#sure here it tells you when a post contains whatever term you blocked but it still doesnt show you the post until you hit view | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

recurring-polynya · 3 years

Note

Do I mind if I ask how you approach writing longer fic? I've always struggled to write anything more than maybe two chapters long and I'm curious if you have a particular method to how you approach such stories.

Thank you so much for this ask! I absolutely love it when people ask me for writing advice because it makes me feel like a Smart Person Who Knows Things.

Before we start, here is one grain of salt to take all of this with: I have a naturally long-form brain. It is very hard for me to write something less than 1k. Short fiction is great, and there is nothing wrong with sticking to short things if that's what your brain likes to do.

So. You have decided to write a story. This is going to focus on "stories". Some people write fic that's more freeform or whatever, I am not going to cover that. What I mean by a story is this:

It starts

Some stuff happens

It ends

It is highly probable that your story contains a change of state, which could be that a villain is defeated, or a goal is reached, but it could also be that character falls in love with another, or someone learns to like broccoli.

I like to start out by completing the sentence, "This is a story where _______". This is basically like coming up with a summary for an ao3 post, except that it doesn't need to be catchy. Lots of different kinds of things could go in that blank! It could literally be what happens: This is a story where Ichigo goes back in time and punches young Aizen in the nose. It could be about what you want to explore: This is a story where Hitsugaya gets a better understanding of his zanpakutou. It could be about the vibe you want to achieve: This is an AU where everyone is in a punk rock band and has cool hair and outfits. The idea of this is to clearly define what you, the author, is interested in writing. Make sure it feels right! Maybe you pick the first one, but when you say it out loud, you say, "You know, I really just want Ichigo to go back in time so he can horse around with young Renji and Rukia and punching Aizen in the nose is just an excuse for that." That may sound dumb, but it's fine, actually! Most people don't read stories strictly for the plot, they read stories for the implications of those plots! Will my favorite two characters kiss? Will there be funny interactions between these two groups of characters? Will there be sick fights? Stories are excuses to have scenes. Sometimes, you will have a story where the interesting sequence of events is the draw, but the point is to know what you're about.

Once you feel happy with your "mission statement", you need to decide the bounds of your story: where it starts and where it ends. It may be easier to start with the end. In some cases, it may be obvious from your mission statement: everyone gets home, a villain is defeated, Kenpachi realizes the meaning of friendship. On the other hand, let's look at that punk rock AU. You've picked a vibe, but you don't really have a natural story arc. It has to have a destination, though, otherwise, it's not really a story, it's a recipe for 3 chapters of an abandoned fanfic. So brainstorm a little: Maybe they get a record deal? Maybe they win a Battle of the Bands? Maybe Byakuya accepts that the band is actually good and tells Rukia he is proud of her. Do not settle for a plot just because it works. Pick something that makes you excited! You're the one who is gonna have to write it!

I said that we needed to pick a beginning point, too, but I'm actually going to skip that for now. The next thing I do is think of all the Big Scenes I want to write, the ones you are hype to write, the ones that pop in your head as you think about the premise. Make a bullet list. They don't need to be in order. The descriptions don't need to be super detailed, but write down anything about it that is important to you. If there's a mood or a snippet of dialogue or a joke you want to make, go ahead and jot that down so you don't forget it later. What you're doing now is putting broad blotches of color on a canvas, filling in space and leaving the detail for later.

Once you are pretty happy with what you have down, try to arrange it in chronological order. Put your end at the end (if it wasn't one of your big scenes, add it now). The next task is figuring out how to traverse your scenes. You've already picked out where you want to spend the majority of your energy. The rest, I regret to tell you, is your slog writing. Now, it often happens that you will find joy in some of these scenes and your best writing may occur there, but that's serendipity. These are the scenes that you are gonna have to make yourself sit down and write, so you honestly want to limit them to just the ones you need.

