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colleendoran · 3 months

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Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

Go me!

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt.

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back.

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news.

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work.

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work.

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way.

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry.

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings, enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks.

#good omens graphic novel #good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dunmanifestin

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bamsara · 5 months

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I’m a little confused, who is Arson? Did you name your computer that or the program or something like that? Been trying to piece stuff together with all the posts about Arson but I feel a little lost. Like it’s an inside joke that I wasn’t there for the development of it

Rip I forgot new followers are not Aware of Arson

Arson is my laptop. Specifically a laptop sona I made for my laptop because of the sheer amount of trouble I've had with him. Twitch chat started shipping an 'enemies to lovers' between me and my laptop and it was giving me such a hard time during a livestream that it turned into a full fledged oc.

He's a gaming laptop I got in 2018 and had saved up for and while he's very good, his technical service life was only for 3 years and it's been about 5 and a half years since I've had him because I didn't want to replace him.

This means for the last two years he's been progressivly getting worse; starting with the battery going out completely, and then it getting discontinued so I couldn't replace it, the laptop started lagging hard, which I just kinda delt with. Then he's bluescreening a lot, and my files are getting corrupted and disappear. He cannot detatch from the wall so he's not a laptop anymore but really just a desktop now anyway. His model is discontinued so I cant get parts to replace him or have him repaired.

It's a running joke that 99% of all streaming problems are Arson's fault because for no reason he'll just. Crash and critcal error this and bluescreen that.

He got his name because he overheats really badly, and while gaming laptops are built to withstand that kind of heat, it still does wear and tear over time.

It would have been fine for 2-3 years but it's climbing near to 6 and part of the front is melted and I have to turn stream and art off early sometimes to let him cool down because the keyboard has left burns on my fingers. (Though this only happens when using him intensly, like streaming or gaming or art....which is 90% of what I do. The other being writing and work.) (Also before anyone asks, I regularly clean out the fans and I have a cooling stand beneath him)

Currently the top part of his keyboard is not working anymore and he's missing keys anyway. Part of his casing near the charging port is broken off. I've used his heat to cook tiny cookies while I've played skyrim before

TBH If you just search up Arson on my blog you'll see a whole series of posts about him.

he's my guy......my robot.........

#arson oc

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mrswolffs-blog · 1 month

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Heyy!!! I was wondering can you write a one with Lewis c black reader Toto? Like Toto and reader are married and poly and they have a secret relationship with Lewis and one day Lewis gets injured in a race so she goes to check on him and they assume she’s cheating on Toto until he confesses that there all in a relationship with each other! I don’t know it’s up to you!

The fun part of being in a polyamorous relationship with two of the most popular men in the United Kingdom, is the fact that it was kept a secret from the world as we snuck around; playing hide and seek.

Today is the second to last race of the season as both of my partners prepare themselves for the hectic race ahead. The cars were checked over and both drivers were inspected as to be sure they were fit to drive out in the sun today before everyone started getting dressed and heading to their cars.

I for one always stayed by my husband's side as to not draw suspicion with Lewis; I had a bad feeling about thus race and so I kinda just sticked myself to his side, leaving my husband with George and the computers with analysis that I will never understand.

Walking along the corridors, Lewis and laced ourselves together in a tight hug as he swayed me from left to right. "Promise me you'll be careful?" I asked low but loud enough for him to hear. "I'm always careful sweetheart. I would never be careless when I have you to return to" he said softly as he kissed my forehead.

Time passed and all the drivers were now line up on the grid waiting for the green light that came sooner than I wanted. The race went on with me being extremely anxious, feeling the need to puke everything Lewis had to take a sharp turn in the narrow corners.

TOTO'S POV

Lewis had been going good for the most part, George looks to be a bit struggling and honestly this has been our reality for a while. Y/n has been jerking anxiously beside me as she had made her concern about the race earlier and I'm honestly concerned with her state.

Turning in my seat to speak to Bono, after a minute I heard shouting. Spinning around, I realised that my wife is being held back by some mechanics as she begged them to allow her go out. Swiftly running over and taking her from them, she broke down in my arms crying. "He crashed Torger, I told you we should've had the reserve driver go in today." She referred to Lewis who was just getting out of the car.

Allowing her to go out, she walked straight to the entrance where the safety car would arrive with Lewis, as I went to check on George.

LEWIS' POV

The safety car stopping at the entrance and allowing me to exit, I spotted Y/n running straight for me as she landed in my arms. Hearing her sniffles, I ran my hand over her curls instead of risking to knot my hand into her hair.

Whispering calming words into her ears, I kissed all over her face, stopping at her lips. Unbeknownst to us, camera had actually followed her 6here and the moment was spread live.

Upon returning to the garage, everyone stared as Toto engulfed us into a hug. The post race interviews came with everyone questioning what happen, and for a while I said nothing so everyone's best guess was that Y/n wad having an affair with me and Toto was allowing it.

Fans started trashing her online within seconds and Toto and I could not have that happening so we went to the last inter view together, finally responding to the question "My wife is not having an affair, the three of us are in a polygamous relationship- not that it's any of your business but I would like for y'all to stop slandering my innocent wife's name" Toto answered, stunning everyone as I just stood back and smiled at Y/n who I could see had fallen asleep on the couch at the garage's entrance. Overtime the fans came to term with it and eventually loved seeing all three of us together; there were no more problems.

#lewis hamilton fanfic #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton fluff #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton x oc #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton x you #toto wolff #toto wolff imagine #toto wolff x reader

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in1-nutshell · 5 months

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Hey, not sure if you're down for writing a continuation of the “Megatron 'accidentally' adopting human Buddy who fears nothing” post. But there was a line “Rung has a line of bots that express the same worry for Buddy one day doing something dumb and not being able to come back from it.” that I think should be expanded upon. Dangerous things are constantly happening to the lost light crew and Buddy must have the devil's luck to come out of everything that happens unscathed. I'd like to see that luck run out. I'd like to see the crew panicking because Buddy got hurt badly and there's been no news if they'll recover or not. I want to see Megatron deal with the impending mortality of his newly adopted kid poorly. And I want to see everyone on the lost light panic even more because if Megatron doesn't start a war if this kid dies, Whirl absolutely will. P.s please let buddy live, I may crave angst, but not that much.

Have a good day, love your writing

Ooooh! Have you been peaking at some of my drafts? haha! I have been thinking about what would happen if Buddy ever got hurt on Megatron's watch. But now more bots are going to watch.

Hope you enjoy!

Megatron and Fearless Buddy who gets seriously hurt

SFW, familial, platonic, angst but happy ending, mention of injuries but nothing graphic or detailed, Human reader

MTMTE/LL

As we all know Buddy fears nothing

And this put some stress on their friends and new dad, Megatron.

“Hey Megs!”--Rodimus

“Rodimus, don’t call me that.”--Megatron

“Yeah, not gonna happen. Anyways I was wondering if you’ve seen Buddy anywhere. They were supposed to show me something?”--Rodimus

“Show you what?”--Megatron

“Something about being a present for being Brainstorm’s ‘Guinea pig’?”--Rodimus

Buddy flying by on a jet pack.

“Hi Roddy! Hi Megs! Bye Roddy! Bye Megs!”--Buddy

“…”—Rodimus and Megatron

CRASH!

Both mechs start running

But as time continues to go on, their little antics are just normalized. Sure, there are still some bots that know the true fragility of the human life span. Such bots included but not limited to Ratchet, First Aid, Velocity, Swerve, Rung, Megatron, and Whirl

“Where are you going with those pilars?”—First Aid

“It’s nothing illegal, yet.”--Buddy

“What type of answer is that!?”—First Aid

But for the most part the crew thinks Buddy is almost as durable as they are. Yes, even Megatron has been guilty of this type of behavior. He isn’t too proud of that.

“C’mon Fleshy jump and do a flip!”—Random Bot

“Bet—”--Buddy

“I think not.”--Whirl

“Whirl?!”--Buddy

“If you break your dumb fragile bones who else is going to come with me on planet expeditions? Cyclonus? I think not. He sucks out all the fun.”—Whirl

“I am literally right here.”--Cyclonus

So, let the angst begin.

The place was being invaded by space pirates.

The pirates where taking the bridge and had successfully barricaded themselves in.

“Why can’t we just break the door down?”--Buddy

“The main room has delicate equipment. One wrong move…”--Megatron

“Okay that’s a bad idea then.”--Buddy

“We just need an opening from the main door and we can figure out the rest.”--Rodimus

“Hey, I’m tiny enough to fit through the crack under the door. I can open the door!”--Buddy

“Absolutely not.”--Megatron

“For once I’m agreeing with him.”--Whirl

“Hey, its not like we have many options here. Unless someone else has a better idea then I am quite literally the only thing stopping these guys.”--Buddy

“…go then…”--Megatron

He was going to regret saying it like that. The computers dashboard in order to unlock the door or at least give it an opening. So, when they were sure that the aliens weren’t looking, they sprinted over to the console by swinging up with a grappling hook to the chair and began running towards the buttons.

They had indirectly activated the plasma screens.

These were holoscreens all over the ship that would show what was happening on the bridge. Everyone had a front row seat to Buddy sprinting across the console. There where cheers as Buddy was coming closer and closer to the button

“They made it!”--Rodimus

“Way to go Buddy!”--Tailgate

“Just press the button.”—Ultra Magnus

“That’s my Amica—”--Whirl

It was right there…

The alien came out of nowhere…

“EW! A Rat!”--Alien

“A ra—"--Buddy

They swatted Buddy across the room in one swift movement. They’re tiny body hurdling across the room and off screen. A small sickening crack was heard.

It was barely noticeable.

But it caused a deafening sound across the entire Lost Light.

Good news for the crew, Buddy’s shoe came off from the force of the hit and successfully pressed the button opening the door.

Everyone is lined up to take these aliens down.

Megatron and Whirl are at the forefront of it.

Megatron is trying to find Buddy while Whirl is absolutely destroying everything.

Megatron spots Buddy slumped over in the far corner of the room.

No motion, nothing

He is just frozen in place.

“Buddy…”--Megatron

“…”--Buddy

“Megatron! Move!”--Ratchet

Ratchet snaps him out of it as he is trying to help Buddy.

Megatron snaps out of it a cover him.

Buddy is rushed out an into the medbay.

Everyone is waiting.

The sudden gravity of Buddy’s mortality weighs heavily on the minds of everyone involved.

Megatron sulks in his room thinking about how he failed them. He can’t bear to sit by Buddy in the med bay. Ratchet understands and tells him that he when Buddy wakes up.

Whirl on the other hand, stays by Buddy’s bed side the entire time.

“Hey Tiny. It’s been a hot minute since you’ve open those little eyes… You mind opening them up?”--whirl

“…”--Buddy

“Fine be like that…”--Whirl

“…”--Buddy

“Well, you’ve missed a lot since you took that hit. One you have a ton of inner most energon by your room and a growing number of get-well gifts. I personally made sure none of you’re a secret bomb. Megs is still in his room and its giving everyone the creeps.”--Whirl

“…”--Buddy

“… Don’t tell this to anyone… but we miss you, you scared the ever living Pits out of us.”--Whirl

“…”--Buddy

Whirl has lost every good thing in his life. He is going to make sure that this one thing does go so soon.

Buddy does wake up

“Hye Whirly Bird?”--Buddy

“Buddy?!”--Whirl

“Why you looking at me like that? Someone died?”--Buddy

“You nearly did Tiny!”--Whirl

“But I didn’t, huh? It takes more than a hand to stop me.”--Buddy

“…I guess huh.”--Whirl

Megatron is zooming over when he hears. Buddy is trying to play off their injuries to try and keep the peace.

