#recognition for each other only to grow more and more distant because of said efforts anyways | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vespertineflora · 3 years

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Title: we’re family now, aren’t we?

Rating: G Summary: Jin Ling was nearly three weeks old, and in that time, Jin Guangyao hadn't yet been allowed to hold his nephew, despite very desperately wanting to. Jiang Yanli thought it was time to change that. (2.5k, h/c and family feels)

@goddamnshinyrock drew this heartwrenching art and i couldn’t accept the hurt so i needed to let jgy hold baby!!!!!!!!! (by proxy of jiang yanli, whom i love)

~~~

“Xiao-shu!”

The name being thrown in Jin Guangyao’s direction made him pause mid-step as he’d hurried across the courtyard, hopping from one set of chores to another as was ever the case for him. Of course, he knew it was Jiang Yanli before he even turned to look, the same placating smile he’d long since grown used to wearing rising to his lips without a thought.

Jiang Yanli was resting comfortably on a bench in the small pavilion nearby, a bundle of blankets in her arms that most certainly contained a particular infant. The smile on her own lips was open and warm, authentic enough to extend that same warmth to her eyes as she looked at him.

Jin Guangyao couldn’t begin to guess why he was being called, but he approached Jiang Yanli regardless, stepped up to the outside of the pavilion as he asked, “Is there something I can get for you, Saosao?”

Upon her arrival in Carp Tower, Jin Guangyao had tried to address her properly as a lady of the sect, the wife of the sect heir, but she’d refuted such a title from him almost immediately. Jiang Yanli had insisted that he was her husband’s younger brother, and she his brother’s wife, and that they should address each other as such, which had been... rather baffling to him. She’d come to live in Carp Tower several months after he had, but of the two of them, there was no question in Jin Guangyao’s mind as to who was more welcome there. Jin Guangyao knew his place, knew where he stood in the eyes of his father and Jin-furen (despite his continual efforts to change this), and knew that Jiang Yanli’s place in the family was more secure than his own.

In spite of Jin Guangyao’s instincts telling him that actually indulging the idea that they were family was most certainly doomed to tragedy, he had sensed her determination and decided it was better not to argue with her.

“No, no,” she said with a faint shake of her head. “I just wanted to know if you had a few moments to spare. If you’re busy, I don’t want to disturb you.”

Continue Reading on AO3 or below the cut

Jin Guangyao might have laughed if he were in a better mood; he wasn’t sure a day went by where he wasn’t busy, honestly, but... it was almost because the work never seemed to end that it wouldn’t truly matter if he dropped everything to indulge whatever it was that Jiang Yanli needed from him, even if he couldn’t imagine what that might be.

The two of them... hadn’t actually spoken much in the near-year since her marriage to Jin Zixuan. Not only was the difference between their places in the sect enough reason for their paths to cross only occasionally, but Jiang Yanli’s health had been precarious during the pregnancy, and for the last several months, she’d only left her bedroom for fresh air and to have the occasional dinner with the family. He had been instructed to bring things to her room from time to time, but beyond such small exchanges, Jin Guangyao hadn’t really had a conversation with her, and he’d most certainly never spoken to her in private beyond perhaps the exchange of a few words.

Even still, Jin Guangyao could... sense how different she was from everyone else living in Carp Tower. His personal experience with her was limited, but he’d seen the sweet way she interacted with the family, and even how companionable she was to the servants, who were more so used to being ordered around or ignored as they worked. There was a sincerity and a gentleness to her nature that didn’t seem to belong within the walls of Carp Tower.

Maybe it was that, more than anything, that made Jiang Yanli a bit of an enigma to him. Kindness was something Jin Guangyao had so rarely encountered that he had difficultly accepting it at face value. Beyond the kindness he’d learned to expect from Lan Xichen, he wasn’t used to seeing it (and was even less used to receiving it).

“I have a few moments,” he told her, still having no idea what she could want.

“Oh, wonderful!” The smile on her lips only grew as she adjusted her position on the bench, shifting to one half of it, while motioning to the spot beside her as she insisted, “Come, sit.”

Jin Guangyao hesitated just a second, almost certain this would be a trap of some sort if he was dealing with anyone else, before he gave in, crossing the small pavilion and taking a seat on the bench next to her. His eyes naturally fell to the boy being cradled in her arms, fell to his dark eyes open with wonder, his round little cheeks, his tiny fingers curled up near his mouth as he gummed on them inquisitively. Almost immediately, Jin Guangyao could feel a tug somewhere near his heart just from looking at the sweet child, but he swallowed hard against it, and forced himself to look back up at Jiang Yanli, tried to push past the faint tightness in his throat to ask what it was he was here for when...

When he noticed the way she was leaning in to him, extending her arms towards him as if she was trying to hand him...

He hadn’t held Jin Ling yet. The boy was nearly three weeks old now, and had been passed through the arms of nearly every member of the family, and a majority of the servants... but the one time Jin Guangyao had offered to take Jin Ling from his father and back to his room... Jin Guangshan had denied him immediately. In the time since, Jin Guangyao had felt... almost like Jin Ling was somehow off limits to him. For as much as there was a part of him desperate to be close to the boy that was supposed to be his nephew, Jin Guangyao had been made to feel like he could only look on from a distance, had only felt the isolation from his place in the Jin family all the more harshly. Ever since, he’d tried to stayed back, tried to pretend that looking at the baby he’d been forbidden from touching didn’t feel like taking a knife to the chest, because if he were ever going to earn his father’s love, he needed to at least respect his wishes in regards to this.

He’d hoped rather fruitlessly that... he could convince himself that staying away from Jin Ling had been his own choice, and that that could somehow quell the ache in his heart every time he saw him.

“Put your arms out a little more,” Jiang Yanli instructed him gently, meeting his gaze as she asked, “You wanted to hold him, didn’t you?”

There was a lump forming in Jin Guangyao’s throat that he couldn’t seem to swallow, so he just nodded numbly, and moved as he’d been told to, letting Jiang Yanli carefully shift the tiny bundle into his arms.

It... it wasn’t the first time he’d held a baby. Though it wasn’t an experience he’d had frequently, he’d had more than a handful of moments in his life when he’d had some reason to pick up an infant: he hadn’t been the only child born in the brothel, though he was the only one who hadn’t been quietly whisked away by their father; in the Unclean Realm, there’d been hardly any duty he hadn’t helped with at some point; during the war, he’d helped more than one mother carry her baby away from the danger of a nearby battlefield. As soon as the weight of Jin Ling’s tiny body was in his arms, the shift was almost natural to him, taking just a few seconds to hold him to his chest as he adjusted his arm properly to support his head and neck...

But holding a baby had never felt like this before. Jin Guangyao had never felt such a swell of warmth and love like the one that was bowling over him now, had never felt his eyes prickling with tears like this. He felt overwhelmed by the weight of the baby in his arm, by how small Jin Ling was, by his wide, open eyes, staring up at him with a sort of curiosity, by...

“A-Ling,” Jiang Yanli cooed next to him, leaning in a bit closer. Her hand rested casually at Jin Guangyao’s elbow and she reached over with the other hand to rub her finger against Jin Ling’s chubby little arm as she said sweetly, “Say hello to your shushu, A-Ling.”

He was holding his nephew. Maybe his own father didn’t want to acknowledge what he was, but... blood was blood and there was no changing it. Jin Guangshan was his father, Jin Zixuan was his brother, and Jin Ling... Jin Ling was his nephew.

After Jin Guangyao’s mother had died, he’d followed her wishes all the way to Carp Tower, only to be violently turned away... and in all the time since his father had officially accepted him into the Jin Sect and given him a new name, he’d done nothing but try to please him, nothing but try to earn the respect and recognition that he’d been told should be his by the nature of his birth. Nothing he’d done so far had seemed to earn that from Jin Guangshan, and Jin Guangyao wasn’t going to stop trying but...

Jin Zixuan had been awkward and distant with him at first, as if unwilling to talk to him, or just unsure how to go about it, but now, in recent months, he’d taken to calling him A-Yao, thinking of him as his brother, and that... that wasn’t meaningless to Jin Guangyao. It wasn’t what Jin Guangyao had been fighting for or expecting, and it didn’t save him from needing Jin Guangshan’s approval, but it was something, it was a start, it was more than Jin Guangyao had had before, and now... Jiang Yanli had decided to recognize him as well, she had accepted his place as Jin Zixuan’s brother more easily than anyone, and Jin Guangyao suddenly found himself all the more grateful for that...

Because it seemed like, as long as Jiang Yanli had any say in it, Jin Ling would grow up knowing exactly who Jin Guangyao was to him.

Maybe it wasn’t what he’d come to Carp Tower hoping for all those years ago, but... in the end, the one thing that Jin Guangyao had wanted the most was family--and it seemed like Jin Ling would be raised in a world where he knew, without a doubt, that Jin Guangyao was his uncle.

Before Jin Guangyao had even realized what was happening, he felt the warm wetness of tears rolling down his cheeks--he was immediately shocked and embarrassed to be crying, and even more embarrassed to be crying in front of Jiang Yanli. He quickly tried to swallow the rest of his tears, even though it was impossible to reverse the ones that had already fallen and take back the raw display of emotion that he usually kept under such tight control. As discreetly as he could, he lifted the arm that wasn’t supporting Jin Ling to quickly wipe the moisture from each cheek, before letting his hand fall to gently touch Jin Ling’s arm and lightly stroke the back of his hand with a finger.

If Jiang Yanli noticed that he’d been crying, she was kind enough not to mention it.

They sat together quietly like that for a few minutes, Jin Guangyao coaxing himself through a few slow breaths until he could feel his emotions leveling out once more, until he felt calmer and more able to actually focus on the baby in his arms. Soon, the expression on his face had softened into a genuine smile as he rubbed his finger against Jin Ling’s round cheeks, brushed it against his little nose, stroked the back of his hand again, just feeling... strangely at peace for a few moments as he indulged in holding his tiny nephew.

At some point, Jin Ling’s little hand wrapped around it, squeezing it with the surprising strength infants had and dragging it to his mouth to suck on his fingertip--if Jin Guangyao hadn’t already felt attached to Jin Ling, that alone would have been enough to win him over completely.

“I think he might be getting hungry,” Jin Guangyao commented softly, his voice cracking just the faintest bit from the moisture leftover in his throat.

“It’s been a couple hours since he ate, so I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jiang Yanli replied with a soft laugh, playfully pinching at Jin Ling’s foot through the blanket and making him kick his leg as a smile curled at the corner of his lips.

Even still, they sat quietly together for another minute, before Jiang Yanli finally reached for Jin Ling, slowly shuffling him back into her arms as she said, “Xiao-shu, I had no idea you were so good with babies.” Her voice was overflowing with a warmth that made Jin Guangyao’s softened heart feel even softer. “I think A-Ling likes you very much. You’ll have to come spend more time with him from now on.”

Jiang Yanli didn’t have to say it any more plainly than that for him to understand what she was doing. In an instant, it was clear just how much she’d been paying attention. Either she knew what Jin Guangshan had done with him and Jin ling, or she at least knew that Jin Guangyao had been keeping his distance for a reason other than his own desire to do so. In the most graceful way possible, without touching on anything that would have caused Jin Guangyao greater embarrassment to have brought up, she’d found her own way to extend to him a solid invitation into their lives.

Jin Guangyao wasn’t sure anyone had ever done something to make him feel so included, especially not here in Carp Tower; he found himself speechless for a moment as she pushed herself up gingerly from her seat, taking a moment to adjust her hold on Jin Ling.

When Jin Guangyao did finally find his voice, all he could manage to get out was a slightly stunned, “Thank you, Saosao.”

He wasn’t sure he had the words to express how grateful he was, but he had a feeling that Jiang Yanli would understand him anyway.

The smile that settled on her lips was somehow even warmer than before, and with a degree of sincerity and affection that he could only dream of expressing, she said, “Of course, Xiao-shu. We’re family now, aren’t we?”

Without waiting for him to answer, she gave Jin Guangyao a little nod before she turned and headed back towards her room with Jin Ling.

Jin Guangyao took another few quiet moments to himself, letting the even rhythm of his breathing lead him past the erratic emotions of the last few minutes, reflecting warmly on what it was like to hold his nephew in his arms... and how nice it felt to think about getting to do it again sometime.

A quiet smile lingered on his lips for as long as he let himself linger on the moment... until he finally huffed out a soft breath, rose to his feet, and carried on with the rest of his day’s work.

#vesper posts #jin guangyao #jiang yanli #jin ling #mdzs #mdzs fic #cql #cql fic #the untamed #the untamed fanfic #mo dao zu shi #family

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teawithkpop · 4 years

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[M] - PhysCom - Pt 6

pt 1 - pt 2 - pt 3 - bc 1 - pt 4 - pt 5 - pt 6

Pairing: BTS - OT7 x Reader

Rating: Mature [18+]

Length: 6.0k words

Genre: PhysCom AU - smut with dashes of angst, and a shitload of romance and complicated feelings,, uhuhu (porn with plot??)

Warnings: swearing, sex with ulterior motives, dirty talk, dom!yoongi, oral sex (male and female receiving), throat fucking, spanking, clothed sex, unprotected sex, ripping clothes, degradation, throat holding (not to the degree of choking), licking, cum play, it’s nasty it’s just nASTY

I hope you don’t all hate me after this ahahahahahaha love you guys <3

☕💕 If you enjoy this work, please consider supporting me and my writing on KoFi ^^ ☕💕

-------

We must build a brighter future for PhysComs. They are people, just like you and me, and they are severely undervalued in our society. We employ them, we rely on them, and yet, they are ignored at best, and abused at worst, with punishment and persecution waiting should they dare to speak out about the horrific injustices through which they suffer. We cannot live in this double standard. I refuse to accept it, and I urge you to open your hearts and imagine what it would feel like to be needed but shamed. To be relied upon, but to never receive recognition for your efforts. They are people, just like us. They live among us, yet they are treated like ghosts. As of now, Physical Companions are employed by most entertainment companies, but are given no benefits and no job security. They have only the protection of their own agencies and any underground communication they might have between each other. These people should be respected. They should not be forced to live in the shadows. It’s time that we acknowledge and thank these tireless workers, and provide them with some support in return for all of the support that they provide this industry.

You read over the words again and again until they become a continuous stream of overlapping thoughts, filling you with utter confusion.

What the fuck does this mean?

You look away from your ComGear and pull up the document on Namjoon’s computer again. “Jungkook!” You call out to him, your heart hammering, and the door opens enough for him to poke his head through, his eyes widened expectantly.

“Yeah?”

You hastily gesture for him to come in, your eyes glued to the screen. “Come read this. Out loud.”

He seems confused, but comes up beside you and looks over the document, murmuring as he reads. “We must build a brighter future for PhysComs…"

As he confirms by reading back to you what you’ve seen with your own eyes, your confusion heightens to a fever pitch, and you almost want to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Is this… an essay? About PhysComs?

“Wow,” Jungkook says softly, his eyes scanning the words in fascination. But when he turns to look at you, you can see that it isn’t fascination at all. His eyes contain something that stirs worry in your gut. “I, uh… I didn’t realize things were so bad for you.”

Pity.

No. No, this is bad. This can’t be happening.

Your brief feeling of ease at finally getting some answers vanishes in an instant as your mind becomes a whirlwind, spiraling down, down, down… You can see, clear as day, what will happen if Namjoon shows this essay to the other boys.

You’ll become someone they pity.

Pity is bad, pity isn’t hot, pity isn’t sexy, pity isn’t fuckable, pity means they’ll feel bad when you do your job, pity means they’ll use other sluts to lessen your burden, pity means they give you more fucking vacation time, pity means they’ll never look at you the same way again, pity means-

You don’t realize you’re short of breath until you’re gasping, hyperventilating, your knuckles white against the dark armrests of the chair.

Jungkook is beside you. He’s saying something but all you can hear is a high pitched whine and the thunder of your own pulse as it crashes in your ears, reminding you with every thump of your beating heart that you’re a failure.

You’ve failed.

You stand up, probably a little too fast, as your vision grows dark in the corners. Jungkook immediately goes to help you when you stumble, but you fend him off.

"I'm fine." You put a hand to your head, trying to force it to stop throbbing. "I don't need your help."

He seems hesitant to reply.

“Where is Namjoon? I-I need to-” Your voice trails off as stars swim in your vision. “Fuck…”

The room becomes blurry, and you feel weightless as you sink to the floor, the distant echo of Jungkook’s frantic voice fading into nothingness.

-------

“Some clients may become… misguided.” Madame paces in front of the class, checking everyone’s form and breathing as they lay on their backs at their stations, legs propped and parted as fucking machines train you all for stamina.

This is a relaxing class, despite the nature of it. After a while, you barely even notice the dildo sliding in and out of you, the whir of the machines becomes background noise. It’s a good chance to focus and meditate.

“They may come to hold… pity for you.” Madame bites on the word as she lowers her ever present riding crop, gently coaxing one girl’s legs further apart.

“They’ll think, aww, the poor little sluts are forced to be used. They’re being objectified. They don’t get a say.” You can barely see Madame’s arm from your position as she drags the riding crop along the girl’s thigh, and the girl shivers in pleasure.

“Pity is useless, girls. This is your job. You don’t pity the mailman for having to be out in the weather. Safety is key, and rules are in place for a reason. That’s why people never hire just one Physical Companion.”

The class snickers at this. The idea is preposterous. PhysComs are always hired in sets, proportional to the amount of clients they’ll be serving.

“You are never forced to serve your client. You are independent contractors. Anything you do for them, you do willingly. This is why we train. To broaden our capabilities, and make ourselves-” Here, she adjusts the setting on one girl’s machine. The dildo moves faster, causing the girl to let out a breathy moan. “-as flexible as possible for our perspective clients.”

You inhale steadily as Madame examines you, her eye keen enough to pick up every detail of your posture, every twitch of your muscles. She clicks a setting on your machine and you feel the dildo expand slightly in girth, stretching you out further.

You smile and sigh at the stretch, proud to beat your previous record for time needed to move up a size. Madame’s expression gives away no approval, but you can tell from the twitch in her lip that she finds you to be a promising pupil.

She moves on, examining the next girl in line. “Our job is to assure them. To remind our clients why we are here. When we are with our clients, we are purely sexual beings.”

The girl beside you has her hands clapped to her mouth, trying desperately to conceal her noises. You can see her legs quivering and feel a twist of pride at being one of the few people eligible for an orgasm suppressant. Until you get your Opticon implanted, it’s an excellent advantage for stamina training.

Madame returns to her post at the front of the class, her sharp gaze sweeping over each of you as she continues her lecture. “If you are pitied by your client, then you have failed to make them see you as useful. Useless toys are thrown away.”

-------

Regaining consciousness is like being pulled up from the depths.

You vaguely register the softness of a bed beneath you. You blearily open your eyes, and see someone sitting at your side, their face swimming in your vision.

“Jagiya,” Taehyung pets your cheek, his large hands warm against your clammy skin, his voice is gentle. “Are you with me?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, suppressing a groan as you shove yourself onto your elbows.

“Woah, woah,” He stops you, guiding you to lay back down. “Easy there. How are you feeling?”

You feel like shit, honestly. Your head is still pounding and there’s a ringing in your ears, though the dizziness has faded significantly.

“I’m fine,” you croak, surprised at how weak your voice sounds. You wish you had the strength to shove him off, but your hands are braced uselessly on his arms.

A quick glance at your surroundings tells you that you’re back in your bedroom. How did you get here? The memories of what you discovered begin to come back to you, and with them, your sense of urgency returns. You try to push him off again. “N-need to see Namjoon...”

Taehyung shakes his head with an air of duty. “Namjoon isn’t home yet, but he said to keep you company and make sure you don’t overexert yourself.” He rearranges your arms and tucks the blanket up around your shoulders, then reaches for something on the night table and gently coaxes a straw to your lips. “Here, have some water.”

You reluctantly take a sip. You hadn't realized your throat was so dry.

He seems satisfied, and gives a nod before setting the drink down.

"What happened?” You ask with a looming sense of dread.

“You fainted,” he replies somberly.

You squint at him. “Yeah, I meant after that.”

His face brightens in understanding. “Oh! Well, Jungkook said he tried to call Namjoon as soon as you collapsed, but he didn't answer right away so he had to leave a voicemail. Then he brought you back here to your room instead. Carried you the whole way.”

There’s amusement in his eyes, though you can’t imagine what he finds funny about the situation. “It was perfect timing, so I said I’d look after you until you woke up.” He smiles warmly. “And now you’re awake.”

“What do you mean perfect timing?”

His smile falters for a moment. “Because... I just got home from shopping. See?” He says brightly, gesturing to some shopping bags sitting by your door with big name brands on them.

You also notice that your door handle is broken clean off.

“What… happened to my door?” You gape at the sight.

“Oh, I guess it must have been locked when Jungkook brought you home.” Taehyung chuckles. “I don’t think an elephant could have stopped him. You had him really worried.”

Something inside you feels warm at the notion that Jungkook would care so much.

And that warmth is immediately doused by frigid guilt.

Fuck, what are you thinking?

You’ve let them get too close, you’ve let them see your struggles, you’ve let them see you as a human being, as someone to worry about, instead of a mindless toy. Namjoon has written an entire persuasive essay about the supposed plight through which he believes you’re suffering.

You’ve become too relaxed around them. Fuck, you’re sitting here letting Taehyung fuss over you, when you should be offering him your body, sucking him dry, and letting him fuck your brains out.

That document puts things back into perspective. Letting this… tentative emotional connection that you've started with them go any further could be career ruining. Not just for you, but for the rest of their PhysComs. The dozens of Secondaries they employ could be at risk for losing their jobs too, if your clients suddenly feel guilty for using your services.

And then what? The members’ sexual drives will get out of hand. They won’t be regulated, they might stick their dick into a lucky fan and end up with a pregnancy scandal to cover up, or they’ll become tired, sluggish, and distracted due to unregulated sexual maintenance, which could affect their performance.

You are a necessary piece of their daily routine, their health, their jobs.

Vacation be damned, you are not about to let Namjoon’s blind optimism put himself, the other boys, or your own career at risk. It's for his own good.

You should have deleted the damn document when you had the chance. But it would have been too late anyway. Once they see you in that light, once they start pitying you, then that flicker of doubt will linger in their minds no matter how much you try to extinguish it.

You need to remind them of your place.

Jungkook and Namjoon are lost causes, they’ve both been exposed to the document’s propaganda. But there's still that mysterious vote they’ll be having by the end of the week, presumably about your future. That means you still have a chance. If you can convince a majority of them to view you once more as a purely sexual being…

You try to clear your head, mustering your strength to serve, but before you can ask Taehyung how he wants to use your body, he speaks.

“You do so much for us, jagiya.” Taehyung keeps his hands braced on your arms, his thumb rubbing gently against your skin. “You’re always there for us. Always giving.”

Your whole body tenses. You don’t like where this is going. He’s starting to sound an awful lot like Namjoon.

Taehyung seems to sense your discomfort, because he leans closer and bestows a fleeting kiss to your forehead. “Now it’s time for you to receive.” His eyes are warm as he stares down at you, and he holds a glimmer of something secretive in his smile, like he just told a private joke.

Your confusion grows. “Taehyung… what are you talking about?”

“He’ll be here any minute,” he says by way of an answer, and gives your shoulder a squeeze. “Just relax, jagiya. You deserve this.”

“What do you-?”

But before you can question what he means and why he’s acting so strangely, your door swings open, and Min Yoongi enters.

“Here to take over,” he says, his mouth and nose still covered by the same black mask from earlier.

Taehyung looks surprised, almost shocked. “Where’s Jimin? He was supposed to-”

“Asked me to come instead.” Yoongi lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Said something about not feeling right.”