So how do we do this? Look at the first thing on the list. Can you start there? If so, congrats, that's your beginning. If you can't, what needs to happen to get to there? Where can you start so that you can get to your first fun scene as soon as possible? There. That’s it. You’ve picked your beginning, good job! Now, go through the rest of your list, and add in things that must happen, even if you don’t particularly look forward to writing them. The characters need to travel from geographic point A to point B. Shuuhei needs to say something that Izuru hears and misinterprets. The Central 46 makes a new law. If you have a good idea of how these things happen, go ahead and write them down, but it’s okay if you don’t know yet. Fill in all the blanks so that if you think of each bullet list as a scene, you could read it as a story, start to end. Once you get writing, you might add more scenes, or move things around or whatever, but you should have a thing that functions as a story.

If you struggle with this, an alternative is a story with a very strong structure that is going to guide you though what you have to write.Here are two examples from my own stories Hold On, Hold On (which is only one chapter, but the principle is the same) is structured around the 5 stages of grief. Not Broken, Just Bent takes place over roughly a week, and I just decided what happened every day of the week. See You on the Other Side takes place in the middle of a bunch of canon events, which worked at mile markers.

Congratulations. You’ve just made a rough outline!

Special note for avoiding burnout!: I am a slogger. I will drag myself through the broken glass of an interminable plot to get to a single thirsty scene. That's why, at this stage, I try to look at the ratio of what I want to write to what I must write. It's gonna vary for everyone, but this is a hobby, and if looking at this proto-outline makes you feel deeply tired, maybe this isn't a good story to be devoting your time to! Can you carve it down? Can you chuck two scenes you really want to write and get rid of 80% of the slog? Or maybe you can't! In that case, just write that thirsty scene as a standalone drabble! Or just go work on something else! Maybe in the future, this one will come back to you and you’ll have a fresh idea or a renewed enthusiasm for it.

Another thing I sometimes like to do at this point is to write out some notes about my characters and their motivations and moods. Character A is homesick. Character B is so determined to defeat the enemy that they are having a hard time being sympathetic to Character A. Character C cares for both A and B and is trying to support them both. This is sort of background info that you want to keep in your head as you are writing. Depending on the type of story you are writing, this might actually be the main plot, or it might be happening subtly, but adding to the emotional impact of the story. It’s very easy for me to write these sorts of emotional arcs, but if you struggle with that, you may wish to go ahead and made a more detailed outline for that, too.

Now, it’s time to start writing! I am great at beginnings-- it is very often the case for me that the opening scene was one of my Big Tentpole Scenes. (Before you hate me too much, I make up for this by being double horrible at endings; just let me have this) Usually, I will start at the beginning and write linearly for as long as I can until I get stuck. Then, I will look forward on my outline and do the next chronological scene that I feel like writing. In general, if I sit down to write and there is something I have an urge to write, that trumps everything else. Inspiration is a precious commodity, and you should embrace it when it hits! You can slog any day. I will occasionally hold off writing a scene that I really want to, because I am saving it, like a prize for myself for getting that far. This is a very personal process of figuring out what motivates your brain and then giving your brain what it needs to be its most productive.

Eventually, you will run out of things you are excited to write, but the good news is, you’ve got a bunch of story now! Odds are that what’s left is going to be a lot of those connective tissue scenes, and you’re just going to have to do them, except that now, because you’re connecting two concrete points instead of two abstract points, it will be a lot easier. You can continue running jokes you’ve started. Maybe you invented a cafe in an earlier scene where your characters hang out and you can have them return there. Try to think of ways to make these scenes more fun, both for yourself to write and for your reader to read.

Around this time, I like to start refining that rough strokes outline into what I will call an “as-built” outline. (This is an engineering term where you update your plans or models for something to reflect any changes that had to be made along the way). This is a great activity to do at times when you feel like you have writers block. I write down every scene I have written as a 2-3 word blurb, in order. I break the scenes into what I think makes logical chapters, and I will do a word count on those prospective chapters and write it down. As you do this, you will realize that maybe you can move a scene from here to there, which will make it 1000% easier to write. Things may be happening too much, or you’ve got the characters eating three times in the same chapter. If you have subplots and dangling threads, this is where you make sure they get closure. I know this sounds very headache-y, but you are so far along in the story at this point that it’s really not-- it’s a way to look at the problems you have left. Use some sort of formatting (I like to bold things I haven’t done and sometimes I put them in red) and it gives you a very visual to-do list.

