the cup over their lips, they then created a vacuum by sucking all of the air out of the space. The intended result was puffy, pouty lips similar to Jenner’s. More commonly, people ended up with bruises and torn skin and risked permanent scarring.

The cinnamon challenge Remember planking? Ah what an innocent, mostly safe internet trend. Since the days of planking, viral challenges have gone from dumb to painful to dangerous and worse. The cinnamon challenge may seem rather tame on the outside, but don’t be fooled.

Cinnamon challenge TheButtingHeads/YouTube This challenge first cropped up as early as 2001, but it didn’t reach viral status until 2012. The necessary steps are quite simple. Just eat a spoonful of cinnamon without drinking water. In 60 seconds. All while the camera is running. This challenge lasted a remarkably long time, considering the massive health risks it posed. Participants in the cinnamon challenge were at risk of choking and gagging on the cinnamon in mild cases, and in worse cases inhaling cinnamon could lead to vomiting and scarring of the lungs.

The salt and ice challenge Thankfully, the salt and ice challenge hasn’t been overly popular since 2012. Still, fresh videos of people trying it out are always cropping up, despite multiple reports condemning the practice.

This challenge involves pouring salt onto moist, bare skin and then pressing an ice cube onto the area. Whoever endures the longest emerges victorious, but rarely unscathed. The resulting chemical reaction can lead to frostbite, first- or second-degree burns, and painful blisters. Warnings against participating in this painful challenge have, unsurprisingly, not made much of a difference.

#pain #suffering #dumb #dumb shit #dumb stuff #danger #tiktok #prettymucheverything

[leviackermanheichooo]

Chapter 119 { one shot} @thedeadre on Wattpad

It was late. Too late. By now, you and Atsumu were supposed to be IN the car DRVING to your parent's house. But no, you were still in the living room waiting for him to hurry his slow ass up. And to think, he thought YOU were going to take a long time.

Well, you actually did take a long time but it doesn't prove his point when he's taking even longer than you.

You checked your watch angrily again. " Tsumie! we're going to be late if you don't hurry it up!"

" I know, but I can't find my tie!" He yelled from your shared bedroom. What a messy boyfriend he was.

Your eyebrow twitched. " THAT'S WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?! IT'S RIGHT HERE ON THE COFFEE TABLE SO GET THAT AND YOUR ASS IN THE CAR NOW!"

You weren't overreacting. This was an important dinner  with your parents and you could n o t afford to miss it. It was about the family business being taken over and impunctuality was not allowed.

You see, poor Atsumu was definitely not raised nor built for such an economic person such as yourself, but he really couldn't stop himself from falling in love. And just like him, you weren't raised nor built for such a carefree person such as him, but he was north pole, and you were south.

The first meeting was weird, too.

Although you weren't the first born child, your parents saw an unwavering fire in your eyes that secured success like a vault, and so they decided you would be the heiress to the family business. Before meeting this blondie, you were ecstatic about the position.  You had spent your entire life proving your worth and it would finally pay off.

However, your parents wanted to expand a little bit more before they handed the business to you. Particularly, into sports.

They had arranged a meeting in which they would sponsor some volleyball teams such as the MSBY Black Jackals and well.... that was when you first layed eyes on him. Or rather, met his gaze as it was already on you.

The first thing he did when your eyes met was make the ugliest, goofiest gorilla face ever, and you laughed.

In the middle of the meeting. You laughed.

Dear god, was all you could think of once you realized what you'd done. You apologized immensely and the meeting continued. Long story short, he somehow managed to slip in his number into your pocket once you left.

And despite relationships being forbidden unless arranged by your parents, you couldn't stop yourself from seeing him.

At one point, your family found out but you had already fallen under his spell, ready to give up the business if you could be with him.

However, it was very unlucky for your parents because they had no other choice than  to except your love. Why? Because the other possible heir, your dear brother Carl, has been in jail for drug dealing and fraud.

You were the only one they had left.

And today, you and Atsumu were supposed to be talking with your parents about the future of the business and the future of your relationship.

You were already in the car as he shuffled his way inside. He stretched his arm behind your chair and looked back as he backed out of the drive way, something you found extremely alluring. But that's not going to distract you from the task at hand.

" Sorry, Y/n." He said kindly. This was a surprise, and he actually sounded very apologetic.

" Why are you saying sorry?"

" Eh, I made us late, right?"

" Well, " You glanced at your watch to find a silver lining, " not entirely. If you drive a little faster we can get there with, like, three minutes to spare."

His eyes sparkled. " Seriously?! WooHOO!"

You were about to warn him to not take you so literal but he had already sped up by then. With one glance, it was obvious he was going at least fifteen over.

---

"Five minutes extra, let's go!" He victoriously raised his arms as you fixed your hair from the fast ride.

" I am never letting you drive again." You mumbled under your breath.

Hilariously, his mood suddenly changed once he realized he was at your parents' house. " Damn it, I forgot how rich you guys were."

" It's okay, " You chuckled at his cuteness as you walked to the front door, " you'll fit right in as long as you don't act like a bitch."

" H-Hey!"

That was definitely something he loved about you. You weren't afraid to speak your mind and you knew how to make it humorous, too.

He walked up with you and nervously adjusted his tie. " I feel like I'm meeting them for the first time again, babe."

" You'll do great, I swear. And if they make you leave then I'm coming with you."

The door opened. " Aww that's so sweet."

" Even if it probably was your fault for getting kicked out."

He gawked at you as you walked ahead of him, and only at that point did he notice the back of your dress. It was a low cut that exposed the line of your spine. Oh fuck, yet another obstacle he might have to avoid.

In a good way, of course(:

He arrived right behind you and immediately made eye contact with your awaiting parents' stone faces.

He placed a sheepish smile on while awkwardly waving his hand. "Hi."

Your father hesitated skeptically. " Hello...Atsumu."

" Alright, let's get on with the business then." You interjected between the sensitive mood and briskly walked to the dinner table, sitting at the extremity of the table.

---

"And so that's all." Your father joined his hands together as he leaned forward, dismissing the finished topic.

" If everything's been settled, and the business is officially under my name, then Tsumie and I will be on our-"

" No, no, stay. " Your mother kindly interrupted with a half smile. " Columbia's almost finished desert for us. It's just in the oven."

You visibly clenched your jaw in anger. " Mother, please, it's Maurice. Use his real name."

" And why am I obligated to do that?"

" Because he's a real person." You irately  referenced to the way your mother addressed the workers in the home. This was one of this biggest reasons you left the house as soon as possible.

She wouldn't call the maids or butlers or chefs by their first or last names, but the country they were born in. As a child, you did so as well not knowing how wrong that was. But you quickly realized the proper way to treat human beings even if she disapproved.

A terrible family you were born into no matter how wealthy.

She laughed as a stereotypical elite would. " Nonsense! Columbia's just fine with that, right?" She glanced towards the tall old man in the tuxedo menacingly and he quietly nodded yes.

You gave him a sympathetic look. You knew he was being forced to say yes.

Don't worry, Maurice! You can come with me once I overthrow my parents!

" Now, now, while we're waiting for the food, why don't we talk about you, Atsumu honey." She sweetly suggested. He had been quite quiet this entire time in fear he would mess up something he said. That just goes to show how much he loves you; the old Atsumu Miya would never give two shits about how people viewed him.

" Oh, I'm not that interesting..."

" Nonsense, sweetheart! Of course you are if you're dating our Y/n. So tell me, what is it again you do for a living?"

" He's plays professional volleyball for the MSBY Black Jackals. No more questions." You knew where this was going and needed to shut it down real quick.

" Don't interrupt other peoples' conversations, Y/n. We've taught you better than that." Your father stated flatly.

" Thank you, dear. So what is it like playing for the Jackals? If I remember correctly, we've sponsored you guys a few times."

" Well volleyball is definitely the second best thing I've ever devoted my life to. No doubt about it."

" Second that you've devoted your life to? What would be the first then?"

" Y/n." He responded instantly. You jolted your head towards the man flustered but his stare was directly at your snake-like mother, never wavering. He was determined to show them he was worthy, and you could see it right down to his pupils.

" Aww, that's so sweet. Isn't it, dear?" He looked  towards her husband and he nodded sarcastically. " Oh, I remember when F/n and I were in love. For our first date, he brought me to a 5 star Michelin restaurant. Where did you bring Y/n on your first date, Atsumu?"

" Mother, sto-"

" An aquarium in my hometown. " He responded confidently. " She loves sea animals, and I would take her there everyday just to see the sparkle in her eyes."

" I see, so you need to bring her somewhere for her eyes to sparkle? How negligent of your actual relationship."

Shit! Her Bitchass™ Mode is on.

" Mom, I already-"

" Really? Cause her eyes were duller than your personality when I first saw her. Seems pretty negligent of your actual relationship to me."

Your mother angrily arose out of her seat. " How dare you say that to me in my home!"

Atsumu, as well, angrily jumped from his chair. " How dare you treat Y/n like she's just a money-making machine for when you die off!"

" That's because she is! And she should be grateful she's such a privileged heiress to such an astute business! Without us, she would be nothing, like her brother!"

" Without you two, she would've grown up happy!"

" SHUT UP!" You screamed suddenly. You couldn't take yelling. That was the one thing you were sensitive about.

" Y/n..." They said in unison.

You slowly stood from your seat, your head hanging low. " Tsumie, we're leaving. Now."

Upon trying to leave without conflict, your parents (well, your mother) attempted to stop you at the door.

She put a bony hand on your shoulder. " Y/n, th-"

You slapped her hand off your shoulder with a strike. " Don't talk to me or Atsumu ever again. I came here for a purpose and it was fulfilled, so under no circumstances will we be seeing each other anymore."

" Oh don't say that, sweetheart! Of course we'll see each other in the office from time to time!"

You gave her a glare before pulling out your phone and dialing a number.

" Martine? Are you there?" You asked the company lawyer with an aggravated fixed expression.

" I am. Is this Y/n-sama?"

" It is. For my first order as the current CEO of the corporation, I order an immediate prohibition and ban of entrance on Mr. and Mrs. L/n." You were looking directly into your parents' eyes as you exiled them.

" You...." she looked at you in disbelief, "...you didn't...YOU BITCH!"

She was about to swing at you but you caught her furious fist.

" F-F/n...she...she grabbed it...my hand, she grabbed it..."

" What did you expect, M/n." Your father responded from a chair, a cigar in his mouth. " When the girl grows up with her mother hitting her the same way, she get's used to it. And then you become predictable enough to be stopped."

" N-No...."

You threw her fist down in disgust and exited the house with the blonde. This was a whole new side of you he's never seen before, and to be honest, he was totally living for it. Not the traumatic part of course, but the fiery side of you that never gave up.

He watched as you took a breath of prideful breath of relief once you entered the car.

" Felt good, didn't it?" He said with a cute boyfriend smile as the car stopped in the driveway.

You bit your lip joyously, your eyes sparkling. " Yeah."

" You know what else would feel good?"

You weren't fast enough to reply as suddenly your seat fell backwards, leaving you on your back and a hovering Atsumu smirking down at you like a predator. The street lights illuminated his face perfectly and accentuated his dark, honey voice.

" Tell me." You cooed lightly, feeling your breath become unsteady with anticipation.

" I'll do better than that. " He kept eye contact as he lowered towards your open legs. " I'll show you."

---

With every rock of the car he sped up. You felt like his thrusts were a mixture of lust and the anger he held for your parents, but you were loving it either way. It was when he was rough and let his feelings take over that you loved about sex.

"Ah~" He groaned out heavily. Once again picking up the pace and becoming sloppier.

You grabbed the passenger bar for support because by now, your entire body had given out but his hadn't. Must be an athlete's stamina. And you know, you wouldn't be surprised if the seat was broken after all this.

One of your hands were tangled into his now disheveled hair as he dropped in swiftly, wrapping your lips in his warmth with his own. He immediately shoved his tongue into your mouth and vibrantly scrutinized the area.

Despite knowing it well, there was always something new to explore.

He viscously bit your lip as his hips repeatedly rocked into yours hard. His muscles twitched with every movement he tried.

" I'm never leaving you, babe~" He let out sweetly, though you weren't quite comprehending that properly since you were currently seeing stars.

He gripped your thighs with extreme might at once and pulled out, coming on your stomach. And because he typically fucks you on a surface where he can flop down on right beside you, he did so....but you were in a single seat, so it's more like he flopped right onto the floor of the car.

You looked over the seat as he was face down on the ground and laughed. " If you wanted me to peg you that bad you could've said something. No need to be dramatic."

#ff #fanfiction #Atsumu #Wattpad #Lemon #Some smut #Business #One shot #Chapter

[archadianskies]

40. “I never stood a chance, did I?” for nines/simon? >:3c

→ on Ao3

The truth of the matter is: he has a knack for bringing people together. Even before the revolution, people tended to gravitate to him for no discernible reason other than perhaps his harmless demeanour. PL600s were designed to look soft and friendly and open, purposefully non-confrontational and gentle for raising children.

With no human family to look after, Simon had registered the Jericho deviants as his family unit and cared for them as best he could. So zealous was he in his desperation to play house that he prevented anything from happening to them, bad and good. It took Markus falling into their lives for him to learn to let go, to take risks for the good of his family.

Six months feels like a lifetime ago, and with the snow thawing and the life starting to bud and bloom, Simon feels like that dark tumultuous chapter can finally be closed. He’s a new person, a living sentient being recognised by the law. There’s, as always, much to do in terms of rights and laws and social challenges but it also feels like there’s enough normality to slow the breakneck speed into a more manageable pace. So he does what he does best: he brings people together.

It starts simple, it starts with one close to him: North. She burns with such determination, such fire, and what fleeting fascination she held for Markus passes after the revolution. She is, like Simon, prone to giving her hearts to anyone who shows a scrap of kindness. It’s a weakness, but a strength too, Simon thinks, to love so readily. When they meet with Elijah Kamski for the first time, when they see their creator face to face he looks not at the human but at the android, at the First of their kind. Chloe RT600 is almost eighteen years old, older than all of them, and she stands there with equal measure of grace and power. There’s something enigmatic about her, as though immense strength simmers beneath her lovely skin, and that’s when he decides she must get to know North.

North falls, of course she falls, hard and fast and endearingly earnest. Chloe is all sweet smiles and coquettish demeanour but North sees the fire too, sees how eighteen years of answering to no one has led her to become the most powerful android ever to be underestimated. The Jericho Four return CyberLife to the hands of Elijah Kamski, who in turn hands it to the one who should’ve held it all along: Chloe.

Seeing North so in love brings him great joy, and really in the end that’s all he wants: for those he loves to feel joy and in return he can leech such happiness too, like basking in the glow of the sun. Next is his brother Daniel, granted a second chance with the passing of the Sentient Life Act that not only recognised all androids as living, sentient beings, but also wiped clean any and all crimes committed before the 1st of December 2038.

That’s not to say it’s been easy for Daniel, but Simon had been there at his reactivation, and so had Connor. It had been a lightbulb moment for Simon, seeing the concern creasing Connor’s brow, that quiet desperation to be forgiven though no forgiveness was required; androids cannot be held accountable for their actions before deviation, when humans still pulled their strings. Connor had nothing to atone for, but he still longed to do it, to introduce the real him to Daniel, for Daniel to know the real him and not the Android sent by CyberLife that lied. It had been a simple matter of giving them time with each other, of quietly encouraging Daniel’s endeavours to reintegrate.

Danny gets a job as a baker in Greektown, tucked away in the kitchen with the ovens and the doughs, away from the prying eyes of humans and androids alike. Simon encourages him to be open to friendship, and he encourages Connor to persevere, to never give up on Daniel and he doesn’t, and Simon is rewarded with the privilege of seeing them fall in love. It’s a beautiful thing, to see his brother once so closed off to everyone, lashing out at any outstretched hand, now reaching out to tangle his fingers with Connor’s. 