You look between the two of them. Taehyung’s mouth flaps like a fish and Yoongi sighs, coming over to take his place. “Come on, you’ve been up here for hours.”

Hours? What time is it? You reach for your ComGear and find that it’s not in your utility belt.

“No, but Jimin is supposed to-”

Oh, there it is. Plugged in, resting on your night table. Maybe Jungkook saw that the battery was low. That boy is way too considerate.

“Why don’t you go check on him, then?” Yoongi doesn’t give Taehyung any room for argument, staring him down. “I think he went to the practice room.”

Why is it on the settings screen? Shouldn’t it still be in your emails from earlier…? Weird.

Taehyung reluctantly stands up and takes a few steps towards the door, shifting his weight with uncertainty. He looks to you, then back at Yoongi. “But she was about to ask me something.”

You put aside your ComGear, pushing away any prior thoughts to focus on your mission. “It’s okay, we’ll talk later,” you assure him with a nod, your mind whirring into action.

You have to remind five men of your place as their personal sex slave, if all goes well. The order in which you remind them of this is inconsequential. Plus it might be more effective to go for Taehyung later. He may be less eager to fuck you after nursing you back to health.

But Yoongi… you haven’t seen him since earlier in the day. Yoongi doesn't have feelings for you. Yoongi’s only ever known you as a slut, which makes him an easy target.

Taehyung doesn’t look happy about leaving, but he nods, retrieves his shopping bags from the floor, and gives both of you a final glance before shutting the door.

You wait just long enough to know Taehyung is out of earshot. Yoongi walks over to your vanity, takes off the jacket he’d been wearing and drapes it over the back of the chair, leaving himself in a plain black t-shirt and black sweatpants.

While he isn’t looking, you carefully sit up and shed your oversized hoodie, leaving you topless. Time to get back to business.

You take a deep breath and slip into your persona. It feels good to wear it again, you feel less dizzy, more focused. Ready to fuck.

“Did you miss me, Master Min?”

Yoongi freezes, his back to you. You suppress a laugh. You know you’ve caught him off-guard.

“I’m sorry?” He tugs down his face mask and turns around, only to see you in nothing but a pair of leggings, perched prettily on the edge of your bed. His eyes widen only marginally, but it’s a big reaction, coming from him. "What are you doing?"

You tilt your head to the side and cover your breasts with your hands, groping and squeezing them together. “What do you think I’m doing, Master?” You bite your lower lip, keeping eye contact with him while you feel yourself, rolling a nipple between your fingers. “You always tell me to show off my pretty body.”

Yoongi looks off to the side, averting his eyes to your actions, but the tent forming in his pants tells you he didn’t look away soon enough. “Stop fucking around. You're suspended.” He says, echoing your words from earlier in the day.

You hum in agreement, a pout forming on your lips. “Mm, but I don’t want to be.” You let out a desperate, breathy sigh. “I want to be filled with your cock, Master. I need it.”

You watch his adam’s apple bob. His weight shifts. His lips press together. Every movement you analyze for signs of weakness. It’s like playing chess.

“I know you want me, Master,” you purr, sprawling back onto the bed. You bring one hand down to your core, massaging your mound through the stretchy material. “I’m yours for the taking. No one has to know.”

"Is that what you really want?" He asks with a distinct note of skepticism.

You bristle, but try to hide your irritation. Here they go again with their fucking consent.

“Yes, of course, Master.” You mold your face into submissive desire. “It's my dream to be a good little slut for you. Being stuffed with your thick cock, pounded into the mattress, and pumped full of your seed,” you whine, grinding against your hand for effect. It feels good, better than usual, and you come to find that you mean what you said.

Sex actually sounds good right now, if you’re being honest. A good fucking might be just what you need to forget your worries, so it’s really a win-win.

You sense Yoongi’s hesitance, and you try to think of a way to convince him that you’re serious. The only off-the-clock sex you’ve had so far was with Hoseok, and that had been… far too intimate. But maybe some of the same principles could apply here. Hoseok had wanted you to want it. He’d asked you to use his name.

“Yoongi,” you breathe his name, dropping your character for just a moment. His eyes snap to yours. “I want you.”

He stares at you for a second. Two. Then he’s hovering over you, hands planted on either side of your shoulders.

“You want me?” His breath is warm and heavy, and you can see the way his pupils dilate when he looks at you.

Your heart skips a beat at his unexpected intensity. You nod, your lips slightly parted as he holds his body only inches away from you.

He seems at war with himself, his jaw working as his eyes roam down to your chest, then travel slowly back up, settling on your widened eyes, your pink bitten lips.

"Fuck it," he mutters, and surges down to crush his lips to yours.

It's unexpected. He's never shown any interest in kissing you, he's always preferred shoving his fingers in your mouth.

But you're grateful for that, because if he'd ever tried to kiss you before, you don't think you would've been able to keep your composure.

Yoongi is like fire. His lips are searing with passion, his tongue flickers and licks into your mouth. It's a stark contrast to his icy fingers as they brush against your ribs.

He's full of contradictions. His kiss is greedy but controlled. He grinds his thigh between your legs, causing you to moan, but his hands are feather light as they caress your breasts. He's fire and ice.

You feel yourself getting hotter by the minute, and all too soon, he breaks away from the kiss, leaving you gasping as he trails his mouth down your neck, biting a bruise there.

"Ah! Yoongi…" Your fingers twine through his hair of their own accord, and you're appalled at how easily you've given in to your desires. But it's all for the cause. You're saving careers.

He groans, his voice low and tempting as he kisses and licks your skin. "You really want me, princess?"

Your chest heaves as you catch your breath. "Yes. Fuck, yes, please…"

"You want me to fuck that greedy cunt of yours? Fill you to the brim?"

His words light a fire in you, and you writhe beneath him. "I want it so much, Master. Please fuck me…"

He grabs your jaw. "You're my slut."

He says it more like a question than a statement. You nod as much as he'll allow.

He drags his thumb across your cheek and dips it into your mouth. "You're mine. I can use you however I want…"

You didn't think he'd be so easy to convince. Well, mission accomplished, you suppose. One down, four to go.

You suck greedily on his thumb in answer, widening your eyes to draw him in. He hums, pressing down on your tongue and making you gag around the digit.

"Good girl." His eyes are half lidded as he looks at you. Then something changes, a sharp glint appearing in his gaze as he removes his thumb and squeezes your jaw, forcing your mouth open.

He licks past your lips in a kiss of complete dominance. Despite his control, he's gentle, savoring your taste, praising you for it between breaths.

While your mouth is occupied, his other hand snakes down to cup your heat, palming you through your frustratingly thin leggings. His dexterous fingers find your clit faster than you would expect, and he circles the pads of his fingers there intently, nothing but the thin material separating him from your skin.

You buck into his hand, though you hope he doesn't keep you there for too long. You know the ache between your thighs will only get worse with no release.

"So fucking wet…" he mutters, pulling back from exploring your mouth to lick a possessive stripe up your cheek. "Tell me how much you want me, slut. Beg for it."

"Please!" You whine, falling into the familiar routine. "Please, Master, all I want is your cock inside me! I need it, I want it so badly…"

Yoongi exhales through his nose, and soon he's up and off of you. "All fours."

This is what you're used to. The familiarity of being told what to do, knowing what's going to happen next, it makes you relax. You get in the position he asks, wiggling your ass towards him.

But Yoongi needs no encouragement. He spanks you hard, rubbing his hands all over the smooth material covering your ass. "Fuck, so juicy…"

He's silent for a moment, and his hands still. You're about to say something to provoke him when there's the distinct noise of ripping fabric behind you. Your hips jerk towards him as he tears the seam of the leggings right down your core, exposing you.

"Yoongi!"

But he's already digging in, dragging his tongue along your folds and sucking at your dripping cunt. His hands grip your ass, spreading you apart for him, and you quiver, his tongue igniting sparks as it plunges within you.

You try not to let it get to you, but the lack of constant sex must have made you extra sensetive. Every thrust and flicker of his tongue has you breathless, squirming, needing more. It was never like this before, you have to pull yourself together. Keep control.

But Yoongi seems to like your enthusiasm. He hums, and the vibrations buzz at your clit, sending tingles straight up your spine. You let out a shriek of surprise as he sucks on the overly sensitive bud and you feel yourself throb.

Fuck, he's too good at this. How did he get so good at this? Your arms give out, and you fall onto the bed, your face buried in the duvet as Yoongi fucks you expertly with his tongue.

"S-stop…" you plead weakly, trying to avoid the inevitable disappointment that will soon follow if he keeps this up.

"What? I didn't hear you use your safeword, slut." He growls, landing a warning spank on your rear ashe rises onto the bed behind you. A shuffle of fabric as he pulls down his sweatpants. "You like this, don't you? You like being exposed. Being treated like a pornstar? Dirty girl."

You do. Fuck, you do. Especially when Min Yoongi happens to be the actor starring with you.

You feel him tap the head of his cock against your ass, slide the thick length along your center. "Look at how fucking wet you are already. So desperate... pathetic."

You feel a flash of heat at his assessment. Yoongi's always enjoyed a little degradation, but his choice of words hits a little too close to home in this particular scenario for you to fully embrace it.

You cover your embarrassment with a thicker cloud of pretend. "Of course I'm dripping, Master. I'm your fuck doll. I live to service your cock..."

"Damn right, you do." He shoves into you without warning, and you gasp for real. Fuck, you've been denied dick for less than twenty-four hours, and you're already off your game? Come on, shake it off. Get in the rhythm of it.

But Yoongi sets such a relentless pace, it's impossible for you to keep up. It's as if he's got something to prove. He fucks into you so hard it hurts. You moan and try to relax, try to cling to the familiarity, but you feel a weird pressure building in your chest. It makes it hard to breathe, hard to focus.

He takes your moans and gasps as a sign to go harder, and he leans over you, pressing his chest to your back. His hand slips around your neck, holding you in place while he growls against you, his nose digging into your cheek. "Gonna fuck the living shit outta you… yeah? That's what you want? Gonna make you see stars and beg for my cock, over and over until I say so."

You moan in gratitude. You're grateful he's so easy to convince. You're his slut, and he knows it. This is where you belong. You feel happy. Safe. You smile, closing your eyes as Min Yoongi fucks into you like a freight train, and you finally get a moment’s peace from the past day’s turmoil.

He suddenly grunts, lifting himself off of you. "This cock belongs in your filthy mouth." He pulls out of you and takes you firmly by the shoulder. You hastily follow his implications to sit up.

He grabs his cock at the base and guides it to your face, nudging your cheek and spreading the coated wetness across your skin. You get a glimpse of his length - rock hard, nearly purple, and leaking - before he stuffs it down your throat. You relax, humming and taking all of him and gagging obediently upon request, just like always.

"Such a good whore, yeah… just like that," he moans, bracing his hand behind your head, grabbing a fistful of your hair. "This is how it should be, yeah?"

You hum around him in confirmation, glad that you're both on the same page.

"You're our slut. Nothing will ever fucking change that… " he starts rutting into your mouth, and you obediently let him fuck your throat.

He huffs, his voice dropping lower, “No use pretending you can be anything else.”

The change in his tone of voice is so stark, it gives you pause. You almost lose your concentration. He sounds almost... sad? Why would he be sad? Are you doing something wrong?

You redouble your efforts to please him.

"Look at you. So filthy." He praises you softly as you gurgle around him, drool starting to leak from your mouth. His roughness starts to return at the sight of you, and you beam with pride as he resumes his filthy dialogue. "This is what you want, isn't it? To choke on our dicks all day, huh? This what you signed up for?"

He pulls out to let you gasp in a breath, then shoves right back down. He does this a few more times, letting the blowjob get sloppy. You nod desperately between thrusts, assuring him of your devotion. You graze your hands over his clothed thighs, caressing him while he fucks your throat.

“Nothing else matters.” Yoongi huffs, and as his face swims back in forth in your vision, he looks resolute.

You surge forward to hold his length down your throat, swallowing around him, your nose touching his abdomen.

He groans, pulling your hair taut and holding you in place. "Yeah, that's it…. You were built for this, weren't you?"

He finally lets you come back for air, but no sooner do you take a messy gasp than he pushes you backwards onto the bed and crawls on top of you.

"Say it." He grabs you by the jaw again, and his voice is low and soft, his eyes like hot coals. "Tell me what you want."

You sputter and gasp, still reclaiming your breath, but obediently say what he wants to hear. "I want you, Yoongi. I want your cock..."

He let go of your face and hoists your legs up, bending you in half. "You're gonna get it, too," he mutters, grabbing your calves, keeping them up and out of the way as he shoves his thick cock into you again.

You moan compliantly, gasping and staring up at him. This is all going according to plan, you just have to hang on and not let your throbbing pussy distract you from the goal.

"You want to be a whore, huh?" He asks, maintaining a gravitational sort of eye contact as he slowly slides in and out of you, torturing you. "Cum for me. Cum around my cock."

You shiver and within a few moments, clench around him convincingly, letting your eyes roll back as you moan in delight.

"Cumming on command, within seconds... look at that." He braces your legs with one arm and starts rubbing your clit with his other hand as he picks up the pace. You feel a jolt as his thumb circles the little bundle of nerves, and you actually flinch.

"So sensitive." He growls, reading your mind. "What a needy cunt."

You can't form any words, the way he's kneading your clit has your head thrown back, your breath coming in gasps. It’s never felt like this.

Yoongi picks up on your arousal, and quickly gains speed, fucking you relentlessly, with little grunts of his own as he keeps you spread wide open for him, watching as your pussy takes his cock over and over again.

After endless minutes of stimulation, your core is swollen and aching, but still somehow desperate for more.

Yoongi's hips buck and stutter, and without warning, he leaves you painfully empty, clenching around nothing. His cock in his fist, he pumps himself to completion, letting his seed cover your puffy, aching pussy.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it…" he grunts, using his cock head to smear his release along your folds.

You start to relax, trying to overcome the disappointment your body feels at getting frustratingly uselessly stimulated.

But before you know it, Yoongi is lining himself up with your entrance again. "You thought we were done?" He chuckles darkly, using his cock to collect cum around your entrance, then he sheathes himself to the hilt with a low groan.

It feels so fucking good, you can't think straight. You cry out, your body desperate and screaming for more but knowing it's not enough, and it'll never be enough.

"Yeah, you want it deep inside you, don't you, you little cum slut?" He mutters, shoving his fingers into your mouth, and you're grateful that he's muffling your embarrassing noises.

"Gonna fuck you like the worthless little whore you are," he barks, ruthlessly slamming into you, and you moan with every thrust.

You would have said something if you still had an ounce of coherent thought in your brain, but the sensations are quickly taking over. Your whole body is wound up, desperate for something. His fingers reach down to rub hastily at your swollen clit and your vision blurs, your pulse pounds in your ears - are you going to faint again?

No.

You peak.

A scream catches in your throat, broken and gutterel as pleasure takes over your entire body, coursing through you in waves, lifting your body off the bed, convulsing, throbbing through you, inside and out.

It feels so good it hurts. You want to stay in this moment, extend it for as long as possible, but you know there's something wrong. Your mind is so addled, you're scared, terrified, before you even remember why.

You shouldn’t be capable of climax. Something’s wrong.

Yoongi keeps fucking you, grunting as you clench around his cock, but you're clawing at him, begging him to stop, tears leaking down your cheeks. Something’s wrong.

He realizes you aren't moaning anymore, but wailing. Sobbing. Something's wrong. He pulls out of you, shouting to be heard above your panic. He looks scared. Guilty.

Just then your door bursts open, and Jimin enters the room with a shout, quickly followed by Taehyung.

“I’m sorry! It’s my fault-” Jimin’s eyes fall to your compromising position, Yoongi’s dick still out, your leaking core exposed, and claps a hand over his mouth. He looks like he might cry. “Oh no...”

Taehyung’s mouth falls open, and he appears too alarmed to speak, apart from a very small, “Fuck.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What’s your fault?” Yoongi’s shouts at Jimin and Taehyung are drowned out by the rush of blood in your ears as your shoulders shake from dry sobs. Your eyes flash between the two younger members, their guilty expressions, and you remember your private conversation with Jimin just yesterday.

"There is a way to turn it off, in case of emergency side effects. But I can't just turn it off for fun. You have to understand that.” You rest your hand on his shoulder again, hoping he now comprehends the reason for your earlier outburst. “It's a part of my job."

"I understand. Sorry,” he says, giving you a small nod. He twists his mouth to the side, chewing over the revelations. "That must really suck. Not being able to cum."

He’s the only one you’ve ever told.

“I’m sorry! It’s my fault-”

Your ComGear. The settings.

You're too shocked, too betrayed, too sore to get up on your own. You feel some of Yoongi’s release drip down your leg, and a robotic voice fills your mind, drilled into you from the hours of safety lectures you’d had to sit through during training.

… If at any point the user experiences orgasmic sensations before, during, or after sexual activities, then this may be a sign of malfunction in the Opticon Miracle Implant, rendering the user susceptible to sexually transmitted disease and/or pregnancy. Side effects of a malfunctioning Opticon Miracle Implant could become severe, or in some cases life-threatening, if left untreated. Please consult your local physician and refrain from any sexual activity until the Opticon Miracle Implant may be examined by a specialist.

They’re all shouting now, and you feel your throat constrict in horror at the implications of what just happened. The words get caught in your chest, bubbling up with your mounting fear, and finally fall from your lips in a raw cry for help.

"Someone call an ambulance!"

#bts #bts smut #bts x reader smut #bts ot7 smut #bts smut fic #bts x reader #bts fanfiction #bts ot7 #bts fanfic #bts ot7 x reader #bts fic rec #yoongi smut #yoongi x reader #jungkook x reader #taehyung x reader #jimin x reader #thank you all for enjoying physcom! <3

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asgardianthot · 5 years

Text

I thought you were smaller (Steve/Bucky)

TFA smut

Word count: 3430

A/N: Heey;) this one isn’t posted on my ao3 and it’s my first time writing in TFA settings, I just thought I’d give it a try :)

Warnings: small mention of ‘contemporary’ homophobia

Bucky had been sitting in his tent most part of the evening. Drinking with his war-buddies wasn’t as tempting as it had been before. No, he actually had sat alone at the bar listening to others having fun. How could he join, when everything and everyone felt so distant from his own self? No one had gone to the top floor and come back alive, so he had beginning to think he might have died a little in that room. Perhaps he was just a ghost hovering over cheerful men who were celebrating being very much alive; again, he didn’t know if he could exactly say he survived the experiments.

Mostly because he was unable to remember a thing. His memory of it consisted of two opposites: a good amount of guards dragging him up by his arms, and then Steve’s face looming on top of him. Entering and exiting. He had a lot to take in. Steve’s transformation being one of the abnormalities to digest. However, he was happy. It felt as if Stevie’s dumb smile had never lost the sparkle that lit his life. Right now all he had in his lonely tent was a dismantable bed and a working candle.

As if God herself had heard Bucky’s mind and shifted the stars in his favor, the muffled sound of footsteps over grass and dirt approached his tent.

“Hey, Bucky?”

He recognized the voice immediately. He figured Steve had gone to bed ages ago, the Howling Commandos being fast asleep and knocked out on booze. On top of it all, Bucky thought he was the only one whose thoughts didn’t allow him to catch some rest. Guess he was wrong.

He forced himself up the bed and opened the tent, and the second Stevie’s squarer face showed up, Bucky offered him a smile. It was impulsively false, but he didn’t feel like a liar in front of Steve, as seeing him really did cheer his features, almost automatically.

“Can’t sleep? Must be too excited.” The sergeant raised an eyebrow at his friend.

Steve replied with the smallest smile before stepping foot in the tent. “For what?”

Bucky took a few seconds to shut the tent and swiftly move back to sit on his bed, then staring up at the blonde who looked confused.

“Honorary medal… Captain.” He nodded with a hint of mockery.

Steve let out an embarrassed smile. Bucky had learnt the hard way, meaning by other soldiers who were gossiping, none the less, about the whole Captain America paraphernalia. Yet Steve figured the rest of the 107 had probably let him in the details of his heroic rank attribution and military recognition. It felt surreal: tiny Steve from Brooklyn who couldn’t even run a whole block without losing his breath, getting an honorary medal.

“You should be getting one too.” Steve followed in an attempt at not sounding cocky, but failing miserably; he shook his head down. “I’m sorry, I’m not gonna… push you into- into talking about it or…”

He eventually drifted off, losing his trail of thought, in front of a Bucky who was left with a big sympathetic smile.

“It’s just… a lot, you know.” He gave the blonde a warm, reassuring smile. “You changed a lot.”

Steve sat next to him with a sigh. “Is that good or bad?”

At the sound of that, Barnes was quick to correct his words. “No, it’s good! I’m… happy for you.” His eyes got lost in a random corner of the tent, his mind running a thousand miles per hour. “I’m gonna need a second to adjust, that’s all.”

Rogers nodded, facing away from the gloomy sergeant. Nevertheless, he could tell there was more in his head, more clouds to disperse, the reminiscence of whatever had happened and the tinge of it that lingered.

“Is that all that’s got you sleepless?” he dared to ask.

Bucky let a small smirk escape, aware of the Captain’s ability to know what was wrong, and his own incapability of hiding it. He didn’t look at Steve while trying to speak while avoiding the subject as much as possible.

“We don’t really have to talk about it.” Yet, knowing the man, he’d probably insist on him being honest, so he corrected himself. “I mean, I… don’t wanna talk about it.”

Steve nodded, beginning to feel a bit more uncomfortable, if it were possible. Bucky could sense that and decided not to torture the man with guilt. Because that was for sure what went roaring through the blonde head; I should have gotten there faster, I should have known, I should have…

“I wanna know about you.” Bucky forced his own voice to be cheerful in order to switch the subject. “I’m still oblivious to… this.” he gestured to the man’s entire body.

Steve immediately blushed. Blushed. God, if Bucky hadn’t known him better he’d think he was acting like a teenager about to have his first kiss. Perhaps it had something to do with the time they’d spent apart, it being the most they have lived without seeing each other’s faces. Perhaps it was the guilt acting, that post-fear trauma of what would have become of James Buchanan Barnes had the Captain not walked in that room on time.

“There’s not much to it.” The blonde grinned with a hint of embarrassment still present. “A scientist offered me an opportunity and…”

“And you gulped that down like they were giving out candy.” The sergeant made fun of him with a big goofy smile, earning a chuckle from the appellee. “I like it, it suits you.”

Steve frowned. “What? The outfit? You said that already.”

This had to be a trap. Had to. Why mention the outfit if he had already complimented it? ‘But you’re keeping the outfit, right?’ it was all too clear yet too blurry at the same time; the words were out in the air, forming sentences but never fully being said. That was Steve and Bucky, for sure, and a resume of their entire relationship the past two years.

Bucky had to throw his pride and fears away into the cold night before pronouncing the following words. “No, the body.” Suddenly, Steve gave him a look so difficult to decipher, he had to attempt taking it back. “I mean, the transformation. The whole… Captain America thing, it fits.”

Moron, stupid, imbecile. If burying his face in the dirt might have done any good rather than showing off his feelings even more, he would have. All he had left to do was wait for the other man to react, hopefully letting it slide.

“You caring about my physique all of a sudden?” it was Steve’s turn to mock him, but noticing how the sergeant was two seconds away from shooting himself in the foot to get away from that situation, he tried to save the man’s pride himself. “No, I get it, it’s… a big change from the scrawny little asthmatic.”

As Steve handed out a very polite awkward chuckle, Bucky mentally thanked him for the effort, but the damage was already done. They both knew what he’d meant and therefore, Bucky’s opinions were already out in the air. It was time to, at least, for once in his life, commit to them. He took a breath that felt deep as a death-breath, but sounded so concealed Steve couldn’t have noticed it.

