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hexalene · 3 years

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What's your wildest cruise ship story?

Oh shit I meant to post this sooner whoops

I have less “ONE BIG THING” stories and more of like, a series of surreal Events that happened to me over the course of the years and years I went on cruises (my family could go on cruises for free, so we abused the shit out of that for reunions and vacations for a long time)

So here’s a few of those, and I SWEAR TO GOD they’re real, and I might have photos buried somewhere to prove some of them, but idk, that’s like effort.

-I loved wandering around ships super super early in the morning. Like, crack of dawn early. I’d usually go hang out on one of the open floor restaurant areas around the middle of the ship, which had built in window seats you could curl up in. Pillows n shit too. Super comfy. I’d draw and listen to music, ect. One morning, I looked up and saw the Black fucking Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean sailing by. Did not believe my eyes. It and four other ships, two of which were for non-pirate movies, were being sailed into a bay on the island we were headed to. I did manage to get a distant shot of it when I got on land.

-In 2006 (date relevant) I met two men in two different families, who were not related and had never met, named Tony Stark. As this was before the movie came out, I was left tragically alone with no one to be awed at this strange coincidence with me. One of them was even a dark haired man with a nice goatee.

(The other was a cute chubby grandpa type)

-Given the opportunity to demonstrate how corporations rig the system against the consumer, my father brought me down to the casino level and sat down across from a very fancy claw machine that dispensed iPads and other expensive tech prizes. He told me, “some people will win, and I’ll tell you when they will.”

I was like “okay dad sure” but we sat there for HOURS, and dad would say “okay, this guy will win if he goes for this prize” or “this guy will lose” and finally, “that woman will win an iPad.” Of course, most were losers, but he was DEAD ON every time someone would win. After a while he explained that the machine would only dispense prizes after collecting the money to pay for two more of whatever was won. He’d just sat there and done the math on the people playing the game and when it added up, he’d wait to see what they went for and let me know if they won. It had absolutely nothing to do with skill.

To make his point, he waited, counting out loud the money being put in, before standing up and slapping the button randomly on one of the lower rank prizes. He won an otter box phone case and told me that no one will ever give you the chance to win out at a loss to themselves, so don’t make a bet unless you’ve rigged the game to win. I was 14.

-uhhh what else

-The dance troupe arranged to do shows suffered a tragic undisclosed accident, so the short term bullshit to entertain people in the theatre was an honest to god passenger led talent show. Surreal on its own, but one of the passengers was a contortionist, and ran off to get their suitcase.

Now, they did a lot of fun bendy stuff, very weird, very cool, but they asked for volunteers at one point. I, my sister, our cousin, and two other kids were asked to come on stage. I was the oldest, maybe 12/13ish, my sister and cousin were 9, and the other two kids were between 6-9.

This MADMAN, without straining any of us to bend in any weird or uncomfortable way, managed to fit all five of us into his empty suitcase. I was in the damn thing and I have no idea how he managed it. He then zipped us all up inside and walked around the stage a bit. And it was fine, like not uncomfortable or hard to breath or anything!

I remember getting out of the suitcase clearest of all. We’d all been fit inside so snugly, in this order:

Me, stranger kid 1, cousin, sister, and stranger kid 2. To get us out, he lay the case flat and lifted my sister up. Somehow this like??? Was like those monkey in a barrel toys, we all just neatly unfolded with her, no tripping or falling or anything. That feeling, where one moment I’m staring at my cousins’ feet and some other kid’s elbow, and then I see the dude lift my sister and then all of us just RISE WITH IT and unfold like a flower blooming I have no idea if this makes any sense at all but it felt magical.

- Something bad happened back home, but we didn’t know what. My dad had a business meeting but mom wanted to see the beach. We got off the ship, and like, HARDCORE struggled to find a way to get to a beach, any beach. We were in....Mexico, somewhere in the neighborhood of Chichén Itzá, maybe an island nearby I think? There were some massive ruins somewhere, I remember that much.

While mom hunted down a beach, my siblings and I sat under a giant box fan, near a TV. Something was happening, the employees were changing the channel, trying to find the clearest signal to the American news. I remember looking over at the grainy footage being interrupted by commercials and other signals and piecing together through the static and the employee trying to translate that back home, the 2008 financial crash was happening and that mom’s insistence that we find a beach and have fun was because that business meeting dad had stayed behind to deal with was him trying to make sure we’d still have a house to live in when we got back to the states, and she didn’t know if this would be the last truly carefree time we had before we went home to face the music.

-However, mom’s eternal struggles to find a beach didn’t begin in 2008. The previous trip we’d taken had another Beach Adventure.

That time, it was also just mom and the siblings. I don’t remember why dad was staying behind, maybe a poker tournament or something?

We disembarked and the struggle began. Nothing was in English, other than the scant few signs the cruise ship put out to guide passengers off the docks. However, THIS was not a problem, as I was about as fluent in Spanish as a third grader restricted to the present tense, and this worked well enough to get us around.

There was a massive bus to a beach, just PACKED to the gills with Americans. As we waited in line, a nondescript man came up to us, and said, “that bus will go to a very crowded beach with many other passengers of other ships. I know a better beach, and cheap! I’ll charge only half of what that bus will charge you and my beach is much much nicer!”

You might be thinking that common sense would tell us not to get in a random unmarked car with an un-uniformed man offering an amazing half off deal to a perfect isolated beach in broken English on a largely rural island, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong.

My mother is a sweet devout catholic lady with a hidden core of raw chaos. Her idea of a nice day out in the snow with her tiny children was to strap us in the back, drive to the massive Schnuck’s parking lot, gun it up to 90mph, and hydroplane/drift like a fucking drag racer across the ice, laughing. Common sense does not exist in any normal capacity in this woman.

We spent an incredibly tense, silent, 45 minutes driving into the wilderness packed into a tiny car with no AC, sweating with heat and nerves as he drove us out in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly the driver pulls over. There is literally nothing but trees and cliffs for miles and miles. Mom is clutching my hand, my baby brother, and her knitting needles. The driver runs quickly to the center of the road, leans over, and picks up a huge tortoise that had frozen up when his car approached. He carried it over to the grass, and pat it goodbye.

Before he comes back Mom turns and looks at me and says, “a serial killer probably wouldn’t save a turtle, I think we’ll be okay.”

#uhhhh I have others I guess #I got lost in a partially submerged cave/river system thing and thought I was about to be That White Person in a horror movie #I had a stalker who would wait until I was alone and then try to tell me I was breaking rules or some shit #not sure what his motive was but his wife would help with the stalking #there was another teenager who was convinced we had been best friends in elementary school but I had never lived in Texas #the gift shops could be funny #the kid/teen dance clubs were HILARIOUSLY dated #idk if I ponder this for a while more will come to mind lmao #my favorite thing was the storms when the ships would tilt at wild angles #my dad and I have stomachs of steel apparently so we’d go camp out on the main decks and act as purposefully casual as possible #people would be flailing all over the place and we’d just keep our balance and coffee mugs tilted with the waves #comedy gold #asks!#long post

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i-simp-for-gintoki · 3 years

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Visiting Yuji in Tokyo

“yuji x reader where she was childhood friends with yuji and its basically the friends to lover sort of thing? and basically reader is visiting tokyo and meets up with yuji for the first time in months?? bonus if gojo and megumi are there :)”-anon

Damn its either super short or long no inbetween huh? Sorry if this isn’t exactly what you wanted! Some of the characters are little ooc (when are they not when i write them-).This turned out much much longer than it needed to be

You and Yuji have known each other since kindergarten

He’s such a sweet kid its always really fun to hang out with him

You guys play lots of video games together and are basically inseparable

Constantly reading manga or watching anime its great

Your parents disapproved of you hanging out with a dude all the time but you could care less

Why should you only be friends with your own gender? Thats so stupid

You always wondered about why yuji had such great strength and speed but he says he was just born that way

Hes just built different

Around middle school his grandpa’s health had dropped and was moved to the hospital

You did your best to make sure yuji stayed in good spirits and often visited the older itadori with him

He’s not the best at wording things but hes always there for emotional support

Maybe it was around 7th grade you noticed something was different around yuji

Like he himself hasn’t changed but whenever you look at him your heart just melts

Your thoughts or compliments seem more filled with love for him and thats when you realized you started to fall for him

Thinking the crush would go away you didn’t act much on it

Oh what a fool you were

Around 8th grade yuji had started acting kinda weird around you

He’d be much more easy to fluster and tenses up for a second if you ever make contact

You confronted him about it and cue the very awkward and middle school like confession

“I really like you!

You were so happy you confessed back and said that the only reason you didn’t before was because you feared to ruin your friendship

He says even if he somehow didn’t like you back that something like that wouldn’t effect anything

From then on you guys are such a wholesome couple

All the cuddles

No fancy dates just casual arcade or movie sort of things

His grandpa gave him a hard time but approved of your relationship

Throughout 8th grade summer and the beginning of highschool everything was going great

But a few months into highschool lots of things happened

Yuji’s grandpa had passed away, he and his friends in the exorcist(?) club had gotten hurt and after that night he had weird markings on his cheeks right below his eyes

And to top it all off now he was supposedly moving to tokyo??

“Yuji why are you moving away? My parents would gladly take you in you know”

He tells you he can’t explain why which breaks your heart

“Who are you staying with then??” he stops for a second and it pains him to lie to you. “A distant relative of mine, he works at a private school and thats where i will be going from now on.”

“But what about us?”

And so you guys decided to do a long distance relationship

Every night when you can you call and chat for hours

But thats not enough

You want to be held or hold him, you want to just cuddle or atleast be in the same room

It pains you to have a relationship through a screen and you grow respect for those who do

Trust isn’t an issue since you know yuji wouldnt even think to cheat at all

Probably doesnt even know what the word means

But after a few months you decide to go to tokyo for a few days

With the help of your parents you rent a room in a hotel and head there

Were just gonna pretend your parents are super super chill(and slightly uncaring like my parents would never let me) and lets you go to a whole city by yourself for several nights

You were super nervous and excited

Its your first time visiting a huge city like tokyo and its gonna be the first time you see yuji in months

Itadori was super excited that you were in tokyo

So excited that he got lost trying to head to the hotel you were staying at

After an extra hour you guys finally meet

He walks through the hotel lobby doors and gives a smile and a wave

In an instant you tackle him in a hug which he GLADLY hugs back in

After just holding each other for a while he decides to show you around

Hes still clearly learning the area himself but he’s very excited to show what he does know

“The place over here makes amazing sushi! Oh! And over here they sell little action figures! Oh oh and over here the steak is kinda bad but its cheap so its worth it! And-” you could only smile as he pointed in random directions with one hand, the other was busy holding yours

Buying food from a bunch of random vendors and wearing silly getups you guys take loads of pictures

Tons of hugs and cheek kisses

Yes its frowned upon to be touchy and stuff in public in japan but honestly you guys could care less

The sun was setting and you guys were currently sitting at a park munchkin on some crepes when you turn to him

“Yuji, do you think i could visit who your staying with? I’d hate to impose but i just wanna know if your in good hands”

His chewing pauses

Its not like he didn’t want you tell about jujutsu

But he doesn’t want you to be apart of that world, he wants you to stay as safe as possible with no harm ever headed your ways

With him being a vessel for sukuna gojo had told him that he and his friends could potentially be targeted

Theres a reason sorceres put up cloaks when engaging in battles and its so normal civilians can continue living in peace without the knowledge these monstrosities actually exist

“Mm its a bit sudden and he’s out on a mis-er meeting right now so maybe tomorrow?” he says

You frown, you can tell he’s lying but he wouldn’t do it without a reason

“Fine. But Yuji. Just know that if you ever feel unsafe or want to come back your more than welcome too. There will always be a spot for you at my home” you say hugging him

You both kinda forgot you were holding crepes and when you pulled away from each other laughed as the ice cream and sauce was smeared all over your shirts/jackets

He walks you back to the hotel and says goodnight with a kiss

The next two days went by in a flash

Just spending time with itadori, even if it was just sitting in silence has been the most fun youve had in months

He had showed you many places and has boughten many small trinkets for you to remember

Your phone has grown about 300 photos just from the past couple days with him

It was about midday of your final day in tokyo and so you both wanted to make the best of it

You both where sitting inside a cafe exchanging stories and just chatting when suddenly two people walked in the cafe

One was very tall and had spiked up white hair and was wearing a blindfold, and the other had spiky/messy black hair

You didn’t think much of it at first but did question the blindfold

‘A fashion choice?’

Turning your attention back to yuji you gave him a soft smile as you listened to his ramblings about a manga

“I love you�� you said cutting him off

Immediately his face turned red and whatever he was just saying turned into stuttering nonsense

Before he could respond he let out a short yell when someone placed a hand on his shoulder

It was the two dudes who walked in from earlier

“So this is what you’ve been doing.” “Fushiguro! Gojo sensei!”

The shorter one who looks yuji’s age started talking about how it wasn’t good to turn his phone on mute and go out the whole day

The tall one gives you a wave

“Sorry to interrupt your date but we gotta take yuji away for a bit” he says grabbing yuji’s collar

“Wait who are you guys?” you ask and they pause to give short introductions

“Fushiguro Megumi.” “Gojo Satoru, nice to meet ya miss girlfriend” “How did you know??” Yuji says making gojo laugh

“Its pretty obvious, you didn’t do much of a job hiding it” he says pulling yuji a little bit more.

“O-Oh im L/n Y/n, nice to meet you” you say realizing you forgot to introduce yourself

As the three chatted along with each other, you sat in silence as you tried to remember where you heard gojo’s name from

‘Oh yeah, he’s the one who yuji described as his relative. Even if it was really fast since he tends to change subjects whenever i ask’

“Wait Gojo? White hair...blind fold..are you Yuji’s relative?” you ask making both of them pause

They both turn towards yuji who gave a sheepish smile

“Thats me, im his mothers little cousin” Gojo said, a very quick and random asspull

“So why does he call you Gojo-sensei instead of uncle…Satoru?” “Well if im his moms cousin that would make me his cousin once removed wouldn’t it? And he calls me sensei since im a teacher at a school he goes to”

“And what about you?” you ask the other boy

“A classmate.” he says in a very short and uninterested tone

“Welp lets go” Gojo says dragging yuji but he quickly resists

“Wait wait! Sensei can i please stay? Today is her last day here and i don’t know when i will be able to see her again”

The teacher and student stares at each other for a long time

You have literally no clue what the blindfolded man could but thinking its so hard to read him

Then again you just met him so

Gojo sighs and lets go of yuji

“Just this once, and only because im the greatest sensei you’ve ever had. Lets go megumi. See ya miss girlfriend” gojo says walking away with a wave

Megumi looks surprised but follows him “really?” “Yeah yeah its fine, its only a couple of grade 3’s anywa…” as their voices faded when they left the building you gave yuji a look

“Are you going to get in trouble?” “im probably going to die in training…” “huh?” “nothin”

The rest of the day you guys hang out and its mmm

Yuji would be such a good boyfriend hes so wholesome

When its time for you to part he give you a big hug, kiss and ‘i love you’

You do the same and tear up a bit

With one final photo you head back to your home town

You make it a mission to visit tokyo more often and yuji tries to visit you whenever he can from then on

#itadori yuji x reader #itadori yuji #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #i swear if the tags dont work imma be really annoyed lmao #jjk x reader

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alonely-dreamer · 3 years

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Dangerous Creatures | Chapter 35: Dangerous Opportunities

Summary: Mackenzie, Elijah and Klaus keep busy in New-Orleans...

Pairing: Elijah x OC

Words: 2856

A/N: Please, note that I am French so there might be some mistakes here and there.

Masterlist

I made Marcel everything that he is.

I treated him like a son.

And when my father chased me and my family from New-Orleans a hundred years ago we believed Marcel was killed.

We each mourned him in our own way.

Yet, when I returned, I found not only had he survived… he had thrived.

Instead of seeking us out, instead of sticking together as one, he made a choice, to take everything my family had built and make it his own.

Now he is living in our home.

He is sleeping in our beds.

The letter ‘M’ he stamps everywhere… it’s not for Marcel.

It’s for Mikaelson.

I want it all back.

And if I have to push him out to get it, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

***

Mackenzie’s giggles filled the room. “Stop it,” she kept repeating, but she didn’t mean it, and he knew that. They had started new games together, some even new to Elijah, as if Mackenzie was his muse inspiring him dirty little games he’d only play with her. It was innocent, at first, but soon, Mackenzie became more comfortable with him, more confident, and the stains of blood on the white bed sheets were so common now the compelled staff knew to change them almost every day. The implications of their activities only made them want each other more. Mackenzie, because she knew the effect her blood had on him, and Elijah, because he would never experience anything like this with anyone else other than her. Sure, he knew he would never love anyone the way he loved Mackenzie, but it wasn’t just about love. And that was something that made Mackenzie feel powerful. That was the reason why, sometimes, she refused to take his blood after they were done. So that she’d keep the marks. So that he knew they were there. His marks on her body. Claiming her. And she loved the way it made him feel when he saw them too.

While Mackenzie and Elijah were enjoying what both Katherine and Rebekah had called their ‘honeymoon period’, Hayley wished for death. Well, maybe not literally. But she did pretty much hate her life, and she didn’t have faith that it would get better in the next eighteen years. She was uncomfortable in every way. Not only was she pregnant with the world’s most hated supernatural creature, but her future baby’s father also was a total psychopath who didn’t see her as anything more than an incubator for his miracle baby. He had forbidden her from leaving the house where he left her to rot every day. Every day, she was left with a couple acting not unlike two hormonal teenagers around the house, in other words, alone, alone with dusty books she had no intention of reading, and a TV remote giving her access to hundreds of channels she wasn’t interested in watching at all. In other words, days passed and stayed the same, aside from the rising heat, and growing belly.