“Hey Megs.”--Buddy

“Buddy…”--Megatron

“You okay? You look like you’re dying.”--Buddy

“… that was a poor choice of words.”--Megatron

“Yeah I guess— woah, Megs?"—Buddy

Megatron gently holding Buddy’s hand the best he can

“Just let me hold you please, just a little bit.”--Megatron

“Sure Megs.”--Buddy

As they are recovering Buddy is treated with a bit more respect than they had before. Good thing too, they did after all manage to save the ship after all.

#transformers #transformers x reader #idw mtmte #mtmte x reader #mtmte megatron #mtmte rodimus #mtmte whirl #maccadam #mtmte x platonic reader #human buddy

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code-es · 1 year

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The women who laid the foundation of tech

EDIT: I noticed that this post ended up being reblogged by terfs. If you're transphobic this post is not for you to reblog. I want to celebrate everyone who is not a cis man in this industry, including trans women and nonbinary people in tech, and it was my mistake to only include cis women in this post when there are so many trans women and nonbinary people who have done great things in tech as well. Trans women are women and just as important.

Here you can read about trans ppl in tech, and please do:

https://www.thecodingspace.com/blog/2022-03-01-six-trans-programmers-who-shattered-the-lavender-ceiling/

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/transgender-tech-visibility-obstacles-remain/story?id=76374628

The morning of women's day i attended a super inspiring seminar about being a woman in tech at a large tech company in my city, and now I'm inspired to share what I learned with all of you!

I didn't have time to finish this post on women's day, but it's not too late to post now: every day is a day to celebrate women!

Women actually laid the foundation for a lot of the tech industry.

For example, the first computer, ENIAC, was programmed completely by women! While men were the behind the scenes engineers, it was women who did all the actual programming of ENIAC.

The women who made up the team responsible for programming it were called Jean Bartik, Kay McNulty, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances V. Spence and Ruth Teitelbaum.

I think one woman who is finally getting her overdue recognition is Ada Lovelace. She was a mathematician (also often referred to as the first programmer) who created the first algorithm in 1842, which wasn't recognized until 1953! However, since none of her machines were ever completed it was never tested in practice during her time.

She has since been celebrated by giants such as google, and she has given name to a programming language (Ada). She was also the first person to write about what is today known as AI. Back when she was practicing, computers were simply thought of as calculators. But she had an idea that if computers can understand numbers, then that can be translated to letters, and in turn that can lead to computers being able to handle words, and eventually even write, draw and create music.

Hedy Lamarr was a famous Hollywood actress in the 40's, but she was also an inventor who laid ground for what we use today for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS services.

During WW2 she wanted to contribute positviely to the military efforts against the Nazis, and she tried to figure out how to radio control torpedoes. In 1942 she patented her technology "Secret Communications System", also known as frequency hopping, which laid the foundation for the technology we use today for Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It wasn't until 1962 that it was first used for its intended purpose, during the cuban missile crisis.

Grace Hopper invented the first compiler, called A-0, in 1955, and was also part of the Univac team, which was the company also responsible for building ENIAC. She also initiated work on the COBOL programming language.

She was also the one to coin the term "bug" in 1947. Computers back then had lights to visualize their working process (which was also a womans idea to implement btw) and bugs would be attracted to the lights, but usually that was no issue - until a bug made its way into a tube which caused the computer to stop working. Hopper taped the bug to a piece of paper and logged what caused the crash - a bug.

Dorothy Vaughan (left), alongside colleagues such as Katherine Johnson (middle) and Mary Jackson (right), was a mathematician at NASA (called NACA when she started) who worked on the orbit for the first ever manned spaceflight and later also on Apollo 11 that would take humanity to the moon!

When Vaughan started at what was then called NACA, segregation was still prevalent in the US and she was not allowed in the same areas in the office as her white colleagues. Another department was formed for the black staff, and when the director of said department unexpectedly died, she was appointed as the new director and thus became the first ever black woman at that position at NACA/NASA. In 1958 when NACA becomes NASA segregation is forbidden, and that is when Vaughan and her colleagues Johnson and Jackson started working on programming the orbit and later also Apollo 11.

Continuing on the same track of NASA and space, Margaret Hamilton was the Apollo project's first actual programmer. Hamilton became the director of software engineering at NASA in 1965, and she was also the person to first coin the term !

In the image above, she stands next to all the handwritten code that was used to send humanity to the moon. During the early stages of the project when she would speak of "sofware engineering", software development was not taken as seriously as other forms of engineering, and it wasn't regarded as a science, either. She wanted to legitimize software development as an engineering discipline, and overtime the term "software engineering" gained the same respect as any other technical discipline.

And lastly, if you're a woman in STEM, I want to highlight and celebrate you! Being a woman in a male dominated industry is not easy, we often suffer from sterotype threat and are not seen as our own individuals, but rather "the woman" in a room full of men. But just as these women, I'm sure you will achieve greatness!!

Here are some additional resources if you'd like to learn more:

https://www.history.com/news/coding-used-to-be-a-womans-job-so-it-was-paid-less-and-undervalued

https://digitalfuturesociety.com/programming-when-did-womens-work-become-a-mans-world/

And this was mainly my source for this post, but it's unfortunately only available in Swedish:

Thank you for reading ✨

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strstab · 1 year

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𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 - 𝐣.𝐦

summary ; planning to study on the beach, not much gets done as your boyfriend comes to you for affection

pairing ; jj maybank x fem!reader

notes ; kissing, beach studying, pda, fluff, mentions of kids & marriage

a/n ; i had something else planned for today but i wouldn’t be able to finish in time so hopefully it’s out tmr? sorry this sucks it’s last minute 😓

ALSO THANK YALL FOR 200+ NOTES ON MY PREV POST. honestly my phone was buzzing every couple minutes and it made my day. hopefully this gets around the same attention as the last. enjoy <3

after hours of surfing and downing beers with your best friends, you decided to settle down and do you homework as the sun began to set.

after setting your notebooks and laptop onto your towel, you laid on your stomach and began to copy down your notes that were written on your notebook. writing paragraphs and finding answers came easy to you, but not to the blond that approached you after a good 10 minutes with droplets of water dangling from his hair.

“left us for a computer and stacks of paper, baby?” he looked down at you with a lopsided grin. you looked up at him, shielding your eyes from the beaming sun that was soon to be gone and replaced with the glistening moon.

jj plopped down next to you, ruffling his hands in his wet hair causing the drops of water to fly onto your dry skin and notebook. you slapped his knee and scolded him for wetting you and your work. he refrained from making a dirty joke and apologized. he stared at you as you typed along the keyboard of your laptop, fingers leaving satisfying clicking sounds at each key you tapped.

you looked ethereal in this moment. sun beaming on your glowing skin, strands of hair dangling in front of your oh so focused face. he loved that face you made when you were focused. determined or just simply thinking of the random thoughts that flooded your mind when you were around people. the ways your eyes squinted in the slightest way and brows creased as you chewed on the bottom of your lip. or your nails. he knew you chewed on your nails at times. the nails that you got done once every month. every month he’d pay that place on figure 8 to see his favorite girl pleased as she looked at her designed nails, even if she was able to pay them herself.

he pressed a soft kiss to the back of your neck and you laughed at the ticklish feel. he snatched the mechanical pencil from your fingers and threw it far towards the sand that faded into blue waters.

“jj! that was my last one and kie’s going to kill you for throwing plastic AND lead into the ocean!” you chide, sitting up to look at him.

he muttered something a long the lines ‘she won’t know’ or ‘she won’t notice’ and pulled you into his lap. you let out a loud sigh as he left a trail of kisses on your cheek and down to your neck.

when he was done, you decided it was your turn. you kissed his jaw and tried to suppress a smile. how could you be mad? yeah, you spent the whole day together but your boyfriend was too cute to be ignored. homework could be finished… sometime later. or maybe never.

he nuzzled into the crook of your neck and whispered pretty nothings only you two could hear. there was something about the waves crashing in and the sun being right on the horizon as you watched the silhouettes of your friends splashing each other with the love of your life right behind you.

jj lifted his face and whispered something inaudible. you tilted your head to look at him but his were fixated on the ocean before you. “what’d you say, baby?”

“i said ‘do you think we could get married on the beach?” you were a little taken aback by the sudden comment but smiled nonetheless. he wanted to marry you. you always saw a future with jj, but hearing him mention it out loud just hit different.

you pushed him onto his back and kissed his lips. he cupped your jaw and melted into you as your lips moved together. you pulled away with a big smile and planted soft peck onto the tip of his nose.

“is that your way of proposing, mr. maybank?”

he sneered and shook his head, “hell no. baby my proposal for you is going to be so big that you’re going to remember every little detail of it and stress out our kids about it so they grow to have high standards,”

kids. jj never was a fan of children. even when he was one himself. but with you, he’d be willing to give up stealing and smoking if it meant being with you for a little longer. so if it was kids you wanted, kids he’d give you. raise with you, scold with you, maybe drink without you but you get the gist.

“but i promise i’ll make you my mrs one day.”

“did you look at the list of baby names i sent you?” you asked looking into his pretty blue eyes.

he had. he went through all of them and surprisingly liked some of them. but you had A LOT of time before he was signing the birth certificate of your kids.

you leaned in for another kiss right as you were smacked in the head with a cold, aluminum can. you snapped your head into the direction where the can flew from and saw your friends standing with grossed out faces.

“get your asses up before we call the PDA police!” john b yelled as kiara and sarah mimicked siren noises.

jj groaned and sat up, giving your cheek a kiss before sliding you off his lap and cleaning up the area.

#jj maybank fluff #beach date #studying #jj obx #jj mayback x reader #kissing #fluff #john b routledge #kiara obx #jj maybank imagine #fem reader #jj maybank x reader #strstab

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lomlhwa · 9 months

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i'm trying to work (k.hj)

pairing: producer bf!hongjoong x non-idol s/o!reader

preview: it's late and hongjoong is still working on his new song. he said you could go home hours ago. you decide that maybe he just needs some... incentive to go home.

tags/warnings: genderless reader, big dick hongjoong, oral (m.receiving), under the desk head for the win, throat fucking, a lot of spit and some crying, cum eating

trigger warnings: n/a

wc: 715

song recs for this fic: she don't like the lights by justin bieber, look don't touch by odetari, seven by jungkook

a/n: it's been so long since i posted T-T i'm so sorry guys. i hope you enjoy this really quick fic while i try and get back on my writing feet <3

you pick up your phone and check the time. 02:00 am. hongjoong said he would take you home 4 hours ago. you knew better than to believe his timelines when he gets invested in a new song. you glance over at him hunched over his computer and soundboard.

“joong,” you say quietly. he hums at you as a response. “can we go home?” you can see him shake his head. you sigh, dropping your arms down on the couch. “you said we could go home hours ago, how are you not done yet?” he can hear the upset in your voice. he just shrugs. “i’m not done yet.”

another hour passes before you’re sick of just sitting behind hongjoong and being ignored. suddenly, you get a brilliant idea.

you inch your way over to the side of his desk. he’s so enveloped in his work that he doesn’t even notice that you’ve moved from your seat. you drop down to crawling under his desk, doing your best to not bump his legs. you don’t want to give yourself away just yet.

you settle into a comfortable position under his desk. well, as comfortable as you can get. you wait a few minutes to see if hongjoong has picked up on anything yet. he hasn’t.

you move your hands towards his pants, trying to be as discreet as possible. you tug on the waistband of his sweatpants. you manage to tug them down enough to get his cock to spring out. he knows you’re there for sure now.

he pushes his chair out a bit to see you. “what are you-” you cut his sentence off by taking his length into your mouth. he lets out a small, shaky moan when you do so. he rests his head on his hand, looking down at you sitting with his cock in your mouth. he watches as you struggle to get the whole thing down your throat.