He’s not sure about Josh, not yet. And then there’s Markus, of course, but he’s too selfish to matchmake Markus, he’s not ready to sever his pining, his longing for Markus. So he turns to the other Manfred, to Leo Manfred now clean and finished with rehab, slowly recovering and coming into his own. He loves him dearly, treasures him like a broken bowl he pieced together and sealed with gold, all the more beautiful, stronger, for having been broken and made whole again. Maybe that’s just how Simon is, maybe he just has bleeding hearts for broken people and that’s why Jericho happened the way it happened. 

Matchmaking Leo happens by accident, happens while Leo’s helping Simon out with menial household errands. Not that Simon needs help with menial household errands but he knows it’s more for the company, more for the friendship, than for the help. They’re out buying coffee beans and Tearium for the household when they run into Detective Gavin Reed whose immediate reaction is to open his mouth and out tumbles-

“You still gettin’ high as fuck Manfred or is this your rehab nannybot?” To which Leo’s resounding response is to ram his fist into the detective’s face. There’s a scuffle and Leo is a scrappy brawler, he hasn’t had any training like policemen have and so he’s pinned to the ground in no time and Simon’s trying to placate him, trying to diffuse the situation as Leo thrashes, enraged.

“His name is Simon you fuckin’ asshole! That’s Simon of the Jericho Four show some fucking respect! And I’ve been clean for months now! I’ve even got my 120 day chip around my neck!” 

“Sir, please don’t arrest him-” 

“Oh shit really?” Gavin releases him and Leo warily gets to his feet, still stepping in front of Simon protectively. 

“Yeah look.” He fishes out the small plastic token looped through with leather string. “Checked into rehab as soon as the docs gave me the all clear from my concussion.”

“Well look at you- wayward Manfred son, clean and off the streets.” Gavin whistles low, impressed, as he bends to swipe up the bag of groceries he’d dropped in the scuffle. He’s still looking at Leo even as he holds out the bag for Simon to take.

“I just needed someone to not treat me like a shitstain on their shoe. Funny how treating someone like a person helps them become a better person.” Leo rolls his eyes. They move on and that’s the end of that; Simon’s more than happy to put that moment behind him.

And then it’s a few days later and they’re bumping into Detective Gavin Reed at Starbucks. Leo digs out his phone.

“Hey, that raid you guys did on that abandoned urban farm was pretty cool.” He shows him some photos he’d taken. “I scoped out the place and got these shots.”

“You broke into a crime scene?” Gavin cocks a brow.

“Uh no obviously not, because you guys already finished rounding up the bad guys or whatever.”

“It’s still a crime scene when we’re not there, dipshit, until the case is closed.”

“Whatever.” Leo rolls his eyes. “Look, that fancy machine thing they made casts all this refracted light here at dusk.”

“...That’s kinda cool.” Gavin concedes and Leo perks up.

“Right?” He pockets his phone and digs out another item. “Here.” He places a small pink crystal into Gavin’s hand. “It’s failed red ice. The colour is pretty neat isn’t it? It looks pink but if you put it against a light source it refracts blue like thirium.”

“You’re giving me something you stole from the crime scene you broke into?” Gavin deadpans and Leo looks offended.

“Ok well I’ll take it back then!”

“No! You already gave it to me!” The detective scoffs, jamming it into his coat.

Simon turns his head to hide a smile. It’s not the match Simon had imagined for Leo, but it’s highly amusing. As Leo waits for their order, Simon stops Gavin before the detective can exit the cafe. He gives him the details of Leo’s upcoming photography exhibit on Friday night, and on Friday night there he is, Detective Gavin Reed with his hands jammed in his pockets looking a little out of place. Leo lights up and there’s Leo digging in his pocket and placing an iridescent feather into Gavin’s hand, like a magpie collecting trinkets. There’s Gavin rolling his eyes as if he’s being put upon, and yet he’s ever so careful as he tucks the feather into his coat. Another match made, another glowing sun to bask in. 

It’s a monumental undertaking, a game of politics and subterfuge to retrieve the RK900 from the arctic tundra. Designed in secret and deployed in silence, the upgrade to the RK800 prototype was smuggled out in all but name and stationed in the arctic to guard the thirium reserves from the Russians. It takes Chloe combing through all of CyberLife’s files, unearthing, unlocking, decrypting mounds of data to find whispers of a new android, the RK800 spliced with military capabilities. The government put in an order for 200,000 units but first the unit must prove itself capable before the order is put into production. The government denies the order, the previous CyberLife team deny the deployment and it takes the unrelenting pressure of the Jericho Four for an investigation to be opened. Connor does not rest now that he knows he has a brother out there, and it takes nearly all six months to bring him home.

Simon meets him by chance, passing by central station just as Connor and his brother are heading inside.

“Simon!” Connor greets cheerily, waving him over. The RK900 looms behind him, imposing and intimidating with steely grey eyes that seem to bore into his very positronic core. “This is Ronan, my brother. Ronan this is Simon.”

“Of the Jericho Four.” Ronan adds, offering his hand. His clipped British accent is a surprise, but it seems to suit the rather regal air about him. “An honour to meet you, Simon.”

He shakes his hand and he feels his hearts sink because he knows this is it. This is the match he will make for Markus, this is the one android who matches him, complements him in every way; a state of the art weapon, softened through deviancy into an Austen gentleman. 

“It’s wonderful to see you home with your brother.” Simon smiles though he aches inside because the android is handsome, oh so handsome; a sharper, older visage compared to his prototype and not out of place in a Vogue Homme photoshoot much like Markus. “And with our people.”

“With thanks to you and the efforts of the Four.” Ronan says with a grateful nod. “I am to be stationed here now, partnered with Detective Reed.”

“Oh, my condolences.” Simon teases airily and Connor laughs. “You should meet Markus. It was through his leadership that allowed us to fight for your right to be brought home.”

“I look forward to it, and to meeting North and Josh as well.”    

He doesn’t want to introduce them, he’s not ready to let Markus go but he must. The importance of his friends outweigh his own, of course. It’s not like Markus would ever be interested in him romantically anyway, and yet it still hurts. He suggests hosting a dinner at the Manfreds, and Gavin can come over and so can Hank and Simon will cook a three course meal for them. Carl provides the wine for the beef casserole, and another fine red for consumption. Markus receives a special order of flavoured Tearium, coded to match the taste of red wine. There’s still no way for them to eat, but as the two domestics in the Four, Markus helps Simon with the cooking and they pause to taste their creations to ensure it’s palatable for their guests.

There’s something tortuous about this, about knocking elbows gently at the sink, laughing and talking about their day, about the sheer domesticity of it all and being so close yet worlds apart. He loves him, he’s so very in love with him and now he must let him go. Now it’s time to match Markus with someone who deserves him, and bask in the glow to come. 

“Markus, this is my brother Ronan.” Connor introduces with a proud smile, and Simon watches as they shake hands and it’s like sealing both Markus’ fate and his. 

“Glad to finally meet you, Ronan. Welcome to Detroit, welcome home.” Markus smiles that charming smile and Ronan inclines his head politely. 

“May I take your coat?” Simon holds out his hands and Ronan’s smile is just as polite as he hands over the thick woolen item. 

“Thank you Simon. It’s good to see you, I hope you are well?” He stands aside so Hank and Connor can follow through.

“Busy as always but in a good way.” Simon hangs up the article on the rack. “An idle PL600 may as well be a dead one, so I mustn't be idle.”

“We are more than our programming.” Ronan frowns, and even that, Simon thinks, he does handsomely. 

“It’s a useful part of me, don’t worry.” Simon reassures, guiding him to the dining table. He sits him next to Markus, of course, and rounds the table to sit opposite him, beside Leo who’s already in deep discussion with Gavin. There’s a small smooth pebble by Gavin’s napkin; Leo’s latest trinket offering. It makes him smile, and he tucks away that little moment to carry him through the evening.

*~*~*

“Simon, are you able to drop these off at central station?” Josh’s expression is one of contrition. “I’m meeting Markus tonight, and clearing the admin backlog took way longer than I estimated.”

“Of course, don’t worry about it.” Simon takes the box from him and sets it carefully on the table. 

“You’re a lifesaver, thank you.” He leans over and gives him a quick hug. “Markus and I have been trying to escape to that new museum for weeks now but, you know how crazy it is.”

“I sure do.” He makes a shooing motion. “Go on, I’ll see these safely to the Andersons.”

“You’re the best, I mean it.”

“I know.” Simon winks as Josh laughs and makes his escape.

Central station is a familiar location for him now, and he’s grown accustomed to dropping off files and meeting with Lieutenant Hank Anderson and his sons. Without meaning to, he’s become the liaison for Jericho and the DPD, acting as the bridge to keep both parties in the loop with Detroit’s ever changing social climate. 

“Oh, Simon, here let me help you with that.” Ronan takes the box from his grasp and Simon offers him a grateful smile.

“Josh sends his apologies, he’s meeting with Markus tonight.” 

“An unexpected but not unwelcome surprise, then, to see you.” He says in that polished accent and Simon wonders if Markus finds it just as charming as he.

“Would you like me to lend a hand with these?” Simon follows him to his desk. “I haven’t looked inside but I’m hazarding a guess they’re parts from the warehouse raid.”

“Only if you wouldn’t mind? I don’t wish to keep you from any plans.”

“Oh Ronan.” Simon laughs good naturedly as he takes a seat. “I never have any plans, I’m a bit of a homebody.”

“Then I’d appreciate your help.”

By the time they finish examining, recording and registering each part it’s later than Simon expects. 

“Shall I walk you home to your apartment, Simon?” Ronan offers, fetching his coat from the back of his chair. 

“No, it’s alright I’ll call a cab. Bit too chilly for an old PL600 to be out and about.” Simon sighs, pressing a hand to his chest and the broken thermal regulator within. 

“Then I shall wait with you until it arrives.” And so they stand at the curb, shoulders nearly brushing. Simon sneaks him furtive glances and thinks yes, he must get him to spend more time with Markus. The love must grow naturally, must be nurtured like saplings in the Spring until it blossoms. 

*~*~*

He has a small tidy apartment in the reclaimed area by Jericho, but he hardly spends time there. Markus offered him the use of Carl’s sunroom, and it’s there Simon calls home. It’s airy and bright with state of the art heating and there’s something about the way the sunset makes the entire room fill with golden light. It’s tucked towards the back of the house and feels like a self contained abode, and in a way that too seems right- that he’s a part of Markus’ life, and apart too. It’s a soft Spring afternoon and he has the doors open to the backyard, letting the warm breeze in as he curls up on the couch. 

“Permission to pester?” Calls a voice from the door leading inside the house.

“Permission permanently granted to pester, Leo.” Simon smiles as the young man sets down a tray of mugs on the coffee table and plops down on the couch beside him. “How was your date last night?”

“Insufferable.” Leo groans, but there’s a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “He likes pineapple on pizza.”

“Oh a complete write-off.” Simon sighs dramatically as Leo tries and fails to stop a grin. 

“The fucker looked me right in the eye when ordering it, as if waiting for my reaction.” Leo wriggles closer and Simon pulls the knitted couch throw off the armrest and tucks it around them both. “I ordered onion rings and extra onions in my burger to piss him off.”

Simon laughs and Leo’s grin is achingly endearing and this, this is exactly why he does, why he tries to bring people together. Their happiness is as warm as the Spring breeze and just as pleasant to feel after the biting cold of Winter, the despair and desperation of the revolution. 

“Ronan’s coming over tonight, to work on that case with you guys.” Leo states curiously. “Do you like having him around? He’s kinda cool.”

“He’s a very capable, impressive android. A good headstrong man, able to keep up with Markus’ plans.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” Leo elbows him playfully. 

“Well I see a lot of him at the police department.” Simon tips his head thoughtfully. “I’m the liaison with the DPD so we work together often. He’s very kind.”

“I wouldn’t mind having him around more often.” Leo declares with a cheeky grin. 

“I think you’ll see more of him soon enough.” Simon says, though his grin feels a little too forced even for him.

He leaves Ronan and Markus to discuss the case, preferring to get on with clearing up after dinner. They’ll need to exchange vast amounts of data, and quickly too, and Simon can handle neither of those things. He tidies up the kitchen and sets about giving the house a good once-over. The simplicity of housekeeping always grounds him, always keeps him occupied but in a way completely devoid of stress unlike his Jericho duties. It lets him forget he’s purposefully sequestered Markus and Ronan in the studio, where they are no doubt getting to know each other and strengthening their bond of friendship and camaraderie hopefully into something more. He doesn’t want to think about, he wants to just somehow skip ahead to when they are together and in love and he can feel some sort of contentment in bringing happiness to another set of friends. And then it will be only Josh left, his oldest and dearest friend.

It’s nearing 2am when he finally checks in on them, bringing them mugs of hot Tearium coded to taste like strong black coffee sweetened with honey. There’s sounds of Markus’ bright laughter and a softer amused chuckle no doubt from Ronan. He knocks on the doorframe as the studio door slides open.

“Just checking you’re both still alive.” Simon quips as Ronan steps closer to take the tray from him. “Thought you might want something hot to drink seeing as the temperature has plummeted.”

“Thank you Simon, that’s very thoughtful of you.” Ronan murmurs, offering the tray to Markus so he can select a mug first.

“We’ve made a lot of headway into CyberLife’s database, though I think it’ll be faster once Josh gets a hold of this tomorrow.” “Today.” Simon corrects and Markus’ brows raise in surprise.

“Oh, you’re absolutely right. I’m so sorry to have kept you, Ronan.” Markus apologises, expression contrite. 

“It’s alright. This is important.” 

“I’ll leave you two be.” Simon excuses himself.

“Thank you for the drinks, Simon.” Markus gives a short wave and he takes his leave. The door slides shut behind him and somehow it feels all too final.

*~*~*

Miss Chloe is a lovely creature, all big blue eyes and soft blonde hair and a pleasing, delicate face. She is a work of art on a surface level, but on a deeper level Simon isn’t ashamed to admit he’s terrified of her. It’s a good thing she is bright and cheery and kind. Simon does not want to think of what their lives would be like had Miss Chloe possessed no fondness for humans. 

It’s a wonder to see her here in North’s apartment where they’re all crammed in, jostling for space as they wrangle yet another unearthed cache of hidden CyberLife files. She’s wearing North’s jacket over a t-shirt he guesses must be borrowed from Elijah Kamski’s wardrobe for it’s far too large to fit either of them. On the myriad of screens set up around the living room she’s streaming endless rivers of data and they’ve been assigned a screen each to parse any important information.

“Simon?”

“Yes Miss Chloe?”

“How’s Ronan settling in?” 

He blinks at her blankly. “Ronan?”

“Yes, you’re the DPD liaison and I know you spend a lot of time with the Anderson brothers as a result.” He tries not to buckle under gaze.

“He seems to be settling in well, Miss Chloe. He’s very diligent, as Markus can attest.” 

“He’s a good confidante.” Markus chimes in, smiling. “Still a little nervous about big social gatherings, but he’s an excellent conversationalist and probably the most polite android I’ve ever met.”

“That’s good.” Chloe smiles proudly. “I worry about him, you know? He’s so new to all this, he was so far away when the revolution happened, and purposefully cut off.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Chloe.” Simon smiles and he thinks it’s very convincing this time. “Markus has made him feel very welcome. He’s a part of the Jericho family already.”

*~*~*

It’s a gentle Spring evening, not too chilly, not too warm and he finds himself tidying Josh’s desk. His friend rolls his eyes and grabs his hands to stop him.

“Simon.” There’s a warning tone in his voice and Simon sighs, choosing to sit himself on the corner of the desk instead.

“I’m trying to make myself useful.”

“You do not need to be ‘useful’ to me Simon, you’re my friend.” Josh laughs, giving his hands a squeeze before releasing them. “Go home already, it’s late!”