To make matters worse, when Elijah wasn’t busy eating his girlfriend (in every sense of the word), he turned into an over-protective grandpa, building the nursery from scratch, making sure she had vitamin, protein, everything a pregnant woman needs according to What To Expect When You’re Expecting, which she wouldn’t be surprised to find on his nightstand. Not only did it make her uncomfortable, and even more irritable, but it made Mackenzie self-conscious and sad, not matter how hard she was trying to hide it.

At first, Hayley thought it was jealousy. But Mackenzie was better than that. And she had no bad intentions towards Hayley, or feelings, on the contrary. After they had made sure Marcel’s secret weapon, whatever it was, could not detect Mackenzie’s powers, they had unlinked Hayley to Sophie, making the witches regret their whole plan to bring the Originals back in town, giving them enormous doubts about whether they would still go on with the plan to dethrone Marcel or not. Of course, Klaus was a threat to them now, after all they had done. Kidnapping Hayley, using his child to blackmail him… The witches were scared, and now, they had bigger problems than Marcel, and the witch community of New-Orleans was starting to turn against Sophie, who had insisted her sister’s plan would work. But Klaus didn’t attack the witches. No, Klaus was still in a suspiciously good mood. Aside from keeping Hayley locked up in the house, he was pleasant with his brother, he was pleasant with Mackenzie, and he was pleasant with Hayley, to whom his nickname little wolf had stuck. He wasn’t acting like a future father, by any means. He didn’t check on Hayley’s health, never asked how she felt or if she needed anything. He didn’t spend any time in the nursery, helping Elijah, or didn’t even talk baby names with his future baby’s mother, not that anyone had expected that from him. No. Klaus spent all his time with Marcel, and they were seemingly getting along great, greater than great, in fact, as if they were the best of friends who weren’t hiding deadly secrets from each other.

Hayley had started to worry about his behavior. What if he really enjoyed spending time with Marcel? What if he just wanted to get back at the witches? What if he didn’t care? What if… all the bad things Klaus could do, that she could think of, or even scarier, that she couldn’t even imagine. However, her worries were put to rest one day, as Klaus came back home one night with a newly made vampire named Josh.

“Josh here,” he had told them, “will be my eyes and ears. My joker, my…”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Hayley had interrupted him. “He’s your spy.”

Klaus had gotten to Josh before Marcel even had the chance to put him under vervain. The vampire was compelled thoroughly by the Original hybrid and will be the key to taking Marcel down.

Though the existence of Josh was a relief for everyone, neither his brother nor his girlfriend trusted him in any way. Not when he was in such a good mood. He was plotting something, and they had a feeling it was nothing good, for anyone.

***

Mackenzie caressed Elijah’s hair, her thoughts wandering back to earlier that day, when he had taken her to one of his favorite places in New-Orleans, a once peaceful beautiful park that was now a crowded and loud playground. She sighed, moving slightly but enough for Elijah to let a drop of blood slide down on Mackenzie’s neck. It drew a red line on her slightly tanned skin and the drop came to rest down her cleavage. She ignored it, she knew he’d take care of it later. Though the maids would have to change the sheets again in the morning.

She had almost forgotten his mouth buried in her neck, his free hand moving up and down her arm, as they were lying naked in their bed, resting from their long day of exploring the city Elijah had missed so much for the past century. He drank from her, her blood, the most delicious in the entire world, like she was the Fountain of Youth herself and he was the only one who got to drink from her, the only one who had that privilege, because he was the one who had discovered her. He had been there first, explored and found her and now she was his and only his and that thought would never cease to amaze him, to make him feel like the luckiest man in the world. But right now, Mackenzie felt everything but lucky, as she was haunted by a picture that would not leave her mind. A picture of his face in that park. And the look that said it all, even though he would never say it aloud, perhaps because he didn’t know it himself. A look she knew well now as it kept coming back, every time he looked at Hayley, every time he talked about the baby, about what Klaus should be doing but wasn’t, about everything he was doing in his brother’s place. It saddened him, perhaps unknowingly, and it saddened her as she knew she could never give that to him. In truth, no one could give that to him. But as powerful as she was, she felt she should be able to do anything, and everything she could do, but that.

He was content, lying in her arms, her hand in his hair, her blood in his throat, just enjoying the moment, enjoying her. But that was not the only reason why the question took him by surprise.

“Do you want kids?”

He froze, puzzled by the question. It surprised him, not only because it seemingly came out of nowhere, but mostly because he had buried that question and that answer a long time ago deep inside of him. So deep, in fact, that it was a hidden part of him, like an obvious take away of his very existence, of every single one of his actions. So deep, that the answer was practically engraved on his bones, carved onto his heart, like an invisible dormant pain that he would never let himself feel or remember. An immortal curse that could not be enchanted away and that will torment him for the rest of his eternity. Why that question? Why here, why now?

He slowly and gently retracted his teeth from her vein, licked the blood that escaped from the wound, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop it from bleeding as he moved away and looked up at her. She had asked the question so quietly, like a whisper, like a spell echoing in his head, losing itself in time, making his bones quiver like an earthquake would make a house shake. That question had been asked and answered centuries ago. That choice had been made for him centuries ago. That choice had been taken away from him centuries ago.

She was looking away but turned towards him as he sat up and pulled the duvet to cover them. Not because they were cold, but because the time for their adult activities was obviously over. Now, they had to have another kind of adult conversation.

“I can’t have children, you know that.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Mackenzie…”

“Do you? Want children of your own?”

“It doesn’t matter if I do. I can’t.”

“I know you do,” she said quietly, once again looking away, staring at that spot that didn’t exist.

“Where is this coming from?”

She shrugged. “Same place your regret is coming from…”

“I have no regret,” he replied, confused.

“You regret not being able to have children.”

“That is hardly anyone’s fault but my parents, and they are dead. There is no one to blame, though blame wouldn’t lead us anywhere.”

Her hand found his arm and her fingers caressed his skin as if touching him would fix everything.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know… I just thought… it’s unfair Klaus gets to have a child and you don’t. He clearly has no interest in it. But you do.”

“My interest in Hayley’s pregnancy doesn’t go beyond anything an uncle wouldn’t do. Though, I am no ordinary uncle.”

“This is no ordinary family.”

“And that is why your question has no answer, my love.”

She looked back at him. He rarely used such words in front of other people, but when they were alone, when they were being intimate, he called her all sorts of sweet words. ‘My love’ being the sweetest. ‘My love’ was the answer. It meant ‘don’t ask’, ‘it’s okay’, ‘I get it’, ‘I love you too’.

***

Klaus’ face tired of his never-ending smiling. However, he was motivated. Nothing would stop him from reaching his goal. Nothing ever could. And certainly not a stupid smile.

He couldn’t tell which was louder, the screams or the music, however, he had stopped caring. He was tired and annoyed, and he wanted to leave this wretched court of amateurs as soon as possible. Marcel called himself a King and had forged himself a throne, but he was just some tyrant wannabe, a little boy in a paper crown running around with his friends, bullying the weakest kids on the playground. Though he would never reproach Marcel from banishing the werewolves from the Quarter or stopping the witches from doing magic, everything that had allowed him to get to that point he had stolen from him, and that fact was like wood to a fireplace, it kept his immortal rage burning.

Perch on the balcony above the party, Klaus and Marcel stood like Kings in a court of horrors, watching their nobles feast on the buffet. Though Klaus was too old to enjoy such an obvious and basic vampire party, he had to give Marcel a nod of approval every once in a while, to keep things civil. He was bored out of his mind and had run out of things to talk about with his ‘friend’. Fortunately, Marcel had a surprise for his sire.

“I’m hosting a party.”

“Yes, you are,” the hybrid nodded, making the vampire laugh.

“No. I mean, I’m planning a party, in two days. It’s a charity dinner for some… I don’t know, charitable organization for the city.”

“I didn’t take you for the charitable type,” Klaus teased.

“Well, I got a reputation to uphold,” he replied with an amused smile. “It’s mostly an excuse to see Camille again, though.”

“Who? Ah, the bartender.”

“Yeah, the bartender,” he chuckled. “It’s a fancy dinner, just your brother’s type of things.”

“You’re inviting Elijah?” Klaus raised an eyebrow, surprised Marcel would want to be anywhere near his brother.

“Right, and his witch girlfriend, you know, what’s her name…”

“Mackenzie.”

“That’s right. She’s a funny little thing,” he said as he smiled at his sire accusatorily. “She’s not afraid of you.”

“Ah, she’s been through a lot.”

“Do you mean you?”

They laughed.

“I admit, I may have been less than cordial to her… more than once.”

“It’s a miracle Elijah lets you go anywhere near her.”

Klaus knew what Marcel was doing, where this was going. He had been working at it slowly, but not as subtly, for a while now. Marcel wanted Elijah gone, out of his city, no matter how, no matter what it took. He figured Klaus was his best shot, and usually he would have been correct, but not now, not anymore. If anything happened to Elijah, Mackenzie would destroy the whole city, hell, the entire state. No, Klaus had one goal, and he wasn’t going to let Marcel distract him from it.

“It’s different with her. If I kill her, he’ll stop at nothing to take me down, and I’ve tired of our little wars. The last one lasted a century and almost killed me.”

“Ah, let him have his fun. She’s mortal, they’re fleeting little things.”

Klaus chuckled, though not because he found the obvious threat funny, but the mere thought of Marcel going after Mackenzie made him want to laugh. He’d pay to see it, if only it wouldn’t result in Marcel’s certain death.

“Not this one. This one is here to stay.”

Marcel frowned and looked at the hybrid with curiosity. “You actually mean that.”

“She’s a Mikaelson, Marcel,” he nodded as he put his hand on the King’s shoulder. “You know what happens when you go after a Mikaelson.”

Marcel laughed. “Hey, I’m just talking, no harm meant, no harm meant.”

“She’d kill you before you even had a chance to see it coming.”

“See, that’s my problem,” Marcel grimaced. “Witches aren’t allowed to do magic here, and I don’t think she’s understood that.”

“What? Your secret weapon’s been shining bright recently?”

Marcel laughed as he shook his head. “No, nothing like that. It’s the attitude, Klaus. Elijah… he doesn’t respect my authority here. And neither does she.”

“Then why invite them, then? They’re happy enough on their own. Trust me, they’re unbearable to be around right now. They’re so… in love,” he said, disgust visible all over his face, making Marcel laugh whole-heartedly.

“You were never one for sentiment.”

“Right then,” Klaus sighed. “I’ll let them know.”

“I appreciate that, brother.”

Marcel tapped him twice on the shoulder before he moved towards the middle of the balcony, where he’d be best seen from downstairs, to make his usual speech. The words never changed. “Have fun”, “don’t kill too many of them”, and last but not least:

“And no matter what you do, no matter how good she smells or how pretty she looks, leave the barefoot blonde alone!”

That last part they all said together like a chant, like it was a joke. But when Marcel explained the meaning to Klaus the first night, he learnt he wasn’t joking in the least. He had puzzled out all the tiny bits of information Marcel could give him, and the hybrid knew it was no joke indeed.

#dangerous creatures #vampire diaries #the vampire diaries #tvd #the originals #elijah mikaelson #elijah x oc #klaus mikaelson #hayley marshall #marcel gerard #fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #reader #oc #elijah x reader

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Ducktales Reviews: The Battle for Castle McDuck!

How to sum up how I feel about this episode....

Yeah that’ll do it. This wasn’t a BAD episode. It flowed nicely, had two great new additions to the cast.. but after weeks of really good episodes, warts and all.. this one was just.. okay. Part of the problem isn’t the episode’s fault as I went in expecting the answers to scrooge’s immortality, the answers to hortense we didn’t get last week, and you know donald and della actually getting to interact with their grandparents. I got.. pretty much none of that, though I did get some answer as to how Hortense lived long enough to have donald. But we’ll get to that. Point is part of the episodes baggage is on setting my expectations too high, the same happened with “Astro B.O.Y.D.” earlier this season and in hindsight, that one is really excellent even if it wasn’t the fenton episode I was hoping for, it’s still really damn good. THis one... even if it’s not what I was hoping ofr, while not bad it’s still pretty medicore. Let’s get into why shall we? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We open at Castle McDuck, where Webby’s narrating for people who didn’t see the last episode set here and aren’t obsessive about watching the show like you or I. And also because this time she’s not so starstruck that she can’t actually speak or function, so she can actually get all the lore she wants in. The family is here because while the Druid stones seem to be working, the mists protecting the castle, and keeping it out of lockstep with reality every 5 years, have suddenly vanished. Naturally Fergus blames Scrooge for that. I’m mixed on this version of Fergus. While i’m fine with chanigng things up from life and times, having him live and having him resent scrooge on some level, it worked better last time as there was emotional weight and a reason behind it: Scrooge and him didn’t get along becasue Fergus missed his boy and resented that his sucess lost him a son and made him cold and bitter like Fergus himself. It fit both men to just be too damn proud to talk it out. So while Fergus being a bit crotchety still isn’t ENITRELY out of character him still being a dick to his son for no real reason and given no new one for being an asshole to him just annoys me. The character last time was three dimensional, understandable and likeable. This one is just a bitter old man constantly yelling at his son and doting on his daughter. More on that bit in a bit.

Downy meanwhile is just as lovely as last time: Since she lived long enough to see her grand children this time, I love seeing her as a wonderful doting grandmother to her great grandbabies. She’s wonderful and I’m thrilled to see her again. It does however bring up one of this episodes biggest issues: Donald and Della are absent and this time for no good reason. Last time, it was fair enough to exclude Donald as there was no real space for him in the narrative, and he likely , even if he loved grandma and grandpa, didn’t want to have to explain his estrangment with scrooge to them and break his poor gram-gram’s heart. That’s fair. This time though? Their not there because.. frank didn’t want to use them. That’s.. literally it. They could’ve fit fine into the family fued narrative epseically since we’ve seen them sibling squabble, and unlike other adventures they’ve been absent, where they clearly just wanted scrooge to have time with the kids, or in the case of rumble for ragnarok scrooge had valid reason for not using them, this time? There’s no good excuse. Della would want to see her grandparents, Donald would get drug along. They only appear every 5 years. WHy the hell wouldn’t they be here?! I get trying to have character ballance but we’ve had several episodes this season of just scrooge and the kids. We DIDN’T need it this time and the lack of characters dosen’t really change anything. It instead wastes plots like getting to see what Donald and Della’s relationships with their grandparents is like, or their aunt, or finding out how their mother died or at least fucking MENTIONING hortense outside of one word and a photo. YOu think the fact their sister is dead would be important to Scrooge and Matilda but it just.. never comes up. Their niece and nephew never come up and my patince comes up short. I’m fine with character ballance but i’m not fine with wasting a golden opportunity for character interactions we haven’t gotten. I get we just had two weeks of donald and della I do, but it dosen’t make this any less frustrating or nonsensical. Having characters appear two episodes in a row dosen’t magically make them irrelevant or we’d be seeing less of Huey or Louie or Dewey and outside of last week, we REALLY haven’t. If they can show up once an episode why can’t their parents?

Point is a mystery’s afoot, and so is THE PHANTOM BLOT.. to no one’s suprise as he was both in the episode’s description and frankly magic being drained is his mo, this time using a portable generator. Webby dosen’t catch on to this.. but I let it slide as while she’s the only one to have really met and fought the blot.. she’s also busy with mc duck family stuff and frankly while a missing mystery is here, given how deep the mcduck rouge’s gallery goes, it’s not a stretch to say it could be any one of them. Especially Glomgold, who while not magic is willing to pay for rediculous shit why would “dispersing scrooge’s family castle’s mists to bug his parents” be any diffrent. Or possibly replace them as their son because he’s kind of nuts and entirely made of stupid and that’s why we love him. And Magica has the obvious motives of revenge on scrooge, as this isn’t her first set of dead parents, and a castle full of mystic wonders. It’s plausable to wait and see who it is first instead of just assuming it’s one guy.

And yup there’s a mysterin town:A set of mystical bagpipes of the clan mcduck that can bring life to where there is none. We don’t know if they can raise the dead but they can bring inanimate objects to life so there’s that. But seriously Donald should take them to his parents graves just to be safe. But before we can get to duck necormancy we have to find them so we get... (checks notes) a Louie and Huey team up again where Louie is an abrasive jackass to his brother for planning ahead, despite the fact he’s been proven wrong on that front twice now, and is entirely insufferable and has learned nothing about trying to find a quick and easy way of doing things depsit elearning this lesson 80 times already.

As you can tell I hate this subplot and am getting it out of the way NOW because it’s not good and treads ground we’ve tread THREE TIMES ALREADY. and you did it right the first time, you did it okay if sloppiily with let’s get dangerous. Why this ? Louie learns nothing, Huey learns nothing and it’s not funny.The two just search for the mystery, and Louie is impatient. Though talking with a friend in a ducktales server, i’m in one now and it actually really helps with these, did make me realize that Louie’s character development has stalled like I thought... it’s simply a Marco Diaz situation. Like the third season of star vs the forces of evil, it’s basically a coin flip if your getting a well developed verison of the character that’s been built up over multiple seasons.. or a jackass whose learned nothing and treats other people badly. Their different FLAVORS of jackass but jackass still tastes awful no matter who it is. It’s not as BAD as it was there as while it’s not helpign the character, it’s not actively having him do the worst things possible, but it still makes Louie’s plots a chore to sit through at times as when he’s not well written like with split sword, rumble for ragnarok or tickening, he’s just a 2 dimensional greedy jerkhole and I don’t want to spend time with him. And the other brothers have had times of being written one dimensional, not going to lie, but all I get from Louie in these plots is this:

After almost getting his family killed, after getting scrooge’s fortune overnight with minimal effort and having everything he wanted only to learn, suprise, it takes a lot of work to maintain.. and he still just dosent’ get that the easy way isn’t always the way, and after the trickining and let’s get dangerous hasn’t learned his brother is usually right when he’s being anal retentive. This was fine in the last 2 seasons but too much has happened for him to get away with this shit and not come off as obnoxious. It just drags any episode it’s in down with it. I”ll leave the rest of the review under the cut.