“you’re really this desperate for my attention, are you?” he asks, cocking one of his eyebrows. you nod slightly, your mouth still full. “okay, then be good and get me off,” he says before pushing his chair back in, causing his cock to jab the back of your throat. you barely manage to fight off a gag.

once he settles into his chair again, you start bobbing your head slowly. your tongue darts out to trace the veins that line his length. he makes the occasional guttural sound. you try your best to deep throat the whole thing but you can barely breathe doing that.

you can tell he’s getting close when his legs start trembling. he finally stops paying attention to his work and leans back in his chair to look at you. hongjoong rests his hand on the back of your head, guiding your mouth up and down.

“baby…” he says. “let me fuck your throat.” you nod. you stop your motions, sinking your mouth down as far as you can without gagging. he tangles his fingers in your hair to keep your head still. you put your hands on his thighs to ground yourself.

he starts thrusting up into your mouth at a fast pace. he’s chasing his high like an animal. tears sting your eyes and saliva drips from your parted lips. your gag reflex is going crazy. your lungs are crying for air.

hongjoong’s face twists in pleasure as his high creeps up on him. his thrusts get more erratic, his balls slapping your face. his head is thrown back, sweet moans leaving his throat.

finally, his high crashes over him. he holds your head down, your nose pressed to his pelvis. he shoots 4 ropes of cum down your throat. you cough and sputter as he holds you down.

when he finally lets go, you come flying off him, coughing and gagging. you swallow all his cum, not really having a choice not to. you wipe your mascara infused tears off your face and wipe your mouth of your saliva.

hongjoong catches his breath before leaning over to save his work and close his tabs. he takes one look at you and laughs. he pulls his pants back up and stands up. he leans down to help you off the floor. “let’s go home.”

#lomlhwa #ateez #atz #hongjoong #kim hongjoong #ateez smut #hongjoong smut #kim hongjoong smut

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persesphonestears · 11 months

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Another tattoo

(Gif not mine :>)

A/N: So I have to make this a more than one part series because I wrote like way too much and I’m gonna die if I don’t post this already. Also so sorry it’s only Ghost in this post, but promise the second part will have the others!! I actually had so much fun writing this like omfg, I don’t have any piercings or tats for myself thanks to money problems atm but like actually I don’t know where I was going with that- uh anyway enjoy! I’m very tired. (looking at the amount now seems rlly small so sorry :/) ALSO I FUCKIN HATE THE NAME TOO LEAVE ME ALONE.

CW: He/they pronouns used for reader(? I might have ended up just using they/them), Reader has tattoos and piercings, I DONT THINK I USED Y/N LES GOO, I call ghost Simon when he isn't at work, Probably incorrect tattoo health procedures, Reader may be a little bland when first meeting Ghost(?), small mentions of gods(?)

Word count: 1342

Simon was finally let off for a break, given it’s only because Price knew he wasn’t keeping himself healthy or sleeping, so being the ‘dad’ boss he is, Simon was forced to take time off. While Simon wasn’t even close to being happy about having to not stay at base and having to make himself food and all the other human necessities, he’d been wanting a new tattoo for some time now. While maybe some of the privates would simply tattoo each other with pen ink, he’d rather die on the field than die from an infection from a more than likely shitty tattoo.

Walking through the somewhat dodgy looking part of his hometown, looking for a seemingly decent tattoo shop. While walking his eye was caught by the small little tattoo shop that looked clean and not all that dodgy. A small bell as the door opened rang as Simon stepped through, looking around at the walls he was impressed with the artwork that was displayed. He could hear faint 2000s rock music in the background of the shop, standing awkwardly waiting to see if anyone was actually here.

Turning around to walk out, he heard a small crash and a string of curses that followed.

Simon stopped and turned to see a short tattooed and pierced person walking out from the back of the shop. “Hi, sorry I was uh..” their talking trailed off as he looked down to see a fresh and unfinished tattoo on their leg. Unknown to Simon, the person in front of him was just very very happy that they weren’t able to be seen from the back, preferring not to be caught staring at the huge 6’4 man in their shop.

“Uh anyway, I’m guessing you don’t have an appointment cause I don’t have any till later tonight, but I take walk in’s, both for tats and piercings'' They rambled off as they walked around to the front desk checking through their computer, Simon watched them, surprised by the feeling of fluttering in his stomach. Pushing it away he cleared his throat “Uh yeah walk in, are you able to tat up my other forearm?” he was wearing a t-shirt under his hoodie, happy he wasn’t going to be taking his shirt off. “Mhm sure, I just need to ask a few questions and then get you to sign some consent forms, that cool?” He asked walking back around and sitting on one of the couch chairs at the front, taking a seat after them, Simon sat and agreed to the others' request.

“Cool, alright so first is which arm you want it on obviously and if you have any tattoos on your forearm already?” Simon answered with short and gruff answers “My right arm and no, my left is already tattooed(I think I can’t remember which arm of his is tatted).” “Right cool okay so I’m not gonna bother asking if you're of age because it's pretty obvious because holy shit you are probably the biggest and hottest man I’ve ever seen, but just read through these quick and sign ‘em” Thanking whatever gods there were for people not being able to read minds. Handing the forms to Simon he grabbed them and the pen from your hands, giving a quick read through signing where he had to. Putting them back on the desk, you grabbed them right back and skimmed through them, “Okay Simon, well what do you want?”.

—tiny time skip–

After setting everything up and placing the stencil of the sketch that you drew up (That Simon wouldn’t admit but absolutely adored) onto the gruff military man that was sitting in your chair. “Okay, you ready?” A simple nod was what you received in response. Instead of pushing you continued to go ahead and start his tattoo, not once deciding to ask about some of the many scars that graced his arms. Them seemingly adding onto your attraction for the stranger in your shop as he sat still and silent. Becoming; as you do when tattooing, engrossed in the soft buzzing, the hushed music of your playlist and the ink going into skin at your hand.

“How many do you ‘got?” The gruff voice from above me spoke as I continued to stab his skin. “Tats or piercings?” Responding with another question as I kept my focus on the shading, trying to not let the fact that this absolute 10/10 was asking you about yourself. Sure it was most likely to just make conversation but you could dream. “Both?” The voice behind the black surgical mask didn’t sound overly confident but even when peeking up at the man he was still only looking forward. “I stopped counting how many tats I got a while ago. As for my piercings uh..” cutting myself off to count in my head. “I’d say about 9, not counting my ears.” Feeling a cold gaze turn towards me I stiffen slightly.

“You only have 6 on your face.” (I chose to give reader a vertical labret, septum, both sides of the nose(like so you could use a chain), bridge, eyebrow :D) His voice replies, stifling my laugh “yeah I know I just don’t normally let people see my chest or just randomly show my stomach.” Giggling, I look up to see his ears turning a slight pink. “R-right sorry.” Trying not to laugh at a client, we continued to talk for a bit more before I suggested to put a movie on more to make it less uncomfortable for me with the awkward conversation. After picking a movie, he seemed to relax just a tad more, getting myself comfortable. I continued to finish up the art piece I was adding to someone's skin.

—another time skip because Ghost would get something edgy and big and I can’t keep writing silly awkwardness—

By the time you had finished and made sure to add some disinfectant and soothing cream to the skin before wrapping it up. You pat his shoulder smiling softly “you’re all done big guy”. Rising from the seat, he walked somehow (even though this man is huge) silently towards the front desk. Scanning his card and giving him the papers that explained how to look after his tattoo. “Thank you. You’re uhm. Very handsome- or uh pretty? I don’t know, can I just get your number?” Stumbling over his words brought a smile to your face. “Sure, I’d uh I’d actually really like it if you took my number” you ramble as you grab some scrap paper, quickly writing your personal number you hand it to him.

Seeing his eyes scrunch slightly, let you know he was smiling at you, and god almighty if the fact that this huge, scary, masked, stoic, man giving you a smile, that you couldn’t even see, wouldn’t make you swoon. Giving you a quick nod he walked out, the small bell above your door ringing in your ears as you watched him leave.

Giggling to yourself as you stupidly fist pumped the air and twirled around happily, not registering the sound of the bell being rung, indicating the opening of a door. What you did register was the once again gruff voice, clearing their throat as you turned back to look at the man who just left back in your shop. “Forgot ma’ cap.” Swiftly grabbing his hat back with what you could only assume was the smuggest look ever he turned back around. This time leaving you with a curt “Bye now, doll”

Leaving you red faced, in the middle of your own shop. Snapping out of it you groaned loudly before retreating to the floor, hidden by the desk. Cursing yourself for your stupid victory jig you did before even making sure that he wouldn’t come back for a bit. A buzz in your pocket distracted you from your internal dread, pulling out your phone and opening it to see a message from an unknown number. “That lil’ dance was very cute btw”.

A/N: *twerks cutely* ANYWAY

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lavendarlily · 25 days

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yeah of course my first fic for @phicphight is gonna be crack

for the prompt that wasn't a prompt by @faeriekit

am i doing this right?

prompt: PR096 - No prompt, just a note; I can't guarantee I understand the format of the prompts required here.

words: 777

click here to read on ao3

jack stumbles across something troubling, but finds the light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally. He had the house to himself. Jazz was at a study group, Maddie went to test some weapons in the field, and Danny… well, all Jack knew was that Danny wasn’t home.

Jack loved his family - so incredibly much that it was a miracle you could fit all that love into one man (even one at Jack’s size). Yet between the needs of his children and assisting his wife with her inventions, it was difficult to find a moment for himself. Believe it or not, Jack Fenton did in fact have interests and hobbies outside of ghosts. It was just hard to make time for them, and boy was that new yarn burning a hole in his crafts closet, just waiting to be used. First, there were a few techniques he wanted to research before really digging in.

He fetched the laptop from the basement, and grabbed a soda from the fridge on his way to the living room. Jack settled in, feet resting on the coffee table since Maddie wasn’t home to tell him otherwise. He opened the computer, and groaned to himself when a myriad of open tabs took over the screen.

He’d told the kids so many times! Close your tabs after using the computer! He was always afraid of accidentally closing or deleting something they needed or hadn’t saved. There was also a sense that looking through their history was an invasion of privacy, but whoever had used the computer last would have to give up that privilege. He carefully clicked through the tabs, making sure there wasn’t anything potentially important before exiting out of each one. At least his kids had been doing their homework - Shakespeare analyses, essay writing tips, and hey! They’d found a tutor through some site called ChatGPT that was helping them with their assignment.

He was almost done, ready to dive into video tutorials on achieving the perfect cross-stitch, when he paused. Though Jack tried not to linger on a page longer than he deemed necessary, this one caught his attention. An all too familiar face stared back at him - multiple faces - arranged against a blue background. Jack squinted his eyes at the search bar, reading it aloud.

“Tum-bl-er,” he said slowly. What the hell was this? Jack was certainly concerned at the amount of Phantom propaganda on the screen, leading to an even more troubling question: Which of his kids had fallen under the ghost boy’s spell to have ended up on a hell-site like this?

He scrolled through post after post of photos taken by Amity Park locals, elaborate drawings of the ghost kid, musings of his origins and whereabouts and… oh gosh… love-life. Who were these people worshiping Phantom like this? And why was Jack still looking at it?

It was like a car crash - he couldn’t look away. However, this led him to one post that finally gave Jack a semblance of hope.

Phic Phight.

Jack knew he was no genius, but he side-eyed the misspelling and continued to skim through the rest of it. Fighting was all he needed to hear, especially if there was a group of people who idolized Phantom like… this. The ghost kid needed to go. These people needed to be saved from his manipulation! The words “Team Human” jumped out at Jack from the text, and without needing any more convincing that this is where he needed to be, he clicked the link that led to where he could sign up.

He skipped through all the boring information and went straight into entering his information. There were a few questions he didn’t know how to answer, but he was Jack Fenton! Anyone who was organizing against the ghost problem that plagued Amity Park knew where to find him.

There were only a few questions left, labeled as “Prompts”. Jack wasn’t too certain what it meant, but he could only envision it as where to leave suggestions for the best ways to defeat and capture Phantom. He entered the words electrocute, net, and Fenton Bazooka. He felt a little guilty for not understanding the entire gist of what was going on, so he also left a quick note for the organizer in hopes they would be forgiving.

