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rowanaelinn · 3 years

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Fire on Fire - Chapter Three

Chapter two // Chapter four

“My head’s gonna explode,” Elide Lochan sighed before she drank two big gulps of water as if she had been thirsty for days. Aelin knew the feeling. She’d been working for two hours now but it felt like ten. The bar was so hot and the music so loud, she couldn’t wait to go home and come back to the silence of her room.

Today was her first day and of course, it was a Saturday night, the busiest night of the week. The uniform, which was basically only a tight white shirt and a pair of black booty shorts, was one of the other reasons Aelin decided she hated this job but only stayed for the money. Aelin had been lucky today if you can call it that, but unfortunately, that luck didn’t extend to Elide.

Some douche-bags slapped her ass when she served him his drink, and of course, all his friends howled with laughter. As if sexual harassment was some kind of joke. The moment Elide mentioned this incident, Aelin had wanted to slam the guy's head on the table but Elide stopped her. The customer was always right and both Aelin and Elide needed this job too much.

They had decided not to tell their co-worker Manon about that, Aelin and Elide had already worked with her before and Aelin knew where Manon was, violence usually followed. It was something Aelin loved about that woman, and she also found it hot as hell. Okay, maybe she had a bit of a crush on the white-haired woman. But in Aelin’s defense, Elide did have a crush on her too. It was like a general experience.

“Do you think we’ll be fired if we don’t go back?” Aelin put her cold bottle of water against the back of her neck, in an attempt to cool her down.

“Definitely, Rofle is a dick. I mean have you seen this outfit?” The brunette turned on herself and gestured to the more than revealing clothes. Aelin agreed, if her cousin saw her in this outfit he would have a heart attack. She was suddenly glad this bar opened last week, at least Aedion didn’t know this place. Yet.

“Girls,” Nesryn interrupted them. “Break’s over. Go back to work.”

Aelin undid her ponytail, a forbidden hairstyle in this bar apparently, and went back behind the counter. She wore her best fake smile and ignored the lingering looks on her breast or her backside, winked and flirted back when clients thought they had a chance of taking her home with them. Aelin hid her disgust of these men pretty good, she was proud of herself for it.

She would quit if she wasn’t low on money lately. For hell’s sake, Aedion was paying half of her rent. It had been a very long discussion between them, Aelin would rather live on the street than depend on someone. Aelin got convinced when Aedion made it clear if she didn’t accept he would call her parents. So Aelin put her pride aside and accepted, at the only condition Aedion let her pay him back whenever she could. He had argued but accepted. The Ashryver family wasn’t very good at compromise, but at least they tried.

“Aelin, go take the order of table nine,” Manon yelled at her over the background noise. Aelin gave her a thumb up as she kept pouring alcohol in the shaker.

When Aelin was done making this cocktail she wiped her hands and walked toward table nine. She looked down to grab her little booklet and pen she left in one of the pockets of her apron as she said, “Hi, welcome to the sea dragon, what can I-” She stopped as she took in who was sitting in front of her. Lorcan Salvaterre, Fenrys, Connall Moonbeam, and of fucking course, gods-damned Rowan Whitethorn. She took a deep breath and smiled, but she knew her fake smile wasn’t as convincing as it was minutes before.

She focused on Fenrys and Connall, the only ones she could stand at that table. “What can I get you?”

Fenrys had an amused look on his face, accentuated by his smirk full of wickedness. “So this is your new job?” He asked, and if she didn’t know him the look could be considered genuine.

“You knew it, Fen. I told you hours ago.” Rowan’s head whipped to Fenrys, and Aelin’s face suddenly mirrored Fenrys’s. She didn’t know what the blonde had in mind, but if it annoyed Whitethorn, Aelin was on board. Rowan’s head turned back toward her and he narrowed his eyes. “Got something on my face, Whitethorn?” She couldn’t help it, she had to always argue with him.

“Yeah, all that make-up,” his eyes roamed over her body, it took everything in her not to move under the weight of his gaze. “What’s that outfit anyway?” His disdain was quite obvious.

“My uniform, dumbass.” She tightened her grip around her pen and notebook so much that her knuckles turned white. “Be careful, it almost sounds like you care.” It was one of the most sarcastic things she had ever said in her life, the look in his eyes was enough proof.

“Why would I care about you when you’re dressed like a stripper?” He crossed his arms and Aelin had to force herself not to stare at his muscles and at the tattoo on his arms. He was a handsome bastard and it made him quite hard to hate.

“So, no respect for sex workers, Whitethorn? Why am I not surprised?”

“No, actually I respect them a lot. You’re the only person I don’t respect.” It took everything in her not to punch him in the face right now, but that’s what he was waiting for. It was like he loved to see her lose control.

“I’m going to enjoy spitting in your drink.”

“Do that and I’ll have a nice chat with your boss, good luck to find another job, princess.” He was getting angry, Aelin loved that, it meant she was winning their little game.

“Feel free to do it, it just means you’ll have to share that splendid bathroom with me longer.” She winked at him and wiggled her brows. Rowan clenched his jaw, another sign of his anger.

“Can you two stop for a minute? I’m thirsty.” Lorcan Salvaterre interrupted them and Aelin rolled her eyes. She wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with Lorcan either, but instead of always arguing as she did with Rowan, they just ignored each other.

“Who are they?” Elide asked as Aelin prepared her roommates’ order. The four of them wanted a beer, classic.

“Two of them are the bane of my existence and the two others annoying but very pretty.”

“I want him in my bed,” Elide said as she bit her lip. Aelin whipped her head toward the guys, trying to know which one she was talking about.

“I have no idea which one you’re already planning to get naked but one of them is gay and the other three aren’t good options.”

“Great, I don’t want good and I don’t want to be good. And It’s the tall one.” Elide winked and left before Aelin could say anything. Of course, Elide would be attracted to Lorcan. Alein went back to their table, accidentally spilling a little bit of Rowan’s beer on him when she accidentally tripped. He swore at her but she decided to ignore it, instead, she pushed him so she could sit next to him to be right in front of Lorcan.

“You,” She pointed at Lorcan, with her smile full of mischief.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She shook his head and she heard the twins laugh.

“What’s your type of woman?”

“Everything you aren’t.”

“I’m gonna look past that insult because I am an amazing woman,” she was cut off by Rowan’s snort. “You shut up, you’re thirty and still single.” She looked back at Lorcan but heard Rowan correct her on his age. His highness was still twenty-nine for three months. “What about 5”2, brunette, very very scary. She’s also one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen, but unfortunately, she doesn’t have good taste. I’m not her type but you are.” She winked at him. Rowan muttered something that sounded a lot like “We aren’t teenagers anymore” but she ignored him.

Lorcan furrowed his brow, Aelin could see him hesitate. “Where?”

“Want to see her dance?” Aelin didn’t wait for the answer and walked back to the bar.

Rowan was mesmerized.

The moment Aelin Ashryver Galathynius started dancing was the moment he lost his mind.

He hated her for it, hated her for being the first thing anyone looked at when they entered a room. Hated her for being the most attractive woman he had seen in a while.

She had been raised to become this. Well, not to become a barmaid in a piss-poor bar in Doranelle. But to become the type of woman everyone looked at, everyone wanted.

With Evalin Ashryver as her mother, how could Aelin become something else? Her mother was an incredible actress, and one of the most famous ones. She was also known for being cunning, ambitious, and beautiful as a sin.

And with Rhoe Galathynius as her father, Aelin knew how to captivate an audience. Rhoe was a legend of football. Whenever he played, all eyes were on him. He was smart and as cunning as his wife, a perfect match if you listened to the papers. That’s probably why he was a coach now, and that’s also why his team almost always won.

So Aelin was born with amazing genes, a talent to bewitch everyone who looked at her, and a bank account bigger than anyone should have. That’s why he didn’t understand why she would be working here and living with five guys instead of just having a big apartment in the richest part of town. But Aedion had told everyone to never mention her parents, so they all listened. Everyone was careful to do just that, maybe because Lysandra had threatened to cut their favorite body part and to make them eat it if they ever mentioned Rhoe’s or Evalin’s name. All that the day they met her when she was one month away from turning eighteen.

Now this she-devil had him under her spell. He couldn’t stop looking at the way her hips moved perfectly on beat with the music, at the way her hands wandered over her stomach, the side of her breast, and then lifted her hair in the air. Or even at how close she was to her friend, the one who is apparently interested in Lorcan. Both of them were giving a show, and when Rowan finally looked away from the blonde it was to find almost every man with their eyes on her. She knew what she was doing, he knew she did. It made him want to yell at her, even at work she couldn’t help but want attention.

Aelin turned her head, and their eyes met. Rowan sat straighter, swallowing. Her sinful mouth turned into a smirk and she accentuated her hips’ movements, aware of Rowan’s eyes on her. It was also something they did, along with arguing. They caught the other checking the other out, but wouldn’t call them on it. They would never bring it up, it was like a secret between them. He shouldn’t find the idea of sharing something with her so exciting.

She never stopped looking at him as she danced, sometimes she would bit her lip, sometimes her hands would wander on her breasts. He had to stop himself from growling as his cock hardened. Aelin was a sin.

Who did she think she was? He hated her, he made that clear. She hated him, and she had also made that clear. Why did she feel the need to tease him? She was trying to mess with him, and it was working.

The bubble broke when one of Aelin’s coworkers interrupted her, telling her and her friend she was dancing with to go back to work. Rowan couldn’t help but stare at her ass as she walked back behind the counter. He would have felt bad for it, wasn’t it for the slight sway of her hips and the look she threw at him when she started serving people again.

“I want her.” Lorcan almost grunted, and against his best wishes and even if they weren’t talking about the same girl, Rowan agreed.

Aelin wasn’t tired, no, tired wasn’t a strong enough word to describe what she was feeling. It was almost three in the morning and her shift ended in one hour, thank god she wasn’t supposed to close the bar today.

A customer asked for another sex on the beach, his fourth of the night. Aelin smiled as she prepared it but decided it would be his last of the night. Rofle didn’t want his barmaids to stop clients from drinking because more drinking means more money. But all the money in the world wasn’t worth the customers’ life. She would never forgive herself if someone had a car accident or became an alcoholic because of the drink she served. She gave the drink and took the man’s car keys, saying she would call a cab when he wanted to leave.

Aelin’s phone started ringing and when she saw who was calling her she sighed. If she was tired now it would be worse by the end of the night.

“Hello,” She answered as she got into a cupboard to find some quiet.

“Hi, you’re Aelin Galathynius?” A deep male voice asked. From the tone of his voice, the man must be as exhausted as Aelin was.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Aelin already regretted picking up this gods damned phone.

“I’m sorry to bother you but a guy’s at my bar. He’s tall-”

“Yeah, I know exactly who it is. Let me guess, he is drunk and absolutely refuses to call a taxi because taxis are disgusting. He also told you to call me, didn’t he?”

“You got it all right.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “Where’s your bar?” She nodded when he told her the address and told him she would be here in half an hour.

Aelin went to Elide, apologized, and asked her to cover the rest of her shift. Elide understood, it wasn’t the first time Aelin had to leave for the same reason. Elide was pissed but not because she had more work, but because she didn’t want Aelin to go.

Aelin took her car and drove, maybe a little slower than she should but it was night. Roads were dangerous, especially on a Saturday night. Aelin parked right in front of the sidewalk. She took her phone and wanted to text Aedion to tell him she would be late but her phone was dead. Amazing.

Aelin walked into the bar and realized she didn’t take time to change clothes, she was still in her uniform. She crossed her arms, trying to cover her chest as best as she could. Even if she had liked to have Rowan Whitethorn watching her tonight, she didn’t want anyone else to look at her this way.

It didn’t take long to see who had called Aelin, she walked toward him, the bartender looked relieved someone would come to pick him up. “I’m gonna take that.” She told him, and he gave her the car keys. Aelin turned her head to grey eyes watching her body, of course, he would notice her lack of clothing. “Let’s get you home,” Aelin said, trying her best not to let her anger out, it’s not going to help tonight.

“Hello, darling,” Arobynn purred.

tag list:

@sheharahu // @morganofthewildfire // @thestoriesyoutell // @fromthelibraryofemilyj // @swankii-art-teacher // @itsforeverinnocent-blog // @becarefuloflove // @imnotsogoodatthis // @rowaelinismyotp // @a-court-of-milkandhoney // @feysand-loml // @surielandiareendgame // @live-the-fangirl-life // @story-scribbler // @mx—spelled //

#rowaelin #rowaelin fanfiction #rowaelin fic #throne of glass fanfiction #throne of glass #fire on fire #rowan whitethorn #rowan x aelin #aelin galathynius

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cafecourage · 3 years

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VIO CONTENT PEKASE PLEASE DKJNEOIAJEPLENSENEIWN OIYUEB NWPL EHAHAHAHhSNJKNKNKSLMFDLKSFNKLNFEOIFNEOWIFNEWOFNEWOFIWEMV

Thy....... ok here you didn't give me an AU so I just f***ed around and found out.

Vio headcanons (for all Au’s and general)

General HC:

- Vio crochets. People can fight me on this!!! He crochets and knits. He does it to calm his thoughts, just to slowly zone out. Catch him plotting his own story in his brain while doing so.

- Speaking of stories, this man is probably an Author. He most likely had written a fluffed-up version of their adventure. There wasn’t really a point of him doing so but it did get all of his feelings out on paper.

- Out of all the colors I feel like he would get the most night terrors. It will lead to him having bad insomnia.

General Love HC:

- Indifference. That’s the base emotion he is feeling towards a Reader that ended up traveling with the chain. He does like you! Don’t get that wrong. It’s just the situation calls for his attention to be on the goal. The other colors are better at social interactions then him.

- Reader in a normal traveling with the chain au, would be from a more modern timeline. Not fully but like one of that mixed technology and Medieval fantasy-based era.

- It honestly was weird that you just hang out with Four with him in control. You seem like you just gain energy from just talking or interacting with the others and Vio isn’t…really… that social.

- It was a slow bonding experience. It started as you sitting nearby when he was reading or working on a project. Nether talking nor really minding the other's company.

Isekai HC:

- This man is super anxious around you. The sobs when you were also convinced, he killed green, along with your cries from his betrayal still ring in his ears even now. He hates knowing that you might not trust him anymore because of that. The other Colors think he is just overthinking it because you did welcome him back with open arms after.

- Vio is kind of just dancing around you when they finally realize you’re the voice and presence that they felt during their adventures. While the other colors jumped on to the opportunity to get to know you better. He just… can’t?

- You’re his and the other’s anchor. They consider you their (ex. Imaginary) friend. The one person that was always by their side. Cheering them through the toughest of times, and Vio feels like you would leave them if he even tries to get close.

- He really, truly wants to standby you. He wants to not feel guilty enjoying your hugs. He just… wants you to be happy.

Divide and conquer. That’s normally how Four dealt with supply runs. Four was accompanied by you today. Which meant the others were in town. So, Four decided to let the colors stretch their legs. It was nice for each of them to actually speak to you one on one. However, they had limited time and still needed to get the items before sundown.

With five people it should go a lot quicker than normal. So, with the promise of being able to hang out after. Each Color and you went their separate ways. Vio was almost done with his list of items. The last thing he needed was some more personal items.

“Sneak attack!!” A warmth from behind engulfs the purple hero. Picking him up briefly to give a small squeeze. You were smiling brightly down at Vio. “Hi again.”

It was a miracle that his brain didn’t just short circuit just looking up at them. “I- Hello??” One of the many things you’ve said on their journey came out as, Vio was scrambling for a sense of, for the lack of better words, ground to root himself to. “Why are you here?”

“Is it against the law to hug someone I am closed to?”

“No, but…” he didn’t understand why you wanted to shower him, in affection and love. But how can he ask you that? You’re always giving Four hugs and small platonic kisses. He didn’t want you to stop. He and his brothers loved and craved that warmth you brought with your presence.

Vio didn’t know if he was deserving of it. The others were, that’s for sure. Despite how rough blue is, how bossy Green could be or how much Red cried in their adventure. You always had the patience of a saint. It was him that tested that and found how far that patience went. “Viiiioooooo, earth to my favorite grape color hero!” He was finally put back down on his feet. “Are you ok?”

“Define ok.” He was quick to answer, after finally getting some semblance of his ability to think back. He took his chance to back away from your presence.

That wasn’t the right thing to say apparently as your face slowly twisted to a pout. “Are you mad at me?”

“Mad… at you?” He repeated to confirm he heard you correctly. You gave a small nod now doubting your assumption. “Why?”

Your shrug didn’t give him much of an answer. “Well, it just seems when Four is influenced by you he is more distant.” You paused trying to figure out what to say next. Vio on the other hand was mortified that you were able to read his body language so well. Actually, he should have expected it. That’s how you knew that the colors exist in the first place. “If I did anything-“

“No, it’s not you!” It was him. It was all him. Vio knows logically being still hung up about the past was ridiculous. Emotions are annoying. He isn’t built to deal with them. “I just thought.” There was no nice way to explain this to you though. “You were still mad at me.”

“Oh.” Well, this got awkward really fast. Vio kept up his indifferent front hoping that his cheeks weren’t still as red as his brother’s tunic. “But I like you a lot!” You took his hands suddenly. “Don’t get me wrong I was mad. But I know you’re a good person Vio! I like you; I like your brothers and I like Four!”

Ah. There he goes.

- The first of the Colors to realized he loved you in this AU. Which just makes everything even worse for him. Since he knows the other colors feel the same but are in denial because of your connection with Four.

- He could help the others…..Nah…. Vio wants to watch them suffer.

Cafe HC:

- Coffee? If he feels like death. Yes. Tea mostly though. He tends to get the blunt of the headaches. Tea also helps with his ability to sleep.

- He is the type of customer that comes in and stays for hours. In his case just writing and/or reading. You’ve only ever spoken to him a few times before. Mostly to get his order and asking about his day. Small talk!

- Slowly you learn more about him. You learn that he has brothers. Is an author, (you’ve bought his book and teased him about having it signed now.) Had traveled around the world a few times before.

- You’ve met some of his siblings before. They actually come as often as he does. Striking up more of a conversation than him. Sometimes even getting him to talk to you more…

It’s has occurred to you how much time has passed since you last saw a Vio. It was a long time. A few months honestly. It kind of hurt that he and his brothers just up and left without giving you a fair warning but, it’s their personal business and not yours. Yet…

You thought you five were close.

It’s fine. Maybe Link was around! They were his siblings and you could just go to the forge and ask. Though you weren’t too close to Link so maybe it would be a bit awkward to ask him about his brothers.

They are probably fine.

There is no need to worry, they are all seasons’ adventurers!

It seems like this day was just going to be a slow one. Where you couldn’t get your mind off of your friends. It was almost closing time so another day without any word from your favorite color-coded brothers.

You decided to clean the shelves early tonight. Leaving some smaller bits for the Minish that may or may not be inside your small cafe. Lifting the chairs onto the tables to clean the floor. Making sure they get every nook and cranny. To make your life easier the next morning.

As you picked up the finally empty tray off of the counter you were heading into the back. Until the door to your small shop swung open and a group of similar-looking Adventurers comes stumbling in. “(Y/n)!”

“Vio?” You turned around quickly, only to see him helping to keep one of his brothers up. They looked like they ran through ten monster camps just to get to your sleepy little shop. You felt dread came in full force as the empty tray slips from your grasp. You bolt to his side ordering the others to get in the store. “You lot are staying over here.” You didn’t ask it was a demand. No room for argument. “There are potions in the back. You can use what you need.”

“Thank you, Ms.” a larger man with a scar across his eye went in the direction you pointed.

You gather the knocked-out brother to help Vio. “Thank you.” He said sheepishly.

“It’s no problem,” You smiled back at him. “Let’s make sure your brothers are safe. I was about to get dinner ready. How does something hearty sound?”

“That sounds lovely thank you.”

- You might have not known Vio and his brother for long but they really do consider your small little cafe as a safe space. A little heaven that they don’t need to be a Hero.

- Now when he stops by on this adventure you tend to give him packs of supplies and a bunch of treats for the road.

- You also started writing him letters and care packages when you can. Now that you know that he is traveling around. Though you don’t know how the mailman knows where he is… that’s… not something your gonna question really.

#🐠 anon #linked universe #linkeduniverse #linked universe x reader #London Fog Tea #Mocha Latte #Ye Sheng Tea

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Privacy Without Monopoly, EU edition

Tech monopoly apologists insist that there’s something exceptional about tech that makes it so concentrated: “network effects” (when a product gets better because more people use it, like a social media service).

They’re wrong.

Tech is concentrated because the Big Tech companies buy up or crush their nascent competitors — think of Facebook’s predatory acquisition of Instagram, which Zuckerberg admitted (in writing!) was driven by a desire to recapture the users who were leaving FB in droves.

Google’s scale is driven by acquisitions — Search and Gmail are Google’s only successful in-house products. Everything else, from Android to Youtube to their entire ad-tech stack, was once a standalone business that Google captured.

Monopolies extract monopoly rents — like those delivered by Googbook’s crooked ad-tech marketplaces, or Apple/Google’s 30% app shakedown — and use them to maintain their monopolies. Google gives Apple billions every year so it will be the default Ios and Safari search.

These are the same tactics that every monopolist uses — high-stakes moneyball that creates a “kill-zone” around the monopolist’s line of business that only a fool would try to enter. Tech DOES have network effects, but that’s not what’s behind tech monopolies.

We see monopolies in industries from bookselling to eyeglasses, accounting to cheerleading uniforms, pro wrestling to energy, beer to health insurance. These monopolies all follow Big Tech’s template of mobilizing monopoly rents to buy or crush all competition.

The differences between the anticompetitive tactics that monopolized these industries are largely cosmetic — swap out a few details and you might well be describing how John D Rockefeller and Standard Oil monopolized the oil markets in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Big Tech does have network effects, but these are actually a tool that can be used to dismantle monopolies, as well as maintaining them. Network effects are double-edged swords: if a service gets more valuable as users join, it also gets less valuable as users leave.

If you want to understand the anticompetitive structure of the tech industry, you’d be better off analyzing switching costs, not network effects. Switching costs are the things you have to give up when you leave a service behind.

If your customers, community, family members or annotated photos and other memories are locked up in Facebook’s walled garden (or if you’ve got money sunk in proprietary media or apps on Apple’s, etc), then the switching cost is losing access to all of that.

Here’s where tech really is different: tech has intrinsically low switching costs. Latent in all digital technology is the capacity to interoperate, to plug a new service into an old one, to run an old app inside a simulator (“runtime”).

There’s no good technical reason you can’t leave Facebook but take your treasured photos with you — and continue to exchange messages with the people you left behind.

True, Facebook has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep its switching costs high, deploying technical countermeasures to block interoperability. But these aren’t particularly effective. Lots of people have figured out how to reverse-engineer FB and plug new things into it.

Power Ventures created an app that aggregated your FB feed with feeds from rival services, giving you a single dashboard. NYU’s Ad Observer scraps the political ads FB shows you for analysis to check whether FB is enforcing its own paid political disinformation rules.

And there’s a whole constellation of third-party Whatsapp clients that add features FB has decided Whatsapp users don’t deserve, like the ability to block read-receipts or run multiple accounts on the same device.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/african-whatsapp-modders-are-masters-worldwide-adversarial-interoperability

Most of these are technical successes, but they’re often legal failures. FB has used the monopoly rents it extracted to secure radical new laws and new interpretations of existing laws to make these tactics illegal.

Power Ventures was sued into oblivion. Ad Observer is fighting for its life. The Whatsapp mods are still going strong, but that may be down to the jurisdictions where they thrive — sub-Saharan Africa — where FB has less legal muscle.

With low switching costs, much of FB’s monopoly protection evaporates. Lots of people hate FB, and FB knows it. You’re on FB because your friends are there. Your friends are there because you’re there. You’ve taken each other hostage, and FB benefits.

With low switching costs, you could leave FB — but not your friends. The kill zone disappears. All we need is interoperability.

Enter the EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, proposed regulations to force interop on the biggest Big Tech players.

The EU has recognized that mandating interop can reduce switching costs, and reducing switching costs can weaken monopoly power.

Some critics (like me!) of the EU proposals say they don’t go far enough, asking for “full interop” for rival services.

Against these calls for broader interop come warnings about the privacy implications of forcing FB to open up its servers to rivals. It’s hard enough to keep FB from abusing its users’ privacy, how will we keep track of a constellation of services that can access user data?

Last Feb, Bennett Cyphers and I published “Privacy Without Monopoly,” for EFF, describing how interoperability can enhance privacy.

Interop means that users can choose services that have better privacy policies than Facebook or other incumbent platforms.

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

But in theory, it means that users could choose worse services — services that have worse privacy policies, services that might be able to grab your friends’ data along with your own (say, the pictures you took of them and brought with you, or their private messages to you).

That’s why, in our paper, we say that interop mandates have to be backstopped by privacy rules — democratically accountable rules from lawmakers or regulators, not self-serving “privacy” limitations set by the Big Tech companies themselves.

For example, Facebook aggressively imports your address books when you sign up, to connect you to the people you know (this isn’t always a good experience — say, if your stalker has you in their address book and automatically gets “friended” with you).

If you try to take your address book with you when you quit, FB claims your contact list isn’t “yours” — it belongs to your contacts. To protect their privacy, FB has to block you from exporting the data — making it it much harder to establish social ties on a new service.

It’s not obvious who that contact info “belongs to” (if “belong to” is even the right way to talk about private information that implicates multiple people!).

But what is obvious is that Facebook can’t be trusted to make that call.

Not only has Facebook repeatedly disqualified itself from being trusted to defend its users’ privacy, but it also has a hopeless conflict of interest, because privacy claims can be used to raise switching costs and shore up its monopoly.

In our paper, Bennett and I say that these thorny questions should be resolved democratically, not in a corporate boardroom.

Now, as it happens, there’s a region where 500M people are protected by a broad, democratically enacted privacy law: Europe, home of the GDPR.

Today, in a new appendix to “Privacy Without Monopoly,” EFF has published “The GDPR, Privacy and Monopoly,” my analysis of how the GDPR makes interoperability safer from a privacy perspective.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/gdpr-privacy-and-monopoly

Working with EFF’s Christoph Schmon and Bennett Cyphers, we develop a detailed analysis of the GDPR, and describe how the GDPR provides a lawful framework for resolving thorny questions about consent and blended title to data.

The GDPR itself seeks to promote interoperability; it’s right there in Recital 68: “data controllers should be encouraged to develop interoperable formats that enable data portability.” But loopholes in the rules have allowed dominant companies to stymie interop.

For years, Europeans have had the “right” to port their data, but nowhere to port that data to. The DMA closes the loopholes and dismantles the hurdles that kept switching costs high.

The GDPR’s consent/security/minimization framework sets out the parameters for any interoperability, meaning we don’t have to trust Facebook (or Google, or Amazon, or Apple) to decide when interop must be blocked “to defend users’ privacy” (and also shareholders’ profits).

Big Tech platforms already have consent mechanisms (and must continue to build them) to create the legal basis for processing user data. An interoperable FB could be a consent conduit, letting your friends decide when and whether you can take their data to a new service.

And the GDPR (not a tech executive) also determines when a new service meets the privacy standards needed for interop. It governs how that new service must handle user data, and it gives users a way to punish companies that break the rules.

Today, if you leave Facebook, your friends might not even notice. But in a world where FB is a consent conduit to manage your departure and resettlement, all your friends get signals about your departure — perhaps prompting them to consider whether they should go, too.

Far from prohibiting interop, the GDPR enables it, by creating an explicit privacy framework that is consistent across all services, both the old monopolies and the new co-ops, startups, public utilities, and other alternatives that interop would make possible.

Monopolies distort the world in two ways. The most obvious harm is to competition, choking out or buying out every alternative, so you have to live by whatever rules the monopolist sets.

But the other kind of harm is even worse: monopolists can use their political power to get away with terrible abuses.

Ad-tech concentration produced monopoly rents that blocked or weakened privacy law for decades, allowing for a grotesque degree of commercial surveillance.

