#once your IQ hits a certain point you can make up all the words you want

[grayintogreen]

Rocket is one of the smartest characters in the MCU and he thinks “emotionalistical” and “vocabulistics” are words which is Peak Engineer Behavior.

#once your IQ hits a certain point you can make up all the words you want #all of you following me for my GotG shitposts are going to be so sad when I’m back to talking about CR #and screaming about my fanfic #guardians of the galaxy

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #186

This motherfucker.

We’ve built gods before. Kings. Entire freaking wacky races, each with their own special kind of vehicle. Why the fuck is this guy’s spear the most difficult build I’ve done so far.

There’s so few ways to add other physical damage types to a weapon in D&D that I’m going to have to make up a weapon just so we can do it. It’s just “spear, but deals slashing damage”, but given the fact this build literally would not work with any other kind of weapon. I’m just grateful he isn’t a saber. Honestly DW, what the hell? Casters can travel to other dimensions and stop time, but giving fighters multiple types of damage is too much?

Okay. Spear-induced breakdowns aside, Houzouin Inshun is a Kensei Monk for hopefully obvious reasons, a Battle Master Fighter for an even fancier spear and a bunch of ASIs for feats. We need so many goddamn feats, it’s ridiculous.

Deep breaths. We can get through this.

Build breakdown below. Character sheet over here.

Next up: To be fair you have to have a very high IQ to understand Shinkage-ryu.

Race and Background

No mincing words, Inshun’s a Variant Human, ‘cuz we need all the feats we can get. He gets +1 Wisdom and +1 Constitution, proficiency with Survival to help with the whole “wandering monk” schtick, and the Slasher feat, which gives you +1 Dexterity, and when you deal slashing damage you can reduce the speed of the creature you hit by 10′. Also, scoring a critical hit with slashing damage forces disadvantage on that creature’s attacks for a round. He’s also an Acolyte for his Religion training. It also gives him proficiency in Insight for some Knowledge of the Sowa.

Ability Scores

Make Wisdom first. You’re so good at reading people you can point out the flaws in your inner demon’s technique after a single fight. Make Dexterity second highest, you’ve got to be able to fight that inner demon too. After that is Strength, if you couldn’t tell from that full ascension art, Inshun’s pretty ripped. Your Constitution’s also pretty good. I know it technically wasn’t you in Shimousa, but getting your head cut off and surviving is going to give you a couple points no matter the circumstances. Your Intelligence isn’t bad, we just need other stuff more. That means we’re dumping Charisma. Despite being one of the first servants we summoned, I couldn’t tell Friend Point Spear Guy and the Shimousa character were the same character until I ascended them. A petty reason to dump his charisma? Probably. But he’s also given up on alcohol and meat, so he’s probably not super fun at parties.

Class Levels

Monk 1: First level monks get Unarmored Defense, giving them an AC of 10 plus your dexterity modifier plus your wisdom modifier. I mean, it makes sense. Lookit them abs, I bet most people just avoid hitting him on principle, like not messing with art. Ooh, speaking of, you get Martial Arts! It lets you use dexterity when you’re using monk weapons, and they all deal at least 1d4, which grows as you level up. Also, you can use your bonus action to punch people! You have to attack with your action to do that, though. Monks also get all kinds of proficiencies, like Strength and Dexterity saves, Athletics, and History. You’re good at working out, and you’re literally history. Easy picks.

Monk 2: Second level monks get Monk Level Ki points per short rest so they can do all sorts of cool things on their bonus action, like Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or attack twice with their fists. They also get Unarmored Movement for extra speed while not wearing armor (this also levels up as you do), and you can turn one non-monk weapon into a Dedicated Weapon! This lets you pick one non-monk weapon to use as a monk weapon (as long as it isn’t two-handed or heavy) at the end of a short rest. Now your homebrew not-spear is totally okay in the eyes of your DM. Maybe, IDK your DM.

Monk 3: Third level monks can Deflect Missiles as a reaction to reduce damage from arrows and those sorts of things. If you reduce it to 0 you can even throw it back for a ki point. You also set down the Path of the Kensei, which gives you all sorts of bonuses! You can pick certain weapons to be Kensei Weapons, which will be used for the rest of the class’ features. We just care about the spear, but you can pick others too! You can make an Agile Parry if you slap people while holding a spear, adding 2 to your AC for a round, or a Kensei’s Shot as a bonus action to make all your ranged attacks do more damage. You’re also good at writing now, I guess. You know the Way of the Brush.

Monk 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Polearm Master feat so you can slap people with the but of your spear as a bonus action. This deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage, but since it’s a monk weapon it’ll grow as you level up like your punches. You also could just use your punches, but we’re trying to fit all three damage types into a weapon, dangit! We’re not taking the easy way out! Plus, now you can make opportunity attacks when someone enters your range, not just when they leave it. You can also Slow Fall as a reaction for less falling damage, and you can use Quickened Healing as an action, spending a ki point to take a quick break.

Fighter 1: Bouncing over to fighter real quick for a Great Weapon fighting style, re-rolling 1s and 2s on two handed weapons. You like handling your spear with both hands  and a lot of your damage comes from slapping extra dice onto an attack, so it works for you. You also get a Second Wind once per short rest for even quicker healing. I don’t think there’s a lot of time between “head come off” and “dead”, so you’ve got to move quickly.

Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge once per short rest for an extra action on a turn. It’ll be a while until we get our extra attack, so just... hang in there buddy.

Fighter 3: Third level fighters join their martial archetype, and the Battle Master archetype will let you do things with a spear most people can’t do with a whole armory. You get four Combat Superiority dice per short rest, which you can spend in a couple ways. If you make a Precision Attack, add that d8 to your attack roll. For more precision. You can also make a Pushing Attack to add that d8 to the damage and push a large or smaller creature 15 feet away if they fail a strength save. Finally, you can make a Trip Attack, adding the d8 to damage and forcing a strength save on the target. If they’re large or smaller and they fail, they get knocked prone. You’re also a Student of War, so you’re even artsier than before. Go nuts.

Fighter 4: Since we used your last ASI to add bludgeoning to the jumonji spear, this time around we’re grabbing the Crusher feat, for +1 Constitution to round it out and get some more HP (remember, it adds retroactively, so you get 8 extra this level). Also, once per turn you can push a creature you deal bludgeoning damage to 5 feet away if it’s large or smaller. Also, dealing a critical hit with bludgeoning damage grants advantage on all attacks against that creature for a round. Almost like blunt trauma to the skull isn’t great for your reflexes.

Fighter 5: Okay, almost halfway through the build, and we can finally get an Extra Attack. You attack twice per action, good job.

Fighter 6: We’ve got slashing with our homebrew, and bludgeoning with Polearm Master, but  that still leaves piercing out of the mix. Thankfully, there’s an old UA that will help us out here. Grab the Spear Mastery feat from Unearthed Arcana: Feats to beef up your spear even more, and grab that last damage type. You get +1 to attack rolls made with a spear, and its damage dice change from a d6/d8 depending on stance to a d8/d10. You can also use your bonus action to receive a charge, targeting a creature 20′ away from you or further. If that creature enters your reach, you can attack it as a reaction, dealing extra piercing damage. Also using your bonus action, you can increase the reach of your spear by five feet for your turn. Since your weapon is literally “spear, but slashy”, I’m pretty sure it counts for this feat. At least that’s what I’m going to say to keep my sanity. It’s either this or we multiclass into ranger for really dumb stuff.

Monk 5: Fifth level monks get their own Extra Attack, but it doesn’t stack so it’s not in bold. They can also turn those strikes into Stunning Strikes, forcing a constitution save by spending a ki point per attack. If the target fails, they’re stunned for a round. They can also take Focused Aim, spending ki points to add to their failed attack rolls, possibly turning it into a hit.

Monk 6: Sixth level monks get Ki-Empowered Strikes for magical punches. Kensei monks also become One with the Blade, which turns your kensei weapons magic, and you can use a Deft Strike to add your martial arts to weapon damage once per turn for a single ki point. So now you can tack on Favored Foe damage, a Deft Strike, and a Superiority Die to your attack, and all those dice can be re-rolled if they’re 2 or less. I’m not sure how good that damage is yet, but the act of rolling it should be satisfying.

Monk 7: Your last monk level gives us the ever popular Evasion for supercharged dexterity saves. Fails reduce damage by half, successes reduce damage by all of it. You also gain a Stillness of Mind to purge mental debuffs, like charming and frightening.

Fighter 7: Bouncing back to fighter lets you put that insight to good use by Knowing your Enemy, spending at least 1 minute to learn two things about a creature in comparison to yourself. You can learn about its physical ability scores, AC, HP, or total/fighter levels. You also get two more maneuvers and a fifth superiority die. A Sweeping attack deals extra damage to the first target, as well as a second target within 5′ of the first. You can also make a Riposte as a reaction when a creature hits you, making a melee attack and adding the die to damage.

Fighter 8: Use this ASI to complete your trilogy and grab the Piercer feat, rounding our your Dexterity for stronger attacks and a better AC. You can also re-roll one die of piercing damage per turn, and critical piercing hits get an extra die of damage. It’s a bit niche since you only deal piercing damage as a reaction, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a nice surprise if it activates.

Fighter 9: Ninth level fighters are Indomitable, so you can re-roll a failed save once per long rest. Getting your head chopped off is automatically at least two failed death saves, so make sure you keep this handy.

Fighter 10: Tenth level fighters get Improved Combat Superiority, making your superiority dice d10s instead of d8s. You can use these new embiggened dice  on a Lunging Attack to add 5′ to your reach, or a Parry to reduce incoming damage from a melee attack.

Fighter 11: Eleventh level fighters get another Extra Attack, and this one does stack, so you get three attacks per action now!

Fighter 12: We’re finally done with all those fighting type feats. Now we can use this ASI to bump up our skills. Wait, he has a skill that lets him always get the first move? Dammit. Use this ASI to grab the Alert feat. You can’t be surprised, hidden creatures don’t get advantage on attacks against you, and you add +5 to initiative. Okay, the next one for sure, I swear it’ll be stats.

Fighter 13: Thirteenth level fighters get another use of Indomitable, for up to two re-rolled saves per long rest. It’s not flashy, but given your stats, they’ll probably come in handy. Don’t worry though, now that all those damage type feats are done, we can finally use next level’s ASI to bump up stats properly. What do you mean we’re at level 20?!

Pros: 

For a mostly mundane fighter you have a lot of flexibility in combat, with options for moving enemies around, weakening foes, and preventing them from getting to squishier teammates. You also get the most out of your weapon of choice, but can fight without one if necessary.

While using your Jumonji Spear, however, you can deal pretty consistent damage, with plenty of ways to add extra dice to your attacks, and the great weapon fighting style evening out their rolls.

While fighters aren’t known for their skills, you bring just enough to the table to surprise people, which is exactly how you want to use that insight of yours. You also get a bunch of artisans’ proficiencies, which are more niche but good for character building.

Cons:

Literally every ASI we took this build is a feat of some kind, and most of them don’t even offer half bonuses. That wouldn’t be too much of an issue, except a few of them are completely useless rules as written. Polearm Master is either incredibly niche or something you can already do by being a monk. Piercer only works by spending your bonus action and reaction for a single attack, which probably isn’t your best use of time.

Your maneuvers and kensei features are built around superiority dice and ki points respectively, both of which have very limited uses per short rest. Plan your fights carefully, or you’ll find yourself sputtering out fast.

We’re just using a spear here, they’re not known for their range. If you really have to you can throw it, or use a bow as a kensei weapon, but playing to character will not be fun against flying enemies.

[eldrai]

Not Worth It

Whumptober 2021 - day 3 - prompt: insult

Character: Reid

Warnings: ableism, r-slur, brief/mild homophobia

Words: 2.2k

Summary: Spencer isn’t naïve. He is young and he looks young but he isn’t stupid. He hadn’t graduated with the expectation that because he was older, had qualifications to back him up, the world would collectively mature in kind. After all, he’d gained his relative immunity to insults because it hurt less to let them taunt him than it had to confront them and end up shoved in a locker or tied up on the football field.

He had hoped things might be different. Not expected. Not assumed.

Just hoped.

ao3 / masterlist

“—were actually invented in the early fifteenth century, though the first versions were, uh, significantly more spherical and made of a wood like beech. It’s also highly likely they used cows’ hair inside leather—”

The cop – Maciewicz – nudges the officer beside him. “Does he ever stop talking?”

Spencer is fairly sure the jab is intended to be audible. It’s an interesting social convention, that sort of insult, where everyone including the target hears it but the person who said it can’t be called out on it because they supposedly directed it at nobody in particular. Interesting, and very high-school of them: Maciewicz is closer to forty than thirty and beginning to bald, and the stale remnants of cigarette smoke follows his colleague wherever he goes.

It doesn’t offend Reid these days. Attending a public LA high school is its own distinct circle of hell but doing so at nine? University at twelve? He’s been called most names under the sun and petty insults don’t get under his skin like they used to.

Which isn’t to say they aren’t annoying.

What he hates the most is the variety of people who insult him: they all have different reactions, different sore spots, and getting them to go away isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. Reid has dealt with enough bullies to understand that ‘ignore them and they’ll go away’ is useless, if not downright dangerous advice, but there is a whole spectrum of solutions which may or may not work. Get it wrong, and they just grow more persistent.

Spencer isn’t naïve. He is young and he looks young but he isn’t stupid. He hadn’t graduated with the expectation that because he was older, had qualifications to back him up, the world would collectively mature in kind. After all, he’d gained his relative immunity to insults because it hurt less to let them taunt him than it had to confront them and end up shoved in a locker or tied up on the football field.

He had hoped things might be different. Not expected. Not assumed.

Just hoped.

Of course they aren’t.

He pays them no mind and continues to explain the significance of the golf balls their unsub keeps leaving behind. If they didn’t want him to talk, they shouldn’t have asked for his opinion.

This seems like a fairly straightforward case and with any luck, they’ll only have to tolerate the local police department for a couple of days more.

He may have jinxed it.

(Once when they had come to take his Mom to inpatient, Spencer had overheard someone at the front desk talking lowly to someone else, and her words had stuck with him: see, that’s what you get for saying it’s quiet today!

That was always the gist of what was said on TV hospital dramas too. Police chaos isn’t all that different from hospital chaos, he thinks. There’s always too much of it and it’s unpredictable in its unpredictability.)

The curveball this time is their unsub is not a lone male but a male-female duo – he carries out the kills but under her direction. Classic submissive-dominant dynamic. The thing with pairs is they crack. Bend under the pressure until they break and lives are lost in the collateral damage.

Case in point: Marcy Edgeworth, aged twenty-four, Caucasian female, death by blunt force trauma. She is the first female victim and the first to have been left to lie where she’d died. That isn’t a good sign. No indication of sexual assault pre- or post-mortem but there is an incomplete ring of bite marks just beneath her right collarbone, exposed due to her torn shirt.

“What, never seen a naked girl before?” Jamison – Maciewicz’s colleague – mutters. Just low enough for Spencer to hear as he is trying to get on with his job, unlike a certain pair of officers.

“Woman,” he corrects, for her age, “and yes, I have.”

He hopes the lightness in his tone offsets the brusqueness. Spencer shifts his crouching into kneeling and leans forwards to examine her hair. It’s an artificial red – her roots and her eyebrows are blonde – and their previous victims have all had brown hair.

“Only counts if it’s outside a morgue,” Maciewicz chimes in.

He ignores them but their gaze burns the back of his head, and their presence has his guard raised. They stand behind him and their shadows stretch out over the grass either side of him. They’re going for a reaction, Spencer assumes.

Biting is an interesting thing without an accompanying sexual assault. If nothing else it gives them a good estimation of their male unsub’s teeth. The impression he’s getting from the scene is one of interruption, an impulse kill whose victim he had to leave too soon. It is a public park and it was an early-morning dog walker who found her – likely a jogger or someone on a night shift.

Jamison clears his throat once, twice, then taps him on the shoulder. Spencer rears away from his touch. People never ask, they just do.

“Yes?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing,” Jamison says. “I – we – we were wondering why you do that… thing.”

“What thing?” Spencer asks.

Jamison gestures. “You know, the – you know.”

Is that some sort of punchline he’s missing? Spencer glances over at Maciewicz and finds a mild amusement. Nothing to indicate he should be laughing, nor should he know what they do mean.

Maybe he’s missing the cue. He’s better at it these days, but not perfect.

“No, I don’t.”

With a furtive glance at the precinct’s captain, deep in conversation with one of the forensic technicians, Jamison sighs. “The thing with your hands, the—” He shakes his hands in an exaggerated manner.

Spencer’s hands still. He hadn’t thought it was very noticeable and more to the point, Jamison is definitely overexaggerating it like kids in middle school used to do. Only back then they had his unusual gait and meltdowns to mock too. “I don’t do that,” he says firmly.

(He’d answer it if it was a genuine question. Respectful. He loves people who ask out of genuine good intent. They are few and far between.)

Maciewicz snickers.

“Yeah, you do,” Jamison says. “I want to know why, that’s all.”

“Makes you look like a retard,” Maciewicz adds.

…and there it is.

He goes cold from head to toe. It never fails to make him feel as if someone has just dumped a bucket of water right over him, washing away his enthusiasm and excitement and everything else he values. Leaves the bare bones, the weirdness, each of the hundred ways he never quite fits in.

Spencer hates the word.

Because they don’t care about his IQ or eidetic memory or reading skill when they say that, and they don’t care after he tells them.

Nobody calls him that because they think he is. They say it to hurt him.

He wishes it wouldn’t.

Despite how often he’s heard it, he never has a response. His mind goes blank and all he can pull from it is the roots – re,from Latin: back, and tardus, from Latin: slow – as if they give a damn about etymology. As if that’s a normal person’s response. Today is no exception so it’s a blessing when Morgan wanders over.

“You got anything, pretty boy?” he asks. Maciewicz and Jamison snort. If Morgan hears it, he pays it no mind. “They found a guy’s baseball cap over there. No hair but it looks like it’s our man’s.”

And once again, his mind goes blank. Makes you look like a retard. He’d been thinking about – the bite mark, yes, what does that indicate? Spencer catches his hands moving and shoves them in his pockets before they can. “He was interrupted,” he says. “It explains why the bite isn’t complete and why he didn’t notice he’d left his hat.”

Morgan nods. “The person who found the body didn’t recall seeing anyone else around, so you think he’d just left before they got there?”

“Probably,” Spencer says. “I think the woman might be blonde. If they got into a fight, he’d be stressed, he’d be thinking about her. Maybe she reminded him of her.”

“Could be the hair, could be something else,” Morgan says. “He won’t have talked to her, not if he hit her from behind.”

“What if they did? She could have walked away—”

“Maybe,” Morgan says. “But if her hair was dyed, he wouldn’t see that unless they were up close, right? He’d initially go for her because she’s got red hair, not blonde. And if they did talk, Prentiss says no woman’s gonna just turn her back on a strange man. Especially in the middle of the night with no-one around.”

It’s a valid point, and it isn’t condescending. Nonetheless it hurts. Spencer studies the ground for a long moment and tries to forget (retard) Maciewicz and Jamison. “The unsub isn’t going to be someone he’s sexually attracted to,” he says. “He didn’t assault her, and if the victim reminds him of the other unsub, he’d probably have tried to even if someone interrupted him before he really could.”

A burst of laughter from Maciewicz and Jamison. His cheeks go hot with embarrassment—they must be talking about him, what else is there to laugh about? Morgan follows his gaze. “There a problem?” he asks.

Maciewicz holds up his hands in mock surrender. “No, no. Just… the hell is that about, ‘pretty boy’?”

Morgan shrugs. Spencer isn’t sure if it’s as casual as it looks.

“Well, makes sense,” Jamison says. “Course he’s gonna freak out over a naked girl if he doesn’t swing that way.”

…oh, great.

Spencer doesn’t mind exactly what they say as much as the implication—that they know, that they’re entitled to know his sexuality. How they say it as if gay is equivalent to bad. Once again, how utterly high school it all is. And he knows Morgan isn’t going to appreciate it either, probably more insulted on his behalf than Spencer himself.

“And you care, because...?” Morgan says, looking back and forth between them.

“I don’t,” Jamison says.

“He’s…” Maciewicz stammers, “…you know.”

“Smarter than you?” Morgan suggests. “Better at his job than you? A better person than you?”

“You don’t have to stick up for him,” Jamison says. “Must get annoying to deal with a re—”

“It’s fine,” Spencer interrupts. It isn’t. It really isn’t but it isn’t worth the conversation. How tiring it gets to deal with it, how much easier it is to walk away. These officers aren’t going to change their worldview on disabilities all of a sudden. “Morgan.”

Morgan takes in his posture, the unnatural stillness as he forces himself not to fidget, though the look in his eyes doesn’t fade. “The only people I don’t want to ‘deal with’ are both of you.”

The men share a look – not so much chastened as disappointed their fun was interrupted – but they do back off.

“They already seem to think I’m incapable,” Spencer says irritably. “I said it was fine, I didn’t need you to say anything.”

He crouches down to examine the bite again.

“It didn’t matter,” Spencer says. His hands itch and despite needing to, he can’t bring himself to move. Makes you look like a retard.

“Does if it bothers you,” Morgan insists. “And it did, don’t look at me like that.”

He sighs. They’re not even there any more, the two cops out on patrol and them revisiting the penultimate crime scene. “I’m used to it.”

“And?” Morgan says. “Just because you are doesn’t mean you have to put up with it—”

“It was five minutes at most,” Spencer points out. “Everyone else was fine.”

“Yeah, and they were dicks.”

He shrugs.

“What else did they say?”

Spencer rolls the fabric of his sweater between his fingers and feigns ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what else did they say when I wasn’t there, ‘cause they said something.”

“Makes you look like a retard.”

He doesn’t mean to say it – wasn’t sure what he had planned to say, but it certainly wasn’t that – but he says it nonetheless, his tone mimicking the disdain and irritation. And now Morgan definitely isn’t going to believe him if he says he’s fine and it’s going to make the situation worse to explain that he mostly is, he just hasn’t heard it for a while, he’s used to it.

Stupid echolalia.

“Like I said,” Morgan says, “they were dicks.”

Spencer doesn’t point out being rude doesn’t automatically mean lying. “I’ve heard worse.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t give them the right to say stuff like that.”

He rocks back on the balls of his feet. His hands aren’t co-operating but the swaying motion is a good substitute. “I’m okay.”

“You know,” Morgan says casually, “whenever you lie, you stand exactly the same way.”

Spencer looks up. The expression on Morgan’s face falls somewhere between sadness and sympathy but, he thinks, not pity. It’s a nice change.

“Kid, the only thing you’re gonna get from pretending you’re OK is worse,” Morgan says. “It’s not worth it. Not for anyone but especially not morons like that.”

“It’s not worth it,” Spencer repeats. The words catch in his thoughts and he murmurs it again and again and Morgan isn’t even slightly annoyed at him.

(It isn’t worth it—he knows this—but maybe it is. Just a tiny bit. Just for the part where he has friends who tell him things like this, who don’t mind when he’s awkward. Who don’t mind him.

Friends who say nothing about it but when they get back to the station, the pair are getting chewed out by a pissed off captain.)

A/N: I had trouble getting this to flow as well as my other ones, there's something about it I just can't figure out. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.

#whumptober2021 #no.3 #insults #criminal minds #fanfic #cw: ableism #fanfiction #cm fanfic #cm fanfiction #reid #spencer reid #eldrai does whumptober

[hotchley]

the waiting game

Lol, my laptop is at 2%. Look, I’ll be back in an hour to do my masterlist, I just really, really need to get this done because it should’ve been done many months ago.

It’s fine. Umm... yeah, nothing else to say :)

Trigger Warnings: child abuse, references to child abuse, death threats from a parent, bombings

read on ao3!

Jason Gideon always told new recruits that certain things about their jobs got easier with time and experience. He told them their hands would remain steady when they fired a gun and that the noise would not always make them flinch. He told them they would get used to late-night calls and sleepless nights. that they wouldn’t always find it so difficult when the people they loved walked away, unable to handle not knowing what was going to happen.

A lot of things about their job got easier.

The waiting game only got harder.

Because you learnt things

Gideon had been on the team longer than the other members put together. he knew what happened when each of his members ended up in the hospital. He’d made a point of taking Reid each time, just so he could be sure his order of events was correct.

Adrian Bale meant he’d had six less agents to remember.

That was supposed to have been the last time Aaron Hotchner ended up in the hospital, unconscious and barely breathing. Gideon had vowed to himself that no matter how difficult it was, Hotch would make it home to Haley and Jack every night.

But he’d failed.

Aaron hadn’t wanted Elle going home. he’d taken her to the same hotel Haley was in. Elle had felt a little uncomfortable being in the adjoining room, but her discomfort quickly faded. Haley seemed used to looking after Aaron’s second family and Jack was still willing to be held by strangers.

He’d swung by her place to make sure it was safe.

It hadn’t been, but he was the best shot in the BAU. No, not just the BAU, the entire Quantico building. He was so good that when he demanded that they passed Reid with flying colours, nobody questioned him.

There had been- in his words- a small scuffle but he was fine.

Everyone was too exhausted to argue or even notice. But Gideon knew he should’ve said something. He’d known Aaron Hotchner since he had been dragged in by David Rossi, somehow bright-eyed and cynical at the same time.

He should’ve known Aaron was more hurt than he was willing to let on. He always was. and he should have realised before he sent him into another building that contained an innocent civilian and somebody that they couldn’t really profile. Somebody that they couldn’t plan the endgame of.

It felt like Adrian Bale all over again.

Only everyone had known Aaron was going to survive the moment he pulled the oxygen mask off his face, demanded to know who was representing Bale in his trial before passing out again.

Now... none of that could be confirmed.

He hadn’t been able to stay conscious enough to ask for Haley.

“Tell me what happened,” he asked again. Morgan and Reid had refused the other six times he’d asked them. Six hours Hotch had been in the hospital. He still wasn’t awake.

“Gideon this isn’t going to help anyone, least of all you,” Morgan sighed.

“Tell me,” he demanded.

“He was carrying Rebecca out of the building because it was on fire. Then he suddenly dropped her on the grass and keeled over, one hand pressed to his side. Morgan grabbed Rebecca, got her out. I tried to help Hotch, but he told me to run. And I did. And then the building exploded and-”

And that was when he’d got the phone call from Reid. Morgan had phoned the ambulance the moment Hotch fell. Reid had phoned Gideon, barely able to string two sentences together. It was as though his eidetic memory and IQ had just been taken from him.

Reid looked away, unable to say another word. His cheeks were stained with tears, his foot-tapping the only comfort he was able to provide himself.