“We hardly have time to relax together, I just want to stay a moment.” Simon doesn’t mean to make it sound so pathetic, but there’s something, a glint of pity it must be in Josh’s eyes. “You’re always cooped up here in Administration, and when you’re not here you’re with us poring over files.”

“That’s not true.” Josh reassures him gently. “Markus sneaks me out when he can. We went to the museum last week, remember? Finally got around to see that pre-Raphaelite exhibit. And Theobald let us visit the cafe two days ago after closing. Kept it open just for us.”

“To think, all those nights in Jericho when all we did was huddle together. We thought that was all there was to life- to be free from our programming, and to die.” Simon sighs tiredly, and Josh stands up from his chair to come over and wrap him in a tight hug. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be awful company tonight.”

“You’re not awful company Simon.” Josh murmurs reassuringly. “I understand what you mean. Our lives are so different now, it’s hard to keep up with how fast it’s changing.”

It changes too fast, far too fast, the very next day when Markus asks to enter the sunroom and pulls out a small velvet box from his pocket. Inside is a thin band of silver inset with a glowing line of neon-blue.

“So. What do you think?” Markus’ grin is a little wobbly, a little nervous and Simon thinks the entire world has stopped- at least both his hearts. “...Simon?”

“Oh- um- Markus I- I- I-” He gulps too much air in, and blinks rapidly as if to refresh his optics because surely this can’t be right? “Are you- is this-?”

“You think Josh will like it?” Markus scratches his nape. 

“Josh?” He echoes numbly. 

“I had it made with my LED. If he says yes, the wedding ring will be made with both of our LEDs.” Markus’ smile is distant and dreamy. “Ronan was such a great help. After the scrapyard was claimed by CyberLife, the DPD worked hard to help retrieve and identify the victims that couldn’t be saved. He notified me my LED had been found and signed off so it could be returned to me.”

“Ronan?” Simon parrots, voice an octave too high.

“I really can’t thank you enough for introducing us. He gave me a piece of my life back, and encouraged me to embark on a new chapter too.” Markus pockets the ring and grasps Simon’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “I didn’t believe North when she said it, but you really do have a knack for bringing people together.”

Simon sits heavily on the couch when Markus leaves. This is not what he planned, this is- he doesn’t know what this is. He settles on indignant anger instead, and he lets that fuel him, let’s it fill his circuits with fury and he fumes the entire duration of the drive in the cab until he’s at the DPD. He all but storms into the precinct, grabs Ronan’s arm and yanks him towards one of the interrogation rooms.

“Simon- wait-”

“Josh?!” Simon demands, locking the door behind him. “You set Markus up with Josh?!”

“Wh- oh, did he propose?” There’s a hint of a smile on his lips and Simon throws his hands up in frustration.

“Markus was meant to fall in love with you!”

“With me?!”

“Yes with you!” Simon jabs his chest. “And then you had to go and meddle and ruin everything! I wasn’t- I haven’t even looked for a suitable person for Josh! I was going to focus on him after Markus!”

“I didn’t set Markus up with Josh, he was already in love with him!” Ronan argues, gesturing animatedly. “That’s why I encouraged him, that’s why I made sure to find his LED so he could have it made into a ring! He was just nervous, that’s all, he just needed a little push.”

“But I introduced you to him!” Simon feels the anger drain from him and leaks out and leaves nothing but exhaustion in its wake. “I thought you two would fall in love, I thought finally I’d found an android who could match him in every way because I never stood a chance, did I?”

“How could you think to match us when we were both already in love with someone else?” Ronan’s voice is surprisingly soft, and Simon looks at him in confusion. “Why on earth would I ever love Markus when there’s you?”

“This is,” he takes a deep breath he doesn’t need, feeling the tears run down his cheeks “the cruelest joke anyone’s ever played on me. I’ve been made a fool of and I hate it, I hate all of it.”

“Simon, no.” Ronan seeks his hands, holding them gently before guiding them to rest on his chest. “I loved you the moment I met you.”

“I’ve nothing to offer, I’m a broken, obsolete PL600, why would anyone be interested in me? Least of all you? The RK900?”

“Your worth is not the sum of all you can offer, Simon.” Ronan reaches out and cups his cheek, thumbing away his tears. “Your worth is the sum of your actions, your decisions, and you choose to be kind. You are the kindest soul I’ve ever met, and you may not inspire them to follow you through a revolution, but you inspire them to be just as kind. To seek joy in the small moments, and to treasure time spent together.” 

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he continues to stand there like the fool he feels himself to be, crying helplessly as Ronan embraces him.

“This isn’t how I wanted to ask you but-” the other android moves his hand towards his pocket, and Simon grips his wrist to stop him.

“No. Don’t.” He wipes his tears hastily and steps back so he can look him in the eye. “We’re- we’re going to pretend this didn’t happen. I’m- I absolutely did not try and set you up with Markus. An- and you know nothing of this. We’re going to start over. Properly.”

Ronan’s eyes are wide with surprise before he smiles, and oh it’s already radiant enough for Simon to bask in. “Alright. We can start over, properly.” 

“Like- um, like going somewhere nice after work. Together.” Simon can scarcely concentrate, can scarcely process all that’s happening and it’s all the more frustratingly difficult when Ronan’s looking at him with such open fondness. 

“Like a date, Simon?” He steps closer and fingertips brushing the back of his hand and it feels like he’s been set alight. “And if you were matchmaking us from the start, where would you have us go?”

“I never had any plans to match anyone with me.” Simon confesses bluntly, and the playfulness drops from Ronan’s face. “The happiness of my friends has always been the most important goal.”

“And they are happy.” Ronan traces his jawline with the back of his fingers, gaze infinitely soft. “So now it’s your turn.” Curling his fingers beneath Simon’s chin, he tips his face up and leans down to press their lips together. It's a quick, fleeting thing, a flighty gesture full of nervousness and hope and Simon decides he likes it so much he must kiss Ronan in return.

There’s a loud click that startles them apart, and then a voice over the speaker.

“Okay that’s cute and all son, but we need the interrogation room.” Hanks’ voice is brimming with amusement and Ronan looks mortified. “Simon, do you want to come to family dinner night on Friday?”

“Oh um, yes Lieutenant that would be lovely-?” 

“Good. Now scram, both of you. Some of us have work to do.”

“Yes sir.”

“We’ll see you at seven on Friday, Simon.”

“At seven on Friday, Lieutenant.” 

They both exit the room and there’s Hank leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and a big grin on his face. Ronan still looks like a deer in headlights, LED bright red as he awkwardly guides Simon out of the precinct. When they’re out of the building Simon bursts out laughing and Ronan soon joins him. Tangling their fingers together, Ronan brings Simon’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. 

“May I see you tonight, after work?”

“You may.” Simon allows, perking up on his toes so he can press their mouths together again. “I don’t have any plans. Surprise me.”

#detroit: become human #dbh simon #rk900 #dbh markus #gavin reed #leo manfred #dbh but make it Austen #annie writes: dbh #getoutofthewater #adventures in text posts

[mountphoenixrp]

We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

                                         Hodr, the God of Winter,                      whose origins stem from Ancient Scandinavia.                                     He is now the owner of Nysnö.

FC NAME/GROUP: Kim Jaejoong | JYJ/Soloist GOD NAME: Hodr PANTHEON:  Norse OCCUPATION: Tailor, Owner of Nysnö HEIGHT: 1m80 DEFINING FEATURES:

- Porcelain complexion, very easy to get tanned or sunburnt

- Big, watery, and expressive eyes with natural eyebags  

- Tattoos:

+ Two quotes on the left chest: Deferto Neminem (Accuse no man), Always keep the faith

+ A pyramid with an eye and a set of horns, with three dots above on the left wrist

PERSONALITY: Just like what the last season of a year would offer to the world, Hodr’s got that quiet yet immense power to free, to freeze, and to frighten.

More often than not, he is the literally coolest individual found in any place he’s been to, and his too-cool-for-you resting face with porcelain complexion won’t help. But no, he’s not just a walking ice statue, and yes, he knows how to socialize and even tell jokes – the ones that would help listeners not to try so hard for a pity laugh. He looks aloof and is aloof most of the time, until the situation calls for what he can contribute. Although he may not be the fastest to offer a hand, Hodr would only offer what he’s best at. And actually, after thousands of years of trial and error, the winter god is confident to say that he’s a well-qualified player in quite many different fields in life. And does that make him cocky, sassy, savage at times? Yes dear, all checked.

On the more serious note, this icy god would be often seen alone, being absorbed in a book, something on the screen, or just in his own thoughts. It doesn’t mean he’s unaware of his surroundings at those times; in fact, the reverse is true. Hodr has a keen eye for detail, which would make him the perfect go-to person if you want your new hair cut, new glasses, or even a tiny pimple near your hairline, to get some attention. The god likes to give honest compliments, moral support, physical support, basically what it takes to help others feel more confident in themselves. In some senses, he could be seen as an amateur life coach. And a great drink buddy. He himself isn’t really confident in his flirting skills, but if you’re looking for at-least-acceptable courtship, relationship, or situationship advice, Hodr can manage to give you some.  

However, Hodr would take his sweet time to warm up to others, not because he needs to consider if they would worth his time, but the exact another way around. Despite his well-put-together demeanor, insecurity and fear of abandonment are some of the challenges he’s still striving to conquer. Also, Hodr’s developed this odd determination to make as few mistakes as possible, hence his over-meticulousness and indecision, also explains why he might take months to finish a suit. Yet, if one gives him enough patience and understanding, guarantee that they would get the best-customized suit on earth, and probably a (some sort of) friend in this Norse god of winter.  

HISTORY:

  Before Ragnarok

What was the fun of being the forgotten son of Odin? Nothing much - or should it be phrased almost nothing at all – except for the plethora of aloneness, which equaled to ultimate freedom in Hodr’s book.

The God of Winter was born with eyes that could only see the depth of his own soul and not one of the universe’. At first, it was a curse, then a blessing in disguise, for it gave him the privilege to stay away from the frenzied dance of life and death, of battles and romances, of wisdom and stupidity, those that most other Norse deities had always relished. Hodr preferred, almost thrived on, his blissful solitude. He loved it when he could turn not only one, but both blind eyes, to the surrounding chaos. And it was like a seed planted on barren land, the desire to be at the center of attention and adoration like his dear brother Baldur was. From the first day of existence, Hodr had already understood this. His brother was born to be loved, and he was born to be left alone.

In the serendipity sang by the winter breezes, Hodr had heard his final. Or finals, to be exact. That yes, he was born to with a cursed blessing like no others, that he could make use of it to keep trouble at least a winter away, but that wasn’t meant to last forever. Nothing supposed to last forever, especially when – no matter how different they were – all the Norse deities have been waiting for the Ragnarok since the beginning of their fate.

“I, too, shall die,” he informed one night at the gales caressing his porcelain cheeks. The gales, reminded of the anticipated farewell, hurled in despair. Hodr smiled, the warmest a god of winter could muster. “Behave yourself while I’m away, won’t you?” The winter gales laughed out their response.

And they kept wuthering. Their mighty roars got deafening the day Loki showed up with a mistletoe spear; the sound so deafening Hodr could not really hear what they were trying to say, but the spear had already been thrown away, aiming at a target even his wildest imagination could not let him to see.

When he knew was when it was too late to know. Baldur’s death came much faster than his belated realization. He abhorred Loki, with just one tenth the hatred he had dedicated to himself. Loki’s natural couldn’t outshine his exceptional gullibility; his wrongdoing couldn’t be anything else but a proof of foolishness.  

The forgotten outcast was now the greatest sinner. Hodr melted into an epitome of guilt and agony.

The mighty Odin went berserk, of course he would. Hodr could tell what was coming – a decision, a revenge, exactly what he was expecting to. It was another blessing that he did not have to wait for long. One day after Baldur’s death, Vali was born. Just as great as their father, he had completed his sole duty of showing Hodr the way back to nothingness with utter ease. There was no sign of protest from Hodr.

But no one could rest in peace.

Winter did not keep its promise to its God. The freezing gales kept hurling their inconsolable anger. Ice and snow waged war against all gods and men, buried three summers under their thick white blood, and no living left undamaged.

That was how Fimbulwinter started, and how the world began to end.

After Ragnarok

Hodr couldn’t tell how long it had passed between his death and his resurrection. Probably a Ragnarok apart, or that was what he had heard from the survivors. How could he return to life? Why him and not some other much more deserved warriors? No one, including winter, could give him a convincing answer.

What he’d known was that Baldur had also come back to life – the best news Hodr heard since his existence. No blames, no cries, only understanding, and family bond were shared again between the two Odin’ sons, which, until now, still surprised Hodr somehow.

Asgard and the other eight worlds were quick to recover, teeming with life. The winter gales had stopped wuthering. Yet, there were still so many questions left, to which if he did not find the answers, no one - even his greatest of a father - could.

Is this all the reasons why I have been here on earth?

Is there anything else I should know? Learn? Master?

Is there any other place I should go? Anyone else I should meet?

Is there really something called ‘true love’? What is love though, anyway?

Hodr spent the next millennia on self-discovery and re-discovery. On learning and un-learning. On growing up, getting wiser, bolder. On figuring out that actually, his hands were actually much more skillful than they were thought to be. On being a god, then being a god in a human vessel. On falling in, then out of love.

It turned out that true love was real. Hodr felt lucky that unlike humans, whose single-use lives might be too short to find one or too long it was hard to tell it apart of the false ones, he was really deep in it a couple of times. All of the romances he got the chance to co-create, some faded into memories, some into scars, some into a holy mess. But Hodr had learned that just like everything else on this universe, true love wouldn’t last forever. At this point of his seemingly endless quest of knowledge and self-improvement, Hodr was pretty sure that he had raised an army of those who loved him, and an equal-size one of those who hated his guts.

Winter wasn’t meant to be adored by everyone, was it?

But now, let’s get back to a couple months ago, when Hodr was chilling with a long-term fellow god at a corner of a bustling bar. Both were in their newest human vessels, drinking cold beer and talking about what on earth they should try next for this human lifetime. At some points in their unplanned plans discussion, his friend raised a random question.    

“Have you tried out Mount Phoenix?”

“What is a mount phoenix?”

“No, it’s the Mount Phoenix. A magical island of gods and their half-human kids. Some of your kids are there as well, I think. Go figure it out!”

So, in the next morning, Hodr woke up sober, packed his bags and himself, and cruised to the Mount Phoenix to figure it out, first and foremost for the thrill of new adventures. Soon, the universe once again showed him that there were still so many things in its pockets that he hadn’t even heard about just yet. Hodr was intrigued, so he chose to stick around the island probably a little longer to seriously figure things out.

He’s also been mastering the art of making suits, by the way.

POWERS:

Winter Manipulation: Able to induce the intensity of winter and that of other elements in its realm, including cold, death, and solitude to some extent.

Water Manipulation: Able to create, shape, manipulate water in solid, liquid, and gas states, also change water from one state to others. Able to create ice objects, including weaponry.

Cold Manipulation: Able to create, shape, and manipulate cold, making everything (including living things) colder with direct or close-ranged contact, ranging from mild coolness to freezing point.

Cold Immunity: Be immune and completely invulnerable to both cold’s direct and indirect effects.  

Cold Empowerment: Will be quickly energized or become physically stronger, faster, more durable once in contact with cold.

STRENGTHS:

Hodr is an epitome of the phrase ‘aging like a fine wine.’

He’s very much open-minded, quick-witted, and is a diligent learner. Learn best by trial and error.

If one can withstand the cold, they would get a compassionate, reliable, and loyal companion in him.

He’s pretty much dexterous, and likes to make things with his hands and not his power.

He’s got good taste in fashion. Surprise, surprise!

WEAKNESSES:

He’s cursed with bad eyesight, no matter how good the condition of his vessel’s eyes is. Can’t live without medical glasses or contact lenses.

High heat is Hodr’s nemesis. He’ll rarely enjoy hot food or drinks, and will become noticeably lethargic during summers.