We don’t want competition in surveillance.

Opening space for interop poses a legitimate risk of creating a contest to see who can violate your human rights most efficiently.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#monkeys-paw

Yet, it’s obvious that monopolists themselves shouldn’t get to decide where they should be subjected to competition and where they should be subjected to regulation. That’s a job for democratic institutions, not autocratic board-rooms.

Adding privacy regulation (strong privacy regulation, with a private right of action allowing users to sue companies for breaking the rules) to interop is how we resolve this conundrum, how we make sure we’re banning surveillance, rather than “democratizing” it.

#pluralistic

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ddarker-dreams · 4 years

Text

Fallen From Grace. Yan Giorno x Reader [COMM]

Giorno has given you too many gifts to count.

This benevolent act serves multiple purposes, culminating towards the goal of making your time here better. He doesn’t shy away from the reality of what he’s doing to you, the extent of your loneliness after being displaced. Forcing himself to remember this bitter truth keeps him from getting complacent, striving to make your experience all the better.

No detail is to be overlooked. In what little free time Giorno has, he molds your surroundings to your liking. The meals that are planned for you consist of high nutritional value, often rotating your favorites with only the best ingredients and chefs to prepare them. Your wardrobe is full of outfits tailored to your measurements and tastes. Rare and ethereal flowers span across the master bedroom you share with Giorno, him creating them with the purpose of soothing you.

For all this effort, Giorno never has an expectation for your gratitude. He doesn’t believe he deserves it, having stolen you from your normal life. He’s the reason for the tear soaked pillows, the restless nights and detached demeanor you’ve adopted. Whether it’s to ease the guilt that suffocates his heart, or to see your eyes light up for only a moment, Giorno tends to you.

This custom, handmade journal is one he gave you at the start of your time here. With you receiving limited human interaction, Giorno found it important for you to have a way to express your thoughts. While you were initially antagonistic towards him about the journal, you began to use it. He lets you hide it from him, letting you believe it’s out of his reach for peace of mind.

Ironic as it may sound, Giorno respected you by never laying a finger on it. The overwhelming temptation of learning his beloved’s most inner thoughts isn’t lost on him. He could read it and place it back to its original spot without you being none the wiser. For months, he made a point in refusing this alluring idea.

That is, until this very second.

Sitting on his dark mahogany desk, is the journal that contains your private thoughts and experiences. Giorno’s eyelids flutter shut, a soft sigh leaving his lips. Leaning further into his chair, he gives more thought to the situation. The forbidden fruit lays before him, ready to give knowledge he shouldn’t have.

There’s a grander reason for this dilemma. When spending time with you, Giorno is keen to pick up every nuance of your behavior. It’s a trait of his that has followed him since childhood. Every twitch of your mouth or hesitation in your voice paints a larger picture. He’s capable of reading you, knowing your thoughts before you even know them yourself. This often works out in his favor.

But lately, when he speaks to you, something feels different. In a way that doesn’t make sense. You still hold apparent dislike for him, but you avoid eye contact less. There’s a sense of underlying assurance, like you’re privy to information that he isn’t. It gets under his skin, eating him from the inside out.

No longer do you threaten him with bitter words, detailing your resentment towards him. You seem content to sit in his presence, talking casually about what you’ve done that day and asking him the same. He won’t lie and say he doesn’t like the development. But his gut tells him there’s a malicious intent laced in your new behavior.

What are you hiding from him?

The realm of possibilities is few and far between, and Giorno considers every possibility. None of his theories placate a voice in his head, a gnawing that something is very wrong. Talking to you and asking questions laced with hidden agendas has led to no discoveries, options growing limited to discover the truth.

Running his fingertips over the spine of your journal, he gingerly opens to the first page. It’s a dirty feeling to be doing this, invading your privacy behind your back. He’s done worse for the sake of your well being, the justification spurring him to continue on to the next page. It contains your first entry.

“I didn’t want to write this. Putting the words into paper almost feels like I’m accepting the reality of what’s happening to me, this parody of a life. I don’t have much else to do to pass the time.

Even my hobbies bring me little joy, knowing who set them up for me like a doll in a dollhouse. Focusing is another thing entirely. How can I focus knowing I’m always being monitored to some degree? Even as I write this, I wonder who’s watching me.

In the past, when I felt anxious, I’d write. And well… anxiety is the heartbeat of my life now. Everyday I wake up, more numb than the last. All I look forward to is when I’ll sleep next. At least then I don’t have to feel anything, I can just exist without trying. There’s nothing else for me to say.”

He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Giorno’s lips curl down into a frown, his eyebrows furrowing and stomach dropping. Seeing the depths of your pain so tangible, in your own words, kills a piece of his soul. It’d be an insult to you to waver now, he thinks, resolve staying firm. Not wanting to invade your privacy more than necessary, he skims through more entries in hopes of finding any leads on your current behavior.

“It’s already been three months since I’ve begun living here, if you can even call it that. I’ve gotten better at spotting the guards. I like to think of it as a little game. They’re good, I give them that. But when you have nothing to do, living in a house with no noise, it grows easier to listen. To notice things I wouldn’t have before.

Maybe I’m going stir crazy. I don’t like knowing how I’m being monitored, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. I hate to admit how he was right , when he said I’d grow accommodated to this with time. I don’t want to. I don’t want to learn to live like this. But I can’t stop it. Resisting the inevitable is a pointless waste of energy, which I hardly have anymore.”

Giorno picks up on your lack of mentioning him by name. In most of your entries, you avoid even insinuating to his existence when possible. It’s a cold sensation, knowing who he loves most omits him at every chance. He understands -- it’s what he deserves after putting you through this isolation -- yet the complex hurt remains prevalent. Every word stingers more than the last.

He soldiers on, searching through more entries.

“I wonder if they’re allowed to talk to me. When I call out to the occasional shadow, or creak in a room beside me, there’s no response. But I know they’re here, I’ve seen him giving them orders in the past when I pretend to sleep. It’s always in hushed whispers, as if anything they say could surprise me.

I just want to talk to someone. Someone that isn’t him. Someone that doesn’t avoid my gaze like everyone else here. It makes me feel like I’m a disgusting sight to behold, even though I know why they look away. The guilt from witnessing what they do, outweighed by their longing for money. I hate it. It makes me hate them. At least look at me, like I’m a human.

They’re spineless cowards. All of them. Disgusting subhumans that take a paycheck over my suffering. I hate them so much, almost more than I hate him.”

Giorno freezes, noticing small crinkles in the paper towards the end of this entry. Signs that you must’ve been crying, he deduces. God. He wants to tell himself that it’s worse than he thought, but that’d be a lie. All along he’s been aware of the great extents of your suffering, all pointing back to him.

Running a hand through his hair, loose from its normal styling, Giorno wonders if he should stop now. Every word is like a nail in the coffin of his heart, paining him in more ways he thought possible. Making difficult decisions has come as second nature to him, so he preserves on.

“Yesterday was my birthday. What a shitty thing to realize. I got a lot of things. More than I ever had gotten before. More offline games, clothes, perfume, shoes, jewelry, and even a painting. By the looks of it I think it’s rare, but who gives a fuck.

An interesting development occurred. One of my guards, if that’s what you’d even call them, approached me. He had just gotten off the phone, and informed me that my plans for the day were going to be different. Apparently the big boss got held up at work, so he wouldn’t be joining me for dinner.

Am I supposed to be upset about that? Well, I certainly wasn’t. Who cares. Seeing him would just make me feel worse. I hate how out of control I feel like he’s around. I almost find myself forgetting about all he’s done, when he speaks to me so calmly. Just thinking about it makes me feel dirty, like I should shower.

I didn’t see a point in responding at first. But eventually, I spoke up before the guard could leave. I asked him why he was okay with this, what he sees everyday. He didn’t offer a response. But I noticed something. His breath hitched, I’m sure of it.

Maybe there is another human being in this pseudo-prison after all.”

A painful reminder of the past. It did hurt him at the time to have to miss out on an important day with you, even though Giorno was self aware to know his presence brought you little comfort. There had been emergency phone calls over an attack from former Passione members, retaliating for losing drug related income.

The timing of it was awful, just thinking back to it reminds Giorno of the impatience he felt then. Hours were spent personally dealing with cleaning up what had happened, meaning he wasn’t able to see you as was originally planned. Orders were given back home to inform you of this change, though it’s now evident it impacted Giorno more than you.

The last section piques his interest. You felt you had noticed guilt in one of the guards? The pool of men that Giorno had carefully sifted through are no strangers to witnessing barbaric acts. Such is the life of a gangster. In your state of heightened emotions, there’s a possibility you could’ve imagined it.

The journal goads him to continue, unraveling the mysteries of your heart.

“I’ve gotten better at spotting the guards.

I can’t believe something like this is exciting to me, but it is these days. It’s kinda funny in a pathetic way, watching as they shrink back when I spot them. The guard from before is the one I recognize the most. I pretended to be hurt, and he came out of the shadows to check on me.

I guess he wasn’t expecting me to turn around looking fine after my acting, because he didn’t leave right away. Before he got the chance, I asked what his name is. He sighed, probably relieved that he wouldn’t have to report to his boss about me being harmed. He said his name is Marco.

At that point, it was my turn to be surprised. I guess he was too, given the slip up. I must confess, it felt nice talking to someone. It’s been so long since I’ve heard another person’s voice. He went to walk away soon after, but I stopped him. It’s not like they can use force to get rid of me, so why the hell not?

I told him I was bored and wanted someone to talk to. And, for some reason… he stayed.”

Giorno rereads this passage multiple times, scrutinizing it. So you managed to speak to one of the guards he assigned to watch over you? When he was recruiting within Passione for the position, he made expectations explicitly clear. They were not to interact with you unless an emergency calls for it. And if they felt the situation called for it, they needed to report it back to Giorno.

Your safety is paramount in his eyes. Regardless of this being a minor grievance, this guard will be punished accordingly for breaking the rules Giorno set. All of them were put in place knowing that if you grew connected to someone and they you, possibilities of insubordination would blossom.

The dates on the pages are getting closer to the current day, not many more entries left.

“Marco and I have been speaking more frequently.

He gave me a rough idea of the conditions in which we can talk, only in certain blind spots and times where other guards aren’t around as often. I wish it wasn’t so complicated. In our rushed conversations, I’ve learned more about him. I didn’t really think I would get all that invested in this person, since he’s stood by and watched my situation for a while now.

But now it makes a bit more sense. He told me that his little sister is unwell, having to practically live in a hospital room. That this dirty job is the only one that can cover the full expenses, and that without it she wouldn’t last. I can’t say that I forgive him entirely yet, but… I guess I can sympathize. I wish there was more I could do to help.

Her name is Lucia. One of the times we talked Marco told me she’s the strongest person he knows, staying dedicated to her studies despite having waning strength. She’s a few years younger than me, but I think we’d have gotten along well. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave this place, but I wish I could meet her one day.

Having him to talk to is nice.”

Ah... so that’s what it is then.

Unpleasant emotions rise within, feelings that Giorno long thought were gone. Times before when you were speaking freely with your friends, laughing among them and living your life to the fullest. Those times were he wanted nothing more than to join you, to have you by his side and share in the experience. His position shot down any hopes of that, the possibility of endangering you deterring him.

It was a painful time. Knowing that what he wanted was close and yet so painfully far, just out of his reach. Giorno wanted you to look at him like that, mirth in your eyes and a smile on your lips. To enjoy outings to the movies like you did with your friends, to have inside jokes and memories to fondly look back on.

Envy doesn’t begin to describe the hideous feeling that permeates within him. Giorno’s grasp on your journal feels weaker, fingers shaking as he flips to the next page. Predator-like intent shines on his visage, emerald eyes narrowed and grip tightening. Not typically one to dwell on what could’ve been, it’s rare Giorno would feel like this. He makes the most out of every situation, his resolve unwavering and sights set on a single goal.

You throw all of it into a loop, his normal composure a long forgotten memory.

“Today I played a game of checkers with Marco.

I think he was letting me win, but it was fun nonetheless. Apparently one of the normal guards was tending to business elsewhere, so we had more time together. He’s kind, kinder than I would’ve ever expected. When we’re together I just forget about everything other than the present moment.

For once, I don’t feel like a prisoner all on my lonesome. I don’t notice the heavy ring on my finger, the suffocating air of this villa that I despise. It’s just us, cracking jokes and learning about one another. It’s what I look forward to the most, what I hold onto even when Marco isn’t around. It makes me feel human again. Like I’m not [First] Giovanna, but entirely myself.

Smiling comes a lot more naturally these days. I can even find myself stomaching his presence easier, though I still don’t like when he’s around. As long as he doesn’t find out about Marco and I, I feel like I can get through this. Everyday I change the location of this journal, within the expanses of this mansion.

I still wish there was more I could do to help Lucia. I suggested giving Marco some of this stupid jewelry to pawn off, but he said it’s too risky. It’s surreal to know even pawnshops in Italy are fiercely loyal to Passione’s Don, and would be too hesitant to purchase his wife’s jewelry in fear of retaliation.

Having all this wealth surround me feels like a waste when I know there’s someone who could actually use it. As much as I don’t like the thought, maybe I could convince Giorno to help Marco somehow. I have a few ideas but they’re probably all too risky. He does always tell me, ‘If you ever want anything in this world, tell me.’

I want to help Lucia. I want to help Marco, who I’ve found myself caring for.

I’ve never asked Giorno for anything really. I don’t know how to propose it without making him suspicious--”

Giorno can’t stand to read it anymore.

Closing the book and placing it down, he steeples his fingers together. It takes a great deal of effort to frustrate him, normal composure melting away. Is it betrayal? Hurt? Jealousy? Everything wraps around his person, the air in his office feeling thick. Loosening the tie around his neck, he takes a much needed deep breath.

A flash of your smile from earlier this evening at dinner comes to mind. You called him by his name, maintaining eye contact and asking about his day. Lulled into a false sense of security, wanting to believe nothing more than the farce unfolding before him. Of course you didn’t love him back. He was a fool to have deluded himself into believing that.

At his fingertips is his phone. With a single phone call, he could command the world to fall. To have this guard who failed him tortured in the worst ways imaginable, experiencing hell on earth. Or to even join Passione’s former boss in a never ending cycle of death, that stretches the lengths of eternity.

So many possibilities. Yet none of them would soothe the agony of his heart. Completely and utterly alone once more, like his earlier days. Requited love was all but an illusion, a fog that has now been lifted.

Giorno purses his lips, considering. Fingers drum against his desk, the sound reverberating across the empty room. Grabbing a hold of his phone, he calls upon someone who could help him deal with this traitor appropriately. A message must be sent, he thinks, that will set the tone within the organization. It will hurt you to lose this newfound companion, but it’s a sacrifice he is willing to make. It’s not like you need to know the details either.

The phone rings. Once, twice. Before his second in command on the other line picks up.

“Yo, Giorno? You’re calling pretty late,” Mista’s voice is chipper as ever, the distant sound of music playing in the background. “Everything alright?”

Getting up from his chair, he walks over to the window that overlooks his garden. His beloved wife walks among the paths, bending down and inspecting a rose. Giorno remembers when he turned an object into that very flower, how your dull eyes lit up at the awe inspiring sight.

This is ultimately all for you, he reminds himself.

“Yes, everything is fine. Are you free at the moment? I have a job for you.”

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laceymorganwrites · 3 years

Text

Dämmerlicht - Choso´s part

Word count: 5, 212

Pairing: Choso x reader

Warnings: swearing, happy what if scenario, description of a panic attack

A/N: okay so. Choso is my second fave. I am MAD AS HELL at Mappa for animating him the way they did. But alas, I still wanted to get this out since it is his first anime appearance. So, have this as a celebration <33

Taglist: @miyaniacs

Choso didn´t know what to expect when he read the text message from one of his brothers.

“A really nice person prevented us from getting killed and now we´re having drinks with them and the attackers. You should come over”

What the hell was that even supposed to mean? His day was already stressful enough and now he was beyond worried for his brothers. If anything were to happen to them the people responsible wouldn´t be able to think about taking their next breath as it would be their last one.

On the way to the described area his head was full of questions about their well being, what had happened, had he failed as an older brother?

It was quite the long way and he wondered what kind of bar would be situated this far up a hill, hidden in the woods nonetheless.

But then again, it wasn´t just any bar as he would learn later.

You were a teacher at jujutsu high in Tokyo, arriving just in time to stop Yuuji and Nobara from killing innocent curses.

Everyone else was occupied and at first you thought the kids would finish the mission without any problems. But as always it got more dangerous than anyone had bargained for.

Since you were the only one available right now you were dispatched to the location.

When you arrived you saw that Megumi was fast asleep, he probably exerted himself, that was a first. You wondered what motivated him that much. You would ask him tomorrow when he was awake again.

For now you had to search for the other kids, so you followed the great amount of cursed energy you could feel.

Luckily you were in time.

“They´re being manipulated! Back off, you guys” you announced your presence and got ready to defend the kids since you could still feel a bit of violence from the curses, albeit forced.

Sensing cursed energy was your specialty, you could tell the intentions clearly which is why you realized sooner than others that not all curses were bad, most were just as bad off as you were.

You have been part of the movement for a long time, the Dämmerlicht was like your second home.

It seemed like you would introduce the kids to it too, not that you minded. Gojo and you talked about this a lot, when the right timing would be, whether or not they´d understand.

But you trusted those kids, you believed in them, they were good people.

You were glad you could talk to the curses and help them defy Mahito and his group.

It was a relief, but also so much more than that. It meant peace, even if it was just for a moment.

Trusting didn´t come easy for you, growing up in such a corrupt and cold system you weren´t surprised in the least.

Though you found comfort in the fact that you weren´t alone. It was nice teaching the way you wanted to, the right way, teaching the children everything you have learned, exposing the elders as much as you could get away with.

“Alright, is everything else here done?” you asked, looking at your watch since you didn´t want to leave Megumi unguarded for long.

“Uuuh I think so…” Yuuji replied, he still didn´t quite grasp the situation. Megumi should have exorcised the curse that was plaguing his sister and so many others, so that didn´t leave any other tasks.

After some time the kids got used to the curses being just like them, meaning no harm. It felt like going home with friends as you squeezed them all inside your car, honestly it was quite the miracle they all fit in there.

“Someone wake Megumi. I need to talk to you” your voice got serious, you reckoned now would be a good time.

Megumi yawned and was kind of confused as to how he got in the car and why there were curses around him. Mostly he was just a tad bit annoyed that he was woken up.

“Listen, I know you must be confused right now. But you have to listen carefully to what I will say next. And keep this a secret. If this gets out of the car we and all my friends are going to be dead.” you started, the kids were focused now and nodded along with you.

“Forget everything you´ve learned, about this world, about curses. Most of it isn´t true. Yeah, there are vengeful spirits out there, but there are just as many sorcerers that are as bad as them if not worse. Don´t trust anyone, learn to trust your gut. You need to learn how to read cursed energy better. That way you always know what the intentions are. I will show you a very special place now. A safe space for people like me, people like us. I´m showing you this now and not later because I want you to know the truth, I want you to do better than any of us ever could. You should realize it before it´s too late. Maki´s already in on it” you explained, going into further detail about the history of the bar and the movement and how Gojo is part of it as well.

The last part seemed to fully convince them luckily, after all Gojo spent even more time with them than you. You just taught them basic things like combat, when it came to missions and such Gojo was the one to do that.

When you arrived you immediately relaxed, the familiar veil had you at ease, feeling a bit of peace.

“Come on now, guys, if we stand around too much we´re risking being seen” you warned them and hurried inside with them.

“Damn, that´s a strong veil…” Megumi said out loud, looking around and as suspected taking a defensive stance as soon as he saw the customers in the bar.

Though he relaxed when he couldn´t feel any malice from them.

You guided them to the backroom where the meetings were held and introduced them to the owner.

“Oh, recruiting already, I see how it is” they grinned at you and explained everything in more detail to the kids and the curses.

After the initial shock they accepted it and were more calm about it than you had thought. It brought a smile to your face.

You decided to hang out a bit more and get to know each other, it should be fine since Gojo would let them sleep in either way, he had the first lessons tomorrow.

He even volunteered to pick them up, after all he still needed to pay his daily visit to the bar.

Nobara and Eso got along quite well, already making plans to hang out more. She promised to go shopping with him once or at least get him one of those tops with an open back.

She was good at encouraging him to show it more and be proud of it, he appreciated it, though was far from being as confident as her.

He envied her a bit, but not in a vengeful way, it was more of an admiration for a new friend.

Eso would like it if they would hang out more, maybe he would get over his insecurities that way.

Megumi also wasn´t that much on edge as he usually was, you saw that as a massive win and were in a good mood.

“I think Choso would like it here, do you think we should invite him?” Kechizu asked his brother who nodded. “Choso´s our old brother, he´s the eldest. You can trust him” Eso assured you, usually you´d be distrustful towards such statements but since you didn´t feel any bit of lying intentions you agreed to it.

You wondered what their brother would be like and listened to the other´s fond words of him while you waited for his arrival.

Choso arrived at the destination and looked around, no one followed him. Good.

His brothers told him that he should be extra careful, so he was.

He had to admit he was quite curious about this place, so he entered through the curtain, it was very strong and only let people with good intentions in.

As soon as he saw his brothers laughing with you and your students he felt at ease and approached your table, greeting you politely and sitting down next to his brothers, checking for injuries just in case.

“You must be Choso, it´s nice to meet you” you smiled and reached out your hand he reluctantly shook.

Choso was naturally rather on guard, especially around sorcerers like you. Though he couldn´t sense any malice from you.

But that didn´t mean anything.

The last time he met someone like you it got him and his brothers sealed. It was his fault and his brothers had to pay for it, it wasn´t fair. If only he paid more attention.

But that was about a hundred years ago already, he couldn´t remember.

He didn´t know what to feel when he was unsealed. All his life he spent protecting his brothers and spending time with them, he didn´t know anything else to do.

And now they were supposed to follow some newbie? Not with him. Nobody gave him and his brothers orders, they were free after all.

And, even though he hated playing that card, more experienced and older than the new curse.

He didn´t know anything about the world yet while they had experienced it all. Though really, what did he experience? It wasn´t much.

It would be sad if he cared. He couldn´t know what he missed if he didn´t even know how to.

Choso decided to shake your hand, what did he have to lose? Maybe not all sorcerers were lying and manipulative scum.

If anyone could convince him it would be you.

He was looking at you as if to find evidence that would prove him wrong, anything, signs that this was a trap and not just a dream too good to be true.

In his life he learned not to trust things, feelings and people that were too good to be true. Cause they never were.

Sighing he relaxed in his seat and took part in the conversation, though he didn´t talk much. He never did, not really seeing the point in it. He never liked being the center of attention, preferring hearing others talk.

Yuuji reminded him of his brothers, he was full of hope, so optimistic still.

Maybe it was because of this place though, he didn´t seem like someone the elders could control like a puppet, telling him to kill every curse in his way.

No, he actually thought he could be a dear friend.

“Before I forget, I still need to cut your ties to Mahito” you told them, you didn´t like the thought of him finding this place.

“You can do that?” Eso asked curiously, so jujutsu had also improved since back then.

“Yeah, I just have to concentrate, but it´ll be over quickly” you remarked, focusing your cursed energy in your hand, forming it to a sharp blade. Then you turned your attention back to their energy, making out the ties that bound them to Mahito clearly, you held your breath as you carefully cut them. Though you were quick about it, not wanting to hurt them any more than they already have been.

Choso was very defendant as always, wanting to be the first one to be freed so that he could see if your technique was harmful or not.

He was more than surprised when he realized that it wasn´t. Why would someone like you help them?

Though maybe it was because of you, you really were special, huh?

“So now that we´re free again we should get a place to stay again. Do you have any recommendations, (Y/N)?” Eso asked you, they previously talked about how they would support you in defeating Mahito to free the curses from his chains.

It was strange to think that they would be able to have a life now. It´s been so long that theirs was taken away from them.

Eso wished he never went into the human village to make friends…

Though Choso never held it against him. No one did.

“Hmm, you could try it in the outskirts, most of the costumers live there, they have a little community there, it´s protected by a veil too. Everyone´s nice and would love to welcome you there” you smiled.

Your smile irritated Choso, why did you smile like that? As if everything was fine even though it clearly wasn´t? What were you trying to hide? Or were you just pretending? And for what? What use did it have?

He didn´t like people he couldn´t read, it made him uneasy.

“That sounds great, thank you so much. For everything” Eso said.

“I could show you around tomorrow actually! I´m only teaching the later lessons then” you offered.

So you were the friendly type, huh. Or were you? It could all still be a trap.

What even was that? A place where curses could live in peace? Yeah, right…

You´d have to be stupid to actually believe that.

Only later would he learn that you and the organization worked that hard so that it wouldn´t be a dream anymore.

“Well, it´s getting late. The kids should get back to the school. It was nice meeting you, I´ll see you tomorrow then” you announced, standing up with the students and being joined by Gojo who said goodbye to the owner.

Before leaving you were smiling at Choso again, was he just a joke to you? You did that on purpose, didn´t you? You really were an irritating individual.

“Thanks for joining us, Choso. It was nice to meet you” you said and sounded so genuine he almost believed it.

He just nodded until Eso nudged his side a bit to which he rolled his eyes.

“You´re not so bad either…” he gave in and once again was thankful for his brothers to get him out of his head.

Overthinking was easy, especially with a past such as unfortunate as theirs. But this wasn´t the past. Things changed. People changed.

“Man I never thought I´d be friends with a curse…” Yuuji laughed, his hands behind his head.

“See, I told you they´re not as bad as you think they are. Oh, Gojo, I´ll show them to the veil tomorrow, you go ahead and start teaching the reading technique” you reminded him and he nodded.

“Hmm I still think it´s too early for that, but alright. Who knows, maybe they´ll surprise us.” he answered, usually they would only learn this in their second year but why not? After all those kids had a lot of potential, he was sure they could do it.

Nobara exchanged contact information with Eso and made it her mission to spare some nail polish for him, maybe she would get to do his nails for him, it was nice to have someone with the same interests as her.

They went to sleep immediately after arriving since they were still drained from the mission while you and Gojo talked about everything that happened that day.

“If they manage they´ll be able to free other curses as well, we would get so much closer to our goal” you reminisced, a hopeful undertone in your voice.

“Don´t rush them. They´ll learn it in their own time” Gojo reminded you, he didn´t let it on oftentimes but he really did care about the children.

“Of course, I´ll see you tomorrow then” you waved goodbye and then went to your room.

Yeah, the kids would have it rough, there was no avoiding that. But you would try your best that they would only have it rough, not traumatizing and horrible.

It was the least you could do.

You thought back to Choso and his brothers, they were such a nice bunch and you couldn´t wait to meet them again tomorrow.

You were so happy that the students liked them too.

Sleep came easy to you that night, you just wished every day could be as peaceful as that.

Maybe you were living in a fantasy world that was so bright it made you lose any connection to reality, but you didn´t care. You would make it into a reality.

The next dame came quick, you were refreshed and ready for your mission.

Hurriedly getting ready and saying goodbye to Gojo and the students you made your way to the Dämmerlicht once again.

“Are you guys ready to go?” you asked, smiling the same way you did yesterday but somehow even more energetic.

The three brothers nodded, two more enthusiastically than the other. Choso still was on guard. And who could blame him? He didn´t want to trust you, didn´t want to repeat the same mistakes he made.

You were very adamant on changing that though, without meaning to that thought made him smile a bit.

Perhaps a little trust wasn´t all that bad.

On the way he looked around carefully, it was so loud and crowded, he didn´t like it one bit.

Choso was on edge until they arrived at the veil.

Everything had changed so much, there were so many new impressions that he couldn´t yet place.

It was just like back then, maybe even worse.

He could hear them whispering, he wasn´t wanted here, his brothers neither, at least he looked a bit human, it was so cruel… hurt so much.

Air.

He couldn´t breathe. Not that he needed to but still, it was so familiar, the breath in his lungs that was one of the few things left of his human side, he desperately clung to it.