One more subplot before we dig into the main one: The Phantom Blot and his new partner, Pepper! If you don’t remember her it’s fine as she wasn’t named but she was the egghead voiced by Amy Sedaris who showed up for one scene back in the Blot’s first apperance and who frank said they had more plans for. Well we see those plans now as Pepper has been paired with the Blot for this mission as Bradford’s policy for missing mystery missions now is the buddy system. No going solo, despite the Blot really not liking any of this. Which honestly both fits Bradford, as he’s endlessly practical, and is just a good idea: most of his agents are kind of wild cards and have their own agends so forcing them to work together not only gives them better odds with scrooge, but prevents them from working their own angles against FOWLS better instrests. IN this case having the peppy, energetic and talkative pepper go with the closed off and dogmatic blot keeps him from going overboard, as Castle McDuck is basically one large magical nightmare for him to destroy and Blot keeps pepper on task and on stealth since, as we learn now we get to know her, she’s a bit overly excitable and not all that subtle, if not to dewey or della levels. She can stealth when necessary. She’s also DETERMINED to get the blot to bond with her and work with her, and is delighted to work with him, getting the job because.. no one else wanted it becasue the blot scares people and puts them off with his intensity, which he’s shocked about but really shoudln’t be.

IT’s just a nice dynamic, he helps her be a better agent and she helps him realize he can’t do EVERYTHING alone and that blindly destroying all magic in his path, as much as he’d like to isn’t the option, using some runes to track them. Sure pepper makes their presence obvious once or twice, btu she’s also essential to the mission more often than not and by the end, even if they loose, we’ll get to that, Blot has fully accepted his partner. It’s.. honestly heartwarming when you think about it: The blot’s probably closed him off from personal relationships of any kind because A) his family got brutally murdered by the person he’s hutning and B), he has a mission he can never rest in. He likely wanted to work alone because it’s how he rolls nad i’t sonly through seeing someone who genuinely WANTS to be around him and wants his missiong ot succeed that he realizes he dosen’t have to push everyone away and allies are more useful than none. It’s a warped way of thinking but for someone with as much baggage as blotty, it’s progresss and it’s a really sweet story. HOpefully this relationship will go farther.. I mean strange relationships have happened than a dogmatic dog who hates magic and a peppy go getter both working for an obliviously evil businessman.

So onto the main plot: Turns out Scrooge wasn’t the first person Fergus called this episode as we meet the DT17 version of Matilda! Horay! She’s voice by Michelle Gomez who like David Tennant and Catherine Tate before her is a doctor who alumnus.. though this time she’s past my time watching the show. I really gotta get on catching up. She played Missy, the female regneration of the master. Gomez is spectacular in the part here, and while I have no past experince with her I certainly want to see more of her work as she’s a delight. Matilda is Scrooge’s sister. In the comics she was the duitful sister who looked up to her big brother as he left Scotland to make his fortune, sending money and mementio’s back she scrapbooked. She eventually went with Scrooge to america with him... but this didn’t end well as Scrooge took advantage of his sisters as help and when he finally did take them along on an adventure, it was his lowest point, going from an honest buisness man to a cruel robber baron for one moment and left him and his company. She and Hortense TRIED building a bridge with a suprise party.. but by that point while Scrooge had backed away from being a monster, he was still such a dick things blew up. As far as we know he never saw hortense alive again, and he only saw matilda in her old age with the two reconcliing. I’ll get more into ALL of this when I get to those pieces of life and times obviously. Point is she’s a good character. And so is her reboot version.. but the reboot version did catch me off guard as, much like her dad she’s not really much like the sensible sweet woman from the comics. But given DT17 tends to really play fast and loose with previous versions of characters, and it often works out i’m not going to gripe about it: what they did here works. As for what EXACTLY they did here, this version of Matilda is more flighty: not incomptient or lacking in charm, but due to sort of bouncing from one improable venture to the next and staying at her parents between ventures. She’s sort of a female version of Jubal Pomp, an itallian duck comics character who modelded himself after Scrooge, but dosen’t have the common sense or work ethic scrooge does. That’s really matilda here minus the looking up to scrooge part: she dosen’t seem untalented, just a bit footloose. She also likes needling her brother and is unsuprisingly her dad’s faviorite since she’s around more. The two naturally get under each others skin, and we get our main conflict... not just because of their fighting.. but because Webby can’t help but mettle. She’s what makes this plot work: Webby can’t help but try to interfere because she dosen’t get siblings sometimes fight and have long standing resentments, something I relate to, and that stepping in or trying to end it sometimes just makes it worse. Granted sometimes’ it’s necessary, but in this casey Dewey, whose trying to inch her away is right on the money and after the awful plot with these two in SPlit Sword, it’s nice to see Dewey be in the right, but for actually good reason instead of just because the episode says so. Here he’s right that her getting involved will only escalate and her attempt to do so only reveals Matilda kidnapped scrooge’s pet hair clump and died it. She also has something resembling an emu. This only makes things worse and starts to escalate tensions leading to some between both sides, as Fergus takes Matilda’s and Downy takes scrooges. Again REALLY could’ve used the twins. We do get a nice bit where Webby coaxe Dewey, who understandably dosen’t want to help her further spiral into her own issues by helping mend family issues she really isn’t qualified to solve.. because she’s you know... 13. I mean granted Steven Universe did this sort of thing at her age.. but given he eventually repressed his issues so much he had a mental breakdown and turned into a giant angst monster, and only got better with therapy.. maybe get some therapy instead Webby. Just saying. Therapy everyone? Therapy? But yeah she coaxes Dewey with a statdew, and yes she says that exactly. This gets the family breifly united, as Dewey fakes an injury.. but finding out it’s fakkkke combined with Huey and Louie coming in just causes the enitre family to spiral into squabbling and webby to shut down a bit, with Scrooge planning to form his own clan after bickering iwth his parents and sister. Oh and it only gets worse when Pepper accidently brings some statues to life, and they get in on it too while Webby’s convinced the families over and she just wanted a place in it. And even if this isnt’ the BEST episdoe the show’s ever done, i’ll get to why in a second, I do like this. Webby’s nearly LOST this family once, way back at the end of season 1 when no one but beakly thought of her feelings about her best friends and surrogate uncle all leaving her after her other surrogate uncle you know.. said some pretty unforgivable things. She’s trying SO hard to force it to fit, so hard to fix things because she can’t stand them being broken, something I PAINFULLY relate to given my own personal issues with not being able to stand people being upset with me. She just wanted a family and i’ts gone. Of course it isn’t and webby’s sad words coupled with some house crashers get the clan mcduck statues included to kick Blot and Pepper out and get the bagpipes back, while Scrooge points out it’s the good families that can withstand a squabble. So the mystery’’s gotten, Scrooge and Matilda are squareish... and this episodes thankfully over. Happy day! Final Thoughts: This episode is okay. I very clearly have my problems with it.. but it’s a fine half hour of television and funny enough to bounce through it with some good character stuff. It’s just after the last few weeks, and really this whole season.. I expect more. There was no real emotional core besides webby this episode and her issues wer eboiled down to “Families fight but it’s fine”.. which itself is a pretty uncomplicated message when family dyanmics can be complciated messy and painful. My family is thankfully fairly stable, if not without issues because hey no one is, but given other people watching might come from far worse homes where the bickering is far worse and far more toxic.. yeah maybe have some nuance here. And this is from a show that usualy does that WELL: We saw it with Fergus last time before he was hollowed out for this episode and reduced to an angry dick. We’ve seen it with Donald and Scrooge’s estrangment or Donald and Della’s relationship: Family is complicated , messy and even good ones have problems. That should’ve been the message: family can squabble or even have serious issues but they come back together. Instead we just got a bunch of bickering for a cheesy message that dosen’t quite fit with what the series done. It fits for thanksgiving: family , the good kind, can last arugments and is there for you regardless.. and I know my family is. I just feel they could’ve done the message better. Basically the episode was fine... it just wasn’t up to the high standard this season has set even in it’s down turn and is easily the weakest epseically since Matilda really dosen’t feel all that fleshed out even though what we got of her was great. Basically not a BAD episode.. but it could’ve been a great one, and i’m disapointed the series didn’t try harder. NEXT TIME: regular coverage for the year concludes as we go back a few months chronlogically to find out why Santa and Scrooge hate each other. IT’s christmas time ya’ll! Until then if there’s an episode of ducktales or another disney series you’d like me to take a look at, suggest it in the comments or comission it outright for give bucks via my direct messages on here or send an ask for my discord. Until we meet agian, there’s always another rainbow.

#the battle for castle mcduck!#ducktales spoilers #ducktales #scrooge mcduck #matilda mcduck #webby vanderquack #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #fergus mcduck #downy mcduck #the phantom blot #pepper

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onceuponakdrama · 3 years

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Record of Youth KDrama Review

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Bingo Card for Record of Youth

Synopsis: Record of Youth (or Youth Record) follows the lives of young people in the world of modeling. Sa Hye-Jun [Park Bo-Gum] is smart and handsome. He is a nice guy and a popular model, but what he really wants is to become an actor. Meanwhile, An Jeong-Ha (Park So-Dam) works as a make-up artist.

trigger warnings: death and sucide mentions, slight family abuse

Overall Main Plot: Rating - 6 out of 10

I think a major point in this drama is that it’s very realistic, which also means it’s a little angsty (considering it’s a melodrama). It also had subtle mentions of classism and how it impacts specific families, especially with the comparison of Hyejun’s family vs Hae Hyo’s family. Speaking of which, there’s a lot of family drama, which I feel is the main plot—other than Hyejun being able to achieve his dreams as a successful actor and dealing with the scandals of people trying to tear him down after his success. I did like the realism of it all, especially with the family dynamics due to past grudges being held or sibling favoritism, and by the end of it, things are actually solved as they talk to one another to work things out. The main plot was fairly satisfying with the success of Hyejun and the family dynamics. There’s also Jeongha being able to achieve her dreams of opening her own makeup shop and gaining happiness and success from it. However, there were a lot of problems with some of the elements within the main and side storylines.

Plot Holes - there were so many holes throughout the plot that were started and eventually just dropped. Even the major ones were built up and ended up being anti-climatic. I was more excited with the build ups, but then ended up disappointed as it goes throughout. One example is with Haeyo’s family—his mother was doing all of this stuff, only to be so easily forgiven at the end with no real character development that all that interference with Hae Hyo’s and Haena’s careers means nothing. Again, it is a real problem of the rich parents having a hold on their children, but there’s no actual resolution. Another example is with Charlie Jung’s death, which was dragged on throughout the end. Like, why are they blaming his suicide on someone who just modeled for him? There was so many problems with the rumors they were spreading about him and I’m surprised they didn’t do anything about it other than suing them. Again, another real problem but it’s so poorly addressed and felt disappointing.

Side Stories - I felt unsure about who this drama was about, since it kept including side stories of the more disliked characters, even when it had nothing to do with the main characters. While I liked that the main characters were resilient with their problems and pushed through, I hated that the side characters barely learned anything and continued to be in the storyline, even though they literally did not matter. I wanted more scenes with the more likeable characters and wanted to see how they would progress to contribute to the main storyline. It also would have been nice to actually see the change in people, considering how Hyejun and Jeongha had good faith in people towards those who didn’t deserve it. A part of me wanted them to snap (like when Jeongha poured water on that one lady’s head), but they would just continue to be the “bigger person” and it just felt so repetitive.

Characters: Rating - 6 out of 10

↣ Sa Hyejun [played by Park Bo Gum] - I felt so bad for him throughout the entire drama. He was clearly the black sheep of the family and also the scapegoat, especially in the eyes of his father and brother. I was really rooting for his success, which I knew would come soon at some point. He’s also super soft and it was endearing when it comes to his grandpa, mother, and Jeongha, but that was really bad in terms of his career. I didn’t want him to turn out completely ruthless, but I did want him to grow a bit more of a backbone. It just felt like a bit of waste because he remained consistent throughout (which is good) but there was no actual growth to him as a character. The whole thing about him is that he’s “good” or “pure” and everyone kept pressuring him to be more “fierce” in the acting industry. I kind of did want that, but I think he was already strong—in the sense that he knew what he wanted and which way he wanted to go, without others’ interference. I did like that aspect of him, but, again, the growth is nonexistent.

↣ Ahn Jeongha [played by Park So Dam] - I actually really liked her character because she felt so real. I really connected with her and her sense of realism, but also dreaming of a happier life. I admired her for quitting a stable job to pursue something bigger in life and how she acknowledged the difference in her fantasy (the idea) of Hyejun vs how he was in real life. She was also very independent, but it caused to be a problem because she didn’t want to accept help from others. I felt that she was a great character. While it did go a bit downhill towards the end, I still understood where others were coming from. (Others have mentioned how she got less airtime and became a side character in her own drama, which is true, but they also said she became weaker at the end by breaking things off with Hyejun.) I don’t think she became weaker; I think she grew to be more aware of her limits and wanted to expand herself to obtain her goals. However, I would have liked more time being dedicated to her to see as to how she became successful at the end. We got to see Hyejun, but we didn’t see much of Jeongha and it felt pretty disappointing because she had a lot of potential to grow as well.

↣ Won Hae Hyo [played by Byeon Wooseok] - okay. There’s a lot here. I just wanted to say, I liked him in the beginning and I like that he continued his friendship with others... but, I really did not like him much beyond that. That’s because he was so jealous after the whole Hyejun being more famous and being compared and not to mention he kept going after Jeongha even though he knew Hyejun and her were dating. Like sir. You are not that great. I felt bad for him because his mom is the whole reason to why he even has a career in acting, but then he just accepted it as his strength? I was so confused because that’s not a strength, that’s just money that’s not even his. I guess the writers were trying to give him some development, but even then, it wasn’t much and it didn’t make any sense. He was one of those rare second leads that I was not rooting for at all and did not care much about; I was just annoyed.

Personal Notes: I really liked Hyejun and Jeongha. They are so pure and deserved everything, but I really did not like that they kept believing the good in people when those people didn’t deserve it. There was not much character development, which is why the rating is lower even though the main characters were my favorite. I also wanted to take this opportunity to say that Hyejun’s father and brother were the absolute worst—that is until his father apologized in the end, which is super late, especially after he hit him and still thought Hyejun would mention him during his acceptance speech at the award ceremony, but like... Jesus. His brother was also annoying in the sense that he was so arrogant for no reason and so two-faced about Hyejun’s career like, dude, just be honest with each other. However, I will give it props for a real family dynamic, although we could have lived without a bit of it.

Romance: Rating - 9 out of 10

On the contrary to the rest of the plot, I absolutely loved this non-problematic couple. I thought the build-up of the romance was natural and, when they were in their relationship, it felt so nice to see in comparison to everything else that was happening. I really liked their scenes together and it felt so wholesome because I was rooting for both of their successes and their romance. The only thing I didn’t like was the breakup, but like... I understood the reasons behind it and also kdrama writers always have to have some kind of break-up and time skip even though it is not necessary. They reminded me of the drama, Love O2O, in the sense that the couple had great, natural chemistry, but everyone around them was the problem and that’s the only annoying thing about the drama. Other watchers said their romance was kind of bland, but I think it was nice because it was so natural—their banter, the interactions, the support they provided for one another. This is one of the dramas to watch for the romance, especially since it was so light.

Second Plot/B-Plot and Secondary Characters: Rating - 4 out of 10

I felt like this is one of those rare dramas, where the people around the main characters are the most annoying parts and they don’t even drive the plot. They’re just there. Other than Hyejun’s grandpa, Jinu and his family (because they’re so supportive and cute), Haena, Subin, and Minjae (although, she is debatable of how often she meets with Tae Su), I wanted everyone else to die off. Even the antagonists didn’t feel like they served a specific purpose other than to annoy. I thought the ex-girlfriend (Ji-Ah) was going in a good direction towards the end where she was gonna be friends with Jeongha and Hyejun, but we never heard from her again. Again, this drama doesn’t seem to really resolve the problems they’ve built up throughout the entire drama. I did like the sub-romance of Haena and Jinu and they deserved better—I wish they had more time together in the last episode where they just broke things off or we would have a reunion or something. There was also the whole Minjae thing; I liked her, I really did, but she really needed to stop meeting with Tae Su. Speaking of which, Tae Su was never given any redemption or arch—he just continued to be annoying with Do Ha and I really wanted him to crash and burn. Instead, we get this desperate attempt for him to win back Hyejun even though he treated him so horribly. This was just bad writing to the max and some of them had real potential to do more.

Additional Notes:

Aesthetic and Color - this drama has a lot of good aesthetics and colors. I think it really set the vibe of a more chill drama, but it’s actually a melodrama. I think it just felt more like a relaxing drama because of the colors and softer ost. It has nothing to do with the plot, but if it matters to you... just a note.

I mentioned earlier on the notes of classism that the drama portrayed, which felt very real. At first, I thought it was ridiculous that Hae Hyo was more successful than Hyejun because Hyejun is clearly more attractive and the entertainment industry loves that. But, then I saw more, like how Hae Hyo was pulled out of the modeling agency faster, he had those connections, etc. Even as Hyejun got more successful, there was the difference of Hyejun quitting his jobs and paying his family’s debt and house vs Hae Hyo doing acting for fun (ish) before he was to take over his father’s academy or something.