He’s quite slow to open up to new faces, may let his doubts misguide his mind, and can be frustratingly indecisive at times.

He’s still somewhat gullible to those he loves or considers to be trusted friends.

#kpop rp #krp #jyj #kim jaejoong #jyj jaejoong #mp; welcome

[shipping-receiving]

Fictober 2019 Day 30: “I’m with you, you know that.”

Rating: T | Word Count: 2714 Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones Relationship: Jaime Lannister / Brienne of Tarth Tags: Alternate Universe – Office Notes: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8

(read on AO3)

//////

Back in the day—back in the days before Brienne—Jaime didn’t care very much if he had to work long hours. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that however much he cared was irrelevant. There was always work to be done, regardless. Lannister Corp above all else—that is what Tywin Lannister always expected of his three children. Their immense wealth, their status, their privilege, that had all been handed to them. But they have always been expected to work. To excel at it.

In King’s Landing, it hadn’t been rare for Jaime to find himself in the office till eleven at night, or twelve, or one. He’d be there until whatever needed to get done got done, even while the letters on the page or screen swam and flipped before his eyes, more vigorously by the second. He’d spend evenings entertaining clients, weekends attending some event or conference or gala on behalf of the company. His holidays—well, if he went on vacation with his family, that was work enough in itself, even if it was just with Cersei, or with Tyrion. And that was besides the fact that the first thing he did in the morning, and the last thing he did at night, was reply to his work emails.

For all of the Lannisters—Tywin and his children, even his siblings and their children—this was just their way of life. Lannister Corp above all else.

There’s less to do in the Stormlands now—definitely less of the socialising, at least—but Jaime still does his work, and does it well. It’s what has always been expected of him, as a Lannister, even if he’s a Lannister who’s displaced himself from King’s Landing. In fact, he almost feels compelled to work even harder now, and with more focus, as if to prove that he didn’t come here to the Stormlands to work less. He doesn’t want control of the company, doesn’t want the power or responsibility that comes with it. But he’s not making that decision out of laziness or incompetence. If he works, then he is still good. He is still worth something. It’s the only way he’s known how to be worth something, in the eyes of his family.

So the first night he had made Brienne wait for him, Jaime didn’t think it would gnaw at him that much. He’s so used to it, the constant work. When he left the office, it wasn’t even that late, only eight-thirty—alright, eight forty-five by the time he and Brienne sat down to dinner at his apartment. Still, Brienne herself must work later than that some days. She understands what it’s like, working for a company like Lannister Corp. What it’s like to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at your office desk.

But for the next two days, Jaime couldn’t stop thinking about it—how Brienne had waited for him for almost three hours. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it was three hours he could have spent with her, even if it would have been in a cinema in the middle of nowhere, with both of them wearing trench coats and wigs and oversized glasses to avoid being recognised. And that was just one evening, not even three hours past the time she usually leaves work. How about those days he wants to see her—which is every single day—then finds he has to work till eleven at night, or twelve, or one? What happens then?

As far as Jaime was concerned, there was only one solution. Not to stop working, no, he couldn’t possibly do that. He’d simply have to work somewhere where he could still spend time with Brienne—even if it was a matter of just being beside her, while he worked. And it couldn’t be in the office, especially not before that two-month mark. In the office, there was never any logical reason for them to be in the same room.

(Well, there would be if people knew they were dating. But they don’t. They’re not supposed to for a few more weeks, at least.)

And so, Jaime began taking his work home. He always leaves the office at six now, except maybe on Mondays, when Brienne goes to the gym on her own. Brienne would spend the evening at his, at least until she needed to catch the train home, although she did hesitantly ask if she could leave a change of clothes at his apartment, just in case she ever had to stay over on a work night. (The answer was ‘yes’, of course.) For dinner, they’d get food delivered, or she would cook, or he would, if he needed a break and could afford one. Brienne often had work to do, too, and she’d sit opposite him at the dining table, her laptop across from his. In their silent concentration, the tapping of fingers on keyboards became its own form of dialogue.

This was the solution Jaime had settled on for now. If he had to be honest, though, it could get distracting, having her right there. Jaime found something quite mesmerising about Brienne looking all serious, although she had laughed in disbelief when he told her so. But it’s also kind of nice—not just that she looks serious when she’s working, but that she takes her work seriously, in a way that feels qualitatively different from him, different from his family. Brienne doesn’t do it for power or recognition; she doesn’t do it because it’s Lannister Corp above all else. She was simply hired to do a job, and so she does it as well as she possibly can, which also happened to be better than is expected of her.

Naturally, they’d taken to discussing their work with each other, though Jaime often has to speak in vague terms or hypotheticals, tied up as his work usually is in some yet-to-be-made decision or other. Brienne asks him for his opinion on her own projects too, even argues with him about the best course of action. To her, the ‘best course of action’ is often the most ethical approach—whatever would benefit more people, and benefit them in the right way; or conversely, whatever hurt less for the least number of people. Jaime laughed at first—she is working for the largest, most profit-driven corporation in Westeros, and she wants to be ethical, of all things? But Brienne always tries, anyway, even though she is far from being in a position high enough to really have much of an influence. She just has this—this boundless urge to at least try to do the right thing.

(Jaime doesn’t think Brienne belongs in Lannister Corp, not forever. But for now, this is where she is, and where she’s planning to stay for at least a couple more years. He wouldn’t have met her otherwise, and he’s so very glad for it.)

They’re spending one of these evenings together now, two laptops at his dining table, empty takeout boxes stacked in the corner. He’s almost done—just looking over his notes for a breakfast meeting one final time—when he hears Brienne call his name.

“Jaime.”

“Hmm?” he replies, without looking up.

There’s a few seconds of silence, then— “Nothing.”

He lifts his head to see her staring at her own laptop intently. “Are you sure?”

“It’s fine. I’m just—” She meets his eyes for a second, then turns back to her laptop. “Never mind. Go back to work.”

“I’m pretty much done.” Jaime leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “And it’s not nothing if you keep starting sentences without finishing them.”

“Okay then,” Brienne sighs, and closes her laptop. “We’re… together, right?”

Jaime feels his lips curling into a smile. “In the same plane of existence?” he says, offhandedly. “I would say so, or this is a very realistic dream.”

Brienne rolls her eyes, nudges his leg under the table with her foot. “You know what I mean. We’re together… exclusively. Right?”

“Yes, I believe we are. Unless you’ve been seeing other people.” He doesn’t actually think that she’s been doing that, but since they’re on the topic, he might as well check.

“Oh, like I have options,” Brienne snorts.

Well, that wasn’t the response he expected. “So you would see other people if you had options?”

She looks at him, eyes wide in alarm. “No! I didn’t mean to—would you?”

“No!” He nudges her leg with his foot now. “I’m with you, you know that.”

“I know. And I’m with you.” Brienne stands up out of her chair and grabs the takeout boxes. “Okay then. Just checking.” She walks towards his kitchen.

“That’s it?” he asks, from the dining table.

“That’s it,” she replies, and throws the boxes in the bin. “Just thought I’d check.”

Jaime leans forward, puts one elbow on the table so he can prop his chin up. “Huh.”

She looks over at him. “What?”

“You usually…” Jaime waves his hand in the air. “You know. Get in your own head about these things.”

“I do,” Brienne replies, and immediately turns to the sink to wash her hands.

He feels a smile coming on again, thinks of all the times over the past few days that he’s caught her looking at him oddly. Once she shuts off the tap, he says: “You’ve been trying to ask me that all week, haven’t you?”

She heaves a sigh, and leans against the counter. “I might have.”

“You thought I wouldn’t say yes?”

“No—it’s not that. I just felt like it was almost—unfair for me to ask. Since I was the one who wanted to keep this quiet.”

Jaime shrugs. “I agreed to the two months. It hasn’t been so bad.” Just three-and-a-half weeks left, if they’re counting from their first date.

“Still.” Brienne walks back over to him. “I know… you’d rather not.”

“Well.” He would rather not, but there’s really not much more to say on the subject. He closes his own laptop and smiles up at her. “At least now I have confirmed my suspicions that I’m indeed in a monogamous relationship with Brienne Tarth.”

She giggles, a lovely sound. “I had similar suspicions about you, Jaime Lannister.” She comes to stand behind his chair and slips her hands over his shoulders, kneads her fingers into the knots there.

“And I suppose my brother did tell me that clarity is key,” Jaime muses.

Brienne’s fingers pause. “Your brother knows about us?”

Oh, right. Jaime never got around to telling her about Tyrion’s visit. “I may have—remember that Saturday that I said I was with a client? Before our first date?”

“… Oh.”

“Yeah.” He tilts his head back to find her gazing down at him. “My father sent him to convince me to return to King’s Landing, not that Tyrion bothered with that.” He leans his head back, so that the top of it touches her stomach. “Anyway, I might have told him that there was a reason why I wanted to stay here. In the Stormlands, specifically. He gave me some good advice.” Aside from the part about eloping, obviously.

Brienne looks utterly bewildered. “I’m the reason you want to stay?”

Jaime laughs. “If you haven’t noticed, Brienne, we’ve been spending basically all our time together for the past month. You’ve been a very effective incentive, I would say.”

She removes her hands from his shoulders and sits herself in the chair beside him. “We’ve seen each other a lot, haven’t we?” she says, thoughtfully. “Marg says it’s a lot.”

“Is it?” He reaches over to grasp one of her hands. “Aren’t we just… spending time with each other because we want to?”

“I suppose. I’ve never—experienced this before. I don’t know what’s normal.”

“Me neither,” Jaime replies, without even thinking.

Brienne whips her head towards him. “What do you mean, me neither? Haven’t you dated before?”

“I… have. I just—I haven’t dated in the normal way.” Oh gods, here we go. “My sister… she’d arrange for me to—to date women she thought were appropriate. I guess it started back when we were still in school. She’d say, Jaime, wouldn’t you look good with so-and-so? And she’d set it up, and I’d say yes because… I don’t know why. Because I believed her, or wanted to please her. It was almost like—I felt like I had to be on the same page as her. And then it just kept happening—not that there were a lot of women. But each time it happened, I’d go through the motions, break it off eventually, sooner rather than later. I don’t even know if you could call any of them relationships, really.”

Jaime wills himself to look into Brienne’s eyes, steels himself for her judgment, finds nothing there but kindness. “I suppose… I fell into a pattern. And I didn’t know how to break out of that pattern.” He holds up their hands, just a little, nudges them towards Brienne. “Never met anyone that made me want to do that.”

Brienne gives him a smile; something quiet, nervous. “That’s… good to know.” Jaime feels her grip his hand a little tighter. “Will you tell me more about them?” she asks. “Your family?”

“I will. Eventually.” He’s given her bits and pieces over the past few weeks, but there’s always this lump in his throat that prevents him from telling her anything quite so substantial. “Not now. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay.”

They sit there in silence for a few more breaths. Then, Brienne says: “Speaking of—of patterns. I’ve been thinking about that. About us.”

Jaime shifts his chair a little towards her. “What about us?”

“I mean… When you stayed over the first time, I offered you the couch. Then I stayed over here, and I slept on the couch. And the other times since—that’s what we’ve done.” She clasps her free hand around his wrist. “I’m just wondering—we see each other so often—maybe we should… break the pattern.”

“Oh—”

“I’m not—I’m still not ready for—”

“I know.”

“But—I don’t want you to think I’d want to keep things this way, or anything like that. I just need to—work up to it. And I’d be… I’m okay with not doing the couch thing anymore.”

Jaime tries his best to stay calm. “Alright. Good.” Really good. “Will you—not do the couch thing tonight?”

Brienne reddens. “… I could.”

Jaime stands up then, a bit too abruptly, and he sees Brienne jerk back a little. “Well. I think you’ll find that my bed is very large and very comfortable.” He motions their hands towards the direction of his bedroom. “I’m sure it’d be very happy to accommodate us both.”

“Jaime,” she laughs, still seated in her chair, “it’s barely nine. We can’t go to bed now.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think my body remembers how to fall asleep before eleven.”

“I didn’t say we had to sleep.”

Jaime sees Brienne stiffen at that, and he thinks that he’ll need to ask her to tell him more about her past too. “I don’t mean—not that,” he scrambles. “We can… talk. Or, you know. The stuff we’ve already done.”

Stuff. It’s a juvenile word, and he can imagine Tyrion giving him a look. But he supposes what they’ve done so far has been—innocent, in relative terms. Just kissing. And touching. And looking. It’s chaste, compared to—but it’s also not. Not in the way his lips travel down her neck, the way her hands slip beneath his shirt, the way their exhalations mingle. It’s all he can think of right now, all he wants to do for the rest of the evening. Especially if they finally get to do all that in his bed, and then stay there after.

Especially if he gets to wake up beside Brienne in the morning, and do that stuff all over again.

So Jaime tugs on her hand again, in the direction of the bedroom. Brienne stands slowly, and he searches her face, her body for any sign of reluctance. She’s tentative, but no, he doesn’t think it’s reluctance. At most, it’s an anticipation that she’s taught herself to suppress. She does that thing she likes—wraps her hand around his forearm—which is always a good sign, from what he’s gathered.

Then, for the first time in four-and-a-half weeks, Brienne follows him to bed.

#fictober19 #jaime x brienne #braime #my fic #i never knew home until i found your hands #yes i'm aware it's the second of november and not the thirtieth of october.

[vroenis]

Reaching Out, Reaching In

It would be criminal not to use ABIIOR for the lede given I’m going to quote Matty albeit not quite verbatim - nevertheless - buy this album, it’s incredible.

But of-course, I’m going to start by talking about

BT

I mention BT a lot; he enters the lists often in my writing, in my discussions. Like many artists in my collection and listening rotation, I seem to be really into an artist for a period of time and then reach a cutoff point where I stop being into them. This probably happens for most people, I don’t know, I’ve not asked most people, but I do want to be very careful of not living in the past or rather dying in it. Still, I like to keep finding new things or rather I’m compelled to. I enjoy things that continue to grow older each second time passes, but I always thirst for new creations by all artists of all ages, whether they bring to bear the experience of years, or they’ve only been around for a few. The point is everyone is here on this wild ride and art is their response to the stimuli; it’s what comes out of us in abstract and semi-abstract, re-translated and it forms these amazing emotional and often transcending connections and multifaceted responses in us and by us I mean me.

I’m getting distracted.

In the last and understandably downcast piece on my deathbed playlist, there are three key BT albums and it’s worth noting the years he released them;

2006 - This Binary Universe

2012 - Nuovo Morceau Subrosa

2016 - _ (untitled - there’s a story, you can look it up if you like, it’s more or less just referred to as the character *underscore*(verbal))

There were other albums in-between but naturally those don’t make the list as far as what I want to be hearing if I’m half or unconscious or in a delirium on my way to imminent death. In 2019, BT released two albums;

October 2019 - Between Here And You

December 2019 - Everything You’re Searching For Is On The Other Side Of Fear

You may remember I wrote a whole lot about 2009 - 2019 and these albums were absent.

If you go to the wiki for BT, which are his initials for Brian (Wayne) Transeau, you’ll see a wonderfully rich history of a stupendously talented musician and immensely intelligent individual. He is part of a collective of people most wouldn’t know about (which is perfectly fine, to be honest) who are responsible for the digital audio revolution that has completely changed the way we create, record, produce, publish and distribute music as we know it. There are parts of that people may think are negative and some elements certainly are, but the net benefit is unquestionably positive even if only on the sole subject of accessibility. Accessible digital audio has put creation and power within reach of everyone and of-course this means there’s a glut of material available, but it also means we catch sight of more amazing art rather than never see it, or it not seeing the light of day. I lean on humans seeing it and saying that directly rather than speaking in abstract. The light of day is literally us - we humans, seeing the expressions of one-another and hopefully remunerating appropriately so that we can continue to live and improve each other’s lives.