It was his responsibility to provide for his brothers, to take care of them and he failed. He failed oh so miserably.

He always would… he wasn´t good for anything, why did he even exist? Nobody wanted him anyway.

No, quite the contrary, they wanted him and his brothers gone. They didn´t belong here, they never did. They were an anomaly, only born into this world to be killed.

If only it was enough that he died… his brothers were innocent, they would live in the shadows, not bothering anyone, they promised. Only spare them. Please.

I´m sorry, I´m so sorry. I´ll be good, I promise, I won´t cause any trouble, just please… don´t hurt us.

Choso was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to get out of his thoughts, his eyes were wide but he was looking through everything, his hands were shaking and his mouth was dry.

Help…

Somebody help him, anyone, he would do anything. Please just make it go away.

“Alright! There we are!” your chipper voice was like a hand reaching out to him, he desperately took it.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I owe you my life.

You didn´t notice that Choso was having a panic attack since you walked ahead, but you definitely saw the tension leave his body and his face relax as you turned around to them to show them inside.

Choso didn´t know what to expect of this place.

He had thought it would be dirty and horrible, like a ghetto for curses, but it wasn´t anything like that.

After entering the veil he saw a quieter version of what had happened outside. It was like a hidden town within the city.

Suddenly he felt at ease.

Looking around he saw houses just like he knew from back then, but also modern ones. There were all sorts of shops and a park, even a cinema.

It felt like a dream.

“There are a few empty houses near the woods, but we also have an apartment building is you prefer that. Just make yourselves at home” you smiled and for once Choso was grateful for it, if you smiled it meant everything was alright.

Everything would be fine. They were safe.

You showed them around and talked about everything, told them who they should ask about the living situation and such.

“Can we really live freely like this?” Choso asked, he wanted to wish they could, wanted to be hopeful but he knew where that led.

“Well, I wish you could live with us, but that´s way in the future. For now we´re all working together so that you can at least have peace and quiet here. You shouldn´t have to hide, but anything else is impossible right now. People fear what they don´t understand. And vengeful spirits are born from that fear, they could destroy everything we have worked so hard for” you sighed. It just wasn´t fair. You hated how you practically contained them, that it was the only solution you could come up with.

You had failed.

It was hard for you to see this place in a positive way.

Sure, the curses that lived here were happy and free, they built an own community, stood together and it was beautiful. But there was so much more out there that they couldn´t enjoy and it made you mad.

You smiled and waved to some curses you knew.

“Thank you for showing us here, it´s nice to know that we can have a place to live in peace” Eso smiled.

“No problem at all! At least it´s a beginning…” you shrugged, hoping you would be able to make it even better for them.

The three bothers talked among themselves a bit, deciding that Eso and Kechizu would go ahead and talk to the curse in charge already to get a place to stay.

Choso told them to be careful and then turned to you.

“Why are you even doing all of this? Didn´t your people tell you we´re monsters and dangerous?” he asked, this has been on his mind from the beginning and quite frankly irritated him.

“Yes, they did. They tried to make you out to be the bad guys. But I always asked myself: if the monster is under my bed, isn´t it scared too? Doesn´t the monster feel just the same as I do? What makes us different? If it´s already near me why shouldn´t I make friends with it? Besides, my teachers really didn´t do a good job at the whole hate speech against you. I mean they tell you that every curse is evil and then teach you how to read cursed energy” you laughed and shook your head. Yeah, the elders and leaders of the clans were stupid. So was the whole clan system. It was so old already and yet nobody dared defy them. Because they were wiser than them apparently.

You always hated the hierarchy of old people sticking to what´s been taught to them. After all things changed. You had to adapt to and accept it, not just keep going with your old traditions and teachings.

“You know that way of thinking gets you killed, right? You can´t just say that every curse is good. Why do you so desperately want to believe in the good in people? Especially when they´re moved by fear and greed?” Choso questioned. Sure you seemed convinced enough and did the right thing, but still, was it worth dying for?

“Because I´ve seen so many people suffer from my kind, sure some curses are bad, but only some. My whole world is corrupt and based on lies. How can you expect me to stand by idly?”

Choso smirked at your words.

“Keep that attitude. If people like you existed back then…” he started, almost trailing off.

“Never mind. You do now, that´s all that matters” he stated, seeming lost in thought.

You didn´t want to pry so you stayed quiet.

“Thank you. For trusting me. I know how weird this all must be for you, thank you for giving it a chance” you smiled, though this time it was more soft and gentle.

“Well, if you´re taking a step towards us, I might as well take one towards you” he said, he no longer was on edge.

Now you understood what his brothers meant when they said he was kind.

“I have to get to work, but I´ll drop by later to see how everything´s going!” you waved goodbye and went back to the school.

In the following weeks you spent a lot of time with the brothers, helping them move in with your students. Nobara brought a lot of decoration that she didn´t need anymore and also the promised nail polish. Eso and her would spend the day shopping in the small clothing shops on the main marketplace while Megumi, Yuuji and Kechizu carried the moving boxes and furniture.

Choso and you did the rest of the organizational things.

During those weeks you learned more about him and grew closer, he had a calm presence that you liked being in.

He didn´t talk much, but when he did it was heartfelt, you really appreciated that about him.

And he told you about his past, about the human village they wanted to visit. His little brothers wanted to make friends there even though he had warned them about it. But instead of going after them, he left them alone. They returned home heavily injured. They were lucky that there was no sorcerer in town back then.

Since then they were moving a lot, never being able to stay in one place, too scared of being cast out or even worse. Sorcerers were omnipresent to them.

And even though Choso was being more careful than ever, he made one big mistake.

He trusted someone he really shouldn´t have, being invited to the village where the citizens even talked to his brothers before sealing them, giving them false hope and betraying their trust.

Sorcerers were the worst.

But you convinced him otherwise, showed him that there were others like you, who wanted to live with them, who not only tolerated them, but actually liked them.

You really were special, weren´t you?

At first he didn´t think anything about it, it was normal to spend that much time with a person, wasn´t it?

Still his brothers wouldn´t stop teasing him about his apparent crush on you. He didn´t know how to react, after all he never had a crush before, love and relationships were the last thing on his mind.

How did you even notice these things? Even Nobara teased him about it whenever she came over, but also told him that you were in the same boat.

He was glad that Yuuji was there too, he at least understood him and didn´t make him only more confused than he already was.

So what if he enjoyed your presence a tad bit more than he did everyone else´s? That didn´t have to mean anything.

Though now that the thought was inside his head, he just became hyper aware of it.

Nobara told Eso about a new ice cream place that would open inside the veil soon and how they needed to go there with everyone.

“Choso you should really ask (Y/N) out already, that´s the perfect place to go!” she encouraged him, but he just sighed.

“I never had ice cream before” he admitted, though it was more of a neutral statement, shocking Nobara and Yuuji.

“No way! You need to change that immediately!” Yuuji said.

“Yeah, that´s a crime!” Nobara added in the instance you walked in.

You were used to the commotion already, if you were being honest you liked it. If the kids were so at ease and comfortable everything would be fine.

“What is?” you questioned after joining them.

“Choso never had ice cream before, can you believe that?” Nobara told you, still in shock.

“Really? We need to change that” you said determined.

“If you say so, how about now? I could use some fresh air” he smiled, he would take any chance to be alone with you, especially after such an embarrassing conversation. Maybe they were right after all. But what should he do about that?

“Is it really that weird that I never had ice cream?” he asked, not understanding why everyone made such a big deal out of it.

“Hmm not really actually. I mean it´s so usual for us since we´ve grown up with it, but you´re from a different world, so it´s not surprising. But I have a feeling you´ll like it” you smiled.

“Everyone just talked about a new shop that opened… do you maybe wanna go there?” he said, thinking a bit and then taking a deep breath of courage before uttering his next word: “As a date?”.

You blinked twice, looking at him questioning, did he really just say that? It wasn´t just your imagination? It was so sudden but you couldn´t say you minded that in the least.

On the contrary, it excited you. “I´d really like that” you said, smiling the same way you only did when you were around him.

So he didn´t just imagine that, maybe his siblings were right, they were definitely more perceptive than he was when it came to such things.

“Heh, my first date. Just a warning though, I´m not good when it comes to those things, so please don´t be too disappointed with me” he told you, after all he didn´t know how he was supposed to behave now, was there anything he should do different?

“Don´t worry about that, you can´t disappoint me. I´m just really glad to be able to spend time with you. I… I like you a lot, Choso” you admitted to which he smiled. Usually he didn´t smile so openly, but with you he just couldn´t stop.

You made him do things he normally wouldn´t and somehow he enjoyed that way more than he thought he should.

It wasn´t a long walk to the ice cream place and it was almost empty too, which was nice.

“There are a bunch of different flavors, you can choose whatever you want” you smiled, telling him about your favorite flavors.

“I think I´ll try vanilla first” he said after looking at the menu.

You nodded and ordered for both of you, you decided to walk around the park a bit, the weather was really nice today.

Choso was a bit hesitant to try it, it was so cold… but then again it probably was supposed to be. He watched you eat your ice cream and wondered if your teeth didn´t hurt from all the cold.

Before it could melt though, you had warned him about that, he tried it.

It was something he never experienced before, yes, it was cold, but somehow that didn´t make his mouth numb like he feared.

Instead it melted in his mouth, the flavor was so simple yet immaculate.

“And? How is it?” you asked curiously. “I think I like it. It´s a weird texture but… it´s fun to eat” he chuckled slightly, imagining how stupid he must sound to you right now.

But he didn´t care.

It was you after all, you would never hold it against him.

No, you were excited and happy that he was having fun. You two decided that you would try a lot of new things together.

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another-rogue-trevelyan · 3 years

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If you liked Dragon Age Masterlist

If you’re anything like me, you’re into niche market, high fantasy, single player RPGs, preferably with a historical setting and romance options. So if you’re looking for a new game, here I am with some suggestions!

Sorted by studio:

Bethesda:

Oblivion (2006)

“In the shadow of evil, a hero will rise from the ashes of a fallen empire. The gates have been opened, and the battle has begun. Only one thing can save the world from Mehrunes Dagon and the demonic hordes of Oblivion. The true heir of the Septim line must be found and restored to the Imperial throne. The fate of the world rests in the hands of one. Find him, and shut the jaws of Oblivion.”

The Elder Scrolls series were my gateway into RPGs and hold a special place in my heart. Oblivion features a wide open world, immersive combat, and the ability to customize race, class, and gender.

Skyrim (2011)

“The Empire of Tamriel is on the edge. The High King of Skyrim has been murdered. Alliances form as claims to the throne are made. In the midst of this conflict, a far more dangerous, ancient evil is awakened. Dragons, long lost to the passages of the Elder Scrolls, have returned to Tamriel. The future of Skyrim, even the Empire itself, hangs in the balance as they wait for the prophesized Dragonborn to come; a hero born with the power of The Voice, and the only one who can stand amongst the dragons.”

I have sunk so many hours into this game and still have not experienced all there is to experience. Just like Oblivion, Skyrim offers the ability to customize your character and find a play style that suits you. A huge open world offers tons of opportunity for exploration and questing. You could play this game many, many hours and not even touch the main quest if you wanted to.

BioWare:

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (2021)

Just do it. Just fucking do it I’m still sobbing I’ve never had a game wreck me in this way. I might possibly like it more than Dragon Age which feels sacrilegious to say but it was so good. You follow Commander Shepard (customizable) for three whole games and the choices have serious consequences. Also, romance. Truthfully this might be the most well written storyline I’ve ever seen in a video game. Also, same studio as Dragon Age.

CD Projekt:

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (2015)

I’ll let the website description speak for itself, but Witcher III was good enough that I didn’t mind being forced to play as a man (those who know me know that I exclusively prefer to play women and often dislike games where I can’t do so)! The characters that make up this story are captivating and suck you into their world, leaving you with some tough choices to make. Also, bonus points for romance! (Yen is one of my all time favorite characters, Triss never stood a chance for me. Sorry Triss fans 😂)

Larian:

Divinity Original Sin 2 (2017)

“The Divine is dead. The Void approaches. And the powers lying dormant within you are soon to awaken. Choose your role in a BAFTA-winning story, and explore a world that reacts to who you are, and the choices you make. With five races to choose from, and an adventure playable solo or as a party of up to four, lay waste to an oppressive order in a world afraid of magic. Become the God the world so desperately needs.”

Full disclosure, I have not finished playing this one yet and will update when I do, but what I’ve played so far has been great! A classic, turn-based RPG that allows you a wide range of character customization. I find this game incredibly satisfying to be a rogue (my preferred class) because it lets me live my dream of throwing knives at people. Also, romance!

Baldur’s Gate III beta (2020)

“An ancient evil has returned to Baldur's Gate, intent on devouring it from the inside out. The fate of Faerûn lies in your hands. Alone, you may resist. But together, you can overcome. Gather your party.”

Fair warning, as of my most recent update to this post (March 30th, 2021) this game is still in a beta phase, which means it is NOT complete and has aspects that are missing, glitchy, or subject to change. With that being said, I’m so obsessed. It’s so, so good already and is only getting better. Another wide open world to explore with a group of companions with strong and sometimes clashing personalities, choices are abundant in this game and will affect how your party members think of you. This game so far gives me the feeling that choices are complicated and aren’t always easy to tell which is morally right, which I personally love. Also, I can be a sarcastic ass with a good heart, which is always fun. Astarion basically owns me now, but if you can resist him there are plentiful other romance choices as well! Customization is already a wider range than I’ve seen in most RPGs and they haven’t even finished the character creator yet, which has me SO excited for the finished product. Also - good hair?!??!! I love it!

Lionhead:

Fable III (2010)

“Lead a revolution to take control of Albion, fight alongside your people, and experience love and loss while preparing to defend the kingdom against a looming threat. Your choices as ruler will lead to consequences felt across the entire land.”

I’ll be honest, this one isn’t my favorite on the list, but was good enough to still make it! This game allows you to choose between playing as the prince or the princess on a quest to save your kingdom from itself, and then a greater threat as well. The game takes place in a kingdom loosely modeled after industrial England, and what did score it some major points were (SPOILER WARNING - skip the purple if you don’t want to know!) that the last act of the game lets you play as the monarch, where you are forced to make some tough decisions in order to save your kingdom. It is very easy to back yourself into a corner, pinch pennies in order to fund the army and save the kingdom, but make your citizens hate you because of it. You’re gonna have to be very, very careful, which is something I did really enjoy about this game. (I’ve heard Fable II was better, and that’s also on my list to try, will update in the future!)

Nintendo:

Fire Emblem Three Houses (2019)

“War is coming to the continent of Fódlan. Here, order is maintained by the Church of Seiros, which hosts the prestigious Officer’s Academy within its headquarters. You are invited to teach one of its three mighty houses, each comprised of students brimming with personality and represented by a royal from one of three territories. As their professor, you must lead your students in their academic lives and in turn-based, tactical RPG battles wrought with strategic, new twists to overcome. Which house, and which path, will you choose?”

Currently playing this one and I’m so addicted! This one is slightly outside of my usual taste but it has made me interested in playing more games like it. The player controls Byleth (you can rename them if you wish), who becomes a professor of combat and battle tactics despite their young age at a monastery and finds themself in charge of a house of students. Battles are tactics and strategy based and classes are highly customizable. I sunk like 30 hours into this game in the last three days. I won’t say more about the plot to avoid spoilers, but it’s been a ton of fun and also has slow burn romance

Spiders:

Greedfall (2019)

This game destroyed my soul in the best way and when I finished it I immediately started a new game to play it again. You play as Lady or Lord De Sardet, Legate of the Congregation of Merchants and effectively the right hand of your cousin, who has been appointed governor of your new colony on the island. While I enjoy the combat in this game, which allows you the choice between one handed, two handed, magic, and pistols or rifles (save that ammo for when you really need it!), this game focuses heavily on diplomacy and relations. Be careful what information you give to whom and how you treat every decision. The enemies you make early on might be people you need on your side later. I also love that choices aren’t always clearly right or wrong, and often are more complicated than they first appear. Even the best intentions can sometimes go awry.

Ubisoft:

Assassin’s Creed, Syndicate (2015)

“London, 1868. In the heart of the Industrial Revolution, lead your underworld organization and grow your influence to fight those who exploit the less privileged in the name of progress”

Another one that I’ll admit, I haven’t finished, and is definitely the odd one out on the list because it’s set in Victorian England, but I was having fun with what I had played so far before Greedfall distracted me. In this game, you alternate between controlling twins Jacob and Evie Frye as you explore and liberate London while meeting famous historical figures and running a gang on the side.

Assassin’s Creed, Origins (2017)

“Ancient Egypt, a land of majesty and intrigue, is disappearing in a ruthless fight for power. Unveil dark secrets and forgotten myths as you go back to the one founding moment: The Origins of the Assassin’s Brotherhood.”

In the spirit of honesty, I haven’t started this one yet, but I am so confident that I’m gonna love it when I do that it’s here anyway. I’ve purchased it, and will get to it soon, I swear! In the meantime, I wanted to put it here because I’m confident some of you will enjoy it. Will come back with a review once I know more.

Assassin’s Creed, Odyssey (2018)

“Write your own epic odyssey and become a legendary Spartan hero in Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey, an inspiring adventure where you must forge your destiny and define your own path in a world on the brink of tearing itself apart. Influence how history unfolds as you experience a rich and ever-changing world shaped by your decisions.”

Y’all this game owned my soul for a while. I’ve sunk so many hours into it. You have a choice to play as either Kassandra or Alexios and navigate the wonders of Ancient Greece. The world is stunning, the choices are important, and this game took a big step for the assassins creed series in becoming a true RPG. I can’t recommend this one enough, you should absolutely go for it!

Assassin’s Creed, Valhalla (2020)

“Become Eivor, a legendary Viking warrior. Explore England's Dark Ages as you raid your enemies, grow your settlement, and build your political power in the quest to earn a place among the gods in Valhalla.”

This game is brand new, hot off the press, and has already been a massive hit. I have only JUST started playing it and am about an hour in, but so far so good! It’s here on my recommendations list because of its wild popularity and because I’ve already enjoyed other games in this series, so I feel confident that some of my fellow dragon age fans will enjoy it. Will update again once I get further in.

Other games on my To Be Played list (otherwise known as things I don’t want to recommend because I know almost nothing about them but will update here after I know more)

-Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2

-Horizon Zero Dawn

-Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag

-Fable 1 and 2

-Kingdoms of Amalur

-Breath of the Wild

-Crimson Desert (not out yet but I’m intrigued)

#will update as I find more #if you liked dragon age #dragon age #video games #video game recommendations #op #rpgs #masterlist

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icewindandboringhorror · 3 years

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a few “out of style” (aka not just slim featureless black rectangles) cell phones from ebay that have design elements I still really love

#motorola flipout my beloved.....#I actually really like physical keyboards - but I find I liked them a lot more when I had long nails #anyway.. i like chunky rounded designs with interesting shapes or colors #and at least SOME physical buttons being present (one of my aunts recently got that new new iphone that doesn't even have a 'home' button #you're just like.. supposed to swipe near the bottom of the screen or something .. how ridiculous honestly like.. what is the point #it makes it LESS intuitive and it's not like it adds anything.. having even a tiny button down there isn't a severe incovenince and doesn't #like drastically modify the design really.. it's just taking away features for the sake of taking them away hjhj)#I know none of these would be good for Watching Netflix on or whatever people do with their phones but THATS a thing as well #I hate everything moving towards mobile - all websites abandoning their desktop versions for over-simplified homogenous #blank white algorithm sorted content zones with super simple buttons and extreme lack of detail/all actual information #hidden away and as simplified as possible for Mobile Browsing #MESSAGING systems all increasingly being more 'text' / chat-like 'press enter to send' type formats instead of suited for #long form paragraph style communication etc. etc.#AND I WOULDNT MIND if they CO-EXISTED like.. SURE have people CHOOSE which version of a wbsite they want to use #or which features they have or don't have or how their messaging is laid out or etc. but give us the CHOICE #it's the lack of control and agency and everything being forced onto us that bothers me - especially details and customization and being abl #e to curate your own experience or decide what things look like or settings and features and etc. being removed #Honestly I like phones as a means for calling people and texting - and then things that are useful while you're out of the house #(being able to pull up a map if you're lost - having a basic internet broser to search things quickly if you need - being able to check #maessges or social media if you need to - etc. etc. ) BUT ultimately I just can't ever see them as a full on suitable form of #entertainment - like spending hours browsing apps and playing mobile games and watching all of my videos on there or etc.#it's such a terrible and annoying layout for me etc. etc.#I would love to just have a funky cool looking chunky bright colored little square cell phone with basic functonality (calls - texts- intern #et access- a few apps that are useful when out of the house/on the go) but then everything else I do solely on a desktop computer #or laptop or something. I miss when cell phones were just like 'something important to have when you're on the go so people can still reach #you (better than a housephone) and you can look up things on the internet if needed and also maybe you have tetris #built in on there and an app that tells you the weather' and not like full on all-in-one staples that many peoples entire daily lives and #complete source of entertainment and leisure revolves around and evrything is an app and everything is a simple little icon and everyhing #is chosen for you AND tetris doesn't even come for free on the thing anymore but a shitty facebook app you can disable but not delete does #ANYWAY gjhjh this will always bother me I try not to even let myself ramble about it I JUST wanted to show some cool Images.. lov these

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kireii-writes · 4 years

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pairing: reader x chisaki kai (overhaul)

fandom: BNHA

warning(s): swearing, mentions of kidnapping and drugs, reader is a badass yakuza leader

summary: in which y/n is a young yakuza leader who one day caught the interest of the leader of their rival gang, chisaki kai

A near empty glass of red wine sat on the glass table in front of you as you sank back into the plush sofa you were on, a cigarette between hung between your lips. With a long exhale, a new wave of smoke replaced the previous one that was slowly dissipating in the air conditioned room.

“Are you done?” The voice in front of you across the table made you tilt your head towards its direction.

“Chisaki, did you not teach your men to be respectful to visitors?” You asked the man in front of you lazily as Chisaki’s unreadable eyes never left yours. No doubt, that the intensity of his stare made you uncomfortable. It was like he was undressing you with those calculative eyes of his.

“Nemoto, where are your manners? Y/n’s a guest and a fellow yakuza leader, there’s no need to be rude.” Chisaki ordered the man who had rudely interrupted your peace earlier on, his eyes never leaving you.

“Whatever,” you waved your hand dismissively. “I’m here on business with you, Chisaki.” Taking one last puff of your almost finished cigarette, you lazily threw the bud on the clean and pristine floor and extinguished it with the heel of your shoe. much to Chisaki’s annoyance. You knew how much Chisaki hated it when someone smokes and dirties the environment he’s in, and the subtle scrunch of his eyebrows indicating his unhappiness made you smirk internally.

“Why did you order your men to attack mine? I’m sure you’re aware, I already have 3 causalities just this week. Are you that bad at controlling your men that they end up running around like rabid dogs? Hell, even dogs are smarter than them.” At your remark, both Chisaki and his most loyal follower, Nemoto visibly tensed up. Silently, Chisaki loosened his tie and leaned forward, his steady eyes locking with your disinterested ones.

“I told them to do whatever they deem fit if anyone comes into my territory. It’s the fault of your own men not knowing their place.” The young yakuza leader replied. “That was my order to them, if you’re not happy there’s nothing I can do. After all, your men are already dead. Maybe it’s the result of having such an incapable and spoilt brat who lacks the guts and experience as the yakuza leader.” He scoffed.

As much as you hated it, there was some truth to his words. Out of all the yakuza leaders, you lack the experience that most of them have. Instead of working your way up to the top, you had it easy, with the position given to you, all just because you’re the child of the previous yakuza leader. Hell, there were even times when you weren’t sure you would be able to manage a whole organization of men who would kill on a whim. But still, you had successfully managed to prevent the yakuza from falling apart as soon as you inherited the ‘throne’.

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue? I hit the jackpot, didn’t I?” Chisaki took your silence as a form of cowardice. “You shouldn’t talk so much when you’re still learning about the ways of the yakuza, my dear y/n.” The black face mask covered the lower half of his face, but you’re positively sure that underneath the damn mask was a smirk.

Motioning for the lackey that had accompanied you, he handed you a lighted cigarette which you sucked harshly on, your feet taping the carpet impatiently. “I don’t want to hear that kind of crap for someone who has to wear a face mask and gloves all the damn time. Maybe you should retire and spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement. You act too much like an old man.” You retorted smugly, your eyes daring him to say something else. “I may not be as great of a leader as my father,” you exhaled, smoke acting as a temporary curtain between you and Chisaki. “But I know better than to take part in illegal drug dealings despite being banned from it.” You scoffed. “Oh, and the illegal developing of dangerous drugs without a legal license.”

At your words, Chiskai gave a humorless low chuckle, the deep baritone of his voice slicing through the dangerously silent room. “You can’t accuse someone of doing something without concrete proof, y/n. What makes you think that we’re dealing with illegal drugs? If you have the proof, show it to me.”

“There’s no need for any proof and you know it. Once I tip the police off, it’s over for your poor little pathetic life.” You replied with obvious disinterest as you looked back at Chisaki who had gone silent, an unreadable look on his face yet again.

“Well,” You sighed as you got up from the sofa and stretched your limbs. “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I don’t see a point in staying here any longer.” Taking a puff from your cigarette, you turned to leave without bidding Chisaki goodbye.

“Oh and, the girl’s name is Eri, isn’t it?” You paused in front of the door and tilted your head to look at Chisaki. But the man hadn’t move one bit, and his body showed no signs of tension. “How terrible you are, Chisaki. Never would I dream of kidnapping a young girl to experiment drugs on. Only a degenerate like you could do it.” You scoffed.

Still no reaction from the man on the sofa.

“If you want me to keep your little secret, you ought to compensate for the lives of my men you’ve taken. It’s the least you can do.” You said after awhile. “Human lives are not so cheap that you can go ahead and take them without any regard. Atleast the lives of my men aren’t.”