Jack clicked the submit button at the bottom of the page and smiled to himself. He couldn’t wait to meet all these other folks interested in the well-being of their town. Team Human. It had a nice ring to it. He’d be sure to let Maddie know when she returned - who wouldn’t want the Fentons on their team?

And maybe… he could even get his boy Danny in on it too.

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2024 #lavswordvomit

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simply-smitten · 1 month

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Smitten Master Post!

About me - my socials - my fics

About me~

She/her pronouns

26 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social work

Mcyt is my first/only fandom

I primarily write DNF and Karlnap, but I do have a few multiship thread fics on my 18+ NSFW twitter :)

My boundaries: do not interact with my NSFW content if you’re a minor, do not supply my NSFW content to minors, and do not repost my work whatsoever (only exception is to translate it, but please contact me first to get permission)

My socials~

Ao3: simplysmitten

Main twitter: simplysmitten_

Alt twitter: simplysosmitten

NSFW twitter: simplysmutten (must be 18+ with your age in your bio)

Wattpad: simplysmitten

Curiouscat: simplysmutten

My fics~

Thread fics - Separated by ship (dnf, karlnap, snf, dnn, dnkn), NSFW threads have a warning in red and are posted to my 18+ twitter (simplysmutten), SFW threads that were turned into chapters of “Between Friends” have the Ao3 and Wattpad links, and NSFW threads that were turned into works for my “Beyond Friends” series have the Ao3 link.

Karlnap fics~

Because You Are Love (rated T, 140k, 61/61 chapters)

Summary: Sapnap grew up in Texas, a state where being gay just wasn't something you were allowed to talk about- so he didn't. He never came out to his family and even when he made new friends who loved him unconditionally, he still couldn't bring himself to come out. Staying in the closet never felt like a problem once he moved to Florida with Dream, well, until a video collaboration introduced him to a boy that made him question if he could keep hiding. Now, Sapnap has to return to Texas for the first time since his move to Florida for his step-sister's birthday. What's waiting for him when he arrives is going to make keeping his sexuality a secret from his family that much harder.

(i’m worried) it will always be you (rated E, 120k, 20/20 chapters)

Summary: College AU. Sapnap, a notoriously sullen computer science major, is attending North Carolina State University, along with his roommate and long-time internet friend, Dream. While Dream has been pining over the pretty British boy in a couple of his classes, Sapnap finds himself having a much harder time avoiding a certain gray-eyed ray of sunshine.

*Story is not told chronologically. Chapters will vary from Freshman year (2015-2016 school year) to Senior year (2018-2019 school year). Chapters will be dated at the top to avoid confusion. Also, for reference, 'present day' is spring semester of senior year.*

Your Telephone Calls are my Favorite Place (rated T, 100k, 62/62 chapters)

Summary: Karl is finding it more and more difficult to hide his feelings for his best friend, Sapnap. He's willing to risk it all for his chance at love, but does he really understanding just how much he's risking?

DNF fics~

Please Let Me Go (rated M, 75k, 14/14 chapters)

Summary: Dream finds himself in an introverts worst nightmare when Sapnap convinces him to host seven of their close friends for Sapnap's 21st birthday. The only thing holding Dream together was knowing he could finally meet his best friend, George, in person. However, the person who stepped off the plane felt like a complete stranger to Dream- an unrecognizable personality inhabiting the body of the person he thought he knew better than anyone in this world. Years of online friendship had built up this moment for him, only to come crashing down when George wasn't the man he thought he was.

Between Friends (rated T, 110k and counting, oneshot collection)

Summary: A collection of fluffy DNF oneshots. Each chapter is its own completed story (aside from ‘Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas’ and ‘Homesick-London-Cafe’). Most oneshots are canon adjacent, and so far two are AUs. Primarily takes place around the time of the meet-up.

All paths lead to you (rated T, 30k, oneshot)

Summary: When George is stressed, he has nightmares, and when George has nightmares, he sleepwalks. In a subconscious search for relief, George sleepwalks to the safest place he can find- Dream's room. Dream finds out more than he bargained for when trying to decode George's nonsensical sleep-talking, but he struggles to make conscious-George as comforted by his presence as unconscious-George.

‘Idiot’ means ‘I love you’ in Floridian (rated T, 20k, oneshot)

Summary: Model-George x bodyguard-Dream AU. George has been working as a model for a few years now. His father, a higher up in the English government, insists that George has a bodyguard with him at all times. As an act of defiance, George makes a point to sneak away from his bodyguards to prove to his father they're useless and he doesn't need one. Desperate to find a bodyguard that can actually keep track of his son, George's father hires a bodyguard from a different background- a masked man named Dream. For once, George isn't so eager to get this bodyguard fired.

The Colors We Don’t See (rated T, 7k, oneshot)

Summary: Soulmate AU. Soulmates are predetermined, but that never held Dream back from loving George. When George is finally able to move to Florida, the first thing Dream notices is the way his laugh bounces more clearly than ever before. The second thing he notices is the bright yellow aura surrounding him, like George had stolen the sun out of the sky and placed it in his heart instead. George is his soulmate, that much is clear, but trouble arises when George can't see Dream's aura in return.

Live, Laugh, (Blood)Lust (rated T, 6k, oneshot)

Summary: Vampire-George x wizard-Dream AU. George doesn’t believe bloodlust is real, so Dream offers to put a love spell on him to prove him wrong… but he’s not the best wizardry student.

The Remedy to Everything (rated E, 170k and counting, 38/50 chapters)

Summary: After nearly a year of waiting for his visa, George is finally allowed to go home. Home, meaning a house in Florida that was already inhabited by his two best friends, Dream and Sapnap. Being an omega, George feared what trouble moving in with two alphas could potentially create. He never expected that trouble would come in the form of soft curls and green eyes, sparking something irreversible inside himself.

*uploads are every Monday and Thursday :)*

First Love / Late Fall (rated E, 13k, 3/3 chapters)

Summary: George has been going down a dark path for a while, carelessly using people in order to satisfy selfish needs. He hides who he is from his friends who only know him via the internet. This double life becomes a lot more challenging when someone shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. Could this be the event that triggers George to change?

It Takes Two to Edge (rated E, 7k, oneshot, part 1 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream and George are in a fwb (... plus feelings) type of situation. After their edging session gets interrupted, George rewards Dream with the promise of fulfilling his breeding kink for the first time.

my honey, my moon (rated E, 20k, oneshot, part 2 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream and George go on fake honeymoons, indulging each other in everything they miss about relationships. Then things change when Dream actually gets a girlfriend.

bet your ass i’m right (rated E, 12k, oneshot, part 3 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream and George like to make bets, even over the dumbest of things. The stakes get higher when they start to wager sexual favors.

More Convenient (An Arrangement of Sorts) (rated E, 8k, oneshot, part 4 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Dream can't get off without having a partner to please, but luckily for him, George just moved to America. (also they are idiots in love they are so dumb and so in love but not in an angsty way just a "they're so stupid" way)

GeorgeNotFound OnlyFans (rated E, 37k, 5/5 chapters, part 5 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Fresh out of university and struggling to land a job in his field, George finds himself desperate for a way to make ends meet. While his friends have big dreams of blowing up on YouTube, George decides to make an OnlyFans profile. Shockingly, George goes viral on both platforms, making his money troubles a thing of the past, but maintaining his anonymity a constant worry. How funny is it that he manages to make a friend named Clay on both platforms?

Warm, like Starlight (rated E, 53k, 2/2 chapters, part 6 of Beyond Friends)

Summary: Humans are banned from touching other species in the galaxy, but George, a cat-hybrid, takes a leap of faith and lets the human aboard his ship, Dream, pet him. It awakens a side of George he’s desperate to satisfy, and Dream is more than willing to meet all of George’s needs.

Happy reading!

<3 smitten

#pinned #smitten fics #please go easy on me I’m still new here

21 notes · View notes

afandommultiverse · 1 year

Text

Paper Pusher with CAPTAIN JOHN PRICE

♱ Warnings: absolutely none, just some fluff lol, I guess my manic writing is a warning itself Idk

♱ A/n: please enjoy my own personal brain rot, I wrote this at 2 almost 3am and HAVE NOT EDITED IT but I wanted to post it so bad 🥰 I’m not saying it’s good but it’s indulgent 🫶

♱ WC: 1.8k

⌐╦̵̵̿ᡁ᠊╾━ ♡ ⌐╦̵̵̿ᡁ᠊╾━

Paper work was easy, honestly, you preferred it over all the other things you had to do to get to this position. Sure, the boot camps were fun and were great for making friends in later stages. At the end of the day, you weren’t made for the field work and could barely cover your own ass, let alone any of your teammates. It was quick and easy to find a position on task 141 to help oversee and complete any paperwork for the team. This included many things, from researching for future missions and people, keeping up with any new possible sources or tips while the team was away, asking for permissions of sorts from higher ups, completing summaries for each soldier after missions etc etc. You had a lot to do, but like you said, it was all easy and totally worth it.

“Our little paper pusher, how are you doing hm? Miss us while we were away?” The sound of Soap's voice breached the silence in the office, before steps flooded the room. Soon, you had a group of men huddled around your desk, all looking down at you expectantly. You only looked up and smiled, before looking back to the computer to finish your last sentence of an email, before turning back to them.

“Definitely didn’t miss you that much. I like working in silence, thank you.”

“Sure little bird, that's why we could see you looking at us while landing from your window.” Ghost spoke slyly, and glimpsed in his eyes, telling you that he knew something you didn’t.

“Oh alright, you got me. I was waiting to see if there was still a chance you guys would crash before landing.” You quipped, stood up, and stepped over to the printer, where you picked up several forms and turned back around to face them.

“You know the drill boys, fill ‘em out and get them back to me, here in this office, by midnight.” Groans filled the room, but nonetheless, they each took their stacks of paperwork and even grabbed some pens from the cup sitting on your desk. They filed one by one, closing the door again on their way out. When they were gone, you turned and walked into your storage room connecting to your office, and began rifling for an agreement form you had hidden away somewhere. The original was with Price, but since he wasn’t with the guys when they gamed in, you figured he was busy and didn't want to bother him when you could likely find the paper yourself - well, at least after you got some of these boxes out of the way.

You started from the top, wanting to take things easy, and reduce the chances of any of the boxes toppling on top of you. You searched alphabetically, following first, middle and last words you could have used to code the document or even any acronyms, but still had to find it. After fifteen minutes, you were about ready to five up, but that's when you saw it, balancing on a wobbly shelf with 3 around it blocking it in. In all honesty, it was a wonder you had even seen it, but now that you know where it is, the determination from earlier flooded your system and you began planning your accent.

The footstool was too short, but it was thick enough to hold one of the strong containers, filled with books, and from there you could step on that to reach the boxes. The first box came down easily, a loud smack sounding throughout the room as you threw it down to the floor as gently as possible from your elevation. The second one was a little harder, having to push on to the tops of your feet a bit more, your heel ever so slightly coming off the box underneath you. You felt a slight wobble from the shelf, which in turn made you wobble, but after a quick second you were sturdy again. The second smack was a little less loud, landing on top of the other box a bit more softly from the shorter distance.

When you reach the third box, you step to the tip of your toes, the step stool wobbling under your uneven weight as you balance on top of it, but also balancing against the shelf that keeps threatening to tip back against your weight, pushing the box further from the tips of your fingers. You failed your hands to catch the edges of it, pushing it towards yourself, but the movement made minimal progress. You stepped on one foot, slowly going back to what you were doing, concentrating so hard you didn’t hear your office door open and shut again.