THE REPORTER - I was gonna mention this in the secondary characters, but then I realized she doesn’t need to take over that whole section. She was great as an antagonist, but she was so annoying and stupid. She didn’t bother to check any of the facts and just published stuff because she wanted to take down Hyejun. There’s also the fact that she never apologized, formally speaking. She just accepted the charges and we didn’t get a scene of the two of them and that was a lost opportunity. I also hated how she said she was a reporter, but acted like a writer. Like, girl—go write drama scripts then since you want all the drama. It was all so stupid.

Overall Rating: 6 out of 10

Recommended?

↣ Yes: this is a drama about family and rebuilding those connections. If you like romance as a side/sub-plot, this is a drama for you. There’s a lot of emotional drama, so if you like that side of acting more rather than comedic, this is also a good choice. The romance is also very great; it’s very healthy and lots of communication is built throughout—it’s very natural. There’s also a lot of hope in this drama, in the sense that Hyejun has been going nowhere and then he manages to get the success he’d been aiming for and seeing that progression is very satisfactory.

↣ No: this is very slow-built; if you are more easily frustrated, maybe just pass on it. Again, there’s a lot of frustration on the characters as well: both main and side characters. There’s also the family drama, which the center of this drama, so if you wanted more of a romantic comedy, this isn’t for you either. There’s also the love triangle trope, but there’s no second lead syndrome since the second lead is kind of jerky considering he’s after his friend’s girlfriend.

#record of youth #kdrama review #kdrama recs #spoilers #mine

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noona-clock · 4 years

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Now or Never - Part 4

Genre: College!AU

Pairing: Jae x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: Angst, cursing

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 | Words: 3,328

“Is everything okay, sweetie?” Jae’s mom asked when you shuffled into the kitchen the next morning. “Jae ran out of here and didn’t even tell us why he was going to pick you up.”

Truth be told, you really wanted your own mom right now, but Jae’s mom was a very agreeable alternative. The way she was looking at you, her eyes filled with concern and her forehead wrinkled, almost made you want to cry. But that also could’ve been because you were emotionally and physically exhausted.

“I just... had a fight with my boyfriend,” you admitted with a shrug as you approached her by the stove. She was already busy cooking breakfast, but she paused to turn around and greet you with a hug.

“Aww, honey,” she murmured, squeezing you and rubbing your back. “It happens. Was it that bad?”

You simply sighed before pulling away and lifting your shoulders into a shrug. You still didn’t really want to talk about it, especially with Jae’s mom. It would just be a little embarrassing to admit to your best friend’s mother that your boyfriend had left you at a party.

“Well, you are welcome to stay here until school starts again,” she told you as she cupped your chin in her hand and shot you a very motherly smile.

“Thank you,” you grinned. “I appreciate it so much. I’m actually really glad I get to see you guys.”

“Yeah, Jae was telling us about your messages,” she replied, turning back to the stove.

“Can I help?” you asked. You stood on your toes to peer over her shoulder, though you could smell the bacon all the way from upstairs.

“Oh! N--no, that’s fine,” Jae’s mom chuckled awkwardly.

She had learned her lesson quickly after letting you help the first time you’d come to visit and overcooked the eggs into a rubbery mass. And then burnt the toast.

I mean, seriously. How do you burn toast? Everyone knows not to set the toaster on the highest setting for toast.

But, then again, why did you go to Taco Bell so much? Because you were incapable of whipping yourself up a late-night snack, that’s why.

But anyway.

“You just go sit, sweetie, it’ll be ready soon,” Jae’s mom said, shooing you over to the kitchen table.

Just as you sat down in one of the chairs, curling a leg up underneath you, Jae appeared in the doorway with two things: your phone in his hand and a very impressively rumpled head of hair.

“Wow, someone must have a photoshoot later or something,” you quipped, trying incredibly hard to hold back a sputtering laugh.

“Shut up,” Jae tsked before handing you your phone. “It’s been going off like crazy.”

You smirked at him, and after he headed over to the fridge (reaching up a hand to attempt to smooth down his hair), you shifted your gaze to your phone screen.

...Surprise, surprise.

Messages and calls from Kevin.

You had taken Jae’s advice last night and let him know you were okay, but you hadn’t said anything about where you’d gone. Truthfully, you didn’t feel like he deserved to know. If he had been willing to just leave you at some random person’s house, then obviously, he didn’t care that much about where you were.

...Okay.

Well.

That didn’t seem exactly fair.

Kevin had been angry. You’d done a lot of stupid shit out of anger, too. You’d never left Kevin anywhere, but you also hadn’t found messages on his phone complaining about you.

And besides. He was still your boyfriend. You should at least read what he had to say.

Jae couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a more perfect day.

His dad and grandparents had joined everyone else in the kitchen not too much longer after he’d arrived and handed you your phone, and all six of you had eaten breakfast together. You and Jae had occupied the barstools at the kitchen counter while the four older adults sat at the table.

You had spent the whole meal catching his parents and grandparents up with your life, and Jae had found himself secretly smiling so many times. It was almost too much for his heart the way you got along so well with his family. And the way they loved you as if you were actually a family member.

Even though he had given up the idea long ago, he still held onto a tiny bit of hope that one day you really would be their family member.

After breakfast, the older adults had proclaimed they were going out and about for the day; Jae’s mom and grandma were going shopping for after-Christmas sales while his dad and grandpa were going to hit up the golf course.

Jae had looked over at you at the exact same time you’d looked over at him.

“Pajamas all day?” you asked.

“Video games all day?” Jae added.

And then you’d both nodded in unison.

For the next Jae didn’t even know how many hours, the two of you had lazed on the couch in your pajamas playing video games, watching movies, eating snack after snack after snack... and you know what the best part was?

You didn’t bring up Kevin once.

You didn’t say his name, you didn’t even mention the fact you had a boyfriend, and you gave not one single hint that you were worried or upset about anything.

Like I said. Jae couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a more perfect day.

When Jae’s mom and grandma got home from shopping later that afternoon, the two of you were both crying laughing about something in your video game. It was one of those situations where you had made some mildly amusing comment but then Jae had added something to make it a little funnier and then you had built on that to make it even funnier, and now here you both were five minutes later with tears streaming down your cheeks.

“What’s so funny, you two?” Jae’s grandma asked, poking her head into the living room.

“Nothing, Grandma,” Jae laughed. “Just -- you had to be here.”

“How was your shopping?” you inquired as you wiped your eyes with the cuff of Jae’s t-shirt.

“We found so many good things!” Jae’s mom called out from the kitchen where she was obviously rustling through the shopping bags. “You should have come with us, Y/N!”

“But then she would’ve missed out on playing video games with me!” Jae retorted with a slight smirk.

“Okay, well, I bet she does that all the time at school,” Jae’s grandma tutted.

“Oh, no,” you assured her, though the false sincerity in your voice wasn’t quite hidden. “We don’t play video games at school, we’re too busy studying.”

Jae pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, and then his mom replied with, “...Uh-huh. I definitely believe that.”

You nudged Jae’s knee with your own, and the two of you giggled under your breath.

“What do you guys want for dinner?” Jae’s mom asked then. “Dad and Grandpa will be home in about an hour. I can hop over to the grocery store if there’s something you’re in the mood for.”

Before Jae had the chance to tell his mom he was super craving some fried chicken, you answered her with, “Oh, I won’t be here for dinner.”

Jae furrowed his brow immediately, pausing the game and frowning over at you. “You’re not?”

“Why not?” Jae’s Grandma asked.

“I, uh -- my boyfriend’s picking me up and taking me back to his place so I can get my stuff.”

...What did you just say?

“Why can’t he bring your stuff here?” Jae asked, feeling his heart start to pound inside his chest. Surely you were coming right back here after getting your stuff... right?

“Well,” you sighed. “We’re heading back to school tomorrow and --”

“You’re going back to school with him?” Jae interrupted in clipped tones.

“We have a lot to talk about,” you explained, though you weren’t quite meeting Jae’s eyes as you spoke. “He’s been messaging me all day, and we really need to talk in person.”

Jae couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Not only were you leaving Jae’s house after he rescued you from that party last night, but you were leaving with Kevin. And going back to school with him?!

“I should actually get ready,” you murmured, setting down your game controller and pushing yourself off the couch. “He’ll be here soon-ish, I think.”

Obviously, Jae immediately followed you, and once the two of you were out of his mom and grandma’s earshot, he hissed, “You’re kidding me, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you weren’t talking to him.” Though what he’d really wanted to say was, ‘I thought you were going to break up with him.’

“I wasn’t,” you assured him. “I’m still upset. I just think we need to talk about it in person.”

You turned the corner in the downstairs hallway, holding onto the stair banister as you headed up to Jae’s room.

“You can’t wait until we get back to school? Why do you have to talk to him now? Why do you have to go back to his house?”

Jae was quite convinced these were all very valid questions.

“Because... that’s just what I think I need to do,” you answered with a shrug, a slight hint of annoyance in your voice.

“But why --”

You stopped suddenly, and Jae almost ran into you right there on the stairs.

“Jae, you know I love you,” you snapped.

Oh, boy, this did not sound good.

“And I am so thankful you came and picked me up. I will owe you for the rest of my life for this, but it’s not your relationship. You don’t know Kevin like I do, and I know he left me there at that party, but I also know that he does love me. And I love him. We’ve been together for a year, and in a relationship, you have to talk about things. You have to work through things together.”

You were the absolute last person from whom he wanted to hear relationship advice. Like, the very last person. He’d rather get a love lecture from... I mean, literally anyone else.

“I know you’re my best friend, but it isn’t really your place to butt into my relationship like this.”

There were so many things he could say right now. So many things he wanted to say.

I just want what’s best for you.

I care about you, and I’m just trying to look out for you.

I don’t want you to get hurt.

You deserve so much better than him, why can’t you see that?

If you don’t break up with him, I don’t know how much more I can take.

PLEASE BREAK UP WITH HIM!

But he was scared that if he said any of those things, you would only get upset with him. You would tell him it was none of his business and storm out and not talk to him for a month.

That had never happened before in all three and a half years of your friendship, but it was a possibility!

And also... you were actually right. He was your friend, and unless you asked him to, he really had no right to butt into your relationship with Kevin. It was your life. You were more than capable of making your own choices, even if the choices you made were frequently the wrong ones. You had the right to make your own mistakes -- and, hopefully, learn from them.

So, instead of saying any of the things he wanted to say, he simply backed down a step and murmured, “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

He backed off and let you get ready. He backed off and watched you hug his parents and grandparents goodbye. He backed off and stood there as Kevin’s car pulled into his driveway.

He backed off and let you leave with him.

And it nearly broke his heart into a million pieces to do it because he knew, deep down, this was the last straw.

Kevin had treated you like shit for a year. He had manipulated you into spending Christmas away from your family, and he had literally left you at a party where you’d known absolutely no one.

And you had still gone back to him.

You were pretty nervous as you got in Kevin’s car, you weren’t going to lie.

His messages had seemed apologetic, but you knew him well enough to be a little wary of seeing him in person.

But, as soon as you sat down in the passenger’s seat, Kevin leaned over and placed a soft, tender kiss on your cheek. He reached out and tucked your hair behind your ear. He said, “Hey, beautiful. I missed you.”

And all of your anxiety melted away. He had a way of doing that. If you were ever nervous that he was going to break up with you or that he would start the fight to end all fights, he had a talent of soothing those nerves with just one kiss or one smile or one “Hey, beautiful. I missed you.”

A tiny smile quirked at your lips, and you looked over to see him already smiling back at you. And he took this opportunity to lean over once again and kiss you for real this time.

“Are you okay?” he murmured in-between kisses.

You hummed positively, nodding a little as you cradled his lips with yours, accepting and returning his kiss.

“Good,” he whispered. “Let’s go home.”

You nodded again, and that was that. He drove back to his house, and the two of you spent the rest of the evening acting like nothing had ever happened.

Don’t get it twisted, though -- you were still going to bring it up because you needed to talk about this. You weren’t going to let your boyfriend get away with deserting you at a party. But the two of you still had to drive all the way back to school together, so why not just enjoy this last night and save the tension for tomorrow?

And, boy, were you glad you did.

The two of you had enjoyed your last night of Winter Break (though there had been some awkward moments with his parents), and then not even ten minutes into your drive back to school, Kevin had said something so utterly ridiculous:

“I was upset at first, but I understand why you would call Jae and stay with him. I don’t like it, but I understand. And I forgive you.”

Your forehead wrinkled in confusion immediately.

“You... forgive me? What are you talking about?” you asked with a soft chuckle. Because surely he was joking.

“I mean, it was a huge slap in the face,” Kevin continued. “You’d been texting him all week when you should have been spending time with me and my family, and then when I tell you it upset me, you go running to him? You spend the night with him? Come on. But I know how long you’ve known him, and you don’t really have any other friends, so I forgive you.”

Hearing his little speech, you honestly felt like the white blinking man meme.

Like... what?

“I’m sorry,” you scoffed. “You forgive me? Kevin, that is bullshit, and you know it.”

“What?” he chuckled.

“I need to be the one forgiving you!”

“Uhh --”

But you cut him off before he could say anything else infuriating. “You left me at your friend’s house, Kevin! I knew nobody there, you were my ride, and you just left me!”

“I was going to come back! I did come back, but you were already gone! Didn’t take you long to go running to Jae, huh?”

“Oh, you really expected me to wait for you?”

“I’m your boyfriend!” Kevin cried. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I thought I did, but why would someone I should trust leave me at a party?!”

“Oh, my god, will you just let that go?” he sighed, sounding completely over and done with everything.

What?!

“What?!” you shrieked. “Let that go?! No! I will not let that go! I didn’t know anyone there! Who knows what could have happened to me!”

“Those were my friends! And I came back for you!”

“How was I supposed to know you were going to come back?!”

“Because you’re supposed to trust me!” yelled Kevin.

“That is not a trust situation, that was a mind-reading situation. And I cannot read your mind, Kevin,” you retorted.

You could see Kevin grip the steering wheel, and he took a deep breath before he spat out, “I’m just sick of you running to him at the drop of a hat.”

“What are you talking about?” you asked with a laugh.

“Whenever you have a problem, you always go to him.”

“Well, he’s my --”

“Best friend, I know,” Kevin interrupted testily. “But put yourself in my shoes. Imagine that I had a female best friend. Imagine that I texted her constantly. Imagine that, whenever we got into an argument, I talked to her about it. Imagine that you looked at my phone and saw message after message to her just complaining about how you’re a shitty girlfriend.”

...Well. When he put it that way. But you weren’t ready to admit it to him just yet.

“But if you told me you were just friends, I would believe you! I wouldn’t try to get you to stop talking to her!”

“You say that because the situation isn’t reversed,” Kevin pointed out. “If it were really happening, you might feel differently.”

“I doubt it,” you muttered.

“All I’m saying is, I’m sick of him. I’m sick of competing with him when I am your boyfriend. I should come first.”

“But, see, I don’t think --”

“If you want to stay with me, you’re going to have to choose.”

“What?!”

“You have to choose between me and him.”

“Kevin, you’re being ridiculous! I can’t understand -- I mean, is the reason you don’t like him just because he’s my friend?”

“Does it matter why I don’t like him?”

“It matters to me!” you cried.

“I don’t like him because he’s a bad influence on you!” Kevin answered. “He puts thoughts into your head, he makes you think I’m the bad guy in this relationship when that is clearly not true.”

“Oh, so then I’m the bad guy,” you retorted. “Because if it’s not you then it has to be me.”

“Y/N,” Kevin sighed. “You’re getting off-topic. If you want to be with me, you’re going to have to stop talking to Jae.”

“Stop the car,” you told him.

“I’m sorry?”

“Stop the fucking car,” you repeated. You couldn’t be in here with him for one second longer. You weren’t even halfway back to school, but you didn’t care. You would call an Uber and get back yourself.

Kevin pulled to the side of the road, slowly rolling to a stop. When you opened the door, he called out, “Oh, come on! Don’t be so dramatic! Get back in here -- what are you going to do, walk?”

“If you were so concerned about it, why did you stop?” you pointed out as you reached for your suitcase in the back seat. “If you’re just going to keep telling me what to do for the rest of the way, I don’t want to ride with you.”

Kevin groaned, and you saw him actually roll his eyes. “Fine,” he ground out. “But don’t call me crying, asking me to come back and pick you up.”

“Oh, I won’t, trust me,” you sneered before slamming the door shut.

Kevin sped off, and you had never felt more like screaming and crying in your entire life.

Part 5

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prospitdaydreamer · 3 years

Text

For u anon <3

HOOOOOOO ok i’m trying to gather all my thoughts

Ok so fair warning, a lot of these stories stem from like... 5th grade and some are revamped to not be as bad, but others I’m STILL working on so... it’s gonna be a littlw rough and they’re all rlly a little WIP (especially since I never finished Naruto.... so like a lot of the characters backstory might clash with the lore. But tbh these character’s entire existence clashes with the lore in the first place so rlly?? W/e i guess)

Ok ok here we go, i’m gonna put it under a readmore so I’m not assaulting everyone’s dash.

Maku - (This is my most developed oc out of all, mostly because she’s my fave lmao) So, Maku is a runaway from her clan (I don’t have a clan name yet, but it’s gonna do smthn with cats lmao). Maku is the daughter of the head of the clan, so she was raised as a princess and the heir to the throne. However, her parents are not... great :/ They put a lot of responsibility and pressure on her, while her younger sister got to get off shinobi training early and hang with her friends. Despite this, she didn’t hold resentment for her sister and loved her very much, but she grew distant from her parents. Not long before her coronation, she actually ended up running away after having a breakdown from the pressure. She had no plan where to go or any money, but she felt finally free. Until she met Miyuka, who tried to sacrifice her to Jashin. She was able to make a deal that if she let her live, she’d help her find sacrifices. Somehow they became friends through that. They joined the Akatsuki together. I’ll definitely post more about her soon I’m sure!