With one last side glance at the other yakuza leader, you left without another word.

~~~

It’s been more than three weeks ever since your little “meeting” with Chisaki, and there was no sign of remorse from him. In fact, he took it upon himself to see that you suffer more losses. From the constant cuts and bruises your men would get after running errands to the drastic decrease of customers that would frequent the gambling dens under your ownership, it was as clear as day that Chisaki was reacting to your words, all the more making it obvious that he was indeed hiding something.

“... So I want you to stay away from Chisaki for the time being, you got it?” The silvery voice of the young man next to you brought you back to reality.

“Y/n? Are you even listening to me?”

Setting down the cool glass of whiskey in front of you, you gave a sigh in response and turned to the man beside you.

“Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time, Midoriya.”

Midoriya Izuku- as far as you could remember, your little partnership with him went back a long way. When you had claimed the position of the yakuza leader, the first thing you did was to make sure that you were on good terms with the police. That way, things would be easier. In exchange for more freedom to carry out the organization’s businesses, you had agreed to inform the police of any suspicious activities that were going on in the yakuza world. Midoriya Izuku, although the two years younger than you, had a strong sense of justice like no other. Ever since he had been in the police force three years ago, he’s been working hard like no other officer to bring gather evidence and bring down the Shie Hassaikai. By working with him, the Shie Hassaikai would collapse sooner or later, making you the next most influential yakuza leader once Chisaki was out of the way.

“I suppose you wouldn’t want any information on whatever Chisaki’s been planning then?” You raised an eyebrow as you scruntised the drink in from of you before downing in all in one gulp. “I have... some news that might interest you.” You gave a tiny smirk as you placed a lit cigarette between your teeth.

“And how reliable is your source?” Midoriya raised an eyebrow questioningly. “For all you know it might just be a rumor.”

“Midoriya, Midoriya.” You sighed. Since when did I ever lie to you?” A lighthearted chuckle escaped from you, the smoke from your lips blurring your vision.

“... Two months ago, when you said you’d be free to grab ramen together and you ended up bailing on me last minute.” The green haired man replied quietly, almost seriously.

Almost immediately, a burst of laughter erupted from within you, your body trembling from the vibrations of your laugh. Since when have you last felt this genuinely happy?

“I couldn’t help it and you knew it. There was no way I could half ass things and leave to have ramen with you.” You sighed as you wipe the tears forming at the corners of your eyes, now full of life and vibrancy. “But on a serious note,” You continued. “They aren’t just rumors. Pictures don’t lie.” A huge puff of thick, grey smoke hit the back of your lungs as you tossed a manila envelope towards Midoriya, which the latter swiftly caught. Without another word, the green haired male proceeded to look through the contents, his eyebrows scrunching as his eyes landed on each and every photograph contained in the envelope.

“... What is all this about? Where did you get these photos?”

“It’s exactly what it looks like.” You propped your elbows on the bar counter top, your gaze swift as you scanned the different bottles of drinks behind the counter. “Illegal drug trafficking on top of the Illegal developing of drugs. Not only that, you see the girl in the picture? She’s a guinea pig to Chisaki, nothing else.”

You didn’t have to look at Midoriya to know that he was mortified to say the least. Who wouldn’t be, after learning that a yakuza leader has been experimenting drugs on a young girl?

“She’s the one, isn’t it?” You asked. “The girl that had been reported missing. You know, the one that the police has been finding for the past few months.” You stretched your limbs, a contended sigh escaping from your lips as strong yet gentle fingers tapped the cigarette trapped between them.

“Y/n,” Midoriya sighed. “I thought I told you to steer clear of Chisaki and whatever he’s doing.”

“He killed some of my men, it’s only fitting that I poke my head into his business and cause as much as trouble as I can.” You shrugged.

At the silence that greeted your last sentence, you turned towards Midoriya, only to find him staring back at you with an unreadable look on his face.

“I’m just kidding.”

“...”

“Anyway,” Midoriya sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is valuable information. The police will be conducting a more explicit investigation now that we have this.” He waved the manila envelope in his hand.

“Do whatever you want with it.” You replied, your voice devoid of any emotion at all. “In fact, the sooner you throw him in jail the better.” You inhaled another puff of thick smoke.

“Y/n.” The seriousness in Midoriya’s voice made you turn towards him, the slight raise of an eyebrow the only thing conveying emotion.

“Smoking isn’t good for your health.”

A mirthless laugh from you was the only response Midoriya got from you.

“Stay away from Chisaki from now on, okay?”

“...”

Hearing no response from you, Midoriya sighed as he got up from his seat. “Then, I’ll get going now. I’ll contact you soon.”

With one last pat on your shoulder, you were now left all alone, the sound of his footsteps concealed by the plush carpet that covered every inch of the floor.

“No promises.” You muttered as the last puff of smoke filled your lungs.

#anime #bnha #mha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #overhaul #overhaul x reader #chisaki x reader #bnha chisaki #mha chisaki #chisaki kai #bnha imagines #yakuza #mafia au

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inventors-fair · 4 years

Text

“Surprise Me” commentary: Return to Innocence

Look, I’m not going to lie to you (unless it’s convenient for me or unless you’re about to find the body). Every time we open up a contest, we have preconceived notions about what people will send in and the kind of entries that we want to have. Every judge, all the time, even the ones I’m speaking for who disagree with me and my megalomania.

For this particular contest? I wanted to get rid of that entirely. I didn’t want to experience what I thought would be surprising, because that destroys that notion entirely, doesn’t it? I wanted something new.

I’d say that for most of you, that came across pretty well. I particularly enjoyed the return to custom mechanics, even if some of them... Well, let’s just talk about them, shall we?

@abzanhero — Simikiel, Due Vengeance

What I like: Well, it certainly feels like a WBR angel in the vein of its predecessors. The RW activation combined with the black drain does feel coherent in a way that I enjoy. Stats are good, wording’s fine. I think that this card is interesting because people will be looking for a way to combo out with this even though land sacrifice like Goblin Trenches will do just fine when the activated ability doesn’t pan out. Desolation (italicize!) is an interesting reverse-Morbid in a way.

What we can improve: I’m not personally invested in this card. I see that you made this for a custom set, but this feels entirely like a Commander card, and reactive abilities might not be what Commanders want. Yes, sometimes it’s about control, and I can see where you’re coming from. It might be the fact that because it’s a control-y card it makes it hard to want to build around as a commander. If you’re intending this for drafting and limited? Well, that’s another story, and I feel I’d have to see the context of the set. Desolation is...weird. There would have to be a lot of noncreature destruction for that, and I don’t exactly know how you’d make that happen without, well, a constructed environment. The card feels at odds with itself.

Baked Beans — Mutagenic Slime

What I like: Firstly, uh, sorry about that namesake? If you have a name you’d rather go by, then you’re free to specify in your submissions. Secondly, there’s a lot to love about this card. It does pretty much everything you would want out of a UG ooze for sure. I think it’s interesting how you retained the mana costs of the card and abilities with color weight.

What we can improve: In short, I got very confused by this card. After some discussion in the modhouse, I was surprised to learn that this actually works fairly well, considering the fact that copy effects are notorious for being frustrating to template correctly, and Mutavault-animation-copying is a whole other weird kettle of fish. I suppose that confusion is my fault, and I initially judged this card too harshly. I honestly don’t know if it needs the first ability, considering holy cow that’s powerful, but the rest of it, honestly? Not as egregious as I thought. I guess this is one of those things where my personal confusion initially got in the way — a lesson for me.

@chungus-supreme — Myriad Sliver

What I like: Well, it’s easy to see where you started and what you like. I think that Slivers were a great first tribe for a lot of people. A callback to the MH Slivers is pretty cool.

What we can improve: There’re a lot of strategies that could possibly use this card, but it feels immensely “win-more” when it comes to Slivers already. Why would this card need to exist? What interactions would it have that Slivers don’t already have with each other and with weird tribal cards? Someone would be happy with this card, but it wouldn’t be Sliver players. Minor note on presentation, too? Reminder text should be italicized following the rules, but I understand limitations on card creators. The lack of flavor text and context is just a little too weird. What possible circumstances could lead the Slivers to learning that they were every creature type? Frankly, what’s the story point? There’s a massive clash between flavor identity and reasonable storytelling.

@corporalotherbear — Pleasure in Pain

What I like: Alternate win-cons are always a nice addition to the game. I can see the sadistic side of black and the “at any cost” combo style that this card seeks to emulate. Personally, too, I’m a fan of conflicting rules text like the trigger and the static on this card. A new player might think they don’t work, and well, that’s just how new players work. And this card isn’t for them, it’s definitely for advanced Johnny players.

What we can improve: I still don’t exactly know how to make this card work. There don’t seem to be that many combos that could work well with it considering the mana cost. Ad Nauseam already does what it does, so that’s something, but I mean, I’d like to see what deck you would make with this card first because frankly, I don’t see it. Paying life doesn’t work if you don’t have life to pay, losing life is hard as heck, the whole shebang. Damage could work? Yeah, either I’m really dumb, or I don’t see the obvious exploitative combo you were envisioning outside of Ad Nauseam.

@dabudder — Perplexing Pact

What I like: Nice flavor, I think. I don’t know much about Davriel but I can totally see how it works out. It’s appropriately mythic considering how people would treat combat damage and the like, so that’s all well and good. Props for the reminder text, and for what I think is a fairly appropriate use of hybrid.

What we can improve: Where would this card exist? What kind of set would it belong to? I can’t contextualize it outside of just ‘a custom card for custom card’s sake’ and that feels frustrating to me. Ravnica mythic, perhaps? Sure, but what would the rest of the set look like? Could there be two alternate win-con effects i the same set? It’s actually kinda weird that the Guilds block had five across three sets, but still, they were different enough. I also feel that this is pretty easy to exploit with cards like the Pacts, turning this into a four-mana “at the beginning of your upkeep you win the game” effect. Not sure how I feel about that.

@deafeningsandwichpeach — Roaring Stompodon

What I like: This card was almost a runner-up! It’s a fantastic and powerful use of hybrid, it feels like a dinosaur, it’s fast and furious and chompy, and the only real questionable part is the redness of it. Could red get ETB fight like this, is the question? I feel that for this card in the right set that it honestly wouldn’t be too bad. I also feel that that’s more my heart than my head thinking here. I’m a weird control player who also happens to love fast and furious dinosaurs, what can I say.

What we can improve: Hm. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I’m worried. If you take off the “may” on the fight then it’s a little better, but whoo boy, imagining this in RDW with a slightly higher curve than usual? There’s something scary about that. I feel that erring on the side of caution would be best here. As a custom card I love it. I don’t know how printable it would be. Also, flavor text is good but retreading old ground. Consider something sillier, perhaps? Sillier or scarier, either or.

@deg99 — Azor I, Parun

What I like: Yup, it’s a callback to the quintessential Azorius namesake. With the mana cost like that, I can tell that you were shooting for a significant and austere commander for the guild, someone who requires many proper resources.

What we can improve: The problem with a card being quintessential is that everything that it’s doing has been done before. This card does not surprise me in the least. The fact that Azor creates The Immortal Sun on this card is about as expected as can be. Detaining is fine, and the draw is fine, but that’s it; they’re retreading expected ground. The mana cost doesn’t mechanically need the color weight, and as a custom Commander, this card just doesn’t seem fun. I would rather have seen you attempt to make something from the ground-up that was new rather than submit an old design that hasn’t been changed since inception.

@evscfa1 — Scales of Pitiless Justice

What I like: Pretty metal name, pretty rad.

What we can improve: Let’s...slow down a second.

There doesn’t seem to be a reason for the mana cost to be weighted like that. Without any context for the world, set or flavor, it feels arbitrary.

Speaking of arbitrary, why does this need to have both enchantment and artifact subtypes? I don’t understand how that helps mechanically.

This card does not need indestructible OR shroud. Full stop. “Bypassing any interaction” is not the same as “difficult to remove.”

Mana burn was removed from the game for a reason. It simply is not fun.

The “if” ability should be a trigger: “Whenever a player draw a card [etc], that player discards that card unless they pay 2 life.”

The last ability should say “casts” instead of “would cast.”

And in the end, I understand your frustrations with green and blue that you might see in your personal playgroup or whatever, and I understand what might be happening in standard and all the junk with that. Godmodding isn’t the answer. This contest was about seeing more of what you love, not destroying what you hate. In that context this card is antithetical to the approach we were hoping for. I would strongly consider putting love into cards that you submit rather than trying to force the pendulum in another direction.

@fractured-infinity — Sygg, Heir to Mornigtide // Sygg of the Razorfin

What I like: Sygg! Okay, so this is a... I’m envisioning this as a potential Esper DFC mer-legend in a limited return to Lorwyn, which is — aight? Shoot, the thing is, I love each side as they are. With a couple exceptions. I will say that I was both surprised and delighted to see a mythic Syggy-boy.

What we can improve: You have three set-unique abilities on a single DFC, and my friend, that’s confusing as heck. Daybreak and Moonrise just don’t seem like great mechanics, because if you need one and not the other, and you’re stuck on certain places, how are you gonna turn it? If they changed the seasons upon casting, that would be cool, right? What about that? I would maybe keep Aurora or something, and change your set’s mechanics (are you making one?) so that sorcery effects can change whether or not it’s Sunny or Moony on Lorwyn. Keep this idea, just narrow it down. A LOT.

Small note: “MorNINGtide.” Double-check your spelling. I’ve made that mistake once or a hundred times.

@ghost31415926535 — Piece of Mind

What I like: Well, it’s one way for white to interact with graveyards and the like. My favorite part of this is the flavor text. I don’t know much about Chulane but I do like the prospect of this teller having to forget a painful story from the past.

What we can improve: The first ability doesn’t get rid of replacement effects like Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace. Honestly, I think for the sake of all custom designers, graveyard hate effect shouldn’t be hated out themselves. It becomes a mechanical arms race. That last ability, though... Nope. Nooooope. That’s insane. Mono-white draw so many cards? Four mana? Even as a one-time effect it’s absolutely bonkers and out of pie. UW mill means that you can draw three new hands by the time this is activated. And, for this contest, I can’t say that I was entirely surprised by this card. It’s doing what so many custom card designers have done before.

@gollumni — Ihren, Master of the Deep

What I like: This feels like one of those cards where it makes sense in-world and then when you put it on a card it’s like “oh, my goodness, is that the story we’re telling?” And I like that aspect! I’m imagining a happy Giant wrangling a squid the size of a bus and loving every second of it. I can say with certainty that I didn’t expect “tentacle farmer archetype” in these submissions.

What we can improve: But it’s so, so much of a “win-more” again. You get sea monsters with your giants, and then giants with your sea monsters? To what end? What’s the point of casting all these massive creatures that require you to have more massive creatures, when just the massive creatures alone could win you the game? Quest for Ula’s Temple was awesome because for one mana you were eventually able to summon the giant monsters. This card, well, it’s big for big’s sake.

@haru-n-harkel — Ozalii, Apex of Evolution

What I like: I can fully say that I didn’t expect a mutate card for this contest. Did people like mutate? I can tell one of you did! Five-color true mutate legend, yeah, that’s a niche that could have used a spot. Y’know what, props, credit where credit’s due. I like the concept.

What we can improve: I feel that the abilities should say “this creature” instead of the name, right? Isn’t that how all mutate cards work? This may just be me being lukewarm on mutate for this whole thing, honestly. Past that, I understand that this card is good, but Mutate was just so parasitic. I don’t know, this may be one of those unfortunate biases. So don’t take this the wrong way, and please do put this in a custom Mutate-filled cube if you have it.

@ignorantturtlegaming — O’Jaru, Kavu Arisen

What I like: You and Kavu. Meme all I want, but yep, that’s a kind of gaming love I can get behind. It’s a big creature, it’s a beast, it’s powerful, it’s got a strong cost, and Panharmonicon on a creature? Oh lord. OH LORD. This would be an intensely powerful commander for that alone.

What we can improve: ...except for the fact that it triggers itself. It’ll be on the battlefield, so, well, you’ll have to return four other creatures if you want this thing to stick. Hate to say it, but that’s a massive drawback, so massive that I don’t know if it would really stick. However, this is an easy fix. All you need to do is change “If a permanent” to “If another permanent” in that first part. Solved!

@macaroni-and-squeez — The Breathing Past

What I like: I can absolutely commend you for trying something new. This feels like a card where a lot of background understanding is needed, and that’s not always a bad thing.

What we can improve: That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t understand the process behind this card’s creation. In short, I don’t know why sagas and creatures should be combined aside from the fact that it’s new, and that doesn’t feel like a great precedent. The card would have worked fine as a saga (ish) and actually great as a horror. But both makes it feel messy and unintuitive. What story is being told? I don’t know. What kind of character/incarnation is this legend? I still don’t know. Clarify, simplify, and revise.

@milkandraspberry — Importation étrangère

Silver-border is not the problem here. I don’t speak French. Was that the joke? What possible set would this card appear in, and why? I think based on this card alone, cards with non-English rules text are hereby not eligible for submission from this point forward. There may be a joke, but it wasn’t even explained in the submission, so I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do here. Google Translate? To what end? If the gist of the card is that it’s supposed to not be understood, then that’s a sign already that you should consider revising your idea. Most importantly, the judges can’t give you fair critique, and that’s not fair to you either.

@misterstingyjack — Slobad, Selfless Scrapper

What I like: Planeswalker iterations are always cool. Thank you for explaining the story to me, because I think that I vaguely remembered the name but couldn’t remember the context. And man, this is an interesting card. Red artifact/planeswalker matters planeswalker? It’s narrow, but shoot, it also feels appropriate for rare. I think I’m warming up to this kind of specific concept more than I was originally.

What we can improve: Still, he doesn’t exactly feel like a planeswalker and more like a new card type entirely. ... Maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Maybe this new design space could be way more interesting than I’m giving credit for. I would have to see what the environment looked like, because wow, this would have to be balanced properly, else we end up with War of the Spark Horizon Masters of Mirrodin broken. For wording: Second ability could just be ‘Create a _ for each walker you control’ and the last one honestly could just be “Move all loyalty counters from Slobad onto another target planeswalker you control.” A little more busted, but let’s be real, more flexible as well. Who says he has to give up his spark for a specific dude? Besides the story.

@naban-dean-of-irritation — Darksteel Experiment

What I like: Yeah, I can see the problem you’re trying to solve and how you’re trying to solve it. Gotta make something as unkillable as possible, right? It’s the “anything-proof-shield” on the playground of custom MTG design. Making it Darksteel is a great callback, and the flavor text is pretty fun so I’ll give you that.

What we can improve: I’ve played a lot of Magic, and I know that getting things killed can suck. But the game is one of interaction. There are answers to everything but you have to draw them. The card specifically and maybe this specific wording (if it works in the rules, I’ll have to lawyer it) might not have been made before, but the concept? It’s been around since Magic’s existence, to the first frustration of getting a Savannah Lions Lightning Bolt-ed. When the gameplay stops being a conversation, there is no longer gameplay. Trying to find answers to that shouldn’t be what we’re looking for.

@nicolbolas96 — Abyssal Pact

What I like: You know, Mr. Shiny actually made a vaguely-in-the-same-vein card that was almost going to be an example. Well, it involved sacrifice, anyway. But the point is, yeah, same kind of interesting design space. I love winning with no cards in a library, I’ll say that much. For a legendary enchantment, a “pact” is probably as appropriate as you can get without being an object or curse or specific story moment. Interesting flavor, too! Well-conceptualized.

What we can improve: My good fellow this card breaks the game in about a trillion different ways. Treasures become 40-80+ mana. Grimgrin becomes massive. Any card that says “Sacrifice X: Draw a card” becomes an instant and I think uninterruptable win, of which there are four in this card’s colors alone. If it was, like, “the first time” instead? Or something? I don’t know, there’s a LOT to take into consideration, but the gist is: this card is a broken infinite combo waiting to happen. Maybe you intended that. If that’s the case, then shame on you but I respect it. Sort of.

@nine-effing-hells — Evolutionary Explosion

What I like: This was so close to being a winner if it wasn’t really, REALLY darn too powerful. If you have an army of 1/1 tokens, this card becomes incrementally more amazing. Is that a bad thing? I mean, I love the concept, I love the math, I love that you’re doing new things with how to make a cool mythic Overrun sorcery.

What we can improve: But we gotta compare to cards like Wild Onslaught, which is eight mana for what this card can do for sometimes half that cost. It really can just make the late game a little too ridiculous. I wish I could love it more, and I think that as an uncommon that targets a single creature it can be an amazing powerful blowout. This? Too much for a variable X cost.

Also, I sent a PM tp the Denver museum and they’re checking with their team for the proper artist credit and once they respond in a few days I’m gonna smack ya for improper artist credit. (Not really that last part, but I did message out of curiosity. That mural is dope.)

@ouroboros-breaker — Tibalt, Rakdos Insurgent

What I like: Rakdos Tibalt has been something people have been asking for for a while now, and as a fan, I hope that we can see more of him in the future. I can see that you liked the character’s chaotic nature and the way that he engages with you, plus the double-edged sword aspects of it all. There’s a lot of cleverness behind your process.

What we can improve: That doesn’t change the fact that the second and third abilities are reeeeally pushing what’s reasonable for an acceptable risk. Yeah, it’s neat for there to be some risk involved, but the possibility of -3 and losing three permanents is way too rough. Rakdos at least absolutely saved himself during coin flips and whatnot. The last ability, the emblem? I wish I liked it more. I feel that it could have been a -5 for something like a Hellrider effect: “whenever a creature you control attacks, it deals 1 damage to any target” or something. Then, maybe there could have been tokens made, like Tibalt’s WAR card, and, well, the boy might be more playable. I feel that symmetrical emblems aren’t great to have. In short, don’t be afraid to make cards, especially planeswalkers, a couple degrees more helpful.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff — Progeny of Immolation

What I like: I think that Emerge was a fantastic mechanic, and I’m happy to see it again. Eldrazi Hellion is a great creature type combo, and as a fan of Eldritch Moon this card is hitting some nice parts for me.

What we can improve: The big challenge is whether or not it’s okay for this card to effectively deal up to 11 colorless damage in something like limited. If you’re running a red deck, you can get this out early and have a fine enough red source in-pie, but even if you’re running something like a blue-white control deck you can ramp up to eleven mana and halve someone’s life total. I’ll say that yes, the Eldrazi all from EM all could be cast like this, but the off-color effects were never quite pushed to eleven damage. I fear development issues. Keep in mind what may or may not be appropriate for your costs.

@real-aspen-hours — Instant Pot Chicken and Rice

What I like: This is at its core an affordable, easy, nutritious meal that provides a fair amount of food for relatively cheap cost. Instant rice and chicken breasts aren’t hard to come by, and another great part of this meal is the fact that it’s fairly universal. If someone’s vegetarian, you don’t have great options, but that’s not gonna come up as much as long as you have people who understand what it means to eat affordable. The Instant Pot is a great addition to any kitchen as well.

What we can improve: Tomatoes are fantastic for flavor, but what else is there? I’m missing out on a lot of the herbs and spices that could turn this into a real meal. Adding additional liquid plus things like white onions, garlic, carrots, etc. would turn this from “edible” to “exquisite.” Consider thyme and basil, but also think about different flavors like Teriyaki or sriracha for more stand-out returns. I wonder how chicken chili would go? But that would be a fundamental shift, so that’s more conjecture than anything else.

As an aside, this did bring a smile to my face. However, I hate to say, this is a Magic: the Gathering blog, and I am not a cook. I have to ask that we stick to cards for the future. Still — this is our one and only consolation prize for doin’ your own thang.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Maelstrom Vale

What I like: Hnnnng cascade. This is one of those cards that I friggin’ love because I grew up on cascade, before I knew just how broken it was as a mechanic. I think that in limited and constructed, this card can be played in any deck, and I dunno how to feel about that at second glance. Five-color commander and casual play? Heck yes, this is so much fun. I love these kinds of cards.

What we can improve: Five mana giving practically any spell cascade is...busted, especially in limited. If I had had this last night at FNM, I would have swept so hard. 3-5 drops into multiple creatures and answers? Good lord. If it was 7 to activate, it would be balanced. As it is, might be too far. Small note: this flavor text would be 100% better if you didn’t have that silly attribution. Seriously, it was epic and cool and meaningful until the last part. Sometimes established things work well.

@rustyguacamole — Uth, the Impermeable

What I like: Self-mill with a cool white upside makes this card a welcome addition to some of the other Abzan reanimator builds. I like how you worked off of those to make an interesting fungal commander. I feel that it could even be part of a core set legend if it were mythic.

What we can improve: The “you may play cards from your graveyard” definitely needed a “this turn” at the end of it. And I mean, Yawgmoth’s Will remains an impossibly powerful card to this day. A repeatable version of that seems way too strong at first glance. You could do it at the end of someone’s turn too and then next turn fill that stuff back up. Also, for that reminder text... If you activate it twice in a turn, wouldn’t the second resolution then exile those cards if it already resolved once? That doesn’t feel great. I don’t know, I still don’t think that repeatable Will is a good idea. And small note, the biggest exilers, Leyleine of the Void and Rest in Peace, are replacement effects and would get around that first ability. It really, really, really isn’t a battle worth fighting.

@scavenger98 — Watched of Fanged Winds

What I like: “Wolf creatures you control have flying.” WHAT. I was kinda blown away by that when I first read it, I’ll be honest. Working with, uh, I suppose Bant wolves? Could make for some crazy stuff. The token-making isn’t impossible but it’s a work-around, and I think that I can think of a couple ways to get infinite wolves but they’re all crazy combos and aren’t really broken in any format. That’s not a bad thing! I do like combos when they’re hard to get off. Aura Shards/Lumengrid Sentinel + Ornithopter/Memnite + Watcher comes to mind. See, that sounds fun!

What we can improve: There’s...not much to improve, honestly. I think the gist of my complaints is that I don’t get flavorfully why wolves can fly. Is the spirit giving it to them through some weird magic? What are the Fanged Winds? Sometimes in Magic, there are mechanical interactions that don’t make flavorful sense, but a card has to have internal flavor consistency, and I’m still not sure about that. Mechanically I’m in love.

ShakesZX — Woodland Gratifier

What I like: This is indeed a new version of something that exists but hasn’t seen print in quite this way. That’s pretty much what we were after! It’s a powerful elf effect, and as we speak, someone’s eyeing Gaea’s Cradle and salivating.

What we can improve: This definitely needs to be a replacement effect, see Mana Reflection. That’s an easy fix, though. This submission feels...strange without any flavor behind it. As a draft, sure, this is great. Presentation is iffy. I would have liked there to be flavor text for certain. There’s not really much to say about this card without that. I love the effect, but that’s where things stop. Also, uh, I’m either a terrible person or the word “gratifier” is giving some unintentional innuendo. I may have just spent too long on the internet.

@shootingstarhunter — Jack-In-The-Box

What I like: Knowledge Pool was a fantastic card, and this feels like a callback to that and then some. The change from libraries to the battlefield makes this card really fun to play around with as a kind of boardwipe, and for seven colorless mana there’s a lot of decks that could love this. Playing it then sacrificing with the trigger on the stack? Yike-a-rooni. I’d love to play that. I might also be evil.

What we can improve: But that’s another problem. Do you want permanent exile like that? If that’s your intention, I applaud it. I don’t necessarily like how you’re not the first person to get a present from the box, but that’s a necessary evil, I think. Like Omen Machine. My mechanical suggestion would be to CAST the cards from exile for additional synergy, and to word it so that the boxes are completely optional or completely mandatory. Secondly, the name. Why is a children’s toy exiling all permanents? That’s a major effect, something like an obelisk or a maze, not, well, a box. I would edit the flavor a little bit to reflect a world-breaking effect. Magical portal, woo!

@snugz — Disab, Lord of the Seven Seas

What I like: I imagine if this were come sort of commander it could come with little teardrop cutouts that you could scatter on different permanents or whatever, special flood counters. As a limited card, I think that it’s excellent, and as a constructed card it’s, well, still excellent. It’s a lot to put into a card but you get some awesome control out of it and beef up your pirate to the nth degree. I like how it doesn’t perma-change Islands, although man, there’s some fun combo shenanigans to be had there, I’m sure. Pretty great pirate-y flavor, too.