I have always had and continue to have immense respect for BT. He began writing This Binary Universe when his daughter was born, and as she grew, continued working on the album with this tiny infant often in his lap as he worked. He wrote it from creation in 5.1 surround sound, rather than all other “surround sound mixes” being done in retrospect from the stereo stems. It is an astonishing work and See You On The Other Side may very well be one of the greatest pieces of music in history. When I first listened to TBU in 2006, I  had a myriad of emotional responses and I certainly didn’t have as much knowledge of BT’s creation process and background for the album at the time, but I can appreciate that shortly thereafter upon learning it, it probably does form biases in how I feel about the album. This will be important to the discussion later. Nevertheless, the album feels massively injected with specific intent and yes, surely every artistic work is regardless and we’ll get there. This is going to be personal but all writing is - that doesn’t warrant further discussion, we should always be making that assumption.

I follow BT on Instagram and saw him build his awesome new studio, an amazing space for all his gear and synths and something any music professional would love to have in some way... which I may check in a moment, or perhaps not so soon but I hope I don’t forget to come back to that. I will say that I do like it. It is a wonderful playground of vintage, rare and new synths, of super powerful computers with extremely new software and plugs, of high-end analogue desks and outboard units, extremely nice monitors and custom designed absorbers, panels, racks and furniture. It is an absolutely amazing space.

After the studio was finished, he did some collabs with some other artists and folks, some of which I also follow on Instagram whose setups are wildly different so it was nice to see some cross-over. He also interspersed with increasing regularity work on his albums which included clips of 100+ piece orchestras and often DAW session captures of the stems and him working on them. It was all pretty cool and the tiny snippets he posted were rad.

In October 2019, I was travelling to visit family due to cancer treatment, something that’s been at the centre of my life for well over 18 months, and I have my first full listen-thru of Between Here And You on an early morning when the rest of the house is asleep. It’s pretty great, sonically I like it a lot. I don’t have the same response to TBU but I don’t expect to, I should give it a chance, but it still doesn’t elicit a really significant response in me. At this point it has to be said that on the same trip, I have my first full listen-thru of Telefon Tel Aviv’s Dreams Are Not Enough, having slept on its initial September release, and that might be enough to give context to how I responded - it may have been where my head was at and remains to this day. I couldn’t shake it tho, as I still really have an affinity for TBU and I was wondering what was up.

Fast-forward to December and the release of Everything You’re Searching For Is On The Other Side Of Fear, and I do not respond to this album at all. It has some decent BT synth and sample work in it that exhibits his amazing talent, but it’s cut with orchestral and choral music that to me is indistinct from any other contemporary material available on a Pandora channel playing similar genres. I hate the sound of myself being so critical of someone I admire so much, because for someone who can write bangin’ trance and intricately complicated micro-rhythms and sample-chopped music, someone who writes their own freaken’ software and who edits audio down to the sample because their attention to detail is so specific and demanding - for that same person to be so talented to also be able to write scores and choral vocal arrangements is immense. I’m sure it all means so much to BT and I’m so proud of him for creating what to him must be an amazing work. I’m not trying to say anything negative about the work itself...

But I just don’t respond to it. Almost all the other music I’ve been listening to over the last 10 years including very recently, feels like it’s been created in response to extremely personal experiences that haven’t all been great - singular or accumulations of events that have precipitated significant introspection, and the art that has resulted from it for me reflects it clearly. BT’s two albums feel like... a very fortunate and privileged guy who’s had a lot of time and opportunity to play with his gear, record it and release it. The title also sounds presumptuous as if to position that systemic poverty and oppression and struggle outside of ones’ control can be solved by the oppressed simply stopping being afraid and I border on hating it every time I read it... - and that sounds so horribly mean because it is, I don’t intend for it to be mean. I need to check my expectations and I need to respect that Brian is still doing what he wants to do and he doesn’t owe me anything, least of all in something as abstract as how something sounds and whether or not I like it, because ultimately that’s all I’m talking about here, no matter how obscure I want to make the discussion. The intent of the title, especially - I’m certain - isn’t to diminish those who suffer, and I should be careful in my reading of it. So keeping myself in check, I’m here to explore the rest of my response, and I’m going to try and give further context.

Coldplay

I’ve no problem telling you I like Coldplay. I guess if you knew more about my musical background, it’d be less of a surprise, tho if you’ve been following along, it’ll make sense. If you’re reading this journal backwards, it may or may not, depending on how much I write about production in the future. To cut a long story short, like many bands I’m almost not at all into the band themselves and almost entirely into the production that surrounds them. Meow meow meow, all the art purists will bang-on about how music is about the performers but producers and engineers are artists in every way as much as performers are, and even bands or individuals who “just perform” with their instrument and no-one else on stage and no technicals (screens, lights, unseen backing musos etc.) still have a myriad of people surrounding them without which they can’t execute their working careers. Anyway, feel free to remain ignorant of those facts if you like and be all “pure performers”, no problem - magic can be real for you.

I lost track of Coldplay at after their 2015 album A Head Full Of Dreams. I’m less emotionally invested in the band and totally don’t mind that they’d up until that point releasing more or less the same sound for four consecutive albums. I really like the sound and if you pay close enough attention, it was actually evolving nicely, enough for me at any rate. I’d forgotten all about the band which is easy to do when you don’t really pay attention to pop-music and the activities therein, and then a couple of months ago (January maybe?) by whatever divination of the YouTube algorithm, a video titled Coldplay: Everyday Life Live in Jordan came up in my recommendations - a thing I was until then, unaware even existed. I’d no idea what the band was doing and I’m always keen to give them a shot, so I clicked-thru.

Moments ago I said I was happy with the band doing the same sound over and over again, and when I listen back to those albums, I’m still fine with them - let’s call it the Viva/Prospekt’s/Dreams anthology. Several things struck me about Everyday Life. Given my personal experiences of the last ten years, my struggles and the struggles of everyone around me, both personal and the cultures I observe and choose to observe, watching these four guys geared up in these ruins in Jordan looked stupendously privileged and a massive flex of wealth and influence. It looked like money buying good photography, framing and impossible location kudos and style. The sound in culture to my personal experiences also felt irrelevant.

And now I can finally talk about

The 1975 - Reaching Out, Reaching In

I now don’t remember whether it was at the ABIIOR concert in Melbourne, September 2019, or in one of the many interview snippets on YouTube or an article - I’m fairly sure it was his voice, so I either saw him say it in a video or he said it at the concert or both. Matt Healy said something along the lines of...

“... I know our last album was very inwardly focused... but A Brief Inquiry is very outwardly focused... it’s more about the world... and you... and us...”

That is not at all what he said verbatim but it was something very similar to that so I desperately hope a 1975 fan drops in and corrects me or can find a clip of him repeating it. Anyway there are a lot of really good things to extract from that, firstly from what it means about The 1975′s music and the culture that forms around it, and then about the discussion I’m having.

BT, Coldplay and The 1975 all live in my Ultimate folder on my hard-drive,  but while BT and Coldplay fall where they will alpha-numerically as far as directory structure is concerned, The 1975 have the auspicious honour of having leading zeros in their text so they appear first. This is so that I never have to scroll all the way down to T in any program or utility (like my car’s head unit) to find them. Worth noting that composer Yoko Kanno is 01 and Underworld are 02.

The album that preceded A Brief Inquiry... was released in 2016, titled I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It, an intentionally Emo title, I believe or at least hope, and it is definitely an inwardly focused album in the themes indicated by its lyrical content. It’s to date one of my favourite albums of all time, superbly performed and produced and overflowing with emotion - there’s some truly heartbreaking sound and words therein. I feel like this album is a perfect inclusion with the others in my Circa 2009 - 2019 piece that was somehow vaguely about how much of a struggle those 10 years have been. I guess it’d be difficult to get a notion of that if you’re not familiar with the music and material, but all of that music is introspective - it’s all about reaching in. As mentioned above, the art these artists are producing is the result of deeply intimate experiences, some they share directly with us outside of the abstract of art - relationships, family loss, drug addiction, mental health - but many that they don’t so clearly telegraph and leave us with the abstract; the art.

A Brief Inquiry.../ABIIOR certainly is about reaching out, even when the lyrics do seem to be personal, but to me as an individual, it feels to reach out in the right way - that is to say *I* feel it’s reaching out to a world *I* identify with, in a way that *I* agree with or find agreeable. The songs in ABIIOR are about misunderstanding, they’re about not giving up, making mistakes, desperation, honesty, the chaos of the destruction of modern society. One of my all-time favourite songs has sprung from this album and has become anthemic for me - Love It If We Made It and I’m going to embed it;

And now I feel I want to say that naming an album “Everything You’re Searching For Is On The Other Side Of Fear” and also performing a concert in ancient ruins on the top of a mountain during a picturesque sunrise in Jordan with expensive drone photography both feel to me like also reaching out but in ways that I don’t like and agree with, that feel irrelevant and/or culturally inappropriate but I use the term culturally to mean my personal culture; the culture I see myself fit into as an individual that interacts with others, the struggles we seem to share as a collective.

I feel as tho Coldplay once did reach out in the good way I’m trying and possibly failing to describe, or perhaps just trying to frame from a position I prefer. I felt they had a more grounded sense of community with everyday people which makes the irony of their most recent project more apparent. It may well be that I just don’t like what these artists are doing any more and that’s fine. Sometimes we might feel entitled to a sense of righteousness, to validate our distaste for something on a more grand cultural level, to co-opt others into our critique so more fingers can point and collectively say “See?! That thing you’re doing really *is* BAD! More people said so!” but I really am keeping myself in check and not wanting to do that. I think I’m writing this journal to explain myself to myself - yes, to log my justifications because I believe in them, but also ensure I don’t turn into an arsehole. 

Still - I stand by my criticisms because they’re important. I don’t know why in-particular these few examples struck in this way when others didn’t. I bought a bunch of Anjuna music that has nothing to do with culture and emotional response in the ways I’ve discussed them and I love them. Sometimes music is about bangin’ beats and euphoria and that’s OK. Still, the world isn’t entirely a joyous place for me at the moment and hasn’t been. There are positives to celebrate, but I have never been one to only log my celebrations. In particular from a mental health perspective, only documenting positives is incredibly hazardous and I condemn the practice. As much as these entries are laced with darkness and difficulties, each one also contains the things that assist me in surviving, keeping me nourished and navigating this often hellish experience of life. Ultimately of all my skills, seeking out art I identify with is the most valuable survival skill I have, it is the only one that matters. 

Love is a kind of art, there’s nothing abstract in that statement - the love between people is artful, in any and all forms it takes - hence the tags; Art Worth Dying For, and Art Worth Living For.

#music #The 1975 #A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships #ABIIOR #BT #Telefon Tel Aviv #Dreams Are Not Enough #Coldplay #Love It If We Made It #art worth dying for #art worth living for #chrono #2020 #writing about music

[lfd072936]

Harlequin - Chapter 1

So here is the first chapter of the fanfic I posted about previously. It features a original female character I intend to be “Harley Quinn” later on, although this story is completely different from the traditional comic book one. This chapter barely has Arthur in it, but he will be featured a lot later (obviously).

Word count: 1788

Summary: a young woman named Lola Page starts working at a new wing in Arkham Asylum.

Warnings: none, except that this chapter has criminally little Arthur in it, but I had write a little bit of backstory/building.

@tiredwritersworld asked to be tagged (<3)

Chapter 2 link

Chapter 3 link

1.       Fresh Meat

She had been working at Arkham for little over a year now. She liked it although with most things she could make peace and be content no matter what cards she was handed. Of course this wasn’t what she wanted to do originally, she wanted to be a dancer, which she practically was up until a misfortunate misunderstanding (as her mother called it) put her in prison.

- What do you want to do after you get out? – her probation officer asked one week before her release.

- What do you mean? I’m a dancer, I dance… that’s what I’m gonna do.

- Lola, you know you cannot go back to your old company after what happened.

- So? This is a big city, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.

- Look… word’s got around. No sane person would hire you as a dancer. You have to come up with something more… realistic.

- So then what do you suggest? I am not trained in anything other than dancing, I have no skills. Should I sweep the filthy streets of Gotham so that you can check it off of a to-do-list, while telling me how much cleaning up other people’s shit is helping me to get back on my feet?

- Come on, there surely must be something that you would like to do.

The probation officer was too persistent to shrug off so after a few suggestions she agreed to try this job. The hospital was on such a staff shortage that it only took a 10-day training for an ex-convict who was sentenced for assault to start working there. Of course she was not allowed to do anything medical or touch any drugs, but she did help out with anything else she could from feeding to making the beds and mostly interacting with patients. She was placed in the eastern wing due to her past where the lighter patients resided, those who generally did not pose a threat to anyone other than themselves. Lola proved herself to be an excellent employee over the months, despite her criminal record no incidents occurred and she was adored by the patients she took care of and the feeling was seemingly mutual. She surprisingly had immense patience and gentleness towards them.

That day however she was called into her supervisor’s office out of the blue. She knocked on her door at around noon and stepped in confidently.

- Hey, Josie!

- Hey, Angel! Have a seat… - she sat down opposite of her supervisor, a sweet old lady with immaculate style. Lola always adored the intricate braids she could put into her greying hair. – How are things going?

- Amazing as always… you know me – she said with a wide smile.

- Yeah, yeah I do. So – she usually cut straight to the point – you’ve been with us for over a year now… - Lola heard the hesitation in her voice. Something was wrong.

- Are you letting me go, Josie? – her voice wasn’t worrying more confused.

- No, God no… listen the thing is… there was a situation over at west and I need to switch you up with someone.

- Sure, no problem.

- Yeah? – Josie raised an eyebrow.

- Absolutely. It’s even closer to my stop.

- But you know that the west is one of the more, well… problematic wings. And you will get an all new supervisor, new colleagues…

- That’s alright. I think I can handle it.

- Okay – she said with a slight surprised tone. – Thank you for being so understanding.

- No… - Lola leaned forward a bit – Thank you for giving me a chance for change.

The next week she started her shift at the notorious western wing. She was greeted by one of the nurses who was assigned to show her around, although it did not seem like she volunteered for it. Oh, how wildly different this part of the hospital was. Almost all rooms were for one person, the doors were made from metal and heavy latches protected the outside from anyone that was on the inside. Guards were patrolling the floors and almost all patients outside of their cell were at least handcuffed if not forced into a straightjacket.

The nurse led Lola up on one of the lesser used back stairs.

- This is the staff area – she continued her never-ending tale of dos and don’ts. – A little bit onward there is a kitchen and a room with some beds, although I heard that you’re not allowed to take any night shifts – Lola frowned. No she wasn’t, but why did everyone have to be aware of that? Why was her past such common knowledge even on a wing she never even entered before? – But sometime we do like to take naps. A little further back are the women’s restrooms and next to them the showers. Why they put them so far from the beds still baffles me… but make sure to always lock the shower with your keys especially if you’re inside, because we have some incidents from time to time.

- Wait… what kind of incidents?

- Those patients who manage to wander off are especially drawn to this place to give a little surprise visit.

- Oh… we never had anything like that. On my previous wing incident meant someone spilt their OJ – the nurse gave a mocking laugh.

- Welcome to the wild west, Page – Lola did not laugh though, if anything she wondered how can some patients just walk into a staff shower with all these safety precautions.

Their tour continued pretty smoothly, they walked and she talked on end. She finally halted in front of the entrance of the communal room.

- Now about some of our patients. The worst are Flynt, 7-foot guy, pure muscle. He is restrained at all times, but he sure likes to bite and if he spontaneously faints close to you, don’t try to catch him. Then there’s Marigold… she hates everyone younger than her, so more and more people every year, I would just avoid her all together. And last but not least, there’s Fleck. He is currently stable on his meds, but he has some authority over the other patients. If I were you I would put my sunshine and rainbows approach that might have worked back at your old wing aside and be little more tough or else this place will crush you, but… I would try to stay on Fleck’s good side.

- But why do the other patients respect him so much?