“Need some help with that?” The voice startled you, ripping in half the concentration and balance you tried so hard to maintain in two. It was like dominoes, the shelf pushing back against your surprised weight and falling against the wall at an awkward angle. Unable to control your momentum, you fell forward with it - the tips of your feet pushing the box under you off the stool quickly. Just as you realized you were indeed falling, two arms wrapped around your waist from underneath you. As your brain caught up with the situation, your hands gripping on the shelf so tight from the fear of upcoming pain, however there was none. The strong arms wrapped around your waist and butt to stop you from falling much further, literally holding you up. Finally, the head of someone just underneath your chin staring up at you bewildered, but as he recognized you were okay, you recognized who HE was.

“P-Price?” Your whole body felt warm, looking down at him shocked. He too mirrored your expression, but it soon turned into a cheeky smile and mischievous glint in his eye.

“Just fallin’ all over me now, are you, L/n?” You turned your head away in embarrassment, to which he chuckled before he moved. He set your feet on top of the step stool again, this time with no shifty box of books on top. When you were stable enough, you stood on the stool yourself, already missing the warm arms around you. But when you unlatched yourself from the shelf, you balanced yourself on his shoulders, liking the feeling of the taunt muscles underneath.

“Are you okay?” He asked, looking at you for any injury to which there was none, fortunately because of his quick savior. You felt like you could breathe again, stepping back on the stool and looking at him in all his returning from mission glory.

“Yes, thank you so much, Price.” You felt your sweat cool from the anxious event, stepping down from step still and standing on solid ground again.

“What were you looking for anyway? Want me to grab it?” He offered, turning to look at the shelf to where you were picking through, seeing the final box, and grabbed the stool for himself. Before you knew it, he was handing you the box to look through, and thankfully you found exactly what you needed. He followed you out of the side room, setting the box on your desk, and you turned off the light and shut the door, almost hesitating to turn back around to the man whose whole presence filled your office.

“You should be more careful, or ask for help next time. We can’t have our little paper pusher out on the comp now.” You snorted, turning to face him with a smile, he always had something to say. You walked over your desk, setting down to sit and riffle through the stacks of forms for the next three or so hours.

“You’d only miss me because you’d have three times as much work to do if it weren’t for me, Captain, don’t kid yourself.” He laughed, heading even tilting back a little. You loved to make him laugh, it was one of your favorite things to do, because if you could make him laugh, you got a heart with that wonderfully velvety voice that almost sang to you.

“You only half right, I’ll give you that.” He settled down in the chair in front of me, laying back like he planned to stay longer. He took his hat off, scratching his head, before placing it back on top in its place.

“Oh? What’s this other half hm? Let me guess, my winning personality?” That sarcasm was basically dripping, but he wasn’t phased, smiling at you before saying,

“If it were up to me, I’d say you were a mind reader, Y/n.” You rolled your eyes, a smile tugging at your lips as you tried to get some work done, but you could not keep your eyes off the man in front of you. He looked tired, but he was happy and tired. The mission had been a success, with zero casualties, and benefited greatly from it, with new assets and even some information worth zeroing in on. Something you would no doubt have to fit in your schedule somehow, but nonetheless it was better than the alternative.

“Don’t you want to go get washed up? Go relax with a cigar or something?” You asked after a half-hour of debriefing and catching up. He had taken off his hat completely, hair messy and flat. His eyes were barely staying open as it is, but he kept chatting, offering to help with anything and everything, not wanting to stay a minute longer as he had asked you earlier when you had come in. When you told him 5am, he almost couldn't believe it, as your job started at 8am, but apparently you wanted a head start on the day. In truth, you couldn’t sleep that night, you could never sleep well enough on the night that they were supposed to come back, almost expecting something wrong to happen, and never being able to see them again, never being able to see Price again.

“I’m relaxing here.” He spoke so plainly. Like he hadn’t been up for the last 64 hours. John Price needed rest.

“I thought you would say that, that’s why I sent Ghost a little email.” As if right on que, Ghost knocked on and opened the door. Walking in and up the Captain.

“Heard yer botherin’ the nice lady.” He joked, nudging John's shoulder while looking back at me shocked.

“You're kicking me out? After I saved you?” You stood and rounded the desk, coming to rest on it in front of him.

“You need to rest John, as much as you want to keep working, you can’t. So get some rest and see me in the morning to talk about your summary papers for this mission.” John groaned as he stood, but shot you a smile before following Ghost out. Truthfully, John didn’t need Ghost to leave, he would have left if you asked the right way.

But you knew deep down you wouldn’t have asked him to leave.

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raainy-daze · 1 year

Text

The Snatcher.

chapter one. ➼ [next.]

rise of the tmnt x gn!reader [PLATONIC], rise!leo x gn!reader

summary: someone keeps stealing everyone’s things. nothing they’ve stolen has any correlation, and it’s anyone’s guess why they’re doing it. as time goes on, the list of crimes grows longer. reader just hopes no one realizes it’s them.

a box of parts has gone missing from donatello’s lab, and needless to say, he’s furious about it. just one heist in, and it’s already quickly turning into everyone’s problem.

word count: 2,868

a/n: guess who’s back with his first multi-chapter fic y’all

i’m gonna have another post regarding my return from hiatus with more details on that and my writing plans around the same time i post this, so please do check that out if you care about this blog!

in regards to the fic: i like to call this one “in which the reader is full-on just kind of an asshole and steals everyone’s stuff for no reason”. so, if you just so happen to be a little shit, congrats! this one’s for you. reader is in a relationship with leo in this, but that’s not really the focus, and it isn’t really even explicitly mentioned in this chapter.

All was still.

It was well past dark in New York City. Of course, that didn’t mean much - it’s called the city that never sleeps for a reason. Above ground, traffic still raced on, people still yelled in the streets, the hubbub didn’t quit. But in some apartments, families closed their curtains, tucked their children into bed, and tried to ignore the clamor outside their windows.

Below ground was a slightly different story, however. Sounds were muffled by concrete, leaving the rush of cars and footsteps inaudible. Occasionally, you would hear the telltale rattle of the subway, but it was easy enough to ignore once you got used to it. Normally, in this strange home beneath the city, there would still be some sort of noise at this hour, but the Hamato family had retired a bit earlier than usual tonight. Splinter had even remembered to turn off the projector, which was rare enough to be notable. As far as the family was concerned, everyone was tucked into bed and sleeping soundly. Not a creature was stirring.

Except for one.

In contrast to the rest of the lair, the laboratory wasn’t totally quiet, nor was it totally dark. The machines which occupied the room produced soft whirring noises at all times, and had plenty of blinking lights to keep the room just barely illuminated. Most of it was a very dim light, but at the main desk with the most clutter, there was one brighter source. The computer was open to some Wikipedia page, and the light it produced fell softly on the face of a sleeping softshell turtle.

Normally, he would still be awake, working away on his various inventions. But this evening, he’d crashed far earlier than normal. Definitely unusual, but no one would be particularly surprised to hear about it. After all, he had gone without sleep for what? Three days now? It was only logical he would drop at some point, whether it be by his own will or nature taking over. He needed this sleep, everyone (except perhaps himself) would agree. It was a tad unfortunate, however, that he crashed when and where he did. For one thing, the desk littered with empty coffee cups and stray materials couldn’t be a very comfortable pillow, and far more importantly, he hadn’t had time to close anything down for the night. Some things were left running, and their batteries would likely be drained by morning. That was the least of his concerns, however. What he should, and likely would if he was conscious, be worried about was that nothing was locked. The door to the lab, the cabinets of valuable tools, nothing. His precious projects were left completely and utterly vulnerable, as he would find out when the morning came.

It was Friday evening, April 16th. The small clock in the bottom right corner of the computer read 11:24 PM.

That was when the Snatcher struck for the first time.

•°. *࿐

“I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here today.”

It was Saturday morning, 8:42 AM. It wasn’t unusual for you to meet on a weekend, but it was a bit strange that it was so early in the morning. Saturdays are for sleeping in, after all, but that hadn’t been an option this morning, thanks to Donatello. You’d been woken up bright and early at 7:00 AM by your phone blowing up with notifications, demanding that you get to the lair as soon as possible because Donnie had a “code red emergency that he needs everyone to meet for ASAP”. A quick check with Leonardo, however, revealed that there wasn’t, in fact, a code red (something on fire, someone bleeding, or an alien invasion). According to him, Donnie had woken everyone up banging pots and pans at an absolutely ungodly hour, and was very passive aggressive all throughout breakfast. All of that, and he was refusing to explain why until everyone was present.

So, here you were, sitting in the main room of the lair at this mildly ridiculous hour of the morning with everyone. And when you said everyone, you meant everyone. Yourself, April, and the guys were the usual given, as well as Casey Jr. since he showed up. Cassandra was sitting over on the far right next to Sunita, and even Splinter had been dragged to this meeting, though he appeared to already be drifting off. Upon arrival, you had been informed that Draxum was also invited, but had refused. You supposed Donnie didn’t have the authority to argue there.

“Will you get to the point already?” Leo groaned next to you. “It’s been hours.” Raphael and Michelangelo looked equally annoyed and tired, and you couldn’t blame them, what with the stories you’d heard earlier. You considered regretting taking extra time for breakfast and prolonging their suffering, but you couldn’t really bring yourself to. It was some damn good breakfast, and they ought to be used to this stuff by now.

Standing in front of you all, Donnie sighed. “All right, all right, you guys have no respect for a good monologue.” He grabbed hold of the whiteboard he had rolled out of the lab earlier and dramatically spun it around. You squinted, trying to interpret the scribbles made in dry erase marker, but quickly gave up. He would undoubtedly explain it all to you regardless.

“Last night, sometime between 10:30 PM and 4:00 AM, someone broke into my lab!”

Everyone stared at him blankly.

“Donnie,” April said, “I was just in there. Nothing looked very broken into.”

“Yes, nothing LOOKED amiss, my dear April, but one very crucial detail!” He pointed towards one corner of his whiteboard, at what you now recognized as a diagram of the lab. He circled a drawing of what appeared to be a box he had very subtly labeled “GPS PARTS”. “This box” -he gestured again for extra emphasis- “contained–”

“Let me guess, GPS parts?”

“LET ME SPEAK!” Donnie took a deep breath and returned to his drawing. “Yes, it contained GPS parts, very important GPS parts I just bought to use on my brand new upgrades to the navigational system in the Turtle Tank, more specifically the parts needed for the antenna, but I know you all start yelling when I go on science tangents, so for your sakes, I won’t elaborate.”

“Thanks, it’s much appreciated.”

Donnie made an expression you quickly recognized as the “trying to blow Leo up with his mind” face.

“And what happened to the parts, Donnie?” April asked.

“Why, thank you for asking. Well, this morning when I awoke…” Donnie took an eraser, held it up, and suddenly began erasing the box far more violently than he really needed to. “IT WAS GONE!”

Donnie’s yell woke Splinter up with a start. “Wh-” Sunita leaned over and whispered a quick summary of the situation. “Oh, that is what you are so mad about? You lost your, uh, things?”

“They weren’t lost, Father, they were clearly stolen!” Donnie was becoming more frantic by the moment. “I checked and double checked their exact position several times last night, to be perfectly sure I wouldn’t loose them! And yet, this morning, they were gone! And they had to have been stolen by SOMEONE IN THIS ROOM! Or Draxum.”

He waved an accusatory finger at… well, everyone. “Everyone present in this room was present last night for our Jupiter Jim: Atomic Lass Dies Again 2 viewing, as you all know!”

This was a fact. Yesterday, everyone in your circle had been invited (or dragged, in Draxum’s case) to watch the new JJ movie the second it came out on DVD. It had been fun, but you doubted anyone there expected to be a suspect by the next morning. Well, except for the perpetrator, you supposed.

“Are you sure, Dee?” Casey Jr. actually looked pretty concerned. He always seemed to take these things a bit more seriously, probably because he wasn’t as used to it. “I mean, you really think someone in this room would steal from you?”