What we can improve: You know, I don’t have any comments on ways to improve this card. I’ll say that it’s the closest thing that could see print out of most of these submissions, and maybe, well, that’s the problem. It feels almost safe. It’s such a great normal card that it’s not grabbing me by the briney beard and showing me the lost skeleton treasure of Boney Jim. That’s more of an indictment on the contest than it is you or the card, so consider this an apology for having uproariously high expectations for weirdness while at the same time throwing the weirdest submissions under the bus.

@socialpoison — Forget-Me-Not

What I like: You submitted some really cool backstory for this card, and I appreciate the amount of work that you’ve put into this idea. I think that Aetherborn on another plane could work really well with what you have in mind. This card allowing for the self-mill-return is powerful without being, like, Kethis broken. I think you found an interesting balance. Green is a nice choice for the people who would want to make this a commander.

What we can improve: Phasing is one of those mechanics I think I’ll personally never like, but that’s just me. This card itself works with that well, although it hasn’t sold me. I don’t really get the timing of phasing having not grown up with it, but you know, I might have misinterpreted this card and right now I’m thinking about card advantage and realizing that oh my goodness, uh, this card really is a mythic. It’s got card advantage out the butt. Is that too powerful? Well, no, but this may give rise to a control archetype. I think this requires a lot of playtesting. In short, this card is good, but it’s not for me, and that’s no fault of yours. My one critique in an area that I’m actually versed in: I don’t really like the name, cutesy as it is. In-story it could work, but it’s also an idiom of sorts, and that doesn’t feel very legendary to me personally.

@teaxch — Trium, the Strongest Shape

What I like: Alright, this is one of those cards, I’ll admit, I started brewing with it when I saw it. Forgetting the vigilance and haste, there was the draw and the build-around of three-mana 3/3s in these commander colors, of which there are over a hundred. You got Resplendent Angel, Dauntless Escort, Bastion Protector, Verge Rangers... And that’s not counting tokens like Garruk’s beasts. Man. There’s a lot of crazy fun stuff to do with this card, and a fun design space for a meme commander.

What we can improve: Did I say “meme commander?” Good, just checking. It’s a damn triangle. I know they did a legendary Wall, but people were asking for memes before they knew what they were getting into. I love the way this card works mechanically. I’m not going to give any more kudos than necessary to a triangle. (I hope this isn’t too mean, I really do like the design.)

@thedirtside — Master Craftsman

What I like: The more I read/think over this card, the more I kind of appreciate it. It’s a nice casual build-around-me artifact mythic that’s just asking for fun budget stuff. Maybe it’s broken in some builds, but frankly, I don’t see it. I really like how you brought together all the different artifact types and archetypes in one kind of build. This is definitely a Horizons type of card, and you know, for this, that’s not a bad thing.

What we can improve: This card feels pretty cramped for space, and even then, there needs to be a little more. Most of my qualms are about presentation. There need to be commas after all the mana symbols but before the tap symbols. The black ability needs to say “two” instead of 2. The red ability needs to say “Master Craftsman deals 3 damage to any target.” All damage needs a source. And get rid of the flavor text for this one, five abilities fills it up too much already. In terms of surprise, I think after rereading and going through this contest I found myself enjoying this card after all. Just gotta clean up a bit.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path — Time Rift Tactics

What I like: I like this card a lot. The multicolored suspend is pretty interesting considering time shenanigans and blue’s flavor, and even for six mana getting those four tokens is pretty powerful. I wouldn’t say that it’s first-pickable, but it’s definitely great. I’m a fan of the flavor wherein a bunch of soldiers or some general came up with an attack strategy that involved sending soldiers through time and space.

What we can improve: Again, mostly presentation and numeric issues. Suspend definitely needs reminder text, especially for a common, and with the proper em-dashes. Each instance of “4″ should be “four” as well. And the thing is, if you have the blue mana, you can play this in a nonwhite deck for no downside, and I honestly think that that breaks the pie. A cheaper alternate casting cost might prevent it from commander play, but this card was never going to be in commander to begin with, and mono-blue access to this isn’t what blue gets to have.

@wolkemesser — Untapped Potential

What I like: Unique tokens are pretty cool. I like the strangeness of it all, and I think that there’s definitely some ways to make this card really powerful. In colors that can populate, I imagine that there’s a lot of ways to get some crazy draw engines working. I think in the workshop there were a couple people who really liked your work on the flavor text as well.

What we can improve: I wasn’t altogether grabbed by the end result of the token. So, you get a big creature and can see everyone’s hands, but then what? Each player’s token basically becomes a big creature that you’re fighting to get bigger and work with that, discouraging you from casting spells from your hand, and I don’t think I’m a big fan of that. In the end this card makes a cool token but there’s no synergy or movement beyond that, and that’s what’s not lighting my fire. Small notes: “Avatar” should be capitalized, and the two abilities of P/T and “Everyone plays with hands revealed” need to be two separate quotation marks, see Pursued Whale.

Good lord, finally done. Thank you all for your submissions. Tune in tomorrow, when we make history! Or something! We make history every day, don’t we.

-@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #commentary #custom magic card #surprise me #entries #inventor's fair

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artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

If We Walk Down This Road, 1/2 (Scyvie) - Ashley

It’s the final year of sixth form and stress levels are high for Yvie as she balances school work, Uni applications and her “part-time” job in a kids activity centre. However, things only get worse when her boss decides to hire his privately educated, definition of privilege daughter, Scarlet, as their marketing assistant and she rubs Yvie up the completely wrong way. Until, of course, she doesn’t.

Here goes a very late submission to the black girl magic fic! Hope you guys like it! This is a prequel of some sorts to my fics Got My Number and Girl on Fire but it works fine as a standalone so you don’t have to have read those to understand anything. Big thanks to @pink-grapefruit-cafe and @artificialortega for all the help, love and support with this fic.

Yvie loved her life. She wouldn’t have changed a piece of it for the world. Only, every now and then, she longed to be someone else.

This feeling usually arrived when making her way through the industrial estate, hearing the loud Kidz Bop music they were forced to play at her work ring in her ears before the building was even in sight. In fact, that feeling arrived every single time she walked towards her work, it was just something she had become accustomed to. It wasn’t the worst job in the world, she got to hang out with Jaida, Heidi and Priyanka on the weekends and the pay wasn’t awful. She just sometimes wished that after a long, frustrating day of writing essays she could stay on the bus until she arrived home, take a nice shower and do her homework with the telly on instead of hopping off after just six stops to put on a fake smile for a few hours and pray that no one was sick in the soft play area.

And on what seemed like the dullest Friday since she had started her job there, God (who she didn’t really believe in but had no one else to make the prayer to) decided that it most certainly wasn’t her night because a grand total of three kids were sick in the soft play instead of just the usual one.

So worth the twenty pounds she’d end off earning. So, so worth it.

Ready to throw her gloves in the bin, wash her hands at least four times and spend the rest of the night lurking at the back of the cafe until it was time to close, Yvie was stopped in her tracks when she returned back to her spot. Her spot that was currently occupied by a thin, unfamiliar red-head.

Pale legs poking out of a plaid skirt that reeked of prefects and lacrosse games, she stood out like a sore thumb against the bright yellow hoodies that made up their uniform (Yvie’s slightly stained with bleach and too short for her gangly arms). Yvie watched in silence for a second as the girl burrowed through the fridge, hearing a big, dramatic sigh of relief escape her red lips as she laid eyes on a Coke Zero.

“Can I help you?” Yvie asked.

Only it wasn’t really a question, Yvie using her level ten voice that was usually only saved for people who tried to push in the queue for the toilet on nights out or for idiots who answered easy questions wrong on Pointless when she watched it at Nina’s house. Annoying customers were normally only confronted with a mid-range level of anger on Yvie’s behalf, passive-aggressive rather than completely pissed off. As much as forever feeling the need to call out people in the wrong irked her, Yvie knew that she shouldn’t do that at work, leaving it for at home where the threat of being fired didn’t loom over her shoulder like the grim reaper’s scythe.

Something about this girl just threw that out into the window and sent it flying down the motorway at rapid speed, Yvie’s patience nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry.” The girl giggled. Actually giggled. “Took me forever to find the sugar free!”

“Normally you’d wait to be served it.” Yvie shot imaginary laser beams with her eyes. “At the other side of the counter.”

Yvie watched the girl pause, a coy grin on her face as her eyes danced between Yvie’s face and her own reflection in the clean glass.

“It’s a shame there was no one there to serve me!” She unscrewed the lid from the bottle, taking a swig and aaahing in delight as though it were the nectars of Greek gods.

Her voice was posh.

Not tea and crumpets, let’s-go-shoot-some-clay-pigeons posh but still posh nonetheless. She pronounced the Ts in her words in a way that neither Yvie nor any of her friends did and Yvie knew that if she wasn’t so furious she would have found it sexy.

She was always a sucker for a posh voice.

“Well, if you’d have waited two minutes then I would have been here,” Yvie replied, letting her nails squish into the palms of her own hands - a self-control mechanism that didn’t tend to work when your nails were bitten down to stumps like Yvie’s currently were (something she liked to attribute to the stress of her A-Levels despite it being a habit she’d formed as a kid).

It was safe to say she didn’t feel relieved.

Especially when the familiar lull of the owner’s voice boomed behind her. How perfectly convenient.

“Yvie!”

Normally Yvie would be relieved to realise he’d actually gotten her name right but her mind was full of other thoughts - supermodel shaped thoughts with blue eyes that were probably going to get her murdered.

At least she’d taken the rubber gloves off before she met her untimely end, she thought to herself, pulling the biggest ‘I’m sorry, I should be more attentive’ smile she could muster as she turned to face her boss.

“I see you’ve met my daughter!” He motioned to the girl.

His daughter, of course.

“Yes,” Yvie stammered, her cheeks red at the mistake she’d made.

The girl, her boss’ daughter, instead seemed nothing but amused.

“Scarlet’s here to help with our marketing; gotta make sure that personal statement is in tip-top shape ready for applications!”

Yvie felt his words crawl under her skin, the itch of casual nepotism. Casual nepotism that would probably land people like Yvie without a Uni offer. She never liked to think of herself as bitter when these situations arose, but this time she couldn’t deny that she was at least a little tart. After all, Yvie was pretty adamant that any Russell Group would favour the privately educated white girl who had marketing experience with a local business over the one who cleaned the toddler’s sick from the ball pit.

It really was as simple as that.

Yvie didn’t know if Scarlet failed to sense her discomfort or simply ignored it anyway as she moved over and held out her hand.

Yvie couldn’t remember the last time she had actually shaken someone’s hand but obliged nonetheless. Scarlet’s eyes narrowed slightly when Yvie met them, her face concentrated like she was about to be quizzed on Yvie’s appearance. Realising she hadn’t blinked since their hands met, Yvie pulled away quickly, the brightness of the centre snapping back into focus around her.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around, then.” Scarlet took an extra big swig of the bottle before tossing it in the bin and leaving the cafe with her Dad.

And she wasn’t wrong. Indeed, Yvie found herself “seeing Scarlet around” on every single shift she was on the rota for. For an entire three weeks. Without fail.

She was starting to think the phrase, ‘bane of my life’ was an understatement for how she felt about the girl.

It’d started small, Yvie finding herself rolling her eyes whenever Scarlet came into the cafe for a drink. But soon Yvie started to believe that Scarlet didn’t just live in a different part of town but in a whole other fantasy that the rest of the staff were foreign to, parading past the trampolines once every hour as if the carpet were the runway at Paris Fashion Week.

“Do you think someone needs to tell her she’s not actually a real princess?” Yvie spoke into the walkie talkie, exchanging glances between Scarlet and her friend.

“Leave her be! She’s just playing with the kids, you witch,” Jaida responded from the opposite end of the park. “Stop being so cynical.”

Yvie was grateful for her work friends. Although she loved Nina and Brooke with every piece of her often cold, dead heart, it was nice to have found girls more like her at work. Girls who understood how it felt when her school told her she wasn’t allowed any “extreme” hairstyles and she had to take out her braids. Girls who also got told they were too confident, sometimes arrogant when all they were doing was being proud of themselves. Girls a little bit older and wiser (not that she’d ever admitted that she found them wise) who helped her love her skin just that little bit more than she already did.

“Yeah but she’s probably getting paid double what we are to swan about like that!”

Yvie raised her hands in the air to Jaida but didn’t get a chance to hear her response, turning the volume down to zero when she saw Scarlet making her way towards her.

“Hey, doll.” Scarlet plonked a notebook down on the counter in front of Yvie, a big grin of optimism filling the lower half of her face.

Her hair was down that day, soft ginger curls falling in front of her chest. Yvie had a sudden urge to push a strand back and tuck it behind her ear.

Why did the most annoying girl on the planet have such flawless bone structure? It simply wasn’t fair.

“Hello,” Yvie responded rather formally, reaching to grab Scarlet’s usual order. The faster she did so, the faster she walked away - so Yvie may or may not have been keeping a couple of Coke Zeros in the special fridge under the counter that was saved only for open milk bottles, just so she could serve Scarlet with the utmost efficiency.

A part of her just wished she would serve herself again.

“Oh no.” She shook her head, reaching out to touch Yvie’s arm and stop her. Yvie could hardly feel her hand through the thick hoodie, yet her heart still decided it wanted to start sprinting in the middle of the leisurely stroll it was taking before Scarlet had come over. Maybe she had to add the human anatomy to the list of things she’d decided she hated that week, right underneath her new English teacher and egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Her stupid, fat heart.

“I’m here for your interview!”

“Interview?” Yvie raised a brow and chuckled to herself. She wondered if Scarlet had ever actually had to be interviewed for anything in her life nevermind conduct one.

“For Instagram! I’m posting little profiles of all the staff, a little get to know me! It’ll help the youngsters really see what a family we are here!”

Yet another thing Yvie hated was how Scarlet always managed to talk like an edgy teenager and a middle-aged woman at the same time, figuring that was the first and last time she’d hear an eighteen-year-old refer to kids as “youngsters”. Or at least she said she hated it in one of the many Scarlet-included rants she’d had to Heidi the weekend before; she may have actually loved it. The two feelings were often blurred in Yvie’s brain, hard to tell one from the other in her web of brutal honesty and blunt opinions. She was ninety-nine per cent sure she hated it.

“I’ll get someone to cover your station and we can go natter in the staff room.” Scarlet took her lack of words as acceptance and turned on the spot.

Maybe Yvie was only eighty per cent sure.

Yvie had never seen Scarlet in the staff room before, watching most days as the girl took her snacks outside where she ate alone in her car. So it was strange to be cramped on the small sofa with her, both of them staring at the mirror in front rather than at each other. The smell of a ready-made curry that had been left in the microwave for too long that day was lingering warm in the air. Yvie took a deep breath and held it, scared that if she released it her body would touch Scarlet’s just that inch too much and then the entire world around them would explode around them, kind of like the curry.

“So, what’s your favourite snack from the cafe?” Scarlet held a fountain pen in her hand, ready to write. Yvie didn’t need to look at the notepad to know her handwriting was beautiful, a piece of art next to her own illegible scrawls.

“I don’t buy food here,” Yvie responded nonchalantly.

Scarlet popped the end of the pen in her mouth for a moment then let it rest back at the paper.

“You’ve never eaten anything here?” Scarlet questioned, clearly dissatisfied with Yvie’s answer.

“Nope. It’s far too expensive. I just buy my lunch at the off-license before I get the bus.”

“You know what I want you to say!” Scarlet whined. Yvie thought she would do great as a soap actress if the whole marketing thing never worked out for her. She had that dramatic flare mastered down to a tee. And the charming voice to match.

“I’m being honest.” Yvie half-chuckled. “I’m not a liar.”

“Well, I’m just gonna write cheesy nachos then!” Scarlet was trying her hardest to act serious but Yvie just about caught the quiver of her lip.

She wondered if Scarlet somehow knew about her love for cheesy nachos or if it was simply a wild coincidence, either way, she carried on to battle through the questions with Scarlet, praying that there weren’t many to go.

“Which party room is your favourite?” Scarlet still hadn’t lost her enthusiasm, despite having to write down three sarcastic answers as if they were genuine and completely make up new answers for another two so far.

“The volcano room. Normally older kids hire that out and they don’t make as much of a mess as the toddlers in the mermaid or the pirate one.”

Scarlet didn’t even bother to respond to that one, simply shaking her head at Yvie’s response.

“If you don’t like my honesty…” Yvie started, desperate to get back to the comfort of the park where she could swap spots with Jaida for an hour and bask in the comfort of the ball pit.

“I actually find it quite refreshing.” Scarlet gave an all-knowing smile.

Sometimes Yvie got scared that the girl was part-wizard and could see inside of her soul. After all, she knew which school Scarlet attended and she wouldn’t be shocked one bit if it was revealed to be some modern-day incarnation of Hogwarts (then again Yvie did kind of think that about any school with a tuition fee or Latin slogan, so she didn’t know how strongly her argument would stand).

“That’s weird,” she blurted back, unable to think of something quick and witty to say. Where was Brooke with her encyclopedia of shady comebacks when she needed her? Tempted to text her some form of a rant about the interview/ambush she decided against it, knowing Brooke had planned to spend the day with her new “almost-girlfriend” that she had picked up from the literal curb earlier that month.

“You’re weird.” Scarlet stood up, giving Yvie that smile yet again. Yvie knew it so well now that she should have been able to draw it by memory only she knew it would never be captured just right. Not even with all the pencils and canvases and colours that the rainbow had to offer.

She didn’t even try to come up with a comeback to that one.

“Now for the photoshoot!” Scarlet grinned, opening the door for the pair of them.

“Photoshoot?” Yvie’s head whipped around and fired red laser-beams at the girl from her eyes. There had been absolutely no mention of a photoshoot.

“Follow me, my muse.”

***

“Are you doing homework?” Scarlet craned her neck, making out Yvie’s hunched over figure behind the big coffee machine.

“Sorry.” Yvie stood up straight and made her way to the front of the counter, her brown eyes a little droopy compared to normal. Scarlet knew Yvie always played the ‘I hate my life and don’t want to be here’ game at work regularly, but this time was different.

If she were anyone else in the world Scarlet would have pulled her into a great big cuddle. But she wasn’t. She was Yvie. And Yvie hated her.

Most of the time Scarlet didn’t mind that Yvie hated her, she found it quite amusing winding her up and seeing her face scrunch up in frustration. She knew that her confidence didn’t always rub well with people but she’d always told herself that anyone who didn’t want to live in that world with her was simply missing out. Only sometimes she wished things were a bit different at the centre.

She guessed it was one of those days.

“No need to say sorry to me, I’m not paying you!” Scarlet made her way around the back of the cafe and entered. This was something she’d withheld from doing whenever Yvie was stationed there, after their first Coke Zero incident (which she, for the record, actually found quite funny), but the urge simply pulled her and when the urge took control, Scarlet’s will power was nowhere to be seen.

“Is this History?” Scarlet held the papers close to her face. She’d never suited her glasses and had made the executive decision not to wear them around the centre. This was probably some sort of safety hazard considering the fact there were kids jumping around left, right and centre that she was supposed to be constantly observing, but she simply pretended this thought had never even crossed her little air-head brain. Scarlet knew that it never hurt to look good. After all, you never know who could be sneaking glances at you through the gaps in the slush machines.

Scarlet knew exactly who was sneaking glances at her through the gaps in the slush machines. The constant squinting was worth it.

“I really am sorry. I’ve just been really busy and I’m trying to get all my references for Uni but-” Yvie started but stopped to serve a customer. Scarlet heard her voice waver slightly when she asked if she wanted a medium or large. It broke her heart into a thousand little pieces.

“Is it due soon?” Scarlet flicked through the questions. “I did this last term. My file is in my boot if you want me to get some notes out?”

“I don’t need your help.” Yvie took the papers from out of her hands and placed them back on the counter.

Scarlet knew that behind her constantly on-guard exterior there was a girl who just wanted to relax for a second and have fun. She caught her sometimes. Like the time Heidi queued the entirety of the Hercules soundtrack on their iPod and Yvie complained over the walkie talkie yet Scarlet saw her dancing to the songs in the back of the cafe when she thought no one could see (she may or may not have added I Won’t Say I’m In Love to her playlist that night). Or when Jaida fell into the big airbag and shouted at everyone to look away and Yvie released one of her big hearty laughs that managed to surprise Scarlet every time she heard it. She’d always try to catch Yvie’s face when the girls played their own version of Russian roulette with the bottles of cleaning spray that they thought no one else knew about, closing their eyes and spinning the nozzles then stopping to spray - Yvie dying with laughter every time the liquid spat on her jumper.

“If you’re stressed, I can help. You’re applying to somewhere really good aren’t you?”

“You don’t know everything, Scarlet. I told you already that I don’t need your help, I don’t need your special private school notes or whatever it is you pay to get taught.”

It stung. Those weren’t Scarlet’s intentions at all. But she knew how they must have come across.

“That’s okay.” She grabbed some cans of pop from the back and started to stack the fridge. “Just letting you know that the staff room is really dirty and someone needs to clean it.”

“What?” Yvie turned to face her. “Pri cleaned it yesterday.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to clean it again.” Scarlet made a point of looking at the camera in the corner that she knew her dad would glance at from his office every half an hour. “I’ll watch the cafe while you do it. And take those papers with you.”

“Do you even know how to make a coffee?” Yvie caught on, grabbing her notes and a roll of cloth for show.

“Oh my god. Yes, I go to private school but I’m not Paris Hilton! I can watch the cafe for half an hour.”

“Sorry.” Yvie smiled as she left. “And thank you. Really, thank you.”

And Scarlet felt that thank you deep in her bones, one she’d keep saved somewhere to replay on a day when she felt lonely. Only she began to think that Yvie should’ve taken the thank you back when she realised that she should have absolutely not been trusted to watch the cafe for half an hour.

Scarlet knew she wasn’t the best “employee” they had, spending most of her days taking photos, making social media posts and chatting with the little ones when they were done playing. But she didn’t know how quite bad she was until she had burned two toasties, overcharged at least five customers and accidentally poured one woman’s change into her cup of tea instead of her hand.

Maybe she should stick to Instagram.

She tried her hardest to help, cleaning the toastie machine as best as she could before Yvie returned but she knew that she had messed things up, creating more jobs on top of the ones Yvie already had to do when closing the cafe.

“Are you nearly done?” Scarlet heard her Dad ask Yvie later on as he prepared to lock up for the night.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to cash up the till. There are a few discrepancies I need to try and fix.” Yvie didn’t even look up from the tablet, punching numbers into the digital counter with frustration.

“I’ve got my car.” Scarlet blurted before she knew what she was saying. “I’ll help Yvie and lock up here when she’s done. Get yourself away, Dad.”

Scarlet looked at her phone, full of notifications from the girls’ chat: Naomi telling everyone what booze she was going to bring, Plastique asking what they were all wearing, Pearl waking up from the longest of naps to tell everyone she’d be an hour late. She didn’t read them all properly, sending a quick message before popping her phone back in her pocket:

‘I’ll be late tonight. Don’t wait on me xx’

It was the least she could have done.

They were silent for a while, the two of them all alone in the big airy building, the main lights switched off with only the small ones at the top of the cafe kiosk to help them see.

Scarlet did her best to help, double-checking Yvie had counted the piles of coins properly whilst she fiddled around the tablet. She figured that maybe silence was better for them, she couldn’t annoy Yvie with her dramatic exclamations and Yvie wouldn’t bombard her with unsought “honest opinions”.

Until that silence was broken with a bang, echoing through the darkness and causing Scarlet’s entire body to leap out of her skin.

Yvie didn’t even quiver.

“What the fuck was that?” She asked Scarlet, her thick eyebrows raised as she peered towards the soft play.

“That doesn’t normally happen?” Images of axe-wielding lunatics stowed away inside the slides flashed through Scarlet’s mind.

“Funnily enough, it doesn’t,” Yvie responded, still as sarcastic as ever in times of panic. “Put your phone light on.”

Scarlet didn’t really want to go and inspect the noise but she also didn’t want to wait in the cafe alone. She knew she was the perfect damsel in distress, axe murders would love her! Trying her best not to be a baby, she followed by Yvie’s side with her phone light guiding their path.

“What if there’s a bomb?” Scarlet placed a hand on her chest and felt Yvie stop next to her. “One of those ones with a remote control that detonates it!”

“You think someone planted a bomb in our play area? And waited to detonate it when no one was around other than me and you?” Scarlet knew Yvie was rolling her eyes as she spoke despite not being able to see her. “I honestly don’t understand how your brain works sometimes.”

“You love me really,” Scarlet responded without thought as they turned another corner. It was an automatic response she often used to her friends when they made fun of her, it felt weird saying it to Yvie. With anyone else, she would have brushed it off, but with Yvie it was different.

And then Yvie gasped.

Before Scarlet knew it her hand was in the other girl’s. It was automatic. She got a shock and Yvie was there. A patch of her hand turned cool where Yvie’s ring pressed against it.

“What was it?” She asked a second later, her brain too caught up with why her hand was gripping tightly onto Yvie’s hand and why Yvie hadn’t pushed her off to actually know what Yvie had reacted to.

“Nothing.” The hearty laugh came back. It was almost comforting in the darkness. “Just wanted to see how you reacted.”

‘Well there you go,’ Scarlet thought to herself as she looked down to their hands, not quite brave enough to say it out loud.

And then Yvie started to laugh, a noise Scarlet would never ever get used to.

“There’s your bomb.” Her hand slipped out of Scarlet’s and pointed in front of them, the remnants of a big silver helium balloon on the floor. “Good job I was here to protect you from that.”

Before she knew it they were back at the till, fixing each of Scarlet’s mistakes and counting out their float for the next day. They worked relatively well together, only managing to butt heads once more when Scarlet suggested they write out a whole new balance sheet instead of scribbling out a mistake and writing the new number next to it as Yvie wanted. She let it go in the end, her phone vibrating in her pocket with texts from the girls a constant reminder that she had a little red dress with her name on it waiting at home.

“Guess I’ll see you later,” Yvie murmured as they left the building, pacing down the road as Scarlet fumbled with the keys. She was a racehorse in the rain, taking her steps twice as fast as the average human as if the building was on fire.

“Where are you going?” Scarlet had to shout after her, half expecting Yvie to ignore her and keep walking anyway.

“Home?” She stopped up the road for a second and turned around. “Now if you don’t mind I have a bus I’m about to miss.”

About to insist she got in the car, Yvie was already far in the distance, slipping out of Scarlet’s vision in the rain by the time the doors were fully locked. Maybe wearing her glasses would have been useful after all.

Cringing as the puddles splashed up her legs, Scarlet ran to her car as fast as she could, throwing her phone onto the passenger seat and taking off down the road. Thankfully it didn’t take her long to catch Yvie, her dark hair poking out through her hoodie and already scraggly with rain.

“Hey!” She pulled up into the bus stop. “Get in, I’ll take you home.”

“What are you a stalker?” Yvie raised her arms in the air. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“You’re going to freeze.”

“The bus will be here any minute.”

Scarlet knew she should have just given in and turned around but she felt the guilt for their late departure weighing on her shoulders.

“Look Yvie-” Scarlet started but was cut off by a loud beeping behind her, just making out an angry bus driver in her rearview mirror.

“Move or it’ll drive past!” Yvie cried at her, the usual monotone of her voice rising in pitch.

“Sorry, what was that?” Scarlet attempted some humour, grinning from ear to ear as the bus pulled away. “Oops! Guess you’ll just have to have a nice warm lift instead of getting the bus with a load of drunkards.”

Yvie didn’t speak at first, simply pulling the car door open and plonking herself down, arms folded like a huffy toddler. But as Scarlet began to follow the directions she gave it was almost as if the other girl couldn’t help herself from falling back into their usual rapport of snide remarks and winding each other up.

“So do you always kidnap people in your Fiat 500 or is this something new for you?”

If this were any other member of staff, Scarlet knew she’d call them ungrateful but it was almost like her brain had learned a new language with Yvie, acknowledging and adapting to the different way she showed her emotions.

“You’re welcome.” Scarlet turned the heating up a notch, hearing the chatter of Yvie’s teeth between words. “And this isn’t even a Fiat 500.”

“Apologies,” Yvie responded. She was the difference between rudeness and bluntness that Scarlet figured many people couldn’t see, always honest and unbashful but never actually impolite.

Scarlet’s phone rang three times on their way to Yvie’s house and she didn’t even try to answer.

“Thanks for the lift,” Yvie whispered as Scarlet pulled up to the curb, the lights all turned off in the semi-detached next to them. “Even if you did leave me no other choice.”

Scarlet released a sigh and smiled at the return of the girl’s cynical side.

“There’s the Yvie, I know. Thought I’d lost you, being nice to me for a second!”

“Yeah well, you caught me on an off day.” She gathered her things and opened the door. “Don’t go telling anyone I went soft on you, I have a reputation to uphold.”

And she was up the path before Scarlet could think of a response, leaving her a baffling mess of feelings who couldn’t help but hear a certain laugh bouncing around inside the car even when she turned the music up loud and tried to distract herself from Yvie.

A distraction technique she had to use after every shift for a month.