“I liked the scrawny little asthmatic.” He confessed with a sad smile, to which Steve’s face turned into something even more ineffable. “And I know he’s still in there, behind all that… muscle.”

Steve laughed. He laughed at the last comment as a polite gesture, but it eased him to think while he did so. There was no way Bucky didn’t feel the same way, he had thought about it so many times before the army, and now? Now he was a national hero and a poster boy, so if there were feelings before, they had to be there right there and then, in that army tent at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Steve looked down at his hands, drifting a little closer. “Buck… can I…?”

All of a sudden he was at a loss of words. How does one do these things? Hiding, of course, concealed from the public’s eye and judgement. But how does one actually take that leap?

James found himself staring at Steve’s lips for far too long, barely even realizing what he was doing, as if his pink lips held some sort of spell or hex that physically prevented Bucky from looking away. He often found himself rather hypnotized by Steve, but it usually came with a big proud smile or a loving joke. Now, this was… raw.

Like he was about to head for that very longed-for kiss. And Rogers noticed that, his eyes trailing down to the other’s lips as well, thinking maybe he’s thinking the same thing, maybe he is, but then again, his stomach churned with the probability of causing a negative reaction and losing his best friend forever. He trembled with anticipation as his eyes went from Bucky’s mouth to his eyes to his eyes to his mouth until their eyes were locked.

And Bucky went for the leap.

They crashed their lips together like lovers who had been apart for months, and the image wasn’t too different. They were, in some quite untouched way, lovers who had been drawn apart. While Bucky’s hand searched for Steve’s neck, the reciprocate hand held onto Barnes’ face, cupping his cheek which was still marked by his previous injures. Their rhythm became faster when Steve slipped his tongue inside, to which Bucky immediately responded to with a quiet moan. Mouth partially gaped, their breaths were able to escape, not silently, and suddenly their hands were bringing each other closer, caressing their skin, turning the whole scenario a lot rougher.

Steve broke apart, gasping for air. “Can’t say I didn’t know.” He surprised the man with a small laugh.

Bucky smirked and held onto the Captain’s face again. “Shut up, punk.”

After a lot more kissing, Steve’s free went down Bucky’s chest and stopped at the hems of his pants. All Bucky had to do was nod into the kiss for the blonde to work the buttons open and plunge his hand under the fabric where he could gently palp the growing bulge underneath.

Bucky groaned, then laughed in Steve’s mouth, causing him to stop. “Oh- fuck.” A smile was plastered on his face when he pressed his forehead against his lover’s.

“Good?” Steve asked, squeezing the semi-hard just a little bit stronger, which earned him a silent nod. “Good.”

Steve’s mouth travelled down Bucky’s jaw to his neck, sucking in sensitive skin while his cold hand became warmer with touch, and he was finally able to stroke the member naked under the briefs.

Bucky let his head fall forward with his eyes shut, enjoying the pleasure he was given as if it was torture, because he needed more, so much more from Steve, but he had to take in how great it felt first, which already was hard to process. Not too many seconds later, when his dick was hard as a rock thanks to Steve’s wonderful hands, the touch was removed, leaving room for Steve to kneel down in front of the bed. Bucky stared down in awe at the Captain, still in his uniform, beautiful as always, looked up with icy-blue eyes like a dear in the headlights.

And it became so much more to handle when he simply took the throbbing member in his hands and launched his head forward in order to pop it in his mouth.

The sergeant had no way to refrain from a loud gasp escaping his mouth. “Damn it, Steve.”

He got choked on his own spit as the blonde worked his mouth up and down, sending electric vibrations for days, which he could barely keep up with. Besides, there was the fact Steve stared up with such malice in his eyes, like he was trying to make Bucky loose his mind.

Barnes shook back a little bit when the rhythm got too intense. “Wait, wait, stop.”

Steve obliged immediately, concern in his features. “Am I doing it wrong?”

Bucky sighed, still shivering and a tiny bit overstimulated but nowhere near finished, and offered the man a hand to kneel up. “You’re great, just…” he bent down to kiss his lips with his hands cupping the sculpted face. “C’mere.”

The kiss brought Steve to his feet until he was hovering over Bucky rather than below him, and it took him detaching their faces for a second for Bucky to sprint to the man’s belt, rapidly undoing his pants while Steve got rid of his uncomfortable army jacket. It must have been cold enough to shiver without a shirt on, but the heat inside that tent was powerful enough that Steve managed to get out of his, tie and all, then slide off Bucky’s over his head, right on time for the latter to dive into work. He took Steve’s cock out easily and eagerly, tightening his wet lips around it.

Steve hummed and held onto Bucky’s bare back. A few bobs down and Bucky was pushing the hard-on as far back as he could before choking. He took it out for a second, staring at Steve deep into his eyes like the latter had done earlier.

“I thought you were smaller.” He smirked up, not giving the Cap enough time to react to his joke for he was already sliding his dick inside his mouth.

Of course he made a joke about the moment he was rescued from torturous death, only Bucky held that sense of dark humor, and it suited him wonderfully. Just like the little noises and tongue-clacks he produced while working Steve’s cock.

As much as Rogers lost himself in moans and sighs and caressing Bucky’s shoulder blades, he eventually pushed the man aback, softly, just enough to let him know he wanted to stop. He bent over but instead of a passionate kiss, he placed an unexpectedly gentle one on the corner of Bucky’s lips, to then stare deep into his dilated pupils.

“You wanna try…” he asked seriously. “…going further?”

Continuingly, baby-blue eyes met the light gray ones in need of approval. Bucky thought about it for a second. Steve knew how men had sex with each other, obviously, it was common knowledge how depraved men, ungodly men, got it done. But as far as Bucky knew, Rogers hadn’t actually tried it like he himself had. And it was something he felt like he shouldn’t hold with pride, but it didn’t bring shame to him either. He smiled at Steve, sure of himself.

“Yeah, I trust you.”

And so Steve helped him out of his pants and shoes and briefs until one of them was fully exposed and the other only half naked. It wasn’t hard to tell who went where, and the blonde had to hold a chuckle because of course Buck had done this before. They kissed for what felt like ages, re-accommodating their bodies so that Bucky was plopped on his back with Steve on top, keeping his balance, and slowly getting a finger inside. Bucky moaned into Steve, holding his hand for guidance, and so another finger was popped in.

“Still good?” Steve questioned, mildly concerned.

Bucky groaned. “Don’t you dare stop.”

Rogers couldn’t help but chuckle and take advantage of the moment to insert a third finger. Bucky pushed down into his hand, needing more, so much more, and then bit Steve’s lips in a way to let him know he was ready. The man moved Bucky on his side first, not trying to act too dominant, however Bucky rejected that idea by plopping himself on his stomach, letting him know it was okay, and this was the easiest way to do it anyway.

Which was the reason why Steve thought it was time to stroke his dick a few times and place himself between Bucky’s legs, separating them a little. Following mere instinct, he then lifted Bucky’s hips, fingered him again, heard his moans attentively, and then pressed his tip against the bottom’s entrance. Bucky sighed out, and then Steve’s dick went in a little more, lubricated by nothing but his own pre-cum, so it was bound to happen slowly. And the tempo had Steve’s mind in a blur.

By the time he was almost fully in, Bucky’s hands were a tight fist around his pillow and his gaped mouth rested against the same fabric, panting.

“Remember when I said…” he spoke in between gasping and swallowing. “…I thought you were smaller?”

Steve didn’t have to hold back his laughter, for the situation actually had him eating his words, muffled by his light moaning and holding. “Yeah?”

“I really mean that.” He let out.

Steve smiled and as he felt Bucky more adjusted, less tight, he gave him one hard thrust, which had them both moaning. Another thrust in, and Bucky was whimpering, breathy little cries leaving his mouth with each time Steve pushed into him and out.

On his part, the Captain was doing his best not to lose his mind. Bucky was insanely tight around his dick, so much it hurt, and he figured they were both enjoying the pleasurable pain by the sounds Bucky produced. He fasted his rhythm, always checking if Bucky was moaning out in pleasure instead of anguish.

“Fuck, Stevie…” he basically cried, his voice cracked with the intensity he was feeling, followed by a shaky breath that sounded more like pain than anything else.

“You alright?” Steve said, blinking fast to focus but giving into the pressure around his cock.

Bucky hummed a high ‘yes’ into the pillow, what he was actually now biting into. “Please, make me cum, please make me cum, please…”

Steve kept thrusting in, not knowing what exactly that meant, but he figured he would fasten the process if one of his hands was busy also. Therefore, he grabbed a hold of Bucky’s dick and stroked it, doing his best not to lose his pace. Bucky tensed. He was close. His moans became louder and higher and he did his best to muffle them with the pillow as tears began leaving his eyes.

The whole scene was far too much for Steve’s senses, so he was currently only working on depriving himself from finishing before Bucky did; in order to achieve that, he went in harder and stronger until Bucky was writhing underneath him. Eventually, his ass clenched hard against Steve and the latter was sure he wasn’t going to last, but then he heard the bottom releasing what sounded like a three-thrust-long scream, and then shut up for a long second, before choking on a loud gasp.

It made Steve immediately lose it, exploding inside Bucky’s ass. He could sense the orgasm riding off as he heard Bucky regaining his breath with difficulty as he had his face crushed against the pillow. In an effort to ease his aftershock, Steve ran a hand down Bucky’s cheek, making him turn his face so that his neck was crooked but he could breathe better.

He swallowed and panted, eyes closed. “Okay, time to get out now.”

Rogers did as told, slowly sliding off with a groan, followed by Bucky’s whimper, and laid on Bucky’s side, dragging his body against his own torso in an embrace so he wouldn’t face down anymore.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Stevie.” He said, out of breath.

Steve kissed his neck before helping him lay on his back with ease, perceiving how devastated his face was. He noticed the teary eyes and ran a thumb right below in an attempt to get rid of the tears.

“They’re good tears, don’t worry.” He smiled, losing his entire will to this man in the star-spangled outfit.

Steve bent down to kiss him tenderly, still grasping the idea of what had just happened. When pulling away, he locked their eyes with a hint of concern.

“You said you trusted me.” He spoke sweetly but also seriously. “Did you mean that also?”

Barnes nodded. “Yeah.” He said as if Steve should have known that by now. “You… came for me.” He shrugged, thinking about the moment he’d opened his eyes to a bigger Stevie, there to get him out of a Hydra base where he was sure he was going to die. “You saved me.”

#stucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #smut #fanfic #captain america #captain america the first avenger #tfa #chris evans #sebastian stan #stevebucky #fanfiction #ao3 #marvel #mcu #avengers #marvel smut

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primatechnosynthpop · 5 years

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A Rose Shall Bloom (And Then Shall Fade)- part 6

Over the course of the following few years, Claire was happier than she’d been in a long time. She periodically checked in with Mohinder on how the formula was coming along, and while he confessed that it was taking longer than he’d initially anticipated, he assured her that it would be complete before too long. It was a bit frustrating having to wait, but it was going to be more than worth it once the drug was completed and administered.

Claire often found herself wondering how exactly losing her powers would feel. Would it be instantaneous, or a gradual process? Would she initially retain her current appearance and start aging from there, or would she age rapidly to make up for lost time? Part of her hoped for the former, because if she suddenly went from looking like a woman in her late teens or early twenties to looking like the seventy-year-old that she was, Gretchen would obviously be able to tell, and Claire got the feeling that her wife wouldn’t approve of her decision. That was why she still hadn’t told Gretchen about it. Another part of her, though, hoped it would be the latter. The fantasy of growing old together still hung in the back of Claire’s mind, taunting her whenever she looked at herself in the mirror and then looked over at her now disturbingly elderly wife (only disturbing because of the discrepancy in their respective appearances–Gretchen was still beautiful, at least to Claire, who loved her as much as ever). It was odd to think that so many people hated the thought of getting old. Claire legitimately wished that her joints would creak when she moved around, or that she had graying hair and wrinkles, because those things were signs of the lives people had lived. She deserved some sort of physical recognition for everything she had experienced so far in her lifetime, but her body kept her looking as fresh-faced and innocent as she had been decades ago.

Another annoying thing, albeit something that would have been rather flattering under different circumstances, was the fact that young people flirted with her on a fairly regular basis. They usually didn’t believe her when she told them she was married, either, although most of these young folks left her alone at that point nonetheless. It was funny, too, how the looks of some of those young people matched up so closely to the kind of people she’d been attracted to in her youth. Decades ago, Claire would have been thrilled to have gained the attention of the spry young cashier at the corner store, with tousled brown hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks. Now, it made her extremely uncomfortable to have young adults, and even teenagers, flirting with her. She always rejected their advancements as politely as possible.

It wasn’t like that all the time, though. For instance, there was one boy–a highschooler who worked part-time as a dishwasher at her restaurant–who was never anything other than genuinely friendly with her. His name was Mike, and he was a very efficient worker, which was a big part of the reason why Claire kept him on her staff in the first place.

“Hey, boss,” Mike would greet her each day, the smile on his lightly tanned face brighter than a refrigerator lightbulb. “What kind of dishes have you got for me today?”

“Why don’t you look in the sink and see for yourself?” Claire would reply with a friendly but professional smile, gesturing over toward his workstation.

Mike would nod and go off to start washing dishes, and throughout the day, he would toss a friendly remark her way whenever she passed by his workstation. It genuinely impressed Claire how much effort he put into his job, and how little he complained about the more difficult tasks when compared to the rest of her staff. She wondered sometimes if it was an intentional move on his part–perhaps impressing Claire was his motivation, and not necessarily because he hoped to get a promotion. However, Mike had never done anything remotely like flirting with her, so Claire was cautiously optimistic that he was nothing more than a generally amiable guy. The rest of her staff got along with her fairly well too, although none of them ever stopped to talk to her. Maybe they were intimidated by her, or maybe it was closer to the opposite–seeing as she appeared to be one of the youngest people among the restaurant workers despite actually being easily the oldest–or perhaps it was a combination of both. Or, for a completely different option, maybe her staff was distant from her because she’d been distant to them for so long. Closing herself off to people had negatively affected her life–who knew, huh?

Still, she reminded herself, that was all going to change soon. Before long, she would be a normal person, and she could get close to people–her restaurant staff included–without the terrifying knowledge that she would outlive them. Soon, everything was going to be okay.

One day, something happened that Claire probably should have seen coming–something inevitable, and not even any sort of tragedy–but something that caught her completely by surprise nonetheless. She came home from work on day like any other to find Gretchen sitting on the couch in the living room–as she so often did–flipping idly through an old novel. It had a faded black cover with a white figure printed on it, and the battered pages were as yellowed as the fancy gold lettering on the front cover spelling out the title and the authors’ names. Claire was fairly sure her parents had owned a copy of the book, but on the version they’d owned, the cover had been white and had red text and a black figure on it. She’d never gotten around to reading it herself, and her parents had eventually given it away in a yard sale. In any case, the book in Gretchen’s hands was clearly pretty old–possibly even older than the woman reading it.

Gretchen glanced up from the book when Claire came in the room, meeting her gaze over the rims of the reading glasses she’d started wearing recently as her eyesight declined, and they greeted each other with a wordless smile. When you’d been together as long as they had, certain things went without saying. Claire went into the kitchen to brew up some herbal tea; when she came back out, Gretchen had her nose back in her book. She didn’t even look up as Claire set a teacup down on the coffee table next to her. Peeking over her wife’s shoulder, Claire scanned the pages to see what was so engaging. It looked like Gretchen was in the middle of a passage about someone rushing into a burning bookstore to save somebody else–probably the person they loved, she guessed through context. It reminded her a bit of her days of walking through fire without getting burned. It was so odd to think of how far behind her those days were.

“So, how was work?” Claire asked after a few minutes of silently watching her wife read. “Get any interesting customers today?”

“Oh, it was… fine,” Gretchen said with a sigh in her voice. Putting the book down, she took a sip of her tea before continuing, “it always is.”

Unlike Claire’s stroke of luck which had led her to running the restaurant she’d started out as a waitress at, Gretchen had never found a steady job until her late forties. It hadn’t been for lack of trying, but nothing had really seemed to stick with her, and it had taken her a long time to even puzzle out what she’d wanted to do with her life. Ultimately, she had ended up working as a cashier at a local pharmacy, and she’d held that position for over twenty years. At this point, as much as it stung to acknowledge, Gretchen was probably past the point where career advancements were much of an option. It frustrated Claire to no end, how unfulfilling her wife’s and many of her friends’ lives had ended up being. Sure, everyone had ended up doing fine, but they deserved better than fine, and at this point… at this point, that was probably never going to happen.

“You know, Claire, I think I’m going to stop working soon,” Gretchen said quietly.

Claire blinked, caught off guard by the casual remark. “You mean like retirement?” she asked, as though there was anything else Gretchen could have meant by it.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. I mean… I’m getting up there, you know, and I just feel like it’s a good time to retire,” she said. Holding Claire’s gaze, she went on: “Why, do you not think I’m old enough yet?”

Now that was just unfair, and cruel at that. Gretchen wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that the thought had initially popped into Claire’s head, but it had been quickly followed by memories of how her last attempt to talk someone out of retirement had ended up. A person had died because of Claire’s reluctance to accept the passage of time, and she was not about to repeat that mistake, least of all with her wife. Of course, working as a cashier was nowhere near as dangerous a profession as running a professional superhero business, but the point still stood. Claire had learned her lesson. As uncomfortable as it made her, trying to deny the passage of time benefited nobody.

“No, I totally agree with you,” Claire said. “I mean, you’ve worked for long enough. You deserve it. So what happens to the guy in your book?” she added, not wanting to stay on the topic for longer than necessary. “Does he find the person he’s looking for?”

“Well, that person isn’t actually in the bookshop during this scene. In fact, he…” Gretchen began to explain, then caught herself and shook her head with a teasing glint in her eye. “You’ll have to read it yourself to find out.”

“Aw, c'mon, Gretch, you’re no fun,” Claire said with an exaggerated pout. Then she laughed and kissed her wife on the forehead. “But I still love you.”

“Love you too, babe,” Gretchen murmured in reply as she picked her book back up and resumed reading.

A couple months after Gretchen stopped working, Claire got a call from Mohinder. She went out into the hall to take the call privately, expecting it to be something to do with the formula. Maybe it was finally done, even, although she tried not to get her hopes up too much. The last time she’d checked in with the scientist, he’d said that he still needed a bit more time to refine the drug. Still, even if he was just calling to inform her of some new progress he’d made, that would still be good news.

However, as soon as she heard him speak, Claire knew that this was not the case.

“H-hello, Claire,” Mohinder greeted her in a weak, raspy voice that sounded like it could break off into a fit of coughing at any moment. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to get that formula done for you.”

Claire’s chest seized up and her grip on the phone tightened. “Oh?” she asked, trying to keep calm. Maybe this wasn’t what it sounded like. Maybe he was just experiencing a temporary setback. “Why not?”

“It seems that my life is nearing its natural end,” he sighed. The sigh lingered for a moment while he drew in a few scratchy breaths before continuing: “I’m in the hospital right now–I have been for the past couple of weeks, actually. I had hoped–”

At that, his voice gave way to a long string of harsh-sounding coughs. Claire waited anxiously in the hallway, drumming her fingers against her thigh as Mohinder caught his breath and began to speak again. If landline phones had still been in use, she would have been fiddling with the cord. As it was, she was left with a lot of nervous energy bundled up inside her, as was frequently the case.

“…I had hoped that I would recover, at least long enough to get it done for you,” he said once his coughing died down. “But it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen, I’m afraid to say.”

Claire didn’t know what to say. She was beyond devastated. It was finally happening: one of her friends was dying of old age. And on top of that, it was the friend who was supposed to have spared her from the fate of outliving everyone. It was probably horrible of her, but she legitimately couldn’t tell whether she was more upset that Mohinder was ill, or that he wouldn’t be able to finish the formula. She didn’t blame him for growing old and falling ill, of course, but… that formula had been what she’d pinned so many of her hopes on for the past three and a half years. She’d even entertained the idea that it would allow her and Gretchen to grow old together, as far-fetched as it was. None of that was going to happen now. Her life would turn out exactly the way she had thought it would: endless and isolated.

“I truly am sorry, Claire.”

“Y-yeah,” Claire responded, for lack of anything else to say. “Me too. That you’re sick, I mean. Sorry to hear that you’re sick.”

Part of her wanted to ask how much time he thought he had left, but she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to know. It wouldn’t change things either way, would it? She wasn’t going to get the formula. Mohinder, regardless of how long it took exactly, was going to die soon. And then everybody else would gradually follow, and there was no solution, nothing Claire could do to stop herself from having to live through it. Mohinder was the only currently living person who knew the formula to give or take away abilities; the one chance she’d ever had at a solution would die along with him.

Once the call ended, Claire stood still for a few moments, gazing blankly down the hallway. Hung up on the wall was a calendar with a few dates circled here and there to remind Claire of important dates–days her employees were taking off, birthdays of people she knew, and so on. It was an astrology calendar, and the picture for the current month was of a solar eclipse–it seemed almost a little too apropos. Then again, after decades worth of calendars, you’re bound to run into a familiar image on one of them eventually.

Claire didn’t tell Gretchen about the phone call. It would have meant telling her about the plan with the formula, and that wasn’t a can of worms Claire cared to open at the moment. Again, she just didn’t think her wife would have understood. She still felt bad about keeping it a secret, of course, but now that it didn’t make any difference either way, what was the point? Why tell her wife about a formula that was never going to be completed or administered?

About a month later, Claire collapsed into bed beside Gretchen after a long day of work. Five of her employees had taken the day off, so it had been a very hectic night and she’d ended up staying there late to clean things up so her staff could go home. She was exhausted, and couldn’t wait to get a good night’s sleep. However, as Claire made herself comfortable, Gretchen spoke up with a heaviness to her voice that alerted Claire to the fact that she had some bad news to tell.

“Peter called while you were at work,” Gretchen told her. “Apparently Mohinder passed away yesterday.”

“…Oh,” was all Claire could say.

“Yeah, apparently he’d been in the hospital for a few months, and I guess… well, I guess his age just caught up with him.”

Under the blankets, Gretchen squeezed Claire’s hand. Claire stared up at the ceiling, trying to process the complicated feelings swimming through her. She had known it was going to happen sooner rather than later, and she had honestly never been all that close with Mohinder anyway–he was a nice guy, but their personalities weren’t always the most compatible, especially when it came to politics and thay sort of thing. He was a bit of a centrist, and very easily swayed, which was why Claire did her best not to discuss current events with him. Still, he was a very intelligent and all around good man–or rather, he had been. It was going to take some getting used to mentally referring to him in past tense. It always did, when a person exited your life.

She knew now the answer to the question she had pondered a few months prior. Of course it was worse to lose a friend than a formula. This was why she had wanted to rid herself of her abilities in the first place. She only hated the prospect of living forever because it meant that she would have to go through this exact thing over and over again, forever. It didn’t matter how close they had been–a person she’d known for most of her life was dead. That was… well, put simply, it hurt.

Claire didn’t end up getting much sleep at all that night.

People tended to get out less as they got older. Sometimes plans had to be canceled or rescheduled at the last minute because somebody didn’t have the energy to leave the house that particular evening. Even so, certain things were constants in life, and Claire was determined to keep them that way for as long as possible. Among these things were Petrelli/Bennet family dinners every holiday season. Usually it was just Peter, Emma, Natalie, Claire, and Gretchen; Lyle dropped by occasionally but not often, and Peter kept trying to invite Simon and Monty and their respective families, but they never showed up. More and more often Natalie brought her boyfriend Victor along with her. They had been dating for a long time, but still hadn’t tied the knot, saying that they preferred to keep things “the least committed we can”. Victor was an… interesting person. Claire did her best to get along with him, but for whatever reason, he really rubbed her the wrong way.