Her Akatsuki partner is Miyuka, of course.

She got paired with Kakuzu. Their relationship is a very quiet one, but she doesn’t mind. She’s not like Miyuka, who is very touchy-feely. She just wants a relationship built on mutual respect. She treasures the nights where she’s curled up and warm next to him, while he reads whatever book he’s reading.

Special abilities and weapons: She inherited her clan’s kekkei Genkai. She’s able to transform into any species of feline, but the bigger the species, the more chakra it uses. As long as she’s able to maintain the form of the feline, she also gets it’s abilities ( e.g. if she’s a cheetah, she gets speed, lion gets far leaps, etc). Bonus fact: if she had stayed in her clan and became the leader, she would have been granted the ability to summon a catlike creature, much like the Sannin’s animals. However, since she dipped out, her sister got this connection instead. She doesn’t use weapons very often, her claws usually do the trick.

Miyuka: I don’t have much down about Miyuka, but she was an orphan who was taken in by Jashinists, so of course she grew up to be one too. She met Maku while finding sacrifices and made a deal with her that if she’d help her get sacrifices, she’d be allowed to live. She actually grew fond of Maku because she was always respectful of her religion and practices. It was actually her idea to join the Akatsuki. Much like Hidan, she figured it’s a great opportunity to get sacrifices. She’s definitely hot, but don’t get too close unless you’re into knifeplay ;)

Her Akatsuki partner is Maku, of course.

She’s paired with Hidan, obv. They’re definitely under the impression that Jashin destined them together and they have NO problem showing that off to the world (Much to Kakuzu, Maku, and everyone’s disdain.)

Special abilities and weapons: Before meeting Hidan, she actually hadn’t unlocked her immortality. Hidan helped her unlock it and now they share that ability. Instead of a skeletal form, though, her form is more ghostly. She uses two sickles as her weapons.

Gashiyo: Gashiyo actually wasn’t technically a shinobi, but her grandfather was and he taught her everything she knows about fighting. She lived on his farm her whole life, and she was very close with one of the cows, Yumi. She grew up with Yumi since she was a little calf. Because of her, Gashiyo grew fond of cows, and they’re her favorite animals. When she was 17, she met a boy who came to work on her grandpa’s farm, and they fell in love. They became attached at the hip, and spent a whole summer together. One fateful night, she awoke to ruckus. When she went outside she found her grandfather dead and Yumi too. Standing over Yumi’s body was the boy she had fallen in love with. Turns out he had been working for a local gang that her grandpa owed money to. She ended up killing him for what he’d done. Ever since, her heart grew cold and she became a very angry person. She joined the Akatsuki, since she had nowhere to go and she needed money.

Her Akatsuki partner is Koki.

She got paired with Deidara. She found him extremely annoying at first, but he wormed his way into her heart. Because of her past experiences with love, it was very difficult for her to open up to him. She’s pretty waspy, but she’s grown softer since. He even made her a little clay cow (It was very difficult for him to resist the urge to blow it up, but he managed.)

Special abilities and weapons: Her stampede jutsu causes a stampede of bulls made of chakra to charge toward her opponents. She also has brass knuckles with bull horns on them.

Koki: I honestly don’t have a backstory for her yet. I can tell you what she was like before I revamped her though. She literally just looked like Kisame, but a gorl lol. They were from the same village ig. Also she was a princess too excerpt it made no sense. I just wanted a princess (this was actually before i changed Maku’s story. She wasn’t originally a princess.) character i think.

BUT i swear she’s waayyyy better now

Her Akatsuki partner is Gashiyo

She was paired with Kisame. If ever she had a weakness, it’s muscles. She saw him with his cloak off and it was OVER. Koki is anything but shy, and i think Kisame appreciated that. She doesn’t just like muscles on her men, she loves them on herself too! They often work out together.

Special abilities and weapons: She’s a puppet master, but her puppets are rather unusual. They’re more like little spider robots she’s infused with her chakra to do her bidding. She’s very fond of them, despite everyone finding them creepy. She usually uses small ones but she has them in all sorts of sizes.

Shiitake: Shiitake used to be one of Orochimaru’s experiments. Because of this, she has amnesia and doesn;t remember much from before her time with him. She somehow got away and joined the Akatsuki to, hopefully, gain protection from him. In all honesty, she doesn’t really want to be there. Her heart was never one for murder or crime, but she doesn’t really have a choice. She’s very quiet and rarely speaks unless spoken to.

Her Akatsuki partner is Anara.

She’s paired with Itachi. When he found out she used to be one of Orochimaru’s experiments, they bonded over their experiences with him. He told her about how he was targeted to be one of Orochimaru’s bodies. Though they know they don’t have a lot of time together due to Itachi’s sickness, they still try to make the best of the time they have. ANd until then, he promised he wouldn’t let Orochimaru anywhere near her. He felt it’s the least good he could do for someone.

Special abilities and weapons: WIP, i literally have no idea yet.

Anara: I actually never came up with a backstory for her until like…. A year ago. Funny enough, her back story was inspired by Spinel’s from Steven Universe ( I kind of even want her to be voiced by Sarah Stiles too, but I suppose that’d be too on the nose! Still, that’s how I hear her voice). Anara never really knew what love was really like, considering her mother never cared for her much. Her mother never wanted to be a mom, but she met a man she really loved and he wanted a family. However, before Anara was born, her father died. Left as a husk from the depression of losing her lover and having a baby she never really wanted, her mom became very cold and distant. She kept her daughter alive, but that was about it. Anara tried very hard to make her mother happy, or really make her feel any emotion at all, but nothing worked. One day, her mother told Anara to stay home, and that she’d be back later. She left, and never came back, silently hoping maybe her daughter would just die. Well, she didn’t die. She eventually came to the realization her mother was never coming back for her, and she left that house and found her way to the nearest town where she was taken into the orphanage. She joined the academy to become a shinobi, but her heart was also in the arts. She performed plays for the other orphans, and loved the attention she received, the attention she craved. When she became older, she was both a shinobi and a theatre performer. Unfortunately, she still never really felt what it was like to be truly loved by someone. One day, she cracked from remembering the trauma of her mother and feeling like she may never receive the love she craved dearly, and ran away from the village, becoming a missing-nin. Tobi found her, and she became enamored with the mysterious masked man. She agreed to join the Akatsuki, hoping that he could fill the void in her heart. A chance to find a place where she belongs, whisked on an adventure by a mysterious masked man who promised to give her all she wanted? What else could a theatre girl want, lmao.

Her Akatsuki partner is Shiitake

She’s paired with Tobi, but it’s not clear if he feels the same or if he’s just using her. Doesn’t really seem to matter to her either way, she’s just happy to feel some sort of love.

Special abilities and weapons: WIP as well, lmao

Kimako: Kimako isn’t a shinobi, but she is the daughter of one. She’s the only one who has a definite village right now, she’s from Sunagakure. Her story is the one that's probably the dumbest but I have a very strong attachment to it for some reason, so w/e.

She has no partner.

She’s paired with Sasori. They’ve known eachother since they were little, as she lived close to him and their parents were friends. Her heart broke for him when he found out his parents weren’t coming home. She always had a crush on him, and he was ok with her, since she was always kind to him. When he became a shinobi, she stayed by his side to encourage him. She’d always been proud of him. Before he lost interest in emotions or w/e, he cared for her in his own little way. He even gave her a ring and promised to be hers. Her love for him was very strong, and when he ran away, she vowed to find him, no matter what it took. When she found out he had joined the Akatsuki, she did everything she could to find a way to join and get close to him again. She somehow succeeded, and she pleaded to join, despite having no fighting abilities. She said she’d do anything, and they took pity on her, and found SOME use for her (though i haven’t figured out what that is yet… wip). Once she was accepted and finally reunited with her love, she was devastated to find out he no longer had any feelings for her. All those years, wasted. Not only that, but she now was in debt to the Akatsuki and had to do work for them. Anara did her best to comfort her, so they kind of became friends, so that’s something. DOes Sasori ever regain his feelings? Maybe, maybe not. Guess we’ll have to see ;) Though I do think, for him, she’d agree to become a puppet too. If that was his price or smthn.

Special abilities and weapons: None, just one sad little broken heart.

#naruto #naruto shippuden #akatsuki #Naruto OCs

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illusionfm-blog · 5 years

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* 𝖘𝖚𝖋𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌 , chapter ii : the second part ft . emerson hemmingway , ya favorite fake ass ! intelligent n powerful , no nonsense , problem child but aint nobody gotta b knowin that bc she won’t make it known . she’s playing some dangerous games but that big head of hers is convinced she’s not abt to get caught and lowkey ? if anyone can pull it off , it’d be her !

⋆ ╰ another year at hollingsworth , another year of the big six rivalry . i hear that EMERSON HEMMINGWAY is ensuring CHI MU OMEGA gets a solid pledge class and stays at the top of the ranks . oh , you’re not familiar with HER ? EM is the TAYLOR HILL look alike from CHICAGO , ILLINOIS . a part of PC ‘16 , she is majoring in PRE-MEDICAL BIOCHEMISTRY and has plans to PURSUE MEDICAL SCHOOL AND HER LIFELONG AMBITION OF BECOMING A SURGEON after undergrad . it makes sense they pledged their house , their FERVID & ERUDITE attributes make them perfect matches . however , their MENDACIOUS & UNRELENTING attributes keep their name alive on greek rank . if you don’t catch them dancing to RHIANNON - FLEETWOOD MAC at a fraternity band party this year , you’ll be sure to catch them nursing their morning hangover at THE CHI O HOUSE . cheers to another wild semester !

tw : mentions of drug use , mental illness

⋆ ╰ 𝑺 𝑻 𝑨 𝑻 𝑰 𝑺 𝑻 𝑰 𝑪 𝑺 .

𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 : emerson elaine hemmingway ( formerly katsopoulous ) 𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 : em , emmy , ems 𝒃𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆 / 𝒂𝒈𝒆 : august 12 , twenty - one 𝒛𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒄 : leo 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒚 / 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒔 : cisfemale identifying with she / her / hers pronouns 𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 : openly bisexual and biromantic , no preference 𝒐𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 : pre-medical biochemistry major at hu , forward for the hu women’s ice hockey team , academic success center advisor & personal tutor , personal trainer , aspiring surgeon 𝒉𝒐𝒈𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆 : slytherin 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 : fiona & lip gallagher from shameless , debbie ocean from oceans 8 , spencer hastings from pll , princess bubblegum & marceline from adventure time , natasha romanoff & carol danvers from the mcu , meredith grey & alex karev from grey’s anatomy 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒔 : - distant , mendacious , unrelenting , severe , obsessive , easily goaded , defensive , pessimistic .

+ fevrent , erudite , observant , level-headed , astute , perceptive , polished , ambitious , capable .

⋆ ╰ 𝑨 𝑵 𝑻 𝑬 𝑪 𝑬 𝑫 𝑬 𝑵 𝑻 .

more bullet points , for the 𝖜𝖎𝖓

emerson elaine katsopoulous comes into the world on an uncharacteristically warm chicago night , testing positive for opioids , a father who’s already forgotten her mother’s name as he rots in a prison cell , and no reason for anyone to believe she’d ever amount to anything .

custody is awarded to her grandpa , christos , and pretty much the only family she’s ever known becomes the ratty neighborhood she grows up spending her evenings in . christos surviving on disability and doing odd construction jobs here and there under the table for some spare spending money , emerson spends most of her days under the supervision of the dysfunctional families in her neighborhood , all fucked up in their own ways but doing their absolute best . she’s reading the label of the cigarette boxes she plays with as toy cars by the age of 3 , chatty and curious , always inquiring why the man in the street is laying there with a spoon in his hand or why the ladies on the corner at night are “ dressed like its warm when it’s really really cold outside ”

christos enforces a strict no-visitation policy for emerson’s mom and ensures the whole neighborhood keeps it up , although there’s very little he can do when the vagabond woman seeks emerson out on the playground at school with playground attendants who clearly don’t care enough about their jobs to pay attention

one of emerson’s earliest formative memories is her mother “ picking her up ” from school and telling her they were off to go on an adventure , causing an amber alert to be put out for the then seven-year old emmy . watching her mother abandoning her on the sidewalk to bolt away at the sound of the sirens approaching is something emerson recognizes as the beginning of her trust issues

the older she gets , the more she acts out , landing her eventually in a behavioral school in downtown chicago where she spends her days learning just about nothing in class and acts out even more severely . christos is at his wit’s end with the visitations from police and her behavioral officer , even a brief stint in juvie not being enough to curb the girl’s enthusiasm for trouble .

aggression towards authority figures was a major complaint , but the most severe issue became emerson’s quick tongue and sharp observation . after having learned a few tricks of the trade from other students at the behavioral school , she finds herself increasingly talented at conning the absolute living shit out of other people . at first it’s small things , trading academic favors for weed and somehow selling that for twice its worth to the gullible students , finding ways to forge signatures on things she needs signed by a guardian , to the more elaborate and high scale , such as taking the SATs for private school students in the next county over and making BANK , conning boys into trading off their rolexes which she later pawns .

christos puts her in ice hockey at the recommendation of her juvenile probation officer at the age of 13 , which proves to be one of her saving graces . her coach becomes a notable figure in her life , smacking the sense into the chaotic child’s mind that she can accomplish so much more than she gives herself credit for . her behavior interventionist recommends an adhd screening for which she finally gets a diagnosis , and a prescription for adderall , which marks the beginning of her transformation .

just before entering high school , christos and emerson are contacted by a woman who identifies herself as her long lost aunt . as it turns out , her hockey coach had done some digging and found that her father , a man em had never once spoken to , had an estranged family located in ohio , moguls of a local architecture chain with political ties and very well off . wanting to branch out into more metropolitan areas , they mention their interest in moving to chicago , and concoct a plan that changes emerson’s life

thanks to some insider ties , her politician aunt daphne has completely erased her felon brother from any connection to her , and has forged a life for herself with her architect husband . feeling a duty to her estranged niece ( and preferring to get ahead of any potential surprises that could come from having secret family derailing her political career ) daphne and christos come to the agreement that emerson can be “ adopted ” by her aunt , living as her daughter and trading the slums she grew up in for a life of luxury and illusion . emerson learns to tell the lie with ease , “ i lived with my grandpa instead of my mom and dad due to some health complications that were best treated at the university of chicago medical center , but they spent as much time as possible here ”

in order for the lie to work , and possibly one of the most difficult moments of emerson’s life , daphne regretfully has her cut off contact with everyone from her “ old life . ” letting go of a felon father and schizophrenic drug addicted mother was easy due to never having attached herself in the first place , but abandoning the families that raised her and the hockey coach who changed her life was among the most painful thing she’s ever done

she changes her last name , moves to the upper class suburb of chicacgo’s finest , her con artist tendency making her transition seamless and the illusion of fitting in so much more than an illusion . learning from those around her , emerson learns the exact things to say , the precise ways to move , and with a newly funded bank account thanks to her “ parents , ” she pulls off the act with ease . she moves up into a premier hockey league , achieves grades that catch the attention of countless schools , and transforms into a driven and determined steam train , with a one way ticket into a legacy she’s built from the ground up

hollingsworth u became her most appealing option after touring the premises and finding the competitiveness of an ivy league without the social ineptitude — equal parts ritzy glam and fierce ambition , hu seemed to embody everything emerson was seeking without the pretentiousness of the other schools groveling at her feet to have her

her first few years are a breeze , her family connections meaning she’s set up in countless places to achieve whatever she wants . she gets an internship at the medical center doing research by her sophomore year , is a starter on their women’s hockey team , and is enjoying the social aspect of her sorority time

shit TRULY hits the fan the summer before her senior year , when daphne’s campaign for mayor of chicago is rattled by an investigation that exposes her senior assistant for having embezzled from the city . though daphne herself is innocent , the political climate pushes for a closer eye on the hemmingways and their dealings . a crisis manager ( literally olivia pope lmao ) does her own research and before emerson knows it , she’s suddenly thrust into her senior year with absolutely no financial support from her family . as it turns out , due to the corners cut by not formally nor legally adopting emerson ( as it would have left a paper trail ) , the financial aid daphne provided would route in a way that would not line up with the birth certificate that showed emerson’s birth parents as people other than her fake parents . not wanting to risk a scandal that would make national headlines without doubt , daphne and emerson devise an alternative where em uses her academic and athletic prowess to earn scholarships to cover her schooling , which can’t be traced and leave no red flags for anyone trying to dig up dirt .

emerson knows she can’t let anyone think she’s struggling , both for her own ego and for the sake of her aunt’s campaign , which is why she’s pushing herself to the edge to keep up both her academics and her athletics to maintain these scholarships . while these cover the basic costs , keeping up the lifestyle she’s had requires a bit more effort , which is where it seems this tiger won’t change her stripes no matter how well she had hidden them for so long . what started as simple tutoring turned into a teleportation back to her behavioral school in chicago but on a wider scale — she sells her adderall prescription to make quick cash and offers her services for fake test taking or last-minute essay writing . it’s high risk , but also high reward , and emerson has always thrived in high pressure situations

⋆ ╰ 𝑨 𝑵 𝑨 𝑳 𝒀 𝑺 𝑰 𝑺 .

personality wise , em is known for being the cool calm and collected type , who’s a bit of a mystery to most . she’s an illusion and lives the lie she’s been telling as if its her second skin , sometimes losing what she believes in at her core .