Scarlet had never planned for the lifts to become part of her routine, it just sort of happened. She told herself that she wouldn’t have let one of the girls from school or her younger sister ever wait in the rain for the bus so it was common sense not to let Yvie do that either. After a little while of Scarlet ranting about how it was safer and faster for Yvie to go home with her instead of catching the bus every time they left work together, Yvie stopped trying to argue and simply started hopping in the passenger seat. Of course, she did this in the most classic of Yvie fashions and told Scarlet she was only agreeing so she didn’t have to listen to her whiney speeches about the dangers of the dark every night but it made Scarlet feel better still. Even if she did receive an average of three sarcastic responses to her comments each time.

Slowly but surely, the eggshell around Yvie began to peel away. Scarlet discovered through blunt replies Yvie loved learning about international relations and global conflict, that she wanted to go to Uni to study them despite the high offer and the money that went with the dream. Despite the fact that only one per cent of the campus she wanted to be a part of was black. Ignoring that her teacher had told her to play things safer.

Yvie was real and passionate and thriving and everything Scarlet admired.

Yes, she was still the same sarcastic self she always was behind the cafe counter but she was even more than that underneath the fluorescent lights in Scarlet’s car. A small chunk of the divide between them had been left at the bus stop in the rain while they basked in the warm air shooting out of the vents.

Scarlet was hesitant to call Yvie a friend, they didn’t really chat and gossip - as she did with Plastique, Naomi and Pearl - and when they did at least half of their conversation was made up of insults but Scarlet liked it. Yvie was a refreshing change from the girls she was surrounded with every day at school and Scarlet wanted to drink that in as much as she could. Even if Yvie did still hate her.

In fact, Yvie had started to use those exact words as a regular comeback to Scarlet’s dramatics, rolling her eyes to match.

“Would you hate me if we stop for food before I drop you off?” Scarlet asked one night. “I’m honestly starved.”

“I already hate you, don’t think food would change that.” Yvie laughed.

That fucking laugh.

Scarlet hoped she only-half meant it. But she never really knew for sure.

Making their way into the food chain, Scarlet’s mind was too consumed with the thought of what she was going to order to even realise that her friends were there until she heard her name.

“Hey, sweets.” Naomi smiled from the table. “I thought you were at your Dad’s work?”

“We were just on the way home and I got hungry.” Scarlet motioned to Yvie, stood almost a step behind her.

“Who’s this?” Plastique asked, raising a perfectly shaped brow.

Opening her mouth to speak, Scarlet’s brain went blank for a second. She obviously wanted to tell the girls about Yvie but never knew what to say, she didn’t even know what they were herself nevermind having to explain it to them.

How do you say, ‘this girl works for my Dad and I drive her home every night whilst we listen to Lady Gaga in almost complete silence except for when she insults me because she maybe hates me or I try to get on her nerves because I maybe fancy her,’ in a clear and concise way?

“Erm, this is…” She tried to start but was stopped by Yvie herself.

“I’ll go order our food.”

“Oh,” Scarlet turned, pulling her purse from her pocket. “Here let me pay.”

“It’s fine.” Yvie turned her back. “I guess I owe you a lot of petrol money anyway.”

Her words struck Scarlet a little different. They lacked any emotion, spoken from dead eyes and a stern face. She relived those words a lot in the next few weeks, popping into her head again at the most random of times. For they were the last words she heard Yvie speak for a while, ignoring any effort Scarlet made to chat, even when she gave her perfect opportunities to poke fun at her like bringing up her house team at school or her sister’s upcoming dance recital (Scarlet knew how much humour Yvie found in the fact that their names were just stupid ways of saying red and yellow and normally laughed whenever Scarlet even mentioned Lemon).

“I won’t be able to give you a lift home next week.” She’d told her as they pulled up to Yvie’s house, ready to explain that Pearl had bought them tickets to a theatre show and it started too early. But Yvie hopped out of the car before she could even finish, leaving Scarlet with even more confusion about how the girl felt.

Because Yvie was still Yvie after all. And Scarlet realised after that particular journey that it would take a lot more than a few rides home to get them anywhere close to being classed as friends.

An observation in Scarlet’s mind that only grew stronger over the weeks following, especially when she decided it would be okay to join everyone on one of their regular staff nights out. A decision tinged with regret as soon as she entered the pub.

“Dress was a big mistake!!!! Huge !!! xx” Scarlet texted her teenage sister aggressively from under the table as if it would somehow fix her situation.

Excited to hit the town with everyone from the centre, she’d spent all day getting prepped and ready, letting Lemon paint her nails as they pondered over what she should wear. Eventually, they’d settled on a shimmery gold Oh Polly number she’d worn to Naomi’s birthday the year prior, her jewellery matching just right.

Only that didn’t matter once she arrived, riving her necklace from her throat as soon as she saw the rest of the staff. With all the other girls in bodysuits and trainers, she was the definition of overdressed and out of place.

It started small at first, hearing someone whisper something including the word “Daddy” as she made her way to the tables, one of the girls from the front desk asking her if she was gonna be getting the rounds in all night.

“Scarlet, come sit here!” Heidi had waved at her over, allowing for a second to catch her breath.

Only her nerves didn’t go away once she joined their booth. In fact, they only grew larger when she caught Yvie’s gaze, her eyes wide at Scarlet in a face she’d never quite seen the girl make before. She’d fought hard to ignore it, but her eyes couldn’t stop from glancing back every few seconds, wondering what it was exactly that Yvie’s face was speaking into the universe around them.

Knowing Yvie it was probably something along the lines of ‘What the fuck is the primadonna doing here in that dress’ but she didn’t know for sure, trying her best to join in their conversation and catch the familiar side of the other girl she’d caught glimpses of over the past few months.

“So, whose ID are you using?” Scarlet asked her in an effort to make conversation, having learnt from the walkie talkies that Heidi was usually Yvie’s go-to girl when she went out with her other friends, despite them looking nothing alike.

“Here.” Yvie slid it across the table for Scarlet to examine, the other girls in the booth taking a look too.

“I know her!” Jaida exclaimed. “Chile, I did her prom makeup a couple years ago.”

“Perks of Brooke’s new girlfriend. I now have black friends that aren’t you guys I can borrow ID from. Not the best though, it’s a good job they never actually look properly.”

“Wait.” Priyanka raised two hands in the air. “You’re telling me that your gal Brooke has an official girlfriend? I thought they were just fucking about, damn!”

“Oh, not this again!” Heidi joined in. “We get it, Pri. You got together once and she didn’t remember your name. Move on!”

Scarlet checked her phone to see if her sister had replied but saw nothing, resorting to scrolling through her own photo album and reshuffling her apps so she didn’t look left out. Listening to the girls continue to gossip about people she didn’t know, Scarlet began to question the friendships she’d made at the centre, little voices in her head telling her that none of them would ever like her enough to open up and gossip with her as they did with one another.

For as long as she remembered she had always been confident, never caring what others thought of her. But as she started to gulp her drink down faster than normal, Scarlet felt that confidence slip away more and more. She was so far out of her comfort zone she couldn’t have made it back on a giant jet plane at full speed. And Yvie’s big brown eyes taking stolen glances at her didn’t make any of it better.

“It’s okay, Pri.” Jaida’s voice pulled Scarlet back into their conversation. “At least Yvie remembered your name when you two got with each other!”

“Oh, fuck off!” Yvie slammed her glass onto the table at the same time Scarlet spat some of her drink back into her own.

What an elegant lady she was.

She’d always just assumed that Yvie was into girls too. There was just something about hearing it for real that made Scarlet’s central nervous system stop working for a second, starting again with a scare.

“That was one time,” Priyanka cried from the opposite side of the booth, thankfully oblivious of Scarlet’s reaction.

Only someone wasn’t as oblivious. Someone was looking right at her and sending every thought, every feeling, every fear inside of Scarlet into overdrive.

***

Yvie wasn’t a stranger to awful dancing. After all, she had been friends with Nina for the majority of life, the girl whose feet were built of hard oak and desperation.

But this was something different altogether.

Watching Scarlet across the dance floor, the phrase ‘Bambi on ice’ brought a whole new meaning to Yvie. If she wasn’t so mad at her she’d go over herself, give the girl a twirl and watch as she missed every beat like she had no cares in the world. Only that wasn’t the case, because mad Yvie certainly was.

Yvie didn’t know why she felt so hurt, it wasn’t like they were friends? It wasn’t like she even liked Scarlet? But something about having to stand there while she scrambled for an explanation of who she was to her privately educated, life’s not fair, acrylic nailed girl gang made Yvie’s blood boil. And she’d never admitted it but she may have even shed a tear or two once her blinds were shut and she couldn’t see the not-Fiat 500 and the annoying girl who drove it.

To think she’d started to believe that she was only fifty-five per cent sure of her hatred.

“Staring much?” She could hear the raise of Heidi’s brow in her words as she spoke to her ear, the loud bass around them not heavy enough to drown out the accusation in her friend’s voice.

Yvie couldn’t even deny it, for she’d been staring at Scarlet from the moment she’d walked into the pub earlier. Of course, she’d stalked the girl’s Instagram enough to know what Scarlet looked like dressed up, rolling her eyes at the dumb self-indulgent captions that were always attached to her selfies. Only it was different in person, a mix of gold and warmth and beauty and envy that made Yvie want to snap a pencil in half (she settled for a paper straw instead which certainly did not give the same level of relief). She’d watched as Scarlet ripped a necklace from her neck earlier and longed to put it back on for her, taking her time to hook it on the right loop so that it would hang perfectly above her collarbone.

She tried to fixate on the memory of Scarlet squealing every time they went over the speed bumps outside of their work to give herself the ick. Only that image had become entwined with one of Scarlet getting out the car one night to help a cat out of the road and Yvie only felt more confused.

“I’m just judging her dancing abilities,” Yvie lied.

She knew it was a lie. Heidi, who once confidently believed that Jaida had found a ghost in the dodgeball cupboard, knew it was a lie. The whole club knew it was a lie just from Yvie’s expression. Did lying count as breaking your streak of tough love and honesty if you wanted to believe you were telling the truth so badly? Is lying even lying if it’s yourself you’re lying to? Yvie didn’t know. All she knew was that red and gold looked so good together it should have been illegal. Only it was herself breaking the law when her eyes met Scarlet’s again, holding for a second before she turned to walk away.

The songs all blurred into one once Scarlet was gone, Yvie’s brain out of focus. That was until she was snapped back by a familiar squark pulling her away from her work friends.

“Hey, Yvie! Or should I say Akeria tonight?” Vanessa grinned, a loved-up Brooke with her arm around the other girl’s waist.

“Thanks again.” Yvie tapped her nose, grateful for Brooke’s new relationship and the new friends that had come with it. “I owe you a drink.”

“So where is she then?” Brooke piped up, straight to the point and not wasting time with any cordial greetings on her best friend.

“Priyanka?” Yvie squinted in confusion for a second, wondering why Brooke wanted to see a girl she had previously hooked up with and usually refused to speak about when all she’d talked about for the past few months was how excited she was every Wednesday night to eat special chicken stew and watch soap operas that she pretended to hate at Vanessa’s house.

“No!” Brooke raised a hand to her mouth, her eyes leaping to Vanessa for a split second. “Ja’mie Private School Girl. I wanna see her in person.”

“Oh.” Yvie’s brain slotted the pieces together. Had she really complained about Scarlet that much?

“Is this the girl you always ragin’ about?” Vanessa joined in.

Okay, maybe she did complain about Scarlet too much.

“I’m not sure where she’s at.” She brushed them off, the memory of Scarlet telling her she couldn’t take her home anymore after seeing her friends tinging Yvie sharply, her face starting to flush. “I’m gonna go to the loo but I’ll get you that drink later?”

“Noted.” Brooke pointed a finger, the sound of their voices carrying as Yvie ran desperately to splash her face with some cold water.

Only she never quite made it to the sink, the sight of an upset red-head stopping her as soon as she entered the toilets.

Yvie went to speak but wasn’t given a chance.

“Go away.” Scarlet’s voice wavered as she knelt down, pulling jackets out from under the couch like they were infested.

“I can’t believe you didn’t pay for the cloakroom.” Yvie joined her on the carpet. “Out of character for you.”

“I said go away.” She turned her head to Yvie, her bloodshot eyes living up to her name.

Yvie felt the sudden urge to scoop Scarlet in her arms and cradle her there till the music stopped and the lights turned off and there was no one left in the building. She felt a need she never knew existed.

“Hey. It’s alright, I can help you…”

But Scarlet had already found her jacket and started racing out of the club as though her life depended on it.

“For fuck sake, Scarlet.” Yvie reached for her arm once they were outside, the cold air penetrating through her bodysuit and making her long for the comfort of her bed at home. “Just talk to me.”

She turned, her face illuminated under the street lamps, full of anger and sadness and perhaps a tinge of pain too.

“Why do you want to talk to me? You hate me.”

“I don’t.” Yvie squeezed her arm slightly and looked her in the eyes to try and show that she meant it. Because sometimes her words failed her and she struggled to sound sincere when in her mind she was, so she had to rely on her actions. All she had at that moment was a gentle squeeze to try and show Scarlet that she meant it. She didn’t hate her. She didn’t know when that had changed or if she’d really hated her in the first place but at that moment she was one-hundred per cent certain, the feeling was nothing like hatred.

Scarlet scoffed and pulled away, tapping her phone furiously with her nails. “You tell me you hate me nearly every day I spend with you.”

Yvie tried to argue back but Scarlet was on a mission, waving her hands in the air when she spoke.

“And if you’re not doing that then you’re bitching about me through the walkie talkies. Or giving me dirty looks. I try my best to pass it off and rise above it Yvie but tonight I just can’t anymore, I just want to live and breathe without you looking at me like I’ve shot Bambi’s mother. Like what did I even do to you?”

‘Everything,’ Yvie thought only it came out as a blunt “nothing” instead. “You’re the one that was embarrassed to be seen with me in public.”

“I wasn’t embarrassed, Yvie. Sorry it took me a minute to try and think of something other than ‘a girl I drive around even though she hates me.’” Scarlet kept taking glances between the road and her phone, not meeting Yvie’s eyes. “Or doesn’t hate me, apparently. And I just had plans after our next shift.”

Without knowing what she was doing, Yvie reached out to grab her hand, slipping her fingers through Scarlet’s and clasping like they had done the day Scarlet was scared by the balloon. Scarlet was right. Maybe she was too fast to jump to conclusions. She was up in the sky leaping on the trampolines at work whilst Scarlet was grounded by the cafe, taking herself to a whole new narrative that didn’t really exist. In other words, she’d fucked it.

“I don’t hate you.” Yvie expected Scarlet to let go. She didn’t.

“Well, you don’t act like it.”

But her hand didn’t leave, Yvie had hope. Not a lot, just a slither like the piece of Scarlet’s hair that stayed in front of her face when she pushed the rest back. But it was still hope, it was still something.

“Please just let me explain.” Yvie tried to make Scarlet understand.

She’d spent years trying to dial and change how she spoke. If the black girl in the class raised her voice then she was angry but if she didn’t put up a fight with her words then nobody would take her seriously. All she wanted was to be honest, but the words were flying around her head and wouldn’t stop to land. And then Scarlet’s Uber started to pull up and they were going even faster. Scarlet turned to look at her and Yvie watched as she opened her mouth for a second but no words came out, her eyes frustrated and begging Yvie to fix things.

She waited for the rejection, for Scarlet to push her away as she moved closer, for her to call Yvie crazy and jump in the car, ready to make her time at work even more of a living hell than she already did. But as her lips met Scarlet’s, it never came.

“Your Uber.” Yvie pulled away slightly, their faces only an inch apart and Scarlet gasping for breath. She could feel Scarlet’s sticky gloss on her own lips but didn’t dare wipe at it, wanting the moment to go on like that for as long as it could.

“I guess I’ve gotten used to riding in the car with someone.” Scarlet took her hand again once the car pulled up, their eyes communicating in their own language that Yvie didn’t have the words to explain.

Yvie pulled her phone out to text the girls and tell them she’d headed home, dropping another one to home with an excuse for staying out, feeling Scarlet on her neck as they clambered into the backseat. They didn’t speak for a short while, Yvie simply placed her arm around Scarlet’s shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if she hadn’t spent months terrified of making contact with her.

“I thought you couldn’t stand me,” Scarlet whispered in her ear, her hand burning hot on Yvie’s thigh.

Suddenly Scarlet’s flair for the dramatics was wiped clean from her mental list of things that irked her, replaced accordingly with the concept of clothing, more specifically jeans. Her jeans, that she regretted spending a lot of money on - wishing she’d settled for the paper-thin pair Nina had told her to get from Primark instead. In fact, she’d have paid more for the thin pair right then. Paid anything for Scarlet’s hand to live there just a little bit longer. Yvie let the back of her head hit the seat, lost in the moment until they pulled up to Scarlet’s house.

“We’ll have to be careful,” Scarlet spoke after unlocking the door. “My sister’s home.”

“Does noise even travel here?” Yvie looked around the foyer only half-joking, stopping to chuckle at a big photo of Scarlet and her sister as kids. “Adorable.”

“If you’re loud enough.” Scarlet raised a brow and motioned for Yvie to follow her upstairs, sending tingles through her body at her words.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be the one who needs to worry about keeping quiet.” Yvie let Scarlet lead her to her room, throwing themselves down on the four-poster almost immediately.

It felt weird finally being in Scarlet’s room after spending so long of interacting at work. She couldn’t say she hadn’t pictured it, often imagining Scarlet painting her toes on top of magazines or picking out her outfit each morning. Too distracted to get a proper look at all the photo frames and trinkets around, Yvie made a mental note to make a joke the next day about how she’d always assumed Scarlet had one of those grey crushed velvet headboards like the girls on Twitter.

It was crazy how something could feel so wrong and so right at the same time. Scarlet’s body pressing into her own, it was so insane yet made complete sense. She felt familiar.

Before she knew it Scarlet’s thumb was rubbing over the fabric of her bodysuit, teasing at her nipple through the lace.

Yvie had never been more grateful for her decision not to wear a bra.

“Are you sure you want this?” Scarlet asked her, pausing in her movement to look Yvie in the eyes and confirm. “We can’t go back.”

Yvie knew what she meant, thinking of all the shifts she’d have to spend with her, pinning Scarlet’s new promotional posters around the park, being watched to make sure she placed them in the exact right spots. She’d be unavoidable. But Yvie didn’t care.

“I’ve wanted this ever since you stole a Coke Zero from the cafe.”

Apparently, that was all Scarlet needed, taking the opportunity to smash her lips against Yvie’s, letting their bodies melt into each other. Again and again and again until Yvie was weak with fatigue and let her head hit the pillow one final time. Her vision blurred, she could just make out Scarlet’s figure among all of the stars as the girl switched off the bedside lamp and crawled into bed beside her. They hadn’t just shaken the earth but the whole solar system too, galaxies swirling around the room and lulling Yvie to sleep.

A sleep she’d have happily basked in forever if she hadn’t woken with a jolt the next morning, the sun beaming through the blinds to cast light on the empty side of the bed next to her.

“Morning,” Scarlet’s spoke from across the room, wearing a pair of glasses that Yvie had never seen before as she looked up from the papers at her desk. Yvie suddenly understood Scarlet’s constant examining gaze - she wasn’t scanning Yvie’s insides for error codes, just a tad bit blind.

Grabbing her phone from the bedside, a groan escaped Yvie’s mouth as she saw the time, of course, Scarlet was awake at nine in the morning after a night out. After what Yvie would estimate to be at least two hours of sex. Kind of intense sex. If it hadn’t been for Scarlet’s pretty face and messy hair then Yvie would have snatched the nearest pillow and thrown it over her head, instead, keeping an eye open to watch her whilst fighting exhaustion.

She wondered how long it would take them to address it. In the past, Yvie had never felt awkward discussing a hookup, giving a compliment or laughing it off as a drunken mishap like she had with Priyanka that time. The thought crossed her mind for a second, thinking she could make a joke about how smashed they were before ringing Brooke to take her home as fast as she could but Yvie decided against it. If Yvie was anything then Yvie was honest. And she knew what happened was not a drunken mistake. At least not on her end, she didn’t know if the same could be said for Scarlet, sat twiddling her pen around in her hand as though Yvie wasn’t lying in her bed and her gold dress wasn’t in a heap on the floor, thrown there in a moment of passion. Looking at it made her laugh, thinking of how fast she’d gone from describing Scarlet’s whining as the human equivalent of a dog whistle wit Jaida, to finding herself turned on by it. Scarlet must have noticed her looking, placing the pen down.

“I think you owe me a new zipper for that.” She pointed to the dress, raising a brow at Yvie.

“Sorry, I’ll take it to get fixed.” Yvie went to step out of bed before realising her own clothes were just as haphazardly spread as Scarlet’s.

“I’m kidding,” Scarlet smiled. “I’ll get you some joggers to borrow.”

“You own tracksuit bottoms?” Yvie fake gasped as Scarlet pulled open a drawer, surprising herself at how quickly they returned to their usual exchanges. There she was making fun of Scarlet for being all posh and dramatic, it was like nothing had changed. Except she was in Scarlet’s bed. Naked. And they’d had sex. Maybe a lot had changed.

“Oh my god, I just got it.” Scarlet pointed a finger to Yvie and let out one of her classic giggles. “That is hilarious.”

“What is?” Yvie pulled the clothes Scarlet had given her on quickly, automatically ready with her defence.

“That face you always pull at me! I honestly thought it was just your expression of pure hatred at my being but it’s not, you were eyeing me up!”

Yvie stifled a laugh at Scarlet’s hysteria, her cheeks turning the slightest bit red. “I don’t pull a face at you.”

“You so do. Like this.” Scarlet did her best to impersonate her.

“I don’t do that. And I don’t eye you up either, you’re so annoying.”

“Want me to prove you do?” Scarlet flipped the conversation and caught Yvie off guard.

She hadn’t expected round two to come at all nevermind that fast, but she most certainly wasn’t mad at it.

The same could have also been said for round three, which happened around a week later when Yvie just so happened to take her lunch break at the same time as Scarlet, following her out to her car and letting Scarlet drive a couple of minutes to somewhere more secluded. The sun beamed down through the windscreen and glistened on Scarlet’s pale skin as they moved together rapidly, the pair already becoming familiar with the little easter eggs that made each other tick.

“Ten minutes to spare, wow.” Yvie checked the time on her phone, allowing herself to lie back in as much comfort as she could given that she was in the back of a rather tiny car with a rather tall girl by her side.

“What are we doing?” Scarlet sat up, hitting her head slightly on the roof but not acknowledging it, a trait Yvie had picked up on before having watched Scarlet’s clumsy legs take many tumbles around the centre only for her to keep walking like it hadn’t happened (Yvie always found this funnier than the fall itself, especially that one time it was a running child that sent Scarlet tumbling, utterly priceless).

“Erm, lying in the back of your car trying to remember how to breathe?” Yvie knew it wasn’t the answer she was looking for but gave it nonetheless.

“No. This, us. What is this?”

Yvie wished she knew the answer. At first, she didn’t know how to approach her, bringing the borrowed clothes to work in a carrier bag ready to return, only to be left silent once Scarlet came to the counter to fulfil her caffeine addiction that day. But Scarlet managed to break the ice, making a subtle joke about her lack of regret as she took the bottle from Yvie’s hand. It was bittersweet - Yvie knew there was a clear distinction between having no regrets and wanting to do something again, and she was at least seventy per cent sure she wanted to do it again. Ninety-nine once the opportunity had finally risen again, Scarlet dangling her car keys in front of Yvie like the forbidden fruit of Eden. An apple she couldn’t help but take a bite from, no matter how much it would bite her back later.

So Yvie thought about her answer, she didn’t want to get this one wrong. The natural answer was that they were friends, only Yvie knew they weren’t. They were less than friends, they didn’t chat and gossip like friends and frankly she couldn’t stand Scarlet most of the time, the chatting and gossiping with her actual friends at work usually revolving around that fact. Yet they were also so much more, Yvie’s eyes followed the girl wherever she went like she was being guided home and her heart had just about snapped in two when she saw Scarlet upset.

Maybe it wasn’t Scarlet she hated but instead the way she felt about her. Or the way she didn’t even understand what that feeling was. Perhaps that is what she’d hated all along.

“I don’t know.” Yvie stepped outside to straighten her uniform and move to the passenger seat.

“You don’t know?” Scarlet joined her in the front, slamming her door a tad too hard once her foot was inside. “You always have an answer for everything.”

“Well, do you?” Yvie retaliated.

“I’m the one who asked in the first place!”

As much as she wanted to, Yvie couldn’t deny she had a point there.

“Well whatever it is, I’m glad to see we disagree on it already,” Yvie replied as Scarlet started to drive back to work.

“You can take me on a date sometime if you’d like.” Scarlet let the words jump out of her mouth quickly just before the traffic lights turned green, acting completely casual and nonchalant just like she had after hitting her head as if nothing had happened at all.

“A date?” Yvie’s voice raised an octave higher than it should have.

“You know where two people who kind of fancy each other go and get food? It’s a pretty basic term, I thought you’d know seen as you’re crazy clever and going to the best University in the country.”

Yvie choked on her water and sent it flying down the wrong way, a mess of coughs and splutters next to Scarlet’s pristine self. It wouldn’t have been the worst way to die, at least she’d never feel the embarrassment afterwards and have the dignity of knowing she’d given the girl a good time just before.

“I haven’t gotten in yet.” Yvie’s mind was thrown away from the conversation and back to the impending doom of her University application. Thank god she always had Scarlet to remind her of the massive feat she was trying to achieve.

“You can say no if you want, I don’t care.” Scarlet pulled into the car park, not really caring that her wheels were at a forty-five-degree angle and only just within the lines.

Yvie thought of all the times she had come up with convoluted methods to avoid Scarlet’s presence after their first meeting, of that first day she’d been given a lift home and how much had changed since then. Scarlet was confident and sometimes lived on a different planet to Yvie altogether but that didn’t hide her warmth, her wit or the big smile that came on her face whenever she tried to dance. And as much as she was shocked by her own thoughts, Yvie couldn’t deny that an evening with that warmth, wit and smile was all she really needed to relieve her stress.

“Well, where would you like to go for food then?” Yvie asked her as they entered the building, ready to part ways until the end of the day.

“Sorry, you’ll have to come up with that one on your own.” Scarlet grinned. “And please don’t fuck it up, Yvie.”

#rpdr fanfiction #if we walk down this road #got my number #scarlet envy #yvie oddly #scyvie #lesbian au #sixth form au #high school au #british au #enemies to lovers #black girl magic fic #diversity fic #ashley #tw references to racism and racial sterotypes #concrit welcome

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innaminitus · 5 years

Text

Heat

Pairing: Loki x reader

Request: So I had an idea with Loki x frost giant!reader where they experience a mating season and they have one of those relationships where they act like they hate each other so they try hard to resist but ultimately fail. If you think it’s to wild you can just ignore this. Thanks for considering though! (from anon)

Warnings: smut, frost giant!reader, frost giant!Loki, language

Word count: 2016

You walked through the throne room, trying to ignore too many things at once. The ice reflecting light, causing a headache. Obscene sounds coming from all over the palace. Pheromones hanging in the air. Heat, pulsing in between your legs. Racing heart. Cold, that suddenly became unbearable. Your heels clacking on the marble floor.

“My king.” You kneeled quickly, unnecessary friction between your thighs almost making you sigh. “You asked for me?”

You stood up and looked at the man sitting on the throne. You weren’t necessarily in fond of him, but he was the only reason you were still alive.

After all, the small Frost Giants were usually left to die.

Loki looked as if he had a fever. His cheeks were slightly darker, but overall he seemed pale, nervously gripping onto the armrest with one hand, the other covering his groin. You didn’t have to look or guess to know what he was hiding.

He stood up as soon as you got up, held your arm and dragged you out of the throne room.

“Come with me,” he hissed though his teeth, forcing you to follow him up the stairs.

“Do you care to explain why are you ripping my wrist off my arm?” His fingers were digging into your blue skin when he threw you into one of the rooms. Your insides twitched when you noticed it was his bedroom.

“What is this?!” He gesticulated into the air. “This smell? What is happening here?”

He’s been a king for barely a year now, and was still unfamiliar with most of the customs, but while one could learn and prepare for most of them, this was different. Animal instincts were waking in every Giant, making them unpredictable and violent.

“It’s mating season, my king,” you said silently. “Females are… fertile for a few weeks. We are emitting pheromones to attract partners.”

Loki looked almost mad, his hair in mess, he was constantly clenching and relaxing his fists. He came closer to you.

“Is that why you smell so good?”

A blush flushed to your cheeks, throbbing between your legs was almost painful.

“Yes.” You nodded once.

“And this is going to last for a few weeks?” He rubbed his forehead, his eyes locked on you.

“Unfortunately.” He was breathing heavily, you knew far too well that your scent was filling the closed room, and only moments were separating you from jumping on him like a wild animal. “My king, if that’s all–“

“Take your clothes off.”

You swallowed hard. His red eyes were widened, his fingers shaking. He must’ve been aching for release as much as you, but unlike you, it was his first time experiencing the mating season. And with only regular size Frost Giants surrounding him, he had no partner to mate.

There was only you. The only small Giant besides him.

He was your king, after all, wasn’t he? Disobeying his order would be unwise, even if the order was unmoral and bad, and tempting.

Your shaking hands began to slowly unbutton your leather long-sleeved shirt, soon abandoned on the floor. You repeated it with your trousers, watching Loki as he nearly ripped his clothes off himself.

You stood there, naked, wetness almost dripping down your thighs, your king before you in all his glory, eating you with his sight.

You knew he wasn’t going to make love to you.