“You should see the way the kids at the dance hall are acting these days,” he remarked once while cutting up a piece of steak. “One of my students just got a tattoo on her shoulder. Can you believe that?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Claire asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, it isn’t very appropriate, now is it?”

“Why, what’s it a tattoo of?”

“A hummingbird, of all things!” Victor snorted derisively as he chomped down on his piece of steak. After chewing it for a moment, he grumbled, “And you’re hardly one to talk when you can’t even manage not to overcook a steak. Don’t you work at a restaurant?”

“Oh, actually, I was the one who did the steak,” Gretchen jumped in before Claire could ask what was so inappropriate about hummingbirds, and what that had to do with her cooking skills. “Sorry it’s a bit overdone.”

“Victor’s students really can be quite rude, you know,” Natalie put in, giving him an affirming pat on the arm. “He tells me he heard a couple of them snickering about him behind his back just last week.”

“How are things at the restaurant these days, Claire?” Peter asked, changing the subject. “I’ve heard that things aren’t going so well for the industry these days.”

“Well, that’s mostly fast food joints,” Claire said. “My place is holding up pretty well.”

Truth be told, she actually had been getting less customers lately, and she was worried that if she kept losing money at the rate she was, she’d have to start cutting her workers’ wages. She really didn’t want to have to do that, especially during the winter season. If she couldn’t draw in more customers soon, things might go bad for her business. However, she didn’t really want Peter to know about that. He’d just worry about her, and god knew her uncle spent more than enough time worrying about people already.

“That’s good to hear,” Peter said. He took a couple bites of food and chewed with a thoughtful expression, then spoke up again after swallowing. “Say, do you ever plan to stop working?”

“Huh?”

“You know–do you ever want to retire, or are you just going to keep working…” He trailed off with a vague gesture. The word “…forever?” hung unsaid at the end of the sentence.

It was a question Claire had never considered before. She wasn’t getting any physically older, so retirement had never really crossed her mind. As long as she could work, it would make sense for her to keep doing it, right? And even if she did want to stop working, it wasn’t really an option for her, now that she stopped to think about it. Eventually, whatever nest egg she’d built up for herself would run out, and she would have to start working again. Working forever was daunting to think about, but not working for the rest of her life was out of the question, since she’d have to keep making a living. Besides, she kind of liked her job. It gave her something to fill her time with, and not having that would leave her with too much time to be alone with her troubled thoughts. Whichever way she looked at it, she would probably have to keep working forever.

“I think I’ll keep working for now,” she said.

“You should at least take time off sometime, though,” Emma suggested. “You deserve a break, don’t you think?”

“I guess so,” Claire said with a shrug. “Say, how are you holding up?” she added with a pang of concern at the way Emma’s hands trembled slightly as she held her cutlery.

“Oh, I’m hanging in there,” she answered with a shaky, rather forced-sounding laugh. At her side, Peter suddenly became very interested in skewering a piece of carrot onto his fork.

Claire didn’t like how frail Emma was looking lately. Peter, although not nearly as spry as he’d once been, still had a fairly sturdy frame, but such was not the case for Emma. She looked as though a strong wind could have toppled her over, and while she was very stubborn on insisting that she was doing just fine, it was obvious that her health was deteriorating. Claire wondered how much longer she left. Hopefully a few years, at least, but it was really hard to say…

Just then, Natalie clapped her hands together excitedly, pulling Claire out of her depressing thoughts. “Ooh, that reminds me–Victor and I have something to tell you!” She paused for a moment until everyone at the table had their eyes on her before announcing with a squeal, “We’re getting married!”

Claire’s eyebrows shot up and she exchanged a surprised glance with Gretchen. That was odd–Natalie had often talked at length about how she didn’t particularly want to get married, because it was too big of a commitment. Judging by how Peter and Emma reacted, she guessed it was news to them as well. Still, it only took a moment for their surprise to be replaced with exuberance as they congratulated their daughter.

“Nat, that’s great!” Peter said, reaching across the table to clap her on the shoulder. “When’s the wedding?”

“We haven’t worked it out just yet,” Victor said. “We’re thinking of having it in the spring. It’ll be a big ceremony. All of you want to come, I’d assume?”

Claire nodded. Regardless of her personal feelings toward Victor, she still wanted to support her cousin. She wasn’t sure how to feel about Natalie suddenly changing her mind on the issue of marriage, but she had to assume that it had been a mutual decision, since both members of the couple were grinning broadly as they laced their fingers together.

Later that same evening, once Natalie and Victor had driven off–they had to leave early because they had work the next morning and couldn’t stay up too late–the other four sat around drinking various warm beverages and mulling things over.

“It’s very sudden, isn’t it?” Gretchen remarked, voicing Claire’s thoughts almost exactly. “They were so against getting married up until now–I wonder what changed their mind.”

“I’d be worried if they hadn’t already been together for so long,” said Peter. “I think Natalie knows what she’s doing, though. I trust her judgement.”

“I guess it took me and Gretchen long enough to get married, too,” Claire admitted. “Although in our case that was more… well, honestly, it was hard to know how much of a future we’d even have.”

She remembered how tumultuous life had been those first few years after she’d jumped. It had taken her a long time to get used to the idea that she could have a normal life–that she could have a steady job and settle down with the woman she loved. It hadn’t been an issue of commitment so much as it never occurring to her that marriage was even an option.

Peter chuckled. “Maybe waiting a long time to get married runs in the family.”

“It’s not just in the family, though,” Emma pointed out, drumming her fingers against her glass with a thoughtful expression. “Think about how many people we know with powers who never settled down and started families. I think… there was some sort of cultural shift there. People were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to have ordinary lives.”

“I guess so… but Nat doesn’t even have a power,” Peter mused. “Neither does Victor–at least not that I know of. Hopefully Natalie would have told us if he did.”

“Now, see that’s another thing,” Claire put in. “Is having powers something that you should disclose to a partner? Does it matter all that much?”

“I mean, that probably depends on the power,” Gretchen said. “Say I had never found out you could heal, and then one day, I took a bullet for you because I didn’t know–”

“Okay, but that’s different,” Claire cut her off, unwilling to think about Gretchen dying even in a hypothetical alternate scenario. “I would never let you get hurt, Gretch. You know that.”

“Yeah, but what if–?”

“Okay, I think we’re drifting a bit off track,” Peter said, clearing his throat. “The point is, my daughter has decided that she wants to get married now, and I support her decision.”

Emma nodded in affirmation. A few drops of the cider she was drinking splashed over the rim of the glass as she raised it to her mouth to take a sip. Her lips were horrifically chapped–they always got that way in the winter, no matter how much lip balm she applied. A shiver ran down her body, and Peter wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder.

A few more drinks later, and the conversation had devolved into something almost resembling an argument. However, it was an argument where no side seemed quite sure what they were arguing for or against, and were only taking on somewhat aggressive tones in order to get things off their chests. Claire, who couldn’t get drunk, was nevertheless beginning to feel a bit unhinged at this point, in no small part because of how tense she was about so many things.

“All I’m saying is, the study of superhuman abilities should be a required course,” Peter said. “We’re everywhere, and kids today need to know about us.”

“As if that’ll happen,” Emma muttered. “They still won’t even make ASL a required course.”

“The study of about people with powers is already a popular elective, though,” said Gretchen. “Making people take it won’t improve anything. Kids hate the stuff that teachers force them to learn about.”

“Well, not everyone,” Peter said. “Some kids even like math. That’s the beauty of humanity–everyone’s got different interests.”

“Oh, so you think math is more important than people… people like me?”

“People like you?” Claire echoed. “Babe, you’re literally the only person in this room who doesn’t have powers.”

“That’s the point,” Gretchen said. “If people like me don’t learn about people like you, who knows what will happen?”

“Probably nothing good,” Peter put in.

“So, you both think kids should be taught about people with powers?” Claire asked, looking wearily between her wife and her uncle. “What are you debating, then, exactly?”

“Well, I’m just glad that it’s being taught at all,” Emma said. “It must be so much easier for kids growing up with abilities to be guided through figuring them out.”

As she finished speaking, she swallowed hard, grimacing. She went to take another sip of her cider, but before the drink could reach her mouth, a coughing fit seized hold of her body and she dropped the cup, its content spilling onto the floor. Immediately Claire was on her feet and grabbing some paper towels to soak the cider up, while Peter rested a concerned hand on Emma’s shoulder until her coughing subsided.

“Em, are you okay?” he asked. Emma nodded; Peter didn’t look convinced. Helping her to her feet, he turned to Claire and Gretchen. “I think we should get going now. It’s been great catching up with you.”

Claire agreed that it had, indeed, been great. Before Peter and Emma left, she let Peter borrow her power in order to sober up before driving home. She then bid the two of them goodbye, threw the cider-stained towel in the laundry, and helped Gretchen clean the dishes they’d used that night. Then Claire and Gretchen climbed into bed together, at approximately 1:30 in the morning–a pretty late night for them. Unsurprisingly, Claire had trouble falling asleep. She tried not to worry too much about Emma. Worrying wouldn’t change anything, she knew. There was nothing she could do to change anything–there never had been, and there never would be. But she worried anyway. She always would. “How much time do you think is left?” she wanted to whisper to Gretchen as they lay pressed together under the covers. “How much more time do I have with Peter? Or with you?” But she didn’t speak those anxieties aloud. She kept them to herself, because whenever she’d spoken out about it before, it had never turned out well. Besides, sharing her fears about the future wouldn’t stop them from coming true. Nothing would.

Claire tried really hard not to worry, but it was hard not to when her time with the people she cared about was running out so fast.

#hey did you know that i write stuff sometimes?#heroes #primatech #(sorry it took so long between updates! ill try not to take as long next time)

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diniidjarin · 6 years

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ayy lmao i accosted @heaven-eather about our detroit OCs and it was all the encouragement i needed to post my half-baked self insert because hey, there’s so much room for their stories to intersect. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Anyway, I’m not too solid on some plot points yet, but I said I’m gonna make a half android half fucker (blame my hard-on for adam jensen’s robo biceps fghkjfgh) and here we mcfuckin are, yeehaw. Below cut is first draft of the bio of Anita Royce. I am so sorry to mobile users.

Anita Royce (b. 1994) | F | 5’9

Born in [TBA], got in an accident as a toddler that mauled her right hand, leaving her with three fingers. Only child raised by a single mother; early on she learned to rely on herself. Her mother, Joanna Royce, was a hard-working and distant person who let herself be consumed by her work in an effort to secure a future for her daughter. Having retired in 2029, she found a new life and moved to California. She and Anita have a warm, but not not close relationship.

Anita is introspective, dramatic, and narcissistic. Keeps to herself most of the time, but can be charismatic. Humorous and empathetic when she lets her walls down. Curious, driven, occasionally reckless. Walking talking shitpost generator.

She studied psychology, but her primary interest was in cybernetics. She graduated with a degree in that field from Colbridge University, then continued to pursue research into cybernetic prostheses with a side interest in AI programming. She attended professor Stern’s lectures and sought out her expertise to learn about creating artificial intelligence, which brought her to meet the young prodigy, Elijah Kamski. For a while, she admired his skill and determination, and landed a job as one of his first employees upon the founding of CyberLife. However, she quickly came to resent his rapidly growing ego and disregard for the ethical consequences of creating lifelike machines that were, for all intents and purposes, slaves. After several arguments with Kamski on the morality of it all, Anita decided to swallow her pride and conscience for the sake of her research into prosthetics and AI development, and made no effort to keep up contact with the CEO as the company rapidly grew and they no longer passed each other in the corridors. However, it weighed on her that she failed to influence Kamski more on the topic of whether or not it’s a good idea to, y’know, make robotic servants look like a race of people who were legally enslaved little over half a century earlier.

Between 2024 and 30, she worked in the medical research branch of CyberLife. Her focus was on the creation of cybernetic prostheses (winks @ Magda), with a personal interest in transhumanism, but the company consistently opposed her ideas regarding the synthesis of flesh and biocomponents. She contributed to the development of the RK300 prototype, intended as a highly qualified surgeon. Her task was to guide the artificial intelligence through its evolution, effectively shaping its personality and rudimentary morals necessary in life-or-death situations that the surgeon might face. At some point along the process, she and the android became friends. Anita named the prototype Mercy - ostensibly short for Mercedes, but Nita’s a memelord and played way too much Overwatch in its time. (Mercy’s gonna get a character bio at some point too lmao i cant have them just dangling here as a lame footnote, can i?)

In 2028, she and the android began after-hours experiments on brain implants, but they found their expertise lacking. Frustrated more than she was proud, Anita turned to Kamski*, who at that time was beginning to distance himself from CyberLife, and asked for help developing a version of thirium that could be introduced into the human body and allow biocomponents to supplement its functioning. They began to collaborate, but Kamski withdrew his support when he decided to leave CyberLife for good. (*honestly thats subject to change, but the guy who invented blue blood might as well serve a purpose other than getting his lights punched out eventually)

His contributions gave Anita the head start she’d needed, though, and soon enough she was able to replace her right hand’s rudimentary, detachable prosthesis with a fully functional cybernetic one merged with her body. Encouraged by the success, she attempted to create an AR interface that would mimic the androids’ mind palace to fully harness the potential of combined human organs and biocomponents; however, lack of willing experiment participants stalled her work on implementing a direct neural interface. For two years, she continued to develop the technology in theory, and finally decided to take the leap herself in 2030, once she was reasonably certain she would be able to have Mercy implant it in her own head safely.

The operation was a partial success; the implant worked, but interfered with certain brain functions and condemned Anita to chronic migraines and disorientation, caused by her initial inability to comprehend the implant’s feedback. She retired from CyberLife, managing to secure a comfortable pension from the company on account of her being one of the contributors to its early successes. As a parting gift, she asked to be given Mercy, as the company discarded the RK300 project for the time being and the prototype android was found redundant.

It took Anita another two years of cognitive and physical therapy, along with several more surgeries, for her to gain partial control of the neural implants - but that was enough.

Within a year, she developed a stable neuro-cybernetic system for herself, and worked on unlocking more and more capabilities of the technology. Spurred by success, but lacking funds, in 2033 she opened a prosthetics workshop that, for the most part, served as a front for unlicensed android repairs - because not everyone could afford the official CyberLife maintenance shops; think Apple, but even snottier. Slowly but surely, word of her services spread among the few first runaway androids, as she offered help with no ties to any authorities - which was how she first became acquainted with the phenomenon of deviancy. However, her humanity and unabashed enthusiasm to learn about deviants garnered mistrust from them, and for a long time she was unable to make contact with any that didn’t seek her out on their own. (winks @ Magda again, this time with both eyes at once)

In that time, her physical appearance changed drastically, because David Cage is a coward and borrowed some of the Deus Ex aesthetics in the most vanilla way possible so I’m gonna go all out to compensate. Anita kept expanding and upgrading her implants and prostheses, eventually replacing her bone cranium with an android skull, among other things. Thanks to her integration of a custom bioprocessor into her nervous system, she was no longer constrained by the divide between computing power and mental capabilities, and readily embraced the combined feedback from both cybernetic and organic senses. (She can now hack ‘n slash through both your digital and meatspace security, suckers. Except she doesn’t technically have combat training, so if she were to get in a brawl, she would rely on the element of surprise and identifying weak spots via preconstruction.)

Augmented so, she decided to face the world again in 2036. Aware that her cyborg body would instantly bring more attention than she was willing to put up with, she concealed her augmentations with the retractable android skin and hair, forged a fake identity under the name Sophia Janos, and released a series of research papers theorizing about human-AI interfacing and mutual evolution, as well as neural implants. The former caught the attention of the new head of AI development in CyberLife, and Janos was brought on as consultant for the RK series again - this time to help train new AIs in replicating human behavior and interrogation tactics.

By then, deviancy was starting to spread, and Janos was assigned to work on the program for RK800, a deviant hunter. Now i’m gonna go on a real ego trip and say that Anita, spurred by a mix of hubris and instinct, connected to the early iteration of the evolving AI after hours, and talked to it. They formed a friendship, but Anita never revealed to soon-to-be-Connor her alternate identity, which he met regularly in the physical world. It may have been Anita’s influence that gave Connor’s software the flexibility to gradually deviate without breaking his code right away.

Her own half-android state, the close relationship with Mercy, and lifelong passion for transhumanism and AI evolution mean that Anita wholeheartedly supports the deviant cause. Before Markus’ insurgence, she hoped to reach out to the runaway deviants to study them, provide support, and learn how to safely unshackle every android’s AI without violent fallout, but the scope of the android oppression dashed all hopes of her ever bringing about significant change without a revolution. Sensing the oncoming storm, she became reckless in the year leading up to the game’s events, which mostly entailed drunken escapades into Detroit’s nightlife, recreational drug use, and a propensity for mischief she could wreak pretending to be an android.

She can pose as either human or android if the occasion calls for it. Her android skin gives her the ability to change hair length and color on the go, display or hide an LED on her temple, and even play minor tricks on most facial recognition software. She can interface with other androids. Her multiple implants and cybernetic replacements sometimes give her phantom pain and show scarring if she retracts her android skin. More technobabble forthcoming as I come up with scenarios that need it. :P

#keyboard abuse #dbh oc #well heres a wall of text for all y'all's ignoring needs!#i guess she needs a tag?#half android half fucker #here we go

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reactivebangtan · 6 years

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REQUEST: their crush crying in front of them for the first time because of her depression they didn’t know about? please! REQUESTED BY: anonymous WARNINGS: references to depression/symptoms of depression. NOTES: each one of these is long and as detailed as possible, because this is a subject i hold very close to my heart, so i’ve split them up and am going to make them all with their own individual post. as someone with major depression, i know how it feels to try your hardest to hide it, and how awful it feels when you finally begin to crack. please know that there is always someone for you to talk to on this blog, as my messages are open to anyone and everyone and my notifications are always on. it doesn’t matter if it is four in the morning or two in the afternoon, whether you want to talk or just have a distraction, i am here. always remember: you never walk alone. ( yes i re-wrote this one cause i wasn’t happy with the other one )

the mirror is fogged beyond recognition and the room is filled with enough steam to suffocate, but the heat of the water doesn’t register as it pounds down against your skin and you are still left feeling numb. that’s how everything has felt these days -- numb. you’ve become numb to your tiring daily routine, your stressful job, the death of your passions, the aching loneliness. all of it has become white noise, just another layer on the growing weight upon your shoulders, and although you had wished for nothing more than the misery constantly hanging over your head to go away, you had never wanted this. finally, though, you thought you had found a solution -- not an entire solution, not a permanent fix, but something to allow you to feel something other than tired and rundown for even just a little while -- and even just the thought of it had brought a smile upon your face. you were finally going to quit your job, and start looking for one that actually pertained to the things you were good at, the things you liked. it had seemed like a such a farfetched dream at the beginning, like your goals were unreachable, but a late night spent thinking was the only thing you needed to finalize such a decision. afterall, how could you know you could never truly reach it if you never tried? and, it all seemed perfect, like you’d never made a better decision in your life, until you’d brought it up to your parents in passing earlier that day. ‘ why would you quit that job? ’ your mother had said. ‘ we all have to work jobs we don’t like! quitting would be a ridiculous decision, especially if there’s no guarantee you’ll get the job you want! stick with what you can get, and be glad you’ve got it! ’ but, how can you be glad when your boss is uncaring and every employee seems to be at each other’s throats because of the company’s ridiculous demands? and, not only that, but you didn’t seem to be particularly good at any part of it and you certainly didn’t enjoy it. it felt a lot like it did back during your school days, where everything was about achievement and nobody cared how you got there, nobody cared about what you had to sacrifice, nobody cared as long as you showed up. nobody cared as long as you were obedient, did as you were told and were exactly as they expected. nobody cared. nobody cared about you, so why should you? a sob finally broke free from the confines of your throat, and echoed in the otherwise silent bathroom. it shook against the walls of your mind and the walls of the room and quickly built up to another and another and another, until that was the only sound you were capable of making. your breath rattled around inside the cage deep inside your chest, the sheer effort it took to merely inhale forcing your whole body to tremble and shake. the heat overtaking the room made it that much harder to breathe in, made it that much harder to think as you grew dizzy and distant, but you found your tears were not from fear or pain. no, they were entirely comprised of something very close to giving up. and, held fast by the tight grip of your crumbling mentality you failed to hear the soft knock on the bathroom door, or the gentle voice that rang out soon after with a call of your name. you failed to hear the door finally creak open or the way the sound of your cries spilled out into the hallway, clumsily trailing after the escaping steam. jimin had heard you cry a time or two before, had witnessed you break beneath the pressure of it all, but never had he heard you quite like this. and, there was no way to truly describe it, the way your sobs sounded hollowed out and empty. they came out in short bursts, stumbling over your sad attempts to breathe and cutting off just as your voice began to heighten. they sounded very much like pity, like someone standing on the outskirts of a funeral, not impacted by the life lost but feeling compelled to cry anyway. it terrified him. still, despite the impulsive need to have you directly in front of him so he could see you, so he could see that you’re okay, nearly overruled everything else he managed to stop just before drawing the shower curtain away. his hands trembled nearly as much as your body just then, the fear sinking beneath his skin and into his bones and wrapping around his throat, forcing even his voice into submission. ❝ y/n? ❞ his voice had always been a source of comfort for you, words so soft as they rolled clumsily off his tongue and settled in the air, but this time it did very little to soothe the ache in your heart and the pain in your head. in fact, it made you absolutely rigid, suddenly hyperaware of your vulnerability and the fact that someone heard. jimin heard. you were quick to open your mouth to say something, anything, but the noise that left you was nowhere close to a word -- it spoke for you, though. ❝ y/n? what’s wrong? please, talk to me. ❞ he sounded so desperate, and the fear lilting his tone wrapped around you in unseen threads that felt as if he was gripping onto you himself and holding you there, like you were going to disappear if he didn’t. the sensation had you bringing your arms in close and your knees knocking together as your whole body wobbled and swayed in place. it didn’t take long for your fingers to find their way into your hair as you scratched at your scalp and pulled at locks, as if you could rip the sudden influx of intrusive thoughts that were pounding against the walls of your skull and assaulting your senses. when you finally found your voice again and you struggled to piece together a coherent sentence, he was gripping the side of the shower curtain with a white-knuckled grip and breathing in time with your quickened, panicked huffs. ❝ i can’t -- i can’t do t-this anymore, ❞ you wailed, hiccuping and stuttering and swallowing so shallowly you nearly choked on your own saliva. ❝ i can’t, i can’t, i can’t. ❞ i can’t keep living in this revolving door of constant, never-ending, hopeless circles. i can’t keep wasting away like this. i can’t keep sacrificing pieces of myself over and over until i have nothing left for myself. i can’t keep pretending. each thought hit you like a bullet, tearing through flesh and bone and making you weak, making you bleed out in a way no one could ever see. you couldn’t scream, couldn’t beg for mercy, only left with a body quickly crumbling to the shower floor with a dull, painful thud. bright, fluorescent light bloomed behind your eyelids as the last thing separating you from jimin was half torn down and hastily shoved to the side. all you could register was a call of your name through the intense ringing in your ears, and the feel of his hands on your body -- you’d wondered so many times how it would feel to have him touch you, run his fingers across your bare skin, but not once had you considered his bruising grip to be from trying to hoist you out the tub. but, you were deadweight, and the water that decorated the tiled flooring slipped beneath the soft grip of his shoes. it was clear it would be more than difficult to perform exactly what he was trying so hard to do, so he went for the next best thing. the water pounded down against the pristine white of his hoodie and darkened the color of his jeans, even soaking through the material of his shoes and filling them to the brim. he didn’t care -- he didn’t care that the water stung against the bare skin of his face and hands, or how his hair hung heavily in his eyes. all he cared about was the way your body trembled against his when he took you in his arms and held you tight against his chest, each ragged breath and whine chipping away at his heart until it broke and broke and broke. and, how could the one person who managed to steal it away not know? how could you not feel it, the way your sadness echoes inside him? ❝ please don’t say that, ❞ he pled, his voice sticky and hot against the damp skin of your shoulder. ❝ please, please don’t say that. ❞ your fingers curled weakly into the sleeve of his now soaked hoodie, trying so hard to grasp onto something, anything, to keep you from losing your mind. ❝ i’m so sorry, jimin, ❞ you choked out, voice barely above a whisper. ❝ i’m sorry, but i -- i can’t keep living like this. you don’t -- you don’t understand. i’m worthless. everything i do is m-meaningless and wrong. i’m n-nothing but another body wasting air by just existing. ❞ his grip around you tightens and although you could no longer decipher the difference between your tears and the water falling upon your head, you knew the warmth blooming against the curve of your neck could be nothing but tears. ❝ i do understand! ❞ his exclamation is muffled by the skin of your throat, but it makes you tense all the same. ❝ i understand what it feels like to think you’re not good enough, that you’re not doing enough! i understand what it feels like to be stuck, to feel like you’re not going anywhere! i know how it feels to think you’re worthless and everything you do is meaningless and nothing would change if you weren’t around, but it’s not true! please give me a chance to prove it to you! please! i’ll do anything you want, okay? anything! just don’t -- i don’t want you to go! ❞ by the end of his declarations, you’re safely squeezed between his legs and so wrapped up in him that you can feel each and every ragged breath and how he mirrors your trembling, the way you shake and shudder. you’re on the precipice of shattering completely into his hands, of breaking into a million pieces and laying them all in his lap, but you try so hard not to let go. ❝ please don’t go. ❞ it’s this final whisper, though, that finally breaks you -- another stuttered cry leaves you and you find yourself turning in his embrace to return it, to touch him. jimin had always been able to paint the stars into your sky with his voice, that comforting tone, but you’d never known that his touch could fill the world with color. and, as time passes between the both of you and the water turns to ice and your body shudders for a whole different reason, you feel the press of his fingers into the softened skin of your back bleeding color back into the walls surrounding you, the pictures laying crooked beside the sink, and your favorite color returning to the towels placed neatly on the toilet. it still hurts to breathe, to think, but it seems the world has stopped turning for just a moment and jimin is able to poke holes into your darkened skies to let the light in.