she’s deeply ambitious and wants to be a surgeon , her dream since she was a child as medicine was the most stimulating thing possible to her . she did so much research on her “ fake illness ” to sell her story that she ended up falling in love with it , and has been set on medicine ever since

this aggressive ambition can also show as fixation or obsession , and emerson has a severe problem with not knowing where to let go . while she seems cool and detatched , she’s obsessed with never feeling like she could have done more and will always be the girl who can be goaded into taking things too far , often putting her in dangerous situations that she has to figure her own way out of

she tends to take everything kinda seriously and despite being p relaxed , her perfectionist type a side makes itself very apparent in the day-to-day of her life . she knows how to play hard and enjoys herself a good party , but even in the way she plays beer pong she hates to fail

has a sexy deep voice n an even SEXIER deadpan sarcastic wit . .. . def the friend to call out bs without batting an eye , usually wearing an oversized hoodie n gucci slides , em is the literal intersection of boujie and casual PHEW

having such an unstable upbringing and so many shitty experiences at such a young age have hardened her and made her deeply unwilling to trust others . she tends to keep the world at a distance , and even her closest friends always admit it feels like they’re still an arms length from her deepest layer . emerson is pretty sure the only person to ever see her cry is her grandpa , and intends to likely keep it that way

instead of freaking out , em shuts down ! v unemotional ! she just detatches and tries to be calculated which tends to make people think she’s some shitty robot who doesnt give a fuck about anyone but herself bc of her “ rich girl upbringing ” which is true to an extent , but nobody will ever know the true backstory that explains her emotional detachment and secrecy

in a way , even though she has the world convinced she’s this composed individual , she still always thinks of herself as a chaotic problem child which only fuels her determination even more , often to the extent that she fucking burns herself out . she’s incredibly cynical and has a p negative self perception because she’s just that fucking hard on herself

has never really been in love ! she’s never let anyone close enough to her that she risks getting attached enough to get hurt , which means relationships are usually rather shallow and end when she gets bored or when they get tired of waiting for her to open up

stressed as SHIT trying to keep up her illusion for her own ego’s sake and that of her family ! she’s ashamed of her upbringing and her aunt has always been pretty good to her , and em recognizes that if daphne wouldn’t have appeared , emerson would probably have ended up like either one of her parents . people have noticed that emerson seems a lil more anal than usual , but the con in her makes it easy to convince everyone she’s just stressed with the prospect of graduation and medical school

#rank:intro #i' m . .. . so orsry for how long this got . ..#SKKKSDSKDJ

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veltemisxo-blog · 5 years

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Chapter 1 :

When asked about pain, my answer has never been clear. Everything that I have ever felt, I could never convey properly. I want the world to feel everything I have EVER felt. The biggest pain I have ever felt in this world is loneliness. For everyone, the worst pain is different, but for me nothing hit harder than loneliness. It started with the isolation I received at school, then I started to feel it at home too. Then I felt it everywhere. It was insanely strong, never left, never got smaller, it felt like the only option it ever had..was to grow. Adults don’t tell us adult things when we’re toddlers or kids or teenagers because they believe we’ll never understand. That is something I have yet to get, was it because they never understood or was it some self righteous adult thing? I felt so alone around every adult in my family because up until a certain point in my life, this point, they made me believe I could never understand. Growing up, I wanted to be an adult because I wanted to shoo off my kids because I had to speak to the other adults or drink liquor or smoke a cigar or even a blunt, who cares? I just wanted to feel like I was the biggest person. I could get disrespected, smacked up & down, told to leave a room or place, every single thing, was up to another human being, an adult. I couldn’t even leave my yard, yet everyone wonders where my anxiety comes from. Why I can’t ask the flower lady for a bouquet of flowers for my mother on Mothers’ Day, why I can’t tell the person at the front what time my therapy session is, why I’m too shy to address my OWN family members. I never built any social qualities because everyone that I was supposed to socialize with either - didn’t want to socialize with me or because of the rules my mother gave me (stay in the yard). They prevented me from playing with other kids. She gave me a track phone to call her with for every 20 minutes. That was literally just to hangout with a girl down the street. Down the street. 5 or 6 houses away. Except this one time. A friend from school & her sisters came into my yard to play. Then a bunch of people came to play. Boys with Beyblades & Beyblade stations, action figures. Girls with dance tricks & secrets. That was the only day any of the kids wanted to stay inside a yard & play. They never came back again. So excuse me for not being as bold or as normal as I should be. I don’t have the right social skills or emotions to not wanna throw up/cry every time I have to talk to someone. Even if it’s someone I’ve known for years. My whole life had been up to an adult. I had two older brothers who weren’t interested in playing the games I wanted to play. My older girl cousin was the key word : older. She was more into talking on the phone with her teenager friends. And my two younger male cousins never understood the things I talked about or they didn’t really wanna do girly things I did. I had absolutely no one. I cry as I write this because it still feels that way. It’s still that way. Too young for everyone. My cousin, Jarid, we’re at the age where we’re teenagers & we wanna talk about teenager things, but he lives in Staten Island & I rarely see him. And here comes that random, out of context confession. My grandma has this little apartment at a place called St. James & sometimes my little cousins (Jarid & Langston) would stay there with my grandpa or grandma & they always want me to come. And as if it’s a coincidence, it’s always the days where my anxiety or bipolar disorder kick in the most. I know I should wanna go deep down inside, but no one else in this family feels as I do, nor understand my pain, no matter how I rephrase it. And to this I say : Mother, I am sorry for all the times I have wanted your love & affection, but suddenly pushed you away. I am in a place where I think everyone hates me & pities me because I feel that way about myself. I feel ugly & useless. A part of me convinces my mind that everyone feels that way too. Please don’t tell me I am beautiful I will always believe you’re lying. Don’t ask why. I don't know either.

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elataanarchive · 5 years

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alright kiddos time for me to talk about peter’s trauma. I need to rewatch the first gotg, but if we know peter, he doesn’t cope with his trauma in a very healthy manner. In which I mean he doesn’t cope with it at all. he deflects it with humor or denial ( see when gam asked him to kill her in IW or the fact that he didn’t accept his mother’s death until he was like 34 years old ). yondu got his redemption in the 2nd guardians movie, but he wasn’t a good father. he was never meant to be a parent, especially not to someone like peter. peter loved him in the end, and there will always be a part of peter that will thank yondu for all of the things he taught him, the biggest being how to survive in the big and cruel galaxy, but peter went from living with a mother and grandparents who loved him and were very emotionally fulfilling to the ravagers, who were literally space pirates. he was forced to internalize his grief ( from losing the single most important person in his life I might add ) and deal with it on his own. how the hell is a kid of 10 supposed to deal with the death of a parent, of a mother, on his own? that’s right. he doesn’t. he internalizes it and throws himself into being a damn good ravager. he tries to harden his skin (and fails lmaoooo) because he learns very quickly that he’s been thrown into a universe that does not give a shit about him. the ravagers are abusive in both a physical and verbal sense -- they kick him, punch him, tell him to toughen up, to stop being so soft, to grow up otherwise the galaxy is going to eat him alive. yondu even threatened to eat him ("When I picked you up as a kid, these boys wanted to eat you. They ain't never tasted Terran before. I saved your life!") (which we learned in the second movie that was a poor attempt at being funny), which terrified peter because??? honestly??? he didn’t know if yondu was going to or not. this kind of traumatized peter as a kid, and it’s why he throws himself into learning how to be the best pilot, the best shooter, the best ravager. he learns to adapt to fit in, to be useful to the ravagers, because he knows there might be consequences if he doesn’t. we know that peter is Not About that toxic masculinity because we see him cry a lot in the second movie, and he’s not afraid of being vulnerable, but that’s only after he’s CERTAIN that he can trust the person he’s being vulnerable in front of. the biggest thing though is that he does not cope with death well. he has problems internalizing already, but it’s even worse when dealing with death, and I think this stems from his mother. his grandfather, right after she died, didn’t ask if peter was okay, didn’t attend to peter, a boy of TEN (eight if you wanna go by movie canon not my canon), but instead set him outside and told him to wait even though there was nothing the grandpa could have done other than get in the way of the doctors as they dealt with meredith’s death. GROWTH, however, would be when yondu dies, and this growth occurs after he’s been around the guardians for a time, after he’s built a family and a home and is surrounded by people who have his back and love him. he openly cries and grieves yondu in front of them. it’s also why he reacts so violently when he learns the truth of his mother’s death + what happened to gamora. his entire life yondu has told him to work thru his shit on his own, to deal with his grief and feelings on his own, and it forced peter to internalize and redirect those emotions into other things. what do we do when we internalize? we distract ourselves, and for peter, that was shooting people he saw as evil in the face. so of course this is why he reacted the way he did in the respective situations.

"You don't give a damn about your Terra! You're scared because you're soft, in here. Here! Right here!"

#ooc.#I RAMBLED AND WAS ALL OVER THE PLACE FJSDKLFJ #basically pete had to internalize his feelings for much of his life #but then he got a family that loved him #so he got a lil better at dealing #bUT he still struggles with his own emotions #he feels SO much it's hard for him sometimes.#djfklsdjfsdfkj #oof i love peter jason q/uill with my WHOLE heart.#*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ ᵈᵘᵈᵉ ! ᶜʰᵉᶜᵏ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵐʸ ᶰᵉʷ ᵐᶤˣ ᵗᵃᵖᵉ ! / / HEADCANONS.#hc.#abuse mention /#death mention /#ask to tag /

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chronicbatfictioner · 6 years

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A Real Boy - Chapter 7

The 'dungeon', thankfully, was not a literal dungeon. Or as Dick explained, it was once upon a time planned to be one; "but then the Salem Witch Trials happened, and the Wayne grandpa - or was it great-grandpa? I can't remember.. Anyway, he was so distraught by the blatant misogyny and stupid; he cancelled the building of witch-proof dungeon and instead built a wizard-safe laboratory of some sort like this. And by 'safe' I mean we can do things in here that no one beyond these walls would know, notice, or otherwise sense. Lo and behold!"

The last part of his story was emphasized by a sliding door that was hidden behind a grandfather clock. If Tim didn't see him pressing his hand on a panel nearby, he would have thought that the door was opened by magick. Behind the door was a dark, long set of stairs. Or maybe it wasn't that long, it just seemed like it because it was dark.

"Bruce will join us in a bit. Come on!" Dick prompted. "The light would come in after you're on step three..." he showed by going in. A single light lit up above his head. "See? Come on!"

"Hoookay..." Tim breathed. Jason has long since disappearing with Alfred to go elsewhere - presumably the library. Tim knew that there was the same amount of hexes and protection spells behind the clock - he could feel them, but did not feel threatened by them. "If I scream, Jason might pummel your face, just so you know." he reminded Dick, who waited patiently on the fifth stair.

"Oh, I know. He looks nonchalant, but inside he's actually very, very chalant." Dick remarked, straight-faced.

"What?" Tim nearly stumbled onto him when the lights behind him switched off and he rushed to catch up.

"You know, the opposite of 'non'-chalant?" Dick replied.

Tim rolled his eyes. "Really." he said dryly. "There's no such word..."

"Who's to say that? Language is fluid, Timber, I can create words today; and tomorrow, it'll be in the dictionary." Dick announced.

Tim managed to not roll his eyes, simply by realizing that if he does it again, he would stumble to the bottom of the stairs that was still long and dark and only illuminated as Dick stepped on the next concurrent steps. Dick eventually picked up speed and the lights got brighter until they reached the end of the tunnel to another door.

"Might want to shield your eyes. Babs hates darkness." Dick warned.

"Who's--" before Tim could ask who 'Babs' was, the door opened and light flooded the tunnel. Tim had to wince and squint to allow his eyes to adjust to the light.

Once his eyes adjusted, he gasped at the sight. There were rows and rows of servers, and if Tim didn't know better, he would have thought that he was in the server room of a corporate bank or something. But there were something about those servers that felt foreboding to him, as if they were using a different kind of electricity to power them, and Tim did not feel like they came from solar power or anything else he'd known to generate electricity.

"How..." he croaked, cleared his throat, and continued. "...how are these powered?" he asked, unconsciously glad that Dick seemed to see his uneasiness and remained within arm's reach.

"Oh, that's Babs' secret. You might want to ask her." Dick smiled. Tim honestly hoped that 'Babs' was a human being and not... some sort of ethereal or otherwise supernatural creature, e.g. a dragon who provided the electricity with its breath or something like that. Hey, he hasn't seen a lot of dragons. But nobody ever told him that dragons can't spit out electricity. If they can spit out fire out with their stomach acid, who's to say they couldn't spit out electricity? The general principle of electricity is consistent accumulation and friction of protons and electrons, after all. Even a small cat could accumulate static electricity... why can't a big dragon?

But said little voice that hoped for an electricity-spittin' dragon was squashed when they rounded a corner and found, among the massive set of monitors that stretched from approximately waist-high all the way to the ceiling, a chair and a keyboard on a desk, complete with coffee mugs and jars of snacks and several personal items. To his surprise, the chair was not actually a common computer chair, but a wheelchair.

"Babs?" Dick called. A voice called back from somewhere among the monitors that - frankly - fueled Tim's imagination of some sort of imp that fixes monitors or computers by physically going through it.

"Here, just a second." said the voice. After a few seconds, a red-haired person rolled out from under the desk. "Oh, hi, didn't know we had company!"

Tim blinked. Not only the person was 'regular' - as in non-magickal at all, she was also a familiar face. Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Police Commissioner, James Gordon. Barbara was a beautifully enigmatic, scary smart person with eidetic memory who could give Tim's brain an inferiority complex; and the proprietor of several renewable-energy initiatives that are being implemented by the city which, sadly, did not include dragon-based electricity.

"Was there an actual dragon-based electricity?" Tim's mouth blurted out before his manners could catch up. He promptly cringed and added, "I'm-- sorry. I'm... Hi, I'm Tim Drake." he introduced himself.

Barbara smiled and extended a hand. "Not as far as I've heard, but if you can find a dragon that can generate electricity and willing to do it for a small fee - preferably ones that don't include live creatures; do let me know!" she replied. "Also, if you can't hold up while I pull myself up to the chair, let me know. I don't want to pull you and we both stumble back to the ground." she added.

"Oh, no, I can... I think I can hold on." Tim replied and readied his stance as he accepted Barbara's hand. She apparently only needed Tim's arm as a hoisting point, because she pulled herself off the ground easily and maneuvered back into her wheelchair with such amazing ease that showed her upper body strength.

Tim was not surprised, really. He had seen interviews with Barbara that was taken after the incident that left her paralyzed from waist down. A former ballerina and martial artist, Barbara had patiently explained in the interview why she had the handles on the back of her wheelchair removed. She was not one who could handle pity and does not like to be pushed around without her explicit consent, she'd said, and Tim agreed. He might have never been physically disabled, but he knew how pity worked - and how many people have tried to pile it on him when his mother had died and dad got paralyzed. The 'pushing around' part, too, resonated aloud within Tim.

"Okay," Barbara remarked once she was seated. "Didn't tell me you were going to bring guests, Dick. But nice to meet you, Tim Drake. Do you guys need something?"

"Bruce is going to explain what we do to Tim here and his familiar - if he can drag said familiar from the library." Dick told her, and then turned to Tim. "Barbara here is our personal Oracle, literally and figuratively," he explained.

And then Tim realized that Barbara was wearing a nearly invisible tiara. A magickal invisible tiara that emanated strong old-magick that made Tim's heart flutter all of the sudden. "Goddesses... you're literally the Oracle of Delphi!" he exclaimed. The tiara, he knew, was an artifact. His father had found it - or rather, his mother did and his father was the one who took the credit. He knew it well, because mother was not happy at the credit, and his dad kept claiming that she had found it accidentally, so it didn't count.

It took Tim his powers manifesting, along with mother's death, to realize that the discovery was not incidental at all. It should have been stored in the Gotham Museum, like everything else they had discovered from the dig. Tim knew it as a definite fact, because he was there - it was one of the very rare few times that his parents had brought him along to an event.

Tim's expression must have revealed his thoughts - somebody in Bruce Wayne's team must have somewhat 'repossess' the tiara and gave it to Barbara; because she suddenly gasped and commented, "Oh my, he can see-- you can see the tiara, can't you?"

Tim nodded slowly, his eyes still didn't leave Barbara's tiara. "It should've been in the museum." he stated darkly. "Why do you have it."

Barbara smiled, "I've had it for a while now, Tim. I didn't steal it, if that's what you're insinuating without even intoning." she said. "Your mother... Dick, did you know whose son he is when you got him here?" she suddenly turned to Dick.

Dick shrugged. "Sure, Jack Drake's son."

"Jack and Janet Drake's son. Jan's son!" her eyes was glistening when she turned back to Tim. "She was... Tim, your mother was a hero."

Tim shrugged, this time. "I know, she saved dad's life..."

"Oh no, no, no..." Barbara waved her hand. "Oh goodness... That was just... while saving your father's life is not less heroic, regardless of the result of her demise; that's not what I meant. Jan... Janet was one of us. But she always knew that she would not be around long enough to watch her son grow up.

"She gave me this tiara right after they discovered it, almost three years ago. The one at Gotham Museum is a fake that she'd glamoured - so that any magickal person who'd seen it would think it's the real deal. It's been... how many times now that it's been 'stolen'? Four?" she mused. "But I didn't steal it. She said I should use it to focus my sensitivity and that it will help me focus it. Here--" she turned toward the computer console and keyboards. "...I'm sorry if this would hurt you, but I've got the feeling that you won't let this go without solid evidence."

"Oh man, Babs, you sure...? It wasn't... I mean, I flipped whenever I see mine, even like, just a photograph. Why..." Dick sighed, protesting.

"He's not like you, Dick. He's Jan's son." Barbara cut him off and skimmed through a whole list of folders, and then opened a video file. "You can see here," she pointed to a monitor and handed him a set of headphones.