“He wouldn’t have got hurt if I’d gone home,” Elle whispered.

“You can’t blame yourself,” JJ murmured, but she sounded distant. Like she was trying to stay in liaison mode but couldn’t. She hadn’t even been with the BAU for a year the last time Hotch had ended up in the hospital. She’d been terrified then. Now she just looked tired.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” Gideon added, wishing he could see what was going on. But the door to the room Hotch was in had been closed, the curtains pulled around. “If you’d gone home, in the state you were in, you wouldn’t have won. It’d be you in there, and Hotch would be pacing outside blaming himself.” Besides, he thought to himself. The only person that should be blaming themselves was him. He was supposed to have Hotch’s back. He was the one that was supposed to be able to read all his tells without even having to try and profile him.

Hotch was still in surgery. In all the cases that had ended with Hotch landing himself in the hospital, the surgeries had been minor. When Adrian Bale had struck, he’d spent four hours in surgery. In Gideon’s opinion, the injuries sustained from that had been more serious.

Hotch had been in surgery for six and a half hours. That didn’t fit the pattern. It didn’t fit the pattern and Gideon knew this time that it wasn’t a good thing.

 “You shouldn’t blame yourself either,” a soft voice said from behind them.

“Haley,” he whispered.

Haley gave them all a hesitant smile. It was clear she’d been sobbing and was only being held together by the thinnest thread. “How are you all holding up?”

The laugh Garcia let out was slightly hysterical. “Mrs Hotchner, we’re not important. You are. So is your husband. How are you doing?”

The corners of her mouth turned downwards. “I don’t feel like it’s hit me yet. I’ve known for a very long time there’s a chance he won’t come down and I’ve always prepared for that, but it just doesn’t feel real. I keep expecting him to walk out that door with his arm in a sling and a goofy smile because of the pain medication.”

“We’ll be here when it does hit. And we’ll help in any way we can,” JJ promised.

Haley nodded, shaking as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I know. Aaron always said that he wasn’t afraid of dying. Not when he knew his team would be there to tell Jack stories and stop me from resenting the only piece of him that I would have left.”

“Where is the little one?” Morgan asked, both to lighten the mood and to change the subject. They’d never realized how much Hotch loved them all. How much he trusted them.

“With my sister. We didn’t- after Boston- oh my god, it’s just like Boston isn’t it? He’s going to, he won’t- I-” she whimpered, the dam finally breaking.

It was Garcia that reacted first. It was a stark contrast, Penelope’s brightness against the subdued pastels of Haley’s pajamas- and Gideon wanted to be sick, she must have been ready to go to sleep when she got the phone call- but it was needed.

When Garcia pulled away, not quite letting go, Haley wiped her eyes.

“I’m sorry. It’s just, after Boston, we agreed that Jack- we hadn’t picked his name then, god it feels like yesterday, that we wouldn’t let him see us in the hospital. We wanted to let him believe his parents were invincible for as long as possible.”

Gideon knew that promise. he also knew that Hotch had promised to step down once Gideon returned. He had been selfish when he’d asked him not to.

“He’ll make it out,” Elle said.

She hadn’t witnessed Adrian Bale’s attack on Gideon. That’s how she was able to stay so positive. But everyone else had. They’d watched as twenty-two civilians had been taken hostage, as Hotch had gone into the building to try and negotiate with him, despite Gideon explicitly forbidding him to do so because Haley was waiting at home for him.

That was the one and only time Hotch’s anger had been directed at a member of the team. His eyes had darkened, his voice pitched lower than they’d ever heard it. He’d looked Gideon in the eye, no longer the scared recruit, and told him to go fuck himself.

He’d walked into the building. Without a vest. The only weapon being the gun in the holster that was attached to his belt. One of the hostages had been forced to take it from him. Aaron had given them the same encouraging smile he gave to all the victims they saved, to all the distraught family members that were scared of being the cause of their loved one’s end. 

Adrian Bale had taken one look at him and laughed. That had thrown Hotch off. He had thought that seeing the lead profiler of the elite BAU team would make him sweat and give him what he wanted. He said as much.

Adrian Bale said that when he looked at Aaron Hotchner, he didn’t see the lead profiler or bad cop. He didn’t see the head of the Seattle field office or one of the best shots SWAT had ever seen. He didn’t even see the hotshot prosecutor he’d began as.

Aaron asked him what he did see.

Bale’s response haunted everyone. He said he saw a boy too afraid of his own feelings to ever truly love anyone. He said the only reason Hotch had walked in was because he was too much of a coward to leave his pregnant wife but if he died in the line of duty, well that was different. He said Aaron loved Jason Gideon and all he wanted was his approval.

The camera was grainy, but the tremble in Aaron’s hands was unmistakable.

Morgan had tried to run in. It was Gideon’s arm that had stopped in. It was Gideon that had said they needed to wait to get Hotch out. It was Gideon that had misread Aaron’s body language and sent six of his best agents in.

They didn’t need eidetic memories to have the look of complete fear on Gideon’s face when Hotch was blown away branded in their brain forever. Or the scream he’d released when they finally uncovered the body, the rise and fall of his chest barely noticeable. Or to remember how Haley had arrived two days later because of problems with flight bookings, face devoid of any colour, the swell of her stomach a stark reminder of everything that would be lost if Hotch didn’t pull through.

Elle Greenaway only knew SSA Hotchner: the man that stared down unsubs, barked orders at everyone, carried a back-up weapon because he was just that good and never smiled. She didn’t know him as Aaron, the man that hated hospitals so much that every time he regained consciousness, the doctors had been forced to sedate him for his own benefit. Or that the only person that had been able to touch him was Haley, his mouth trying to form her name but never making it past the first syllable, despite all his years of spinning stories to a jury.

Or that the only reason Hotch carried a back-up was because very few people would notice it was there. John Blackwolf had thrown him off, made him doubt again. Gideon had found it difficult to convince him everything was fine, so he didn’t. He just dropped him home to Haley and watched from his car as Hotch became Aaron, falling apart in Haley’s arms.

“I know,” Haley whispered, pulling Gideon from his memories. 

“Would you like anything to drink? I can go and grab you a coffee if you want,” he said, needing to do something other than watch his team fall to pieces. Aaron was the one that sat and reminded them they were human, that it wasn’t their fault. It was the reason they would call him mom. Gideon was just there.

Haley shook her head. “I want you to be here. In case you’re needed.”

Because of course he would be. Haley Hotchner was Aaron’s wife, so she was automatically listed as his medical proxy. But Aaron never wanted her to be burdened by his job any more than she already was. Which meant if something happened in the field. the doctors were to automatically defer to Gideon. Haley was consulted if it was something non-case related.

“Of course,” he said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

“Excuse me? Are you all here for Aaron Hotchner?”

“Yes,” Haley said, the first to find their voice as the profilers tried to work out whether the news they were about to be given was good or bad.

“He’s out of surgery, there were no complications there and we’ve got him through the worst of it. But he’s still not woken up, and his breathing is shallow, hence the reason we haven’t taken him off the ventilator yet. So as much as we want to hope for the best, I want you to understand there is a chance he may not make it. His body has been put through a lot in the past year.”

Gideon did not want to think about every injury Hotch had been forced to suffer through since returning. The collar of his shirts had never quite hidden the bruised skin where Perotta had touched him.

“Can we see him?” Haley asked. She looked so young. So vulnerable. Gideon swallowed. She’d never been forced to hide her emotions the same way Hotch had. She’d never been afraid of being profiled. He doubted she ever had been, Hotch was too honourable.

“My colleagues are still treating him. I think it’d be better if we waited until he woke up. You should all get some rest, you look exhausted.”

Haley shook her head. “I’d like to be here.”

“Of course,” the doctor said, turning on their heel and walking away again.

“I’m just going to phone Jessica and ask her to keep Jack for a little longer,” she said, voice trembling.

Everyone nodded and chose not to comment when Haley vanished for ten minutes, returning with red-rimmed eyes.

“He trusted me to save his life when I hadn’t even passed my gun qualification,” Reid said suddenly.

“I know. He told me about that. He said he knew you could do it, that it would just take a bit of a patience and maybe an extremely stressful situation. Apparently, you do your best work under intense terror. Not that he wanted the two of you to end up hostages He also blamed himself when you didn’t pass. Thought he’d scared you so much when you were practicing that you got in your head and just forgot everything, even though that’s impossible,” Haley responded.

Reid’s head jerked up in response. “He actually said that to you?”

Haley nodded. “He tells me about all of you. He sees Sean- you met him didn’t you, yes you did- in you. You’re both young. Got the whole world to explore and yet you chose to do the one thing nobody expected.”

“I bet he always has bad stories about me,” Morgan teased. 

“He trusts you. More than you think he does. And he wants you to trust him as well. He doesn’t listen when I say you do; you just show it in a different way. All you profilers show things in a different way. That’s what I’ve learnt. That there are some things you will never see the same way.”

“What does he say about me?” Elle asked, genuinely curious. She’d only met Haley in passing; the day they bought Jack in. And the time they’d spent in the hotel could hardly count.

“A lot. He’s scared this job is going to take your sense of humour away. He thinks that you’re going to wake up one day and hate him for letting this job consume your life. He worries about all of you though.”

“He worries about all of us?” that was JJ. 

“Of course. He thinks that he’s taking your chances at happiness away from you by calling you in at ungodly hours, disrupting your vacations, making you look at what happens to happy couples and innocent children- I really shouldn’t say anymore I just always assumed you knew.”

“We don’t profile team members,” Elle said, slightly defensive.

“I didn’t think you did. I just assumed he spoke to you,” Haley said, but there was no accusation in her tone. Just the smallest amount of surprise and confusion.

The members of the team started staring awkwardly in various directions, suddenly aware of how little Hotch actually shared with them. Only Morgan had even known Sean existed, and that was only because he’d knocked on the office door that one time.

Loud shouts from the room Hotch was in drew their attention. Everyone immediately stood, Haley and Jason moving forward so they would be the first person the doctor spoke to. They were too far away to determine the specifics of the conversation, but from the volume and range of voices they could hear told him it was a group of doctors and nurses.

The shouting stopped soon after though, and Gideon immediately knew that the silence could only mean that Hotch had been sedated. A part of him was glad the other man had woken up, but he was mostly wondering it that was the last time it would happen.

A few minutes passed. Garcia was humming to herself. Morgan was sat, staring at the wall, eyes glazed over as he ran through every moment that led up to the explosion. JJ was biting her nails. Gideon wanted to tell her to stop but he couldn’t. That was what Hotch did. Haley tugged her hand away and grasped it. Elle placed her hand on Reid’s knee. He stopped tapping his foot, looking up at her with the same confused look he wore when someone referenced pop culture. Elle smiled slightly. Gideon stood to the side. He didn’t deserve them.

The same doctor as before exited the room.

“He keeps asking after his father,” she said. 

Haley immediately jumped out of her chair and went over before Gideon could get a single word out. Hotch had never mentioned his father after ending up in the hospital. Sometimes he asked if Sean was safe. Most of the time he asked for Haley. Never once had he mentioned his parents. Jason did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but despite every part of him wanting to hope, he knew he was aware of the answer and that he was just too cowardly to admit it

“You have to let me in there,” she said.

“Mrs Hotchner with all due respect-”

“No. I know my husband’s medical history. You can’t keep sedating him, not when he needs to be conscious to answer your questions and not when there are only so many drugs his body can handle. But he isn’t asking after his father because he loves him. He’s asking where he is because he thinks he needs to work out how much more time he’s got before he needs to start pretending again. Let me in there, and he’ll cooperate.”

The doctor seemed to understand that there was no way they’d be able to win that particular battle. They sighed, then extended one arm to the door. Haley ran into the room, everyone else congregating outside.

“The painkillers will wear off in a few minutes,” the doctor told them all.

Haley nodded, immediately going to kneel beside Hotch’s bed, gently taking one hand and holding it tight, He was paler than anyone had ever seen him. His stomach was a mess of bruises and burns, some recent, others marks from a childhood that never should have happened.

Gideon watched, tears forming in his eyes. Hotch looked younger with his eyes closed. The pressures of the year seemed to fade, only to be made even clearer by the damage not covered by the hospital gown.

“Why isn’t he waking up?” Reid asked, five minutes later. His voice was shaky.

Haley’s grip tightened minutely. “Baby?” she whispered.

Aaron didn’t move. His heartrate remained steady, the beeping of the monitor the only sound that filled the room.

The doctors and nurses were preparing to do the rest of what they needed to do. Gideon felt his own heart slowing down. Aaron’s heart was beating but his eyes weren’t opening and the rise and fall of his chest was a shallow as when they’d first found him after Bale and none of this fit the pattern-

“I didn’t mean it, I swear, none of this was supposed to happen-” Aaron murmured, head rolling to the side.

Haley gasped and let go of his hand, just for a moment, before she realised what she’d done and grasped it again. “Aaron?”

Aaron’s eyes fluttered open.  He struggled to keep them like that. “Where am I?” he whispered, southern accent coming out slightly.

That fit the pattern of his recovery.

“Mr Hotchner, you’re in Lockhart Hospital. Can you tell me your birth name and date of birth?” a nurse asked, voice firm but gentle.

“Hospital? No, I can’t be in the hospital, he’ll find me. He said he’ll kill mama and make me watch but I swear I didn’t come here myself, where is he, I can’t let him hurt them, I can’t-”

One of the members of staff prepared an injection.

“Don’t,” Haley warned, shifting closer to him.

“Mrs Hotchner-”

“Just a moment. I promise. Hey sunshine. It’s me. It’s Haley. You’re safe, I promise. He can’t hurt you. He’s dead now. He’s not here, and nobody is going to hurt you. Everybody just wants you to get better. Your team are here. You remember them right? Agent Gideon, Doctor Reid. Garcia and Morgan and JJ and Elle? Yes, you remember them. Well they’re all waiting for you to recover because they love you. I love you too. And nobody is going to hurt you. Do you understand?”

“Haley?” Aaron whispered.

Haley nodded. “I’m right here sunshine. And I’ll be right here when you’re ready to recover. So take a deep breath with me, that’s so good, I’m so proud of you sunshine, just keep doing that. Are you going to close your eyes? Okay. Just please wake- when you wake up, remember that you’re safe. Can you do that for me?”

“Safe,” Aaron repeated as his eyes closed, unable to take the pain he must’ve still been in.

Haley didn’t let go of her husband. 

One of the nurses tapped her shoulder then quietly asked if she’d be okay waiting outside as they prepared the room for the next time he woke up, as they were no longer keeping him sedated and he seemed to be breathing himself, which meant they could move on.

Haley nodded and let go of Hotch’s hand. When she faced the team, Garcia immediately embraced her, and she started crying again.

“Let’s go back to the waiting room,” Gideon said, unable to handle the sight any longer. Garcia didn’t let go of Haley, choosing instead to wrap her arm around her as they left. 

“When Aaron was seventeen, his dad broke his arm and then refused to let him go to the hospital. He passed out in the middle of a lesson the next day and the school were forced to call an ambulance. He didn’t become coherent till they got there, and he wouldn’t stop screaming. I’d snuck in and was the only person he wouldn’t flinch away from,” she said once they’d all sat down.

Elle’s jaw dropped. Garcia started crying herself. Morgan looked away. JJ and Reid grabbed each other’s hands. They’d all assumed something had gone on in Hotch’s childhood- he never spoke about his family, he was always rougher with unsubs that they profiled as being abusive fathers- but there was a difference between making the inference and hearing it from the person that knew him best.

“He’s lucky to have you,” Jason commented.

“Allowing him to feel his emotions and letting him know that he’s safe is doing the bare minimum,” Haley said.

He didn’t have a comeback to that.

Thirty minutes passed before the doctor came back. It was good news. The profilers could tell. 

“He’s awake and stable enough to receive visitors now,” they said.

Everyone jumped out.

“Go on,” Gideon said to Haley, who dashed into the room and hugged her husband.

He made a small sound of discomfort, but still tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Hi Haley,” he whispered.

She laughed, sitting on the bed beside him. “You’re okay.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

The rest of the team filed into the room. Reid looked ready to cry again.

“Spencer, you cannot blame yourself. I told you to run because I wanted you to, and if you hadn’t, I’d be furious at you for always trying to be the hero. Elle, the same goes for you. I took you to the hotel. Nobody asked me to go to your house, so stop looking at me like I’m about to break. I’ll be fine,” he said. 

Hospital painkillers had always made him lose his filter.

Garcia started laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny, but sir your accent is coming through and it’s so hard to take you seriously when you’re laid up in bed with your hair all mussed and your accent but you’re still trying to tell them off and, it’s just, it’s confirmation you’re going to be fine.”

Hotch gave her a grin. Haley ran her hand through his hair, messing it up further.

“Thanks Hotch,” Reid said. He rocked on the balls of his feet for a few moments before muttering something that sounded suspiciously like fuck it and he too went and hugged Hotch. Haley shifted slightly. Hotch raised his arms to wrap around Reid’s back.

“Everything will be fine,” he whispered. “I promise.”

Reid pulled back with tears in his eyes but a smile on his face.

“No more close calls like that. You hear me?” Morgan chastised, patting Hotch’s shoulder.

Hotch rolled his eyes. “You aren’t the boss of me Morgan. I’m the boss of you.”

“Aaron,” Haley said.

He blushed, making everyone laugh. “Fine.”

The women of the team came over. Elle gave him a quick one-armed hug, whispering in Spanish so the rest of the team didn’t understand. Hotch wiped his eyes when she went to stand by the others. JJ hugged him gently, saying that he didn’t get to terrify them like that because he was mom and they needed him. Garcia’s heels made a comically loud sound as she walked over to him. 

“You are the most self-destructive unit chief I know. But you’re also the most handsome, loving, sweet one as well. And I know you won’t stop putting your life on the line for our baby genius and chocolate thunder so let’s compromise: you can do dumb and reckless things but you’re not allowed to complain when we pamper you afterwards, okay?”

Hotch blinked a few times. “Sure Garcia.”

Garcia hugged him again, pressing a kiss to his forehead that left a pink mark behind. Haley laughed, which led to the analyst immediately shuffling over to the rest of their rag-tag family.

Gideon watched from the doorway as the rest of his team and Haley sat with Hotch, laughing and joking. He couldn’t bring himself to walk in there and comfort Hotch. Not when it had all been his fault. The team had saved an innocent girl. Hotch had pulled through again. There was a high that came with that, and he wasn’t about to ruin it for any of them.

But what happened when the high ran out?

 Elle would realise her leader wasn’t the stoic man she once thought he was. Spencer and Derek would be forced to help Hotch pour his coffee and climb the stairs to his office because he couldn’t do it alone but he didn’t want to ask. Garcia would go home to an empty apartment, wondering which one of her family she’d almost lose next. JJ would have to deal with the media fallout of the case.

Haley would hold her husband, wondering how much more he would be able to give to his job before he broke. Before it broke them. Aaron would have more scars that he’d never be able to recover from.

Gideon would be forced to watch as they all returned to work, scared fractured but incapable of walking away. David Rossi had always said there would be people waiting in the wings to take over, but Gideon didn’t agree. Only the people that had seen the depths of depravity were willing to put themselves through the horrors of profiling.

Aaron looked up and met Gideon’s eyes. He looked terrified.

Gideon smiled. He had to.

But he knew. 

He knew Elle would break. He could see she was already struggling with the guilt. He knew that one day, probably soon, he wouldn’t be able to look at his team without seeing their scars or the people he’d failed.

He knew Haley wouldn’t be able to handle her husband’s job forever.

Jason Gideon knew that each member of his team would fall in their own way. He did not know whether or not they would be able to get up. He did know, however, that it would be another round of the waiting game.

And it would only get harder. 

#criminal minds #criminal minds fic #oh my god i'm so glad this is done #right #once my laptop is charged #because it is at one percent #i will do my final masterlist #aaron hotchner #sumayyah writes cm

[jenniboo311]

GQ: Spider-Man Goes Undercover on Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter

GQ: Spider-Man Goes Undercover on Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter by jenniboo311

Part 2 of the Social Butterfly Spidey series General |  4115 Words  |  Chapter 1/1

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The video opens with Spider-Man sitting at a table with only his torso visible, the set background a solid sky blue. He is wearing his signature mask and a simple white t-shirt, forearms bare and defined with lean muscle. He gives the camera a jaunty two fingered salute.

"Hey I'm Spider-Man," he begins in a friendly voice as he flips open the lid of the laptop in front of him decisively, "And I'm going undercover on the internet." The video cuts to a title screen as it types out "Actually Me with Spider-Man" as Spider-Man says off screen, "It's actually me!"

The screen then clears and types out a new message for its audience, "We had Spider-Man create real accounts and go undercover online."

"Let's begin!" He says as the camera cuts back to him typing into the laptop. The video shows his screen as he is typing his username and password into YouTube. Once the site logs in he selects his display picture, a cheeky shot a fan must have captured as Spider-Man swung past upside-down. "First up, let's take ourselves to YouTube."

A brief clip plays from a seven and a half minute humorous compilation of Spider-Man saves, cutting back and forth between impressive confrontations against dangerous criminals with firearms to sweetly helping older ladies with their groceries.

"From user SkepticalOfSpidey, she says," he narrates the comment as it is displayed on screen, "'Is this guy for real? How can a superhero go from dodging bullets to carrying groceries? Like how is this even on his radar? Does he actually care or is this some kind of PR stunt?'"

The video cuts to Spider-Man who replies vehemently, "I absolutely care! And I think it's hysterical people consider me "above" certain things, or they're not worthy of being on my "radar", as though I'm some hotshot. Look, the Avengers are great with the big world ending stuff, and sometimes I'm part of that too, but the little guys need help too, day to day. I'm the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and no matter who you are, your race, your age, your sexuality, your income, whether you're a victim of a mugging or a kitten in a tree, you all deserve help when you need it. That's my personal mission, just to help people. So as long as I'm doing that I'm not ashamed."

The video cuts to show the end of his response being typed out on screen and Spider-Man hits the "Comment" button to post his answer.

Another short clip plays of footage from the scene of a crime where Spider-Man is knocking out a hulking goon in one hit, displaying his super strength. The subsequent comment is displayed on screen as Spider-Man reads it aloud, "'oh great, just what we need: another brawny idiot that uses his fists to solve problems. What we really need is intelligence. Can we get more scientists please?'"

Spider-Man reels back in his chair a little, seemingly taken aback. "Wow! Why are you so angry-" he consults the laptop again for the username, "Chelsea?" He shifts in the chair to get comfortable before responding, "First of all, another? I'm offended on behalf of my teammates. All of the people I work with are very intelligent, so I'm not sure where she's getting that you have to be an idiot if you have muscles. Secondly, I am a scientist, actually. I specialize in biochemistry, though I also dabble in engineering, physics, and programming. I have an IQ upwards of 250, which if you want to compare to the likes of Tony Stark, is around 270, who also kicks ass by the way."

He straightens his shirt indignantly, "Though hopefully I didn't give too much away with that. My point is," he points at the camera, "you can have both brawn and brains. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise, people. Defy the societal norms."

The comment section displays on screen again and scrolls down the page until it hits another comment. "'How strong is Spider-Man?'" He lounges back in his chair and taps the fingers of his right hand on the table idly, "Well, last we checked I could bench press about ten tons. Tony and I ran some tests about eight months ago to find out, so it could have changed since then but likely not by a large amount. So I'm going to say ten tons, give or take."

Another video clip plays that shows Spider-Man swinging confidently on his web before suddenly taking a wrong turn and eating billboard. The jarring collision dislodges his grip and he falls several feet to land on a garbage bin, whose lid caves in immediately under his weight. He reads aloud, "'Ouch. I wonder how that felt.'" Spider-Man laughs quietly, not afraid to laugh at himself. "To be honest with you Joshua, it did not feel good. That billboard actually broke my nose, though the garbage bin helped break some of the fall. There's definitely worse things I could have landed on. I don't get distracted often but it still happens sometimes. Web slinging is hard, okay?!

"Wikipedia!" he says off screen, as the visual on screen shows Spider-Man logging in to the Wikipedia webpage with the username, '[email protected]'.

"Let's see here," Spider-Man says before devolving into mumbles as he reads the information supplied on the website about himself. "Wait wait wait!" He exclaims after a moment and quotes the offending fact, "'His signature weapon is his webbing, which is created biologically and dispensed from a gland in his wrists at the base of his palms.'" The text in question displays on screen and zooms in on the text, "biologically", and then, "gland in his wrists".

"First of all, gross." Spider-Man rests his forehead in his hand, propped on the table with his elbow in a perfect picture of disappointment. "Second of all," he sits up straight and addresses the camera full on, "have you all actually been thinking I've been spurting real webs out of my hands at everything for the past few years?!" After a beat he processes what he has just said and facepalms while mumbling, "Spurting, oh God I regret my word choice."

The video cuts to the text being backspaced as Spider-Man narrates offscreen, "This is incorrect, let's delete it!"

The video cuts back to Spider-Man reaching below the table, leaning slightly to the left to dig something out of his right pants pocket, sighing heavily. He pulls out two simple black bracelets which he pointedly holds up for the camera before slipping them on. "Web shooters: 101," he says before deliberately knocking his wrists together so the bracelets make contact and activate. "Now obviously Tony Stark has gotten his hands on these and they are a little different than the originals, as you can tell by the nano technology," he explains, black colored metal creeping up his forearms to encase them in a type of bracer, "but the base mechanism is still the same as what I designed from the beginning." The nano technology finishes covering his forearms, the device quite noticeable with the stark black of the metal covering the majority of his pale exposed forearms. He flicks his hands back, palms facing upwards to show the camera, as the motion triggers a small device to deploy in the center of his palms. He reaches into his pocket once more and retrieves a couple small cylindrical cartridges filled with a milky fluid which he then deftly loads into the devices at his wrists.

"In a nutshell: web shooter," he holds up his left forearm to present the whole device to the audience. "The trigger," he presents the small button resting in his palm, "and web fluid," he continues, indicating the cartridge now inserted below his wrist. He points to a spot at the base of his palm, "They got the location of the dispenser right, I guess, but it's not coming out of a gland of any kind!" He aims carefully just past the camera and shoots a quick burst by depressing the button at his palm that makes the viewer feel as though he is shooting it at them. "I developed this formula myself, in a lab, with chemicals!" He emphasizes. "It's completely synthetic, not biological by any means, and nobody had to milk me for it." He pauses, staring at the camera for a moment before looking down at the table and murmuring uncomfortably while shaking his head, "That was a strange sentence I never want to repeat." He huffs a quiet laugh.

"Quora!" Spider-Man says as the onscreen graphic shows Spider-Man logging into the website with his fake email. "What the heck is Quora? I have no idea but let's get into it.