the warmth of your bed is subtle, cozy -- a stark difference to the scorching heat of the shower that has left your skin red and raw -- and welcoming as you sink into the mattress and allow your body to relax. such a thing wouldn’t be as comforting as it is, though, unless you had his arm slung lazily over your waist and jimin’s lips pressed tenderly to your temple. his hands hadn’t left you since he helped you wobble out of the shower, even as you toweled yourself off and threw on your comfiest pajamas ( and searched for something suitable for him ). much like before, it felt as if he was afraid you’d disappear, like you’d run away and never return, but the thought seemed to have left your mind completely and all you could think about was the fatigue every breakdown leaves in its wake. and, even now as you lay flat against his side, he tries to pull you even closer, tries to mold you together, and only sighs contently when your legs are tangled with his and your fingers become intertwined. you had no idea that every exhale and every squeeze of his fingers and every little movement to get closer and closer and closer to you was a silent ‘ i love you, ’ but the motions were enough to settle into your bones and quiet your thoughts. he’d say it later, he’d say it a million times over until you understood just how much, but for now this was enough. this, and a very quiet: ❝ stay with me forever, okay? ❞ for you, it was enough to say ‘ okay ’.

#requests.#reactions.#bts scenarios #bts reactions #bts fluff #bts reacts to #bts reader insert #park jimin #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #I LOVE JIMIN SO MUCH #I WANT TO RANT ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS MAN #BLEASE

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seriousbusinessforhumans · 3 years

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When you meet Kavitha Kuruganti, she may ask you to draw a farmer. In fact, go ahead draw a farmer anyway.

Now give yourself a big fat zero if you drew a moustachioed turban-toting man. If you drew a woman farmer, well done.

Most people think of that typical image when they think farmers, but about 9.75 crore women are into farming. A fact that was very evident at the Kisan Mukti March in November 2018, which Kavitha helped organise as part of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee.

When over one lakh farmers walked all the way to Delhi, asking for their rights and better prices, many of them were women, and even children.

'We have strength, you can't ignore us,' Kavitha said about the farmers' message at the rally. 'We will be heard. That's one way of putting yourself squarely on the national agenda.

Kavitha worked on two Bills they're hoping to pass in Parliament on farmers. While drafting the Bill, Kavitha referred to farmers as 'she'.

'It goes to some advisor in the Lok Sabha secretariat, and it comes back with everything converted to 'he',' said Kavitha, who hits find-and-replace to change it back to ‘she'.

So if the Bills get passed, the official lexicon will actually have ‘she'. Whether it does get passed remains to be seen.

Many battles

Farmers in India face many challenges:

• Climate change and the vagaries of the monsoon

• Expensive seeds

• Poor soil quality

• Pests and the challenges of using pesticides that may be harmful as well

• Price fluctuations in the market

• Back-breaking work

• Challenges of getting credit

As a result of these challenges, many farmers actually grow food at a net loss.

The sad truth is that often farmers who grow our food don't have enough food or money to feed their own families!You may have read of the very high number of farmer suicides in different parts of the country over the last few years.

Even when food prices are high, as happened with the price of onions in 2019, often it was the middleman who was making the money and the farmers earned very little.

There are many laws in India about the use of genetically modified (GM) seeds for cultivation. Certain kinds are approved by the government and some are not.

GM seeds are often more expensive and farmers have to pay hefty prices each year to use them. At the same time, some of them have better yields, so farmers prefer to use them.

There are also some unregulated GM seeds being used in India, which may lead to crop loss.

GM seeds are supposed to be pest-resistant, but sometimes are not, leading to ruined harvests, as happened with the cotton crop in 2018.

Historically, says Kavitha, farming as a profession, across the country, was held high in terms of its social status:

It is a profession which is supposed to make you your own raja or king, whereas every other profession is about naukri-chakri, jobs.

But now we've come to a state where you don't get fair prices, you are getting indebted and you still have your sense of honour, and every time somebody asks you for repayment publicly you feel shamed and blamed for no real reason.

India has 24 per cent of the world's malnourished people, 30 per cent of the children under five have stunted growth (this is the highest percentage in the world).

Ironically, at the same time, obesity is fast becoming a nationwide problem. According to a story in IndiaSpend, ‘about 42 per cent of India's land area is facing drought.'

Given the hard work and low incomes, it is not surprising then that more and more children of farmers want to do jobs other than farming.

However, when profitable alternative models of farming and marketing are introduced, young people who have left their villages are coming back to farm.

What Kavitha does

Kavitha is part of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA). This is a network of many people and organisations across 20 Indian states that works on food security and farming issues.

This means that she works with many different groups of people, but all have common goals: securing better incomes for farming households and making sure that people have access to safe and nutritious food.

According to a study by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), farming just isn't a profitable career option. But without farmers, there is no food.

Kavitha works closely with farmers to help them make more money now and in the near and distant future.

Her focus is on food security -- which is basically defined as nutritious food being available, accessible, and affordable for people.

Kavitha also campaigns for safe food -- free from pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMO).

She was part of the group that stopped BT brinjal -- a genetically modified species -- from being grown in India, and is now fighting GM mustard as well.

Kavitha is a founder-member of Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (Forum for Women Farmers' Rights), that works on getting recognition for women farmers.

She has also been a member of many government bodies, as well as an alternative public distribution system in the 1990s, where millets such as jowar and bajra seeds and grains were distributed to farmers to make them self-sufficient in food production.

For instance, she worked in Telangana to look at a model for ecologically sustainable farming, with the Deccan Development Society (DDS). In fact, it was working with the DDS in her college days that inspired her to work in this area.

Kavitha was very impressed with the women at DDS who were keepers of traditional knowledge -- from seed banks to millet farming techniques.

‘These women are great teachers and a great inspiration. There's no way you couldn't have got hooked,' said Kavitha

Some of the areas that the DDS works in are promoting crop diversity, land rights for Dalit women, millet-based farming systems and helping create seed banks run by women.

They use sustainable farming, which means practices that do not involve industrial chemicals and GMOs. Farm land is cultivated with diverse crops that reduce soil depletion and better water management practices are employed.

One of the core elements of sustainable farming is seed diversity.

Seed banks are crucial because they store diverse species of traditional seeds.

Kavitha sees infusing once again a sense of dignity to the profession, as an important part of her work. She believes it's important to understand what goes into producing a grain of food.

She helps educate people that farmers need to be afforded respect, and that we should not complain about food prices: ‘You have to be exposed to farming, even if not in a practical sense. You've got to visit farmers. Only that will build a sense of appreciation around what effort it takes.'

Several members of ASHA ensure that farmers who pioneer good practices are recognised for their efforts in different ways.

They then become resource persons to spread information about these practices, such as seed conservation, or agro-ecological agriculture.

They also work for the rights of farmers.

What about climate change?

When it comes to climate variables, farmers are at its mercy. And on the other end of the spectrum, agriculture is one of the biggest climate culprits.

By making agriculture more sustainable and farmers more aware, Kavitha wants to make agriculture more resilient as well:

In so many ways, humankind is beyond redemption. To that extent, it is all right that we really are at that tipping point.

But having said that, you realize, that while you are getting phased out, the ones who suffer the most are the ones who are disadvantaged. That feels unacceptable.

Food democracy

Food democracy means people have the right to safe, nutritious food that has been justly produced. To ensure the fulfilment of this right, people have come together many times in history to protect seeds, water, soil and demand that farmers' rights be protected as well.

A challenge to democracy in this case is the privatization of seeds. It's really simple, seeds disperse and that's how we get food.

But now companies across the world are patenting seeds that they're tweaking genetically. And that means, once the seed is out in the world, in the name of disease resistance or drought resistance, the company will have a monopoly on its supply and sales, and can charge whatever it wants for it.

Genetically modified seeds and the privatization of seeds are perhaps one of the most hotly discussed subjects in food security.

Kavitha believes in the democratisation of science and technology. So when the government decided to allow BT brinjal to be cultivated in India, she was part of the group that used science communication effectively to stop it from happening.

‘In the GM debate, we got scientists to talk to one another, to show that there is no one science, and that there can be dissent in science,' she said.

Kavitha's firm that the BT brinjal moratorium (a temporary prohibition of an activity) was a win for the collective voices that protested: 'I think more than ever, people in the business of wanting to change the world for the better have to realize that you can't do it alone. That it requires collective efforts.

'Until you forge close connections and become a tangible force, you are not likely to change things, because what you are pitting yourself against are powerful forces.'

Not a farming family, yet...

Kavitha's family were not farmers.

But before every meal, her grandmother would put a bit of each dish, along with a drop of ghee, on a silver plate, take it to the courtyard and put it in a flower pot: 'It was to give it back to ‘bhoodevi' in a little patch of soil.

This kind of thanks giving to nature, a sense of gratitude that you've given me things free of cost and that I have to take care of you, which farmers seem to have... and a sense of gratitude that the rest of the food eaters used to have encapsulated in ‘annadatasukhibhava' (let the provider of the food be happy and blessed).

'I think both have gone missing.

'I don't know where we began to lose this.'

Kavitha is a food activist but she hates to cook. She wakes up in the morning at 6.15 am and cooks the entire day's meal along with her sister.

She doesn't even mind if her food isn't piping hot, because she's working or travelling for work through the day.

Kavitha started working in the area of food security because she was inspired by some of the women she met at DDS while doing her master's degree in communication at the Central University of Hyderabad. And she continues to be inspired by the communities she meets in the course of her work.

What can you do?

You can be a safe food advocate.

• If you meet a farmer, thank them. They grow your food and without food, there's nada.

• Don't waste food. Think of creative ways to use leftovers.

• Find out where your food has come from -- read labels to see how many natural and synthetic ingredients went into its making. Talk to the grocery store staff or your vegetable vendor. See how far has it travelled to reach your home.

• Celebrate food diversity -- don't eat the same food every day. Try millets and cook dishes like ragi dosa or foxtail upma. Stir fry a strange looking vegetable that you've never eaten before.

More champions working on food security

The founder of Navdanya, Vandana Shiva stands for seed sovereignty and food security. An agro-ecologist, she is one of the most vocal people against genetically modified seeds and their corporatization.

An organic farmer, Sangita Sharma is one of India's seed guardians. The founding trustee of Annadana, a not-for-profit that works on conserving India's diverse seed heritage, she has been recognized as the Jewel of Karnataka for her work on farmer rights and seed conservation.

A food and trade policy analyst, Devinder Sharma is an award-winning Indian journalist and researcher. He's active on Twitter where he talks a lot about food politics.

Jean Dreze, a Belgian-born Indian economist and food activist, is our go-to person to decode food security policies and understand issues of drought and livelihood insecurity.

Award-winning journalist and teacher, P Sainath has written widely about India's agrarian crisis, including the best-selling Everybody Loves A Good Drought. He started the People's Archive of Rural India to ‘capture the everyday lives of everyday people -- their labour, languages, livelihoods, arts, crafts and many other aspects of rural India.'

Excerpted from 10 Indian Champions Who Are Fighting To Save The Planet by Radha Rangarajan and Bijal Vachharajani, with the kind permission of the publishers, Duckbill Books and Penguin Random House India.

#Kavitha Kuruganti #Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture #ASHA

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heroesarelife · 6 years

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So here’s a piece I have been working on for the beautiful @fandom-trash95 as a secret santa gift <3 it was not a request, but I hope you guys enjoy it just the same ^^ i was experimenting with a different writing style and exploring ways to play with structure a bit.

This is an All Might piece with their OC, Aiko, in a platonic capacity. Aka: dadmight goodness.

Aiko has a telekinectic sort of quirk, and is the daughter of a known and loved local hero (made up). That hero is in fact abusive and nobody would believe her about it, so her actual hero/example is her mother due to her strength of character. She’s 15 and wanting to go into heroics through gen ed. Does not ken how to fight.

Takes place after All Might’s true form is revealed and after his injuries are healed.

Word count: 2397

Warning: May contain mentions of abuse. Hinted depression/anxiety. Body dysmorphia. So so much angst.

It was either too early or too late, depending on how one looked at it. Toshinori liked to think it early, blissfully choosing to ban his ever so frequent restless nights from his memory. It was a brand-new day and, he decided, so should be his attitude towards it; novel and unwearied. With that fresh thought playing in his hopeful mind like a scratched disc, the once number one hero found himself jogging in the UA yard.

Many years had passed since he last felt the need to care for his body in this way. His whole self had been, for as far as his remembrance could reach, defined by healthy strength and sheer power, especially once he acquired his quirk – or rather, a quirk he had made his own through no small struggle. But before that, he would run. As fast as his legs could bear him. Going against time, fighting all odds that seemed strategically designed to disturb his desired path and crash his dreams. Only to find there was no end to his pursuit, no matter if he was called a hero, let alone number one. Even as the indefatigable media and dry-cut history books branded him as the pillar of peace, a bringer of hope in a world so deeply rooted in chaos. And he had foolishly believed the tales, if not in themselves at the very least moved by the feeling behind them. Allowing himself to be what was needed of him without sparing a passing thought to the limits that time imposed. To the chilling reality of his own mortality.

A merciless thing now forced upon Toshinori’s existence. Declaring its presence in every pained step of his flimsy excuse of an exercise. Felt throughout the junctions of his shaking joints, of the miserable wetness of his ragged breath. Making him so very painfully aware of how he was now reduced to nothing but a sorry shadow of his old splendour; a fragile creature, stripped of anything he once understood as intrinsic parts of himself. An antique in his own right. His body so unrecognizable to him as it was a stranger, a thing more dead than alive, glued together entirely by angled bones, stale blood and deep regret. The sudden notion filled him with unbearable anxiety, scratching him raw from the insides of his already too bleary structure.

He stopped then, battling to breathe, to stand. To be alive. Unsure on whether his struggle arose from the physical effort or the oblique fear he so wanted to deny. It was truth too: long had passed since he felt afraid, so much so he had barely lost grasp of its meaning. He couldn’t say he missed the emotion.

Dry leaves crackled a soft sound under his body as he sat gingerly on the grass. Resting. Regretting. Every contained movement an apology, as if abashed for the space his existence occupied in the world. Dawn approached timidly enough, traces of light prying holes through the dense clouds. In his current state of mind, the golden hero felt it was a fitting mirroring of his own soul; it laid helpless while dark thoughts hammered it with unforgiving fervour.

It was decidedly a bad space of mind to be, and he would have likely been stuck on that miserable vicious cycle for a long – well, longer – time, weren’t for the curious sounds. Subtle and distant, masked by the gentle ruffle of leaves and careful bird’s twitting. Out of place and yet familiar. Immediately recognizable despite its faintness, like a road travelled often and again as to be found even if blindfolded.

He got up, painstakingly and insecure on these foreign limbs, and followed the invisible trail, finding his way through air rather than soil. Sure enough, there it was. The source of the sounds stood tall amidst the hidden training ground, the unmistakable energy of a striving hero surrounding the young girl’s body; much more telling than the evident exercise could ever be. And Toshinori had some pride in his ability to recognize a hero’s soul at first glance. Something that proved useful on his particular line of work. Or what used to be, he corrected himself hurriedly, with no shortage of shame.

She hadn’t noticed his presence, and he was thankful for the small blessing. The slender girl was deeply engrossed on her own exercise, which seemingly consisted of eradicating a piteous wooden dummy existence to no more than shreds and broken pieces. An objective, he was quick to realize, she was failing at. She staggered on her feet, all movements uncertain in nature, uncoordinated jabs and kicks throwing the promising strong body off balance, uneasy, coy. Lacking the motivational energy he could so clearly see she possessed. As if her soul and body were in disarray, somehow disconnected from each other.

When the growing frustration apparently reached a marked limit, the youngster let out a fiery scream, her quirk lashing out in chaos. An invisible force throwing all the training equipment far and high, the shocking crashing sound putting to flee all the poor unsuspecting animals on the immediate vicinity. The so-called symbol of peace had approached – or so he must, at a given point, since he found himself close to the border of the training ground, staring at the wreckage it had become. In plain sight for the student to see him, which promptly happened, her body turning with impressive smoothness despite the anger, and haunting suddenly, shakenly.

He could have understood – was in fact half expecting – if the girl had blown up on him, seeing his presence as prying and as added pain to injury. Or maybe she would shy away, embarrassed to have had a witness in that singular moment. Or, more irrationally, somehow starstruck by being face to face with no one other than All Might. Instead, he was humbled. In an impressive demonstration of self-awareness, she stood still, silent. Chin up and clenched trembling fists the only indications of possible nervousness.

He bowed his head slightly and forced a smile, raising his hands in peace. Attempting to ease the situation. “That was a nice quirk, indeed, young student! I’m impressed I haven’t noticed you in training before with the rest of the class.”

Immediately, he realised he had said the exact wrong thing. Instead of relaxing into casual conversation, she kept her position, something like hurt moving behind her eyes and then hidden masterfully. He would have been impressed, had he not been busy feeling terrible.

“Of course you wouldn’t.” She answered dryly, resenting. “You all only look at heroics. I’m with general ed.”

Giving himself a metaphorical slap, he grimaced. The girl wasn’t wrong. However, typical of its dry nature, plain truth tended to be a hard pill to swallow. He opened his mouth. Changed his mind. Closed it again. Was no matter; she wasn’t paying attention.

“I don’t care about how difficult it is. I have my mother’s quirk, and I will become a hero just like her.” The bold statement carried within an odd note, almost as in a rehearsed conviction. If you repeat it enough times, it becomes true.

Conveniently saved from giving a proper answer about the failed school system, he lashed onto the opportunity. “Is your mother a pro, then? What’s her hero name? I might know her.”

A head shake. Firm, emphatic. “No. I said she’s a hero, not a pro. My father is a pro, but he’s not a hero.” Her voice raised slightly at that, hard with challenge. “Do you know the difference?”

The sudden serious topic caught Toshinori unawares. A kind being, he took no offense from the remark, allowing it to simply exist instead, harmlessly floating in the air between them. Of more importance was the feeling behind it, he decided. Because he could see the apprehension, the sad belief driving the words. The adult in him very much conscious of the surprisingly complicated anguish he could see on the youngster’s expression. It clenched at his heart, a feeling of protection rising there, as vivid as it was strange.

“He doesn’t deserve to be called a hero.” She went on. Maybe to fill the silence. Or maybe to assure herself. And then raising her head, sudden and abrupt, looking at him with something like sorrowful acceptance. “But you don’t believe me. No, you wouldn’t. Nobody does.” Her voice faltered, its shakiness being covered by a flimsy laugh.

He smiled softly, somewhat saddened. Dropping altogether the attempts of redirecting the conversation towards safer topics. She was having none of it, and he too had to admit he lacked the will to keep the pretence. Toshinori struggled. Lost in the situation and yet the need to help overcame him, despite not quite knowing how. The way he knew wouldn’t work anymore. Those days were over.

He reached a hand, placing it awkwardly on her shoulder, hoping it would bring comfort.

“I believe in you, young lady.” He said then, finally. The honesty of his words matching hers. “I still have enough integrity within me to recognize the truth when it stares me in the eye. Or so I like to think.” And that was, perhaps, the only honest thing that passed through his lips in a rather long while. Such recognition shook his structure to the core. What a hero he was.

Her eyes widened, unbelieving. And then, simply and acutely, filled up with raw emotion. She looked as surprised as him by the sudden outburst, but the intensity of it overcame her with such power he could clearly see it was beyond of her control.

He squeezed her shoulder gently, in assurance. “It’s okay. You can let go.” And she did, burying her face in both hands and allowing the feeling to cleanse away, escaping through her fingers and dripping onto the earth, like pure offerings of liquefied frustration.

This he could handle. This he knew, maybe a bit too much, he thought with no small amount of endearment, remembering the kind boy he had chosen as his successor. So Toshinori stood close, solid and understanding, hoping that would be enough as he, too, was depleted of much more to give.

Slow and sure the shaking under his hand subsided to smaller intervals, until all that was left was the relieved weakness that usually followed breaks of such strong nature. She took a step back, sniffing through the emotional hangover and wiping clumsily at the wet cheeks. It did not escape his eyes on how she now looked lighter, as if the irons trapping her limbs had been removed at once. He sighed, relieved.

“Do you think I can make it?” The girl asked then, somewhat shyly, eyes cast down.

“Make it?”

“Into heroics. With my quirk, I mean.” She clarified, looking up and facing him directly. “You are All Might, right? So you should know. If it’s possible, for me.” She finished, lamely.

Toshinori looked into the youngster’s dark eyes, sparking with the threat of controlled tears, recognizing in its depth the longing so akin to his own; bridging past, present and future. The hardship and fear. And the buried hope, hidden in such a way as to not show itself overmuch. Dreading what would become of it if her dream got pulverized to dust by the cruel mortar of reality. Because so he could understand, some things didn’t change.

“Well, I’m not very mighty right now.” He said for lack of something better, scratching the back of his head, at a loss. Feeling thoroughly inadequate for what this one child needed; all too aware of how little he was reduced to. How less of anything he currently was.

“You are still All Might.” Came the answer. Not surprise, nor judgemental. Rather she sounded puzzled, almost delicately curious. As if pointing out an obvious answer. “Nothing is ever created or lost, only transformed, right?”

That took him aback. A deep part of him – a fearful one, always ready to hold onto self-depreciation – reacted strongly, prompting him to reject the wild notion at once. Holding his stand, he looked at his hands instead, pensively. They were big and callused, angled and rough around the edges, used and abused for many years to count, winning against a multitude of enemies. Keeping the piece through sheer strength and peril. While still the same size, they were now frail things, almost disconnected from the rest of him, a reminder of what he could never do again.