“Oh, you sweet summer child, multiple people in this room have stolen from me. In fact, most people in this room have stolen from me. Some more than others.” He gave a pointed glare in Leo and Cassandra’s directions.

“Do you have any proof?” Cassandra glared right back.

“Yes, Cassandra!” Donnie once more slapped the diagram. “The fact that it’s gone! The fact that there is an outline in the shape of a box entirely free of dust! The fact that whichever one of you who did it (probably Leo) is an–”

“Whoa, whoa, are you accusing me? Your own twin brother?” Leo put a hand on his chest, commencing with his usual theatrics. “Dude, I thought we had a bond!”

“Leonardo, this would be far from the first time you’ve stolen my stuff!” Donnie pointed at him in response. “My tools! My clothing! Anything in my lab you thought looked cool! Even Penelope Platypus!”

“Penelope Platypus?”

“Don’t ask. Never ask about Penelope Platypus,” Raph whispered.

“Understood.”

“Okay, okay-” April stood up from her spot and walked over to Donnie. “Everyone, let’s just-”

“I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR PENELOPE PLATYPUS-”

“Donnie, let’s just calm down!” April grabbed Donnie’s arm and lowered it. “Do you not have any security cam footage?”

“No, April, I do not, because as I conveniently told you all yesterday, all my security measures are under maintenance!”

“Fingerprints?”

“Already checked. Whoever it was, they knew exactly what they were looking for and didn’t touch anything else. Believe me, I have been looking since 4. A. M.”

“Okay, what’s all the rest of this on your board?”

Donnie cleared his throat, but not before sending one last nasty glance his brother’s way. “Well, here I have a list of any possible motivation our thief could’ve had. Leonardo, mischief, Cassandra, mischief, Draxum, turning back into an evil supervillain stuff, Mikey, an insane level of dumb luck and obliviousness-”

“Okaaay.” April cut him off before he could go down the whole list, but you could just make out your own name below Mikey’s. Anything else written on the board, however, was pretty much lost to time thanks to Donnie’s illegible handwriting.

April picked up a dry erase marker from the bottom of the board, and began making amendments to Donnie’s notes. “Well, we know it couldn’t have been me or Sunita, since we left while you were still awake.” She crossed out both names. “Mikey also went to bed pretty early, but I guess he could’ve gotten up and come back downstairs.” She placed a question mark next to Mikey’s name. “If our thief did know what they were looking for, then who did you tell about these parts?”

“Well, I told you, of course.” April began making checkmarks as Donnie listed names. “I also told Casey Jr. when I was teaching him how refrigerators work.”

You decided not to ask.

“I mentioned it to Father, but I doubt he was listening, since he clearly doesn’t often.” He paused as he stared at Splinter, who took a full seven and a half seconds to space back into reality and notice.

“Oh, are we done? Wonderful, I’m missing the latest episode of-”

“No, Father, we are not done!”

“Also, we don’t get cable,” Raph pointed out.

“Alright, and that’s everyone?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Alright. So we’ve got ten total suspects, two with a solid alibi, three with inside knowledge, and…” April muttered to herself as she read over Donnie’s guessed motivations. How she managed to read those, you had no clue. “... two with a reasonable motive. Not a lot to go off of.”

“Well then, on to my planned second step; I will now be questioning each of you in order from oldest to youngest.” Uh oh. “Father?”

“Uh- yes, Purple?”

“WHERE WERE YOU THE NIGHT OF APRIL 16TH?”

“... I believe I was here. I also believe that was yesterday.”

You exchanged a look with Leo. This was going nowhere - Donnie was just going to yell a lot, and eventually Cassandra was going to start yelling back, and then everyone would be yelling, and it would just be really loud. You pulled out your phone as discreetly as you could, and began typing.

was it you?

be honest i swear i won’t tell anyone

no!!! i went straight to sleep after you left

i didn’t go anywhere near the lab

i assume you wouldn’t be asking if it was you

well duh

should we tell him raph slipped sleeping meds in his coffee

no, that’ll just make it worse

raph wouldn’t do it anyways, he’s too nice

point taken

so what are we supposed to do

watch it play out?

you read my mind

You looked up from your phone, back at Donnie, who had moved on from Splinter to Cassandra. This would be fun.

“WHY THE HELL WOULD I TAKE IT? I WOULDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT!”

“YOU HAVE ONE OF THE TOP MOTIVES, CASSANDRA!”

“AND WHAT KIND OF MOTIVE IS THAT?!”

“TO SPITE ME!”

“TO SPITE– oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“SO YOU ADMIT IT!”

“I ADMIT TO NOTHING!”

“Oh my god, they’re going to kill each other.” You sincerely doubted you would see anything as entertaining as this for the rest of the week. It was pettiness at its finest, and you’d acquired quite a number of insults from watching fights this way. You knew it was only a matter of time until someone (Cassandra) threw the first punch, and then it was only a matter of time until someone (Donnie) threw the first explosive. But alas, it would be over too soon for that.

“April, you get Donnie.” Raph sighed as he stood up, and scooped Cassandra up remarkably easy. At the same time, April grabbed Donnie, preventing him from trying to hit Casey Sr.

“Look, Donnie, I can understand why you’re upset, but fighting isn’t really the best way to fix this.”

“But it is a way.”

“Maybe, but–”

“Don, I’ll help you find your parts.” April cut Raph off. She sounded pretty exasperated at this point. “Just stop screaming before everyone’s eardrums explode.”

“I was not screaming-”

“Yes you were. Now come on, I wanna see the crime scene for myself.” April began dragging Donnie off to his lab. Casey stuck her tongue out at him, and you just caught him flipping her off before disappearing into the lab.

Raph set Cassandra back down, and she muttered something that sounded a lot like a very targeted insult.

“Well, that was certainly… something,” Sunita commented.

“Something, indeed.” Mikey nodded.

“Okay.” Raph turned back to the group. “You know I trust all of you…”

“But you’re gonna accuse one of us of stealing some dumb science crap?” Cassandra raised an eyebrow.

“No! No.” Raph smiled sheepishly. “But, if it was any of you… Just, please give it back. He will not let this go, and I don’t know if our sanities will survive it.”

“Hey, hey, April’s on the case now!” Mikey chimed in. “I’m sure she’ll solve it in no time! She’ll catch our… our Snatcher!”

“Our what now?”

“The Snatcher! It’s what I just decided to title our resident thief.”

“We’re naming the thief?”

“Now, now, Casey Jr., every thief needs a good name.” Mikey patted Casey on the shoulder a couple of times, looking very proud of himself.

While everyone else was talking over the new name and what could’ve happened to Donnie’s stuff, you walked over to the whiteboard. You weren’t really interested in the lab diagram; you also weren’t sure what part of this required an entire corner of the board being dedicated to math equations.

You squinted at Donnie’s scrawled handwriting, trying to make out the notes at the bottom of the board. On the motives list, you found your name, which was just barely readable. It took you a few seconds to translate what was written next to it.

Scheming.

That didn’t sound too different from Leo and Cassandra’s “mischief”, but hey, it sounded better, so you weren’t going to complain. You’d have to ask Donnie what he meant by the difference next time you saw him.

You grabbed the marker and wrote down several notes regarding what had occurred last night. You had stayed in Leo’s room for a while before you left, so you could provide alibis for each other in that time frame. You hadn’t seen Cassandra on your way out, nor had you seen anyone else up. You wrote down the rough time you left, as could be verified by Leo, and wrote down that you had seen a light from under Mikey’s door.

Finally, you wrote “The Snatcher Case” at the top of the board, followed by “(y/n) was here :)” in the bottom corner.

You smiled to yourself before going to grab your things and get ready to leave. You were eager to watch this play out.

You couldn’t wait until you enacted phase two of your plan.

It was 9:57 AM, Saturday, April 17th. The Snatcher waltzed right out of the lair, and no one suspected a thing.

#tmnt x reader #reader insert #rottmnt x reader #gender neutral reader #gn!reader #tmnt leo x reader #rottmnt leo x reader

117 notes · View notes

hwaightme · 1 year

Text

Your fan, Seonghwa (part 2, series finale)

(part 1) (your fan ml)

🛸 pairing: seonghwa x nerdfluencer & physicist!reader 🛸 genre: romance, fluff, mutual pining 🛸 summary: a bulletpoint-style wordstream of what it would be like if seonghwa was stanning you 🛸 wordcount: 6.0k 🛸 warnings/tags: language, noraebang chaos, mc knows too much, seonghwa is a star, IT ALL COMES TOGETHER, crossover hours, is it christmas again? 🛸 taglist: @doom-fics @layzfeelit @acciocriativity @izuijin @justhere4kpop @honey-lemon-goose @i-luvsang @jcngh0-hq @black--awsum @jackinmyarea 🛸 a/n: HI! THIS IS THE END (hold your breath and count to 10) oh my word... I am so unbelievably grateful for all of you, for your love and support, for inspiring and for believing. Without you, none of this would have happened. Much love, and biggest hugs, and stay tuned for more to come in the future!!

You needed to act quick if you were going to solve anything. Time was against you, considering that in a month’s time ATEEZ were going to be going on tour, and you needed to write another chapter of your thesis that discussed experimental set up and some predictive modelling.

As you watched your computer crash yet another time, deleting the data that you had implemented into the physics simulator engine, you decided to give up for the evening and figure out how to get your plan, your life experiment, running.

Your thoughts had drifted to trying to immerse yourself in Seonghwa’s world. You were clueless when it came to music, and aside from listening, did not do much else. But what you were always ready for, was others’ enthusiasm, You wanted to see that glint in Seonghwa’s eyes return to him, you wanted him to be himself and to be proud of what he had achieved.

You were no stranger to creative ruts, to self-doubt and trying to pretend to be someone you were not. It was almost a rite of passage in STEM, and you could only imagine how intense it could be in the creative and liberal arts. In that state, one tries to remove themselves from what they can actually do, steps away from that they have overcome and believe that the work of others is something they need to measure themselves against.

This was what you had observed in Seonghwa, and this was disconcerting. Of course, you appreciated the fact that every time you called, and met, he could impress you with his newly acquired knowledge in your subject… but at the end of the day… it was something you already knew. It was something that was second nature to you, and removed his own beauty from the conversation. You stared liking Seonghwa not because he was an astrophysics enthusiast (especially since when he tried to be, it was evident that it was giving him unnecessary amount of stress), but because he was himself. That adorable nerd sitting in front of a camera having the time of his life assembling Lego. That more than cute man who was over the moon when you were raving with him about the lightsaber he had as part of his collection. The wonderful, brilliant, Seonghwa who had so much to share with you, so much to teach you, but instead was hiding his genius away. The last thing you ever wanted to do was to change him, so for the sake of humanity and the universe not exploding, it was time to act.

After a quick ideation session, your intentions and your plan was clear – but, you needed to go to a more public space for it, and every fibre of your being was screaming THIS IS A RISK. But a risk you were willing to take, and were ready to go through every mitigation strategy in the risk assessment framework that you had drawn up on eight post-its you had stuck side by side on your desk. Though, prior to doing any of that, being the certified adult and professional researcher you were, you needed permission for this to go ahead. You had already heard from Seonghwa about the number of times that his members had caused unnecessary chaos, and you were not about to join the ‘horsemen of the ateezpocalypse’ ranks. You needed to call the captain.

You were lucky that most of your friends had an equally strange schedule that made one question what time zone they actually lived in, so your close bestie who owned ‘dream-ity’ and had the patience of a saint to be able to handle none other than Jung Wooyoung, had sent over Hongjoong’s number at lightning speed, though not without trying to figure out why exactly you needed it. She already knew that you were ‘seeing’ Seonghwa, but none of the details. Neither you, nor the eldest member, apparently, were cracking about anything more ‘tea-esque’ that was going on between you.