"'How is Spider-Man such a darling? He's so sweet and wholesome and is a big, soft, cinnamon roll'," he narrates as the question displays on screen. He shifts around awkwardly and scratches the side of his head, "Aw, I dunno! But thanks Quora, you're my new favorite website.

"'How many people has Spider-Man killed?'" He narrates as the question displays on screen. "Wow guys, that's dark!" He leans forward and clasps his hands together to convey the seriousness of his response. "The answer is none. I haven't killed anyone nor do I intend to. Spider-Man is strictly nonlethal. I only use webs to detain, I don't use blades or guns of any kind. Except these guns." He lightens the mood by flexing his right arm and kissing his bicep. He holds it together for approximately two seconds before exploding in laughter. "Oh God, how do I have friends?" He mutters to himself.

"Next!" He exclaims, searching for the next question. "'Does Spider-Man wear a mask because he's disfigured?'" The question displays for the viewer to see. "Hmm, okay well the short answer is no. That's not why I wear a mask. I don't really know how to quantify my own attractiveness, that's just awkward. I think I'm perfectly average, though I've had people tell me I'm handsome. They were all terribly biased though, so take that with a grain of salt." Spider-Man's grin can be seen in the crinkling of the fabric around his mouth. "I have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and completely normal teeth. No extra eyes or mandibles or anything. That may sound like a strange thing to say but you'd be surprised how many times I have to clarify that," He snorts. "I cover my face because dealing with so many street-level criminals puts me on the radar of a lot of people who want revenge against me and anybody I care about. So if my identity was known I'd have to constantly watch my back, and my loved ones would be in danger. Of course there are contingencies for if that happens but in the meantime I want as normal a life as possible for me and mine."

Spider-Man clicks away on the laptop until the next question displays on screen. "'Does Spider-Man give autographs and selfies?'" He narrates. "I do, but all I ask is that if you catch me out in the wild and I look busy or distracted, to please not bother me. Most times the people I save are a bit too traumatized to be thinking about getting my autograph at the moment, but if the night is slow or I'm taking a break I'm happy to give an autograph or take a photo with you if you ask. Your best bet is probably at fundraisers and charity events, if I am in attendance, since I'm not focused on crime fighting and am just interacting with people."

The next question displays on screen, "'Is Spider-Man single?'" The video cuts to Spider-Man shifting uncomfortably. "Uh, I'm not comfortable confirming that sort of thing. Like I said, people in my orbit are in danger so I don't want to bring any kind of attention to who I surround myself with, even if their names are as yet unknown. The less information going around about that the better. So all I'll say is that at the very least I am not looking for a relationship." He awkwardly clears his throat before moving on.

"'How strong are Spider-Man's webs?' Strong enough to restrain the Hulk. Seriously," he nods at the camera, "I know this for a fact. We, and by we I mean the Avengers and I, had a code green sometime last year and out of sheer desperation I let the webs fly. By the time I was done he was basically in a cocoon but hey, it worked! Hulk looked pretty cozy actually." His eye lenses squint in amusement.

"Now let's go to Facebook," he says as the video shows him logging into Facebook and selecting a new profile picture, a closeup of Spider-Man shooting the camera finger guns.

"'Who would win in a race between Spider-Man and Captain America?'" He claps his hands together once in excitement, "Me! Because I'm obviously superior to Cap in every way!" He barks out a laugh and mumbles, "He'll let me have it for that comment! No I'm joking, Cap is awesome. I'm actually not lying though. We had a race, because science, and I clocked in at about two hundred miles per hour while Steve maxed at about seventy. Nothing to sneeze at of course, but not quite up to Spidey's par!" He gives another cheesy arm flex, this time with both arms. The video cuts to Spider-Man typing out the last of his answer and finishes it with two flex emojis before submitting it.

"'Do you think Spider-Man has any hidden talents?'" He looks seriously into the camera. "Well if I told you, they wouldn't be secret talents anymore, now would they Gerald?" He cocks his head to the side in thought. "I guess I can tell you that I can dance? I took dance and gymnastics for awhile when I was a kid, which is probably why I'm so agile and acrobatic now. My enhancement made me even more agile and acrobatic, but it was already there to some degree to begin with." He gives a careless shrug.

"'Coffee or tea?' Well I try not to drink either of them to be honest. Caffeine and spiders don't mix! Sometimes I can't avoid it though, lots of late nights being Spider-Man, so in those cases I drink coffee. Funny trivia for you, but I used to love lemonade. I must have inherited some spidery traits because lemon is a deterrent and I can't tolerate it now. I mean it won't kill me, I just find it unpleasant. Don't want criminals thinking they can spray me with lemon juice or something. I'll just be annoyed and smell funky fresh while I kick your ass." His eye lenses squint as his mask crinkles around the mouth. "My beverage of choice is actually apple juice, because I'm twelve years old." He snickers and hits the submit button to post his answer, complete with a baby emoji.

"'How are you doing? Are you getting enough sleep? Do you need a hug?'" He shifts forward to prop his chin on his hand. "I'm doing good, thank you for asking. I am absolutely not getting enough sleep, but neither is anyone else I know so I'm in good company. And I absolutely need a hug. I love giving people hugs and will one hundred percent hug you if you ask me to and I'm not busy. There's lots of Spidey to go around, I love each and every one of you."

He reads the next question silently first and barks a laugh before narrating, "'What even is your life?' Dude, I have no idea. If you had told young Spidey that one day he'd be flipping all over the city fighting crime and battling aliens with a superpowered team of highly skilled famous individuals he'd probably check you for fever and then back away slowly.

"Up next, Instagram! I know all about Instagram, I use it all the time." The video shows him once again logging into the website

"'Does anyone else desperately want a reality TV show with Spidey and the other Avengers? I would kill to watch hours of Spidey being a sarcastic little shit to bank robbers and Tony Stark just being a mess.'" Spider-Man laughs. "Wellllll," he hedges, "you might not have to wait that long. I've been toying with the idea of creating a YouTube channel and posting some shenanigans on there. Now, mind you, it won't be expertly edited or anything, I really don't have the time for that, but it would be something. Keep an eye out for that soon."

The video next displays a picture on Instagram that a fan had posted of a young Spider-Man from his early days coming out of a porta-potty with a string of toilet paper streaming off the bottom of his boot. The comment reads, "'Check out this disaster. What is going on here?'" Spider-Man looks straight at the camera, unimpressed, and deadpans, "Everybody poops, Deborah."

He navigates to the next picture, which is of a kneeling Spider-Man getting mauled by an enthusiastic, fluffy golden retriever. "'Was he a good doggo?'" He reads aloud. "He was best boy. What a good doggo!" He grins big through his mask.

"Now here we go to Twitter," he says as he logs in and selects a profile picture. "This is probably the social media I use the most. I'm thinking about deleting the app off my phone for a little while though, it's starting to consume my life. It's nice being able to connect to the public with it but I'm starting to find it difficult because people get so disappointed when I have to step away. Saying no to people is hard! And I have an extremely busy life so I can't keep this up forever. I've got cats to cuddle and lives to save! Gonna have to dial it back a bit I think."

The screen displays a tweet from user EmmaRox as Spider-Man reads it aloud, "'Do you think the abs are real or does he pad his suit?'" Spider-Man snorts and slaps his chest in mirth. "Well I would think that the fact I can lift a bus is proof enough, but here you go," he says and lifts his shirt to expose his impressively sculpted abs for just a moment before dropping his shirt and shaking his head in embarrassment. "Not padded."

The video cuts to the next question as he reads, "'What do you do in your free time?'" He looks at the camera and his left eye lens shifts as though he has furrowed his eye brow. "Free time? What's that?" He snorts, "No seriously, there's not much of that to go around. If I'm not on patrol or sleeping or training, I'm trying to keep up with my personal relationships and trying not to spend all my remaining time in the lab, with or without Tony. Like I said before, I'm a scientist, so a lot of my downtime is devoted to developing better tech, and to research to advance in these areas." He dramatically sweeps his hand across the top of his head as though he is a diva flipping long hair over his shoulder as he announces, "I'm not just a pretty face, you know." The video cuts to Spidey typing out the end of his answer, finishing it off with a queen emoji.

"'What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?'" Displays the next question from user, David P. "That's a good question, David. Hmm," he strokes his chin thoughtfully, "I would have to say 'With great power, comes great responsibility'. It was advice given to me by one of the two most important people in my life, and I have carried that motto in my heart ever since. It was advice that ultimately lead to the creation of Spider-Man, actually. I have these fantastic powers, so I consider it my responsibility to do something good with them." He wrings his hands together at what looks to be an uncomfortable topic for him to speak about. After a beat he continues his answer, "The second best advice I've ever gotten, however, was 'It is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring', which you'll also notice I take very seriously in that I am incredibly ridiculous. I mean if there's a person out there who spouts more bad puns in the face of danger than me, I haven't heard of them." He quietly snickers to himself.

"'If you had to choose three adjectives to describe yourself what would they be?'" He doesn't hesitate when he rattles off, "Genius, witty, humble." He stares at the camera seriously for a moment before he cracks and laughs. "No seriously, uh, probably awkward, smartass, and nerdy." He shrugs for lack of a better answer.

"Reddit!" He says as he logs into the page and selects a display picture of Spider-Man facepalming.

"'Do you have any pets?'" Spider-Man reads. "No. My apartment doesn't allow pets, sadly, but I love animals. And actually I do hang out with Tony a lot and I have to constantly make sure he's fed and watered because he forgets, so I feel like that's close enough." He covers his mouth with a hand to hold in his snort but a strangled one escapes anyway.

The next post shows a piece of fan artwork that is poor quality and is obviously from an inexperienced child. It depicts a heroically posed Spider-Man saving a young boy from a burning apartment complex window. The young artist in question posted the caption, "'I know it's not any good but spiderman saved me and my mom from a fire. I really want to say thank you so I drew him this picture. If anyone gets the chance to talk to spiderman can you please show him this and tell him I love him?'" Spider-Man looks at the picture on the laptop for a long moment and audibly takes several loud swallows. He looks at the camera and says hoarsely, "I love you too, bud. And I'm glad you're doing okay. It was my absolute pleasure to help you that day and I'm so glad I was there. I love your drawing and I think you're so very talented. I'm going to print this out and post it on my fridge so I can see it everyday and think of you. Study hard in school and be good for your mom!" He looks down at his lap and clears his throat, filling with emotion. After a moment he looks up and clasps his hands.

"That's it! We're done!" He says as he shuts the laptop with a snap and his eye lenses squint in a smile. "I hope you enjoyed watching and learning a little bit about me. See you around!"

The video fades to the GQ logo before ending.

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Comments: ----------------

magicalbluecookies omg that last one killed me. Spidey got all choked up Friedfishcat I live for Spidey telling us he loves us. I stan a Spiderboi not afraid of his emotions. kitty22803 Am I the only one who took a screenshot of his abs? TeamIronDad Bahahaha subtly roasting cap and iron man. I wanna be a fly on the wall of their common room, I bet they're all hilarious to watch together lovelyjourneys Does this cinnamon roll ever rest? He needs a nap! And some milk or something! saucysquatch "Everybody poops, Deborah." Dumbledork I will die if he actually makes a youtube channel, please actually make this a thing! enchanted_nightingale Nooooooo dont delete twitter! kim_cc I once got a hug from spidey!! I was crying after he saved me from almost getting hit by a car and he asked if i needed a hug. It was the best hug of my life. Isi1dur Spidey is 12 years old confirmed, someone call the press xoxheartErin Spidey, post a video of you dancing!!! Proof or it didn't happen! Slyrocker Spiderman is asked how's he's such a soft cinnamon roll, proceeds to then prove he's a soft cinnamon roll Hi NOBODY HAD TO MILK ME FOR IT UselessDiamond19 Holy crap his web shooters are so cool! chrissyglikesbooks 250?! His IQ is 250?! Einstein was 160!!!! I feel faint. amillionmiles Spidey eating that billboard is about how my week is going honestly Mira Spidey is such a smart boi! He's going to make a great husband when I marry him.

TotallyNotDeadpool Well I guess this is all we have to live for now that you're out of the MCU

#fanfiction #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman #social butterfly Spidey #social media #jenniboo311 #GQ #Reddit #Twitter #Quora #funny #humor #ao3 fanfic #Marvel #instagram #wikipedia #facebook #interview

[graphicabyss]

Avalanche and the Fallout

So, last time I commented on Tegoshi’s tell-all book and now it’s released and the damage is done. Such an appropriate name seeing as avalanches are sudden and destroy everything in their path. As I read the book and the related news, I struggled with both the need to convey how I felt and stop giving him so much time and attention. Sure enough, I ended up with a long review/analysis/bitching post. It's rough and mean and very long so please read at your own risk.

Facts first. The book released on Aug 5 was originally supposed to run 10,000 copies but they reportedly increased it to 50,000 due to high demand. Tegoshi also held a press-conference to talk about it on release day. It ended up being one of the best-selling books on Amazon and top seller in Entertainment.

It’s hard to talk about the book briefly. It’s 270 pages long and I had absolutely no intention to read it all but still ended up reading a good deal and words just kept pouring out of me. I could not imagine how much this book would fuck me up. I knew it would be bad but honestly I was shocked about the publication because it’s both incredibly cruel to so many people and incredibly stupid as it’s going to severely damage his reputation and future career.

I won’t even try to pretend to be objective because there’s nothing objective about the book itself. It’s a book of unsolicited opinions. If there’s one word I’d to describe it it’s ‘delusional’. Every chapter reeks of vanity and a sense of superiority as he judges every single celebrity he came in contact with and gives plenty of advice. It's a mess of careless words hastily and haphazardly thrown together in an attempt to let the world know the Real Tegoshi.

Of course, that's not how he sees it. He mentions the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates saying their books give people motivation and inspiration and he wanted to do the same. Bitch, you haven't done anything to get you on that level yet.

There’s a video on his channel where he goes to the publisher to talk about the book and while he says about sending an inspirational message, the publisher only wants him to talk about Yukirin and other juicy gossip. And it’s not like poor Tegoshi was tricked into it, he readily agreed to it and he knew full well what he was doing. The book’s cover does not advertise life advice, it advertises celebrity gossip. Also nudes, which by the way, turned out to be mere topless shots. Add false advertising to the list of offenses. He really gave Bunsun a run for their money discussing half his scandals and even adding some extra. He keeps saying he only wants to clear up the rumours but somehow ends up saying things that make absolutely no difference or even make him look worse. It's like if Bunshun said "Tegoshi was partying with 5 younger women, ran around naked and then passed out drunk" and Tegoshi would be like "That's not true! There were 4 women!"

He also said he absolutely could not hide how he truly felt. And that seems to make sense except it’s one thing to just be honest and reveal some of your relevant thoughts in a carefully worded manner. But this is another thing entirely. It’s some kind of emotional exhibitionism, a compulsory desire to share his every thought and opinion on everything and everyone. Dear, there is middle ground between hiding how you really feel and giving your every single opinion. That doesn't make you honest. It makes you an asshole.

The book is divided into small chapters and most are about NEWS, past and present members and related topics, as well as most other JE artists. Some chapters are about the women he had or did not have relations with. Some are about the people he admires and his delusional plans for the future. Only a small number of chapters do not mention any names and talk about his personal experiences and thoughts.

At this point, I do not even have all the scans but I have more than enough to go off the parts I read. First off, I am now allergic to the word ‘positive’ and the phrase ‘as a man’. What the fuck does that even mean? Also, a lot of the stuff he says in the book is not new in any way and was either said before or known through other sources or rumours. There are hardly any shocking revelations anywhere, at least if you were following him as closely as I have. But hearing all these terrible opinions at once is sure a treat.

Actually, he himself described it as whining and that seems accurate because he does that for a good portion of the book, explaining how unfairly he (and other people) was treated by the industry and the press. There are many stories of hardship and resilience. There’s the good old "I suffered so much when I wasn’t the center of attention for the first time in my life”. There’s the classic “The media spreads lies about me” and other familiar narratives. Also a few tragic stories of unfulfilled love.

And not all of it is horrible. In fact, there are a few parts that I could relate to, such as the terrible way Koyama had been treated when he had to resign from ‘every’, the strange limitations for idols and how excessively strict the rules of Japanese showbiz are. But by telling those stories and complaining about JE and Japan’s entertainment industry, he is not going to make a change. All he accomplished is make things harder for himself. Bringing up the names of many artists, especially those he doesn’t even know personally, and discussing their problems is incredibly rude, intrusive and potentially damaging. Yes, the rules of Japanese entertainment suck but see how much you can achieve going against them.

And I don't like JE and not going to defend it but bitching about JE in particular is unwise for two reasons: One - not only does he owe everything to it, NEWS is still in it and what’s bad for JE is bad for NEWS. Two - JE is very powerful and has immense influence in the industry so making them your enemy when your career barely started may lead to it ending prematurely. In the end, Tegoshi Yuya’s biggest obstacle to fame isn’t JE or media. It’s Tegoshi Yuya.

It is not an autobiography book so it doesn't start with childhood. Which is a pity because I was hoping to get a glimpse of how we got to this point. There are a few clues though. 

I can tell.

Perhaps the most important chapters are those connected to his leaving the band, his reasons and motivations and that shit made me livid. He basically says that one day he imagined how awesome his solo career would be and decided he was too good to be in NEWS and the world will fall at his feet at soon as he lets it. He literally says that when he had to stay home because of the Covid-19 pandemic, he realized that God sent him a sign saying “Quickly, leave the agency!”. The pandemic is serendipity. Fuck me.

I honestly expected that the part about NEWS members at least would be nothing but praise but it also left me with very mixed feelings. First, there's a chapter "What I Told the NEWS Members" and it sounds so solemn and inspirational like "Are you sure you didn't copy that from some drama or anime? Because people do not talk like that, especially after being hit with such news." I'd love to hear their side of the story. There's also a chapter calling the members his comrades and expressing his eternal gratitude. But it's pretty clear that's not really for the members, it's to appease the fans.

There are several more chapters about the members specifically. Tegoshi has to be perfectly honest so there’s evaluation of every member, as he positions himself as the best performer by default and tells some stories that he apparently seems to think necessary to share.

For instance, there’s his story of choosing to stay in NEWS in 2011 as he told Koyashige they were miles behind Tegomass and needed to improve their singing and dancing to not drag the band down. Wait, since when can Tegoshi dance? Also the time Massu could not get a certain song right and got unresponsive as Tegoshi kept poking his mistake, so Tegoshi went berserk and thrashed Massu's things.

There is also a whole chapter about Shige and it's so weird as a former biggest Tegoshige shipper. Before I'd be happy for all the praise. Sadly, at this point if Tegoshi praises you too much it's almost a little suspicious. The whole thing is basically Tegoshi deciding that Shige is his top choice as... a man? deciding he makes the best leader and entrusting him the band. "Take care of my NEWS, Kato!" he says at the end. Fuck this shit!

Also, whatever happened to “Shige-chan?” He has made no effort to spend time with Shige out of work. And you know, they used to hang out and go on trips together when they were younger but not in recent years as Tegoshi got 'cooler' friends. I mean, his and Shige's friends probably have a 20+ difference in IQ level but still... He also only read a few of his books and unlike Massu, he does read. Mostly shitty 'how to succeed' types. All of that speaks of remarkable disinterest in Shige's actual life and thoughts.

There are several more chapters regarding NEWS as a band and what he thinks they should do and it makes me furious just talking about it. You lost any right to decide the band's future when you left them high and dry, asshole. He also claims he loves NEWS so so much and even wears the tour T-shirts (impressive!) and sings their songs in karaoke and cries! (poor thing!) On top of that he can't wait to see the STORY tour and go to see it and also broadcast it on his Youtube and do a review.......... I can't with this shit. Let's move on.

He also analyzed former members, basically calling Ryo spineless and saying he and Pi should have left sooner if they had no interest being in the band. And that’s coming from someone who tried to leave what? 4 times at least? Yes. It turns out he wanted to leave the band in 2017, in addition to 2011 and 2013. The way I see it now, 4nin NEWS was a hostage situation where Tegoshi constantly threatened to leave and other members trying to keep him happy and make him stay. He knew he was important and he got away with all kind of shit, both within the band and the agency.

In a similar manner, he takes each JE group and artist and evaluates them - what's good about it and what’s not, who’s popular and capable, what the group needs to do and so on. It’s amazingly condescending. There’s even a whole part about wanting to unite NEWS and KAT-TUN. What the fuck? Who asked you? Go film your ugly wardrobe or something.

I bet Tegoshi is so obsessed with popularity and rankings that he sees numbers over every person's and groups’ heads. Not everything in the world can be ranked and measured in numbers. He also says there are many celebrities who fucked up and acted like divas but are still popular. Way to go! Except it seems you have mistaken the order. You should succeed first, then be a dick. Also bitch, you're not Lady Gaga.

One of the biggest reasons for the anger of fans, at least the Western ones, was the way he talked about the mental issues of the former King & Prince member Iwahashi Genki and SEXY ZONE member Matsushima Sou both of whom had to step back from the industry because of their panic attacks. Even though he intended to encourage them, he expressed a fundamental misunderstanding of how panic attacks work suggesting they just had to cheer up and stay positive.

There's a whole section where he talks about a dozen female celebrities, mostly idols and actresses, dedicating a whole chapter to each. Of course, only to ‘set the record straight’. Because that’s exactly how the rumours work, you know. Particularly old ones. You tell the whole story and they go away. It's disgusting. Female artists' whole careers depend on their pure image and being associated with him can easily end it.

He also speaks of the first three girls he dated, which all sound like huge and tragic love stories as he said he loved them so much he considered marrying them but they all actually happened when he was about 16 to 20 years and after turning 20 he hasn't had a single woman that he loved that much.

And then some parts are only about himself and they are things that one should really, really keep to oneself. Nobody needs to know you drink so hard you can’t get it up. The chapter's called "I have no interest in sex" but it should really be called "I have a drinking problem". I couldn’t help but remember the scandalous article that came out in 2017 where one of his 'girl friends' sold the story of their relationship with all unsightly intimate details. I chose to defend him at the time but now I’m not even sure I can blame her. Perhaps it should be viewed as whistle-blower insider info as she warned others of what they may expect. The chapter "I have easily over a 1000 female friends" says he has this many girl contacts all over Japan and overseas but they aren't what you think they are. He only had 10 girls who he considered girlfriends, those he met 1 on 1 with. I guess the rest he just fucked so that doesn't count. Now that I think about it, I feel like 99% of all the Bunshun articles were mostly accurate.

Speaking of which... There's also a chapter where he explains why he cried during Neverland tour and he explains it by the photo with the two cons from 2011. We all know that was just a small part of it and the far bigger reason was people exposing his private messages and leaking intimate photos and stories. So much for the whole truth. Also, he whines about his reputation being hurt by the photo but has a whole chapter praising the man called Horiemon who was imprisoned for securities fraud.

There's another major revelation that shows his character. He mentions several cases where he had hissy fits in the dressing rooms, actually throwing chairs and things. Of course, for important reasons - being frustrated and angry at terrible injustices. Such as Koyama being fired from ‘every’ or him losing some parts in ChumChum after his scandal. Also the fight with Massu back in 2010 when he threw Massu’s things on the floor... It’s horrible as it is but for Massu, knowing he freaks out if you so much as breathe on his things... What a bitch.

There are also some chapters about his delusions of becoming a worldwide phenomenon but he doesn't seem to have a real plan how to achieve it. There are his ideas that are all over the place. There's the bold "Creating a new mold of entertainment" so that's producing. There's Youtube stuff. There's creating a "Tegoshi village" with ex-TOKIO Yamaguchi. He just had to pick the most problematic of his senpai. And there's an actual chapter called "Expanding to China and US Simultaneously”? Also English lessons? That all sounds very impressive, hon, but all you did so far was piggybacking on other people's fame and work. His book sold largely due to scandals and other people's names. He had a solo concert with just his NEWS solos and cover versions. And he just released a video that is an exact replica of his ItteQ segment.

One question is: how is he so confident he'll succeed fast? Well, apart form the usual delusions of grandeur. One reason for his excessive confidence is having friends in high places. At one point he's casually namedropping Abe Shinzo and the First Lady who was supposedly expected to come to the Story tour. Tegoshi said he would invite both of them to his solo concert. Yeah, I'm sure they'll come, nothing controversial about that.

I can’t imagine how it’s going to go from here but I don’t know how anyone would still want to work with him. He fucked over people he worked with for 18 years, people he claims to love, in a heartbeat so what can a new partner expect?

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

As expected by literally everyone but Tegoshi, the book made an uproar and not in a good way, with fans and agencies enraged over his words about the artists. There were many articles calling this book 'exposé book', especially focusing on him using the real names of female celebrities. Some newspapers followed up with petty articles. My favourite is an article from Tokyo Sports that specifically dug up a story that was not in the book about the way he adamantly pursued a certain female idol trying to conquer her and culminating in doing a dogeza in front of her but she still rejected him saying "Zettai yada! I will be your girlfriend number what?". Her name is not revealed, which is unfortunate, I'd like to know who that queen is.

Not all feedback was bad, of course. According to this article, many men brought it and enjoyed it. I'm sure they did. Plenty of aspirational douchebags out there. Anyway. Many fans wrote to him long angry and very detailed letters. His social media accounts have been losing followers for the past several weeks.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that he seemed genuinely surprised that instead of praise for his courage and honesty he got anger and disapproval. It wouldn't happen if he got his head out of his ass and literally asked a single one of the people he wrote about what they thought of it. 

The feedback must have been very focused as the very next day he wrote a few posts on his Twitter and Instagram indicating his concern over the feedback. On Twitter, he used the word “yacchimatta ka” as in “I messed up, didn’t I?” though stylistically I read it as “whoopsie”. Then there were two Insta stories.

2020/08/06 Ah, I'm a little tired. I'm also human. (sometimes I whine)

2020/08/06 I don't bother with those who criticize me in whatever they do. But I can't stand to see my fans, whom I treasure like my life, leave. I'm sorry. From now on, I won't whine anymore.

"I whine sometimes?" Really? that's what you call a 272 pages tell-all book? Also "I won't whine anymore"?? You think pulling off shit like that and then saying "whoopsie" is enough? It got quiet for a few days and on Aug 10 there was the apology video, which was named "This is my first and last whining". Doubt it. He uses the word ‘弱音’ which has a somewhat vague meaning, using it in an apology video in that context is confusing. Why not call apology as it is? That seems like another politician’s technique.

The apology was impressive in a way. At least it was not a blanket apology, he (or his employees) correctly identified what exactly people were mad about. He said he was really sorry for hurting his fans and causing trouble to people he wrote about. He said he understood that he doesn't have to reveal everything. He also said that he felt the love behind the anger, that fans wrote to him because they cared and were disappointed. Also said he realized that he was protected till now. It was all pretty good right until the very end when he gave a loud 'TEI!' effectively ruining the effect.