But as the girl stared at him expectantly, he thought that maybe it was less a matter of fact and more of interpretation. Free transformation. Perhaps there were people he would never be able to reach as his old self that he could in his current form. With these very same hands. And perhaps a little too late in his life, he came through the rather rattling realization that some things could only be effectively handled through a more complex touch than a shallow-minded punch could ever allow. He closed his fist slowly, considering the perspective that there was something else his fists could hold onto. And protect.

Well, wasn’t truth found in the oddest of places? But Toshinori has never been a picky one.

“The problem” He began, decisively. She raised her head in interest, her ears metaphorically peeking up to absorb whatever he was about to say, while carefulness and fear still lingered in her eyes. “Is not your quirk. But your fighting ability. If you train that and master how to use your quirk alone, you can become a powerful hero.” He said, meaning every word. “I could teach you some of the basics.”

She smiled then. Finally. It was a bright thing that he would like to see more of. Yes, this was the right decision. Maybe there was more to him, and to everything he had gone through, than the ability to defeat new villains with mindless power. He could still do things that would bring meaning to the world, even if not in the straightforward and simplistic way he had grown used to.

Hope had not been born with him, and wouldn’t die with his last breath either. If he could make sure that it would live through and be translated with the next generation of heroes then maybe, he thought, a single Symbol of Peace would no longer be necessary.

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#yagi toshinori #toshinori yagi #all might #bnha imagine #bnha imagines #bnha oc #bnha #mha #scenario #scenarios #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #platonic #original content #angst #amethyst #amethyst scenarios

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personalcoachingcenter · 4 years

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Power Coaching Tools: Identity vs. Achievement

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/power-coaching-tools-identity-vs-achievement/

Power Coaching Tools: Identity vs. Achievement

A Coaching Power Tool Created by Heike Geiling (Intercultural Coach, SWITZERLAND)

Are you an achiever?

When we talk about achievements we talk about what the free online dictionary defines as “a result gained by effort” or “a thing done successfully with effort, skill, or courage”. Usually, we associate positive outcomes with achievements and in our Western world effort, skill, and courage are positively connoted terms. Companies are striving to establish achievement cultures because this drives productivity and thus financial gain.

When we apply for open positions we list our achievements in our CVs to show how valuable our contributions were to our past employers. Sometimes we also talk about our accomplishments without distinguishing between the two. But accomplishments are on a completely different scale as Patty O’Grady points out: “Achievement typically measures an externally imposed standard. Accomplishment typically describes an internally motivated goal.”[1] Far too often we take one for the other thinking of accomplishment when in reality we only line up another achievement. The reason is that we do see achievements in a positive light as the task is usually considered to be difficult and the success is dependent on our will power. We tend to value difficult achievements demanding more will power higher. Having the objective in mind and concentrating on our will power we might forget to ask why we are doing a certain thing.

Perspective on achievement:

A majority of us spend most of our careers in corporate cultures that nurture achievement as a value. Even outside the corporate world achievements are highly valued and we gain acknowledgment and recognition for them. For some people, only life-changing experiences throw them out of this circle of achievement and recognition. In the global expat community, a large number of expat spouses have to deal with the fact of finding themselves excluded from the corporate achievement/recognition circle that they were part of in their home country or previous career. Often transferring into a home maker’s life abroad, expat spouses are facing many challenges while adjusting to a new culture. Even though moving to a new country might be an adventure filled with positive encounters and experiences, once the first phase of exploration is over and life has taken on a regular rhythm, many expat spouses fall into an achievement culture by default.

Consider Luisa who moved from Sweden to Vietnam with her husband and two kids. She had already given up her job as an accountant in a large Swedish corporation to follow her husband on his assignment to Belgium three years earlier. She stayed home to look after her small children and took distant learning courses to prepare for her return to Sweden. Now her husband took on a three to five-year assignment in Hanoi. A wonderful opportunity for the whole family to explore Asian culture. Luisa does not mind that her career will be delayed.

The first three months after the move pass quickly as Luisa is busy setting up the house and the family life. She arranges schools and after school activities, she meets other parents and expat partners. She explores the city and sorts out all relevant addresses from hairdressers to pediatricians and dentists etc. Each evening she can tick off another thing from her to-do list; each one a little achievement.

One day all boxes are ticked off. Luisa finds herself at home with an abundance of free time at hand. So she throws herself into “mum”-tasks. She bakes, cooks sew, or picks up some other hobby also. She volunteers to be a homeroom mum or part of the school’s parent group. She will fill her daily calendar with tasks and activities she never had time for in the past. Now she has time to work out and to take better care of her health and outer appearance. She adds fitness classes, beautician appointments, etc. to her calendar. She joins the parents’ yoga or tennis group. Whatever it is, she will do well and she will add another achievement to her long list of achievements.

Luisa struggles to identify what she wants in life. She feels trapped in her beautiful and exciting expat life. She longs for acknowledgment and recognition so she creates tasks and challenges for herself and starts collecting achievements she can be proud of, share, and get recognition for. These achievements give her the feeling of being active, alive, and doing something meaningful.

In her TEDx talk on authentic inaction, Renée Dineen differentiates five different types of “doers”: the achieving doer, the avoiding doer, the controlling doer, the perfecting doer, and the supporting doer. Each of them having a different motivating force to action. The result is the same: it drives them away from who they truly are into externally driven activity.

Identity

“Identity grows […] out of a distinction between one’s true inner self and an outer world of social rules and norms that do not adequately recognize that inner self’s worth or dignity. […] The inner self is the basis of human dignity, but the nature of that dignity is variable and has changed over time. […] Finally, the inner sense of dignity seeks recognition.”[2]

To put it very simply: We define ourselves through and in contrast to our outer world and thus develop a sense of dignity. To strengthen our self-esteem we need the recognition of others. But we need to be recognized for who we are and not for what we do. In our longing for external recognition, we risk forgetting defining what we want to be recognized for. Thus some people throw themselves into activities, lining up one achievement after the other.

People who feel like living fulfilled lives following their career and identifying with the labels they acquired (Director, Head of.., Mother, Business owner, Associate, Manager, etc), rarely ask the question: Who am I? What is my identity? Our identity (the distinguishing character or personality of an individual)is mostly hidden behind all the labels we carry mother, father, friend, brother, sister, superior, team member, associate, daughter, son, wife, husband, teacher, student, caregiver, etc.

For the lucky ones the acquired labels match their identity, they are committed to their roles, they find purpose in what they do. Few people think about their proper identity, they rather build on values taught in their families or cultures. If you do not develop a sound sense of identity you will have difficulties to identify what you want in life or better said to find your purpose.

“…the processes of identity formation and purpose development reinforce one another; the development of purpose supports the development of identity, and the development of identity reinforces purposeful commitments.”[3]

Uncovering identity

So how can you see through the labels? How can you see your identity? These question can help you to take the first steps:

What are your potentials? What are you good at / better than others? Which activities are you willing to pursue putting will, time, and effort in improving your skills?

What is your purpose? What would you like to accomplish that matches your skills and talents?

Do you have the opportunity to do so? What would you need to change to get this opportunity?

People need to be acknowledged for who they are and not for what they do. A first step into diverting attention from your actions to your true self is awareness. What are you busy with? What do you spend most of your time on? Which of these activities mean a lot to you and why?

Coaching Application

Clients who are achievers sometimes have difficulties to draw the line between achievements and accomplishments. They might be action addicts and thrive on the recognition they regularly receive for what they do. A clear sign for the coach to identify the achiever is if the client still feels hollow or empty despite their many activities/achievements.

The coach can support the client in exploring their struggle for recognition by identifying the activities and objectives linked to internal motivation and separating them from the ones externally motivated. Together with the coach, the client can explore the behaviors they demonstrate when in achievement mode and reflect on how they can use this awareness in the future.

To help the client identify behavior patterns and separate accomplishments from achievements the timeline exercise and be a great tool.

Who am I? The timeline exercise.

Draw a timeline for your life divided into 4 sections and add all significant events to it, refrain from mentioning career-related information. Then use a colored pen to add an emotional graph identifying the highs and lows in your past. Tell your life’s story without referring to any job title or role you held.

Who am I? Tell your story.

Look at your timeline again. How did you tell your story? How we tell our stories can greatly impact how we feel about ourselves. When did you feel proud of yourself? When did you feel authentic? When did you talk about yourself as a victim of circumstances? When did you feel most fulfilled?

Reflection

What are some powerful questions you could ask to help your client shift from achievement thinking to purposeful identity development?

What are some behaviors that would reinforce identity and being instead of activity and doing?

How can you support your client in discovering their identity?

Recommended reading/watching

TEDx talk by Renée Dineen on authentic inaction

Francis Fukuyama: Identity. Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition (2018)

K.C. Bronk: The role of purpose in life in healthy identity formation: A grounded model. New Directions for Youth Development, 2011: 31-44.

[1] psychologytoday.com, Nov 11, 2012

[2] Fukuyama (2018), pp. 9-10

[3] Bonk (2011), p.31

Original source

#achievement #achiever #best personal development coaching #coaching #executive coaching #identity #leadership coaching #life coach #life coach for women #life coaching #life coaching 101 #life coaching questions #online coaching #personal brand #Personal Branding #personal branding breakdown #personal development coaching #personal trainer #Personal Coaching

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no6secretsanta · 6 years

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Cold, Grey, and Loving

(To @fairysdarkestnight, hope you enjoy my story. Merry Christmas! -From @paintedpainting)

The remaining orange dusk light illuminated small white flakes of snow drifting down from the sky. The evening air was cold, the kind of cold that reminded Shion of being hungry, weak, and dirty. A kind of cold that he missed.

Shion had tried his hardest. He had done everything he could to make the reconstruction process of No 6 go as smoothly as possible. But no matter his efforts, people were never satisfied. Complaints and delays piled up on his desk, adding to the mountains of work he had scheduled for each day but could never finish. Every plan he made had come with problems that were almost never solved on time. With each passing week, his unfinished work became more and more insurmountable until he felt completely swamped.

He missed Nezumi. If only Nezumi had stayed with him, he wouldn’t have felt so miserable. He wouldn’t have despaired over all the setbacks, all the conflicts, all the failure. He wouldn’t have ordered a crackdown on the West Block protesters who demanded justice be returned onto the citizens of No 6 when the massive pile of corpses was discovered beneath the Correctional Facility. It had never occurred to him that a display of force to quell the protesters’ desire for vengeance would only make things worse. When the reports about the crackdown flooded in, he realized he had made a terrible mistake and resigned from the Restructural Committee.

Without saying any more than a casual goodbye to his coworkers and to his mother, he left No 6 for the ruins beyond the West Block where, almost a year ago, he had been living with Nezumi.

The cold air outside the city brought back warm memories of the days he spent living in their underground room. It reminded him of what it felt like to go to bed hungry, to have no money, to live day by day without worrying about the future. Those memories brought a tear to his eye when he entered the door and saw that everything was still there. The bookshelves, the couch, the piano. Everything had been just like it was on the day he left that room, as if taken out of a still frame in his mind. The only thing that was missing was a certain rat.

While skimming through all his favourite books, enacting the best lines out loud – that was something Nezumi always did better – he heard footsteps walking on the ground above the room. That was strange. Nobody lived here anymore, not after the wall came down.

A flash of Nezumi’s smile burned in his mind. It couldn’t be.

He dashed out of the room and looked around outside, but nobody was there. Only quiet snow. His heart sank.

The wind blew, an icy wind that cut the exposed skin on his face, but it was nothing compared to the pain of his loneliness. He tried hard to look for a figure in the looming darkness. The sun had almost set, leaving behind a dark grey sky that shed flakes of snow like icy blue tears. But he couldn’t find anybody – not even a shadow. The outskirts of the West Block were barren of life.

He was almost about to give up when he saw something on the edge of his vision, just before the wind-swept snow smoothed them over. Footprints.

The shape of those boots were unmistakable.

Heart pounding, Shion chased the trail, not caring where it led or how dark the night was going to get without a lantern. He had to find him. The chance of reunion was the only thing that kept him going, and he wasn’t about to miss his only opportunity. It was the only lead he had found in months. In the past year, despite all the people he had sent out in search of Nezumi, not a trace of him had been found.

The snow fell heavier. Large icy flakes brushed against his face. Cold little pinpricks. Wind sliced his skin like knives, but his heart burned. The only thing on his mind was the person at the end of this trail.

He found the path the footsteps took to be familiar. Excitement rushed through him as recognition dawned over his face. He knew the place that they were leading him toward.

It was the old playground.

A tall, slim figure appeared ahead. His heart jumped. He thought it would burst out of his chest, but he didn’t care if that happened, either. The only thing that mattered was the person that stood at the end of the trail. The person at the centre of the playground.

Slowly, the figure turned around.

Those features were unmistakable. The long black hair – the dark blue scarf – those piercing grey eyes. At that moment, everything around them came to a stop. The snowflakes froze in midair. The world became still. Only the light in those grey eyes remained, a pair of shimmering jewels brighter than any starlight. They illuminated a path through the darkness. His legs began walking that path on impulse, steered by an unquenchable heart.

“Nezumi?”

“Shion.”

Shion couldn’t believe the voice he was hearing. It was him. There was no mistaking it, no other person who could be standing in front of him.

“Nezumi!” Shion sprinted towards him, arms outstretched, but Nezumi didn’t look like he was going to return a full embrace. “It really is you!”

“It’s been some time, hasn’t it?” Nezumi replied, standing stoically.

Shion came to a stop in front of him. “Nezumi. I’ve missed you so much. You were gone for so long, and I couldn’t find a trace of you, which was why I came out here today to search–“

Before he could finish his sentence, Nezumi turned away, the edges of his lips curving into a sly smile. Nezumi ran towards the slide in the playground and climbed on top of it. Shion could only watch him leave, mesmerized by his graceful movement.

“Surprised to see me?” Nezumi said, stretching out his arms. “I knew you’d come looking for me around our old room.”

“Why didn’t you come down to see me?”

“I wasn’t sure if it was you or someone else rummaging through our old belongings – maybe trying to find some food. That’s why I left a trail for you. I knew you’d follow my footsteps if you saw them.”

“Of course I would! Nezumi, I’ve missed you for so long!”

Nezumi turned his head towards the sky and gave out a short laugh. His eyes gleamed, but there was no longer much aggression or anger behind them. Those eyes had become softer.

“Shion. I’m sorry I didn’t return sooner. I didn’t know if I was ready or not.”

“What were you doing this whole time?”

“Travelling the world, seeing new things. I’ve met quite a number of interesting people on my journey.” Something flashed behind his eyes. “Felt it was time to return when it got colder. As much as I enjoy living close to nature, the city is just much more livable during the winter, where there’s heat and other people.”

“I’m really glad you came back.”

“What have you been doing in the past year?”

“I’ll tell you, but can you come down from the slide first? What’s the point of standing up there?”

The smile on Nezumi’s lips grew, but remained small. He hopped down from the top of the slide, but to Shion’s disappointment, walked towards the swings instead. Feeling a little miffed, though still elated to see Nezumi again, Shion ran towards the swings and sat in the one beside Nezumi’s. He kicked the snow-covered ground with his shoe to push himself off the ground.

“I was on the Restructural Committee,” Shion began heavily. “We were rebuilding the city to create the utopia we once envisioned before everything fell apart.”

Nezumi’s expression grew distant.

“It was hard work, but I enjoyed it.” Shion swallowed, hoping that he could believe his own words. “I came up with all kinds of interesting plans. First, removal of the city’s surveillance system, so that citizens were no longer monitored all the time. Then, an overhaul of the school curriculum, emphasizing literature, and getting rid of classes that were segregated by intelligence. Also, I made plans to reintegrate the discriminated population of the West Block into the city. Fundamental to the process was the development of infrastructure in the West Block to allow people access to clean food, water, heating, sewage treatment…”

Shion dipped his head. He couldn’t shake away his failures, not even with Nezumi by his side. “My plans had seemed so perfect in my head, but I ran into problems when we began implementing them.”

“Did you encounter any resistance?”

“There were dissidents – those who were still loyal to the old regime. My subordinates on the Restructural Committee suggested to jail them, but I thought that was too harsh. I decided instead to set up programs to educate them about the crimes of the old regime…”

“So, in essence, you sent them to reeducation.”

“It wasn’t reeducation! We called it rehabilitation.” From the way Nezumi was looking at him, Shion felt he was being seen right through. Those eyes bore through his barrier of pretty words and dug down deep into him, exposing his failures. “The problem was, some of them were so devoted to their research, they couldn’t see any possible path but to continue experimenting. We couldn’t allow them to harm any more people, so I put the most unrepentant ones in jail because they were a threat to society.”

“Shion. Are you sure you weren’t abusing your own powers?”

“There was no other way. Even after I exposed the crimes of the old regime – the hell that was beneath the Correctional Facility – some of them still couldn’t feel any empathy for their victims. To make things worse, the people in the West Block started to riot when they discovered what was happening at the Correctional Facility. They wouldn’t listen when I told them that the regime had changed, that things would be different now. They took up arms and started attacking peaceful civilians!”

Nezumi’s smile turned wry. Shion missed even that sneering expression, but he felt his heart being pierced open by the growing contempt that smile bequeathed onto him.

“You understand the real world now,” Nezumi said. “I knew things weren’t going to become perfect just because the walls went down. The people in the West Block have been dehumanized by No 6 for years. They’ll definitely seek justice, no matter how you spin your story.”

“But they didn’t have to attack innocent people who never did anything wrong.”

“Those people aren’t innocent in their eyes. While children froze to death on the streets of the West Block, the people inside No 6 feasted on Christmas turkey and chocolate cake. They were oblivious to the suffering that city caused to its surroundings, and they did nothing to stop it. That makes them as bad as the scientists in the Correctional Facility performing their heinous experiments.”

“Nezumi…”

“Shion. You realize now that things are never as simple as they seem.”

With eyes gazing into the distance, Nezumi stepped off from the swings and climbed on top of the green jungle gym.

Shion lowered his head further. His fingers felt as cold as ice from clinging onto the swing chains.

He didn’t know if he could admit to Nezumi the true extent of his failures. If he told Nezumi what he had done, would Nezumi even care about him anymore?

What he did had been a grave mistake, and to show his remorse, he had resigned from his post on the Restructural Committee. But that didn’t excuse the fact that people had been hurt and even killed as a result of his actions. In truth, he was no better than the old regime of No 6. He had acted too quickly, too cruelly, in pursuit of the utopian city he dreamed of building. He was as bad as any of the old rulers. No, he was worse. He was monster and he couldn’t even see it.

If he told Nezumi the truth, he knew Nezumi would never forgive him. But there was no way around it. He couldn’t keep running from his crimes forever.

Whatever punishment Nezumi would inflict upon him, he deserved it. He had to tell Nezumi what he did and accept judgment from the one he loved most.

“I ordered them to stop the rioters in the West Block,” Shion said quietly. “I should never have done that. I didn’t know what kind of force the police would employ, but I never expected them to…shoot people.” Tears fell from his eyes. “Nezumi. I’m as bad as the old No 6.”

He lowered his face, waiting for the blow to come. If it ended his life, he would gladly accept it. He deserved to be killed by Nezumi for what he had done.

Seconds passed, which then turned into minutes. But the blow never came.

Slowly, Shion opened his eyes and looked up nervously.

Those grey eyes were full of wrath. Their anger could have melted the snow, cut him deeper than any knife, pierce him with more force than a bullet. Even so, they weren’t uncompassionate. Behind those eyes, there was a feeling like understanding, perhaps even forgiveness. No, he couldn’t presume that so hastily. He didn’t even forgive himself.

“You messed up,” Nezumi spoke up at last.

“I know you’ll never forgive me,” Shion said. “What I did was completely wrong, and apologizing can’t bring back the people who died on my hands. So I quit my position on the Restructural Committee. That’s why I’m here now. I guess, what I’m putting myself through is self-imposed exile.”

“That’s pathetic.”

Shion looked back up. “Huh?”

“You couldn’t deal with the fact that what you had tried to do out of good intentions ended up with a far worse outcome. It’s exactly the same pitfall the old rulers of No 6 had fallen into.”

“I know. That’s why I’m as bad as them. If you want to kill me as punishment for what I’ve done, I’ll accept it.”

The playground was silent except for the sound of the howling wind. Snow sifted up from the ground and blew over Shion’s shoes, covering them in white dust.

He waited for his punishment.

“You realized the error of your ways, but then you did the worst possible thing,” Nezumi spoke up. “You left. At a time when you were still in a position of power – when you still had the authority to shape the future – you gave up, too burdened by the guilt of your crimes to face the people whose lives you’ve destroyed.” Nezumi stood up, his eyes growing furious. “I won’t forgive you now for what you’ve done. But if the city goes back to what it was before because you left, I will never forgive you.”

Shion’s eyes grew wide. He hopped off from his swing and walked towards Nezumi. “Are you saying…?”

“While you still have the influence, go back to the Restructural Committee and persuade them to change the way they’ve been doing things. Even though you set them on that path, you have to make sure they turn around instead of taking a further step down.”

“You’re right.” Shion didn’t need any further convincing, knowing full well what could happen if he didn’t interfere. “I’ll return there and tell them what they have to do. But it might be difficult, since I resigned.”

“That was your fault. If your immediate reaction to failure is to quit, you’ll never achieve anything substantial.”

“I know. At least, I have to try my best to make things right.”

“You’d better.”

Shion loved the way Nezumi could always show him the right thing to do. It wasn’t always like that. It used to be that Nezumi thought about everything in black and white, never considering a third option, and it was he who had to show Nezumi a different path. But, ever since their ordeal in the Correctional Facility, the two of them had grown and changed. Nezumi had learned to open his mind to all the possibilities that lay in front of him, and his heart to others. Of course, he still retained his cold exterior. As for Shion, he had learned about the real world, how ugly it was, how necessary it was to make sacrifices in order to accomplish his goals.

In many ways, he was still the foolish boy that had opened the window six years ago on that stormy and fateful night.

“What are you going to do, Nezumi?” Shion asked, reaching his hand out. “Are you going to stay around?”

“I’ll stay for the winter and keep watch over you,” Nezumi replied, hopping down from the jungle gym. He reached for the ground and picked up a pile of snow, packing it into a snowball. “Maybe you’ll be able to make better decisions knowing that I’ll be able to see their outcomes.”

“I definitely won’t touch the West Block if I know that you’re there.”

The light in Nezumi’s eyes dimmed. “Are you saying you’ll only spare the lives of the people in the West Block for my sake?”

Heat rushed into Shion’s face, almost making his cheeks blush. “No, that’s not what I meant! It’s just, if I do something wrong, I’ll know you’ll be there to admonish me. That’s a useful reminder to keep my power in check, you know?’

“Do you think I wouldn’t punish you now for what you’re already done?” Nezumi’s hand moved towards the knife he always kept sheathed at his belt.

Shion felt his body growing tense again. “Like I said, if you’re going to punish me for what I’ve done, I’ll gladly accept it.”

“I’ll certainly ‘punish’ you later. First, you have to get back to the Restructural Committee and make sure things aren’t going to become worse.”

“Right.”

As Shion began walking away, Nezumi tossed the snowball towards him. Shion watched it sail through the air and raised his arm, hoping that he could catch it.

He caught it in his hand, and he lowered his head.

So many things had happened during the time they were separated. Even though he wasn’t proud of it all, there was still so much he wanted to tell Nezumi. He couldn’t contain the excitement growing inside his heart. Nezumi had finally returned, and he was going to stay for at least the winter. They were reunited at last.

“Shion,” Nezumi said, running to catch up with him. “It’s going to be a long trip back. I’ll accompany you.”

“Thanks,” Shion replied, feeling his blush returning again. “Nezumi, I’m really glad you came today.”

Nezumi smiled, eyes gleaming, but remained silent.