He grabbed your waist and threw you on the king bed, hovering over you as soon as your back met the cold silk of the bedsheet. He parted your legs wide and groaned at the sight of your wet pussy, pumping his long hard member in his hand.

You were ready to beg him to finally fuck you into the mattress, but thankfully you didn’t have to. He grabbed you below your knees, pushed your legs up and wide, and with one violent move buried himself deep inside of you.

Moan echoed in the room, you saw stars. He was thick and long, and having him fill you this perfectly after fruitless days of frustration almost made you come on the spot. There was no time for adjusting, no time for sweet moments and gasps. You were both frustrated to the core, weak in face of the last animal instinct your nature preserved.

His hands on your body were greedy, you let them wander and arched your back when they found your aching breasts, skilled fingers rolling your nipples, releasing a squirm that was building deep in your throat.

He was pumping you fiercely, searching for longed release, denied him for too long. Masturbating helped for a short while, but it was the actual act of mating with another Giant that silenced the primal needs and made the smell of pheromones bearable.

You found yourself scratching his back, forcing him to reach even deeper. You were both making sounds you never thought appropriate, the addicting feeling of having him inside of you made you unleash your nature, just as his. The bed was no longer soft and warm, it was beginning to freeze despite the hotness of your bodies working together perfectly.

It didn’t take you both long to meet your ends, after all frustrated body was the one to be the easiest to satisfy. The aching in your pussy was finally letting go, unstoppable pleasure invaded your body in tsunami waves, you moaned so loud you were sure the whole palace could hear you. You couldn’t control the movements of your shaking legs, your eyes were shut so tightly you saw the entire galaxy, every snowflake and the sun it reflected.

Enormous amount of cum shot inside of you when Loki reached his ecstasy mere seconds after you, rammed hard and held still, not allowing any of it to leave your body.

When your breathing steadied he slowly slid out of you, to lie on the pillows that were no longer frosted.

You weren’t exactly sure you weren’t going to faint.

You stayed for few hours, as the custom required, taking the time to take a nap and let your body recover without intrusive smells and needs.

It turned out, you slept for much longer than few hours, as when you woke up it was nearly four in the morning. You looked at your king, sleeping peacefully next to you, enjoying his rest from duties, threats, orders and pain.

His bedchamber was big and cold from the opened windows. You noticed it only now, that the fever dropped, and your skin covered with goose bumps, helping you realize you were still naked, Loki’s semen dried on your thighs. Blood rushed to your cheeks and you quickly looked around, searching for your clothes.

As quietly as you could, you got up from the bed and tiptoed to your abandoned shirt. Just as you picked it up from the floor, Loki moved in his sleep. Dark silk sheet slid down his body, exposing his blue skin full of lines and signs, reflecting the weak light of the moon crawling into the room through the windows. He was beautiful.

You never thought of him as of someone else than your king, or the person who killed Laufey and saved you from being killed. Or the pain in the ass you had to teach everything you knew about the Frost Giant’s culture. And yet, now that you spent almost entire night by his side, saw his vulnerable state, heard his steady breath, you couldn’t help but feel the swirling of your insides at the thought of leaving.

He moved again, the sheet falling off his body completely. He was naked as well, you could see every inch of his body, exposed to you. You couldn’t help but to feel intense heat in between your legs again.

Hours of peace, ruined by one look at his member.

You bit your lower lip, holding yourself back from jumping on him and riding him until the first sunrays. Unwittingly you slid your hand between your thighs, trying to ease the aching, even just a little. Your fingers were usually enough on most occasions, but this time it just wasn’t, it wasn’t what you needed. You knew he would take you if you woke him up, twitching of his hard length through his sleep was enough of a proof, but you didn’t want him to just relentlessly fuck you. Well, not at first.

So you did the stupidest thing you probably could.

You crawled back on the bed and kissed him.

He took a deep breath through his nose, every muscle tightened only to relax seconds later. He opened his eyes, surprised and raised his brow at you. His mouth opened, ready to say something about your foolishness perhaps, but you didn’t let him; you kissed him again, warming his cold lips on yours.

Your heart skipped a beat when his arm wrapped around you and dragged you onto him, you tossed aside the shirt you’ve been holding. Your lips still connected, exchanging passionate kisses, his hand on the back of your neck, bringing you even closer. Your whole body was pressed against his, your breasts flattened on his muscly chest, your legs on both sides of his. He dragged his hand through your body, along the curve of your waist, to your bum, squeezing gently. Your tongue sneaked into his mouth, tasting the wine and arousal.

You pulled away and moved your lips to his neck, kissing a path to the pulse point and sucking on it slightly. Your fingers sneaked down his body, to his member, and wrapped themselves around it. A gasp moved your hair when you moved your hand up and down, kissing his jawline in process.

He wasn’t long behind you. His hand left your cheeks and slid under, to your wet pussy, to torture you with soft strokes on your clit. His skin muted your silent moan, quickly followed by his lips when he pulled your hair slightly to meet his face. Your tongues met somewhere in the middle, tips caressing each other, you eventually losing the battle and his muscle invading your mouth.

You couldn’t think anymore, your grip on his cock became sloppy, just as his fingers on your wet folds. Without a second thought you moved your hips, his hand left your body, replaced by his shaft, sliding into you effortlessly.

You both gasped into each other’s mouths, his hands held your hips, guiding you, then slid onto your cheeks, grasping them tightly as you moved up and down his length. One of your hands held the metal frame of the bed, allowing you to move faster, the other grasped his shoulder for stability.

Feeling him inside you was all you needed, all you could ask for. Sounds of slapping bodies and wetness filled the chamber, arousing you even more.

With each thrust you grinded your clit onto his abdomen, additional friction doubling the pleasure.

Your another moan was enough for him to lose control.

He held your thighs firmly, not letting you move, and began to fiercely pound into you, fucking every thought, every sensible feeling out of you, leaving only ecstasy and squirms. Your head fell onto the crook of his neck, you could hear him inhale the scent of your pheromones, mixing with the smell of your slick hanging in the air. It worked for him like a drug, his moves became uncontrollably fast and hard, bringing you to the edge of sanity within seconds, causing a moan in his neck.

He groaned, orgasm shattered you both as if you were made of glass, shameless cries and sounds echoed and flew through the opened windows. His cum once again shot deep inside of you, and this time he didn’t let it flow out immediately as well. He only let off his grip when he softened and your breathing came back to normal.

You fell on the mattress next to him, licking the sweat off your cupid’s bow.

When Loki spoke, his voice was hoarse.

“I think I might develop a liking to this… tradition.”

___

Loki smut tag list: @lokislilslut @princerowanwhitethorngalathynius@darkprincessloki92 @marvelrose@bluestaratsunrise@iamverity @lokilvrr @daddyloki

#loki x reader #loki x reader smut #loki x y/n #loki smut #loki imagine #loki #tom hiddleston #avengers imagine #marvel imagine #avengers x reader #avengers x y/n

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lifesliced-a · 3 years

Text

i’m going to be talking more about ren and hina with their individual and combined experiences since japan’s laws on prostitution give some leeway to the sex industry as a whole. obviously the below content warnings are due to them being of a sexual nature, so discretion advised.

that being said, i’m aiming to take this from a respectful and technical approach to a character that lives a very different life than some of the other characters on this blog. also this is really, really long. i tried to do my research here as well as tie my character into all that research.

HOST STUFF / REN’S MANAGEMENT OF THE CLUB:

hina and ren have a small age difference of just a year, both having gotten into the industry at a young age ( both 18 ) .

as a host, ren is pretty strict in the day-to-day about hosting. it is exactly as it seems: he hosts and he manages the club.

it’s smoke and mirrors basically, catering to having drinks, flirting with customers, and basically entertaining them. a host can touch the patron, but usually not the other way around. ren is a little less strict to this in his own management of shining!, so long as it falls under the guise of socially appropriate ( returning a gesture from a host for instance, or a hand on the shoulder ) .

hosts are allowed to give their numbers and often take their clients on dates, which in turn leads them back to the host club to make more money. the goal is to keep revenue coming in. shining! is aimed to the ‘classic’ experience, what many would think of in reference to ouran aesthetically speaking ( and not much else ) . as much as i keep ren at a dissonance from that show overall so as to not be confused, the idea of shining! started as a tourist attraction / pop-up. it no doubt drew that crowd in, and quite purposefully given that foreigners and locals alike were apt to visit. it was a pop-up for a few years before having permanent residence in the red-light district. it’s supposed to be a diamond in the rough; a place for affordable class.

ren was part of the original set of boys hosting for the ‘pre-shining!’ days, and is the last out of them to have not moved to another club / part of the industry. he was chosen just before he turned 19, having worked at another smaller club before he was scooped up.

WHO RUNS SHINING! BEHIND THE SCENES?

his name is ishikawa goro ( though ren doubts this to be his real name ), and is a member of the yakuza, utilizing shining! for purposes mostly beneath ren’s nose. he started the pop up, he hired ren, and he got the business off the ground while entrusting ren to manage it. ren was known as umi then. goro was the one that suggested he go by ren, finding it fitting for him.

he has been involved in ren’s life for almost ten years based on where ren’s primary verse picks up, and has basically been a formative figure in ren’s life where one was lacking. there is no sexual element to their relationship, though ren had a slight affection for him at first that was quickly realized to be a more fondness.

goro’s appearance changes often, mostly his hair color. he goes from natural black through shades of brown and blond often, wanting to keep himself from being noticed too often. he acts as a part of the underground.

he comes off pretty cool, collected, and in control. he has all the chips in favor, the deck is stacked, the game is rigged. he tends to give the illusion that power is shared, or that he’s out for everyone’s best interest, but he typically has his own interests at heart. he will do whatever fits agenda. if helping benefits him, he’ll help. if not, he typically won’t intervene. he finds reasons to do things that might not directly benefit him, but those are solely motivated by personal interest. he has a soft spot for children, and tends to be aggressive with offenders that are dangerous to children. this is ren’s best selling point honestly.

WHAT DID REN DO BEFORE THERE WAS A PERMANENT LOCATION / DURING OFF-SEASONS?

when the club wasn’t completely profitable as a full-time position, ren definitely learned early to work around the law. japan’s prostitution laws allow for a lot of loopholes --> read about japan’s laws on prostitution and what sex workers do / where they work to get around these laws.

>>>> “ Prostitution in modern Japan, as defined under Japanese law, is the illegal practice of sexual intercourse with an 'unspecified' (unacquainted) person in exchange for monetary compensation,[1][2][3] which was criminalized in 1965 by the introduction of article 3 of the Anti-Prostitution Law (売春防止法, Baishun Bōshi Hō). �� <<<<

this leaves the door open to other acts that sex workers can engage in outside of ‘sexual intercourse with an unspecified person’. that basically means they can’t engage in traditional sex with strangers for money, but could have paid sex with an acquaintance. this does not mean they cannot perform oral sex and other sex acts that are non-coital are permitted to be paid for by unspecified persons. there is a term for the industry that i’ve come to understand is like an overlaying term for many different places with different business called ‘health’.

in ren’s case, he’s used this as a strong argument for having paid sex with clients as they are ‘in his realm of acquaintances’. he meets his private connections via the locations he’s worked at, primarily shining!.

ren kept a small string of locals that came to the pop-up location in his black book to keep a small revenue coming in from 19-21. shining! is a running business with four walls by the time he’s 22, to which these connections grows, and he becomes busier ‘moonlight’. however, from 18-21, he did work at a few other locations to supplement cashflow. he has also temporarily returned to some of these gigs shortly after kyosuke was born, and during his transition between apartments ( to which he is currently living at 27 ) .

ren’s options, in comparison to hina’s, are a bit more limited in being hired in what one could consider a “legal establishment”. a lot of his work is reliant on his customer base from shining! and other connections. so when he wasn’t working at shining! or meeting with regulars off the clock ( or ‘friends of’ his regulars ) , he acted as a male equivalent of what’s called ‘delivery health’ which is basically a type of call girl. ironically this is what ren transitions to full-time after leaving shining!, having built up a solid customer base as he follows his former #2 host**

** this host, sho, is a major connection in ren’s life. ren hired sho at shining! to be the genki type. despite their initial differences, rne and sho realized quickly their opposing appearances and personalities could make them more money together than apart. they’ll host together or bounce off each other ( “see how mean ren is to me!” or “see how difficult sho makes my job” to play sympathy ) , which quickly moved to them hosting after hours together. individually they do well, but together there is more profit. they also have an affair together on and off. **

SO WHERE DOES HINA FIT INTO THIS? SHE’S A HOSTESS, RIGHT?

she is! hina met ren when the club was a pop-up, coming to be hosted after constantly having to host. ren understands, as he’s done the same. their connection was pretty quick.

before hosting, hina’s first job as a sex worker was as an onakura, and she did that for six months while trying to work a few part-time jobs. finding herself, similarly to ren, unable to rise above her circumstances, she quickly quit that to pursue more money.

for a short period she worked as a call girl, but eventually found hosting to be her saving grace while still remaining in the industry. she was given the opportunity by a friend who was a hostess at the time, and had suggested she apply. cleaning herself up, hina excelled quickly, and is quite good at her job.

where she used to moonlight for $$$, she now gaslights ren for cash due to their connection as mother / father to their son. he always obliges. there is love in that love-hate.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

how it all boils down --> both hina and ren are essentially sex workers, though ren is more into the realm of prostitution than hina is. he is the primary caretaker for their son, and his mother, and thus his financial burden is far greater.

a big reason he leaves his manager position is because a) it’s not going anywhere and b) he can’t let sho leave without him. now that he has a clientele that’s more than several individuals, he can work effectively as a “man on call” and get a larger pool from there. his services are more open, more direct, and not under the guise of ‘hosting’ anymore. they still fall into being advertised within the legal confines, but he’s still in the red light district: at the end of the day, ren is ( and has always been ) a prostitute. there’s nothing wrong with that, and in reality he really is the one that has the hardest time coming to terms with the technically terms for his career. he’s only doing what’s been the oldest profession in the book, and he’s filling a niche that’s more saturated by men wanting women and not women wanting men ( or men wanting men ) .

over time, ren has definitely acted outside of the law, but he mostly does what he can to stay within the legalities forced on him. the reason ren got into this wasn’t originally to go full-in, more needing some quick cash after he had to drop out of university and take care of his mom. from there, it sort of just spiraled, and he was in situations he was either too young or naive to understand, or was just making bad decisions. by the time he met hina and got her pregnant, there was no way ren was going to get out.

he traditionally hosts women more than men, though he sleeps with men and women rather equally with men being a slightly larger margin. there is a stigma of gay men living openly, and he provides comfort as a temporary lover. they can pretend he is their own / their boyfriend for a night.

while most of his female and male partners, for their own reasons, seek him for comfort and sex, others have been more violent. it’s no shock or secret that, especially acting independently without shining! to back him, ren has found himself in trouble, or just some extreme sexual situations.

he’s been hit and choked, which is not uncommon, to full on beaten up. he takes it as some clients just like it rough, and he’s there to provide them whatever kink they pay him to indulge. his motto is: i like what you like. a husband has walked in on him, but didn’t seem surprised. he’s been with couples, has been passed around, and basically is keen to do whatever he has to leave the situation still able to go to the work the next day as ren / come home at night as yori ( kyosuke’s father ) .

** at some point during their time together at shining! through their time post-shining! that ren pursues some cam-work with sho. he usually is masked as they do ‘live-streams’ where they perform with / on each other at the discretion of the chat. this is an on again / off again type of deal, though they typically do well, and get a good portion of views from westerners **

#( ⤷ PLAYER ) ◜ REN #( ⤷ ) ◜ HINA #( ⤷ ) ◜ HEADCANONS #so this is more for background #and for me to have reference but #i wanted to kind of do a deep dive on this #and i did a lot of research along the way #but as i warned at the top #there's a lot of talk about sex work beneath the cut

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introvertllux · 4 years

Text

Copia’s World: Chapter 1

Story Description: Lena is gifted with extraordinary powers, that much is true but what happens when she discovers that her powers are more of a curse than a blessing. Will Lena be able to fight the dark path she seems fated for or will she be able to confront her ever-growing powers in order to forge her own path? Secrets and lies discovered as Lena navigate through family, love, and self-discovery.

Genre: Romance, Drama, Comedy, Drama

Warnings: 18+, depictions of bullying, Christianity discrimination, mental health, mental disorders, racism, suicide, discrimination. (Please do not read, if you may be triggered).

*Any depictions referred to in the warnings are based on MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. Please do not think I’m making fun or or mocking anyone, again these experiences are based on what I have seen and, or been through myself. Also, I am not intending to romanticize mental health or disorders in anyway. Lastly, If you do decided to read this story I am very thankful and I hope you enjoy it. : )

Notes to add:

I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS

THE ORIGINAL STORY IDEA IS MY OWN

THE CREATION OF THE CHARACTER PROFILES ARE MY OWN DOING (I DO NOT OWN THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ART WORKS OF EACH CHARACTER. HOWEVER, I DID EDIT THE PICTURES OF MY OC (BRI HALL) TO MATCH MY OC DESCRIPTION.

THIS STORY WILL TAKE SOME EVENTS FROM THE COMICS, ANIMATED SERIES, AND THE LIVE ACTION MOVIES.

IN THIS STORY ALEX IS YOUNGER THAN SCOTT AND THE AGES VARY BASED ON THE ACTOR THAT PLAYS THE CHARACTER AND FOR THE SAKE OF THE PLOT

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Third Person’s P.O.V.

Friday, July 27, 2019

Lena inhaled the crisp cool summer air as she gazed outside of the large crystal-clear window of the deep corridor. A breathtaking blend of coral and peach sunlight filled the sky as birds soared high and low while chirping a captivating melody. She exhaled, as she gently opened her yellow-amber eyes and watched the pattern the birds flew in. Lena, then gripped the frame of widow seal, careful not to crush it underneath her superhuman strength. Oh, how badly did she want to leap out of the wind and fly, to soar, and join the feathered-winged creatures.

(You look like you want to join them) she heard a voice say inside of her head.

(More than anything…) I responded back.

(I think that freedom is what you seek more than anything, Lena) the voice said.

Lena looked at the person next to her from the lower corner of her left eye.

(Grandpa, freedom is the one thing I desire the most out of this world. It’s funny you know… how easy it seems to be able to have. To get too. It’s literally right outside my door. But for me, it seems unreachable. It’s bittersweet to know that my only desire is so close yet so far. But as a mutant as… me, I know that I would rather give up my dreams to protect my family and those who can’t protect themselves.)

she said as she turned her full body towards the founder of the Xavier Institute.

(As usual, that’s very brave, kind, and noble of you Lena. But as I told you many times in the past you can be all those things and more without giving up on the things you want. Balance is key to anything you do in life, Lena. Once, you've mastered that you’ll be impossible to stop) Professor Xavier said.

Lena let out a sigh, (Grandpa you and I both know the circumstances that prevent me from being free. I-I just want to be like them) I communicated to him as I pointed my arm out of the window at the birds in front of me. (How long do I have to be a caged bird? How long until I can use my powers to help instead of hurting. How long until my powers stop feeling like a curse. How long until nobody fears me and they except me! How long until I can be free!?)

She yelled telepathically causing the man next her to groan in pain as he gripped the sides of his head.

Lena’s P.O.V

“Uh! Grandpa, I’m so, so, sorry!” I yelled as I kneeled next to his wheelchair. I tried to gently console him, trying to be extra careful of my strength and the volume of my voice.

“It’s alright, Lena.” He said softly.

I looked at him with glistening eyes, “I’m sorry. I’m so stupid.” I said quieter.

“Far from it my dear, very far. You just have trouble controlling your powers is all. We’ve all been there. I have your mother, your father, and the rest of the students that live here. Your case is just a special one… and like the rest we will find a way for you to control them.” He said optimistically.

I stared at him for a split second as I read his facial expression. Although he always made sure to remain level-headed and positive at all times, I know that deep inside he’s afraid. He’s terrified. He more than anyone that we know, knows how much of a ticking time bomb I am. He knows that I’m capable of the world ending power, yet he masks it all in hopes that “we” find a solution in an unpredictable time.

“Now, Lena if my time is correct and I’m sure that it is you have about 5 minutes before Colossus will be looking to join the others in the Danger Room. You know how organized he is.” He said smiling softly.

I mentally rolled my eyes as he mentioned Colossus.

“Have fun, and make sure you pay specific attention until how each student is managing their powers. I think it might help you find your source of control.” He said.

“Will do, grandpa. Have a nice rest of your day.” I said as I ran down the long hallway and down to my room.

As I entered my room, I quickly opened my side table drawer and pulled out black gloves that covered every inch of my hands. I quickly pulled them on my hair, careful not to tear them. I looked down at the gloves as I started to feel anxiety.

Looking at these gloves was a constant reminder of how defective I was. Usually, when I felt my powers start to lose control in the slightest way, I would put these gloves on. Today… when I broke the telepathic link with my grandfather was a sign of lack of control, although not a big one it was still something.

One of my first abilities I was able to master at a young age was telepathy but seeing as of late I’m losing my grip over it I think the gloves will stabilize me. God forbid I go to training and I bump into someone and I absorb their abilities or hurt them in any other way.

With about two minutes left before training, I left my room (which wasn’t too far from the danger room only about 10 feet). I walked with a neutral expression on my face as I entered the control room. I took “my” seat next to a standing Colossus whose body shined in pride at his team below.

“Nice of you to join us today, Lena.” He said without looking at me. I nodded my head back at his as I looked down at the white dull sneakers on my feet that seemed to pique my interest at the moment.

“I didn’t see you for breakfast, AGAIN. How can you expect to be a good hero if you aren’t eating a well-balanced meal?” He said in a lecturing tone.

No, how can I expect to be a good one, if I’m not allowed to use my powers?

I heard the sound of his body turning towards me, I hastily moved my hands behind my back so he wouldn’t see that I had my gloves on.

He cleared his throat and said, “I want you to watch closely. Today the team will be working on teamwork protocols. As a member of this team, I need you to see and understand how each team member's abilities work as well as how they complement one another.” He said as he turned back, getting ready to speak into the intercoms.

This is why I hated “training”. First and foremost, I’m not really a part of the team. I’m what you call the “final choice”. I’m the SWAT team to the police force. The Hulk to the Avengers. I’m the big guns. If our chances of winning are extremely low, they are banking on me to bring the bacon home. From an outsider’s perspective, it sounds like an honor… but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. I’m the caged animal that they only let free on the special circumstance. They don’t want to see me, talk to me, or USE me until they need me.

As for their powers, I know them left to right. I know every single one of my teammate’s power sources, origins, and weaknesses. How could I not? I live my life watching them all have fun with their powers and showing them off while I stay dormant, in complete comatose. Get this… isn’t it hilarious, how my parents always told me that mutants were special, that I was special but one mistake… and now I’m too special to use my gifts?

Don’t get me wrong at all. I love every and any kind of mutant good or evil no matter what their gifts are, they are all special and unique to me. But that all goes out the window when: 1.) I don’t use my powers so I’m basically a regular person and 2.) When I have the ability to absorb, replicate, and keep any power I’m exposed to. Having that ability, that curse, makes everyone around you feel ordinary and that’s something I hate about myself. I never want anyone to feel less than. I rather it is me so that they never know how it really feels.

Okay, team, I’m commencing the portal now. Get ready.” I heard Colossus say. A few seconds later I saw the lights deem as the computer speak:

Commencing Protocol 24389: Team Civilian Rescue

I sat up in my chair slightly making sure to keep my hands in a place where I knew Colossus wouldn’t be able to see. Within a few seconds, I analyzed the protocol. It seemed as though each section and customized by each person’s powers. Each person had their weakness placed in each section but would require help from a member to move through. Their ultimate end goal was to rescue an elder-women and her cat (Ha, how cute Colossus).

I continued to watch for a few moments, already seeing that they were not working as a team. I glanced up at Colossus from the side of my eye and noticed his stone-cold expression.

Which I knew was translated to mean anger, disappointment, and shame. It seems like the only person that was trying his best was Alex, better known as Havok. He tried to guide the team and even give some advice but he was stopped but Mr. Hothead himself Pyro, or John who’s ego was so big he wouldn’t take direction from anyone because he was the leader and what he said went even if he was wrong.

Then there was Jubilation Lee or Jubilee who was a poor long-term focuser so when it came to making plans and strategies, she wasn’t all the way there. And last but certainly not least the Lovesick King, Sam aka Cannonball, he was so in love with Jubilee all he heard, saw, and thought about was her. If it didn’t involve her, he wanted no parts and that’s exactly what was happening.

A few more minutes went by and I heard the screams of agony ring throughout the control panel. I flinch and quickly stood up hoping that nobody was hurt. The lights slowly turned on as I realized that the scream I heard was from the elderly women hologram. I let out a small sigh… glad that everyone was okay (well almost everyone).

Protocol 24389: Team Civilian Rescue. Failed.

I heard the computer say as the light was on completely. I heard Colossus' large steps start to exit the control room. I knew better than to try to leave and retreat back to my room. I hated conflict and I knew this would be another confrontation and I knew deep down inside It would be my fault because that’s just my role on this team.

“This! This is teamwork!?” Colossus yelled as he waved his hands in front of the other students.“Well, If John helped out more- “Sam started to say before he was cut off by everyone auguring back and forth all at once.

“Enough!” Colossus yelled once more.

“This is not what good teams do! Arguing and fight one another. That’s for the villain, not the heroes.” He said

.He let out a sigh, “You, “He said as he pointed at John, “You are the leader. You are supposed to lead them with humility and a good plan. You did neither of those. If you do that on the real battlefield do you expect to lead your team to victory or their deaths.”

He said sternly. “Jubilee, you need to focus on the battlefield you can get yourself and others hurt or worse. Samuel, you need to focus on your team and the civilians, keep your head on the battlefield, not on your heart.” He said as he exchanged looks between the both of them.

Colossus looked up and down at Alex swiftly, “Alex, great work for what little you had to work with. Keep it up. It’s clear that you all need more training so… I will see you bright and early at 6:00 AM tomorrow.” He said as he began to turn around and walk off.“But… tomorrow is Saturday!” I heard Jubilee yell. Colossus just waved as he exited the room. I turned, trying to leave the room unnoticed.

“Where do you think you’re going.” I heard John say. I stopped for a moment, deciding not to let him get to me today.

I heard him snort, “Got the gloves on, huh? Bad day?” He said with a chuckle.

I quickly grabbed my hands and folded them up to my chest tightly as I kept walking.

“You know it’s your fault we failed that protocol.” He said with venom in his voice. I stopped in my tracks, my back still facing him.

“You just sit up there in the control room acting all high and mighty while we do all the work. What’s the point of doing all the work, when you can do it? You have the ability to have any and every power known to man yet- because you’re so defective we have to do the work. It’s pretty pathetic, to be honest.” He let out a sarcastic sigh, “I guess… I’ll always have that over you, huh? being flawless, being more than enough.” He said in a taunting manner.

“John, back off.” I heard Alex say.

“Shh… your leader is talking. And as the leader, I say my “team member” needs some constructive criticism.” He said wickedly.

“You know… now that I think about it I kind of own you. Everything I say goes. I mean look your powers are banned. You don’t train with us, you can’t leave this house, and… a big part of that is thanks to me. One of my greatest accomplishments to date I think.” He said as he started to laugh widely.

I began to shake in my spot, tears threatening to spill. I didn’t want to look up at John. All I wanted to do was run and retreat back to my room, the place I knew I would always be the safest. But instead, I decided that I had to look up, into the eyes of the man that made my life living hell every day for years. Not one part of me wanted to think he was evil or malicious when he tormented me on a daily. I wanted to see the good in him, as a fellow mutant, as a teammate, as a person. But all I could see what a selfish and wicked cold-hearted man.

I speed to my room devastated and broken. This was nothing new under the sun. Every day, John would take his shots at me tearing me down in front of our peers and they would just let it happen. John hated him with all his heart and soul and the rest didn’t understand me. They didn’t bother too. That just knows about the accident that leads to my powers awakening and from then on, they’ve avoided me like the plague. It just me to see that even in my own home that I will never kind anyone who truly gets me or a place where I belong.