Of course, it was good that he did that but I still don't think it even began to make up for all the shit he wrote. The apology would be an adequate step after a shitty Tweet, not a fucking book. Also, I feel like more than anything he just got scared of losing his fans, maybe even sorry for hurting their feelings but not really sorry for what he did. He has no plans to change his behaviour. He wants to be at his 100% assholeness and still be adored.

Of course thousands of merciful women turned to his defence because he looked 'so sad' and even 'thinner'. That's right! He's the real victim here. Must be terrible to hear such hard criticism for the things you actually said and did.

By now I'm barely even angry anymore and a part of me feels sorry for Tegoshi. He's like a dumb spoiled child who wreaks havoc. But I have to remind myself I should not feel sorry. He is in fact an adult man of 32 who is so used he always gets his way that even a minor opposition is viewed by him as a violation of his freedom. And his charm is the very reason he always got away with all the shit he did in life up to this point. I bet he is getting a lot of hate mail and I hope his positivity prepared him for it. I remember him calling Koyama in the middle of the night to come and comfort him while he cried. Also calling Shige to come only to fall asleep in his lap. Now he's on his own. God, right now I just really wish Tegoshi would send himself to the corner and thought about what he's done. Just step aside and shut up for 5 minutes.

But he isn't gonna do it. Of course not. He had a solo concert today and is doing Youtube videos and moving even faster so that people forget about the book.

But fans never will. I can't even say if the book changed my perception or just unveiled what I knew was there all along. For years I've been discarding and questioning all the bad rumours and stories telling myself "He didn't mean it" or "That can't be true" but now it all comes together like pieces of a puzzle, and there's no need to guess anymore because he's shouting "Oh yes I fucking did and I'll do it again!"

All in all, the book paints a picture of a man who is anything but Prince Charming. It chips away any remaining illusions of a 'perfect idol' showing someone who is vain, petty, and chauvinistic. Someone who is obsessed with status and popularity so much that he is willing to sacrifice everything for it and thinks it doesn't matter how bad your reputation is as long as you succeed. Someone who is the very epitome of toxic masculinity, drinks himself to oblivion and treats women like toys. And yet, somehow, I still find myself having to fight the strong urge deep inside of me that makes me want to like him.

#Tegoshi Yuya #musings #it's nearly 4k fuck me #I'm exhausted but it had to be done

[lost-in-the-spectrum]

What is the Asperger-Syndrome?

Friends of the sun shine…

This is gonna be my very first tumblr post in English about a very personal and important topic I’d like to write about. You see the title and think ‘I heard of that, I know what it is’? Then f*ck you because you don’t.

 First of all: My name is Helli, I am 25 years old and I’ve got the Asperger-Syndrome, now a days also known as Autism-Spectrum-Disorder. I’ve been suffering of bullying, misunderstanding, being let down and being unheard, being treated differently and badly just because I’ve behaved specifically during the spectrum and its issues. I was an introvert, a daydreamer, a comic- and video game geek... especially the last point might be an information where you go like ‘huh, that is actually cool’ but well... years ago it wasn’t. I was a nerd for others and nerds were meant to be uncool and unpopulare for a quite long time. Unfair? Yes, it is. But do you think anyone did care those days? No.

 Anyways, before I start to tell you something about this syndrome – and before I do the same mistake as I did 5 years ago making a video for my German YouTube channel to talk about it – I’d like to mention that all I tell you in this post is only ABOUT ME. Every autistic person is DIFFERENT and not everyone got the same issues or strengths as me. So please before you drop every autistic person in one box which I accidently did in the video I mentioned before, please remember: THIS IS JUST ABOUT ME. Yet I will drop some general informations about that syndrome as well. And maybe you recognize yourselves or other people and friends, maybe you’re autistic yourself then let me know in every possible way you want.

 What is the Asperger-Syndrom (medical)?

It is a profound developmental disorder with issues in social communicating, correct interpretation of facial expressions and gesturing. People with the Asperger-Syndrome are most of the time hardly interested in any topic but create a special huge interest in certain topics. Most of them are, like with me, video games and comics, computer and technology in general, sometimes even different kinds of science or arts. In some individual cases people with this syndrome are incredibly good at mathematics or speaking (linguistically gifted) but at the same time these people are not able to do other simple things. Me as an example: Never mind how much I practised, how good the teacher was, I always wrote bad exams in mathematics even tho I understood what I did in the homeworks before and even in some very simple exercises I do the one or other mistake. BUT even tho I’ve hardly read a book in my life because – I am not gonna lie – books (novels) are uninteresting for me I am very good at speaking, writing, formulating, describing things (...) I am pretty good at articulating myself. So I eventually belong to these people who are linguistically gifted. I can only tell that my dad – a former German teacher – is even kinda impressed about my way of speaking because I – as I have already told – hardly hold a book in my hands. I only remember three novels I’ve read in my whole life and those books where lucky to be interesting enough for me.

 Anyways... those are the main signs and behaviors of people with this syndrome. Of course the Asperger-Syndrome is not the only disorder. The spectrum is pretty huge and includes many other Autism-Disorders. Not only other names but also syndromes with the same name but with some little deviations in behavior and ‘gifts’. So while I have not such a huge problem with maybe speaking with people and explaining them how I feel and see the world (as long as they give me the chance to do so) other people with the same syndrome might have big issues in formulating and ordering their feelings, describing them etc. While I really want to become an educater and work with children and teenagers to help them on the right way – I even want to work in special institutions for people with depressions and other conditions – other people with the Asperger-Syndrome completely avoid people and social contact or at least prefer jobs where they can be for their own.

 These are only some examples for the issues or strengths people with this syndrome have to deal with. Other examples – where I can relate – are these...

Being not interested in other     children as a child and prefering to play on their own.

Misunderstanding things and     informations which are said because these people sometimes have an own way     to say and describe these things.

Being unable to use the correct     facial expressions to a certain feeling as well as misunderstanding them     on other people. – almost the same issue which they have with told things.

Unable to be flexible and     spontanious, prefering to know appointments and meetings at least one day     earlier, even tho it is spending time on the beach with friends.

Mostly having a strict day     structure and plan and having issues to change them.

Sometimes not interested in     other people but in objects. I for example am more imperessed of a note     book having a nice cover than of a handsome man.

Most of the time for their own     and focused on their own life, problems etc. Which you can mix up very     easily with ‘just being day dreaming’ Which seems egoistic to other     people.

Sometimes not even able to show     emotions or at least they have a limited number of emotions on stock.

They often do things everytime     on the one and same way – Much alike this day structure thing – and while     other people get bored very quickly by that people with this syndrom     actually love it to know what’s coming next and that it is everyday the     same. (This is because these people really want to have the ultimate     control on everything they do.)

 Now we come to the points which some autistic people can relate but indeed not everyone of them:

 Having a bad ‘inter navigation’     which means that they’re pretty bad at reading maps, finding a simple way     even tho there are signs and shields telling them where to go and even tho     someone once walked the way together with them. (I am one of them. Other     Autists are pretty good at navigation and geography.)

Reminding information or images     by first sight (photographic mind, like the boy who flew over a city with     a helicopter and drew the whole city down only by viewing it once.)

Being able to solve a mathematic     exercise in their head within 30 seconds or less.

Having a higher IQ from 113 up     to 200, also known as ‘extremly gifted’ (unfortunately not everyone... I’ve     met some people...)

Being very tidy, ordered and     hygenic. (also not everyone. For example me: I am captain Chaos.)

Being very sensitive if it’s     about smell, flavor, feeling, light, noises etc. (I’ve got only some     noises which freak me out and sometimes I can’t deal with the sun light     because it is just way to bright for me. That’s why some autistic people     always use noise-cancelling headphones or sunglasses.)

Having issues with being in a     relationship including love and sex life. (Not me: I have got a boyfriend     without Autism and we come along pretty well actually. We do also fight     like ‘normal’ people. There is hardly a difference. Yet there are some     other kinds of people.)

 There are also autistic people who behave much more extreme than the examples I’ve written down. Some of them still ‘belong’ to the Asperger-Spectrum, others already drift into the ‘Kanner-Spectrum’ which is known as the ‘Autism’ which comes up to our minds when we hear about it. It’s the ultimate image most of the people still have when they hear about ‘Autism’: Swinging around on the chair or floor and not noticing anyone speaking to them: caught in their ‘own world’. Behaving uneasy, having no respect or not accepting distance. Some of them even’d like to touch your ‘private zone’ because they think it is interesting but don’t understand that it is not okay – or even sexual harassment – to do so. Hurting themselves by hitting their head against the wall – for example – if they’re told to do what they don’t want to. In general known as easily provocating people, aggressive and having no control over their own actions.

 This is a completely other topic tho. So if you’d like to have a list with examples and definitions of different Autism-Spectrums, just let me know!

 Now: What is the Asperger-Syndrome for me?

Even tho some ‘

social justice warriors

’ or other autistic people will hate me for that I tell you what it is for me: A disorder and a disability and also an other view of life.

Are disorders and disabilities bad for me? Is it bad and wrong to call Autism like that? No. Why? Because people are used to use these words as offenses or general in a negative point? Sry, that’s not my problem. If these people seriously yell at me calling my own Autism as disorder and disability, because they find it bad and discrimanting - because their definition of it is negative - then those people are discriminating – not me - because they think disabled people with a disorder are negative in some way and that’s why it’s wrong to call them like that. This is discriminating and hurting by these people and they do anything with this attitude except something good.

Autism is a disorder. Autism is a disability. This is a fact and this doesn’t make us to worse or less valuable people than others. If you really automatically think my disability makes myself less valuable to others it means to me that you think it is something negative too and this is discriminating! Never mind how you try to turn it.

 So why is it a disability and disorder besides the medical fact that it is? 1st I am disabled in social communication. Never mind how good I probably am in articulating myself and formulating things, I still don’t now how to start a conversation, how to get to know someone, not even how to meet people. In fact I am even nervous about meeting new people, being in a room with strange new people with whom I am supposed to work closer in future is a bit hard for me. I am incredibly insecure, especially because of my bullying experience.

I hate having small-talk or being unnecessary ‘polite’ ... like not saying the total truth about something and lie a little bit instead to make people not feel uncomfortable which is wrong in my opinion. But that’s how society works. And while people without Autism know how ‘the cookie crumbles’ and they have no issues with behaving like this I feel uneasy about it and as honest I am with my words and thoughts, so am I with my feelings which means that I can’t hide it when I’m feeling uneasy. Society feels uneasy about me feeling uneasy because these ‘simple’ society actions. You see where this goes.

 2nd I have issues with reading faces and recognizing voices. That means I can’t always tell if a person is angry, annoyed, okay or happy and I can’t tell by the person’s voice if he or she is angry, stressed, annoyed, sad, anything like this which is usually also a special key to some kind of social communication. All I can do is ask if he or she is okay or what’s the matter but I have met many people in my life and some of them think that it should be so obvious how they feel that I must be a silly cunt to not notice it. Or maybe worse: they think I don’t care and I pretend to care to make people think that I am a good person but in fact I am ignorant. Yes, that’s what some people once thought of me.

 3rd I am disabled to have a normal everyday life in – for example - summer time when it is hot outside. It’s not like just being done because it’s so warm and I am sweating, no. People who know me well have seen me during hot summer times and I am absolutely useless. I am like totally done, almost dead if you really want to know. In case that I go outside because the temperatures are not too hot and I am able to move in the sun (and because I need food, you know, don’t wanna starve) there is an other problem: the sun light. I go out, the sun and its light burns down on me and suddenly I hardly see a thing, everything I watch shines in a horrible bright light and literally blends me. I need to wear sunglasses for that, sometimes even in the late afternoon when the sun light isn’t that bright anymore. Even then, because my Autism is also a kind of ‘high sensibility’ if it’s about sun light or certain kind of noises and sounds. In addition I am not always able to handle stress and busy situations. Stress knocks me out sometimes and it’s not like just being stressed, no. Sometimes I start crying. I’m having an overload, a so-called meltdown (which is also something I’d like to write about in an other post) which means I am crying for hours and having a mental and emotional break down. All the emotions I actually felt for a quite long time and which I’ve held back because I know that in these situations these emotions would make them worse... all these emotions, sometimes including emotions I think I didn’t even know that they exist, are coming out. It’s like me being a huge frozen mointain, completely made of ice, the emotions which come out because of the stress are getting hot and making my frozen shell melt and break down... I am literally a frozen vulcano who explodes with all its emotions. Now tell me: do you think I could work in a stressy job for eight or more hours a day without having these break downs?

 To the question why it is a disorder: No person has got the right to decide what’s normal and what’s not. But comparing my issues and my behavior in certain situations because of my condition to the behavior of other people without this condition, it is definitely a disorder. When it comes to the situations I am disable to handle ... it is like me being a television which loses its signal right within a good television show. I have literally no signal in these moments. I am having a disruption. Do you say your television is not having a disruption then? ‘It is not having a disruption, it is just special.’ God damn, that sounds kinda discrimanting, doesn’t it?

 I am disabled. I’m having a disorder. But that doesn’t make me to a bad person and less valuable than anyone else. You know, I can learn, how to communicate. I can learn, what to do in stressy situations. I can learn to read expressions, learn and study different expressions or the sound of voices in different emotions. I can learn this all.

Disability is a medical fact for me. It describes or is a ‘name’ for the issues we have. I will always be disabled like – even tho this is an extreme example, don’t blame me for that, please – a person who’s sitting in the wheel chair because he or she lost his or her leg in an accident, in a war, anything like that. BUT as this person can learn to walk with a prothesis so they won’t be stopped at all, so I can and will learn to communicate and manage my life and find my place in this world. I will always be disabled but I’ll never be impaired. I don’t wanna be changed or even pitied, I want to be accepted and luckily there are people who accept and also love me the exact way I am.

 I really want to mention again: please, don’t blame or hate me for comparing me with a person who lost a leg and has to sit in the wheel chair... I know this life is worse and it is horrible and not really comparable with my disorder. But I just want to make a point.

Autism is an other way of to be and even tho there are so many different autistic people everyone of ‘us’ is different and when you know one autistic person then you know exactly one. Only one. Meet more of us and you’ll know who we really are.

 I hope you took the time to read it all and that I could explain at least a little to you what the Asperger-Syndrome is. There are some informations in the internet and in some books, medical facts and experiences as well as personal ones, blogs like this or even youtube channels. Feel free to check them all out but please educate yourself correctly and stop putting us all in a box.

 Thanks for reading. Good bye!

#autism #autism spectrum condition #autism spectrum disorder #autism spectrum #asperger #aspergers #asperger syndrome #lost in the spectrum #enlightenment #education

[pufflyhallows]

Fools

Gif not mine

Pairing: Fred Weasley x reader

Summary: You and Fred dated for a year before having a silly fight and breaking up. Now provocations are an everyday thing and you can’t stand each other.

Warnings: language

Word count: 4,831

a/n: welcome to the lovers to enemies and back to lovers trope :)

********

“You are the most annoying and immature person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet!” 

“Really? Well, then I’ve just accomplished my mission in life.”

You crossed your arms, breathing heavily. Fred had a cheeky grin on his face as he watched you get angrier and angrier by the second. 

“Good for you!” you replied, “Now, if you excuse me, I need to get back the IQ points I lost while talking to you.”

“Go ahead,” he stepped aside so you could walk past him, “But be careful! You might trip on your ego.”

You showed him the finger, walking away in fast steps. 

It had been two months since you had broken up with Fred. At the time, you thought it was the right decision, but right now… you were sure. You didn’t know how you could have dated someone so insufferable! You deserved an award for being that unmindful. 

However, your relationship with him had become very interesting after the breakup. Boredom wasn’t part of your routine now that you were some sort of rivals. Even though it wasn’t a conscious decision, you both had started competing in pretty much everything. You were always on opposing sides, teasing and picking on each other, which sometimes made you laugh and have a good time, and sometimes made your blood boil... like at that moment.

You headed to the Great Hall trying to ease your thoughts and let go of the tension upon your shoulders. You were not going to let him ruin a day that had barely started. It was a special one, after all.

“You’re coming to the game, right?” Angelina asked as soon as you sat next to her to have breakfast. It was a lovely Saturday morning and you weren’t going to miss that match for anything. Gryffindor versus Slytherin was always exciting.

“Of course!” you said, “I’ll be there screaming your name as loud as my lungs allow me to.”

Angelina smiled, but you could see she was nervous. Well, being the captain wasn’t easy and Oliver Wood had left quite a lot to live up to. 

She had to leave the Great Hall with the team sooner, since they had to get ready in the locker room, so you stayed alone at the table, finishing your meal and wondering if you would be alone at the stands too. For your relief, Ginny invited you to attend the game with her, Neville, Luna, Ron and Hermione. 

After the breakup, you were afraid things would be weird between you and your ex-boyfriend’s siblings, but thankfully everything remained the same. You could still call George, Ginny and Ron your friends, although you kind of kept a certain distance whenever they were with Fred.

Soon enough, you were leaving the castle with them and heading to the pitch. It wasn’t a surprise to see that it was completely full. Everyone in Hogwarts knew the game would be thrilling.  

“What a beautiful day for a Quidditch match!” Lee announced on the speaker, “The Gryffindor team enters the field!” 

The Griffindors and lots of students from the other two houses cheered as loud as they could, you being one of them. 

“The Slytherin team arrives,” Lee announced in a bored tone, receiving a warning look from Professor McGonagall.

Madam Hooch called the captains and did the formalities. You observed Fred talking to George and Harry, before they flew up to join the others. He gave a quick look at the stands, apparently searching for something until his eyes fell on you. You held his gaze for a few seconds, but looked away after he gave you a wink. What the hell?

Madam Hooch whistled and the match began. 

You felt your stomach get cold as the Slytherin Seeker started following Harry, even though your friend hadn’t seen the Snitch yet. 

The Quaffle was going from hand to hand so fast it was almost impossible to keep your eyes on it. The Gryffindor Chasers were really close to the Slytherin goalposts and you instantly held your breath as you saw Alicia throwing the Quaffle to Angelina, who caught it graciously and aimed for the big hoop in the middle.

“And Gryffindor scores a goal!” you heard Lee’s voice and the crowd cheering excitedly, “Angelina Johnson, what an amazing player!”

The excitement took over you as you cheered with your friends, but it didn’t take long for you to feel restless again. Harry was still being followed closely by the Seeker.

“Harry’s got company,” you told Ginny. 

She looked at him just in time to catch the player pushing Harry, almost making him fall. 

“Son of a-”  

As Harry tried to stabilize again, the Slytherin Seeker increased his speed in order to push him one more time, but a Bludger was sent from the opposite direction nearly hitting the Slytherin, who slowed down. You looked at where the Bludger had come from and saw a proud Fred Weasley flipping his bat. When he saw you, he threw his bat up and caught it back flawlessly, earning an eye roll from you. What a show-off.

“Gryffindor scores again! That makes twenty points to Gryffindor and zero to Slytherin!” Lee yelled without hiding his excitement. 

Suddenly, Harry changed his direction.

“I think he saw the Snitch,” Ron squeezed his eyes, trying to see it.

Harry stretched out his arm, going in full speed. That’s when you saw a glimpse of a tiny golden glow in front of him. 

“He’s really close, we’ll make it!” Hermione jumped on her seat.

Indeed, Harry was almost touching the Snitch, but the opposite team’s Seeker was back at his tail, stretching his arm as well and trying to catch Harry’s broom’s ending. 

“Slytherin scores! Twenty points to Gryffindor and ten points to Slytherin,” Lee announced on the speaker and the Slytherin students cheered loudly, being followed by lots of students from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff as well. It was a really divided crowd...

When the Slytherin seeker was almost reaching Harry, a Bludger hit him on the shoulder, making him hang on his broom. 

Fred smiled proudly as George high-fived him. Your ex-boyfriend had saved Harry once again.

“Harry Potter catches the snitch!” Lee shouted the loudest in that morning, “That’s one hundred and fifty points to Gryffindor! Gryffindor is the winner!”

You were caught off guard when Hermione hugged you tightly and the students around you screamed like crazy. 

“Gryffindor! Gryffindor! Gryffindor!” the crowd shouted in tune. 

Madam Hooch had to hold back the Slytherin Seeker, who was visibly furious, trying to get to Fred. You felt apprehensive and slightly angry as the boy shouted several insults at the older twin, things he didn’t deserve to hear. You were glad that the teacher was there to prevent something worse, though. 

Ginny, however, watched amused the worried expression on your face.

“He’s tough,” she said, catching your attention, “Don’t worry.”

You shook your head, looking away. “I’m not worried.”

“It’s okay,” she smirked, “I won’t tell him.”

“I’m not worried,” you repeated, but she was already leaving the pitch with the rest of your friends.

In the common room, where everyone gathered to celebrate, you were finally able to hug your best friend. 

“You were amazing!” you smiled at Angelina.

“Thank you,” she seemed relieved, “I just heard about the Seeker trying to push Harry. If I had seen it happening, I would probably have done something I would regret. Luckily, Fred got his back.”

“Yeah,” you shrugged, indifferent.

“Oh, come on, Y/N. You have to admit he was vital for this win.”

“I wouldn’t say vital. Maybe slightly relevant?” 

Angelina raised her eyebrows at you, obviously waiting for you to say it. “Fine,” you rolled your eyes, “Fred was really important for the win.”

“Did I just hear Y/N Y/L/N saying I am important?”

“Oh no,” you closed your eyes, regretting the words you had spoken. 

Fred came out from behind you and stood by your side, that obnoxious cheeky smirk on his face once again. “I’m flattered.”

“I said you were important for this win, specifically. Don’t get too excited,” you side-eyed him.

“Hm,” Fred furrowed his eyebrows in a fake thoughtful expression. “That means you admit I’m an excellent player.”

“That means I admit you weren’t completely useless today.”

“Which means you were watching me.”

“I was watching the game. You just happened to be in it.”

“There’s no need to pretend, love. Everyone knows you can’t take your eyes off of me.” 

You looked at him feeling the irritation building up. Why couldn’t he just leave you alone?

“I think I’m gonna go...” Angelina murmured, slowly stepping back.

“No, stay,” Fred motioned for her to come back, “I was on my way out. I just want to thank Y/N for her kind words and the recognition of my talent.”

“Well, being a pain in the ass indeed requires a lot of talent,” you smiled, “You’re welcome.”

Fred’s grin grew bigger after your words. Something in your head told you he loved to see you firing back, but you couldn’t help it.

“See you around?”

“Hopefully not,” you smiled again.

As Fred walked away, Angelina sighed, shaking her head. 

“I can’t even- I... Fuck it,” she threw her hands in the air, walking away as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mondays were usually quiet and peaceful. Nothing bad happened on Mondays, but nothing good happened either. Maybe you could call it boring instead of peaceful, or say that it was like that because everyone was mourning the end of the weekend. Either way, it was not a very pleasant day. 

You were used to it, though. Everyone was. The entire school had low expectations for the day, including you. But, well, you didn’t think it would be so bad.

“Professor, can’t you just swap us out? I’ll go with Angelina and he can go with George.”

“I said no, Miss Y/L/N. The class has been dismissed.”

“But-”

“Dismissed, Y/N,” Professor McGonagall looked seriously in your eyes. You sighed. You had lost that battle.

Every single seventh-year student that shared a class with you or Fred in the last two months knew about your little rivalry. A few teachers noticed something too, but Minerva McGonagall couldn’t care less about her students’ drama and she didn’t hesitate to pair you up for her latest assignment.

It annoyed you very much to see the smirk Fred had on his face as she announced the names. How could he be satisfied with the situation? How dared him look at you the way he did? It was like he enjoyed the frustrated look on your face.

You groaned, sitting on the couch by the fireplace in the common room, minutes after leaving Transfiguration’s classroom.

“What’s wrong?” Angelina asked.

“McGonagall said no,” you mumbled, staring directly at the fire in front of you.

“Well,” your friend closed the book she was reading and sat straighter, turning to you, “Now that she gave her final answer, I can say this to you. I’m glad she paired you up with him. This is a great opportunity for both of you to make up with each other.”

“Who said I want to make up with him?” you scoffed, looking away.

“It’s not a matter of what you want, but what you have to do. You have to make up with him, Y/N. Everyone is starting to get really annoyed with your behavior, the provocations and silly competitions,” she paused, “And I mean both of you. This has to stop.”

You closed your eyes to resist the urge to roll them. Taking a deep breath, you opened them again and looked at your friend.

“I understand your concern, Angie. But I will only stop when he stops.”

“Which is insane! I am a hundred percent sure he thinks the same way! Oh God, this will never end…” Angelina melted into the couch, feeling hopeless.

“Glad you know.”

“Have you at least talked to him about the assignment?”

“Hell, no,” you snorted, “And I’m not going to. If he wants to know about it, he will have to come to me.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she shook her head.

As predicted, Fred didn’t come to you to talk about the assignment the next day. You knew he would ignore you completely to make you go to him, but it wouldn’t work. You wouldn’t let him win. 

You were confident. The assignment wasn’t too complicated and you knew you could do it by yourself, although it did require a lot of reading. 

Fred was the one who should be worried. He was the one who needed you, not the other way around. Or at least that was what you were trying to convince yourself.

But Fred wasn’t worried for one bit. He knew you very well. Too well, in fact. And he knew you wouldn’t resist it, he knew you cared too much about your grades to risk them because of a silly fight. He knew that eventually you would come to him, which meant he didn’t have to do anything until then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We’re almost done with ours. George’s been really helpful, I feel guilty to say I’m surprised,” Angelina told you as you had dinner, days after the teacher had given the assignment.

“I’ll start mine today.”

“Will you talk to him?”

“Not ever.”

“Oh God.”

You had studied about Animagi in your third year, which meant four years ago, but this time Professor McGonagall wanted a detailed summary about the differences between Transfiguration and Animagus transformation, as a form of revision for your N.E.W.T.s. It would be easy, you just needed the right books.

A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration never left your bag, but you knew you would have to search for the books from your previous years to do that assignment, and the library was the only place you could find them, since you had sold yours to younger students. A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration was easy to borrow, but the one you needed the most was nowhere to be found.   

You tried not to worry about the damn assignment, but it was hard. Even more as you saw Fred joking around with George and Lee completely carefree. It pissed you off and it took a lot of self-control to not go there and say something to him. But you just had to remember the smirk on his face when he saw you were looking to pull yourself together again. You weren’t going to give him what he wanted.