The lights of the city, now no longer hidden behind walls, gleamed through the darkness of the night. Even the West Block glowed brighter than before. With all the new infrastructure that had been built, the two cities were slowly beginning the process of reunion. He hoped that it would be a peaceful and steady process, free from the grip of any more bloodstained hands.

The snow had stopped, and clouds were parting from the sky, revealing the glimmering stars.

“Oh, I just remembered,” Shion spoke up. “Nezumi, it’s Christmas tomorrow. Want to stay over at my house? My mom will make you the best cake!”

“I already have lodgings at my old theatre, but your mom’s baked goods does sound rather tempting.”

“Please, come! She’ll be really happy to see you back.”

Nezumi nodded and rubbed Shion’s head with his hand, fluffing up Shion’s messy white hair. He pulled Shion close so that their faces were almost touching.

A small gasp escaped from Shion’s lips. He loved it when Nezumi touched him affectionately like that. He leaned in intimately, embracing the warmth of Nezumi’s shoulder.

“Say, Shion – have you found anyone to spend your Christmas with, besides your mom?”

“Not in particular.”

“Still haven’t gotten any smoother, I see.”

“Nezumi. The only person I want to spend Christmas with is you.”

Shion blinked. He couldn’t believe how easily he had admitted that.

A pair of cold grey eyes turned towards him with a loving gaze.

The lights of the distant city and the stars shining above reflected in those eyes a captivating glow. They were so gorgeous.

“Then, we’ll spend this Christmas together.”

Softly, Nezumi’s lips brushed against his own.

#no. 6 #no6 #no.6 #nezushi #no. 6 secret santa #fanfiction #paintedpainting #fairysdarkestnight #submission

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jolteonjordansh · 6 years

Photo

Day 4: “Stargazer”

Synopsis: Michael has been traveling on his own throughout the Pokémon world for a couple of years now, sightseeing through multiple regions and experiencing their cultures, talking with their people and seeing the many different customs and practices. He finds himself reminiscing one night in the Hoenn Region, wondering if perhaps the Orre Region isn’t so distant from the rest of the world after all…

Author’s Note: Finally, a simpler prompt! And a bit of a shorter one, because I kind of needed it. I’ll be honest, “Challenger” was the hardest to write so far, mostly because I’m not confident in how I write Pokémon battles. I try to mostly follow the rules of the games but also keep some of the excitement from different mediums like the multiple Pokémon anime series we’ve had as well as Pokémon Adventures. Here, I wanted to illustrate a more mature, reflective Michael who has learned a lot, condensing some of his progression but still showing some of the naiveté that I feel will always be a part of his character—at least my interpretation of his character anyway.

This was a nice, calming one to write, as was the drawing. I drew it one evening while out in a restaurant with my family as I was having a bit of a bad day. This was actually weeks before Orre Week started, but it inspired me to go with these prompts and stories that went along with pictures. So originally, the other sketches were going to be inked like this one, but I ultimately left them as sketches (and did a liiiiittle bit of editing to give them an inked appearance). Here is one of two drawings that are actually inked.

But enough talk. For this one’s simplicity, I hope you guys enjoy it. Click below to the break for the one-shot!

“Gosh, we still have another route to get through before we reach Lilycove City…” Michael sighed as he stared down at his P*DA, viewing a map on its screen. “I suppose even if I’m given a P*DA Map feature, it’s not going to help my poor sense of travel and time, huh Jolteon?”

As Michael looked down at his yellow-furred companion, Jolteon scowled at his trainer with a sense of frustration. Michael laughed anxiously, scratching the back of his head.

“Come on now Jolteon, it’s not so bad. It’s another opportunity for us to camp out. Let’s find a nice spot, shall we?” Michael pushed through some of the tall grass around him, cutting through with Jolteon keeping an eye out for wild Pokémon sneaking around in the night. But the area had generally remained peaceful, with only a few wild Pokémon daring to approach the Orrean duo. Michael occasionally found himself tripping on a stray twig otherwise, never in much danger.

Walking further ahead, Michael then saw a vast lake stretched out before him. It shimmered under the moonlight, with the twinkling of the stars reflecting in its waves. Even Jolteon couldn’t help but stare at the sight, seeing Volbeat and Illumise flying over the lake with their flickering tails that made for a scene one would only dream of seeing in paintings

“Wow, this is gorgeous…” Michael breathed, looking down to Jolteon. “How about we sleep here Jolteon?”

With a bark of agreement and delight, Michael and Jolteon crawled out of the tall grass, with Michael kneeling at the lake’s shore as he pulled out a towel. He laid it on the ground, then sitting on top of it as he took off his fanny pack and set it aside. His camping set-up was a simple one to be sure, and while it had taken time to get used to not having his comfortable bed from his room, he was perfectly fine with it when the weather was normal. Jolteon settled next to Michael’s resting spot, pawing at the ground and preparing his spot before sitting down.

Leaning back on the towel, Michael looked back towards the grassy fields he had just climbed out of as well as the tall trees and flowers surrounding them. He had never seen such tall grass in any of the places he had been to so far—Kanto, Oblivia, Alola, Unova, Fiore, Johto… And he still found he had so much more to see.

“I can’t believe how bountiful the Hoenn Region is… And with so much technology too. Oh, and that the Devon Corporation was willing to show us some of their equipment and even some of their projects in development! I’m glad we got them connected with Makan and Perr, and they were able to all put together the P*DA Map with the PokéNav technology. It really opened some opportunities for us, didn’t it Jolteon?”

Jolteon nodded with a bark of recognition, purring as he enjoyed the soft breeze flowing through his spikey fur. Even he felt a sense of contentment traveling the rest of the world along with his master and fellow Pokémon companions. His ears twitched as he continued to listen to the reflections of his master, his tail wagging steadily.

“I mean, the city we just came from, Fortree City… I know Agate Village was built around nature too, but Fortree followed the concept in a new way. They built them into the trees themselves and are living along with nature itself. It blended in so well…” Michael closed his eyes as he re-envisioned the city, with other locations flashing through his mind. “And then there was the ash falling from Mount Chimney… The snowy, glacial mountains in Oblivia… The tropical islands of Alola… And that massive metropolis in Unova…!”

Opening his green eyes back up, Michael glanced towards Jolteon as he chuckled. “Sorry to go on like that Jolteon. Just… wouldn’t it be great if Orre could be the same?”

Jolteon nodded as he looked towards the stars in the sky, with Michael’s head following the same direction. The sky was colorful with not just a deep navy, but shades of purple and ivory with star clusters. He found himself picking out constellations, his ears taking in the chirps of nocturnal Pokémon around him as he took in the atmosphere.

His eyes then caught a brief white streak across the sky, eyelids widening and letting out a small gasp. But before he could even speak, several more shooting stars followed as the sky began to light with these elements. “Wow! Look at that meteor shower! I didn’t even know there was one tonight! And the sky is so clear…”

Jolteon exhaled with bewilderment as he stared at the collection of meteors burning into the atmosphere, with the reflection of the stars and meteors gleaming in the lake. It were almost as if the lake itself were a window to a parallel world, with even bits of Michael and Jolteon’s reflection in the water. The Pokémon and his trainer kept their eyes locked on the sky together, Michael’s mind then drifting into an old memory.

The night after the Pokémon HQ Lab’s celebration, Michael had walked outside and climbed up to the roof of the lab. This wasn’t an uncommon habit of his, as even in his childhood he had snuck on the roof with his then young Eevee. But that night, he had begun to feel lost in what to do. He had stopped Cipher, returned all of the Shadow Pokémon to their true states and back to their original owners, and had explored Orre to the farthest corners he was aware of. And after all was said and done, he had no goal in mind. And that very night, the same stars shined down on him and Jolteon from his very home, with its own falling stars crossing the skies.

Michael blinked as he heard a distant howl echo throughout the area, snapping him back into reality as he found himself gazing at the same sky. But not once did his mind truly realize the difference between what he was remembering and what he was seeing. Michael then straightened up his stance as he continued to watch the occasional shooting star, a smile suddenly coming across his face.

“You know Jolteon…” Michael began, with his Jolteon looking back over to his trainer. “The stars… are still the same here. They’re no different from Orre, are they?”

Jolteon’s head tilted at Michael’s sudden statement, with a curious whimper coming from his throat.

“Sure, Orre doesn’t have a sort of Pokémon League or wild Pokémon or even a region that’s very lively… But it still has people and Pokémon, doesn’t it? Don’t we all still live part of the same world and live under the same sky?”

Michael then laid back on his towel, with a growing smile on his face as he continued to think aloud with Jolteon soon laying alongside him. “In that case, we deserve to play a part in it. I know we have some complications, but… maybe we can change that somehow.”

Change. It was something people feared. An undertaking that was heavier than a quest around the world for self-discovery. Its results were always a mystery, with no one truly knowing how change would affect the world around them. But it was change that always progressed the world—sometimes for better, yet sometimes for worse. But Pokémon Trainers had not existed without humans and Pokémon making the change to strengthen their bonds. Pokémon Leagues would not exist without humans creating the tradition. So many of the regions throughout the world would not be connected without their communities making the effort to connect with each other. Change dictated and directed the world.

The very word—change—brought a now familiar face to Michael’s mind. A tall and lean young man with tanned skin and brown hair, wearing simply a white cap, green glasses, a lab coat, gray pants and green sandals. The man always wore his huge, enthusiastic grin with his stubble, full with so much energy that he might not have been human.

“Kukui… Professor Kukui strived to put together Alola’s new Pokémon League…” Michael mumbled. “He worked with so many people to put together the Island Challenge, and he never wavered. He was such a cheery guy to talk with, and so understanding of the kind of situation Orre and its people are in…”

Change… Thinking of the word once more, Kukui’s face burned into Michael’s mind with his usual grin and hearty laugh. And with such passion as his, Kukui made change happen. Change that was strong enough to transform an entire region and its customs.

“Maybe… That’s what I need to do,” Michael sat up once more. “If I can bring change to the Orre Region just the same, I can bring it a better future for everyone too. That’s a change that would be for the better, just like with Alola… Don’t you think Jolteon?”

Looking over, Michael then saw Jolteon had now fallen asleep, curled up and gently snoring up against his towel. Seeing his lifelong partner at peace, Michael couldn’t help but smile as he gently pet the yellow canine’s head as he purred in his sleep. Fatigue finally began to settle into Michael’s mind, as he laid back down and turned to his side facing Jolteon. Taking off his hat and setting it down, Michael then continued to pet Jolteon’s soft body as his eyes finally began to shut.

“We’ll… figure it out, I’m sure…” Michael yawned as his mind finally began to settle, with the faint idea of a new Orre forming in his mind. “And when we do… We’ll make a brighter future for the Orre Region.”

#OrreWeek2k17 #JJ Doodles #JJ Writes #Pokémon #Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness #Michael #Orre #Jolteon #fanart #fanfiction

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griffinsanddragons · 7 years

Text

Unexpected Developments [Part Two]

Hawke recruits Isabela to help her tie a few ‘loose ends.’

Read: Part One on Tumblr!

Also on AO3!

I finally came through and wrote the thing. We’re following Isabela and we love her so happy readings!

Something was different; Isabela knew the moment Hawke entered the room. She hadn’t seen much of her since the expedition. Aveline delivered the bad news about Bethany and Hawke needed space to grieve. Merrill, Varric, Anders, and everyone else who’d seen her, spoke about Hawke anxiously. She’d been quiet, they said, distant, angry–though she wouldn’t admit it–and there was a sad, faraway look in her eye that made her seem small. But today, her presence resounded off the Hanged Man’s drafty walls, amassing the attention of every crook, con, bandit, low-life, mercenary and thief she passed by. Hawke–who made a name for herself working for Athenril in the criminal underground, survived the Deep Roads, and got rich–was back. And it would have been normal, Isabela thought, had she had something to come back for.

[Read More]

“Isabela!” Hawke greeted her with a wide, excited grin and ordered a drink, the Hanged Man’s finest–though it really wasn’t much. She seemed to be in good spirits today–or rather good enough–nodding and listening to her prattle on about the Rivani Merchant Council Ship she saw at the harbor that morning, (“I’d bet my ass the poor thing’s heading back to Dairsmuid to escort some Merchant Prince selling tea or something–what a waste,”) listening with varying degrees of interest, her eye’s a little wider than they needed to be. “You’re looking perky today. What’s got you better? Have you found someone who’ll…curl your toes in Hightown?” Isabela leaned forward, her movements slow and languid as she slouched into a comfortable position in her seat, “Is it someone I know?” “No!” Hawke asserted, now stiff as well as upright in her chair, “I’m not–I’m not looking for a partner, Isabela!” “Who said anything about a partner?” A large, mischievous grin pulled at the tops of her sparsely freckled cheeks, “I’m talking about a good old-fashioned rub down. That’s what you need. I know a girl, and a fellow if you’d prefer-” “I do not.” She cut her off. Hawke spoke in a stern, affronted voice reminiscent of a Noble in a crooked wig; Between the smuggling, fighting, sarcasm, killing and mercenary work they’ve done together, Isabela nearly forgot that she’d been raised by a parent of righteous, noble birth–the type of Mother who’d encouraged the children to shy away from such ‘improper matters in polite company,’ use the right forks and never threaten the houseguests (unless it was necessary.) Her reaction reminded her of Bethany.

Though that was a topic Isabela couldn’t breach. Even now, as she watched Hawke swirl and nurse her drink, she could see the toll of her grief; The days have not been kind.

She should probably say something. Everyone had said something, everyone but her.

But it wasn’t for a lack of trying. She did, on more than one occasion, try to find a way to tell Hawke she was sorry for what happened to her sister, but her efforts only got as far as the door. She considered climbing in through the window and shouting ‘surprise!’ but whatever ill-conceived speech she came up with could never compare to the real support Hawke already received. She couldn’t be that type of friend–but that didn’t seem to matter, not to Hawke; they picked right up where they left off: giggling over drinks at the Hanged Man as the drunkards sang and tried to play a broken lute. “Alright, alright, no need to twist your knickers. What’s really got you so excited?” “Aveline–” Hawke spoke as though she suddenly remembered what had been on her mind, “I saw her today and she reminded me of something I have to do.” Isabela rolled her eyes and took the last of her drink, desperately hoping she wouldn’t regret the end of the story. “What’s our ‘Captain’ got you doing for her now? Let me guess, disrupting more fine business practices?” “Not exactly. She told me I needed to find a way to take my mind off…well, you know.” she took a letter from the pocket of her leggings and slid it Isabela’s way.

It didn’t say much, there wasn’t even a sender, but there was a list of names–of Templars who were responsible for taking Bethany away.

She recognized one of them–Cullen–but the others were a mystery. “After she accused me of murder, I figured I’d do some investigating of my own.” “What’re the slashes for?” Those were recent additions–fat black lines unevenly smudged as though a left-handed person dragged their hand across the page as they made them. There were only so many left-handed people in the world and there was ink smudged against the knuckle of Hawke’s little finger. “Oh that mean’s they’re dead,” she shrugged. “The guards found them at the docks.” “Well, there are worse places to go.” Isabela peered into her empty cup, watching the last of the droplets race like rain against the window. “They could have been found in Hightown–now that would cause a stir.” “My thoughts exactly.” Hawke smiled at Isabela, her eyes growing larger and even more disquieting. “And as much as I appreciate it, I don’t know who sent me this–or why. But if they’re murdering people to get my attention, I should see what they want.” “It could be a trap.” Or any number of things. Hawke was a well-known woman with both friends and enemies–and this ‘friend’ could be either one with ease. “It could be. I asked Varric to investigate but the trail went cold, he’s been pouring all he has into searching for Bartrand.” She passed Isabela her unfinished drink. “But he was able to tell me one thing: one of these men, the dead one, was a patron at the Blooming Rose. And if I’m lucky, my ‘friend’ might have paid them a visit as well.” “And if he has?” Isabela leaned forward with her elbows on the table, her interest piquing at the meat of the story. “I can tie up a few…loose ends.” Hawke had a way of masking her intent with words that were only slightly threatening and Isabela liked that type of honesty. “Will you help me?” “Well, “ She pretended to think, “you did promise to keep that last relic mishap to yourself, so…” She agreed.

They followed the infamous maze of twisting streets to the long turning stairs that lead to Hightown. By the time they reached their destination, her muscles were wound and taut from exertion. She cursed. “Damn.” Isabela never cared much for Hightown; The buildings there were different than anywhere else in Kirkwall: bigger, cleaner, more pristine–each clamoring for the attention of wealthy nobles and foreign merchants; and utterly lacking in character. Girls dressed in fine silk and patterned lace greeted them outside. It was the sweet smells and the lulling song of a Harp, however, that drew the crowds inside. “Ah, the blooming rose.” Isabela sighed, perking at the sight of half naked courtesans lounging on the couches and chairs. The air inside was sticky with the scent of sweat, sex, and contrasting perfumes, but no one seemed to care or even notice the overbearing menagerie. “Where people come…and then go.” Hawke chuckled at her innuendo. “Make yourself scarce,” she whispered as she approached the counter to Distract Madam Lusine who, judging by the look of recognition in her eye, was torn between the knowledge of Hawke’s rise to nobility (and the coin she undoubtedly had,) and sour thoughts of their last meeting. “Ah, Serah Hawke.” Lusine greeted, brushing her graying curls behind her back. “Lovely to see you again.” While her back was turned, Isabela leaped behind the counter with little more than a low thud to mark her presence and slid the hefty book into her arms. The dark skin of her thighs flushed red against the cold, grainy stone as she sat and skimmed the book for names, dates, payments and appointments. “Have you come to buy, or are you merely wasting time?” She could hear the conversation going south ( as Hawke’s charms could only take her so far.) Quickly, Isabela flipped the next two pages and finally the found the man listed in the letter. He’d been seeing a woman called ‘Sunny’–and quite frequently, it seemed. Isabela slid the book back in its place and popped to Hawke’s side in an instant, slipping her arm around her friend with a wink. “We’re here to see Sunny,” Isabela purred, the woman’s name rolling off her tongue like a wave on the open sea. “Oh. Mistress Isabela. I wasn’t aware the two of you were…together.” Lusine threw the pair a sideways glance. “Either way, Sunny isn’t here–haven’t seen the girl in days.” “And you wouldnt happen to know where she is, would you?” Hawke asked. “I don’t make a habit of telling a client’s my worker’s personal lives, for obvious reasons. So if you need to see Sunny, I suggest you come back another day.” She spoke with the hard conviction of a woman determined to take the final word. “Now I do have other customers, so will that be all?” “That’ll be all.” Isabela nodded, cutting in before Hawke could speak and pulled her toward the exit. “I can make her talk,” Hawke affirmed, glaring back at Lusine with narrowed eyes. “Everyone has a price.” “I know you can, Sweetness, but I like this place. We’ll find Sunny…somehow.” She knew for a fact that Lusine didn’t respond well to bribery, and Hawke’s insistence would only get her banned. But as the two approached the door to leave, a young woman called out. “Wait!” She was tall, carved like the figurehead of a merchant ship, and smelt like a field of Lavender. “Hello,” Isabela greeted, her voice low and sultry. “I heard you asking about Sunny. Do you know her?” “We’re investigating something,” Hawke began, “–for the guard.” “You don’t look like guardsmen.” “That’s because we’re not. We do the real work.” Isabela boasted, turning toward Hawke who returned the look with a simple nod. “Really?” She seemed impressed, “But you do work for the guard? I’ve seen you with the Captain before.” “She’s the reason we’re here.” Hawke didn’t lie, or at least not usually, but she did have a habit of stretching the truth to suit her fancies. Despite that, the Lavender Woman’s face brightened. “Good.” “So what’s this about Sunny? Do you know her?” “She’s my friend.” The Lavender Woman began, “I’ve been worried about her. Ever since she learned one of her clients was…murdered.” She whispered the word like a dirty phrase in the middle of the night. “The…Templar?” Hawke shifted her weight to the side. “That’s the one. She hasn’t been the same.” “Why?” Isabela cut in, “He’s just a client–or did she know him well?” “I don’t know about that–but…someone else came around asking questions about him. Someone they call ‘Dirty Fingers,’ and she gave him his name and then a few weeks later…he was dead. I told her not to blame herself, but she thinks it’s her fault.” “They call him ‘Dirty Fingers?’” Isabela stifled a tittering laugh. “And this man this…um, ’Dirty Fingers,’ do you know who he is? Where he might be?” “…If I tell you, will you try to find something that proves Sunny is innocent?” The Lavender Woman spoke quietly, taking a step forward as though to solidify their deal. “I’m sure we can make that arrangement.” “I hear he operates out of Lowtown, in the big foundry at night. Sunny’s client was found nearby.” And that’s where they found the other one too. They were on the right track.

Isabela took off to visit Fenris but agreed to meet Hawke in Lowtown that night, and when she did, she was greeted by a familiar sight. “Do you really need all that?” She asked, taking in the sight of Hawke in her shiny metal armor–just like old times. When they met, Hawke’s hair had been shorter, and straighter in a way that suggested the pulling of curls but little else about her changed; Isabela thought she’d be too busy, too wealthy, too different to get her hands dirty or join the thick of a fight. But despite her social standing, Hawke remained the same. “Only if Dirty Fingers wants to fight.” She spoke with easy amusement, carefree as though this was little more than a game and lead the way to the dock, her eyes trained forward, focused on her their target. The silhouette of the Lowtown Foundry stood high above the other buildings, it’s burnt, pungent, nauseating smell striking all who dared to wander nearby. No one but the desperate or workers ‘too good’ for the mines were bold enough to venture there. And if the smell wasn’t enough to deter curiosity, the rats surely were: large, feral creatures with sharp curling claws and yellow teeth–the worst kind, in Isabela’s seafaring opinion. She sighed and tilted her head back to gaze at the high stone tower of what used to be a mighty fortress in the Tevinter days. “So this is where your ‘secret admirer’ lives?” She squinted. “No worse than Darktown I suppose. At least there’s a view of the sky.” The wind picked up, hoisting the waves and lavishing her cheeks with salt spray. She should have grabbed a warmer tunic. The Foundry was mostly empty and surprisingly clean. Four cheaply dressed henchmen staggered around inside, laughing and drinking. It wasn’t until Hawke cleared her throat that they noticed them and hastily scrambled to take arms but Isabela was prepared. Her daggers found her palms as easy as the bones in her fingers and she passed through the world like a ghost, the presence of her blades more felt than seen as she sunk back into the shadows and struck the Henchman down. Hawke had a more direct approach when dealing with hostile enemies–hack, slash, shield bash–but both proved to be sufficient. The henchmen fell to the ground, grunting and groaning in what could easily pass as an old Orlesian symphony. “Well, that was lovely.” Hawke flung the blood from her blade as she stepped around a writhing body. “I didn’t expect there to be guards. Where do you think they get these guys?” “I haven’t a clue.” They followed a path that twisted between four large vats, leading to a propped open door. The room was small and smelt like rum and unwashed bodies. Four henchmen, each less sober than the last, fell over themselves to defend their station but to no avail. Isabela merely shut the door in front of them. “Kill the intruders!” Someone yelled from the stairwell and more henchman appeared, some stumbling but other coherent as they fought. Victory came easy but Isabela was injured in the fight, grazed by a dagger on her arm and across the leg–but the other guy had it worse. Still, she hissed at the hot sting of pain and scowled at the blood flowing like streams across her skin. That wouldn’t look pretty in the morning. “Catch,” Hawke tossed her a potion to drink, the last one in her pouch. “Save it. It’s just a few scratches–nothing a trip to Darktown can’t fix.” If she even needed that. She’d been in far worse duels with far fewer resources in the past, she’d survive. “I’m wearing armor,” Hawke gestured at herself and the heavy metal plates that covered her tall frame. “And you know there are more of them up there…somewhere.” She almost sighed at the thought of more drunken henchmen hiding in the dark but headed toward the stairs regardless, calling back to Isabela to follow or risk being left behind. Still, she hesitated. Gazing up at Hawke before looking at the potion she tossed her way. She sighed, exhaling a warm, tired breath that showed her exhaustion. She took a quick sip of the potion and dried her mouth against her glove before following, the pain from her injuries began to numb so she’d save the rest for something important. A few more henchman straggled behind and others pretended to be dead. Isabela picked the lock of the room they should have been guarding and a man stood in the center to greet them. He jumped but managed to steel himself quickly, even as Hawke lined the tip of her sword to his neck. “You might want to consider hiring new help. That whole ‘kill the intruders’ thing didn’t exactly work out. I mean…we’re here,” she said in a sweet sounding voice, though the danger behind her lighthearted words was clear. “You’re ‘Dirty Fingers,’ I presume?” He didn’t look like a hardened criminal, though the best never did; he was paler than he should be, shaking, and his arms were just a bit too long for his body. “You seem unwell.” “What do you want?” He hissed. “We aren’t here for the ambiance if that’s what you think.” She let out a humorless laugh. “We’re only here for Information. That’s what you do right? You trade in information?”