The video began playing, and Barbara fast-forward it to a certain set of time. It generally showed her in an office building that Tim didn't recognize. She was already in the wheelchair, and by that, Tim could tell that it was after her incident a year before his mother's death. He knew, from Barbara's hint and Dick's reaction, what to expect. But still, he gasped when his mother walked into the room and toward Barbara. It was a brief exchange, showing his mother handing something toward Barbara, saying the exact thing Barbara said earlier, "this should help with your sensitivity. Now that you're not going out too much, your senses would go all haywire, and this will help you focus it."

Whatever it is Barbara said, Tim stopped caring as he focused on his mother. Even in a video, her features have started to be out blurry and out of focus, as it would with other full-blooded fae when they have died. Tim knew that he shouldn't try to remember her face. The books said that when a fae was killed, they would only fully get the freedom of the body and the choice of whether or not they would want to return to the realm of the living once their descendants forget about their previous appearances.

"Why did you show him that?" Jason was suddenly beside him, covering Tim with his arms and wings and all. "and for goddess' sake, what the hell is it with the clock?? I had to wait for Alfred to open the thing!" he added, snarling toward Dick.

"Oh wow, he's... he must be--" Barbara gasped.

"...the familiar. Yeah. That's actually what I meant by not making him distressed. He kind of got a very protective familiar." Dick added. "Babs was just showing Tim how she'd gotten something from his mother." he explained to Jason.

"I'm al--" Tim's voice sounded a little too small, even for him. So he cleared his throat. "I'm alright, Jason. Just-- Sorry... I didn't think that seeing her again..." he blinked rapidly, trying to settle the tears that were starting to burn his eyes. "We're supposed to forget so she can be free, right? I'm... I couldn't even remember what she smelled like." A big droplet of tears stubbornly refused to get back in and fell onto Tim's cheek.

Jason hugged him tight, but his wings were starting to disappear. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Why?" Barbara asked curiously. "What does he mean by having to forget?"

"A fae would make everyone forget them once their physical self died." Jason explained. "And by 'everyone', I mean their descendants. Once they are fully and truly forgotten, then they would have the option to return again to a human life, or other things."

"Does that mean there aren't faes who are... Mexican, then?" Dick wanted to know, and then cringed. "Ugh, I sounded racist. Sorry."

Jason scoffed. "There are... just not the... recent ones with clear photos, I guess. They just need to kind of 'forget' the actual appearance. Like, if you have a mole on your left cheek and your great-great grandkid doesn't know it because your photo was taken as a right-side profile, you're good to go." he explained. "And yes, you sounded racist, jerk."

"He's... delightful. And a bit possessive of his Magi, huh?" Barbara observed. "I'm Barbara, do you have a name?" she asked Jason.

"Jason." Jason replied shortly, even without looking Tim knew that his eyes were fixated on Barbara's tiara. "Well, it's pretty rare to see someone who has control of the Phythia's crown." he commented. "Does it require a modern-day fog a.k.a. hallucinogens to work?"

Dick gasped and Barbara coughed a laugh. "Oh my, he's..." Barbara remarked.

"Salty, I was about to warn you that. Was that you or you?" Dick asked, pointing alternately between Jason and Tim.

"Both," they chorused, and Tim promptly cringed. "Sorry, it's just... history believed that the Phythias used some hallucinogens. I just want to make sure..."

"The earlier ones didn't," Jason replied. "The latter ones... let's just say they weren't blessed with the channel for Apollo's foreseeing abilities and were trying to not make the empire collapse."

"'Try' being the operative word, I presume..." Barbara quipped.

"Yeeeah, well... the tiara was lost after a while. Presumably hidden." Jason replied.

"Presumed correctly to be hidden. My mom didn't find that in Delphi or even near Delphi." Tim said. A thought randomly came to his mind and he took a single step away from Jason, out of his embrace. "By the way, is there an electricity-generating dragon?"

Jason glared at him. "Of all the exciting things you could ask while being in the inner sanctum of the modern-day Oracle, that's what you want to know?" he scowled.

"Yes." Tim replied, surprised to hear his 'yes' echoed by both Dick and Barbara.

Jason sighed exasperatedly. "Yes there is. Don't ask me if I can get to them or how to contact them, --do not ask how I know or if they still exist. Just-- can we focus on whatever this thing is Bruce wanted to show us and-or-you?" he snapped.

Barbara snickered. "Okay, then... I think Bruce is coming down in a bit, he's a bit surprised at you zipping past him down the hallway and was checking on us. But let's start over, shall we?" she told them as she wheeled her chair to the center of the room. And then she turned and stated enigmatically, "Gentlemen, welcome to the Oracle's Lair. How can I help?"

Bruce, who had just rounded the corner, intoned; "how do we stop the Untitled?"

#Tim Drake #Jason Todd #no-capeAU #Dick Grayson #Barbara Gordon #Bruce Wayne #alfred pennyworth #Magi!AU

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talesofhorrorofficial · 6 years

Text

A Shattered Life

I don't know when you're going to read this, but I can tell you when it started: I was out for a walk alone in the woods when the entity came for me. It was beyond a blur. It was, for lack of a better term, absence of meaning. Where it hid, there were no trees; where it crept closer, there was no grass; through the arc it leapt at me, there was no breeze of motion. There was no air at all.

As it struck, I felt the distinct sensation of claws puncturing me somewhere unseen; somewhere I'd never felt before. My hands and arms and legs and torso seemed fine and I wasn't bleeding, but I knew I'd been injured somehow. As I fearfully ran back home, I could tell that I was less. I was vaguely tired, and it was hard to focus at times.

The solution at that early stage was easy: a big cup of coffee helped me feel normal again.

For a while, that subtle drain on my spirit became lost in the ebb and flow of caffeine in my system. You could say my life began that week, actually, because that was when I met Mar. She and I got along great, though, to be honest, I'm pretty sure I fell in love with her over the phone before we even met.

It was almost as if the strong emotions of that first week made the entity fight back—it was still with me, latched on to some invisible part of my being.

The first few incidents were minor, and I hardly worried about them. The color of a neighbor's car changed from dark blue to black one morning, and I stared at it before shaking my head and shrugging off the difference. Two days later, at work, a coworker's name changed from Fred to Dan. I carefully asked around, but everyone said his name had always been Dan. I figured I'd just been mistaken.

Then, as ridiculous as this sounds, I was peeing in my bathroom at home when I suddenly found myself on a random street. I was still in my pajamas, pants down, and urinating—but now in full view of a dozen people at a bus stop. Horrified, I pulled up my clothes and ran before someone called the cops. I did manage to get home, but the experience forced me to admit that I was still in danger. The entity was doing something to me, and I didn't understand how to fight back.

Mar showed up that evening, but she had her own key.

"Hey," I asked her with confusion. "How'd you get a key?"

She just laughed. "You're cute. Are you sure you're okay with this?" She opened a door and entered a room full of boxes. "I know living together is a big step, especially when we've only been dating three months."

Living together? I'd literally just met her the week before. Thing was, my mother had always called me a smart cookie for a reason. I knew when to shut my yap. Instead of causing a scene, I told her everything was fine—and then I went straight to my room and began investigating.

My things were just as I had left them with no sign of a three month gap in habitation, but I did find something out of the ordinary: the date. I shivered angrily as I processed the truth.

The entity had eaten three months of my life.

What the hell was I facing? What kind of creature could consume pieces of one's soul like that? I'd missed the most exciting part of a new relationship, and I would never understand any shared stories or in-jokes from that period. Something absurdly precious had been taken from me, and I was furious.

That fury helped suppress the entity. I never imbibed alcohol. I drank coffee religiously. I checked the date every time I woke up. For three years, I managed to live each day while observing nothing more than minor alterations. A social fact here and there—someone's job, how many kids they had, that sort of thing—the layout of nearby streets, the time my favorite television show aired, that kind of thing. Always, those changes reminded me the creature still had its claws sunk into my spirit. Not once in three years did I ever let myself zone out.

One day, I grew careless. I let myself get really into the season finale of my favorite show. It was gripping; a fantastic story. Right at the height of the action, a young boy came up to my lounger and shook my arm.

Surprised, I asked, "Who are you? How did you get in here?"

He laughed and smiled brightly. "Silly Daddy!"

My heart sank in my chest. I knew immediately what had happened. After a few masked questions, I discovered that he was two years old—and that he was my son.

The agony and heartache filling my chest was nearly unbearable. Not only had I missed the birth of my son, I would never see or know the first years of his life. Mar and I had obviously gotten married and started a family in the time I'd lost, and I had no idea what joys or pains those years contained.

It was snowing outside. Holding my sudden son in my lap, I sat and watched the flakes fall outside. What kind of life was this going to be if slips in concentration could cost me years? I had to get help.

The church had no idea what to do. The priests didn't believe me, and told me I had a health issue rather than some sort of possession.

The doctors didn't have any clue. Nothing showed up on all their scans and tests, but they happily took my money in return for nothing.

By the time I ran out of options, I'd decided to tell Mar. There was no way to know what this all looked like from her side. What was I like when I wasn't there? Did I still take our son to school? Did I still do my job? Clearly, I did, because she seemed to be none the wiser, but I still had a horrible feeling that something must have been missing in her life when I wasn't actually home inside my own head.

But the night I set up a nice dinner in preparation, she arrived not by unlocking the front door, but by knocking on it. I answered, and found that she was in a nice dress.

She was happily surprised by the settings on the table. "A fancy dinner for a second date? I knew you were sweet on me!"

Thank the Lord I knew when to keep my mouth shut. If I'd gone on about being married and having a son, she might have run for the hills. Instead, I took her coat and sat down for our second date.

Through carefully crafted questions, I managed to deduce the truth. This really was our second date. She saw relief and happiness in me, but interpreted that as dating jitters. I was just excited to realize that the entity wasn't necessarily eating whole portions of my life. The symptoms, as I was beginning to understand them, were more like the consequences of a shattered soul. The creature had wounded me; broken me into pieces. Perhaps I was to live my life out of order, but at least I would actually get to live it.

And so it went for a few years—from my perspective. While minor changes in politics or geography would happen daily, major shifts in my mental location only happened every couple months. When I found myself in a new place and time in my life, I just shut up and listened, making sure to get the lay of the land before doing anything to avoid making mistakes. On the farthest-flung leap yet, I met my six-year-old grandson, and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said, "Writer." I told him that was a fine idea.

Then, I was back in month two of my relationship with Mar, and I had the best night with her on the riverfront. When I say the best, I mean the best. Knowing how special she would become to me, I asked her to move in. I got to live through what I'd missed the first go-around, and I came to understand that I was never mentally absent. I would always be there—eventually. When we were moving her boxes in, she stopped for a moment and said she marveled at my great love, as if I'd known her for a lifetime and never once doubted she was the one.

That was the first time I'd truly laughed freely and wholeheartedly since the entity had wounded me. She was right about my love for her, but for exactly the reason she'd considered a silly romantic analogy. I had known her my whole life, and I'd come to terms with my situation and found peace with it. It wasn't so bad to have sneak peeks at all the best parts ahead.

But of course I wouldn't be writing this if hadn't gotten worse. The entity was still with me. It had not wounded me and departed like I'd wanted to believe. The closest I can describe my growing understanding was that the creature was burrowing deeper into my psyche, fracturing it into smaller pieces. Instead of months between major shifts, I began having only weeks. Once I noticed that trend, I feared my ultimate fate would be to jump between times in my life heartbeat by heartbeat, forever confused, forever lost. Only an instant in each time meant I would never be able to speak with anyone else, never be able to hold a conversation, never express or receive love.

As the true depth of that fear came upon me, I sat in an older version of me and watched the snow falling outside. That was the one constant in my life: the weather didn't care who I was or what pains I had to face. Nature was always there. The falling snow was always like a little hook that kept me in a place; the pure emotional peace it brought was like a panacea on my mental wounds, and I'd never yet shifted while watching the pattern of falling white and thinking of the times I'd gone sledding or built a snow fort as a child.

A teenager touched my arm. "Grandpa?"

"Eh?" He'd startled me out of my thoughts, so I was less careful than usual. "Who are you?"

He half-grinned, as if not sure whether I was joking. Handing me a stack of papers, he said, "It's my first attempt at a novel. Would you read it and tell me what you think?"

Ahh, of course. "Pursuing that dream of being a writer, I see."

He burned bright red. "Trying to, anyway."

"All right. Run off, I'll read this right now." The words were blurry, and, annoyed, I looked for glasses I probably had for reading. Being old was terrible, and I wanted to leap back into a younger year—but not before I read his book. I found my glasses in a sweater pocket, and began leafing through. Mar puttered in and out of the living room, still beautiful, but I had to focus. I didn't know how much time I would have there.

It seemed that we had relatives over. Was it Christmas? A pair of adults and a couple kids I didn't recognize tromped through the hallway, and I saw my son, now adult, walk by with his wife on the way out the door. As a group, the extended family began sledding outside.

Finally, I finished reading the story, and I called out for my grandson. He rushed down the stairs and into the living room. "How was it?”

"Well, it's terrible," I told him truthfully. "But it's terrible for all the right reasons. You're still a young man, so your characters behave like young people, but the structure of the story itself is very solid." I paused. "I didn't expect it to turn out to be a horror story."

He nodded. "It's a reflection of the times. Expectations for the future are dismal, not hopeful like they used to be."

"You're far too young to be aware like that," I told him. An idea occurred to me. "If you're into horror, do you know anything about strange creatures?"

"Sure. I read everything I can. I love it."

Warily, I scanned the entrances to the living room. Everyone was busy outside. For the first time, I opened up to someone in my life about what I was experiencing. In hushed tones, I told him about my fragmented consciousness.

For a teenager, he took it well. "You're serious?"

"Yes."

He donned the determined look of a grown man accepting a quest. "I'll look into it, see what I can find out. You should start writing down everything you experience. Build some data. Maybe we can map your psychic wound."

Wow. "Sounds like a plan." I was surprised. That made sense, and I hadn't expected him to have a serious response. "But how will I get all the notes in one place?"

"Let's come up with somewhere for you to leave them," he said, frowning with thought. "Then I'll get them, and we can trace the path you're taking through your own life, see if there's a pattern."

For the first time since the situation had gotten worse, I felt hope again. "How about under the stairs? Nobody ever goes under there."

"Sure." He turned and left the living room.

I peered after him. I heard him banging around near the stairs.

Finally, he returned with a box, laid it on the carpet, and opened it to reveal a bursting stack of papers. He exclaimed, "Holy crap!"—but of course, being a teenager, he didn't really say crap.

Taken aback, I blinked rapidly, forgiving his cussing because of the shock. "Did I write those?"

He looked up at me with wonder. "Yeah. Or, you will. You still have to write them and put them under the stairs after this." He gazed back down at the papers—then covered the box. "So you probably shouldn't see what they say. That could get weird."

That much I understood. "Right."

He gulped. "There are like fifty boxes under there, all filled up like this. Deciphering these will take a very long time." His tone dropped to deadly seriousness. "But I will save you, grandpa. Because I don't think anyone else can."

Tears flowed down my cheeks then, and I couldn't help but sob once or twice. I hadn't realized how lonely I'd become in my shifting prison of awareness until I finally had someone who understood. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

And then I was young again, and at work on a random Tuesday. Once the sadness and relief faded, anger and determination replaced them. After I finished my work, I grabbed some paper and began writing. While the weeks shifted around me, while those weeks became days, and then hours, I wrote every single spare moment about when and where I thought I was. I put them under the stairs out of order; my first box was actually the thirtieth, and my last box was the first. Once I had over fifty boxes written from my perspective—and once my shifting became a matter of minutes—I knew it was up to my grandson to take it from there.

I put my head down and stopped looking. I couldn't stand the river of changing awareness any longer. Names and places and dates and jobs and colors and people were all wrong and different.

I'd never been older. I sat watching the snow fall. A man of at least thirty that I vaguely recognized entered the room. "Come on, I think I finally figured it out."

I was so frail that moving was painful. "Are you him? Are you my grandson?"

"Yes." He took me to a room filled with strange equipment and sat me in a rubber chair facing a large mirror twice the height of a man. "The pattern finally revealed itself."

"How long have you worked on this?" I asked him, aghast. "Tell me you didn't miss your life like I'm missing mine!"

His expression was both stone cold and furiously resolute. "It'll be worth it." He brought two thin metal rods close to my arm and then nodded at the mirror. "Look. This shock is carefully calibrated."

The electric zap from his device was startling, but not painful. In the mirror, I saw a rapid arcing light-silhouette appear above my head and shoulder. The electricity moved through the creature like a wave, briefly revealing the terrible nature of what was happening to me. A bulging leech-like mouth was wrapped around the back of my head, coming down to my eyebrows and touching each ear, and its slug-like body ran over my shoulder and into my very soul.

It was a parasite.

And it was feeding on my mind.

My now-adult grandson held my hand as I took in the horror. After a moment, he asked, "Removing it is going to hurt very badly. Are you up for this?"

Fearful, I asked, "Is Mar here?"

His face softened. "No. Not for a few years now."

I could tell from his reaction what had happened, but I didn't want it to be true. "How?"

"We have this conversation a lot," he responded. "Are you sure you want to know? It never makes you feel better."

Tears brimmed in my eyes. "Then I don't care if it hurts, or if I die. I don't want to stay in a time where she's not alive."

He made a sympathetic noise of understanding and then returned to his machines to hook several wires, diodes, and other bits of technology to my limbs and forehead. While he did so, he talked. "I've worked for two decades to figure this out, and I've had a ton of help from other researchers of the occult. This parasite doesn't technically exist in our plane. It's one of the lesser spawns of µ¬ßµ, and it feeds on the plexus of mind, soul, and quantum consciousness/reality. When details like names and colors of objects changed, you weren't going crazy. The web of your existence was merely losing strands as the creature ate its way through you."