She did initially offer to send you her boyfriend’s number but considering that Seonghwa had explicitly stated that that certain someone was the equivalent of his personal sleep paralysis demon and the real reason why his hair for the comeback was stark white (“it is not dye nor bleach, it is Marie Antoinette syndrome”), you politely refused, insisting to ‘go see the captain’, channelling your inner Karen.

Seemed that Hongjoong was also an interesting character who was able to respond to you in thirty seconds, at four in the morning. At least your friend had an early opening shift and needed to travel, this man was just night owling like you. Little did you know that this was the case because Hongjoong already had your number after ‘lovingly’ interrogating Seonghwa after your first meeting.

You had opened up the conversation by introducing yourself, stating your interests, and apologising for the disturbance. You had also inquired whether it would be possible to set up either a meeting or a call with Hongjoong, to discuss the details of your proposition, seeing as you needed approval and it may be easier to explain verbally. Hongjoong was pretty straightforward in his response:

<hongble telescope> call in 2 min?

<you> yes please thank you!

And in exactly two minutes, you were ‘face to face’ with none other than the captain of ATEEZ, who appeared to be located in his studio, hunched over just a little and in dim lighting. To be frank, you were not any better – you were still in your office, illuminated just by a couple of desk lamps, and were also gremlin-like in your posture. It was odd how, in some senses you two were alike.

“So, how is the woman who is making Seonghwa turn into a physics student?” Hongjoong joked, though it did not make you cheer up one bit. You felt a pang of guilt in your heart, and decided to launch straight in.

“About that. I have been quite concerned about Seonghwa recently.”

“In relation to physics?”

“Yes.”

Hongjoong ran a hand through his hair and looked off into the distance momentarily.

“Well, he has been kind of… out of it lately. I mean, when it comes to stages and stuff he is chill, because you know, professional and music is his passion and all that, but in the dorms, you are right he is a lot more isolated.”

“Yes, well, I am to blame for that, and I want to fix it.”

“Since when are you to blame? If anything, it is his choice so he should like… wake up.”

“Well, it is hard to kick away something that someone wants to do subconsciously, and I do not want to come across as the centre of the universe by no means, but when a person does something to try and impress you, you cannot help but feel responsible.”

“You know what, I like your approach. That’s admirable. Okay, then, go on. I am interested to hear what you are thinking.”

“Well, I want to prove to Seonghwa that he does not need to pretend to be someone who he is not. I really could not care less whether he knows anything about my line of work or not, what I want is for him to be happy.”

“You are just green flagging your way into my grumpy old man heart.”

“How are you old, Hongjoong? You are just caring-”

“Okay Y/N you are just going through a check list of how to make Hongjoong happy at this point.” He grinned and exclaimed, intertwining his fingers and leaning back in the spinning chair.

“Well, hah, I guess it is easier to do when you mean it. So, well, my point here is that… I need to take him to this one location that is a little bit more public, but I can assure you I will do everything within my power to make it safe.”

“Hold on, hold on, do you need to do that?”

“It is critical. There needs to be a little bit of a shock to the system but it is only beneficial.”

“Okay, now I am not so approving. How do I even know I can trust you? Being nice is one thing, being reliable and trustworthy is a whole other area. What is the deal? What do you know, or what can you do to prove that it will be okay?”

Frankly, Hongjoong was already pretty confident in the fact that he would be able to entrust Seonghwa to you – the eldest member’s heart was already in your hands, so what was the problem with just letting you two go for it? Hongjoong wondered whether he was being stopped by his frazzled nerves, which had been put through challenge after challenge with each of the members – even himself¸ in this chaotic journey to find and fight for love. But he needed to act in the role of responsible leader, so back to listening to you. How were you doing to impress him?

You needed to think fast. Here, every word mattered. Expressing your affection and concern was easy enough, since it was at the forefront of your mind, but here you had some six dimensional chess to play, and your opponent was a master – taking one look at the ATEEZ lore was enough, and how it was going to play out was going to be quite impressive…

Oh.

That was right.

You knew the secret of the lore.

That’s it.

You thanked your ability to hyperfixate for helping you go over all the diaries, the interviews and the albums and mvs and shorts that were linked to the story of ATEEZ. You were no stranger to extensive lore and saga-like evolution. You were a Star Wars fan, for goodness’ sake. On top of that, why had you studied the theory of relativity and quantum physics if you were never going to use it for the most abstract and obscure reasons? You felt as though you had just gathered all the infinity stones together and were about to snap an infinity glove. You looked straight into the camera with a soft smile gracing your lips, and began.

“Well, I am not sure about physical proof, but in terms of theoretical knowledge and carrying on the story of ATEEZ, I could talk you though a couple of my ideas that may or may not serve as proof for my understanding of the depth of your group, the importance of paying attention to the details, and future-forward ideation.”

Hongjoong did not look particularly impressed, since he had listened to enough ATINY explain to him some outrageous interpretations of the lore, that were anything but correct. But he was intrigued enough to motion to you to go on. And that, was when he had signed up for the shock of a lifetime.

You launched into a monologue that first, briefly summarised the relationship between every era, every little diversion and even the selection of concepts for stages. You were showcasing that really, to you, it had been simple all along, and you had been merely enjoying how they were executing what was already out in the open. When you transitioned smoothly into expressing your musings on future releases and the avenue down which the story will go, Hongjoong was dead quiet, and even stopped rocking in his chair. His jaw began to drop as you revealed a specific detail that was meant to be a plot twist – he had envisioned ATINY’s reaction so many times, and had been keeping this a secret even from his members, and here you were, saying it right back to him. Just who were you?

He was equal parts impressed and terrified, since you were a walking computer of ATEEZ knowledge. You could basically compromise the entirety of KQ with the amount of information you held. There was no choice now, it was not even a matter of trust – it was basically essential that you joined them at least for the sake of being silenced. He recalled how he had said to Seonghwa that he expected you would know at least a bit of the lore to a high level – well, he had never expected you to be able to lead a discussion on it. Hongjoong now desperately wanted to invite you to a chat with him and the CEO. This was essential for the business.

“Well, these are just my thoughts and feelings, of course. So take it with a pinch of salt.” You finished, smoothing the creases at the bottom of your shirt, a habit you had formed to calm your nerves during presentations.

“That is one big pinch of salt, Y/N. I think I will have to have you sign an NDA for that. And jeez, this has probably been the most original way someone had ever pledged allegiance to the ATEEZ mission… ever.” He whispered, suddenly looking a LOT more tired than he did at the beginning of your conversation.

“Thank… you?”

“Yeah… uh… so… where was it you wanted to go?” he recalled that he had not even asked what the public space was.

“Noraebang.”

“What the fu- did you actually just make my soul leave my body to ask if you could go sing some songs with Seonghwa?” he face palmed and massaged his temples. Damn, you really were a STEM person. Very careful. Though he could vibe with that – Seonghwa was not kidding when he said you were a mature and responsible human.

“Uh… well I needed to check with you because this is a venture outside of more secluded locations, I needed to hear your thoughts on whether it would be okay for Seonghwa to appear in a noraebang, how and when it would be possible-”

“My one request is you don’t talk lore with the guy, because I still want to maintain some authority. And ask him to take you to KQ at some point after, and I can arrange a meeting for then. I am not kidding about the NDA.”

“Sure. Thank you. Then the rest is… up to me?”

“Yes, go wild. Well, not wild, but I assume you know what a ‘safe and secure’ wild is?”

“That is basically what physics is.”

“Understandable-”

“-have a great day.”

“Yeah you are a walking green flag in my eyes, Y/N. I’ll text you some of the times when Seonghwa is free this week so you can organise the noraebang date, m’kay?”

“Perfect, thank you so much!”

When you ended the call, Hongjoong yeeted himself onto the sofa, face down, and began to run through the conversation that he would have to have with management – ‘big reveal an astrophysicist knows more than the group about the storyline that the group follows’.

Seonghwa was not enjoying the continuous winking from Hongjoong, not one bit. In addition, the fact that, upon receiving some kind of message on his phone, Wooyoung entered full sneak and snoop mode and kept on infiltrating the eldest members’ room – fifteen times in the last hour, to be exact, did not bode well for Seonghwa’s sanity. Though at least the latter member appeared to still be clueless, and pestering Hongjoong more than him.

And it only built up come the time of Seonghwa’s date with you. You had suggested to meet right outside the dorms, saying that it was going to be a surprise. His mind went right back to high school when there had been pop quizzes and surprise assessments – totally not emotional trauma speaking for him there. He recalled you had talked about some kind of conference, or convention related to space research – what if you were going to take him there? As much as he was into seeing you be very excited, and he was interested in the reality that inspired some of his favourite things on the planet, his brain would erupt or turn into goo from that much content.

He already had a hard time reviewing the online flashcards that he had created for whenever you would mention some kind of concept or word that he did not quite understand. Though you did not do it often, and never, ever did the horrid thing of overusing complicated terms just to put yourself above someone, he still went out of his way to study the thing that appeared to come naturally to your after so many years of practice, study and beyond impressive dedication to the craft. He felt that you deserved more than he could offer, that you were on your own gorgeous wavelength, and that he could only dream to reach it – if it could happen at least sometimes, that would be enough.

“Dude you are actually scary, why are you looking at that?” San slinked right up to him, pointing at the screen where there was a diagram explaining redshift and blueshift.

“Because I am ascending, San.”

“Hwa, you are not a scientist so why are you-” Mingi, who was in the process of trying to sneak a snack from the kitchen in his pocket, called out, but was quickly cut off by Hongjoong, who was standing right by his room’s door.

“-because he is respectful. If you guys had as much dedication as the guy then maybe, just maybe you would be able to carry the lore or at least pretend to understand it.”

“Why so salty?” San interjected, allowing Mingi to complete his mission without being spotted.

“Excuse you that’s called being well-seasoned.” Hongjoong retorted, not being quite sure what he meant but at least it was not salty.

“Ah yes, something that a near-retired gent such as yourself and a Thanksgiving turkey have in common.” Wooyoung appeared out of his room, shooting finger guns at the captain.

“Nah turkey doesn’t do it.” Yeosang called out, only having tuned into the conversation once something bird related was mentioned.

“Yes you guys, we have all converted to ‘blue bird’~” Yunho imitated Yeosang’s line in Halazia, deepening his voice. He was currently splayed out on the living room couch, trying to control his rage as he was repeatedly losing to Jongho at FIFA.

“We are not EATING the BLUE BIRD you GUYS!” Hongjoong sighed and tried to end the conversation.

Seonghwa sent him a grateful glance for the effective de-railing. As the members disappeared back into their respective corners of the dorm, he settled back down into one of the dining room chairs, only to be joined by Yunho, who decided to ‘take a break because he was not really feeling the game at the moment’, much to Jongho’s amusement.

“Hey… all okay?” Yunho whispered, making sure that others would not overhear their conversation.

“Yeah.” Seonghwa locked his phone and placed it face down. He tried to muster a smile, but it was a little challenging given that he could not figure out what he was going to face this evening.

“How are things with her?”

“Good. Thank you for driving me those last couple of times by the way.” Seonghwa tried to bring up the positive. Yunho, though he was able to choose violence, ended up being incredibly supportive of Seonghwa and his seeing you. To the point where he was competing with Hongjoong for best advice giver and most encouraging homie.

“Oh no problem at all. It its just awesome to see you so smitten, really. Just let me know if you need anything else, like ever. I’ll be there.”

“It really means a lot. But today she is taking me to some mystery location apparently.”

“Well you know hyung and I are right here, just sound the alarm and we will speed to wherever.”

“What would I do without you, Yunho?”

“Take the taxi.”

“Respectfully, bruh.”

“What, am I wrong?”

“Nah.”

“Good, let’s stop being sappy and get you ready, yeah?”

“READY FOR WHAT?” of course Wooyoung had to have listened into the conversation, and was more than ready to learn the ins and outs of what kind of stuff has been going on with Seonghwa.