- How old even are you? – the nurse laughed again. She was rude, but Lola decided to just swallow it for now. – He is Arthur Fleck… the guy who killed Murray Franklin a while back. Ring a bell?

Lola’s face lit up. She never would have admitted it to anyone, but she adored that clown. She thought he was an icon, the face of the protests she desperately wanted to attend, but her mother forced her to stay in their spotless suburban house, that the garbage strike could not reach. Oh, and that television broadcast that she had the privilege to see live… brilliant. She did not condone murder, but he executed it so theatrical and with much flare. Honestly she wouldn’t mind someone killing her either, if it happened in such a stylish way.

- Wait up… you mean to tell me that you have the Joker in this wing? – she couldn’t hide her excitement.

- Yes, but why are you so happy about it?

- You never met a celebrity, huh? – Lola laughed. Now it was her turn to make the nurse uncomfortable and looked down upon.

- Stop laughing! – she hissed. – He’s not a celebrity, and trust me… you will be disappointed when you see him. Now get in, and do your job!

She forced a serious look on her face as they walked in. The room was more bleak and depressing than the one at her old wing, this one clearly had more insanity in the air. She could feel almost every patient looking at her, those at least who were aware of their surroundings, and it made her uneasy. She completed the tasks upon tasks given to her wondering which one could the Joker be, but she just couldn’t tell. Finally, she approached one of her colleague who’s face seemed familiar.

- Hey, which one is Fleck?

- Don’t look right away, but it’s the one who didn’t stop staring at you ever since you arrived – she said with a grimace on her face. – I mean the one by the window. – she had to correct herself, because most patients were still staring at Lola.

- I surely am interesting.

- Well, you know how it is… you’re fresh meat. – she returned the smile, because the worker had no wrong intentions, but being called fresh meat was not something Lola thrived on.

As promised she did not look at the window’s direction, but rather went back to doing her job, feeding patients, getting them blankets etc., but after a while she couldn’t help herself. Masking it as a simple glance to the clock on the wall above the man, she could finally look at him. The man was alone with nothing but a notebook in front of him, but at the moment he wasn’t focused on that. He was smoking and looking at her. He blew out some smoke as their eyes locked and took another drag. The nurse did not exaggerate; he really was a lot different than she expected. He was thin and frail, his face wrinkly, but that look… oh that was something to die for. He was practically piercing her with his gaze and she could feel blood rush into her cheeks. She quickly looked down unable to do anything else, but from the corner of her eyes she could see him smile with satisfaction. Bastard. It was so amusingly annoying she had to smile, but made sure to turn away, so he didn’t see it.

She went on with her tasks, being sent here and there around the floor. So far she wasn’t too impressed by this wing, how somber and grey everything was, despite the walls being painted to a pretty yellow color somehow the air was grey. But there was one positive thing: Arthur. She was desperate to talk to him, even though he surely was nothing like she expected, but it only made her more curious. How much did he change, how much did the meds tone him down, was that whole persona just for television? It was impossible to tell as of yet.

#joker fanfiction #joker x ofc #joker x harley #sortof #barely any joker sorry #arthur fleck #sort of oc

[angiewang19]

contemplating about careers

At the start of spring semester, I decided to not do 3-2, and I switched to a new academic advisor, my first semester math professor. During my first meeting with Prof. Aksoy, she asked, “What do you want to do after you graduate?” 

I was stunned that she dared to ask this weighty question to a college freshman. I came from a high school that espoused “Do what you love in the moment!” and “You don’t need to plan for or think about the future; everything will fall in place when it needs to!” Most of my classmates had no idea what they wanted to do in college (let alone life), and most seniors went to college as undecided majors. 

However, when I’d get home from high school every day, my parents relentlessly pushed me to make decisions as soon as I was ready. Planning for the future would give me luxuries -- more time, more opportunities, and therefore, possibly more money, happiness, and clout. While I was quick to fall back on, “almost all of my classmates have no idea what they want to do!” they knew, as first-generation immigrants, that being undecided was a privilege. To put off any form of planning is an acknowledgement that you can afford to buy time, opportunities, happiness, and clout. It is an acknowledgement that you have options that you can tap into whenever it’s convenient for you. 

All of this went through my head as I tried to provide a coherent answer to Prof. Aksoy: “I’m thinking about going into consulting or finance. I think it might be nice to work in the industry for a few years to understand the purpose of my education, and then I’ll go to grad school. But... I don’t really know.” 

My last sentence was my only genuine thought in this jumble of words -- I really had no idea. 

She gave me a slightly disappointed look: “You need to do some soul searching. Look at your parents -- are they happy? Would you be happy doing what they do every day? You need to do something that makes you feel fulfilled.” 

Before our conversation, fulfilled was a word I never gave a second thought to. Through our conversation, I realized I wanted to go into those fields because it seemed like everyone at CMC was/is fighting to get these opportunities. I think about the Goldman Sachs information session, where they didn’t talk about what exactly they did (maybe their day-to-day is actually mundane or they just assume that everyone already knows?), but they spent a great deal of effort talking about what it’s like to live in New York City as a first-year analyst and the fact that “everyone at Goldman is just so smart.” The fact that jobs and internships in these fields are so highly sought after at CMC made these roles seem glamorous in my eyes. More importantly, I saw them as prestigious destinations, and chasing prestige is addicting. 

I found a question about consulting/finance on Quora: 

Q: Why do so many students in the Ivy League and other elite universities go into investment banking and management consulting? 

A (from a student at Wharton): A slightly majority of my classmates (and myself included) go into finance and consulting. This speaks to how we’re all insecure and value the safety of a high paying and prestigious job.

Most people (especially “students in the Ivy League and other elite universities”) aren’t idiots, so I’m sure there are decent reasons to go into either of these fields. But I realized that wanting to go into consulting/finance because “everyone else is doing it” or “it pays well” are not good enough reasons for me. Over the past few months, I realized that consulting is not a great fit for me (thank you CCG), but I still haven’t closed the door on finance. However, I don’t feel strongly about a possible career in finance (in a positive or negative light), since I haven’t done my homework on what exactly the people do. In my opinion, understanding the responsibilities of the day-to-day and the consequences of my actions at work are the first steps to figuring out whether this career will feel good in the long run. 

“Feeling good in the long run” is a nebulous phrase. In the process of trying to find more concrete understanding, I thought about the distinction between fulfillment and meaningfulness, words that are often used synonymously. I believe there’s a difference -- fulfillment is when an individual feels personally satisfied, while doing something meaningful has consequences beyond the individual doing the action (think: meaningful = full of meaning). 

They’re connected, as often doing something meaningful gives you a sense of fulfillment -- volunteering for a cause you believe in, Bryan Stevenson’s work at Equal Justice Initiative, Jon Favreau writing speeches for Obama. As Favreau mentions in his commencement address, the day-to-day grind of a fulfilling job might not be pretty, but the work can still make you feel empowered and inspired. 

To make my point about the distinction between the two words, I believe there are jobs that are meaningful but not necessarily fulfilling -- maybe serving our country via the military. According to Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor, Obama remarked that the audiences he spoke to at military bases were always diverse coalitions, but as you climb higher up the chain of command, it became all white men. So while serving your country is meaningful work, I can imagine feeling cynical and disheartened if you were trying to work your way up, and you were anyone but a white male. Finally, there are jobs which I believe are fulfilling but not necessarily meaningful. Unfortunately, the first ones that come to mind are consulting and investment banking, which aren’t typically considered the most “moral” professions. For many people in the field, it’s immensely satisfying to close a deal or engage in the daily grind of solving client’s problems and being well-compensated for those efforts. But I’d argue that managing rich people’s money or consulting for Coca-Cola is self-serving and actually perpetuates inequality -- you help the rich get richer in the former and in the latter, you’re complicit in a Rust Belt child’s set of teeth completely rotting before they reach adulthood because soda is cheaper than water or other healthier alternatives. 

This is my perspective based on a limited (sheltered + privileged) worldview. It’s important to look at any opportunity from the question of fulfillment and meaningfulness, but why you make choices, especially professional choices, is more nuanced than that. Favreau says he’s been better off looking for opportunities which enable him to do something, not to be something. As immigrants, my parents tucked away many of their genuine interests in order to make a living in the very expensive Bay Area. For them, the search for meaningfulness and/or fulfillment was put on the back burner, which serves as a reminder that evaluating for meaningfulness/fulfillment/happiness is a luxury. Michelle Obama’s parents told her to make money first, and then do what makes her happy. Worded differently, money buys you any kind of freedom you’d like (hence economists say that the best gift is always cash), which buys you a sense of fulfillment or meaningfulness or whatever combination of the two you’d like. 

As a starry-eyed, ambitious, and naive college student like me, I’ve kept Andrew Lee's advice in mind: “Money isn't the most important thing, but money goes where value is being created - for me, this was a really hard pill to swallow coming out of college, but you'll notice people at the top of their field tend to be able to move to other fields and have come from other fields. Why? Well, it turns out a lot of them started in places where they were surrounded by the best resources - sometimes that is money, sometimes that is people, sometimes, that is technology (or some other resource that helps you shape reality). Early in your career, people tell you to pursue your passion, but it's really the intersection of passion, economic engine, and what the market will bear. As a result, people who go to money first, find it then easier to go out of it than the other way around. It's not that you won't learn anything elsewhere, but you learn with more resources, and it turns out most people go to where resources are.”

So... I feel like this post has taken a windy path, where I ramble a ton. Scrolling up, I notice that I start with my conversation with my academic advisor, and I go to the differences between meaningfulness and fulfillment. Ultimately, I make a pit stop to the role that money plays in all of our choices (the elephant in the room, in my humble opinion). Our individual core values shape our choices and outcomes, and we can condition ourselves to feel certain ways, for better or for worse. As of right now, I think working in academia or education checks my boxes, but others won’t agree (and ha! I don’t know if I have what it takes to go into academia). Andrew Lee argues that “right now the private sector is pretty damn good at being able to achieve some powerful social ends,” and as a venture capitalist, he can fund underrepresented founders and amplify their voices in society. You have people who are marketing sustainable products (hi Lauren), and you have people like my parents who work tirelessly every day so that we can have a better life in America. There’s not one way to get there -- wherever you believe "there” is. 

[khadij-al-kubra]

Thomas in Wonderland  (ch 3)

Characters: Thomas (fictional), Virgil, Roman, Patton, Logan, Remy, Emile, Joan, Talyn, Deceit, Nate, The Dragon Witch, fan adopted short vid characters

Word Count: 1739

Summary: Thomas gets trolled by flowers and has a good cry

Author’s Note: Hey everyone! So happy to see that people are having fun with this story so far. I know i’m having a lot of fun writing it! Also big news is that I now have an AO3 account! So you can check this and other stories out there if you’d like. As always I am open to any writing critiques or tips you may have, and any likes, comments or reblogs would be immensely appreciated! Also please let me know if you would like to be tagged in future chapters for this fanfic or any of my other future writings. So last time, we were just entering a lovely garden...  

Flowers & Floods

Thomas couldn’t say for sure how long he’d been walking for, since, he still couldn’t decipher the Black Rabbit’s watch, but at best guess probably a good 15-30 minutes. He wished there was more of that growing grape soda. Not only because it would’ve been nice to get back to his normal size (being so small got to be pretty disorienting after a while), but also he was really thirsty from walking so much.

“Maybe Talyn has a point about carrying a travel water bottle everywhere,” Thomas said to himself. “But carrying it around gets cumbersome. Plus it always bangs against your leg    and then you get a little bruise on my thigh. Then again, if you had some water on you then maybe you wouldn’t feel so dehydrate and cranky now.”

He sagged a bit at his own reasoning, knowing he had a point. Was it worse to lose an argument with yourself or better?

“Well, at least it’s a beautiful day.” he mused to himself, trying to keep up his moral.

And it truly was lovely beyond that tiny door into this larger than life garden. The sapphire sky was bright overhead above the canopy of big grass blades, and the sun shone through the broad green leaved making them look like sheets of emerald. The soil beneath his sneakers was slightly soft, not enough to sink into and get stuck but it felt like a vacation for his tired feet. Clear drops of dew still lingering on the stems shimmered like crystal bobbles. Sure there was the occasional beetle crossing, but hey, at least there weren’t any spiders.

But oh, the flowers were by far the most beautiful part. There were so many different kinds, some he recognized others he didn’t. And their natural perfume gave off a heady aroma that was present yet not overwhelming. Their colors were so vibrant they almost looked like candy, yet Thomas could tell they would no doubt be velvety to the touch. And they were HUGE! True, that was only because he was tiny, but still.

Thomas sighed. “It’d be a lot more enjoyable if I actually knew where I was going.”

He still wanted to find the Black Rabbit, but only knew he’d come through this giant garden. There was no way else he could have gone. If there was actually a path then Thomas was too small to see it. There was a chance he might’ve already been on it, but from way down to the ground he had no way of knowing for sure. Thomas had hoped that by keeping straight (heh) he’d eventually get somewhere, but there was nothing around that told him where anywhere was. No people. No signs. Nothing.

“It’s too bad I can’t just ask the flowers for directions,” Thomas said. “Bet they could tell me where I am. Not that flowers can talk.”

“Oi! Who says we can’t talk?”

“GAH!” Thomas jumped back, started by hearing a voice other than his own for the first time since the Black Rabbit. “Who said that?”

“Up here ya twat!”

“And over here.”

“And here.”

The voices had Thomas turning in circles. Finally he decided to follow the first one’s advice to look up and his jaw dropped. He was staring into the face of a petunia. As in the flower literally had a face with eyes and a mouth and all.

“Wha-was that…you?” Thomas asked.

“Well of course it was me, who else?” Judging by the pout and the way its petals bent to rest on its stem, it appeared to be a properly put out Petunia.

“And me!” said an Iris.

“And me,” said a Tiger Lily

“And me too,” said a Daisy.

“Me, me! Pay attention to me!” said a Rose.

Thomas could only gape as the flowers around drooped down around him, their eyes scrutinizing every inch of him harder than a live stream audience. One part of his brain told him to close his mouth and that it was rude to stare. Another part of his brain told him HOLY HECK! THESE FLOWERS CAN TALK!?!? He went with the latter thought.

“HOLY HECK, YOU FLOWERS CAN TALK!?”

“Well of course we can talk,” said the Iris. “What ever made you think we couldn’t? That’s pretty presumptuous of you.”

“Well it’s just, flowers don’t typically talk where I’m from.”

“Umm why does this little sprout assume we’re all flowers?” said a Dandelion. “You don’t think weeds should be proud of who they are?”

“Oh! Well of course you can,” said Thomas. “I didn’t mean to offend any plant.”

Of all the things that had happened so far to Thomas today, this was by far the most curious.  Who would’ve thought that a bunch of would flowers could be so, well, mean? Still, they were the only ones around who could possibly help him, so he took a breath to calm his growing headache and put on a friendly face.

“Actually, I was wondering if you lovely, uh, flora could help me. See, I’m looking for a Black Rabbit. He passed through here and I have—“

“So what sort of a plant are you anyway?” asked the Petunia.

“It doesn’t look like a flower,” said the Iris. “Where are its petals? It’s not a real flower if it doesn’t have colorful petals.”

“Its colors are so dull,” said the Daisy.

“Oh, uh, I’m not a plant. I’m a person. My name is Thomas and I—”

“Tho-mas,” said the Tiger Lily. “That’s a pretty stupid name for a plant species, don’t you think? Why not be creative and come up with something more original?”

“Well that’s my name and I happen to like it. And I’ll have you know that I can be very creative, at least I think—“

“Do you really need to brag so much?” asked the Petunia. “It just makes plants like you desperate, fishing for likes and compliments.”

Thomas huffed. “Listen, I just need to know where—“

“That’s the ugliest flower I’ve ever seen,” said the Rose.