You specifically mentioned multi-chapter fanfics and I admit that I don’t tend to think in chapters, I tend to think of the story as a whole and just break it up where it feels natural. The as-built outlining I described is very helpful in making sure that my chapters feel balanced. They don’t necessarily need to be the same length, but I like them to have the same amount of stuff in them. One chapter may basically contain one long scene, and other may contain many short ones. I don’t tend to, but you can certainly have a fanfic that varies between short and long chapters, that can actually be an interesting effect. But like I said, I always like to know what I am doing, and so having it mapped out, you can say “welp, this is what I’ve done, how do I feel about that?”

Polynya, you may be saying at this point, do you write the whole fanfic before you post any of it? and I regret to inform you, the answer is yes. A lot of people write as they go, and I have made one attempt at this and I didn’t like it. I don’t like locking myself in, I just need to be able write out of order and go back and change things. Here is the story of a little in love: someone gave me an AU prompt and I got mildly obsessed with it, and wrote 5 snapshots drabbles in that universe, ending with a slight cliffhanger ending. I probably should have stopped there, but I decided to keep going. I wrote out an outline of 5 acts where the first act was detailed to the degree of each chapter being specified. The chapters here were much smaller than I usually make chapters: 1-2k. I wrote act i and ii and it was actually great, and then I hit act iii which required a lot of set up for misunderstandings and a mini romance arc. I couldn’t wing it, but nor could I figure it all out with outlining. I write dialogue in almost sort of an improv “Yes, and...?” style, so until I do it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what I did was treat the second half of act iii as a complete story in the process I describe above, wrote the entire rest of it, and then posted it. One might notice that the chapter lengths grew to 3-5k each. I have two more acts to go, and I haven’t decided how I am going to do them yet, but I suspect I will treat each of them as their own mini-stories.

(I will admit that in Heart is a Muscle, I tend toward chapters that are about 10k long, and this is honestly too long, someone should smack me. If you like punchy chapters, 1-2k is good. I think 3-6k is probably an ideal chapter length. Is this how long the chapters are in my latest fanfic? Absolutely not.)

Okay, so there’s one more step, which is quality control. I am habitual re-reader-- I read my fanfics-in-progress over and over and over while I am working on them. I understand that not everyone does this, but I am usually the primary audience for my own writing, and this is the actual fun part for me. Nevertheless, you should re-read your work at least once, to make sure it hangs together.

This is purely optional, but I recommend it: get a writing friend (if you don’t like re-reading your work, I recommend this even more strongly). If you can get a full-service beta reader, that’s great, but if you can’t find someone, or if receiving that level of critique stresses you out, it’s perfectly valid to just find a friend who will read your stuff and a) shower you with compliments, b) reassure you about parts you aren’t sure about (or suggest ways to help) and c) point out any huge problems you missed. When I am writing a long fanfic, it is a huge motivational factor for me to be able to send my beta chapters as I finish them. If you are already an established writer, and you have people who consistently comment on your fic, they might be overjoyed to get a sneak peak at your work.

And that’s it! That’s the way I do it, anyway! Some people are able to sit down and write a very detailed outline and the write it start-to-finish. Good for them, I say! I have tried this and it doesn’t work great for me. I will admit that some of my fics (especially my early ones) I just sat down and banged out whole-cloth like an insane person and they are generally better than the ones I actually plan out, but that’s not a reproducible process.

As one final mechanical note, I usually write in Google Docs, which I can access on multiple devices (I used to write a lot on my phone), has convenient sharing functionality, and I use the ao3 html formatting script add-in. I generally have two documents for a single story-- one is the outline, and any other notes I want to have handy. I’ll usually put a trashcan space at the bottom for scenes that got cut but I don’t want to lose. The other is the fanfic itself.

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to follow up with other questions and good luck with your writing!

#writing advice #longform writing

190 notes · View notes

rareficsnstuff · 3 years

Text

Not-so-hot Chocolate [Bokuto, Akaashi]

This was a ride. My high school laptop is finally kaput so I had to resort to mobile to post this (*whispers* I'veneverpostedonmobilehowthehelldoesthisshitworksomeoneplzhelp). Anyways! Merry super belated Christmas and happy new year, @danibby, I hope this is what you wanted!! And thanks @ticklygiggles for hosting and allowing my disaster self to be a part of this for the first time ever! Despite all the road blocks, it was really fun!