I didn't fully understand. I looked up in confusion as he placed a circlet of electronics like a crown on my head in exact line with where the parasite's mouth had ringed me. "What's µ¬ßµ?"

He paused his work and grew pale. "I forgot that you wouldn't know. You're lucky, believe me." After a deep breath, he began moving again, and placed his fingers near a few switches. "Ready? This is carefully tuned to make your nervous system extremely unappetizing to the parasite, but it's basically electro-shock therapy."

I could still see Mar's smile. Even though she was dead, I'd just been with her moments ago. "Do it."

The click of a switch echoed in my ears, and I almost laughed at how mild the electricity was. It didn't feel like anything—at least at first. Then, I saw the mirror shaking, and my body within that image convulsing. Oh. No. It did hurt. Nothing had ever been more painful. It was just so excruciating that my mind hadn't been able to immediately process it.

As my vision shook and fire burned in every nerve in my body, I could see the reflected trembling light-silhouette of the parasite on my head as it writhed in agony equal to mine. It had claws—six clawed lizard-like limbs under its leech-like body—and it cut into me in an attempt to stay latched on.

The electricity made my memories flare.

Mar's smile was foremost, lit brightly in front of a warm fire as the snow fell past the window behind her. The edges of that memory began lighting up, and I realized that my life was one continuous stretch of experience—it was only the awareness of it that had been fragmented by that feasting evil on my back.

I'd never managed to be there for the birth of my son. I'd jumped around it a dozen times, but never actually lived it. For the first time, I got to hold Mar's hand and be there for her.

No. No! That moment had shifted seamlessly into holding her hand as she lay in a hospital bed for a very different reason. Not this! God, why? It was so merciless to make me remember this. I broke down in tears as nurses rushed into the room. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to experience it. I'd seen all the good parts, but I hadn't wanted the worst part—the inevitable end that all would one day face.

It wasn't worth it. It was tainted. All that joy was given back ten thousand fold as pain.

The fire in my body and in my brain surged to sheer white torture, and I screamed.

My scream faded into a surprised shout as the machines and electricity and chair faded away. Snow was no longer falling around my life; I was out in the woods on a bright summer day.

Oh God.

I turned to see the creature approaching me. It was the same absence of meaning; the same blank on reality. It crept forward, just like before—but, this time, it hissed and turned away. I stood, astounded at being young again and freed from the parasite. My grandson had actually done it! He'd made me an unappetizing meal, so the predator of mind and soul had moved on in search of a different snack.

I returned home in a daze.

And while I was sitting there processing all that had happened, the phone rang. I looked at in awe and sadness. I knew who it was. It was Marjorie, calling for the first time for some trivial reason she'd admit thirty years later was made up just to talk to me.

But all I could see was her lying in that hospital bed dying. It was going to end in unspeakable pain and loneliness. I would become an old man, left to sit by myself in an empty house, his soulmate gone long before him. At the end of it all, the only thing I would have left: sitting and watching the falling snow.

But now, thanks to my grandson, I would also have my memories. It would be a wild ride, no matter how it ended.

On a sudden impulse, I picked up the phone. With a smile, I asked, "Hey, who's this?"

Even though I already knew.

Author's note: Together, my grandfather and I did set out to write the tale of his life. Unfortunately, his Alzheimer's disease progressed rapidly, and we were never able to finish. He's still alive, but I imagine that, mentally, he is in a better place than the nursing home. I like to think he's back in his younger days, living life and being happy, because the reality is much colder. It's snowing today; he loves the snow. When I visited him, he didn't recognize me, but he did smile as he sat looking out the window.

#no sleep #reddit #horror #scary #strange #paranormal #demon #spooky #creepy #ghost #time travel #glitch in the matrix #glitch in the system #toh

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sometimesrosy · 7 years

Note

One thing that always bothers me about discussions about Aurora is that no one really discusses the likely circumstances of how she got pregnant in the first place. I find it hard to imagine that she deliberately sought to have a second, illegal, child. The pregnancy likely was an accident. And, perhaps like in our current society, when she realized she was pregnant, she decided not to go to medical and get an abortion. She made a choice, like women today do all the time. What's wrong with that?

Yes, I am also upset by Abby telling Clarke, “it’ll be your instinct to protect everyone” and Clarke being willing to risk her life at 16-17 to inform the Ark about the O2 because it was her dad’s desire. I think it’s a horrible situation to put a teenager in. Not that Clarke doesn’t do a kick-ass job saving the world with Bellamy Blake, but their parents did put a ton of pressure on both of them. Abby, Aurora, and Jake aren’t cupcakes, although they all had noble intentions. I don’t have an-

anti-mom bias. I love my mom dearly, and she’s amazing. But her own mother had 6 kids with a man who abandoned them all and subsequently tried to commit suicide and split up her kids to foster homes, where one was sexually assaulted and another lived under literal bridges. Today, a lot of my aunts/uncles have fallen into drugs, mental health problems, physically abusive relationships, deep debt, and one has stollen expensive real estate from the others through coercive practices. Some of my–

cousins are happy and successful, others are so depressed they can’t leave their rooms. I do, I guess, have a problem with moms procreating when they know point-blank their kid is being born into a horrible situation. Sorry. It’s great Octavia found a way out and gets to be a hero. I’m happy the story has a “happy” ending if we can call it that. But it’s like China’s one-child policy. Sure, the government is oppressive and totalitarian. But how much harder are you making your life by having–

a second child within it who can’t even make human contact with others from the day she/he’s born? On some level, you must have a slight problem w/Aurora’s choice to have baby #2. Unless she was raped. I’m not saying I support her aborting Octavia at all. But if she actively chose to get pregnant with her, it does make me raise my eyebrows a bit because she wasn’t just making choices for herself/risking her own life. She was risking Bellamy’s (& Octavia’s). But I do like that you’re getting us-

to think more holistically about the situation. I surely don’t support telling those who are poor not to have kids - that’s nuts. All my ancestors were poor when they came to the US. But if they were told the next kid they’d have would live in one room or under the floor, yeah, I’d have a problem w/that. I see it as child abuse. I’m sorry, but I do. I know it’s fiction. I don’t hate Aurora; I know she loved her kids & tried to do right by them. But she made a hard situation nearly impossible.

You say you don’t have an anti-mom bias, but you do. You just explained it. Where it came from and why. You blame MOTHERS for the world being fucked up and hard and the trauma they experienced and bringing kids into the world. You just blamed your grandmother for her husband leaving her and the subsequent generational trauma. You did. And your mom made it out and half your cousins did and you’re still blaming your grandma for the ones who didn’t. Not your grandpa, apparently. Which i find interesting. But pretty typical.

The one who takes on the burden of responsibility is the one who is blamed. The one who disappears is let off the hook. That means you blame mothers and not fathers. That is a bias. And that is part of our society. We ALWAYS blame the mothers. Where are the men? Gone. Let’s blame single mothers, poor mothers, mothers on government aid. The ones who have been abandoned to struggle in a world, taking care of children without help. How did Aurora get pregnant? No one knows. It was clearly an accident, a birth control fail. But someone was having sex with her. Someone fathered that child.

And yeah, there are lots of immigrants who have children irl here in one room, as illegals, knowing they could be sent back, knowing that they’re poor and HOPING they are giving their children a better life. A chance. This is current reality. Children make life harder. Even if you have resources. That’s just the way it is. But they also give life purpose.

We’re all fucked up. The world is fucked up. And it’s not your grandma’s fault and it’s not Aurora’s fault. I think so often, we blame the victims for being victimized and trying to regain some control and not being strong enough in the face of horror and suffering.

I’m not saying that the Blake’s family life wasn’t messed up. It certainly was. But this does not automatically make Aurora abusive. She did what she could in this unfair and horrible situation and Octavia came out of it sane because she was loved. That wasn’t just Bellamy, it was Aurora too, she taught Bellamy to love, and she loved Octavia.

You said she made a hard situation nearly impossible, but I’m going to challenge you on that, because what she did was create the heroes of the world. Hard doesn’t mean failed. Struggle doesn’t mean undeserving. Bellamy and Octavia are STRONG. They survive no matter what. Bellamy CARES for everyone. Octavia has an unswerving concept of justice (even when she goes wrong with it she never stops reaching for justice.)

People see hardship and confinement and they say villain and abuse. Completely ignoring the STRENGTH and FAITH it takes to persevere in impossible situations.

Sorry. I’m not for Aurora hate, and that’s what a lot of it is. It’s not canon. It’s fan bias. We have so many reasons why we get to feel justified in blaming Aurora. It’s not actually a good world for mothers that we live in. We blame them for everything that goes wrong in a child’s life, and not the system that leaves them to care for children alone when men abandon them, when society doesn’t support their ability to provide. When they are disrespected on an institutional level.

Y’all got your social justice causes. Poor mothers are not cool or sexy. They are easy targets to blame. Blame Aurora. Sure. Nobody cares.

I wrote this yesterday and it’s been sitting on my computer all day and night, because it turns out this issue is personal to me. I’m not going to say I am offended, because I think people jump to offense far too easily, and I understand that we are all a part of our society, and this ‘blame the mothers’ and ‘blame poor mothers’ is built into it. I thought this before I was a mother, so it’s not just about me going through it personally as a mother. And I do think people write Aurora and Abby as villains in their fanfics because society says that horrible mothers are uncomplicated conflict, because mothers are the ones that ruin their children’s lives, as a given. I also understand that not everyone has experience with poverty, which I am happy about, so they have a hard time understanding what it means to grow up in poverty, to try to find a meaningful, hopeful life in poverty, to have a family when you have no opportunity. But I’m going to post it anyway, and hope that you don’t take it as a personal attack, but, like you say, an attempt to shine a light on a cultural norm that is actually toxic and misogynist.

#the 100 #the 100 meta #aurora blake #abby griffin #motherhood #misogyny #feminism #society

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ayeletgalena · 5 years

Text

Bris Speech for Gabriel Solomon (Gavi) Galena

“Angels All Around” - Lincoln Square Synagogue 5/30/19

So I was walking to shul this morning and I saw a watch store – with a big watch in the window. I walked in thinking I could get my watch fixed before the bris. The man behind the desk said, “Sorry sir, this is a mohel office – I’m a mohel, my father, my grandfather... in short, we’re all mohels.”

“So you can't fix my watch?” The mohel responds abruptly “No”.

So I ask while leaving, “So why then is there a big watch in the window if this is a mohel office?”

He responds, “And what exactly would you like us to put in the window....?”

Ha, I mean how many times do you get to do a Mohel Joke? I heard Seth Rogen got his start writing mohel jokes.....

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So anyways, thank you Rabbis, friends & family for being here to welcome our little malach (malach means angel) Dovid Gavriel...

spoiler alert: We’re calling him Gavi…. I like the alliteration in a newscaster voice: “I’m Gavi Galena, The 10 O’Clock News”

….A special thank you from myself and Hindy to the grandparents: Rabbi Reuben Poupko & Mindy, Bobby & Arna Fisher, and my mom Rita Lourie Galena for everything we know you do ...and even more for what we don’t know. It’s so special to have the blessing of grandparents on this special day as our Gavi joins the tribe.

Also to our siblings here and not here: Adina, Sarah, Benj, Isaac and Yael, Avi/Shifra, Tamar/Elliot, Ezy/Chany and Jen/David, Ari/Elyssa and Amy & Ben Fisher, Ben actually here from Chicago, thank you!

I say if the number of Poupko WhatsApps is an indication of love, this kid is set for life.

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So to talk about our little angel, in Hebrew Dovid Gavriel, in English Gabriel Solomon. I’d like to point to his two great grandfathers - Grandpa David Panar and Zayde Solomon Galena of blessed memory who he is named after.

This is a malach/melech (angel/king) theme – so the names David and Solomon. Two kings, standing beside you right now little Gavi.

First to the Hebrew. Dovid - Hindy’s famous grandpa Dave Panar. Arna’s incredible gentleman of a father who embodied integrity & ingenuity. A mechanical engineer and later professor for over 25 years at the University of Alberta - he specialized in building, fixing and flying aircraft engines. He was trained first during WW2, he later found himself in Israel right before the war of Independence, and Israel had no airforce or fighter planes.

Miraculously, like everything in Israel’s history, out of the sky an Egyptian fighter jet crash lands on the Tel Aviv beach and the Israeli’s thought, heck we might be able to use this plane. In came David, who guided the search for building parts and then eventually figured out how to built Israel’s first fighter plane - The “Black Spit" -- critical to Israel’s success in the War of Independence. He gave Israel their wings.

He went on to become a dedicated, beloved, and inspiring teacher and storyteller, so much like his daughter, Hindy’s mother Arna embodies, through her innovative educational work at Wexner Heritage and the University of Cincinnati. Both giving their students the profound unexpected inspiration, the angelic wings to go out there and soar.

So for Gavi, the wings of Israel were built on the back of your great grandpa David Panar and they are passed on to you little Gavi, to wear with pride, wisdom, strength & courage.

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The next Melach is King Solomon, My Zayde of Worcester Massachusetts. Basically the exact opposite. He was a big, big guy, with an even bigger Massachusetts accent, and after serving in WW2 he took over his dad’s garbage business and almost everyone in town knew him. He could have easily been cast in the Sporano’s - “Solly Baby!” they would say when he appeared, The Jewish garbage & rubbish man. He cleaned up messes all around town. In fact, my year in Israel I get to yeshiva and when I say my name an older rebbe stands up and says what I hope is some connection to Philly or Twins etc, “Galena? Is your grandfather the famous garbage man in Worcester?” Nachas I never wanted but Galena’s always somehow make a name for themselves.

My dad and our Zayde would always call us “his helpers” -- his literal malachim, surrounding him with love. And I find myself doing the same with my own children, my helpers.

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Then the final malach - the Gavriel - is the name we added. Gavriel is one of the archangels in the Torah, meaning God is my strength, my courage, my hero.

Funny thing about angels - my son Akiva once saw a Christmas special on TV and asked me about angels, he said so is Santa invisible? I said yes not really listening. Like Moshiach? I turn around um NO. Oh more like Hashem?? NOOO. So anyways I have some educational work to do but you get the point. It’s a weird concept. Angels have one mission? They are invisible? They are holy?

But when you look at who Gavriel is, he is kinda the badass angel. He represents justice, strength might, din.

He is sorta the Fixer, the Michael Clayton, he cleans up messes. But Gavriel is all about the courage to do and fight for what is right. The original Avenger. He burns things down to build things back up.

Side note: Gavriel is also apparently the angel of fire, and since Gavi was born on Lag Ba’Omer we found this a fitting sign for his name. Gavriel’s fire, not like Shimon bar Yochai’s fiery eyes, is often, in the end, used for the good of the story….Like the Dragon in Game of Thrones it can be fire for good (against white walkers) or fire for bad (women children in King’s Landing). Making hindy the mother of dragons..

Here are some Midrashic examples of the angel Gavriel interceding:

-Gavriel is one of 3 angels that visit Avraham after his bris, only to tell him he is off to destroy Sedom -He points Yosef in the right direction of his brothers, only so they can sell him into slavery -He collects the signs Yehuda gave Tamar only so she can confirm his paternity -He castrates Potifar (bris theme) so his wife needs Yosef, only to throw him in jail -He knocks out all the maidservants so Batya can pull out baby Moshe from the basket - He pushes baby Moshe’s hand to choose the burning hot coal instead of the gold, only to cause lisp -He puts a tail on Vashti so she cant come out for Achashveirosh,

There are many more. It’s wild. Angels are nowhere and everywhere. And all these instances seem bad or painful, but in the long term ended up being the most critical pivot in our Jewish narrative.

And I ask myself - how many angels have done minor redirects in our lives? I turn left not right, meet this new person or see this old face. How many angels are in this beautiful shul alone listening.

What I call Invisible Interventions. Little things change the course of the story. The faith in seeing the long of the story. This is the Gevura.

As the famous question around this time asks: Why is the chapter about Har Sinai next to the laws of Shmita? What’s one have to do with the other?

Because real strength is not just doing all the mitzvot- it’s the faith in waiting, holding off, the perseverance of staying the course for a year - and for some, many years. I think about on a personal level: How many needles, doctors, IVFs, retrievals did Hindy go through for this baby to get to this very moment? How many angels intervened? To believe that holding strong, come what may, is a real strength.

Azeh Ho Gibor? Hakovesh et yitzro... When do we feel most holy like angels? at the end of Yom Kippur, by holding off, by not eating. Neilah we are like angels. It’s the holding off that allows us to soar.

In our story - If our son Akiva represents comfort from loss, and Talia our blessing, Gavi represents our return of being fearless. The courage to continue. To move forward.

We have been blessed to be surrounded by angels on all four sides, as the song goes, with Rafael healing and comfort behind us ...and now Gavriel by our side.

And as I think we can all feel in this room, if we close our eyes – V’al Roshi, V’Al Roshi - Shechina’s Kail, God’s presence, embracing us holding us, like a Rabbi Poupko classic bearhug.

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One final interpretation of angels is in Pirkei Avos, and with this, I’ll close, it says that with each and every prayer or good deed a person does, you create an advocate, an angel. Angels are created by doing good.

And what seems like yesterday, with the loss of our first star, angel Ayelet, still burning bright guiding us – like the torch of Lag Ba’omer...I don’t know the number of angels/advocates created by each of you here and our Ayelet Nation beyond – you have gotten us this far, your prayers/deeds were advocates - and with the new strength of our new little helper Gavi, I know we will continue to shine.

May we all be zocheh today, tomorrow to go out there and keep creating angels… for ourselves, for others, and for our community - bimhayra vyamenu amen.

#Dovid Gavriel #Ayelet Nation #GaviGalena

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