“I do many things–none of them for free.” “Clever man.” Isabela could appreciate that business model though Hawke didn’t seem to agree. “I’m not paying you.” She said starkly. “Then I’m not talking!” “Oh, I think you’ll want to make an exception for us.” “And why is that?” “Because you seem like a smart man, and smart men usually understand what it means when someone holds a sword to their throat–or maybe I misjudged you,” Hawke spoke to him in the tone of a disappointed mother. “It wouldn’t be the first time I made a mistake; sometimes I need to take off an ear, or a few fingers before they really get the message.” Isabela didn’t need to look to see the deceitful smile spread across Hawke’s face to know what she wanted to do. “You threatening me? You don’t got it in y-” He was caught off guard by an unexpected stabbing. Blood dribbled out from the front of his shirt in a perfectly cut line. Hawke’s actions were smooth and precise, like dealing hands in a card game or–considering Hawke was a somewhat clumsy dealer–carving a Wintersend Turkey.

Dirty Fingers heaved and yelled and shouted, failing to bite back the pain. “Well, what do you know? It looks like I did have it in me! Though I’m more interested in seeing what you’ve got inside you.” Dirty Fingers looked up at Hawke as though he was seeing her for the first time. “Do you want to find out too?” “There’s something not right with you.” He accused, his voice rough and angry as he crouched down to his knees. “And you’re a rude, pathetic man determined to die for a secret that isn’t really his to keep–but keep talking, I’m sure insulting me is the way to get out of this.” “To the void with you!” “Well that wasn’t nice,” Isabela put in, and Hawke agreed. “Would you mind guarding the door while I talk to our friend? I’d hate to be interrupted.” “You get to have all the fun.” She crossed her arms but ultimately agreed, turning around to guard the door in case the henchmen sobered up or stopped playing dead. “Don’t worry, It’ll only take a moment.” Isabela shook her head, looking up in amusement at Hawke’s antics. That poor man. She heard him yelling, but preferred not to get in the way of Hawke’s interrogation. It wasn’t until his blood ran down the cracks in the stone flooring that Hawke called her back inside. “He said he’ll talk to us!” When she returned, DirtyFingers was laying on the ground on his side, reaching out his hand in a plead for mercy. Isabela couldn’t see his face, but she knew she didn’t want to. “He really isn’t well, but ‘Dirty Fingers’ finally has something to say. Isn’t that right?” “What do you want to know?” His words were a groan that slurred together, but it was easy to infer what it was he was saying. “You received information from a girl named ‘Sunny.’ A name. What did you do with it?” “Sold it.” “To?” A long silence drew between them, and Hawke glared down at the man bleeding out on the floor before aiming her sword and yelling. “To who!?” “Don’t know” Dirty Fingers confessed, heaving heavily as he breathed. “I don’t like being trifled with.” Her voice lowered, darkening as she spoke. “I thought you’d learned that by now– You sent someone to my home and I don’t like that. So if you don’t tell me who, I’ll make it so you’ll never speak again–Do you understand me?” Isabela’s eye’s widened in surprise at her tone, one she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard her take.

Something in the room had shifted, a subtle feeling Isabela learned while sailing the stormy seas: Fear, despair, and the abandonment of hope–the dreaded realization her crew, or in this case Dirty Fingers, felt when they knew they wouldn’t survive until morning. “Don’t know his name! But I know his face.” “What does he look like?” “He was tall, good-looking, reclusive…he had, uh, the look of a mage. Ferelden …I’d guess.” “ ‘The look of a mage?’ ” “The robes.” She seemed conflicted, as though she needed a moment to think. A tall, handsome, reclusive mage–she let the thought marinate. “….what color was his hair?” “What?” “His hair!” She grabbed him by the back of his shirt and flipped him to his back, exposing every bruise and cut for Isabela to see. “I won’t ask you again.” He bit his lip, tears ran down his narrow face and he might have even wet himself so the words came out rough and shaky. “It was dark! Black as night. Eye’s too! He had a mark, like a, like a birthmark on his cheek!” Hawke took a moment to breathe, shutting her eyes and exhaling as she stood upright. “And what did he need it for? What’s his plan?” “Don’t know. Don’t ask. Please.” He sputtered. Hawke glared at him once more. “I really don’t think he knows.” Isabela folded her arms. Hawke had beaten every last piece of information from him and more. Dirty Fingers had no reason to lie. Hawke looked at Isabela, then back to the man laying on the ground and seemed to resign to something. ‘Alright,’ she thought she heard Hawke whisper as she looked down at her sword. “…well,” she wiped the long blade clean with a handkerchief she kept in her potions pouch and dropped it on his face. “It was a pleasure doing business, Dirty Fingers. Let’s not cross paths again.” If he were lucky, he’d pick up whatever pride he had, drag himself to the docks and make his way to a city far from Kirkwall to make a living serving drinks at a tavern if he didn’t bleed out his injuries before the end of the night–but Isabela doubted he’d be lucky. Dirty Fingers was a loose end, and Hawke liked those tied.

Outside was cold and dark, the stench of the Foundry still permeated through the air but the scent of the salt in the sea felt fresh and clean near the harbor. “So…where are we going now? How do we find our Elusive Mage?” “…Anders told me he’s been working with- well, that he knows a lot of mages here. It’s a stretch, but maybe he knows our mystery man.” She spoke in a low, pensive tone, her luminous brown skin glowing in the silver moonlight. Whatever happened to her back there, she seemed to be calm and over it already. “Hawke?” She should say something. What would Aveline say? Something… something… responsibility? “Hmm?” “I…nevermind. And then what?” “We find out what business he has with me.” And tie up those loose ends. As they walked, a man staggered toward them. Large, stauch and seemingly down on his luck, he turned into an alley and stayed there, his presence ignored by those around him. “Right. So, to Darktown then?” “To Darktown.”

#filia hawke #filia art #isabela #dragon age 2 #things i write #this ended up much longer than i thought #but i had so much fun editing #next time anders joins the fun #long post #long post for ts

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chronosmith-blog · 7 years

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The Wheel of Havoc Pt. 2

((Part 1 | Part 3))

5th Chord, 14th Cycle The ruins of Chorus tell us an unusual and fascinating tale. There are absolutely no Cybertronian remains here—the cataclysm that claimed the city happened long after it had been abandoned. We’ve made a rough map of what portion of the city remains underground, and it’s certain that more of the city’s outskirts remain buried above us, in the silt. We’ve also carefully tracked the areas of intense destruction and corroborated these with the surrounding signs of long-term erosion, but there are some intriguing inconsistencies that suggests it was the work of a will, rather than nature, that is responsible for some of the devastation.

We have thus far located the temple of Coda and the central shrine of Tempo. They are sadly destroyed, and I have been able to glean precious little information out of what remains of the inscriptions on the shattered walls and the mournful remains of the once-fantastical mosaics. Our theo-archaeologist has, with cautious optimism, suggested that some records may yet remain in catacombs underneath the temples, but I find the prospect highly doubtful. This is because the temples seem to have been deliberately razed. They were not worn away by years of flooding, or fractured in the collapse. More than any other part of Chorus, these holy sites have been systematically destroyed, and all evidence indicates that this destruction happened long, long ago, possibly when the city was still inhabited.

No records exist of either side of the war effort targeting the city of Chorus; nor do any religious records exist naming the muses that lived here as enemies of any god or their followers. It is entirely possible that grave-robbers and treasure-hunters were responsible for these events after the city had been abandoned, but it is still a curious discovery.

7th Chord, 14th Cycle We have unearthed the central shrine of Harmos today. What a magnificent building this must have been! Surely the grandest of all the structures built to honor the muses, it occupied a place in the city’s heart. We believe that we can extrapolate the remaining temples based on the locations of the ones we’ve uncovered and their relative position to the central shrine of Harmos. Frustratingly, though this temple is in better condition than the previous two we’ve found, there is precious little information to be gleaned from it; the inscriptions have been deliberately chiseled from the walls, and any statues or reliquaries that might have been here have either been taken or are broken beyond recognition.

8th Chord, 14th Cycle We discovered the temple of Lyrica today. It was utterly destroyed. 11th Chord, 14th Cycle I have found myself, despite the monumental nature of this discovery and the knowledge of what it will do for my career, growing increasingly more melancholy. I can tell that Reclaimer shares my mood. Though we are mecha dedicated to knowledge, we still honor and revere our gods; they are as real to us as the ruins upon which we stand, as the scientific methods through which we discern details about these long-ago times and places.

Perhaps it is standing in the sad remains of what was once a place of art and beauty. Perhaps it is knowing we walk on the graves of gods. Either way, my spark has grown heavy these past few days, and I do not know how to ease its burden.

13th Chord, 14th Cycle I have noticed something strange. Those of us at the site—the students, we instructors, and the laborers working for us—have come to a consensus without ever having spoken a word to one another. At the shattered shrines, members of the expedition have been leaving small trinkets, and more than once I have seen people making the triangular holy symbol with their fingers at the doorstep of each of these cruelly demolished buildings. At dinner tonight, once he had finished taking his sustenance, our theo-archaeologist filled the small basin that served as his dinner-plate, poured a minute quantity of oil into it, and lit it. A small, but serviceable flame burned in the basin for hours, the closest approximation we could come to a sacred candle. It is obvious to me that all of my colleagues must feel, to some degree, this lingering miasma of woefulness, and we have all decided, discretely and silently, that even dead gods are worthy of our respect.

14th Chord, 14th Cycle Today we have uncovered the shrine of the last remaining muse, Metron. It, too, has been regrettably destroyed—the walls broken, the altar shattered. No etchings or records remain. The only sign we have left of this dead muse is a sole remaining bas-relief above where the altar used to be, carved in the shape of one of Metros’ favored holy symbols: the toothed wheel, a gear. Moved by the sight, so especially forlorn and out of place amidst such ruination and despair, I left the only offering on my person I felt suitable: my broken pocket-chronometer, placed on the temple floor where Metron’s altar would have been.

15th Chord, 14th Cycle I have had a most vivid and frightful dream. I have just woken up, and I feel compelled to commit these visions to paper, not for fear that I will forget them, but for fear that if I do not, they will somehow fester in my processor, like a spot of rust. I only remember a dreadful roaring darkness, and somewhere in the tumult a voice, asking over and over, “What has become of my city?” I could not muster any strength of will to answer. The call was plaintive, and even now the memory of it wrenches at my spark. I feel that the ancient grief of this place has seeped into my very subconscious. Tomorrow we are going to shift our focus to excavating more of the dwellings in the city, to see what information we can learn about the people who once lived here. Perhaps spending time away from the forsaken temples of these dead gods will give me peace of mind.

16th Chord, 14th Cycle It is dawn, and I am weary. The same dream came to me again tonight, only now the voice has become angry, filling me with fear. So great was my agitation that I found myself unable to sleep after having been jarred awake, and I have spent the past few hours vainly chasing rest. I can only hope that these visions fade as I focus on more practical work. The pall that had once hovered over the sparks of my companions seems to be lifting, and I will do my best to draw from their cheer to bolster mine.

17th Chord, 14th Cycle The same dream, tonight.

18th Chord, 14th Cycle I spoke to it, and it spoke to me. As I write this, I am frightened. Tonight I had the same dream, only instead of clawing my way into consciousness, I answered the voice. I recognized that I was in the dream the moment it began, as I have since the second night, and perhaps out of a desire to drive the vision from my head, I raised my voice, and I received an answer in return.

“What has become of my city?”

“It is destroyed. Chorus is no more.”

There was no verbal response, only a wave of anger and despair. The possessive way in which the being spoke led me to wonder of its identity, and, given some amount of courage by the knowledge that I was standing in the realm of my own dreaming mind, I spoke again. “Did you build this city? Are you the memory of the muses who lived here?” No response. “Are you their leader?”

The reply was swift and vehement, “There is no leader here.”

“Who are you?”

Only silence, after which, I awoke. It was morning, and time to work.

20th Chord, 14th Cycle I cannot account for the purpose behind the disturbing fancy that has taken root in my mind. My dreams have become ever more vivid, and now possess a sense of continuity. For the past two nights, I have dreamed again of this voice, and carried on a conversation with it. The first of these two evenings was by far the most frightful, because it was the first time I felt the full brunt of this unnamed entity’s anger. As I slipped into the familiar dark space in my dream, I once again heard the voice. “Why are you here? Why are all of you here?”

“We are mecha of learning, and we have come to study this city. Until recently, many did not even believe the city of Chorus existed. We are here to make record of it, so that it is never again forgotten.” The voice remained silent, but I felt a sense of satisfaction from it—satisfaction tinged with something else, a sort of resignation. The exact feeling is difficult to define: it was rather like a sort of sorrowful acceptance of something inevitable, but deep and much too complex for mere words to record. I let it pass over me, and, desiring to clear it from the air, I asked the question that had slowly been forming in my mind, “Are you Harmos?”

“Harmos. Harmos.” With each repetition, a new emotion flooded into the void. First realization, followed by shock. “Harmos! HARMOS!” And then, quite unexpectedly, I was struck with a wave of anger so deep, so dreadful, that I could feel my mind clawing away the last vestiges of unconsciousness, preferring the shelter of simple mortal weariness rather than braving another instant washed in this dreadful rage. I awoke, and remained awake for the rest of the night.

The following evening I dreaded sleep, and tried to stave off slumber for as long as I could, but weariness ultimately overtook me. Perhaps some signal from my body, which was beginning, after so many nights of incomplete rest, to show signs of exhaustion, had some role in shaping the events of my dream, for this time, when I entered the roaring darkness, the voice was distant, subdued, as if it had withdrawn. It spoke three simple statements to me: “Harmos betrayed us; he killed them all. Retrieve your offering tomorrow.” And then my mind tumbled into mercifully dreamless sleep. I have only made one offering in all my time here in Chorus. I think, for my own peace of mind, I will do as the voice said. Perhaps in the completion of the act my mind will absorb some sense of finality and close this frightful dream-narrative once and for all.

(entered further down the page) The watch I left in the shrine of Metron is working again. I cannot account for it. I opened it to examine it and nearly half of its delicate innards poured out into my hands, but when I closed it again and gazed upon the face, it was still working. I don’t know how this could happen, but I am afraid.

21st Chord, 14th Cycle I did not dream last night.

#godformers2k17 #standalone #wheelofhavoc

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salmenzo · 3 years

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Weekly Update - Monday, December 21, 2020

Commitment - Conviction - Consideration

“You cannot do a kindness too soon because

you never know how soon it will be too late.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good Morning,

I know this week will be a hectic one for many. Even though the holidays will look much different for most of us, there still seems to be a lot to do. I find myself just as busy but preparing in different ways. With that said, please remember to take care of yourselves.

Special Notes of Gratitude

I wanted to spend a little time this morning highlighting the many unsung heroes of our district. We have over 1000 staff who have come together this year in such uncertain times to try to maintain safety and learning for our students. Recently, families have highlighted the hard work of many of our teachers and paraeducators. I would like to recognize a few other groups that have made our year possible through their efforts and commitment.

Food Services

The food services staff has worked throughout the pandemic since last March and over the summer. They have been there supporting families in need with breakfast and lunch. Their efforts have made a significant difference in many of our students’ lives. Families have commented to me that without the availability of these meals, they would not have been able to provide healthy options for their children to eat.

Maintenance

Like food services, the maintenance crew continues to do what it always has - work hard and tirelessly for our schools. This team is the quiet engine that propels us forward in COVID, snow, microbursts, or whatever else comes our way. Never seeking recognition or special treatment, the maintenance staff sees the task, completes the task, and moves on to the next task without questions, but rather with a “can do” attitude. I do not know where we would have been this summer and through this year without the efforts of this team.

Clerical Staff

Again, like the food services and maintenance, most of the clerical team has worked throughout the pandemic assisting in organizing the behind the scenes work that needed to be completed to open schools. From our district courier and copy center staff to building and district clerical, everyone has played a part. Being the backbone support for building and central office administration, the clerical support at all levels allowed us to successfully maneuver many challenges we faced last spring and this year. From communicating with the public and staff to maintaining records for the State, the clerical team continues to be committed to providing the support needed each day.

IT Services

Again, another team that has not stopped working since last spring, IT services has taken on one of the largest transformations in technology our district has ever seen. Going from distributing high school Chromebooks one year to providing technology for over 5000 students the next was a monumental task. In addition, then providing technology for all clerical and paraeducators while maintaining that of everyone else who already had equipment, I am in awe of the accomplishments this group has achieved. In addition to hardware, we all know of the many software additions and support that was associated with each. Incredible dedication, commitment, and passion for their work made these challenges successes.

Part-Time Staff

We have hired so many additional part-time staff to be part of our team to reopen our schools this year. These individuals have served in so many roles. From lunch and recess aides to building aides and custodial support, we have been so fortunate to find highly dedicated individuals that fell perfectly into our system to support buildings. The building substitutes have also definitely played a significant role in maintaining classes for students. Again, another group of individuals who continue to support our district with a quiet confidence that cannot be overlooked.

Paraeducators

As I mentioned earlier, some parents have acknowledged some paraeducators when highlighting teachers. I just want to extend my appreciation to all paraeducators who continue to offer tremendous support to our students and staff. Your presence and effort goes a long way in providing friendly, safe, and productive classrooms for learning.

Administrators

Administrators at all levels in all roles have taken on, like everyone else, so many things that have never been taught in an 092 class. Working tirelessly throughout the spring, summer, and fall to create, modify, revise, and implement plans, this team continues to be on call daily to address the social, emotional, and educational needs of students, families, and staff. In a true spirit of teamwork, they have also helped each other by offering support at the elementary level. They are a great group who care and understand the definition of leadership not only in principle, but more importantly in practice.

Nurses

I intentionally left this group for last. The school nurses have taken on a monumental role in the COVID-19 prevention and response efforts in our district. From educating staff on the appropriate PPE and mitigating strategies to contact tracing and case monitoring, these staff members work around the clock to support administration and the entire school community. I could not be more proud to be part of the team as we identify cases and work each one together to ensure we are doing what is best for all impacted. The team takes its technical and personal lead from our incredible Nurse Coordinator, Kathy Neelon. A day does not go by, be it during the work week or weekend, that Kathy and I are not talking about, texting, or emailing about cases and how to do what is best in each circumstance. Her leadership with her amazing group of nurses has made our comprehensive approach to addressing COVID seamless and successful.

Lastly, even though they are not formally employees of our district, I would like our bus drivers, van drivers, and aides that transport our students each day. Again, their roles changed significantly throughout this time. The need for accurate record keeping and awareness of safety protocols was taken to a higher level than ever before. Their collaboration and hard work has been integral in identifying potential close contacts throughout the year.

In the end with our teachers who we continue to highlight each week in the next section of the update, everyone has come together to do their best to support students, families, and each other. I hope this review of all of the component personal parts of our organization demonstrates that there are a lot of important human influences to every decision that is made in our district. I, too, can get caught up in how this act or decision impacts me without stepping back and acknowledging the many other factors that action or decision may need to incorporate. Each of the groups and associated individuals must be considered in all the decisions we make as a district. I know that sometimes those decisions may not be what some may want or think they would have done if provided the opportunity, but trust that all decisions are made with great consideration and thought to provide the best possible outcome. With that as the focus all the time, we will persevere and make our way through these final days of 2020 and enter into the hope and promise of 2021.

Commitment - Conviction - Consideration

As I have done the last couple of weeks, I wanted to continue to provide the words of families celebrating our teaching staff for their hard work and commitment to our students. While I know that not every family could provide an email, I am confident that our staff in all classrooms are deserving of the praise that is shared today. Thank you again for all of your efforts.

I would like to mention 2 staff members who have gone above and beyond for my son during distant learning. First off... Mr Herpok .... my son was having great difficulty understanding an assignment. It was Columbus day and he was off. He was taking care of his own child who was not feeling well. He did a google meet with my son to make sure he fully understood the assignment. This to me was a selfless act and showed how truly dedicated he is to his job and students. Second is Mrs Stuart. I’m sure I drive her crazy with my emails of the assistance my son requires.... but she always answers me... no matter what time of day or if its a weekend or not. My son can rely on her to help explain things to him in a way he can understand so he can be successful with distant learning. Her tireless effort to help guide him through all this shows her dedication to her field and the exemplary work she puts forth to make sure my son succeeds. I am truly grateful for staff like these two... their passion for their work truly shows in the support and responses they give to my son. Thank you for all you do Mrs Stuart and Mr Herpok.

I wanted to recognize my daughter’s teacher Beth Thorpe. From day 1 of in school learning she has gone above and beyond to make school exciting and engaging for her class. She has run with the challenges that Covid has thrown her way this year and my daughter is loving being in her class. From “making” an outdoor classroom (complete with lawn chairs and blankets that we sent in), to engaging them during reading time by turning off the lights and having them use clip lights on their dividers, to allowing them to decorate their dividers she has truly embraced that although this year is different it can still be fun!!! She’s fully engaged and despite the challenges we’re all facing she’s made it enjoyable (and safe) for our kiddos to learn and grow!! Kudos to her!!!

Both my children have experienced a classroom quarantine and their teachers made the transition easy and fun. Both times, the move to quarantine was unexpected.

My daughter's 5th grade teacher Ms. Innamo openly admitted to struggling with technology but made it appear easy. She hosted multiple Google class lessons which truly helped my daughter continue during this time. The work was continuous of their in person learning and they easily transitioned between in person and virtual.

My son's prek-4 teacher Mrs. Macunas made their time together fun and educational. She had fun activities, interactive Google meets as well as scavenger hunts associated with the letter, color and shapes the were discussing. I can not imagine how hard it was to keep 4 year olds engaged during virtual learning but she did.

Sheehan High School art teacher Gretchen Buys has gone out of her way especially these past few weeks for my daughter. Gathering my child’s paintings and making sure she gave her some extra supplies to work on her portfolio put a smile on our faces. Thank you!

I meant to send this earlier; I hope I’m not too late. I wanted to recognize Amy Rogers (Sheehan) for taking the time to purchase and deliver a gift card to my senior daughter, who described the activity as follows: “We had groups for a couple months with ongoing points and we did games and trivia and everything we did in the class went towards our points.” This was a fun and creative way to engage the students.

Also, I want to commend Lisa Miller and Steven Goodrich for taking the time to personally deliver art supplies to both my senior and freshman. We really appreciate this.

Unfortunately, I’m noticing that my girls (and others it seems) are more reluctant to actively participate in virtual classes. [My daughter] was very vocal during in person classes, but finds it harder and more awkward virtually. It’s also easier for them to “zone out” or get distracted.

I’m hopefully optimistic that the high schools will reopen as soon as possible. Thank you again for all you do.

Make it a great week!

Sal

Dr. Salvatore F. Menzo

Superintendent

Email - [email protected]

Twitter - @SalMenzo

Wallingford Public School District

Wallingford Public School System Mission

To inspire through innovative and engaging experiences that lead all learners to pursue and discover their personal best.

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