“Oh my gosh, I’ll bet it doesn’t even get pruned,” said the Tiger Lily

These plants were really getting on his last nerve. “Look I’m kinda lost here! I-I had a hard day, am super small, and I’d really like to get back to my regular size—“

“Well not all of us have a choice of whether or not we can grow bigger,” said the Dandelion. “Or even grow prettier.”

“Could you just please—”

“Yeah, that’s pretty selfish of you dontcha think?”

“Is this even a real plant?”

“Maybe you should check your privilege.”

That was it! “GGNNHHAAAAAAAA!!!!”

Thomas ran away from the barrage of critical flowers as fast as he could. He didn’t pay attention to the direction, only knowing that he had to get away from all those harsh comments. He ran and ran through the garden until his aching calves screamed at him to stop. Finally he plopped down on a dirt mount in the middle of an open field to rest.

Well that’s just great. Thomas thought as he caught his breath. Now I’m tired, thirsty, I’ve got a headache, those flowers were NO help at all, and I’m STILL lost! It wasn’t like like Thomas couldn’t take a healthy dose of constructive criticism, but those plants were being just would not let up with their mean words. Like what did he ever do to them? He could feel the stress of his day so far, from the writers block to the fall to now, building up so much that there was only one thing he could do.

Thomas let himself have a good cry, because gosh darn it, men could cry too!

He cried and cried, felt the teardrops billow over down his cheeks. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t at normal size, but he could feel the salty tears taking up more space on his face, as though they were Studio Ghibli style tears. Once he started, Thomas just couldn’t seem to stop crying. He felt silly for making such a big fuss like this, letting all those hurtful comments get to him even though none of it was true. The embarrassment of this only made him cry even more. Thomas was so in the throes of letting out his pent up emotions that he didn’t realize he was creating a puddle around himself. Which turned into a small pond, which turned into a sizeable lake, until finally the water was up to his shoulders.

“Oh no!” Thomas cried out. “Oh great, now look at the mess I’ve made!”

Thomas still could not stop crying, but he was in enough possession of his faculties that he started to doggy paddle so as not to drown in his own river of tears he was making. At least it wasn’t the ocean, although the water was certainly salty enough to seem like one. Thomas never did well in open waters, and the fear seemed to kick in the fight aspect of his anxiety. Thomas mentally pulled himself together enough that he was only sniffling now, and he focused his body to keep swimming.

After ten or fifteen swimmers strokes he realized that there was really no need to swim so hard. The river of tears carried him along smoothly, and he could just let himself float. It was a big relief and frankly one of the few helpful things that had happened to him so far. It was a nice change to get his bearings.

“Boy, I really let myself get carried away with all that crying, huh?” Hehe. Dad joke. “I’ve gotta say though, I do feel better. I guess sometimes you’ve just gotta let it all out. And by the looks of it, I had a LOT to let out!

He only hoped that he hadn’t accidentally drowned out all those flowers back in the garden. Even if they probably deserved it, the thorny twigs. Last time he would let a bunch of attention seeking flowers get to him. And sure, he was still kind of lost and unsure of whether or not he was still heading towards the same direction as the Black Rabbit had been going. But at least he was still going in a direction. Thomas was optimistic that eventually he’d come across the furry fella again.

But I can’t keep floating along like this forever.

<=PREV

NEXT=>

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#KDsWriting #Thomas in Wonderland AU #thoams sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #deceit sanders #emile picani #remy sanders #joan and talyn #nate sanders #dragon witch #sanders sides #sanders sides fandom #famders

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine Advent Drabble: “Sweeter than Honey” (Rated NC17)

Summary: At their wedding, Kurt and Blaine recount for Blaine's grandmother how they first met ... but they might be fudging some of the details. (1459 words)

Notes: Written for the Klaine Advent Drabble 2018 prompt 'latke', but there are a couple of others in there as well.

Read on AO3.

Blaine takes a step out of the music store and squints at the white light assaulting his eyes. The sun sure is bright. Was it that bright when he got here? He can’t remember.

He checks the time on his watch.

12:15.

Okay. That explains it. He’s pretty sure he got here when the store opened.

That’s a record, he thinks as he heads for his car. I was only in there what? Two hours this time? But it’s his day off. It’s not as if there’s anywhere he’s supposed to be right now, no one but his cat relying on him at home. He might just hang out at the mall and make a day of it - roam the shops he used to when he was in high school, maybe stop at the food court for something edible on a stick.

Cinnamon apple soft pretzel?

Yes, please!

He hasn’t indulged in any retail therapy in ages, this morning’s foray excluded. It might be nice, reliving his teenage years.

It might also be immensely pathetic, especially if he runs into anyone he knows ... like a student. The seniors get half-day privileges on Thursdays. And considering everyone in the world has a cell phone with a camera these days, that pic would spread across campus like Nutella.

Welp. There’s that plan shot down.

Back to finding his car he goes.

The parking lot is blessedly empty for a Thursday afternoon, cars parked in patches further up but very little along the fringes. There is one vehicle within walking distance of his - a large, black SUV with an agitated man circling round it, peeking inside and huffing curses under his breath. Blaine doesn’t know this man from Adam, but he looks as if his day is about to be ruined by whatever’s going on with his vehicle. From where Blaine is standing, it doesn’t look broken into, and none of the tires seem flat. He’d most likely be fine if Blaine went on his way, but he has a compulsion to help him.

Blaine’s day has been good so far. He should spread the love.

Blaine approaches, assuming the man is the vehicle’s owner and not a potential thief. Blaine thinks he can accurately interpret the face he’s making. It’s the face of a man who’s locked his keys in his car. If so, maybe Blaine can help.

But he keeps one hand in his pocket, palming his can of pepper spray, just to be on the safe side.

Though the man pacing back and forth with his slim fitting slacks, tailored jacket, and chiseled cheekbones looks so much like a model, Blaine would probably hand over his wallet with barely a threat and then thank him for taking it.

“Hey? Are you alright?”

“Uh …” Blaine watches the man pause, searching for a face to match the voice, and Blaine gives him a little wave. When the man sees him coming, he smiles for a second, but that frustrated expression returns way too quickly. Too bad, Blaine thinks. He has an incredible smile. “Yeah. I guess I’m …” The man peers in through the tinted windows of his SUV, glaring at something inside, then suddenly jumps almost a mile high. “Uh, no. No, I don’t think I am, to be honest.”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“I don’t know.” The man puts both hands to his temples and starts massaging. “Are you, by ay chance, allergic to bees?”

“Bees? Did you say … bees?” Blaine chuckles, but the man doesn’t chuckle back.

He looks as serious as a heart attack.

“Yes,” the man replies, gesturing to his SUV. “Bees.”

Blaine steps forward, cautiously creeping towards the vehicle, unsure what could possibly be going on within. Did a bee get in his SUV and he can’t risk getting stung because he’s allergic? This seems like a bit of an over-reaction if that’s the case, but who is Blaine to judge? Allergies can definitely be lethal.

He hears a low buzzing, like the hum of powerlines a distance away. He gets nose up to the window, but jumps back himself when a dozen bees ram the glass. He braves a second look and that’s when he sees the bees – hundreds of them covering the rear bench seat.

“Oh my … oh my God! What’s going on in there?”

“I don’t know. I was picking up some latkes for a friend of mine. She’s super pregnant and having cravings.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Blaine says, but the man frowns.

“She’s my stepbrother’s wife. He’s away for the week. I need to feed her constantly because she’s eating me out of house and home! Thankfully, her favorite restaurant was willing to make me eight dozen at a moment’s notice, with a bucket of honey applesauce to go with them …”

Blaine’s stomach growls, reminding him that he’d changed his mind about going to the food court and how that was a mistake. “That sounds good.”

“Doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I wouldn’t know. The bees got to them before I could get them home!”

“Did you leave a window open?” Blaine walks around the SUV, inspecting the windows and doors for a point of entry, but they seem to be shut tight.

“I must have. But I can’t figure out where.”

“Did you call the fire department? Or the police?”

The man takes Blaine’s elbow and tugs him over to the driver’s side. Before Blaine gets to the window, he can plainly see a cell phone resting on the seat.

“Oh. I see,” Blaine says, shaking his head. God, this is awful! He’s glad he decided to stop and help. “Well, Mr. …?”

“Hummel,” the man says, sticking out a hand. “Kurt Hummel.”

“My name’s Blaine. And I’m not allergic to bees, but I don’t think I’m qualified to wrangle hundreds of bees out of an SUV.”

“Oh. No. You’re … you’re probably right,” Kurt says, looking even more defeated than he had before. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Not over latkes.”

“But,” Blaine continues, “I have my cell phone with me. I can call 9-1-1.”

“Could you?”

“Yup. And maybe, if you’re not too busy, I could buy you some coffee? You know, while we wait for someone to come by and evict your bees.”

Kurt looks at Blaine, at his warm and honest smile, and that incredible smile from before returns. “I’d like that.”

***

“So, you boys met over latkes?”

“Well, technically, bees. But latkes, too,” Kurt says, reaching across the table to put a hand on Blaine’s, covering his new husband’s wedding band with his own. “I know it must sound corny to you, Mrs. Anderson …”

“It’s so sweet!” Blaine’s grandmother coos, moving her hand to cover the both of theirs. “Considering some of the distasteful ways young people meet nowadays - at night clubs and on the Internet - it’s nice to know that honest-to-God meet cutes still exist.”

“Kurt’s a hopeless romantic,” Blaine explains, giving his husband a kiss on the cheek, “so I lucked out.”

“You’re darned right!” Blaine’s grandmother gives their hands a squeeze. “That’s a story you’re going to be able to tell to your children … and your grandchildren … with no shame.”

Kurt turns to Blaine and smiles. “That’s what we’re hoping.”

The music in the hall transitions from the handful of fast-paced rock songs Blaine and Kurt decided to sit out to a slower Celine Dion number.

“Ah! Finally! Mr. Ander-Hummel,” Blaine says, “since this is one of the songs you picked specifically for us to dance to, would you like to join me on the dance floor?”

“I would.” Kurt winks at the older woman beaming at the two young man as they rise out of their seats and head for the dance floor. Other couples clear a path so husband and husband can have the center spotlight. Kurt puts a hand on Blaine’s shoulder, and Blaine wraps an arm around Kurt’s waist. They move together on the next down beat as polite applause travels around the room.

“You know, the speed in which you just lied to my grandmother is impressive,” Blaine whispers so only Kurt can hear. “Should I be frightened?”

“You should be grateful. Unless you wanted to tell a 96 year-old-woman with a pace maker that her grandson met his husband in the glory hole of a gay nightclub.” Kurt shakes his head, but he can’t help grinning. “In retrospect, we should have planned ahead. We knew this question might come up. No one really knows how we met.”

“We’d better remember that story then,” Blaine agrees, resting his head on Kurt’s shoulder. “It might come in handy later.”

#klaine advent 2018 #klaine fanfiction #klaine fic #frankie writes

[arttlations]

one

Aside from the fact that my essays always stray too far from the topic given or as mentioned before, lack elegance in my usage of language and hence cost me a few marks, my overall grades were basically good. Simply put, I was close to being called a top student. That is why, before the placings for the midterm exams were out, I made a bet with Fatty and the rest that I would be able to attain a level placing in the top 15. This was a safe bet, for if I could get a pass for my essay, top 15 in the level would be an easy goal.

However, when the placings were released, I was ranked 16th.

Speechless, I treated Fatty and the rest to the student cafeteria's best fried noodles. Each person ate two big plates, and along with the noodles that disappeared, so did half of my week's allowance. (Dad and Mum used to give my brother and I our allowance weekly.) I was dissatisfied; my essay had surprisingly gotten a good pass, yet why was I unable to get into the top 15? I took out the seven scripts and went through each one of them carefully: out of a 100, Chinese 87, Mathematics 90, English 92, Physics 89, Political Science 86, History 69. My History must have pulled me down; it actually fell below 70 marks. Still unwilling to accept the placing, I went through the script thoroughly, hoping to spot a calculation error of one or two marks. The 15th rank belonged to Lu Feng, who was also from our class, and he only got one mark more than I did. Getting one mark back would mean I could share the spot with him. This wasn't about honor but rather about whether I would be able to eat this week.

With this final check, my blood started boiling, my face turned red with fury. I got a full score for the multiple-choice questions, but the teacher only gave me a big red tick, not a single mark out of the twenty marks was added to my final score.

Twenty, twenty marks...... Amongst the top 15, even half a mark could change everything, let alone forty half marks.

The me who was originally lying in the top bunk bed of the eight-people shared dorm awaiting death immediately sprang up, prepared myself to look for Fatty first to get the money back and then get my rightful marks back at the teachers' office. Suddenly, as soon as I lifted my head, I saw Lu Feng who resided in the lower bunk below me dash through the doorway excitedly, in his hands was an expensive-looking paper box.

"Cheng Yi Chen, come and check out my CD player."

It was the year 1996, in our small village back then, it was a time where many children could only enjoy the heavy cassette tape players, and carrying an AIWA Walkman was already a privilege that extended way beyond the MD-Player. I too, carried an unspeakable sense of curiosity and admiration as I examined the black gadget, and in the meantime, completely forgot about my usual stance of not bothering myself with Lu Feng.

Since the start of school, only half a term had gone past, but the cliques in which the boys hung out in were already more or less formed. Lu Feng and I were two different kinds of people that would never mix with the other no matter what. For me, as you guys have seen, I was a good student and an obedient son. My brother who's younger than me by a year was still in his first year of junior secondary school while I was a quick student who moved up by a few grades to be in the first year of senior secondary school. Besides my marks, my other aspects were on the low side; my family's financial background was extremely normal, (I'll see you try if you had parents who are both earning an average salary and yet have to support a son, one without any knowledge in terms of managing finances, studying at a prestigious school.) I was taught from young that nothing was more valuable than the knowledge you get from books and was threatened with the usual scare "if you can't get into university, then you can go back to our hometown and plow through our ancestors' fields that extend for miles", hence, I would never compare myself with others. Be it in terms of my meals or attire, as long as it's edible or wearable, an example being my outfit from junior high, the standard blue or black long pants with a white top and white sneakers, I would still try to wear it. As expected, I had the most appropriate hairstyle that's aligned with the school rules, and a daily scene you would see would be me wearing an old-fashioned pair of glasses as I sat at my desk, occupied with work.

Lu Feng, on the other hand, he's...... um...... it isn't right to speak badly of someone behind their backs, so I would simply present an objective point of view, picking a few rumors I had heard through the grapevine.

Appearance: Apparently, he was the level's most stylish and handsome male student, and if compared to Andy Lau or Aaron Kwok, they wouldn't stand a chance. (Really? Why didn't anyone find a Chinese man with a high nose bridge and deep amber eyes strange?)

Family background: Yes...... I heard that his father was a Chinese American, but anyway, Lu Feng is a person of mixed race, and just putting this out here, from the start of junior high, Lu Feng's family had been donating large sums of money to the school yearly to build this and that.

Academics: Um...... Let's just say the fact that he had entered the top 15 was as senseless as the fact that I hadn't entered the top 15.

Character: Eh, this sensitive question makes it hard to arrive at an answer, but the money that his father had donated was partly for the removal of records of Lu Feng's multiple fights. In one of the years of junior high, he had miraculously not been caught for the whole year. The finance department was said to have been riddled with anxiety for quite a while then.

Simply concluded, none of us look up to the other.

This new machine had obviously made us forget about this as we sat together listening to Lu Feng's collection of CDs of popular rock artists who I had never heard of.

"The sound quality is quite good, isn't it?" Lu Feng excitedly chattered, "My father's a man who keeps his words. Getting into the top 15 this time all depended on luck."

I immediately understood. This was the prize Lu Feng asked for from his father.

Feeling the history paper in my hands, I hesitated. I didn't like Lu Feng, but I couldn't bear to dampen his spirits at the moment.

"Like it? I'm going out to play soccer in the afternoon, do you want to borrow it first?"