The first hours of work were frustrating, though. You didn’t find anything useful in those books and the feeling of wasted time was consuming your patience. You needed Intermediate Transfiguration, but it was never in the library and you were starting to go crazy. A tiny paranoid voice in your head kept saying that Fred had borrowed the book just so you couldn’t use it. And although you knew the entire seventh-year class was in need of that book, you started to believe Fred was the one who had borrowed it and he had done it on purpose. It was probably laying around in his dorm room, completely untouched.

Luckily, you were friends with Hermione, who was in her fifth-year and certainly had that book as a requirement for her class. Slapping yourself in your mind for having forgotten that detail, you approached her in the common room and asked if you could borrow the book. She didn’t hesitate to hand you the treasure and you happily thanked her, heading to the library to finally properly do your assignment.

As you walked there, the books in your arms, you saw a couple making out in the corridor. They had to stop before Umbridge could catch them, but that didn’t seem to be something they worried about. Well, you had been lucky. When you were dating Fred, Umbridge wasn’t in the school yet and you could make out with him whenever you-

“Sorry!” you apologized right away, before being able to see who you had bumped into.

“It’s okay.”

Oh no. You looked up and met the annoying brown eyes you were hoping to never see again. Fred had a mischievous grin on his face as he noticed the books in your arms. For some unknown and irritating reason, you blushed. Nothing related to you remembering his kisses, of course.

“Going anywhere, doll?” he asked, staring at the books. 

“No,” you lied shamelessly, “You?”

“Yes,” his grin got even wider, “Think I’ll grab a snack from the kitchens and then play some Exploding Snap with Georgie. You know, things we do in a free night.”

What an asshole!

You smiled. “Sounds fun. See you around?”

“I’m not so sure. I don’t go to the library that often,” he winked at you and left before you had the chance to reply.

Ugh. You walked in fast steps and didn’t look back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You need to talk to him.”

“No, I don’t,” you shook your head. 

Professor Flitwick was explaining his revision assignment and you were relieved to know it was going to be individual. You were writing down the instructions, your eyelids heavy from the lack of sleep, as Angelina complained.

“I can’t believe you went to bed at three in the morning,” she mumbled, “You just have the weekend left, Y/N. Talk to him. You can’t keep doing this.”

You looked over to the other side of the classroom and saw the ginger boy laughing quietly at whatever his brother was saying.

“But… I can’t.” 

“Why not?!”

You looked at her and shook your head again. Angelina sighed, giving up on you completely.

Many hours later, you were entering the common room with more books than the night before. You didn’t have much time and there was still a lot of reading to do. Trying not to panic, you sat on the floor and rested your back on the couch in front of the fireplace, throwing the books around you. You grabbed your quill, ink and parchment and took a deep breath.

The common room was empty as it was past curfew. Madam Pince had kicked you out of the library, so you had to bring all your stuff to the Gryffindor tower and just hope you would have a quiet environment to work in. Fortunately, you had.

As the first hour went by, you managed to write down a few important details you had found in Intermediate Transfiguration. You were a lot more optimistic now, even though you still had a long night ahead.

The Fat Lady’s portrait swung open and you sighed. You couldn’t see who was coming in, but you hoped the person or people would go straight to the dormitories and not stay around making noises. 

“Hey, Y/N.”

You looked back and saw George, Lee and Fred staring at you.

“Hey, Georgie,” you replied. 

“What are you doing?” Lee asked, looking curiously at all the books around you.

“Oh, you know. Just studying for the N.E.W.T.s,” you shrugged. Well, you weren’t exactly lying…

“Alright, then. Goodnight,” he said as he walked towards the stairs.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” George did the same.

“Goodnight, boys,” you waved at them and focused back on your reading.

Yawning, you turned another page and started looking for the keywords. Anything related to Animagi you would write down. You eyelids felt so heavy, though. It was hard to keep your eyes open.

“Tired?” the sudden voice startled you. 

“For fuck’s sake, Fred,” you placed a hand on your chest and looked behind you. He was in the same spot. “Why are you still here?”

“It’s Friday,” he shrugged, “Think I’ll stay around.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Yes, I can,” he said as he sat at one of the tables across the room and took a deck of cards from his pocket, playing with it alone.

You groaned, turning back to your books. He was doing it on purpose, he knew you were working on the assignment and he wanted you to ask for help. But if he thought it would work, he was very wrong. It would take a lot more than that to make you give in.

The next chapters didn’t have enough information, you realized as you read them. The long minutes were going by and Fred didn’t move from his chair, making you anxious. Why couldn’t he just go away?

“The only known method of switching is through the application of Switching spells...” you whispered to yourself, frowning. Switching was a sub-ranch of Transfiguration, right? Maybe it had something to do with Animagi? Maybe not. Should you write it down? 

“What?”

“Wasn’t talking to you... love.”

“My bad... doll.”

You rolled your eyes as you flipped another page.  

Alteration of the form or appearance of an object, via the alteration of the object's molecular structure. That was Transfiguration. Switching was something else, even though they were similar.

“The branch of Transfiguration known as transformation magic has the largest number of restrictions placed upon it, both natural and legal,” you read it out loud as a whisper. Was that something related to Animagi? 

“Shh.”

“Excuse me?” you looked behind and saw Fred still playing with the deck of cards. 

“Be quiet, I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Why don’t you go fu- Ugh, whatever,” you turned back to the book and carried on with your reading. 

Transformation, Untransfiguration, Vanishment, and Conjuration. The four branches of Transfiguration. You opened the Transformation chapter, hoping to finally see everything you needed to know about the Animagi.

As you read through it, you found brief information regarding the subject. The frustration was building up again. Human Transfiguration’s chapter mentioned the difference between an Animagus, a Metamorphmagus and a Werewolf, but you needed way more than that. You needed to know why the Animagus transformation differed from the general concept of Transfiguration. 

You remembered Professor McGonagall saying that it was the same difference for the Metamorphmagi as well. What did they have in common that ordinary Transfiguration didn’t? Your brain cells were slowly dying, you could feel it.

“Alteration of the form or appearance,” you thought out loud, “Gosh, it’s the same thing. There’s no difference.”

“Of course there is.” 

“I thought you were trying to concentrate?”

“I can’t with you rambling all that wrong information.”

“Wrong information?” you turned to look at him, “I’m reading it from the books.”

“Wrong books.”

“As if you’d know.”

“Okay, then. Keep going.”

You sighed. You had been reading since the last class of the day had ended, many many hours before, and you still hadn’t found the answers you so desperately needed. You were tired. Every part of your body begged for your bed. Perhaps you could stop now and continue tomorrow. Yes, that was a good idea.

But what was the point? You were completely lost. And Fred seemed to know the answer. 

Wrong books...

No. You were not going to ask for help. You knew he was saying that to make you go to him. He was probably lying.

“It is not a skill that can be learned,” you whispered, feeling your head heavy, “unlike Animagi- I give up. Fred?”

“Yes, love?”

“What do you mean by wrong books?”

“I mean you’re searching in the wrong books.”

You groaned. “I know. But which is the right book, then?”

“Hm, I’m not sure if I can tell you.”

You squeezed your eyes shut and winced. You couldn’t believe you were about to say it, but... well, you had no choice.

“Please?”

You couldn’t see it, since your back was facing him, but Fred had a big, big smile on his face.

“Alright,” he said, standing up.

He walked around the couch and sat next to you, on the floor. He grabbed A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration and opened it at a specific chapter.

“Intermediate Transfiguration was the book we used in our third year when we studied the Animagi, so I understand why you’re looking in there. But if we’re talking about the differences between Transfiguration and a complex magic like the Animagus transformation, it’s the advanced guide we need,” he said, handing you the book, “The title of that chapter might make you think it’s not about Animagi, but it is. And there’s a lot of important information there.”

You were speechless. How did he know all that stuff?

“You did your research,” you mumbled.

“A little bit,” he nodded.

“Good. So… Mind reading it out loud while I write down the important stuff?”

He took the book back from your hands and sat in a more comfortable position as he scanned the page with his eyes to make sure one more time that it was the right chapter.

For as much as Fred wanted to feel victorious, he didn’t. There was something very bittersweet about the whole situation. Yes, you had asked for help. Yes, he had ‘won’. But... what was the point? The disappointed look on your face didn’t make him feel great, like he had thought he would feel. You seemed down, even embarrassed, and he didn’t feel good about it.

“The difference between Transfiguration and the Animagus transformation is that an Animagus can change into an animal whenever they want, without a wand or an incantation. Being an Animagus is an ability, and Transfiguring requires a spell.”

“Oh, God. So obvious...” you whispered to yourself, shaking your head and feeling stupid.

You yawned as you quickly wrote down everything and told him to keep going.

“An Animagus still thinks as a human does when they are in their animal form, although their feelings are not as complex then. However, when Transfiguring, the wizard or witch must…”

It was hard to keep your eyes open as your mind drifted away. Fred’s words were becoming far whispers, which relaxed you even more, making your entire body feel heavy. His voice tone was so deep and raspy, so pleasing to your ears… You couldn’t fight it anymore, you closed your eyes.

Something clicked next to you and you opened them again after what felt like seconds. You instantly realized you were resting your head on something. No, not something. Someone.

You sat straight, your senses coming back. You rubbed your eyes and looked at your side, seeing that Fred was still there, reading the book to himself. Only then you understood what had happened: you had fallen asleep in the middle of your assignment, resting your head on his shoulder, and he hadn’t woken you up. What was wrong with him?

Your cheeks started heating up when you finally took in what had happened. You had fallen asleep, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I fell asleep,” you stated.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, eyes still on the book.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” 

“You’re tired, I thought a nap wouldn’t be so bad,” he answered without looking at you. His voice tone was quiet, almost a whisper.

“I was supposed to write down what you were saying,” you replied, trying to ignore the fact that you were completely flustered. “We only have two days left, I can’t afford a nap.” 

“You slept for like three minutes, okay?!” Fred’s eyes finally met yours. You didn’t expect to see sadness in them at that moment, but there it was, contradicting the annoyed expression on his face. 

You frowned as he looked away, closing the book and heaving a sigh.

“Sorry. It’s late and I’m tired too. I think we should continue tomorrow,” he stood up and handed you the book.

“Okay,” you agreed softly. You were really confused, but you were too tired to protest.  

“Goodnight,” Fred walked away from the couch and headed to the stairs. 

“Goodnight,” you replied as you heard his footsteps behind you, getting further and further until they were gone.

********

Part 2

#fred weasley #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fic #fred weasley fanfic #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley fanfiction #harry potter #harry potter imagines #harry potter fanfiction #hogwarts #george weasley #lee jordan #angelina johnson #gryffindor #slytherin #ravenclaw #hufflepuff #random tag #i'm stupid

[selective-intelligence]

An Unhealthy Obsession

WARNING: This fic is going to contain themes of racism. If you are uncomfortable with this, please don’t progress any further.

It involves Raihan’s unhealthy obsession with reading certain articles on the media. He needs to McFrcking stop... so Leon will attempt to stop it himself.

-----

The strongest gym leader of Galar, the dragon tamer, hadn't felt like his usual enthusiastic self lately. He had an obsession that was injecting toxins into his brain and gradually drove him mad. Conflicting emotions, such as worry, shame, fear, and disbelief were plaguing the leader.

Sitting on the comfort of his own couch, he scrolled down his phone screen with an anxious expression. His eyes darted back and forth as to read whatever horrors he was curious about that time...

Then, just as his mind was beginning to focus sharply on his reading, he heard the sound of footsteps and squeaked, dropping his phone into his lap and tensing up.

He almost forgot he had invited Leon over. The damn champion was taking so long in the bathroom that Raihan was given wiggle room to feed his obsession.

Raihan quickly turned his phone screen off and set it next to him, staring down at his thighs nervously as his nails dug into them. His blue eyes narrowed into a guilty and antsy position as he waited for Leon to take the last step down the stairs -- which felt like an eternity.

"Hey," the champion started, studying Raihan subtly. "Sorry I took so long..." As he immediately noticed Rai's positioning, he squinted his eyes in suspicion. He may have been a dull lightbulb, but he had the eye of a hawk. "Were you doing it again?"

Raihan tensed up more and sunk himself into the couch slightly, gazing up upon Leon every once in a while and looking back down. This was definitely the jackpot.

"Raihan," Leon cleared his throat, grimacing. "Don't make me do it... You'd better talk."

"W-What? I.... I didn't d-do anything," Raihan lied. Obviously. His voice was quivering, and he completely stopped trying to make eye contact.

The champion kept a menacing glare in his eyes as he took some steps forward and loomed over Raihan, who was shrinking down and smiling nervously. As soon as Lee leaned down and nearly touched his nose against Rai's, the dragon gym leader jolted and nearly squeaked again.

"Last chance..."

Raihan remained silent, avoiding eye contact yet again and pressing his shoulders against his neck. And then he felt two fingers jab into his sides.

"EEP!!" the taller man cried out, instantly slamming his elbows near his sides. "UWAAAH-- I-I WASN'T DOING ANYTHING-"

"I know the cues, Raihan!! You're getting it much worse for lying to me!" And with that, Leon straddled his boyfriend and dug his fingers into his sides, occasionally squishing and squeezing now and then.

"WAAAAH-!!" Raihan screamed, bucking his hips and writhing all while laughing hysterically and squealing. He slammed a hand into the couch repeatedly and swatted the other at Leon's fingers, making desperate attempts to stop him but to no avail. His reactions became even more hysterical when the champion began switching between ticklish spots -- such as his hips, stomach, ribs, neck, and underarms -- with gentle but deadly force.

"Are you gonna tell me the truth~?" Lee teased, switching back to Raihan's sides and quickly diving his fingers into them.

"N-NEVAAAHAHHAAHAH-!!" Raihan retorted stubbornly and jabbed his fingers into Leon's sides as an act of defense. He had successfully made the champion yelp and pull his own arms down for a moment.

Then... Leon gave his boyfriend a cold glare. "Oh, you're really getting it now."

The two were basically fighting at that point. They continued to poke at each other and even attempted a few full-out assaults until they were off the couch and on the floor, rolling around and wrestling with no end in sight. A combination of deep and high-pitched laughter filled the air, along with a few squeals and yelps.

Finally, Leon managed to get his target's arms pinned to the floor and gazed down at him. They were both panting heavily with flushed faces -- Raihan's definitely more exhausted than the other's.

"O-Okay, okay!!" Raihan squeaked, panicking as he threw his head to the side. "I-I was looking at those dumb racism a-articles again... I'm just curious!! I-I need to know--"

Leon cut him off. "No you don't. You already know enough... You're just bullying yourself at this point." And with that, he slowly let go of Raihan's wrists and sat next to him, playfully squishing his cheeks together. "Don't you understand already? There's no point in dwelling deeper if it's hurting you!"

Raihan pouted and gently slapped his boyfriend's hands off his face, folding his arms over his chest afterwards. "A-Aahah, well... Do you really b-blame me for being curious? I-I mean... I just... I want to know why t-the world thinks I-I'm so ugly and--"

"Shush." Leon's tone was bold and serious. "You're beautiful the way you are, Raihan -- inside and out. And not everyone thinks of you like that, you know... Not me, not Hop, not my mom -- no one I know."

"W-Well," Raihan started again, playing with the collar of his hoodie. "I-I'm sure... some people t-think I'm aggressive, angry, e-easy to pick a fight, overreactive, a-and stupid-... A-And my hair's not even normal--"

"Raihan!!" The champion couldn't help himself and shouted at his boyfriend, agitation plastered on his expression -- which made Rai's muscles jump. "Just stop it!! All this article reading isn't good for you! You're the sweetest man I know and you know it! And would you say that about another black folk's hair? Would you?!"

Raihan went silent, tears welling up in his blue eyes. He blinked and let them roll down his face as his body quivered, and all eye contact went avoided yet again. "I-I'm... I'm s-sorry... I--"

"You're not sorry," the angry champion retorted, trying to soften up his voice a bit as guilt hit his chest. "... You would've stopped a long time ago if you were sorry. Remember, this is advice for you, not me. I care about you, Raihan..."

"W-Why do you care about me? I-I'm just an u-ugly, black mess with the IQ of a walnut!! I-Isn't that what I am?! That's what the world says I am!! It must b-be true, right?!"

Lee gazed down at his hysterical other in complete and utter shock before softening his expression with a subtle smile, leaning down to hug him.

"None of that is true, Raihan," he started, rubbing Rai's back in concern and comforting him. "You may be naive and oblivious, but that doesn't mean you're stupid. It's just a stereotype. You and I are both human beings, along with everyone else. Humanity has made lots of mistakes, but it doesn't mean anything they say about black folks is true. Do you understand?"

Raihan hesitated before nodding lightly, sobbing his eyes out and hiccuping uncontrollably at this point. He had gone absolutely hysterical.

"Y'know what I do when people are racist towards my Asian ethnicity?" Leon grinned widely and bared his pearly white teeth as Raihan curiously gazed at him. "I laugh at them!! It's quite entertaining to listen to an idiot talk!"

"S-Shut up. I wanna be upset," Rai giggled aloud, covering his mouth. This made Leon perk up.

"And your hair, Raihan..." The champion grabbed a strand of the taller man's curly hair, stretching it out with a mischievous look on his face before letting it go. "Boing!! What can I say? You've got literal springs for hair!!" He kept repeating this behavior until Raihan's sobs evolved into laughs.

"S-Stop that!!" The dragon leader playfully slapped at Leon's hand and found the spring comparison quite amusing -- and he didn't mind it at all.

"See? You're adorable." Lee laughed along and squeezed Raihan's cheeks together with glee. "Ethnicity doesn't matter at all, bro-!! Little wittle Raihy-waihy, such a cute wittle Raihy--"

"STOOOP--" Raihan was snorting and laughing again, attempting to get away from Leon's stupid-ass antic hands. "O-Okay, I get it... I suppose I'm j-just overreacting t-to all these stereotypes and articles..."

"That's right," Leon grinned again, patting his boyfriend's chest. "You'll get it eventually. It's not a choice to be born the way you are, after all... But either way, you're perfect. And your blue eye to dark skin combination is absolutely stunning!"

Raihan grinned brightly, wiping his tears away. Part of him still couldn't believe those words, but he tried to take it to heart as best he could.

"T-Thank you, Leon..."

#fanfiction #writing #pokemon swsh #pokemon raihan #pokemon leon #swsh raihan #swsh leon #gym leader raihan #champion leon

[laughing-with-god]

Pandemonium VI

Words; 5.1k

“And where would I be?  Feeling lonely...separated from my one and only.  So please, don’t take my love away.  Let my baby stay.” - Mac Demarco

“I mean...it is rather nice of him to do that.”

You shrugged at Kat, still on the fence on whether or not to have a positive or negative reaction to the anecdote.  

You had just informed her on the call you had received just a couple of hours ago, the one concerning a certain artist paying off your mom’s medical bills.  

Even you (a very stubborn person) had to admit that having that expense paid was a giant weight off you and your families’ shoulders.

But at what cost?  

You recalled his cunning and sly smiles, further proof that his intentions may not be all that innocent.  All you needed to find out was his motive for doing this. That would connect this puzzle and ease your mind of the enigma that was Taehyung.  But the more you thought about it, the more puzzled you became. He was flirtatious but just you thought someone was cute, doesn’t mean it will justify paying off their injured mothers’ medical bill (that was at least a couple grand).  

But, this was a rich kid you were talking about.  

Money was as familiar to him as water was to fish.  

He spent thousands like you spent monopoly money.  Little to no care of real life consequences.

“I just wish for some context.  Like what the fuck?” You asked your friend.  Kat just nodded as she walked beside you, half listening to you but half paying close attention to the shops you guys passed.  

“Yeah, it is very odd.  You did say this was Jimin’s younger brother, right?  Perhaps he heard about Jimin snapping and coming to our dorm so he figured he should apologise on Jimin’s behalf.”  At the mention of Jimin’s name, your face went stony and expressionless.

You didn’t want to tell Kat about your day, about how Jimin went so far as to show up outside your class, clearly looking for you.  You didn’t want to bring up his name ever again, especially in front of Kat. The last thing you wanted was for her to be reminded of your crazed sugar daddy and how he dared assault her.  Hell, you didn’t want to think about your craptastic day.

You just sighed and agreed to let the topic drop, for now at least.

“I guess that makes sense.  You’re very smart, Kat.”

She just laughed, used to you complimenting her IQ when you were just being over-dramatic and lacked the use of yours.  Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks which caused you to do so as well. Her elfish face looked up and grinned up at the sign of a certain small shop.  

“We’re here.”  

--

The overwhelming floral scent hit your nostrils, causing you to scrunch up your nose in slight disgust.  You never got why people hyped up the smell of flowers...the citrus and perfumey smell gave you a slight headache when given to you in heavy doses.

“Kat, I really don’t think this is needed.”  You murmured to you friend. She waved you off and guided you to the short line.  

“This place is the most well-known florist shop in our city, (Y/n).  Trust me, your aunt and mom will love this. And it’s always proper etiquette to send something when a family member is in the hospital.”

You rolled your eyes, “Sis, I literally spent days with her at the hospital.  I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear as far as etiquette goes.”

Kat wasn’t hearing it.  “Maybe after seeing our nice ass flowers, your aunt will get off your dick.”  She laughed while rubbing her hands together.

“Okay I’m gonna act like you’re not just using my mom’s accident as an excuse to look at some flowers.”  

If Kat heard you, she ignored it as she began to list off the different kinds of flowers that would be good in this situation.  She really was a tumblr bitch whom was addicted to these types of things. You fondly smiled, you rather her be like this than the way you saw her yesterday.  Shaken and afraid.

The line moved as one more customer was served.  At this moment, Kat’s phone rung and her cheerful face slid into a more somber expression.  

“I need to take this, it’s Cynthia.”  You let her go, knowing just how thin and frail the foundation of their relationship currently was.  Now you stood alone in the line, waiting for your turn.

With nothing to do, you couldn’t help but overhear the guy who was in front of you and talking to the worker.

“I don’t know much about flowers but I just need something to send to my friend, he just got married last week and I couldn’t make the wedding..” His voice was velvet smooth and neither high-pitched nor low.  

All you could see was the backside of this man.  He was tall and rather lean. Shoulders were wide, but they had a delicate droop downwards, giving his posture a relaxed but consecutive posture.  His neck was long (at least the back of it was) and sat on top of his head was a perfectly brushed mop of black hair.

The worker just nodded and began to work on getting an order together for him.  You supposed that they got that all the time, people just coming in and asking for flowers without knowing what is called for.  

“I can take the next person in line!”  

You moved up to the area beside the other worker and that mystery guy as an older lady waved you over to her work station.  “What can I do for you, sweets?”

Words were caught in your throat.  Fuck, it was Kat who was supposed to be doing all of this.  You decided to follow that other guys’ lead and just tell her the situation so she can come up with the appropriate set up.  

“Yeah, I need flowers delivered to my mother’s house.  She got into a car accident and I can’t be with her as much as I’d like.”  the older lady gave you a sympathetic look as she began to lay down some paper to wrap the the flowers in.  

“Do you have a particular color in mind?”  She asked, sensing your lack of knowledge. You shrugged.  

“I don’t know..  My friend mentioned doing something multi-colored?”  You trailed off, trying to recall bits of Kat’s rambling.  

“Well, we just got some lilies in.  They come in white, pink, red, orange and yellow.”  

“Can we do white and pink?”  She nodded and smiled.

“Did you mention this will be getting delivered? “  You nodded and she handed you a paper that needed to be filled out before heading towards the back to get the flowers.  

While putting down the address and zip code of your moms’ house, you couldn’t help but feel as though you were being watched.  

You looked over and it was the guy who was in front of you just moments before, instead this time he was facing you head on.

His face was long and slender, just like his body.   Chin was in a perfect V-shape, lips were wide and pink while currently being pulled back in a chesire grin. His teeth were tall and pure white. His nose was high rised, but had a smooth and perfect arch.  It was long without being too big and was weirdly the best nose you’ve ever seen. Although his face was slim, his cheeks held a good amount of flesh on them, and they caused his eyes to crinkled while smiling.  His eyes were ink-black, but deep set and held a glossy look over them that made them appear slightly watery. They were slightly swollen as well, giving them the appearance of cuteness and surrounded by dense eyelashes.  Sort of like an anime character. The man was currently wearing a denim jacket, white shirt and black jeans.

You made eye contact and he just continued to stare at you.

You huffed.

Why the fuck were men addicted to staring?  

“Can I help you?”  You called out.

He nodded, smiling even wider if possible.  

“What’s your name?”  

You rolled your eyes.  “What’s it to you?”

“I’ll pay for your order if you just give me your name.”  

Instinctively, before you can process it, you had said, “(Y/n).”

He took a step towards you, now peering down at you.  “Hello (Y/n), I’m Hoseok.”

You nodded but ignored his words and pushed the clipboard to him.  “So like right here is where the card information comes in. Don’t forget to tip the delivery person too!”  You shoved the paper in his face, making sure he won’t go back on his promise.

He laughed cheerfully, the sound like bells chiming as his eyes scrunched up to the point where you doubt he even could see through them, mouth widely ajar as more laughter escaped it.  

“Your very funny, (Y/n).”  He commented, looking at you up and down while still chuckling,  

You nodded but couldn’t help but notice that he had yet to fulfill his side of the deal.  You fake laughed but grabbed his hand and forcefully shoved him to the table along with the clipboard.  

“HAhahA, yeah so the order should come out to like 30 or something and I don’t know about shipping costs but like here’s the pen and if you can just sign here and there, that’d be great.”

He laughed but did it nonetheless, signing off on paying for the order.  Apparently, your pushiness was very humorous to him.

You gave hit back a pat on the back and said, “Thanks dude, but I gotta blast.”

He called out from behind you but you sprinted out of the shop, not wanting to give him the chance to regret paying for your flowers.  Kat was outside still on the phone, you just dragged her along with you down the street, promising to explain later.

As a wise woman once said; men ain’t shit but walking dick with wallets.  

--

“Is that really what you thought of me?”  He laughed hard, bunny smile evident and and rounded teeth poking out.

“Listen sis, I just know a fuckboy when I see one and all my alarms were going off when I spotted your steroids headass.”

“For the last time, I’m not on steroids.”

“Yeah, you prob just snort protein powder like it’s crack. “

Jungkook laughed harder at that, hunching over in his seat.  

At the moment, both of you were at the campus library.  You had agreed to meet up for the project, not willing to risk your grade being compromised just because your partner was someone less than ideal.  Also, he proved himself to be somewhat decent when he helped you sneak out when Jimin showed up. Quickly, you started to feel bad for assuming that he was trash.  Throughout the study date, it became apparent that he was stuck in a fuckboy body, what laid under that was actually an easily flustered dork.