“Seonghwa, do you want to-”

“It’s a date, Woo. It’s a date.”

“CAN I COME?”

“NO, YOU CANNOT!?!?!”

At least now he did not need to spend the next two hours stressing, but instead fighting a barrage of questions coming from all directions at once. At least Hongjoong and Yunho were already in the know, and Yeosang and Jongho were just not bothered enough and respected a thing called privacy (also known as – they will not hear the end of this from Wooyoung later anyways, so why bother now). So, he was getting it easy.

Out of all the places in Seoul where you could have taken him out on a date, a noraebang was probably one of the furthest down on the list. You had never explicitly expressed any interest in performing music or signing or… anything to do with you personally engaging in the art. You had given him the impression of exclusively being a listener, rather than someone who would belt songs into a microphone in front of a TV screen for fun. But he was not complaining. This was right up his alley.

You had taken every precaution, even if it meant paying a higher booking fee, checking the blueprints of the place to make sure you went down corridors with less people, choosing a noraebang that was primarily automated with little staff… you wanted this evening to be about Seonghwa and him having fun, rather than him having to worry about everything and everyone.

It was nothing short of brilliant to watch him as he ambled down to the room under the neon lights, excited at every piece of décor, and poking you a little whenever he would hear snippets of songs that he recognised. It was like someone had pulled a switch inside him, and the previously distressed and anxious Seonghwa was nowhere to be seen. This was the power of passion, and of music. And you felt beyond guilty for somehow having had played a part in making him believe that you did not want to see this.

Though nothing was explicitly your fault, and you did talk with Seonghwa about his life and abouthis career, you felt like you could, and should have tried harder. He deserved so much more than what you could offer, so you were willing to do anything to simply make him smile. And a trip to the noraebang was, as it turned out, a fantastic start.

You two had started off the evening with a couple of classic 90s hits, Dance with DOC by DJ DOC and I Know by Seo Taiji and the Boys, which progressed to Seonghwa fully serenading you with Perfect Man by Shinhwa, which you had picked because “haha, Seonghwa – Shinhwa sounds similar”, not realising that your ears were about to be blessed. Then you had made the discovery that Seonghwa was a girl group dance machine, and from Wonder Girls, to miss A to 2NE1 you two were losing yourself in the music, with Seonghwa actively trying to teach you key points of every choreo. As you came closer and closer to choosing more recently released tunes, however, you noticed a lull in Seonghwa’s enthusiasm. He appeared to be hesitant in carrying on with your concert, glancing at you more often, asking if you were okay, if you were happy, what your preferences were.

As minutes turned into an hour, and then were beginning to approach the second, he started getting worried about your interest. Were you doing this because you actually wanted to, or because you felt pity for him and wanted to ‘bring yourself down to his little bubble’ and have a good sing-along. Long rumination session short – he needed a reminder for just what he had achieved.

With every look he was sending in your direction, you were getting more and more annoyed. Not at Seonghwa, but at the fact that he was so quick to disregard his brilliance. Compare himself. View himself as someone who had 'not done much'. While being humble was admirable, and how he was grateful to everyone who was helping him made your heart swell, he was approaching irrational levels of self-disregard.

"Hey, Seonghwa. Can I quickly tell you something?"

"Oh if you are tired we can-"

"What makes you happy?"

"What?"

"What makes you happy?"

"Uhm... is this a trick question?"

"This is not a quiz, Seonghwa. What I want to hear is the truth. Otherwise, I will just try to answer for you.”

"You?"

"Smooth, but scratch that for a second. Does music make you happy? In another life, would you still be ATEEZ?"

"...Yes."

"Good! That is what I wanted to hear. So why are you not living it when you are with me?"

"But I... well... we bonded over space? And Lego? And sci fi and... things not to related to music... so I decided that this was what would help me be closer to you."

"I am glad that it helped us bond, I really am. But at the same time, I am upset that I made an impression on you that this was all I was interested in. I know you go out of your way to learn more about what I do. I know that you spend hours picking apart the vocabulary, the ideas I drop without thinking. I know that you care so much and put that above what you love. But this is consuming you. I am so sorry for it. I am taking away from your happiness."

"But this is not... your fault? In the slightest? I want to learn more, and I want to know what you like-”

"Relationships are a two-way street, Seonghwa. So, if there is imbalance, I am to blame too. I like you for who you are, not for who you try to morph yourself to be. I am an idiot for not diving into music until now. I am upset at myself for not enabling you to shine to the fullest. Seonghwa, you are radiant. You are the most hardworking, respectable, persevering individual I know. You remember those times you mentioned how you approach practice? Passing it of as nothing special? Well I can guarantee you, you are one of the few who is so damn passionate and so deeply caring about the future, about ATEEZ, about music. You breathe this, and I want to see more of it. You deserve more than what the universe has to offer, and I as an astrophysicist can say that. And you, as an idol, singer, rapper, performer, dancer, artist, role model, actual model and SO MUCH MORE, can do me a favour and BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND LOVE WHAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED. You have so much to be proud of, and yes, I understand that sometimes there are days where you doubt yourself and are down in the dumps - hell, I have been there myself, but just know, that even if you feel that way, neither your fellow members, nor I feel the same. You are a guiding star for many, and the one I will always look for in the infinite expanse."

"I... I really don't know what to say.... Y/N..."

You could see that Seonghwa was beginning to tear up - you had expected for him to be the type of person to take such things more deeply, but did not predict that you would be misty-eyed right there with him. Before either of you became a sobbing mess, Seonghwa pulled you close, and into a tight hug. The way he held onto you alluded to a sort of fear. A fear that this was all an illusion. That it could disappear in the blink of an eye. But you were never going to feed into that. Instead, you moved your hands to cup his face, and stared deep into his eyes, finally closing the space between you with a sweet, reassuring kiss, full of love and promise.

You upheld your promise to Hongjoong, and had asked Seonghwa whether he would be comfortable with showing you around KQ. This had led him to immediately calling Hongjoong, who, much to his surprise, had apparently already organised everything for the same day next week, and now was simply asking Seonghwa to send his regards and warn you that you were probably going to be ambushed since the rest of the guys were going to find out pretty quickly. Oh, and that you had a meeting at two thirty in the afternoon, so better be at KQ by then. After ending the call, Seonghwa turned his head, eyes wide as a saucepans:

“Since when are you business partners with Hongjoong?”

“Probably since I had to call him to ask if it would be okay to organise this.” You gestured all around you, struggling to keep a straight face as EXO’s Growl played in the background.

“And what kind of meeting is he talking about?”

“Long story short I apparently need to sign a non-disclosure agreement. For… reasons.”

“No way. No freaking way you actually did it!” he exclaimed, putting his hands on his head.

“Did… what?” you tried to hide it since Hongjoong had asked you to not tell Seonghwa the specifics, but his reaction was too cute to resist.

“There is literally only one reason why he would want you to join in on some intellectual property protection schemes, and that is if you somehow managed to crack the lore. So… my darling has the ATEEZ multiverse in her hands isn’t that neat?!”

“I said nothing, by the way.”

“I don’t need you beefing with Joongie so neither of us know anything.”

Did you overprepare for what was supposed to be a casual visit? Yes. Did you regret it? Hell no. So, you lugged a heavy tote bag around with you with a great sense of pride, from room to room, studio to studio. Seonghwa asked you a couple of times whether it was too heavy or not, but you stated confidently that it was for an eight makes one team kind of moment.

The gifts contained in the tote bag were a collaboration between eight people, after all. It was not too hard to get in touch with everyone, and they were more than invested in the idea of figuring out a meaningful expression of gratitude. This was how, in a week’s time you had managed to coordinate the ultimate deliverable, exclusively for ATEEZ, and absolutely top secret.

Seonghwa managed to force entry into what had been planned as a meeting between you, Hongjoong and the CEO only, and ended up sitting in a corner, just loving the fact that you were his girlfriend and were so immersed in his work, as spooky theories and future release plans were being hurled around the room. Being sworn to secrecy had never felt as good for you as it did now, and the joy written across Seonghwa’s face as you ended up being able to uphold a discussion about some obscure science fiction anime that the CEO was a fan of served as further motivation.

After finishing the meeting and making your way to a staff-only cafeteria for a late lunch together with Hongjoong and Seonghwa, you were stopped on your tracks by a very distinct shout from behind you.

“SPACE RACE!?”

“Oh so you were not kidding when you said they interrogated you huh?” you turned to Seonghwa after having registered that the rest of ATEEZ were about to stampede you.

“Yep, and that, my dear, was Wooyoung altering you of his presence. Whether you stay still or run it does not really matter. He has you on his radar.” Seonghwa warned you, placing a hand on the small of your back.

“And his girlfriend is my friend.”

“You have too much power, I respect you.” Hongjoong whispered as the three of you turned to greet the rest of the members.

Yunho pushed himself through, introducing himself as the designated driver to a lot of your functions with Seonghwa, for which you bowed to him and thanked him. Yeosang mentioned that your work was very cool, and how he had read your interview in a science magazine published a few months ago, which took you aback, but made you feel honoured. The rest of the members were equally polite, though Jongho was the only one who managed to control his volume when greeting you.

“So, you here to talk science?”

“Only science that’s related to ATEEZ, so if you follow Hongjoong, Seonghwa and I to the cafeteria, I shall share all.”

And who would not sign up for a little mystery?

Once everyone had sat a large table, and were more or less settled down, you finally felt like you could reveal what had been prepared. But, not before quickly shooting a text to a group chat of all your collaborators: “it is happening”.

After looking around the oversized bag, you finally took out gift number one. It was a miniature FIFA World Cup style trophy, engraved with ‘ATEEZ’ and ‘8 makes 1 team’ right at the base. You noticed Jongho go pale, just as you had expected.

Then, there was a game for the console. A side project which a high profile game developer who you admired had been working on for what had been a few months apparently, but managed to wrap up in the time you had set – a Super Smash Bros style multiplayer, but with the boys as the playable characters. Yunho began to look side to side, trying to figure out whether it was only him to realised exactly who was behind this gift.

The next gift was a double combo – it was a CD, recorded by a rapper that was currently rapidly rising to fame, together with a well-designed booklet on the inside, containing the lyrics translated into seven other languages. Both San and Mingi melted into a puddle at the side, punching each other out of excitement.

One of your favourites was a present from your good friend at ‘dream-ity’ – an array of cookies with ornate icing designs, made to look exactly like the various editions of all albums that ATEEZ had ever released. You could hear Wooyoung whispering to himself ‘this cannot be happening and when did she have the time’ over and over again.

Next were eight custom jewellery pieces, matching bracelets for each of the members that were from a not yet available, highly exclusive collection from ARNURI. You had no idea how you had convinced the designer and owner of the brand to just gift that on a whim, but seeing just how Hongjoong.exe ceased to work explained it all.

Was it possible to make a mini magazine in the span of a week? Apparently so, especially when an expert has access to top quality blackmail material collected by none other than Yeosang. And that was exactly what he gravitated towards as soon as you produced it out of the bag. He leafed through page after page, seeing a collection of inside jokes, quotes and memes from both the internet and from his stories of the boys, and was near tearing up.

Seonghwa was staring at you, flabbergasted as you produced a framed mini poster. While the rest of the members were cooing over the various ATEEZ-themed presents, you looked at him, and quietly explained:

“So, this… this is a star map. Basically, how the sky looked like above Seoul, South Korea when you guys made your debut. And under this,” you turned the poster the other way around, and from behind the frame produced a certificate, “is a document confirming you having your own personal star, named after ATEEZ. So, here’s that.”

He covered his mouth with his hand, stifling a gasp.

“Eight makes one team?” you tried, noticing that all the members were either texting, or already calling their special people.

Seonghwa reached over to you, gleaming, thanking the universe time and time again. As he took your hand in his, and looked into your eyes, making time freeze, he whispered:

“Something tells me it’s sixteen.”

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