Gosh, this was hateful...... He was too generous.

I quickly rolled up the paper hidden behind my back. Forget it, the cost of the plates of fried noodles wouldn't even add up to half a piece of the CD player's antenna.

Lu Feng scooped up the soccer ball below his table, and shouting for the boys next door, he left. The player was still sitting on my desk. I sighed. "Because of you; to protect you I'll have to starve for two days."

Throwing my script aside, I picked up an English textbook for a read on Lu Feng's bed before I gradually fell asleep.

Go on, sleep, once you fall asleep you'll no longer be hungry.

When I woke up, Lu Feng was already back, his eyes carefully examining something in his hand as he stood by the bedside rubbing his hair dry. I wandered for a moment before realizing that was my history paper.

"Your marks are tabulated wrongly." Seeing that I had woken up, Lu Feng lifted the paper, his tone calm yet unfriendly.

I muttered an "oh" in return.

"Why don't you go correct it? You might just become 1st if the marks are added."

"If I changed it, you would..." As expected, I was never one with the gift of gab after a nap. Who knew, Lu Feng was one with an immense amount of pride, and the look on his face obviously changed upon hearing these words.

"I know you look down on me. When the final exams come about, I'll be able to get a placing above you just fine by myself, you don't have to pretend to care."

Well, so much for being nice.

"I don't have any other intentions. That player is pretty neat, but as to whether you want it or not, that is your problem, it has nothing to do with me. I have no need to curry favor with you, and I'm not looking down on anyone, so don't be so narrow-hearted." I was too lazy to say any more, and with a quick eye roll, I snatched my paperback.

The room was quiet for some time before I heard him spoke. "How about this, I don't like owing people favors, so let me treat you to a meal."

This person is pretty irritating, treating someone to a meal immediately after having scolded them off.

After giving it some thought and finding that I was indeed hungry, I nodded. "Sure."

After that, I often thought, if I wasn't for this exchange, if Lu Feng and I had kept our distance and simply brushed past each other as usual, the future, my future, his future, would perhaps have been different.

I never expected that Lu Feng would go to such a great expense for the meal.

Repeating myself again, that was the year 1996, Kentucky's chicken wasn't as commonly found in the past. To eat that meal of KFC, it required a one hour plus journey on an old bumpy bus before they reached the city. To be honest, my knowledge on these American fast foods only extended till what I've read about them or seen on television, and as a result, Lu Feng called me old-fashioned for I had on a serious and respectful expression as I dipped the French fries in the tomato sauce with deep concentration, even more so than when I do an analysis question in Chemistry.

Even though I was mercilessly made fun of and laughed at by Lu Feng, that became one of my life's most unforgettable meals, and that feeling would never return in the future as I sit in the KFC by the street eating a burger and pieces of chicken.

Maybe a person's first indeed leaves the strongest memories.

This will then explain why in the many years to come, I would still fail to forget this man called Lu Feng.

For as many firsts he had given me, he had taken just as much away from me.

prologue//two//masterlist

#arttl #a round trip to love #a round trip to love translation #boys love #bl novel #gay boys

[lumifuer]

Bleakness

Pairings: David 8 x Reader Words: 1191 Warnings: Angst, fluff Request: @shjixro Could you do David w^ number 9 //maybe the reader is depressed or smt. (if you’re ok with the topic if not you could just write your own interpretation ) Thank you♡♡ I love your writing 🙇‍♀️💕 @weppy #10 with David 8 (*´ω｀*) Also your writing is so great! Thank you for all the hard work you put into everything you do! A/N: I combined those two request, hope you won’t have anything against it but it felt pretty natural. Enjoy and thank you for sending them! I’m kind of proud of this one.

Summary: Reader’s dream is turned to ashes before her eyes and David is the only one who can breathe life into her again.

Whenever we encounter something horrifying or tragically traumatizing, one of the first defence mechanism is trying to make us believe that it’s only a bad dream and you will soon wake up from it. All you have to do is pinch yourself and just like that, bad thing fades into the oblivion.

You could never grasp the idea behind this concept. Facing a factor that can tear your heart into two was merely one of the countless aspects of unfavourable situations. The worst of them all was the thought that there was no way out. A suggestion that it might all be just a nightmare served as a diversion delaying the inevitable. People were tricking themselves all the time, why the hell would they give up on a blissful lie that could bring a peace of mind?

You squeezed your eyes shut even tighter, brushing the moment in which you would finally have to confront the reality away. Even if just for another five seconds. You were not the runaway type, what else could you do in a situation like this one?

The sound of the opening door reached your ears, followed by quiet padding on the cold floor. The visitor kept a safe distance from the couch that you had heavy fell on a few hours ago. You didn’t bother to shake off this lethargy that was quickly spreading all over the ship.

You knew that David came by to check on you. The rest of the crew was in a comparable condition and no one was willing to share their feelings with anyone. You’d wasted all those years on research, finding sponsors, collecting funds, gathering resources and bringing together a whole professional team of people. Next, the time for detailed planning had begun. After this part was over, all that was left on the checklist was to finally embark on a journey that the bravest visionaries wouldn’t dare to dream about. You were a part of the earth’s messengers, who were supposed to meet the Creators, the beings that you’d imagined knew the answer to every question your kind has ever asked. Like many philosophers before you desired to understand the meaning of humans’ existence and the role you were supposed to play.

But your dreams and expectations have been viciously taken away and burned to ashes right before your eyes. The human race turned out to be to be a mistake; a failed experiment that’s so hopeless that the scientists working on it decided to remove it from their memory. Or even existence.

“Miss Y/N,” David’s was pleasant and unmoved on the surface but the connection that formed between you and him gave you enough perspective to pick up a single bitter tone in his voice, “is there anything I can do?”

“Leave me alone,” you said before you gave yourself enough time to think about those words. They came out of your mouth, without any supervision on your part, but you didn’t even have the energy to take them back.

But the silence that filled the room wasn’t disturbed by either a response or a sound of steps heading towards the door. Despite your weak request, David decided to stay.

You allowed yourself the privilege of the last five seconds in the kingdom of illusion and then opened your eyes. Facing the reality was less painful than previously anticipated. Maybe it has something to do with David’s participation in the process of entering the world as it was slowly, step by step.

You shifted into a sitting position and rubbed your eyes, letting them get used to the bright light falling on the scattered papers on the floor. Documents, reports, calculations - all of this lost its value with a flick of the finger. Just like your big dreams.

Feeling a painful sting in your chest area, you turned your head away from the tangible mess mirroring the one that befell in your mind.

David, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He was standing in front of you with a concerned expression and hands behind his back. You could notice a few open wounds on his synthetic skin, a sore reminder of the meeting with the Creators he put so much faith in.

You promised yourself to take care of them the following day.

“I’m so sorry, David, I didn’t mean to sound so harsh,” you explained, shaking your head.

He just smiled comfortingly and came over to the couch you were still sitting on.

“I understand how you must feel,” he whispered as if he was afraid that someone might eavesdrop on your conversation. It drew your attention and for a brief moment you managed to forget that your effort in ruins, “because I feel the same.”

It was not until he was so close you saw the sadness hiding in his generous smile. David wasn’t just an ordinary android but everyone treated him like one. He was regarded a servant ought to shape to whims of the crew and helping with work from time to time. But inside of him, there was a growing human organism, constantly improving and getting closer to its archetype. Those months spent on dreaming and talking with you allowed him, to a certain extent, become a real man.

You got up from the couch, clambering out of the warm blankets that you’d brought with you on the ship as a token of home. You moved past David and started aimlessly pacing around the room that had gone from your temporary quarters to the golden cage of your dreams. David was watching you with immense interest, carefully studying your body. He noticed bloodshot eyes and the bags under them but seeing that the spark that used to ignite your gaze now dimmed was the most heart-shattering discovery.

“So, what’s next?” you asked, stopping.

His gaze dropped to the floor and he thought for a second. He beamed, first at the images that appeared in his head and then at you.

“Whatever we want,” he confessed at last as if it the most obvious thing in the universe.

Something in his voice made the concrete walls surrounding your mind like a cell break, allowing a ray of sunshine to pour in through the crack.

Maybe not everything was lost after all.

You made a beeline to him in no time and stopped few inches away, carefully studying his face, searching for a sign that he wasn’t being serious but you didn’t find it. His enthusiasm was sincere. What’s more, it started to spread on you.

You threw your arms around his neck, it came to you like a natural reflex. You had to wait a few seconds for his arms to embrace you as well but once they did, you felt needed and safe. He managed to put all your broken pieces together again.

“Thank you for not giving up,” you whispered into his ear.

“I’ll never give up on you,” he replied, pulling you closer to his body.

Thank you for reading!

Tagging: @weppy @shjixro @razorbilljill

#david 8 x reader #david 8 imagine #david8 x reader #david8 imagine #prometheus #michael fassbender x reader #michael fassbender imagine #david 8 #david 8 x you #michael fassbender x you #michael fassbender fluff #mywriting

[044-eu]

Stay away from GTA V FIVEM's WHITELIST servers !!!

Dear friends, today I will tell you about my experience so that you can evaluate and decide independently and impartially. It is important that this article is read from start to finish so that it is easier to get a complete idea as complete as possible of what we are talking about and how this experience of mine can help you. It all started when I decided to follow someone on his Twitch channel, a place where he streams almost exclusively on games. I had already heard of this game and played there in the past a few hours but unfortunately the pre-packaged story bored me. I don't really like playing singles and so I took the opportunity to involve a longtime friend of mine. The idea was to find a server that with appropriate modifications would allow us an experience as realistic and intense as possible. So, after I figured out how to play on an unofficial GTA V server usin, I realized that there were a lot of unofficial servers available. The reason why there are so many servers is probably due to a set of factors. To create an unofficial server gta 5 with fivem you need to generate a token that will allow you to host up to 32 players and to increase this number up to 128 you need to make a "donation" to the creators of IVM. A server can always earn money through "donations". Each owner of these servers manages it completely autonomously, sometimes using collaborators. Both sides can often give players reason to complain so in the long run those who have the chance get tired and create it on their own.

I decided to opt for a server where this person was playing that I followed on twitch because it was a server where you could play role and we others could count on a similar experience to say the least ten years. I was convinced that it would not be that difficult but reading a fairly long regulation that included a request, a written examination and an oral examination, we immediately became discouraged and went to a server that did not include the whitelist, even in the latter it was played role. The server was not much at the performance level and in fact, just created the character, I found myself with the basic model and without the possibility to customize it. We met a few players and everything was pretty good, except maybe the fact that the server was pretty bare of players. One of these people we met on the street, advised me to contact the administrators on discord (which were not there) to give me what I needed to change my features. Some time later, I was intercepted by a server administrator who ordered me in a tone of annoyed voice to change my character by going to the various shops. We told him that we had punctured (and it was true) and that therefore we could not go around with the car. We contacted, following the directions of the game, the mechanic who for payment with the virtual currency of the game would fix the wheel. After several tens of minutes waiting for them impaled, we decided to take the car to reach the store in order to follow the administrator's instructions even with the wheel punctured. We almost immediately receive a message with a warning, three alerts are banned. After a short time, the same administrator of before stops us and tells us that "you can not go around with the punctured rubber" because, if we had lost the grip with the car, they would accuse him of running a server in which there was not really a role. The managers of these servers, they are terrified of people who sometimes come in just to shoot "funny" videos with the purpose of discrediting the latter. Usually these players have other servers and therefore perpetrate this kind of "unfair competition" but that's not always the case. In summary, in this server without whitelist, we could not find the administrators and when they found us, instead of remedying the situation caused by their mismanagement of the server and the various bugs, they reproached us. Imagine a little boy berating men in their forties. It was quite recreational. After struggling to comply and with the terror that at every corner an admin would pop up to scold us or ban us, we decided to look for a job. The options of the various public works available were very few. Initially we chose to be truckers, after getting our driver's license, we found with difficulty the site where to take the trucks and then we wondered who could call us in a server so bare of missions and people. After some time of pure boredom, we returned to the center of employment which is a circle where you choose a certain job on your own. In this case we decided to try a slightly more independent job: the woodcutter. We quickly realized that it was a repetitive job that we couldn't complete and so we decided to opt for a server with a little more people. I fell out then on a server that offers services in whitelist, also for this is planned the submission of an application, after some time the background of the character shows up, you do an oral interview and if you are deemed worthy, you will finally be granted the incredible honor of entering to play on the server. After reading the regulation, I decided to do the interview without the help of any help because in fact on discord, there was no way to check if I had the regulation under hand to peek but I wanted to do things right. I've never liked the groups where you have to take an exam but many are convinced that it is the best way to have high quality players and to ensure fun for everyone. After waiting patiently on the dedicated channel, we hear the voice of one of the examiners who, slightly in advance, gives us a speech very similar to what you do when you enter the Marines. A couple of people, discouraged by that speech, came out of the channel to "better prepare" for the question that would be based on a 41-page manual. It was my turn, initially there were two examiners but at some point one went away because he had to have lunch. They asked me why I had chosen that server and I explained that I was following this streamer. They uttered a strange verse in chorus, but surely it will have been a rustle on discord. They asked me a lot of questions but in the end the examiner decided to postpone me to three days later because I was insecure about the number of people who can be involved in a given action. I didn't remember if it was 8 or 15, it was 8. They didn't even know what a GAME MASTER was, which I had to explain to them. Because I was "insecure" they decided to postpone me to three days later. If I had decided to try again and failed again, the time would have been extended to 5 days and then I could no longer participate. Personally, I have decided not to try again, I was not convinced, but this decision comes from a set of reflections. The first reason is definitely the fact that at almost forty I can't be judged by kids to have the honor of playing gta, it's a stupid reason I know but anyway it's my time. The second reason is that the same streamer I was following, following my application, admitted that she did not do any interviews to get on the server. As I have also been confirmed by other players at certain times, the server administrators, as it is their right to do, invite who they want them. This is perfectly understandable and legitimate, the server is theirs and of course they let in whoever wants it. So why do I potentially have to lose 10 days in the hope of having the immense privilege of entering? If players are so well selected, why are there twitch recordings where you clearly see impossible actions, characters doing metagaming, and other unlikely actions? It's not hard to check, take a look at the various streaming platforms. At this point my dear friends, you probably might think that I wrote this article just because I was discarded. And in fact, I have to say that I had the impulse to write it right with the intention of venting. Knowing myself so I decided not to name names (although I have evidence of what I say of course) and also I decided to wait more than a day before starting this article to make me boil a little feeling. I therefore think that I wrote an article that perhaps at the beginning was born as a form of revenge but that in the end will give you that point of reflection such that you better consider your choices to give value to yourself and your time. In fact, I thought that on a server managed in such a "careful" way. It doesn't take anything for someone to put me in a position to make a mistake. If I had to be careful and focused all the time without having time to relax, surely the quality of my fun would suffer a lot. If I were to be a very careful person, who wants to play at all costs on that server, after a long time that I play with it and after building so much, I could be banned for something minor or because someone could put me in a position to make any mistake. So from my friends' point of view, I think this article has come very close to the goal of saving you time and nervousness. My final opinion, therefore, I had had a little previous experience, is to never lose sight of the fact that we are always dealing with a game and that for this reason, never and under any circumstances, you can lose sight of the line that separates the game from reality. Rather than miss a day studying myself 41 pages to be rejected due to a wrong number, I would certainly have invested better my time in looking for the server suitable for my needs without restrictions and focusing especially on the most important side of the game that is the game. Or to read a good book for example. In fact, with tests and examinations, if one were to follow the directions of these people literally, it could potentially waste 10 days of his life between sheets and regulations. This is not entertainment for me, it's an exaggeration. Ultimately, I also recommend that you consider the fact that (also due to the maximum number of players), you'll hardly find people interesting enough to spend their hours without getting bored. This is my personal opinion of course, feel free to leave yours in the comments. Read the full article

#intrattenimento #giochi #gta #giochionline