“(Y/n), you’re hilarious.” He giggled. You shrugged at this.  You honestly weren’t that funny, people just didn’t expect girls to be able to crack decent jokes.

You two were sat at a table, side by side with papers and books spread out between you two.  The library had large bookshelves that surrounded you, so tall that they almost reached the high ceilings and successfully blocked anyone from being able to see you and Jungkook unless they were at one of the other tables in the section.  However, the place was very empty with the core inhabitants being the librarians themselves, plus Jungkook and you.

“Yeah, yeah.  Listen, we got to find a way not to fail this class.”  You told him, trying to turn the attention back to the work.  

You had been there for roughly 20 minutes, but still nothing had been accomplished yet.  Jungkook had wanted to know why you were at first so cold to him, and you honestly told him that he just had that stupid frat boy vibe and you were already in a grouchy mood in the mornings.  He spent the next few minutes trying to convince you that he was actually a lame nerd. He listed off the things he did in hopes that your previous assumption of him would melt away. You had to admit, it worked rather well.  The iron man obsession, the video game marathons, the IU posters and the hobby of photography and videography weren’t what you first pictured when you saw him. You thought of axe body spray, “nudes?”, stupid gym pictures of him flexing and party going along with all those other things that came along with being a fuckboy.  You guess you were wrong.

“Basically, he just wants us to answer those questions onto a google presentation that we have to share with him.”  Jungkook explained, also looking at the work now. You groaned.

“How am I supposed to be able to answer those questions when I wasn’t even here for that lesson?”  You thunked your head against the table. “Jungkook you should consider curb stopping this professor.  Like, your so big for no reason? You should take one for the team…”

“Is that all I am to you?  A fucking right-hand man to send to handle your enemies?”  Jungkook fake pouted, placing a hand onto his chest.

“Shit, kook.  If I have a body builder for a friend, am I expected not to use him?”  Jungkook sighed, bunny face relaxing into a lazy grin. He took out a few more things from his folder and handed it over to you.

“Here, I have the answers and notes from that lesson.  Just copy it down so you can look it over whenever you need.”  You nodded in thanks and began to copy his work over to your own blank sheets.  It was quiet for a moment as Jungkook just fondly watched you do this, taking in your

side profile and adorable face expressions of concentration.  He wanted to drink you in blissfully, not with a care in the world for anything but this moment.  But something was preventing him from doing that. Something that bothered him.

“(Y/n)?”  he asked gingerly.  

“What?”  You responded, not looking up from the scribblings of fast note-taking.  

“Do I know that guy who you had to sneak past?”  

This question caught you off guard.  You looked up. “No. He doesn’t go here and he’s a bit older.”  

“If he ever gives you any problems, you know you can call on me right?”  This made you snort.

“Kook, you wouldn’t even hurt a fly.”  

He stared into you, eyes so dark and voice so bleak when he stated, “I can under the right circumstances.”

--

“KAT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE MY QUALITIES?!”  You yelled from across the dorm from your spot on the loveseat.

“FUCK IF I KNOW!”  She hollered right back from the bedroom.  You grumbled and pondered a bit more.

‘Good team player, headstrong, analytical and grand ability to laugh at oneself.’ You typed this down while chuckling at how lame it sounded.

The next question popped up on the screen.

“KAT!  WHY AM I A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR THIS POSITION?!”  You screamed.

“SIS YOU’RE NOT!”  

You ignored this while typing down, ‘In desperate need of experience and said position offers such qualifications.’

The job application was complete and sent.  

Ever since you had cut off Jimin, you sworn off sugar daddies all together.  But, this didn’t mean that income wasn’t needed. You decided to do things the old fashioned way instead of chilling with older and richer men for cash, and chose to start filling out job applications.  

To be honest, you didn’t know how you were going to manage to take classes full time as well as work but you figured that you should at least try to talk to some employers about working.  You sent applications everywhere. To fast food places, to clothing stores, to even personal assistant positions.

If you didn’t at least get one call back, you were going to shoot yourself.  

Luckily, in a matter of two hours a call did come.  

You had an interview tomorrow afternoon.

--

A skirt, a dressy top and heels is what you were currently wearing.  You looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror and honestly couldn’t recognize yourself.

You looked like such a corprate drone…

The business building was very nice as well as the bathroom that you were currently hiding in.  You were one of the few people from the waiting room that were all interviewing for the position.  It was to be a personal assistant of some business director.

The description mentioned that it would be all very easy work.  Just managing the schedule and meetings he would have, getting coffee, and maybe picking up some dry cleaning here and there.  Apparently this guy was a big deal because one letter of recommendation from him will almost guarantee a number of jobs.

But here you were, freaking out in the bathroom.  

The other females in the waiting room all appeared to be very much determined to work for this guy.  They looked more qualified and more comfortable with the setting that you just felt like a fool for even showing up.  You would definitely be wasting the interviewer’s time. The other girls in there wore stilettos and carried fucking mini briefcases!  

You took a deep breath and tried to cool off by spraying some cold water on your face, not enough to ruin your minimalist makeup.  However, it would take a bit more to calm you down

You decided to make a quick call to Kat.  You dialed her up and right away she picked up.

“So I’m having a panic attack in the bathroom before my interview….”  You trailed off.

“Naturally.”  

“Listen!  I know I’m the queen of over reactions but I can’t help but feel like something really shitty is about to happen!”  

At this moment, a woman who was way more prettier and confident than you’ll ever be in such a place, walked in to the bathroom during your little rant.  She gave you a dirty look before disappearing in a bathroom stall. Embarrassment colored your cheeks.

“(Y/n), what the fuck can happen at an interview at a well respected business?  Don’t freak yourself out and get back out there. Let’s get this bread.” Kat attempted to encourage you.

You just nodded and hung up given you were no longer alone in the bathroom and would feel more awkward to continue your meltdown.

‘Let’s get this bread indeed’ you thought with fake confidence, before leaving the bathroom.

As soon as you stepped back into the waiting room, a voice called out,

“(Y/n) (l/n)?  Mr. Kim will see you now.”  You halted in you steps before taking a deep breath and making your way up to the desk, heart pounding.

The secretary smiled at you sweetly and motioned for you to follow her.

You allowed yourself to be led to a conference room where she told you to just knock and wait for a response before going in.  

You knocked on the large black door, lightly.  Listening closely for your cue.

“Come in!”  A light voice called out.  

You opened the door and stepped inside.  

It was a big room that had glass walls and a breathtaking view of the city’s skyline.  There was a long table with about 10 seats sourrounding it smack dab center of the room.  You guessed that this is where meetings were held.

A man was seated on one side of the table and began motioning for you to sit on the one right in front of him.  

Currently, he was looking down at his laptop and typing away, glasses on and cup of coffee beside him.  He still had yet to look up at you.

You supposed he did this one too many times today.  The guilt of wasting his time hit you once again now that you had a face to put to the poor interviewer.  And what a handsome face it was...

He had really wide and buff shoulders that was covered by a suit.  His skin was extremely pale and free of any imperfections. Not so much as a single blemish tainted his face.  A walking advertisement for any skin-care product he uses. His face was oval shaped and held a very sharp jaw. Chin prominent and square-ish to balance the slenderness of his cheeks. The lips were very pouty and dark, berry pink. His nose was straight and had a cute, fleshy bulbous at the end.  At each side of his nose were one of his small and black eyes that were currently downcast. His eyes held slightly curled and coal black eyelashes, that matched his black hair that was charmingly tousled on top on his head. He looked like he was a high-class actor. It was almost hard to believe that someone could achieve such physical perfection without the help of plastic surgery.  Not one feature about him was off-putting. You supposed someone as physically blessed as him must get used to the stares of women.

“(Y/n), is it?”  His voice was high and soprano with a enchanting twinkle.  

“Yes.”  You simply answered.  

He looked up for a brief glance to look back down at your resume, only to look back up at neck-break speed.  

His eyes bulged a tad bit as they met yours once again.  

A crooked smile spread across his face after a moment of just observing you.  

“I’m Kim Seokjin.  I’m the one who is looking for the assistant.”  Your eyes widened a bit at this development.

Fuck, this whole ordeal just became a bit more intimidating.  

“Well Ms. (Y/n), I’d love to get to know a bit more about the type of person you are.”  He said while leaning forward against the table, placing his enthralling face on top of his propped hands.  

You were a bit taken aback at how focused he was, and wondered if everyone got such treatment during their interviews.  

“Umm...I-”

You were interrupted when the door opened and someone stepped inside.  A husky voice asked,

“Jin, when is the meeting going to start?  We all got shit to do you know and you’re taking up the whole conference room.”  

Jin’s face dropped to a look of annoyance as he glared up at this unsaid person.  “Yoongi, I’ll be done in a bit. I’m in the middle of a interview.” he looked back a you.  “It will most likely be the last one for today. Miss. (Y/n) looks to be a very promising candidate…”  He winked at you, confusing the hell out of you. You barely said anything about yourself and you knew damn well the info he had on you wasn’t exactly groundbreaking.

“Whatever, I’ll just tell the rest th-Wait.”  The voice cut itself off. You heard footsteps get closer.  “(Y/n)?”

You turned around.  

And there stood that fucker from the bus.  

“Yoongi?”  You asked. He smiled, gummy and sweet.  

Today he was wearing an armani suit (nothing like the hoodie you first saw him in) however his tie was still loosened which made you smile.  Even in this type of environment, he still managed to be laidback and chill.

“What are you doing here, doll?  Don’t tell me you’re trying to be Jin’s new assistant.”  He droned, face bored but soft smile still present.

You nodded, nerves slowly melting away now that you saw a familiar face.  You joked, “Do you mind putting a good word in for me, man?”

Yoongi rolled his eyes.  “Sorry babe but I don’t hate you enough to try to put you onto this job.  Jin’s probably gonna have you position his hair dryer just right for him more than doing actual work.”  

“Hey!  Is that a way to talk about your older brother!”  The handsome man seated in front of you yelled, facing turning slightly red.

Your jaw dropped at ‘brother’.  

Before you can say anything, another voice added to the conversation, this time it came from right outside the now open door.  

“What’s the hold up, guys?  We promised dad to get the expense reports done today and I’m not working overtime.”  

You looked over at the voice and almost shat yourself.

God wasn’t gonna let you outrun this for too long.  

You ran from him originally but somehow you managed to run towards him without your knowing.

There stood Park Jimin.  

“(Y/n)!”  He exclaimed.  He thrusted himself into the room and onto his knees before you, taking your hands into his.  His eyes (that already were rather swollen and red) teared up as his cherub face glazed up at you.  

“B-babygirl, I’m so happy to see that your okay!  When you told me about your mom and the car accident I just felt so awful.”  His voice broke as he hiccupped some more. “W-what can I do to help, (Y/n)? Please!  Just tell me! I’ll do anything to earn a spot back into your life!”

He was full on sobbing at this point.  Chubby and small face covered with tears as he pushed himself further onto your lap and closer to your face.  

“You have the right to be upset with me, b-but you can’t just kick me out of your life!  I’ll accept any punishment but that!”

Due to the commotion, you hear murmuring sounds come from outside the room.  You couldn’t bring yourself to tear your eyes from Jimin and his usually joyful face that was now crumpled up with misery.  A proud man who had everything was currently on his knees in front of you, begging just for some sort of contact with you and reassurance of your well-being. His unique and raspy voice sounded so raw and broken when crying out for you.  

You patted his head, trying to get him to calm down to any extent.  

He leaned into the action, reminding you of a kicked puppy who just craved affection from his owner.  

You heard multiple footsteps enter the room, without a doubt here to witness the scene of businessman Jimin and his sudden breakdown.  You decided to ignore the other personas in the room and try to reason with your former sugar daddy.

“Jimin, you attacked my roomate.  I can’t forgive that.”

He jumped up at this, grasping at your waist and pulling you closer to him, apparently not caring if he wrinkled his fancy suit.  “It’s a misunderstanding, I swear! Let me explain!”

You heard a harsh gasp that pierced the room so vividly that you just had to look up and see who it was.  

There stood four men, watching the scene.

And you knew all of them.

Each and every single one.

“i have 6 brothers.”  Jimin had told you this on the night of your first outing.

And like that, it connected.  

All of it….. connected.

Like a puzzle you didn’t even knew existed until all the pieces were face to face with you, mocking your inability to solve it.  

7 men who were all young, handsome and heirs to a multi-million dollar company ran by their father.  

Like a Shakespearian drama, hell unleashed itself in the confined space of the conference room.

--

“You’re the crazy ex (Y/n) was talking about?!”  Jungkook yelled, glaring at Jimin with his doe eyes know filled with pent-up aggression now that he knew whom was responsible for your fear.

“How the hell do you know her?”  Hoseok demanded of Jungkook. This made the youngest of the bunch scoff.  

“What do you mean how do I know her?  We’re classmates! The question is how do you old, senile fucks know her?!”  He hollered, addressing all of the other men in the room.

Jimin ignored this and tugged your face back to him.  He just needed you to forgive him, he didn’t bother with his siblings at the moment.  He had tunnel vision whenever you were in a room. Now more than ever, as your forgiveness was top priority.  

“I didn’t attack Kat!  (Y/N), you have to believe me!  And why are you even interviewing for this job, baby?  You know that as your sugar daddy that I’ll provide for you.”  Jimin was holding you so close to him, afraid that something might just snatch you up if he wasn’t looking.  Which was somewhat true given the particular scene…

“Sugar daddy?!” Seokjin gaped, shocked at the revelation.  

“So she’s basically only with you for money…”  Yoongi smirked, monotone voice expressionless as always.  He was pleased because this meant your relationship with Jimin was very easily replaceable and not built off of true feelings on your side.  He’d just offer you more money and tada! You were going to be his.

“Was.  She was with him.”  Jungkook corrected, crossing his arms.  

Jimin snapped at this term, brain not willing to comprehend that it was over.  Couldn’t they see that this was just a bump in the road for him and (Y/n)? He wanted them to shut up before they gave you ideas of keeping him away from you.

“Shut your fucking mouths!  This is our relationship and our business.  Not you nosy motherfuckers!” He growled at them, stunning you.  

Your mind was so preoccupied at the moment.  Even amongst this chaos.

How did you manage to run into all of them at once?  In an office setting, nonetheless.

You’ve been to Jimin’s workplace before and it was a building that was on the other side of town.  So, how the fuck are they all here?

“I thought the building on the West side of town was your guys’ family business.”  You mumbled, dazed and confused. This was like a venus fly trap that you stumbled upon.  You usually had more wit than this to willingingly walk into a messy situation.

“We have 3 different locations in the city, baby.”  Namjoon said this while studying your concentrated face fondly.  It was so cute when you thought so hard.

You eyes looked up to meet the one brother who had yet to speak.  

He was the only one who looked unbothered with the whole ordeal, just watching it with aloofness and moderate entertainment at the digs they gave each other.  

“Why did you pay off my mom’s bills?”  You couldn’t help but ask him, not knowing if you’d ever get this chance again.

He smiled down at you, and even the other brothers stopped to study Taehyung, alarmed at your question.  

He shrugged and asked, “Is it wrong to want to take care of my future mother-in-law?”  

Author’s note: ALL MEMBERS ARE HERE NOW SO ALL ASKS ARE OPEN!!  Also thank you all sooooo much for the support and esp the asks, I love doing them.  Pls let me know what you think of this chapter and also you guys should feel free to send any questions you may have for me or just to say whatever you want.  I love it.  

#bts #bangtan boys #yandere bts #yandere #yandere jimin #yandere jungkook #yandere hoseok #yandere jin #yandere namjoon #yandere yoongi #yandere taehyung #park jimin #jimin #jeon jungkook #jungkook #kim namjoon #namjoon #kim taehyung #taehyung #kim seokjin #jin #min yoongi #yoongi #jung hoseok #hoseok #jhope #kpop #love #loveatfirstsight #bts jimin

[thewhumpstuff]

You and I, Me and You [13]

@badthingshappenbingo​ [Original characters and content for prompt: Strangling]

[Teaser and Master List] [Archives of our Own] (On their turf: Chapter 4)

[<– Previous] ~ [Next –>]

For Quantum Brigade.

Akira did not flood the bus with blood. The cube was used to check her vitals periodically. She remained stable and unconscious. When they finally pulled up to a rather unassuming looking compound of grey buildings, she was the first one out, followed by Vivianne. Or Vivi, now. “Anna did what? Oh wow, I didn’t think she had it in her!” Vivi spoke of her own skills in third person, she displayed reluctant admiration for Anne. Everyone was used to this too. They had always assumed it was some sort of an experiment gone wrong, that made Vivianne… Vivi and Anne. Anne preferred being called Anna. People obliged either out of respect or simply because they did not want to mess with a scalpel-wielding-blood-licking-sniper. Either way, Vivi gushed on about the scene as someone described Anne’s brilliance to her, following along the stretcher that Akira was being hauled off on.

Tariq grabbed Jared by his arm. Jared shrugged it off and got up on his own. He took small steps towards the door of the bus at gun point. A cursory glance past the open swivelling doors at the back of the bus was oppressive enough to make him realise he was as good as dead.

Having witnessed the callous nature of Q.B. with regards to suffering, and even the lives of their own alleged agents, Jared didn’t see a reason to hold his tongue any more. Akira was not in his vicinity. He could do nothing to help either her, or Nova, or anyone else… The antagonistic feelings mingled with a feral self-loathing. And it all found an outlet. Dead would probably be better. He teetered near the edge of the vehicle’s floor, pausing, he looked over his shoulder at Tariq. “Why carry a fucking gun if you don’t fucking know how to use it?” Jared really was not the kind who swore this much. He needed an idiot-proof way to get his taunt across.

Tariq used the butt of the gun to land a blow across Jared’s temple, catching the side of his head and his lightly cut up cheek. He placed the barrel against the back of his head. Similarly, for Tariq, now that his friend—his… Kira—was not in immediate danger, and he believed she would be taken care of, he felt his rage resurface. He was not ready to bear the brunt of the blame for Akira’s injury. The bash was hard enough to leave Jared feeling dizzy. “Do not fucking tempt me to kill you!” That is the point. Jared thought. Tariq’s voice was loud and venomous. He shoved against Jared violently.

The chains were too short to allow the lightly concussed man to keep his balance. He fell out of the bus. He angled himself so his left shoulder could break his fall. He was sprawled onto the floor with a soft grunt. The fall knocked the air out of Jared, but the pain wasn’t unmanageable; he’d had worse. Tariq leapt off with a certain flair and landed on his haunches behind Jared. He got up and dusted his hands. He beckoned his squad off the bus. They bustled about behind him, watching their leader eagerly. “Why do you have legs when you can’t use them?” It was juvenile and dumb, but Tariq was too wound to play with words. Jared chuckled bitterly at the poor retort and started rolling over, so he could get up. Tariq put his boot between Jared’s shoulder blades. He was not usually like this. He was kinder, he was fairer. The Q.B. agent let himself feel like a hero. He held out his arms, with his foot on the defeated Knight, “Look how far the Red Knight has fallen!” “Look how far you’ve sunk, Tar-iq.” Jared spat back, with great effort.

The two of them had had a common enemy once. They had once been on the same side. They had fought the same war, but not the same battles. There was no real sense of camaraderie between them though. It was not going to form now. Tariq kicked him in the ribs. Something cracked. Jared winced and squirmed under him as he involuntary tried to curl, to protect his injured side. He lay with his cheek against the tar-laden driveway. The boot made the fabric of Jared’s shirt scrape against his back, leaving some raw friction burns. His chest met a similar fate against the road.

Tariq let his foot drag down Jared’s spine, so it rested against the small of his back now. It gave him space to crouch with his knee pressed against the nape of his captive’s neck. He bent forward to speak words meant just for Jared. “Y’know, Red Knight, I really hate kicking a man when he’s down.” Tariq muttered through grit teeth. Something was conflicting within him. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Ezekiel had told him on multiple occasions, exactly what kind of a snake Jared Knight was. If had managed to fool someone like Nikolai, Akira was probably an easy target, he was probably playing her too. His fury had logical evidence… His heart was not entirely convinced. He is probably fooling you too, he doesn't really care about Kira, he cares about no one. “Free me then, and we’ll brawl it out, or are you scared you’ll lose?” Jared wheezed softly, even though he didn’t really feel the need to. He should have saved his breath, maybe if he had not shown any eagerness to get out of his shackles, Tariq would have made the mistake of letting him. I am still outnumbered.

Tariq was notorious for never turning down a fight. But he did today. And assuaged his ego by reasoning that Jared did not deserve the honour and glory of a fair fight. “No… I just… hate you more.” “Yeah? Why? Are you really doing this over a woman?” Most of his words were lost. But Tariq got the gist. He didn’t want to cheapen this moment by making it something so seemingly puerile. “You’re stupid if you think Kira belongs to you, or anyone. No, this is about so much more.” Jared actually felt schooled. Nothing that Tariq uttered had felt truer than this. He remained silent. Something was conflicting within Tariq; he clenched and unclenched his fists. He could not bring himself to unleash his fury on a helpless man. Just because I cannot doesn’t mean no one can.

He had never used his status or leadership abilities for something so personal. He gave into his churlishness. From what Ezekiel had told him, there was enough hatred for the Red Knight among the Q.B. folk. He picked Jared up by the shock-collar. Jared croaked softly; the metal strangled him. He did his best to hoist himself up with some semblance of dignity. Mostly, he just scrambled to aid Tariq and prevent sustaining permanent damage to the structures in his throat. He left Jared kneeling besides him, facing the squad.

“The heralded Knight. For what? All he really did was serve. He trampled on anyone in his way, including our predecessors. While they were busy fighting on the front lines, he was kneeling for Nikolai. He hurt, maimed, and killed so many of the Quantum Brigade.” Jared trained his eyes to the floor and tried to block out the words. His hands clenched into tight fists; his blunt nails managed to draw blood. He had always sought penance for his role. He had never really been able to weigh the numbers against one another in the end… All the pain he caused for the greater good. Perhaps this was it.

Jared got up and held his head high. He had done what he had to do, and if these were the consequences, he wanted to meet them with some honour. He expected resistance as he got to his feet, but Tariq did not make any moves, he spoke to just his captive again. “I hope you can show some spine and make this fun for my squad, Jared. You managed to get to your feet, let us see how long you stay on them.” Tariq plucked out his prod-baton and waved it in the air. “For Quantum Brigade and the blood we’ve shed. For the glory he stole, that belongs to us.” It was like his squad was in a trance. They all were flourishing their batons. Like a conductor, in a fluid, effortless motion, he struck Jared’s back.

Jared flinched and lurched forward. His back arched and contorted as his protesting muscles contracted. It looked like he was performing a dance move poorly. “FOR QUANTUM BRIGADE.” The others charged at him. Jared was lost in a flurry of batons. They flew at him from every direction, nothing was spared. He remained standing and silent for longer than one would have expected. But soon, he was brought to his knees, and every new hit elicited resigned groans. He wheezed as he breathed and periodically spat out blood. Then he fell silent again and keeled to the ground. Battered. Bruised. Bloody. Broken. It felt like an effort to hang onto consciousness.  

Tariq had unleashed a monster and he regretted it. He turned away, to come face to face Ezekiel. “Ez-” Smack. The ring on the blonde’s finger left a gash in Tariq’s face which swivelled with the sheer force of the slap. Ezekiel held Tariq’s chin. Almost tenderly, he coaxed it towards him. Tariq jerked away. The blonde did not press matters. His thumb grazed the gash fondly and he clicked his tongue. “That is no way to treat our esteemed guest. And it is abuse of power.” Jared’s eyebrows shot up, it suddenly felt like it was worth the effort to hang onto his consciousness just a little longer. He felt a sense of vindication that he hated. In the end, we are both slaves to the Crovus brothers, then? Tariq rearranged his uniform and walked away. Ezekiel dusted his hands as he sidled up to Jared. The blonde peeled the man off the tar with his collar. “Someone take him to Alcyone before I strangle him.” Jared choked; bloodshot eyes rolled upwards. Ezekiel’s ruby irises were the last thing he saw, before surrendering to the darkness that had been knocking for a while now. Hands groped at him and he was lugged into the building.

[Category - 2/3]  [Tags: @simplygrimly​, @cashieeetime​, @lettuceknighted​]

#whump #badthingshappenbingo #cuffed #chained #beated #broken #strangling #you and I me and you

[ofthemuses]

True Detective Sentence Meme: Season One (another of my favorites, well, the first season at least.)

WARNING: Triggering content, NSFW content, religion/death/violence/sex/drugs/suicide mentioned. Lots of foul language 

Regular Quotes

I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist...

Oh, just a regular type dude... with a big ass dick.

People out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking Moon.

It's all one ghetto man.

Stop saying shit like that. It's unprofessional.

So what's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

I tell myself I bear witness, but the real answer is that it's obviously my programming. And I lack the constitution for suicide.

Let's make the car a place of silent reflection from now on.

Can I ask you something? You're a Christian, yeah?

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Can you get pills pretty easy?

Listen, when you're at my house, I want you to chill the fuck out.

There's nothing I can do about it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but... I'm gonna have a drink.

Given how long its taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can't figure I'd forgo it on your account.

Hmm. That sounds God-fucking-awful.

Isn't that a beautiful way to go out, painlessly as a happy child?

Trouble with dying later is you've already grown up. The damage is done. It's too late.

I can be hard to live with. I don't mean to, but I can be... critical.

Sometimes I think I'm just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. 

Such holy bullshit from you. It's a woman's body, ain't it? A woman's choice.

Girls walk this Earth all the time screwin' for free. Why is it you add business to the mix and boys like you can't stand the thought? I'll tell you. It's cause suddenly you don't own it the way you thought you did.

Is shitting on any moment of decency part of your job description?

Nothing man, sorry, forget it.

You got some self loathing to do this morning, that's fine, but it ain't worth losing your hands over.

What's your deal?

I don't have "a deal".

You're kinda strange, like you might be dangerous.

Of course I'm dangerous. I'm police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity.

Now what do you mean exactly... these visions you mentioned.

Shiiiiit, just what have you two heard about me?

What the hell good is cake if you can't eat it?

You know, throughout history, I bet every old man probably said the same thing. And old men die, and the world keeps spinnin'.

What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?

Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yen for fairy tales.

I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom.

You see that. Your fucking attitude. 

 Not everybody wants to sit alone in an empty room beating off to murder manuals.

Yeah, well if the common good's gotta make up fairy tales, then it's not good for anybody.

Well, I don't use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot.

I mean, can you imagine if people didn't believe, what things they'd get up to?

Exact same thing they do now. Just out in the open.

Bullshit. It'd be a fucking freak show of murder and debauchery and you know it.

If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of shit; and I'd like to get as many of them out in the open as possible.