I laid on my bed fast down as I cried myself to sleep. What felt like a minute later, was actually hours as I heard tapping on my window. I walked to my window and opened it wide as something swiftly flew in. I looked at the figured and smiled.

“Cuzzo! It’s been a while!” I heard my cousin Peter yell.

I quickly jumped on him as we landed on the bed with my hand covering his mouth. “Shh,” I whispered.

Of course, I was very happy to see my cousin Peter. It’s been too long but like a true prisoner, I am not allowed to have any visitors and the same goes for Peter even though he’s family.

Peter’s eyes roamed down to my gloved hand and he mumbled something against. I moved my hands down and looked down at my lap, knowing how concerned he would be to see my gloves on. I didn’t want to ruin our reunion, but I felt as though I already did.

He grabbed both of my gloved hands and squeezed tightly, “Lena…” He expresses in a worried voice.

“Peter, I’m fine. I promise. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about you I haven’t seen you in so long, aren’t you taking Online Summer courses at MIT?” I asked genuinely interested.

Peter’s looked lingered for a few seconds before he gave in, “Yeah I am actually. They’re killer. Dad wanted me to try and stay on campus and do the whole college thing a try, but I wanted to be able to patrol at home and- “He said before I interrupted “And your crush” I said in a teasing voice.

“Lin.” He said in a whining voice as he pursed his lips and I continued to laugh a bit.

“Well, I think uncle Tony just wants you to give you a fair shot at the whole being a “normal” kid type of thing. But you’re too far gone, Spider-Man. We’ve lost you to the dark side.” I said as I continued to joke.

“Tell me about it, right now I’m on the dark side of college homework.” He said as he began to pull out his homework from his bag.

“I also brought some ice cream. They’re rock solid, so by the time I get done with this they should be defrosted.” He said.

We talked back and forth as Peter did his homework. I helped quite a bit with the equations he was having problems solving.

“Lena, I always knew you were smart… but you’re better at solving these problems than I am. Maybe you should be at MIT, instead.” He laughed.

“No, way Peter. You’re a genius. I just like a challenge that all. Plus, engineering isn’t my passion.” I said with a shrug.

“To be honest you’ve never really talked about your passions before.” He said sounding intrigued.

“Um, my first one would be getting out of here. I might get spontaneous and travel to every state.” I said laughing while being serious.

“You know… being here all my life and not being allowed to leave unless supervised never gave me the chance to really find myself. I went to school here and never had the chance to go to college. The one constant thing that I find myself doing that I like is helping. I also like kids too, even if I’m not around them often. But when I was around Franklin and Valeria I was in awe. I wanted nothing but to see them happy you know. I don’t know maybe… maybe I’ll become a teacher.” I said quietly.

“Well, I think you’re an amazing teacher. You’re creative, smart, kind, and you always put other's needs before your own.” Peter said as he smiled softly at me as he placed his hand on my shoulder.

I flinched back, as he stared at me with his arms in surrender at me. “ah… um, I’m sorry.” I said frantically. “I just… my powers and the gloves um...” I said starting to panic.

“No, no. I’m sorry Lin I should’ve known better.” He said. “Um, ice cream?” He said after a few moments of silence.

I nodded my head as he handed me, a mocha chip flavored ice cream. I smiled and thanked him. He always remembered by favorite. As we ate my ice cream, he talked to me about his dad and what the rest of the Avengers were up too.

“Wait so Thor is fat now?” I repeated. “Yeah, but he’s got more a dad bod thing going in verses the devastated drunk bod. He’s getting there. Aunt Nat and Uncle Clint are taking care of the psychical and dad are doing his version of emotional support and the rest of us are doing real actual support.” He said as eat another spoonful of ice cream.

I smiled, “I miss them. I wish I was there to see their faces.” I said feeling low again. “I know they all miss you, I missed you. I promise even though I have these dumb classes I’m coming to visit you more often even if Uncle Logan tries to kill me and hang me over the fireplace.” He said in a joking yet serious manner.

“When I told dad, I was going to sneak into your house, he said, “Why go all Bond on them, we can walk right up and make it a party.” He said laughing.

I shook my head, “I think at that point it’s more about our dad’s deep intense hatred for one another.” I said.

“They have a lot in common that’s why. They both think they know everything or can do anything better than another person.” Peter said.

“Ugh, tell me about it. Back to the party thing, it’s almost your birthday in two weeks what are you going to do. I know Uncle Tony will want to throw you a big bash.” I said.

“Yeah, now you tell me about it. I told dad something quite with the family but of course, it went in one ear and out the other. At this point, I don’t care what he wants to do. If you can’t come then, I don’t want anything.” He said.

“Aww. Peter, no don’t throw away your party for me. It’s not worth it.” I said. “What? Lena, are you hearing yourself? You’re my cousin. I’m not going to have a party that’s supposed to have family and friends there and you not be there. I don’t care if I have to invite every single member of this household in order for you to be able to come, I will do it.” He said.

I was a bit stun that he said he would invite everyone just for me. I know Peter wasn’t super close to the rest of the team members closer to our ages but Peter was the extroverted one out of the both of us so if it came down to it he would have no problem socializing with them, even if it were for a minute.

A few more minutes pass and Peter and I exchange goodbyes as he exited out of the window. About 10 minutes later another knock could be heard from the window.

What’s with my window tonight.

I raised the window and looked outside of it. “Hey, Angel.” I heard my Uncle Angel say to me with a wave. I waved back. He drew in closer to the window. “Hard day?” He asked as he nodded towards my gloves. I shrugged but didn’t say a word.

“How about some Angel Time.” He said as he referred to the nickname, I called our flying time together when I was a child. I knew the repercussions that would follow if we left the house without telling anyone, we both did, but I need this. For me flying was like a rocking a baby back to sleep, it was soothing to me, it was liberating.

I took a step back from my window and leaped out. Smiling widely as I levitated in the air. I began to fly up higher with my arms stretched wide. This is the feeling I’ve been missing for so long. I continued to smile as I fly all around my uncle. We flew together for a while until he landed on a cliff and patted his hand down on the grass near him. I flew down and landed gently.

“You know, when you’re up there flying around, you look just like your mother.” I smiled softly at his observation.

“Before you were born your mother and I used to fly all the time. It’s one of the only times I’ve really seen your mother look so happy, that or when you or your dad are around.” He said.

“Is that why you fly. Because it’s your freedom too.” I asked. He looked over and smiled at me. “You know before I discovered my wings I was from a very wealthy family. From the outside, everyone thought I was so happy and perfect because of it but I was so miserable. When I discovered my wings, I got on my knees and praised God because nothing could stop me from escaping the hell in which I lived. I had the power to leave and discover my own path and that’s what lead me to the school. Flying doesn’t solve all my problems, no. But it helps me to get on the right track.” He said with passion.

I hummed in satisfaction at his answer. It was so detailed and liberating. I related to it in many ways. Uncle Angel and I continued to laugh and talk about things from my childhood and things of his past, until sunrise. As the sun rose so did my anxiety and panic because I knew when I got home, I was in trouble. I knew I probably missed training so that was a dead give away that I wasn’t home like I was supposed to be.

We flew back home, with Uncle Angel telling me he would help explain the situation to my parents. However, that didn’t make me feel better considering the fact that there was no reasoning with parents as overprotective as my own.

We landed swiftly and opened the door to the mansion and made our way to the kitchen, figuring they would be there having their morning coffee and tea.

“Lena Oni Howlett! Where have you been? You just don’t leave the house without telling us or someone going with you!” I heard my mother yell.

“I know. “I mumbled quietly that only my father could probably hear with his advanced hearing.

“Wait Ororo, please don’t yell at her it was my fault,” Angel said as he stood in front of me.

“She was having a bad day and-and I know flying helps to calm her down, so I took her.” He said trying to explain the situation.

“Do you have any idea what could’ve to happen with her flying up there. “I heard my father say with a growl.

“Nothing, I was with her-“ Angel tried to finish before he was interrupted “Then you’re dumber than I thought birdbrain. Her powers are unpredictable right now. We don’t know what triggers then and what doesn’t. You could’ve gotten yourselves both killed.” He said with anger in his voice.

I flinched when he called my powers unpredictable and when he said I was capable of killing both of us. It was true and I didn’t want it to happen. I never want to hurt anyone ever again but the way my own father was describing me it was like I was some kind of monster.

“Logan…” My mother warned.

“Can you believe this bullshit!” He yelled as he slammed his hand onto the marble countertop causing a crack to form.

“Watch your language!” My mother yelled at him.

“As soon as we do a better job at keeping track of our own, damn daughter. Oh, or do you not remember the stakes that are at hand!” He roared.

“Of course, I do! That’s why we’re taking the percussions we are now!” He yelled back. At this point, they were arguing with one another about me in front of me completely ignoring how I feel at this point. I felt awful knowing that my parents were arguing because of me. They rarely argued. Mostly playful banter. But I was the cause of this me. I hate conflict but I had to make it right.

“Stop!” I screamed at the top as my lungs as my eyes glow dark pink and my hair floated up in the air slightly. “Have you ever thought for a second how this all makes me feel? I’m the one with uncontrolled powers. I’m the one that ends up hurting people. I’m the common denominator! Keeping locked up like-like some monster won’t solve any of it.” I said looking at them with my eyes still glowing.

“This-” I said as pink aura started admitting from my body, “You say it’s special, but I have to hide it. You treat how society treats mutants. I don’t know whose side you guys are on or if you see me as some dangerous mutant…. or as your daughter.” I said in a shaky breath.

“I’m warning you both now. That if you don’t give me some space… or just an inch of freedom I will explode and nothing- and I mean nothing in this world will be able to contain it not even me.” I said sadly as I turned my back on them and left the kitchen quietly.

I went to my bedroom and looked into the mirror on the way to the far right and stared at it. My eyes were still glowing, and my pink aura was still surrounding my body. I sat down gently and started to close my eyes and take deep breaths until I felt my power level constrain back into my body. I take a few more moments before I hop into bed.

I take off my gloves and lay them on the side of my bed. I stare at my hands. The hands of murder. The hands of filled with extraordinary power. The hands of a murderer.

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Link to:

Masterpost

Chapter 2

I wanted to thank everyone who has liked or reblogged anything that has to do with this story. I want to give a HUGE SHOUTOUT to the following people for showing me some support (I apologize if i’m missing any names)!!

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sugarcookiesandsins · 4 years

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Charmed [Episode 2]

➰ ot7 x reader, poly!bts x reader, mafia!bts ➰ they wouldn’t notice her until she was standing above them, a smoking gun in her hand a bullet in their heart 🌡 M 🛑 heavy violence 🕛 4.1k+

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As you made your way closer to the store, you realized that it was a furniture store. You wryly shook your head and cast a glance towards the ceiling - Fate was simply playing you at this point, but what did it matter? It had given you an opportunity, and may karma come for your ass if you did not take advantage of it. Glancing towards the entrance of the shop, you saw multiple women milling about with both eyes on the men and none on the products. Typical.

Resigning yourself to Fate once again, you made your way towards the entrance of the shop, promptly ignoring the stares from the women as they silently judged the clothing you wore and your messy-ish hair. You were nothing compared to their towering heels and fashionable apparel, garnished with shimmering jewels and manicured perfection. Still, you were there for two reasons, the boys whose location was obvious due to their deep baritones and for the furniture. Earlier you were considering getting something simple and easy, but why bother? This would be the longest mission to date, might as well make sure you were comfortable executing it. Making your way into the heart of the store, you pause to evaluate the options presented to customers regarding a general style. Despite your own partiality to your parent's home, you make your way towards the section the boys were in.

The modern style never caught your fancy, its clean, sterile characteristics reminding you too main of hospitals with its prying eyes and constant supervision. All-in-all, the style reminded you of things you didn't like, but for now, you could pretend. Ignoring most other things, you made your way, towards the same section, worker in tow as you rattled off questions about price, shipping, and quality.

Hoseok and Jin both noticed the girl who walked around them but didn't seem to care about their presence. It was easy enough to ignore the gaggle of women outside the shop, the twittering was something easy to get used to. Besides, those women would never dare to approach either of them while not under the strobe lights of their nightly haunt. Demin was a nightclub famous both for its "private" shows and its clientele. It was where Taehyung worked most often, honing his skills with the women much too eager to experience a night in his bed.

[JHS]

The first time I saw her was near the couches, standing next to one that was whiter than the clouds on a clear day. The metal detailing reflected the light of the store. She was dressed in the latest fashion, as was everyone, but she seemed to not be comfortable in it. She was playing a part in an elaborate play.

For a second, I wondered if Jin and I were involved in this play she was the star of. But it couldn’t be. She seemed to not care about the presence of others, not even the employee flocking around her with his feathers all askew. Her eyes were focused on the furniture, calculating and cold as they traced the curves and angles of each piece before her. It was almost hard to not see the gear ticking away in her head and see absorbed information.

Matching eyes with Jin, I slightly tilted my head in her direction, raising an eyebrow. And all I got back was a neutral shrug. So even he recognized something in her but couldn’t determine what it was that felt off.

In a way she reminded me of Jungkook, and I don’t think that if she met him, she would take it as a complement. She moved with the same tense grace that he did, a faked state of relaxation. Though I doubt she had gone through the same thing that he did; even I didn’t know all the details, but all the boys agreed that his father was the only one not worth fighting for.

We all hated the man, not only for what he did to Jungkook, but for what he did to Jimin. Somehow the asshole had gotten his hands on Jimin who was taught to fight both alongside and against his best friend. They were the best of friends, yet they also knew the secret to the other’s downfall.

After a particularly expensive selection of a glass and metal breakfast table, the boys were even more intrigued. You did not seem to be rich, far from it, but the speed with which you selected items certainly made you seem so. Neither did you carry the air of someone with vast amounts of wealth. They were the most obvious; it always astounded them how someone could never get tired of talking about money.

With the attitude of someone who had other places to be, you swept out of the shop in mere moments, followed by wandering eyes and the attention of two very prominent mafia members.

Were you disappointed at the lack of interaction? Yes. But never would you have taken the initiative to start a conversation with them. It would have blown your 'disinterested' facade to pieces in seconds. Still, you were not a blind woman and you could clearly see their interaction thanks to the mirrors that decorated the store - they had spotted you and you had their attention.

From this you learned three things you could add to the files:

Neither Hoseok nor Jin were quick to initiate interaction. In alignment with their training, they waited until that person became a target or they felt reassured about that person's background.

Compared to some of the others, they were not partial to socialization outside of work. Even Jin, their conversationalist, would not deviate to satisfy personal curiosity.

And what is possibly the most important of them all, they were preparing for someone's arrival. Whose? A name wasn't mentioned, but it was almost certainly a male if she had heard the pronouns correctly.

Again, you were back to the counting. You assumed that the habit had come from your mother, a mathematician with more numbers than letters running through in that brain of hers. There was something calming about having a constant in your life. It seemed that with everything else being the way it was in your life, the predictable sequence of numbers grounded you to your fate. Your mantra was a list, your mind worked in logical numerics, anything you had some semblance of control overworked in numbers.

Walking away from the store, you made your way into another one, this time intending to collect a couple new outfits. Despite your new persona being Eli, you still would have some time to be yourself so it would do no good to rely on the same rags that had started tattering with use. 30 minutes later, you walked out of your favorite store with an outfit leaning on the expensive side of casual. A new pair of blue jeans hugged your legs and comfort was your priority with a graphic tee-shirt and a bomber-style jacket. Your old things were in a new backpack that you decided to splurge on.

Glancing out the window of the mall, you noticed night creeping in around the edges of buildings. The sky-colored itself hues of fire as the sun sunk into the horizon, twilight was a magical vision against the sight of the river in the distance. Deciding that you could spare a couple more moments in the mall, you made your way to the food court and took a seat along with a window with a perfect view of the skyline as it caressed the metal of buildings taking their grandeur from blurry reflections.

Hoseok and Jin made their way out of the furniture store after confirming the delivery of their shipment. Even they didn’t know what they were preparing for, but if the Boss said it, then no questions were necessary. After making up excuses for the ladies shameless enough to talk to them under the spotlights of the mall, they began making their way towards the entrance of the mall.

Together, in their crisp button-ups and polished shoes, they cut an imposing figure against the white of the walls. Hoseok couldn’t help but watch the people around him as he walked. It was less of a judgmental gaze than an evaluative one. He always looked for anyone that seemed to have something he could use. He oversaw business contacts in their 7-man crew, the communicator to other groups or with new clients that they saw as prospective. Thus, once again his eyes fell on your lone figure near the window, leaning on the palm of your hand as you watched the world outside, eyes reflecting the very scenery that you were looking at. Taunting orange ribbons dancing in your iris as you isolated yourself from the world just to watch twilight as it progressed.

In truth, no one knew what made him more qualified for his position than Seokjin or Taehyung, both boys also in charge of first encounters, but most surmised it was his face. Compared to Seokjin or Taehyung, it lacked that carved-marble appearance that intimidated others. Molded from chocolate, and with a 100-watt smile, he came off as approachable and sweet.

After seeing you in the furniture shops, both boys had forgotten about you. There was no reason for Hoseok to remember you, you were neither a target nor an informant to him. Still, the curiosity that had died down once you disappeared from his sight was back in full force as he saw a new side of you. In direct contrast to the woman negotiating prices in the store, and succeeding, here you were, quiet and pensive as you looked out the window. The object of your attention was just as much a mystery to him as you were.

[KSJ]

Pulling out my phone, I shot a quick text to Namjoon telling him that all the new furniture had been obtained and was going to be shipped to the warehouse. Then, I contacted out driver so he would be outside the entrance by the time that we exited the mall. I didn’t like being out in the open for more time than was necessary. BigHit is rumored to have people everywhere but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Taking a couple more steps, I realized that Hoseok was not behind me. He normally was just as strict as I was about being exposed so imagine my surprise when I turn and see him once again watching a girl.

That was twice in a day, and here I thought he wanted nothing to do with them.

“Hoseok,” I hissed. Looking closer, I realized that it was the same girl as before and that annoyed me.

He looked over and followed, but not before one last glance back at the girl. She had gotten his attention allright.

There really was nothing special about her. She was another civilian, a civilian that had unknowingly drawn eyes more than once, but she was still a civilian. She was of no use to us, especially with the way she kept her eyes on the sky outside.

Her head was in the clouds and ours were fated to be grounded.

As the sunset, you cast your eyes down as the two male targets walked out of the entrance of the mall and into a waiting SUV, driven by another member of BTS. From this distance, and with the added challenge of sunglasses, it was difficult to identify who, but that didn’t matter to you. For now, you would leave them be as you focused on establishing Eli within the underground societies.

At the moment, the only idea you had was starting with petty theft and then consequently selling the acquired goods on the markets. From the memories you had with your parents, it was not hard to pick out conversations about your dad’s work. You vaguely remembered a case where, in a turn of events, your dad was on the side of the prosecution.

From the hushed conversations, all you could discern was that something important had been stolen and your dad was tasked with finding the person who did it. Logically, the best place to check would be the black markets as sales were kept behind closed doors. Some names had floated around your house, and you decided those would be your starting point; you had to find the best. After all, you were only going to be selling the best.

The question still remained: what would catch their eye? Initially, your thoughts strayed to the furniture they had bought today. Stealing something relatively big like that would certainly be noticed but the only issue was that you would need multiple people to assist. The setup you could probably do by yourself. It wouldn’t take much considering you were going to accepting a delivery from the same place probably on the same day. It wouldn’t be difficult to sneak in under the pretense of forgetting the day and while the worker was verifying with you, check out the order the boys placed in.

This made you pause for a second. The shop had two options for delivery. It could either go straight to the buyer’s house or it could be picked up from the store. You had no clue as to the option the boys picked, but if it was delivered to an address, then that address could be their residence, or at least the start of the breadcrumb trail right to their front door. It would give you such an advantage in the long-run. In the end, you decided, to keep that idea on the back burner. If they themselves gave you access to their house, then the furniture shop would be a waste of time. It was best to wait and see what happens.

With at least 3 people on the team, interception of the delivery and transfer of the packages wouldn’t be too difficult, but you were alone in Seoul. And there was no way you would be asking Maestro for help. You had begged him for this mission, and you would not be losing face by asking him for help. This was something you had to do alone. Besides, even if you did succeed, you yourself wouldn’t be noticed, the company would. Even then you doubted that BTS would bother to get too involved; they have enough money to just buy another set and pay a little extra to get it faster.

To get them to notice, really notice, what you took had to be something personal.

Then it hit you. Eli would be getting attention through pickpocketing, why not use the same strategy against the boys. There had to be a wallet, a card, or something that could find its way into your hand and then into the hands of an underground dealer. Especially, if it was something with their monogram on it. You had no doubt that even though the black markets retained independence, they were all scared to death of BigHit and that an immediate call would be placed to inform them of the missing valuables.

Recalling the two boys you had seen, you traced their figures in your mind to see if there was anything that you could recall. True, there was no need for anything distinguishing to exist - the boys were famous enough as it was - yet, you hoped that through bloodshed and death they still had a little sentimentality within them and that their fathers hadn’t snuffed that out, yet.

Sadly, nothing particularly popped out in your mental image of them, not that it mattered. You had a week or two to figure out the men that you were after. Turning the gold chain around on your wrist you caressed the notches lovingly. This was where their charms would hang, on the very bracelet that you took from your mom all those years ago. It would forever hand on your risk as a reminder to yourself and to others of exactly what you were capable of. You still hadn’t decided what charms would represent them, but that would become easier as you got to know them.

Or you could watch them when they were at their most venerable. When they were home after a long day and decide to let loose. As regimented as they were, they were still men in their prime. They should let loose somewhere, and if not in Demian, then at least in the privacy of their own home.

Suddenly, you found yourself second-guessing your decision to postpone your idea for using the shop. You always hated second-guessing yourself - it was indicative of weakness. Having second thoughts meant that you weren’t committed and a lack of commitment, though it may protect your heart, may not protect you. Besides, conviction is the difference between a good plan and a great plan on one hand, and on the other it causes small mistakes to magnify into train wrecks. If you had to choose only one thing to remember from your master’s teachings, it would be what he had written into your skin; ‘Commitment or Fear’. It was this tattoo that you traced pinpricked along the sliver of skin that molded to your skin above the edge of your panties as you still broke the law and thought.

You left the mall long after the sun sank beneath the horizon. Making your way home, you decided on a plan of action tomorrow. It would be the same for the next couple of days after that. You had to make face with the markets until yours was the name they thought of when it came to theft.

For the next three weeks, you slowly built a rapport with the minor crime bosses of Seoul. It was a difficult start, forcing yourself to take from innocents on the streets to help your own cause. Yet, it was a necessary evil in your mind and you satiated yourself with the idea that without BigHit they would be much safer as you snuck your hand into purses and back-pockets to retrieve wallets and valuables.

These stolen items you would turn-around and pawn off at black-market vendors who were all too happy to receive new goods. They too benefited from your transactions with them as it allowed a wider clientele to enter their doors, those that avoided the vault at the back of the shop and stayed at the front counters to purchase simpler items like luxury watches or id cards.

Soon enough, Eli was a common enough name whispered around the black market circles. It was never spoken with much feeling behind it other than admiration when the feeling was involved. It had spread pretty far, but what you didn't account for was who Eli's myth spread to.

[MYG]

We had been called into the head office today; a rarity but not an impossibility considering how we were still working for him. The pompous bastard liked to throw his weight around, but then again so did everyone in the company – throwing around weight creates fear as most didn’t even have enough to toss. We life and thrive on fear. Fear made people compliant. And from father to son and mother to daughter, everyone shared the same fears and everyone became compliant.

Walking into the office, it still struck me how he managed to make the same room look so different. Each leader had his own taste but they knew not to touch the sanctity of the office like he had. I hated him for it.

Still, what he said surprised me. They were words of praise for someone other than himself; Eli. He had come and taken Seoul by storm with the way he suddenly amassed wealth and called the pockets of citizens his coffers. No one knew where he came from or his past, he just showed up one day and asserted himself as the thief of the decade.

“-bring him in.” The tension in the room painfully shifted.

“Excuse me sir, but with all due respect I think-.” Namjoon tried to bring him to his senses and see the reason that they could not bring a random stranger so close to them, but the boss was the boss and he liked to show it.

“What you think is not relevant. You are to bring him in and I am going to hire him.” His face was annoyingly condescending, but we were bound to follow his orders.

With a short affirmation that he would get right on it, Namjoon led us all out of the office and down the stair back to our car.

Walking out of the pawnshop, Eli stared up at the skyscrapers that towered over his form. It had been another successful day, with a thick wad of bills weighing down the pockets of his jacket. Today, Eli had decided to case out the business center of Seoul. It wasn’t difficult to make him obsolete among the crisp suits and pencils skirts despite standing out with ripped denim and a graphic tee.

The good thing about business people he had come to learn was that they never paid attention to their surroundings. Tunnel-vision ordained a singular viewpoint on their destination and most just glared at and obstruction in their path, not noticing that their pockets were significantly lighter or that the hands that prevented them from falling had taken more liberties than necessary for a task of that kind.

Stuffing your hands into your pockets, you thought about the future of Eli. He was quite well known at this point, not even the black-market pawns haggled with him on prices. What he said goes, and most trusted his reputation of being a fair source of goods. The only real issue had been the targets put on his back. Eli knew that some of the things he had stolen contained sensitive material - that only made the price higher in his eyes - and that this had caused many important people to start craving his head on a platter.

For this reason, when he had reached the crowded Gangnam district, he slipped into a noodle shop. Both because he was hungry and because he needed to change out of his wig and bandages. Sending a small nod at the owner - a woman who you came across with a vendetta against BigHit and decent enough credibility -, you snuck into the storage room at the back. Behind the cartons of vegetables lay a black duffle bag with all your supplies; make-up remover, bandage rolls, extra clothes, and your day-bag. All which Eli used to revert himself back into you.

Back at the front of the restaurant, the fabric door was held aside as a trio of men made their way into the store, each casting a piercing glance at the patrons of the humble noodle shop. The woman behind the counter bristled as she recognized the statues that graced her store - after all, who did not know these boys?

As she watched them hover at the entrance of her shop, the ma’am finally got the chance to study them. They were an intimidating bunch, refined with the kind of confidence that came from their skills and not their looks. Like few others, they had taught themselves the art of subtle patronization.

As she watched their eyes dart around the store, she finally realized that they were looking for the Ruffian. His true name she did not know, but he had made a deal with her concerning the back room of her shop and had been using it for a week or so. She did not know what exactly happened in that back room, but she suspected it had something to do with the (e/c)-ed woman that walked out soon after.

Half of her wanted to send her worker back to warn whoever was back there, but she decided against it. What she had heard from the Ruffian was vague, and before she gave either one her loyalty, she needed to see more about them. Thus, the only interaction she made was to bow respectfully towards them and offer them a seat, which they took with deception in their bones.

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