Well, I guess your judgment is infallible, piece-of-shit-wise.

You figure it's all a scam, huh? All them folks? They just wrong?

People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time.

Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?

World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

But I think I'm all fucked up.

You don't have to fall in love at first sight, you know.

Every time I think you've hit a ceiling, you, you keep raising the bar. You're like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.

Fuuuck! Hell of a bedside manner you've got.

Ahh, you know, being stupid is different than going in sick, and this is a bar, not a fuckin' bedside.

All the dick swagger you roll, you can't spot crazy pussy?

So, enough with the self-improvement-penance-hand-wringing shit. Let's go to work.

Oh God damn it, I am so done talking to you like a man.

What the fuck you think I want with you, huh?

I'm sorry. What are you suggesting, exactly?

I will skull-fuck you, you bitch!

This is none of my business... I don't want to hear it.

Do you know the good years when you're in them, or do you just wait for them until you get ass cancer?

What always happens between men and women? Reality.

Someone once told me time is a flat circle.

The newspapers are gonna be tough on you.

No, buddy, without me... there is no you.

Yeah. Fuck this. Fuck this world.

You know, people that give me advice, I reckon they're talking to themselves.

A man's game charges a man's price. Take that away from this, if nothing else.

I'm the person least in the need of counseling in this entire fucking state.

Thought maybe we should talk.

If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself.

Hey, man, look. Why don't you just get out of here, please? I don't want to get arrested. Just - just get... before I do something to you.

I slept with someone... And you know him/her... You're close.

Oh... Now, what-what are you saying?... What - what are you - what the fuck are you saying to me?

Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.

If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fuckin' barbell.

Why would I ever help you?

Hey. You better get those jumper cables ready, the motherfucker is lying.

Get on out of here, you're classin' the place up.

My family's been here a long, long time.

He ain't gonna talk with you.

I got a car battery and two jumper cables argue different.

A man remembers his debts.

Fuck, I don't like this place... Nothing grows in the right direction.

What happened in my head is not something that gets better.

Well you know what, I just got here; I was gonna leave, but then you woke up - Jesus, what's your fuckin' problem?

Not a care in the world.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Yeah... well, I'll come back by tomorrow, buddy.

Don't ever change, man.

Agh. Ah, fuck. Ah, he got me pretty good...

Do I strike you as a talker or a doer?

You'll rip out your fucking stitches. Stop it.

This is the place.

Everybody's got a choice, ____... Shit, I sure blamed you.

There you go... Everybody's got a choice.

It's hard to find something in a man who rejects people as much as you do, you know that?

Come die with me, little priest.

The DEEP SHIT™

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution.

There can be a burden in authority, in vigilance, like a father's burden.

I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. 

This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading.

I contemplate the moment in the garden; the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.

I don't sleep, I just dream. 

You got kids? I think of the hubris it must take, to yank a sole out of nonexistence into this meat; a force of life into this thresher.

I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.

Yeah, back then, the visions, yeah most of the time I was convinced... Shit... I'd lost it. But there were other times... I thought I was mainlining the secret truth of the universe.

I mean, it's like somethin's got your name on it, like a bullet or a nail in the road...

People... so goddamn frail they'd rather put a coin in the wishing well than buy dinner.

This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and death, and futility.

They welcomed it... not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go.

All your life--you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain--it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person.

And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it.

You see, we all got what I call a life trap - a gene deep certainty that things will be different...

Nothing's ever fulfilled, not until the very end. And closure - nothing is ever over.

I have seen the finale of thousands of lives, man. Young, old, each one so sure of their realness. You know that their sensory experience constituted a unique individual with purpose and meaning. So certain that they were more than biological puppet. The truth wills out, and everybody sees. Once the strings are cut, all fall down.

In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So Death created time to grow the things that it would kill.

And you are reborn, but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many times have we had this conversation? Well, who knows?

When you can't remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate of all life. You're trapped by that nightmare you keep waking up into.

I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive, like acid. 

Sometimes... this feeling like life has slipped through your fingers... like the future is behind you, like it's always been behind you.

There's a shadow on you, son.

I saw you in my dream. You're in Carcosa now with me... He sees you... You'll do this again... Time is a flat circle.

There's no such thing as forgiveness. People just have short memories.

All my life I wanted to be nearer to God. But the only nearness - silence.

Some people, no matter where they look, they see themselves.

You see, sometimes people... mistake a child as an answer for something, you know, like a way to change their story.

Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgments: everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that... You're livin' wrong.

Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning.

#roleplay meme #rp meme #askbox meme #inbox meme #sentence meme #sentence memes

[kujyouhikari]

Sasazuka Monologue

An excerpt of my translation for the Collar x Malice Unlimited project by @otogetranslations​

This has been proofread by the wonderful crow and lunar in the group.

This is Sasazuka’s monologue that is unlocked as bonus content after his route is completed in the game, so please be prepared for spoilers.

Takeru’s route is fully translated at the moment, and the project is progressing well, so please buy the game and use the patch according to instructions when the patch is released!

I worked on most of Sasasazuka’s route in the translations, so this gives you a taste of what is to come, lol.

Please do not repost without permission. I would be very depressed, become a ghost, and try to haunt you forever.

——I often think about how well she complements me.

"Sasazukaaa-saaan, you're drinking, right?"

"I am. You're the one drinking too much."

"I still haven't drunk that much today.  The night is still young!"

"I'll leave you behind if you get wasted."

"Meanie...Even though you say that, you'll never leave me behind..."

"Shut up, you drunkard."

On a normal day, on her way from work, Ichika texted me, [Today, I'm in the mood for a drink.]

And thus, I came along as her companion.

Drinking at home is fine, but she drinks more when we go out because she's not distracted with making side dishes or worrying about it affecting her at work the next day.

(...Did she mess up at work or something?)

...Everyone have times where they just want to get drunk.

I suppose, in times like this, it's my role as her boyfriend to chase away her unpleasant thoughts. It's my exclusive right.

I don't dislike listening to the petty squabbles of drunks.

The atmosphere here boosts one's willingness to get drunk.

I hate people with no sense of moderation though.

"Well, you don't really choose ones with high alcohol content, so drink to your heart's content today. No vomiting."

"Yaaay! I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm still only a little dizzy so I can drink until it really hits me."

"That's a pretty unreliable gauge..."

"Speaking of, Sasazuka-san, do you remember? A while ago...How, when we were chasing the X-Day incidents, you harassed me with alcohol."

"I didn't."

"Didn't you half-threaten me into drinking with you to help take your mind off things?"

"...It was probably because I knew you could drink pretty well."

"Haha, but you know, now that I think back on it, that was you being too shy to say what you actually thought while sober, wasn't it?"

"..."

She grins from ear to ear with a besotted expression.

I'm a little irritated, but I can't dispute the truth.

In retaliation, I took an edamame into my hand and silently stuffed it into Ichika's mouth.

"Mmph...Ah, I remember this too. You stuffed my mouth when it became too much for you."

"That memory of yours is better used elsewhere, you idiot."

"You know, I was really scared silly. To think that I did something so extreme in the heat of the moment!"

"You remember that too? You know, you really did something quite daring."

"What? That's...Are you referring to when I grabbed onto your chest while crying?"

"Nope. Something even more daring."

"T-That's...a lie! I haven't done anything like..."

"Hmm, I see. You don't remember, do you? So I was played by you all along."

"...! H-Haha, good try! Back then, it was still in the middle of the X-Day incidents... And we weren't even in a relationship..."

I laugh at how she brushes off my teasing, and think back on when we hadn't gotten together yet.

——I'm certain that at that point, I was already quite into her.

Starting a sexual relationship with her would have been easy, but just as she says, the reason I didn't, is because I had too many other things on my plate.

Also, because she was so wholesome and diligent, some part of me wanted to be sincere towards her.

To put it simply...I think I wanted to cherish her.

(Of course, I won't admit it, or else she'll get cocky.)

"...But I remember this, too. Back then...How you gently patted my head gently when I was crying and sniffling."

"...Of course I'd have to comfort someone who was crying until their face was messed up like that."

"Back then, did you already think that you didn't want to make me cry again?"

"...Who knows."

Once again, I stuffed her mouth to stop her from saying any more inconvenient things.

It's fun to make her inebriated, but it's not fun when I'm the one being teased.

I suppose I'll have to spur her into soberness, then.

I pulled Ichika's arm towards me, leaning forward with my lips next to her ears.

"You know, if you show me that kind of vulnerable face..."

"Yes?"

"I'll pounce on you."

"...!"

Satisfied by her sudden intake of breath, I start to release her, but Ichika's hand stops me.

And, as her eyes approached mine——

"Then, pounce on me please."

This time, she's the one whispering in my ear.

"...You drunktard."

I was the one who started it, wanting to see her panicking face, but I'm the one who's mortified by her reply.

The me of the past would have never even imagined that I would be at the mercy of this woman, to this extent.

"Understood, let's head back."

"Nope, not yet."

"Hey, you're the one who tempted me."

"I won't go back until Sasazuka-san drinks one more."

As she says that, Ichika orders a Cassis Orange from the menu on her own accord.

"I've already had a just right amount."

"But...A drunk Sasazuka-san is a very cute Sasazuka-san."

"I'm always cute."

"Haha, judging from that reply, you're already a little drunk."

...I suppose I do have room for more alchohol, but drinking too much would make it difficult to have sex thoroughly... which I refrained from saying in this public place.

If I drink one more, I'm probably going to go from just feeling fuzzy to feeling hazy at this rate.

——While I was thinking about that, the drink arrived.

In the end, I have no options left other than to become an idiot together with her.

"Haaah...ah...It's so warm..."

"Don't crash down half-way through."

"Urgh, Sasazuka-san, you idiot!"

"Huh? You're the idiot, idiot."

"Sasazuka's call of 'idiot' means 'I love you', right? ...That's how I hear it."

"...Go get your ears checked out."

"Hehehe... W-W-W...wait please...Let's do this properly on the bed..."

The moment we returned, we started messing around like puppies.

While being appalled at how low my IQ has gotten, I kiss her messily under the influence of my intoxication.

"Haaaah...Thanks to you I've become an idiot."

"Please don't say that you want to break up because you don't want to be an idiot."

"What if I did?"

"...I'll cry."

"Then I won't."

"Hehe."

"...Damn it. You're the only one that can threaten me with that, you know."

"Of course. Even if you see another girl crying... Cheating is not allowed, okay?"

"Hah...! Then, make me so into you that I don't even want to cheat."

"...Okay. I'll try my best."

——After we ended up in this relationship...

No. It was from the moment I decided that I would not let her go for the rest of my life, and proposed to her.

There was something I have been thinking.

Rather than looking down on others, or pushing people away, there's something that's more fulfilling.

To pamper her and to make her happy.

I still don't care about anyone besides those important to me, but it seems that the ones I treasure have become a place for me to come home to, rather than something tying me down.

The woman in front of me is the one who made me realize I felt that way, even though I dislike being swayed by emotions.

"Ah...Speaking of which, Kazuki sa-...!"

"Don't bring out another man's name during this."

"No, it's not...like that...mn..! ...Come ooooon, just pause for one seco-..."

"I'll hear it later. Thanks to that one extra drink, I can't really restrain myself..."

I thought that my passion for her was only a phase, and would calm down a little after a while, but she matches me so well that there seems to be no limit.

...Not just in body, but also, in other parts, too.

Is it her that changed, adapting to me, or was I the one who changed?

Most likely it's both, but being with her is so comfortable that I can't even think of anyone else. It feels just right.

Someone who doesn't get in the way of my life, who even makes it more fulfilling.

(Once I've known this happiness...There's no way I can let go.)

Though I was the one who intended to make her fall for me, I'm the one who became more enraptured.

To feel happy even about that fact, I must be off the deep end.

"...What are you thinking about?"

Perhaps because I was distracted by my thoughts, when I look back down, Ichika is staring at me and pouting, with flushed cheeks.

As she gently tugs my cheeks, the corner of my lips lifts.

"About you."

Giving her a smile as I said that, I bit down hard on her white nape, leaving behind a red scar.

"...Takeru-san..."

"Hm?"

"Say you love me."

"Idiot."

"Not that way of 'I love you'."

Even though I snapped at her on reflex, she understood. Seeing that, I felt joy and chagrin mingling together in my chest.

"...I love you."

"...One more time."

——And then, I lose count of how many times I feverishly repeat those words of intimacy.

You, and the me that is changed by you.

Right now, I can admit in my mind that I really like them both.

[deanswinchcster]

She had a sister.

// While investigating an unusual murder the boys find out Charlie has a younger sister which just so happens to be the reader.

This will be a series so be prepared for more parts.

Paring: Eventual Jack x Reader.

Warnings: Mild swearing, some blood. Nothing unusual for supernatural.

Credit: to the creators of the gifs I've used. You guys are amazing.

(I know I’ve been gone a while, somethings have happened in my life but everything has been sorted and I’m back to write more stories for you guys. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing)

College was rough. At only 19, you were on your last year. Apparently the Middleton family had brains. From what you knew, your sister had a high IQ as well. You would have finished university a few years ago had you not taken some time off to 'find yourself.' Whatever that means.

Being dumped in the foster system as a baby meant that you sometimes struggles making any connections with people. You had always closed yourself off and stayed quiet as some form of protection. Everyone you loved either died or left. You had never been in a home with a real family for longer than a month. They told you that your intelligence frightened them but you had started to doubt that a long time ago.

When you finished high school at 12, you were set to go to college and for a month, you did. You tried to block out your emotions but loneliness always crept in so you stopped your education for a while. At 14, you tried again but there was no point. You didn't feel connected to anything you were doing.

At 18 once you had left the foster system, you had managed to afford an apartment with the money your family had left you but you weren't rich by any means so you had a room mate.

Nina Kelly was a sweet, kind girl and she had managed to form a friendship with you when you thought you were incapable for being liked. She was the one that convinced you to go back to college and this time it stuck. She was the same age as you and you had been studying law together, but you had managed to surpass her by a few years. Unlike most, she wasn't jealous. Only ever supportive.

So imagine your shock at finding her cold, dead body on the floor of your apartment after coming back from classes last night. You were devastated.

Maybe it was you. Perhaps you were cursed.

It sure felt that way.

Since your apartment was an active crime scene and you had already been questioned by officers, you were staying in a run down hotel room. And the last thing you had been expecting was a knock on your door so early in the morning. Not that it woke you up. You hadn't even bothered to change out of your bloodstained sundress dress, let alone think about sleeping.

With a heavy sigh, you heaved your body from the floor by the side of your bed and walked over to the door, pulling the handle down and opened it slightly to reveal two men you had never seen before. One extremely tall and the other a good amount shorter but still taller than you.

When the figured you weren't planning on speaking, they looked at you through the small crack and the shorter one began to talk. “Y/N Middleton?”

“Depends on whose asking.” Your phone had been blowing up all day with news outlets wanting a story on the mystery murder of your best friend. The last thing you wanted was to be questioned by someone wanting to make a entertainment out of your misery.

“FBI. I'm detective Mercury and this is my partner detective May.”

They both pulled two badges out of their pockets and flashed them in your direction. Maybe not the best idea. You were smart, from a mile away you could see how ridiculously wrong they had gotten certain aspects of the badge. Granted most people could probably be fooled by it but not you.

“Okay, first of all, Mercury and May? As in Freddie Mercury and Brian May from Queen?” Their jaws dropped and you couldn't help but question why. Did they think you wouldn't be able to crack their code? Or hadn't they expected someone so young to know classic rock bands? Either way you weren't in the mood for their bullshit. You were already having a rough day. “And secondly, those are so fake. Go away.”

Just as you were about to slam the door in their faces, a foot came between the crack and forced it open. Both men's eyes widening when they caught sight of your tired eyes and the dry blood on your skin and dress. You were a mess and you knew it but you didn't count on company so soon.

“Okay Carrie...” How original. “we're just here to help, that's all.”

“Oh please, if you wanted to help you would leave me alone.” Gathering they weren't leaving, you took a step back as they walked in and you sat on the edge of your bed.

“Excuse my brother, he seems to have forgotten his manners but I'm Sam and this is Dean...” Why did those names seem so familiar to you? “we're just trying to help, we know all about Nina but we want to hear from you what happened. We're not trying to cause any trouble for you or anyone in this town, we're trying to prevent it.”

Though your mind was telling you to stay away from these people, you felt as though you could trust them. The sincerity in the taller one's eyes filled you with the comfort that you had been missing for as long as you could remember so reluctantly you looked in their direction and nodded your head along.

“Okay... what do you want to know?”

After a few questions about what was happening that night, any strange behaviour, any one who would want to harm Nina and the rest of the random bullshit you had already answered to the real cops, a question came up that immediately grabbed your attention. “Did you smell sulphur at all?”

“How did you know that?” For the first time that morning, genuine curiosity flickered across your face. “I tried to tell the cops but they said it was nothing.” By the looks on their faces, it most definitely was not nothing. They looked at each other and sighed, turning towards the door.

“Hey! I was talking to you, I have a right to know what's going on.”

Just when you thought they were going to leave, the two brothers stopped abruptly and turned in your direction. The taller one, who seemed to be the sweeter out of the two, looked at you with sad eyes. Great. You had been given that luck your entire life and just when you had gotten rid of it, someone else in your life had to die to return it to everyone's face. This isn't what you wanted. “Look, it's complicated. We'll be back to talk to you soon. Why don't you take a shower and change your clothes?”

That would have been a great idea, but you get what you pay for unfortunately.

“I would, but this place doesn't have a shower... just the basics. This disgusting bed, with sheets that look like they haven't been changed since 1942 and a toilet and sink in the bathroom.” It wasn't like you would be staying long anyway. Once your apartment was no longer an active crime scene, you would move back in.

In the mean time you would shower at the gym or something. You would figure it out.

“Jeez kid. Don't you have any family to stay with?” It shocked you when the one Sam referred to as Dean looked at you with concern.

You shrugged your shoulders and began to talk. Telling the same story you had recited a hundred times over. “No. My parents died in a car crash when I was a baby and I haven't seen my sister in years. God knows where she is know.”

The boys looked at one another and you observed them, almost instantly noticing when their eyes grew larger. It felt like they knew something you didn't. They were keeping something from you and you were determined to find out what. However before you could so much as utter a word, the kind one started to speak again.

“You can stay with us until you can get back to your own apartment.” Sensing your apprehension, he continued his talk, trying to sell you on his idea. “Come on, we have spare bedrooms and a shower that you can use. It's better then this dump and we're only trying to help.”

On paper this was by bar, the worst idea in the entire world. Leaving with two strangers after your best friend had been murdered. For all you knew, they could be the two responsible for her death. They were certainly mysterious enough for that. After weighing in your options, you nodded your head and agreed. It wasn't like you had anything to lose. If they were to kill you, maybe that would be more of a blessing then a curse.

“Great.” He smiled, although it was somewhat reluctant. “You change out of that..” He signalled to your blood stained outfit and you couldn't blame him for wanting you out of it. You probably looked like a deranged killer yourself. “and we'll wait for you outside.”

Just like he promised, the boys left the room as you pulled some clean clothes from the duffel bag you were able to fill before you left your apartment.

“Seriously dude.” Dean hit his younger brother's shoulder and looked over at him with narrow eyes.

“I know you're thinking what I'm thinking to Dean.”

The Winchester's looked at one another, having a silent conversation with their eyes. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. Surly they would have already known who you were if it were. Shaking his head, Dean sighed and ran his hand over his tired face. He didn't want to believe it.

“Y/N  Middleton? Her parents were killed in a car crash when she was a baby and she hadn't seen her sister in years. The red hair... come on Dean” It all added up. Seeing his brothers apprehension, Sam asked a question he knew Dean would answer. “What was Charlie's real name again?”

“Celeste Middleton.” He gruffly replied, narrowing his eyes at his brother. “Damn it, fine! I just hope she hurries up. You stay here and I'll phone Jack and Cas... warn them about this whole situation  and see if Castiel can figure out who this demon is.”

The drive to the brothers home was longer than you would have likee, but Dean's constant need to play his classic rock made the situation bearable. You hadn't wanted to talk to either of them though so if they ever turned back to check on you or attempted to ask you questions, you pretended to be asleep to avoid it. Though it was the furthest thing from your mind, your body was tired and you weren't sure how long you could stay awake now.

It had been at least two and a half hours until Dean pulled up to the side walk. Looking out the window towards the creepy looking building caued your eyebrows to furrow in confusion at the strange sight. It looked as though no one had lived here for years.

Perhaps you were going to get murdered after all.

“This is where you live?” You questioned, stepping out of the car as the same time as the brothers. The spoke up in confirmation and you went back to being quiet, reflecting over the last twelve hours of your life.

You were still so confused, so heart broken and angry but you never let anyone see how you truly felt. There was no point. Emotions were personal and you didn't trust yourself to be vulnerable around anyone else. Being close to someone just opened opportunities to break you once more and you weren't sure how much more you could be broken down until you gave up. Instead, you kept a smile on your face, a cold exterior and hoped that everyone would leave you alone.

Dragging your body from leaning against the car, you reluctantly followed the men to the door and though you were shocked by the size of their home, you hadn't allowed it to show on your face while trailing a few feet behind them.

While you remained quiet, you heard voices down the halls and then Sam and Dean joined in the conversation as you entered what looked like a kitchen. Instead of getting involved and speaking to the two strange men you had yet to be introduced you, you leant against the wall and watched from a distance.

The youngest out of the bunch seemed to stare at you and you couldn't help but feel paranoid as to why but like always, you didn't let it get the best of you and kept silent. He was probably weirded out by the blood covering your skin which had you thinking, you really wanted to wash it off.

You were so caught up in your own thoughts, you hadn't realised the person that was staring at you before had stepped closer in your direction. “Hi, I'm Jack and that's Castiel.”

It wasn't hard to see that he was harmless, a small smile played on his features and even if you knew deep down he was just trying to be nice, you wouldn't allow him to get close. You couldn't handle it again.

So you did what you had to do and ignored the boy, trying hard to ignore the way your stomach flipped at you doing such a thing. “Sam, can I have a shower now?”

Since he was the one you trusted the most, you knew it was better to ask him. He had a kind aura and caring eyes. He made you feel safe and although Dean didn't really scare you, you felt as though you were more a bother to him then you wanted to be so Sam was the way to go.

Ignoring Jack's wondering eyes, you followed the younger Winchester down the hallway until you came across the bathroom.

“Towels are in cupboard below the sink, you can use my shampoo and stuff.” Giving him a grateful smile your gaze wondered with his movement as he walked towards the door. “Oh and before I forget, your room is directly opposite, you won't have to go far.”

“Thank you.” He silently left and you locked the door behind him, letting your bag fall from your shoulder to the floor. Your entire body still in a state of shock, you had yet to cry but maybe you never would. Maybe you had cut yourself off from your emotions so much that your body just couldn't produce tears any more.

You wished that was the case but you could feel them fighting their way to the surface. You were stronger though and wouldn't let them win.

After stripping of your items of clothing, you had the longest shower in history, scrubbing away at your skin until it turned red to ensure that you had every inch of blood removed from you. Even then you still didn't feel clean. You could still feel the blood tainting you. Just like Sam had suggested, you helped yourself to his shampoo, and though it wasn't the usual floral scent that you were use to, it still smelt incredible. The shower gel wasn't sweet smelling either but it was comforting to say the least. You weren't about to complain.

Once you had finished, you stepped out, dried yourself off and wrapped a fluffy towel around your naked form before grabbing your bag, opening up the bathroom door and heading straight towards the room Sam had told you would be yours for the next few days.

Being sad was one thing, showing it was another. You wouldn't allow yourself to be vulnerable. So to deceive the boys you dressed like always. Some skinny fit black jeans, matched with a crop top swearer and a leather jacket carelessly thrown over the top. You didn't take long on your make up but you still made yourself look presentable and quickly curled your signature red locks with the curling wand you had managed to take from your apartment while packing your clothes and make up. One look the mirror and you decided that you looked fine, hopefully now no one would ask you how you were. If you looked fine, they would think you were fine.

The hardest thing to do was pull yourself together when you felt like falling apart but you didn't need sympathetic smiles and sad eyes looking in your direction every ten seconds. Over the years you had become an expert and even though you had allowed yourself to function normally for the past year, you hadn't forgotten how to do it.

Brushing the curls behind your ear, you walked from your room down the hallway and followed the sound of familiar voice to what looked like a library. “Hey.”

The men turned in your direction and you could see their shock at how well you had managed to pull yourself together. Hell, if they had walked past you in the street they never would have known you had faced a tragedy not even a day ago.

“Are you alright?” The one you knew to be Castiel asked causing you to inwardly roll your eyes.

You probably seemed like the biggest bitch in the entire world but it's what you need to do to keep people away. These weren't just people though, they wanted to help you. Well, Sam and Dean did and you supposed that this trench coat wearing man only wanted to do the same. Guilt would eat you alive if you just ignored him, he seemed genuinely curious as to how you were. So after giving him a reassuring smile you spoke up. “Yeah, I'm fine, thank you.”

Dean and Castiel went back to reading a giant book on the table, Sam looking at his laptop while Jack sat in the corner of the room looking up at you. They all had things they seemed to be doing and you knew that involved finding the person that killed Nina. How they were going to do that you had no idea, they were regular humans with no power over peoples actions, and even if you knew your intelligence could be used to their advantage, your mind was completely jumbled at the moment so you decided to leave them to it.

“Do you have a TV I could watch?” A distraction more like it.

Sam looked up from the screen and nodded his head, pointing in the direction of another room. This place was huge. If you were alone, you were sure you'd get lost in it.

After shuffling into the room, you flung yourself down on the couch and instead of watching the TV like you had planned, you looked around. Only you weren't alone for long. Pretty soon the youngest of the men had entered the room and taken a seat beside you.

There was something about Jack. You couldn't exactly put your finger on it but just by looking at the goofy smile on his face you could tell how innocent he seemed, how pure he looked. Maybe he didn't get out much. You envied that.

Once he realised neither of you had spoken, he looked into your eyes and spoke with such sincerity you could have broke. “I'm really sorry about your friend.”

Instead of allowing your emotions to get the best of you, you decided to pretend not to care. Leaning your elbow on your knees, you leant your head against the palm of your hand and looked over at him. Though you tried your hardest, your eyes showed your pain but you hoped he wouldn't notice. “Why? It's not your fault.”

“I know.” Good. Maybe now he would leave you alone. Only he didn't, he continued to speak to you, like you had known him for years. “You seem sad, almost like there was a spark surrounding you before but it's fizzled out. You're not happy I don't like when people aren't happy so I'm sorry.”

Your eyes softened. “Thanks.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He offered but that was the last thing you wanted to do.

“No.”

“That's okay.” God, why did he have to be so understanding? “You wanted to watch the TV, right?” You nodded your head. Quite frankly a distraction would be much appreciated. Even if it didn't become a distraction, background noise was better than silence. “I usually watch Scooby Doo but you can put on whatever you want.”

A soft laugh came from you. Jack looked close to your age and you were shocked he watched it so regularly. Not that you could blame him, it was an awesome show. You watched it as a child constantly. “Scooby Doo? I haven't watched that in so long.”

“It's my favourite.” He exclaimed, his eyes bright and happy as he spoke. “Should I put it on?”

For some reason, you couldn't say no. He seemed so excited about the cartoon, there was a light in his eyes that you wished you had and never wanted him to lose so you found yourself nodding in his direction and gave a sad smile as his grin widened. “You have a nice smile.” You complimented, finding it almost cute as a soft blush came over his cheeks.

Once the show was clicked on, Jack became engrossed in the storyline and laughed occasionally at something stupid Shaggy or Scooby were doing. You however had completely tuned out. Your wondering eyes caught sight of a few photo frames sitting across the room with the faces of the boys you had recently met. Some smiling, others not but all showed love.

This was family, this was friendship. Something you no longer had, something you craved but something you knew could destroy you in a minute. Without realising you had allowed it to happen, tears began to back their away down your cheeks.

You didn't know when it happened or why but pretty quickly Jack had wrapped you up in his arms, your head resting against your chest as silent sobs came from your body. His hand soothingly rubbed up and down your back in attempt to calm you down. He was so sweet and somehow it just felt right. You didn't wanted to be anywhere else. “Don't be sad, you have us now.” He was trying to calm you but it was doing the opposite.

You couldn't get close to another person. You couldn't! You wouldn't! Even if you desperately craved to have someone you wouldn't have to worry about losing you knew it wasn't possible. You were better off staying away from people. And sadly that included Jack.

“No, don't... I'm sorry.” You pulled back from his comforting embrace and looked up at his concerned eyes. They looked so worried but you could also see the sadness that you had caused by pulling away. You were an awful person. “I'm going to bed.”

Quickly standing on your feet, you hurried across the room only to come to a complete stop when your eyes caught sight of a picture frame of Dean and a familiar red head. Without hesitation, you picked it up and stared for a few seconds. “Celeste?”

#dean winchester #Sam Winchester #charlie bradbury #castiel #Jack Kline #jack kline x reader #jack kline imagine #imagine #imagines #spn imagine #SPN FANDOM #SPNFamily #supernatural #supernatural imagine #supernatural fanfiction #she had a sister

[quin--academy]

DISCIPLINE--THE CODE OF BEHAVIOR

Welcome to Quin Nation, where ambitions are given flesh to become a reality by solving the problem of ignorance.

Hallo Quin Nation, welcome to the Wednesday session: Every Wednesday, we examine a Master and learn the secrets of their field. Absorbing this hidden knowledge that comes from years of experience, in a few minutes. This will give you a competitive advantage to surpass your competitors, and realize the truth on the subjects you are ignorant about. Expanding even more to grasping excellence from getting into their brain and learning how to they think.  

The person we are looking at today is Robert Greene. He is known as the godfather of power dynamics, the modern-day Napoleon Bonaparte, a master seducer and a genius for deciphering human nature. His 6 international bestseller books are part of the pantheons of masterpieces that would last a lifetime. Those books are not ones you read, they are the ones you study as Tom Bilyeu had said, because they contain concepts that could be the turning point of your life as it did for mine.  

Today we are looking at his philosophy on the concept of discipline.

PS: If you can’t stand reading long blogs, even though it’s beneficial or can’t swallow the truth because it’s painful—you can leave. There are many social media outlets out there that you can waste the scarcest resource in the world--time.

Let’s get to it:

Leonardo Da Vinci, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and perhaps all the people who we proclaim to be successful. How do you think these people achieved the heights of their ambition?

Most people think that those who succeed are the people who were geniuses and were bestowed the gifts of inborn talent, that are not latent to the rest of the world, and only granted to the minority of the world’s population.  

But a famous philosopher Fredrich Nietzche said otherwise  

“Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’ (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all pos­sessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to con­struct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.”

To Robert, being talented and having an exceptionally high IQ to the point of genius are mere misconceptions that surrounds the concept of greatness, power and influence.  

The secret of success is a possession of great discipline, to which all ambitions, plans and ideas are met with action and execution. A difficult feat but once implemented, could make any ordinary person, one of great power.

Success or achievement of an ambition is a combination of different factors that harmonized together to create such outcome and DISCIPLINE is one of the big factors to succeed.

Another misconception on the concept of greatness is that people think that they can get rich fast and achieve their ambitions quick.

The truth is you’re a fool if you think that true wealth can happen overnight, that you can suddenly, out of nowhere-- you strike gold and get rich quick or hit a big score, or magically you become a sensation in the Internet overnight. Trust me, you’ll die waiting for that day. We see it everywhere from teenagers to 40 years old.

To truly build something that will last long, is a long process of slow grinding, maximum focus, and hard-core discipline.

If you are ready to drop two of these big beliefs that stops people from acquiring discipline and seeing through their ambitions. You are ready to know how success is achieved, when you break it down.

“Success is an event that happens after a sum of small actions repeated daily for extended periods of time!”

The idea is that success is a sequence of small actions that you take every day for the next 10 years of your life. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can begin taking the steps that could bridge you to your ambition, your ultimate destination.

To Robert, most people cannot stand this, consciously or unconsciously, they seek to avoid the pain and long hours of grinding that presents itself in the early stages of building their fortune, of putting weight to their ambitions, by questing distractions, entertainment and immediate satisfaction to escape the reality that they are not yet good enough.  

Most teenagers tend to postpone the idea of crafting their ideal life NOW, because if there is a category of people that’s so distracted by social media-- it’s them. They don’t have discipline; they can’t make the sacrifices yet? Or can they?

“In the future, the great division will be in those who can acquire skills & discipline their minds and those who are irrevocably distracted by the media around them. The former group are the ones who will own the world.”

This more important than ever because those who try to bypass or ignore this notion will suffer from being left behind.

The foundation to success is simple so listen carefully, it is attained by a person who has the discipline to organize the ideas of the world and has the work ethic and hustle to amass solid skills from different areas and synthesize them in a new, unique and fresh type of way to achieve a certain outcome. It means having an abundance of different skills that are ingredients and means for you to achieve your big ambition and serve your purpose. Once you have these, everything else will come easy, because these are the pillars of success.

FRAMEWORK OF DISCIPLINE

The skill of discipline is the ability to get things done, regardless if feel like it or not. This is by far one of the hardest skills to master because we are in a world of constant distraction.

Unlike the rest, when you say you are going to do something, you get it done. You don’t go back on your word. You know that talk is cheap and so you are results-oriented.

Your code of behavior must always be to work on your ambition: morning, noon and night, in summer or in winter, in rain or shine, in your bad days and good days. You never leaving a stone unturned, never discounting even a single hour that which could be used to make a step forward. It also means being strategic in your time, resources and willpower, focusing in activities that could bring you most results.  

Most people allow their emotions, to control their behavior. They let their mind control them. This is why they are poor and nobody.  

You must take the opposite passage and understand that YOU control your mind, because of that, you can control your life. You can force yourself to do something you don’t want to do. Your desire for success will constantly be tested, and it is in your discipline that will dictate where you will be in the world: A legendary or a nobody. Decide NOW.

"If you can’t master yourself, how do you expect to master the world

Your code of behavior must also meet the standards of greatness, the bar that elevates you above the masses and that is putting in 75 to 100 hours of work, a week.  

Everybody works hard, but to what degree?  

If you want big things, you have to think big, do big, and be big. It’s that simple.

Your friends could be partying, while you work. Your family members could be sleeping while you work. Your classmates could be resting while you work. Until one day, your name will be in history books, forever remembered while their names are in graveyards, forever forgotten.  

STRATEGIES TO FILL THE FRAMEWORK

1) START SMALL

Most people tend to shoot for the moon, but this is unreachable until you break your ambition down to parts and step by step process that makes up the whole, and take the smallest step forward.

In the book One thing, it is perfectly exemplified: It is called a domino effect. Each domino standing represents a small amount of potential energy, these are the small steps that you take, every day. The more you line up, the more potential energy will be accumulated and with a simple flick, you can start a chain of reaction of surprising power.  

Don’t start big, start small. If you start big, you will never get to line up the first domino because your ambition starts with a single step. You can’t take your first step if it’s too difficult for your current capabilities. Discouragement and doubt will cloud your mind--making you lose before you even started. Start small instead, so that you can build momentum that will trigger humongous results. This is the mistake of many, including me.

Make it a rule to work ONLY 1 hour or 2 hours a day. Then, every week gradually increase on it until you reach the standard of 75 hours to 100 hours because if one person works 40 hours a week, and the other works 80 hours, who do you think will dominate and gain control of the world?  

The logic is pretty simple: We all have the same hours in a day, some people use it to grind and see their dreams take place before their eyes while others waste it.

The gem here is to start small so that you CAN do what you say, you will do, in order to develop self-trust and self-confidence. Do you ever know someone who ALWAYS promise things and never delivers on it? Don’t be this person to yourself.

“It doesn’t matter how smart you work, if you want better results, greater impact, and bigger outcomes, you have to work more.”

2) PARETO PRINCIPLE 80/20

Most people keep saying that they are busy. The truth is that having many things to do doesn’t mean that it will bring you closer to your goal. It’s not enough to be busy. The question should be, “What are you busy about?”

Successful people are the opposites, they have an eagle eye for what is essential, they know that truly matters, and allow that to drive their day. You can’t try to do everything because the more you try to do everything, the less you can accomplish.  

Realize that:

20% of your actions causes 80% of your success.

20% of your customers create the 80% of your profits

20% of your activities results 80% of your productivity

This mathematical concept is insanely accurate. Once you identify the ambitious outcomes that you want to achieve, figure out the essentials, the foundation-- the core activities that you could take you there, then spend all the time you have to pursue such.  

This question will help you greatly, “What is one thing I can do, that upon doing it, will give me the most results?”  

Sometimes finding the answer of this, requires research, reading and interviewing the masters.  

Know how to prioritize, and once you learn such, you realize how much progress you are quickly making.

3) PAMADORO TECHNIQUE

Most people torture their minds to work, for 14 hours, and the more they force their mind to do it, the more their body does the opposite. This is because 10 hours of work, seems too long, and perhaps too intimidating—and the mind wants to keep them safe so it stops them from doing it.

This concept remedies such problem: Pomodoro technique means 25 minutes of deep work, then 5 minutes break. You then keep repeating the process until you reach 12 –16 hours.  

It’s effective because 25 minutes isn’t as intimidating as 10 hours, isn’t it? We can work for 25 minutes but for the next 10 hours, that’s questionable.  

Getting started is always the most difficult, and if you can get over this dip, you are more likely to finish what you started, than quit after 25 minutes. This will build propulsion and give you feelings of productivity that only builds up throughout the day

“Let’s say you don’t want to brush your teeth. Tell yourself you’re gonna brush only 1 tooth and if you want, you can stop afterwards. Once you get that momentum on, it kinda makes sense to keep going right?”--Alux.com

4) DO THE MOST IMPORTANT THING DURING YOUR PEAK ENERGY

Willpower is the ability delay gratification, and easily bind you to breed deep work. This means there is a time in the day, when your energy, and willpower are at its peak and during this time period, it is a recommendation to do all the work that matters because when willpower is low, we fall back to what Gary Keller and Jay Papasan described as default settings. They said if most of your work is done after willpower wanes, default will define the levels of your achievement and such is usually average and mediocre results.  

To find when your willpower is at its roof, do an experiment.  

What time of the day do you feel you can smoothly get to work, feeling incredibly energized, and completely absorbed in your work, and ideas are pouring and sparking? Where you feel you can get to an extreme level of concentration to make unique connections?  

Once you discover, what time of the day that is, build your schedule around it.  

Until you can begin to fathom this concept, you cannot take a step forward to working smartly.

4) RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Most people pray a lot, they believe that if they pray hard, and wait for it. Their fortune will suddenly appear. This is wishful thinking.  

You have to do your part of the work or you cannot succeed.  

“Don’t let your camel loose and trust it to God. Tie your camel and trust it to god, said the prophet. This means to do all that you can for yourselves and then trust to Providence or God or Nature or whatever you believe in, for the rest.” --PT Barnum

5) EMBRACE THE PAIN AND FRUSTRATIONS

Your mindset should always hunger the negative experiences of pain, of suffering, of limitations as a perfect means to building up your skills and bring your ambitions to life because they give you stamina, strength.

“Frustration is a sign that you are making progress as your mind becomes aware of the higher of skills that yet to attain” Robert Greene

Swallow all the suffering for greatness today, because tomorrow is a promise of paradise.

What you do today will either elevate or restrict you tomorrow. Remember that always when you try to avoid the pain of a workout, the headache of studying and the boredom of keeping your head done and working.

6) DON’T MAKE EXCUSES

It is fairly elementary: If you want something, you have to work for it, that’s how the world works.

But that’s not easy, and it’s not supposed to be easy. That backbreaking work and uphill battle will always be complicated and very taxing.  

That’s why people of mediocre life, makes excuses. They say it’s the government’s fault, their parent’s fault, the system’s fault. They try to justify the reason why they fail.

This is usually a sensitive area for people. They hate to hear this because they would have to face the reality that the fault is not on the world, it’s ON them-- they are not good enough, they didn’t work hard enough, and because of that they weren’t growing enough, they didn’t develop the skills, they didn’t have the knowledge and this sets people off because these are truths that they don’t want to confront—after all, it’s painful.

Look around you and God, you will realize how so much people doesn’t take responsibility in their life anymore.  

Remember: You are the agent in your life, you can change your current reality  and create a better world for you and your family, in the next 5 years but that demands concentrated work so what most people do, is choose the easy route by blaming the world for their misfortunes.

Be a lion, take control of your life than the sheep, constantly in fear for what will happen next

7) HAVE A TIGHT DEADLINE

This is how you can get more done, in less time: Embrace a TIGHT deadline.  

Raise your hand if this happened to you: you had a huge project to be passed the next week and you listened to the voice that tells you to put it off to the last-minute, no matter how unrealistic, and now you had to finish it in 6 hours. You somehow magically get the task done even if it seemed impossible. Have you realize that, if you have a whole day to make the calls, it will take a whole day and if you only have a morning to make it happen, it will happen.

For a milestone goal: give yourself 6 months to finish a huge project that usually takes years to finish, you will then discover that you will be able to miraculously finish it much sooner because when you have are on the edge, where there is outside pressure--you will fight like hell, you will not waste a single hour and this will provide you with heightened concentrated energy and make the end result much better.  

For a daily goal: identify a huge task, a task that requires deep focus and concentration to achieve. Estimate how long you normally would put aside for this task, then to give yourself a tight deadline, by reducing it to half. This will force you to get things done without daydreaming, without any social media or any long breaks. Doing this, will allow you to discover another level of work ethic, that you haven’t begin to grasp.

Thomas Edison and Elon Musk are exemplifiers of this concept. The former would go out to the world and speak about his ideas and visions of the world that he is currently working. With this publicity, he puts himself in a position where the world is on his back, he would have to rise to what he had claimed and soon because if not, he will be ridiculed.  

8) LEARN TO CONCENTRATE, STOP MULTITASKING

The true power of the mind comes to show when you are not distracted and multitasking because when you perform your activities in a state free of distractions, your concentration could push your cognitive abilities to their limits and if you can maintain and sustain this for a lengthy period of time, you can master anything.

Most people are constantly multitasking, juggling from one task to another, they are pulled here, there and their focus is dispersed, they are constantly distracted. The problem with this is that when you multitask, switching from one task to another, your attention doesn’t follow immediately, a portion of your attention remains stuck on thinking about the original or previous task and this divided attention puts a dent to performance on the next task.

It’s better to do 3 hours of work, without distractions, focusing on one task and one task only than 16 hours of work, switching from one task to another.  

Thank you for sticking with me to the end. If you are the person who finished the whole thing unlike the rest, write I AM WORKING LIKE A BEAST!  

This video is a catalyst to create a conversation on the topic of discipline and how one can master this to become a superhuman. “What is your unique strategy to overcome your lower self?” Let me know in the comments.

This is Dianne Orquina signing out with the quote saying  

“What you do, determines where you will go”

#productivity #hardwork #discipline #success #greatness #ambition #workethic #robert greene #friedrich nietzsche #superhuman #grinding #achieve success #pain #suffering #beastmode #beast

[thefantasticm]

Establishing Angst in AGBM

I am by no means a master of angst or conveying tension, and a lot of the times some of what I write that affects people the most was completely incidental. But I do try, and meet varying degrees of success depending on the scene. Here are some dank tools/things/advice I use and constantly keep in mind in order to help crank up the FEELS, and can apply to pretty much anything if you want some ideas as to how to do so.

1. Showing and Telling First thing’s first: ‘Show, don’t tell’ is absolutely ATROCIOUS advice. It is vague and unhelpful and wrong. Some things must be told. If everything were shown, every story in the history of man would sink to the bottom of the ocean, weighed down by a bloated scrotum of tedium and pedantry. There must be a balance, and yes, showing should be favored, but never to an extreme. I personally aim for a 70:30 ratio when it comes to showing and telling in my writing. It is a good ballpark to aim for because landing at 60:40 is still fine and 80:20 is also perfectly readable. Falling to 50:50 and below is where things start to get... bad. Anything below will usually be noticeably boring to even unpracticed readers. When it comes to conveying angst and tension in writing, emotions are key (so Cage has the right idea, but his execution is... well). It is fine and good and proper to tell the reader what the character is feeling, in simple terms. Yet it is something that must be balanced, as we’ve established. It is not enough to say “Hank was sad.” We must say “Hank was sad ABLOOBLOOBLOO.” And by ABLOOBLOOBLOO, I mean describing the physicality of that reaction. We’ve all been sad before, know what it feels like, so describing that churning gut, that beating heart, that sinking feeling - all of it helps to establish that sadness, and can make the reader feel it in turn. Maybe Hank will lash out with that sadness in an unhealthy attempt at emotional release. Maybe he’ll think about wanting to drink, or holding his gun, etc - and describing all of that becomes a showing of where that emotion takes him, depressive, reactionary thoughts that the audience can relate to. I say all that, but it’s also sometimes okay to just say “Hank was sad” and leave it at that. Sparingly, mind you... And exactly when those moments are most appropriate is a whoooole different discussion. 2. Third Person Limited This is less advice and more... information, since something like this is really at the mercy of the writer. Everyone has different preferences for how they narrate a story. I personally despise first person narration, I adore second person (in short bursts, it’s hard to carry a longer story with it), third person objective can be interesting or the exact opposite, and third person omniscient... well. In my very humble opinion, there is no easier way to suck all the emotional tension out of a story. If you are trying to tell an emotional story, third person omniscient is just... heinous. It can be great for grand, sweeping adventure stories, but when trying to establish an angsty emotional creep? Noooo fucking thank you. Holding the audience’s hand when it comes to how every character is feeling, giving information too freely - what a great way to remove any and all emotional stakes! Pick a character. A. One (1). Beyond that character, there can be no ‘outsider’ information. Everything must come through that one character’s eyes. They can infer, they can guess, they can assume the feelings of other characters. They might even be right most of the time! But the audience must never be told this through any other means. Which is why... Keep the narrating character uninformed. Nothing can dispel tension faster than certainty. Emotional tension and angst is most readily mined in what is uncertain. And God, this is such a fucking pain in the ass with ROBOT characters - not impossible, but fuck, I digress. Hank’s emotional hang-ups and struggles become more real and relatable when he does not know what Connor is thinking - when he projects, when he guesses, when he assumes. Hank does not KNOW Connor is in love with him, he simply perceives it, and convinces himself it is true, and thus convinces the audience. They see only what he sees, what he observes, and even when Hank is oblivious to it at the start, the audience is given the room and space to fill in their own conclusions because Hank does NOT know everything, and so when Hank has his ‘realization,’ the audience is even more convinced than he is! Absolute 9000 IQ shit, I know (it’s not). And so when Hank falls away from what he convinced himself of, which is separate from what the audience knows, it’s a little... gut wrenching? No, Hank, don’t doubt it! He does love you! But Hank can’t hear your screams from where he is... And when he comes back to it, when it is far more obvious, it has a much stronger effect. Can you imagine how fucking boring that shit would be if Hank was absolutely 100% certain Connor loved him from start to finish? Jesus. However, it’s important to give the audience a bit more to work with than just everything the main character perceives. Bits and pieces that the audience will pick up on, that the main character technically observes, but is something they do not out and out notice or give much thought to. Not every insight can and should be shared between the main character and the audience. The audience should have just a bit more information that allows them to draw conclusions that characters in the story might not otherwise think of. Which leads us to... 3. Dramatic Irony Mmm... Dramatic irony is just... *chef kiss* Mwah! It is beautiful and glorious. This is what makes the collective sphincter of an audience shiver with fear. I would not say it is my bread and butter, and good angst needs it not, but when it comes to a hard hitting tragic turn of events, no tool will smack an audience in the face harder than dramatic irony. Quick rundown: Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something the characters do not. Some of the most memorable tragedies make use of dramatic irony. Romeo and Juliet? The audience knew Juliet was asleep, not dead, but Romeo... did not. Oedipus? We know that’s his mom... Oedipus... Oedipus no! Dramatic irony is so powerful because the audience is given time to sense the impending doom but they are powerless to do anything about it. They want to stop it, but cannot. Helpless to watch things go wrong. The cold sinking feeling of your heart dropping to your feet. Dramatic irony can be hard to handle, since it will have little to no effect if you cannot get the audience invested in the story and the characters. It is also difficult in the sense that it can become somewhat silly if it is made too obvious. If the feeling of ‘oh god, x is probably going to happen’ comes too soon, the tension when it happens will not be as strong. On the flip side, if it comes too late, or god forbid, it’s not picked up on at all, it will fall flat. Not saying I did it perfectly by any means, but I did try. If you are looking to pull any sort of twist, or just fuck with the audience in general, dramatic irony is a great way to do so, without being hamfisted and preachy, or sudden and purposeless (like Alice being an android).

4. Repetition This is also highly personal choice, but over the years in writing I’ve found that pieces in which I used repetition tended to have better reception than those that did not. Repetition, whether it’s purely through language (which is mostly what I do) or theme, can help really really really drive home a point or emotion to an audience. Repeating certain phrases. Or just one word. Maybe a character says something they said once in the beginning of the fic. Of course, all of this must be done in moderation, and the timing of it has to line up with whatever you are trying to convey to the audience. Sometimes the ‘thing’ you are trying to convey can even be nebulous and mysterious, but then the point becomes to make the audience think more about it, which makes them more invested, which makes the hurts a bit hurtier... I do this a lot by repeating questions. What would he change? How had they arrived at this point? Honestly when I put it out like this I feel a bit silly, and it doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for some, and that is what matters. Mostly... it works for me! 5. The Short Short Long ‘Something was holding him back, a lump lodging itself in his throat. He thought of Connor at home and the way he called him Hank, Hank, Hank. There was nothing unusual about it, but beneath Wilson’s scrutiny it felt private, it felt intimate, and Hank could not find it within himself to lay open something that all of a sudden felt so profoundly raw.’ ‘Connor was the one that was embarrassed. Intensely so, to the point it had rubbed off on Hank. This was not a situation he would normally give much thought to, but Connor’s reaction made him feel as if he had done something wrong, as if he had broken some unspoken trust between them; and as he stood there watching the android, so human in the smallest of ways, Hank felt dirty.‘ ‘Hank wasn’t sure whether he dreamt those words or not. It felt like he did, with the hazy dreams that followed. In them, it was not Hank who left, but Connor - the one that could not be held down by the words that boiled in Hank’s chest but lacked the strength to be spoken; the outline of his body as he stepped through the front door, bathed in sunlight, warping the vision of him until there was nothing left.’ ‘In what capacity? It didn’t matter, did it? Hank needed him and his chest felt light; how easy it was to admit it now, all of a sudden, as if the past ten days, those agonizing ten days, had never happened.’ ...Get it? I’m not sure if this actually does anything. But I like it, so I’m putting it in. Long Short Shorts are also valid. Really the idea is that the rhythm of the tension suddenly gets much faster in the final point, thus making it seem more desperate, and driving it home more. But. I could just be imagining things? Hmm... 6. What Remains Unsaid Sometimes a character will want to say something, but doesn’t. Or they’ll think something, but say something completely different. Or they will infer a hidden meaning, unspoken sentiment, from another character. The things that aren’t said should still be told to the audience! However you want to do it. As much as these things can work in comedy, so too can they work in angst. It’s a very simple thing, but this can serve to drive up the tension, and have the audience clench their teeth from it. Deceptively simple! The feeling of ‘just say it, dammit!’ is a near universal one and should not be ignored! 7. DURRRRRRRRRR MUH CLICHE There is no such thing as an ‘original’ story anymore. You can add your spins and your twists and your little tweaks, but the fact of the matter is that every ‘core’ of a story has already been written. There is NOTHING wrong with cliche. NOTHING. Themes and plots and twists that are common are common because they are usually effective. Anyone who insists otherwise is... as much as I’d like to call them stupid, I really would, what they need is to be educated. The reason people tend to shy away from ‘cliche’ is because when it is done poorly, it is often excruciating. It can be really awful. But one should not shy away from cliche for the fear of doing it poorly. Embrace it! Write it to the best of your ability! If a ‘cliche’ is where a story leads you, then it’s not wrong! Why did I include this? Because most of all this fear of cliche applies strongly to angst, sad tropes, tragedy, etc. After that? Fantasy adventure stories and romance. 8. The High Highs Angst is worthless without a counterweight. Personally I think I’m god awful at writing fluff, but you will never be able to write good angst if you can’t squeeze out some manner of happy scenes. And going back to point #1, you have to show at least one of these happy scenes. It doesn’t have to be over the top. It can even be bittersweet. Hope over happiness, in case you don’t want to go full joyous. Once you start really getting into the angst the happiness and the hope will likely start to diminish, but I say it is usually a good idea to leave ONE good upwards scene interspersed in there somewhere. My final hopeful scenes in AGBM were Connor returning from Washington DC, and to a lesser extent the beginning of their final argument. I used a lot of loaded language in that small span of time to make the drop-off even worse, but that is an entirely different post...

9. Never Reward Your Readers Never reward your readers. Never reward your readers! NEVER REWARD YOUR READERS!!!!

Tell your story how you think it should be told.

NEVER REWARD YOUR READERS.

10. Alliteration Doesn’t actually do anything. I just like it.

#fantastic writes