Summary: Bokuto and Akaashi are out trying to buy some gifts for their teammates, but in true Bokuto fashion, he forgot something of minor importance and now he has to deal with the consequences… or Akaashi does???

Words: 2039

“Akaashiiiii ~!” Bokuto whined for the umpteenth time since they had met up that night.

“Not my fault, Bokuto. You knew we’d be outside; you should have thought ahead,” said Akaashi flatly, who was trying hard to contain his building irritation with his Captain.

“But I didn’t think it would be this cold ~”

Akaashi stopped dead in his tracks, turning slowly to face Bokuto. “Bokuto,… it’s snowing…” His tone was threaded with bored incredulity and his eyes had widened a bit in borderline disgust.

“W-well yeah, but-… I-I just… Akaaaaashiiii ~! My hands are so coooold!”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem…” Bokuto groaned miserably at this less-than-friendly reply, head rolling back and shoulders sagging to allow his arms to dangle; like a child. “C’mon, we’ve still got half the team to buy gifts for. We can get some hot chocolate or something after the next couple of stores in this section,” Akaashi bargained.

“Lemme borrow your gloves!”

“No.”

“We can trade off!”

“No.”

“Akaaaashiiii ~!” Dammit.

“Fine! We can get hot chocolate now, just calm down!” Bokuto’s face had twisted into a juvenile pout but at the promise of a hot beverage to warm his hands, his eyebrows lifted hopefully and his golden eyes were practically sparkling. There was a definite bounce to his step now as the two headed towards the welcoming glow of cozy little café on the shopping strip.

Some time later, they were back on their way, looking through shop windows and discussing options of what to get their teammates as they nursed their steaming cocoa.

“Akaashi, let’s take a break and go over there to finish our hot chocolate!” Bokuto exclaimed, pointing excitedly to an empty park across the street with his cocoa-free hand. Akaashi nodded agreement and the two head over, perching themselves in a half-sitting-half-standing position against the back of one of the benches. “Watch this, Akaashi!” said Bokuto suddenly. Akaashi looked up at him, lazily expectant, as Bokuto drew an arm back and launched his now empty cup at a garbage bin four feet away. The cup bounced off the outer rim, sending it directly into the basket with a soft clatter. “WOOOH!” Bokuto cheered.

“Nice shot.”

“I know, right!” Although, Bokuto had ordered the largest size of hot chocolate, he had finished long before Akaashi who had gone with two sizes smaller. The younger still had the last half to drink but Bokuto didn’t seem to mind waiting for his setter. Until…

“Akaashiii ~” Oh god…

Knowing what was coming, Akaashi only hummed in response.

“My hands are cold again ~”

“Move around. It’ll help keep your body temp up.” And Bokuto began humorously trotting around his setter, rolling his shoulders and desperately rubbing his hands to keep warm. “With you size and build, I would have expected you to be the type to always be hot…” Akaashi drawled, ignoring Bokuto’s prancing and staring straight ahead. Secretly, he was trying not to smile. Why was Bokuto always such a goof?

“Common misconception… “ Bokuto had paused and mumbled to himself, “Was that the right term?” One corner of Akaashi’s mouth twitched. “I get real hot in the summer n’ stuff, but it’s the reverse in winter. It’s like my body just absorbs whatever temperature it is outside at the time… It sucks.” Bokuto pouted, still keeping up with his prancing as he moved to circle Akaashi for some diversity in his pattern.

Wow. Akaashi sure was taking his sweet time with that hot chocolate. Hadn’t he finished yet? Bokuto eyed him somewhat impatiently from the corner of his eye as he jogged circle after circle around him. When he was directly behind him after his twelfth circle, he stopped, jogging in place as his eyes practically burned holes into Akaashi’s back.

“GMMHmm!” Akaashi choked. He had been in the middle of another sip of his rapidly cooling chocolate when he felt Bokuto cram his wide hands in the slots between his arms and ribs. With a struggle, he had managed not to spew it onto the snow at his feet and swallowed it a bit painfully down his throat, stone-faced composure quickly back in place. Slowly, he turned his head to meet his captain’s wide, golden eyes. Bokuto’s expression was innocently expectant; he looked at Akaashi with raised eyebrows, glittering eyes and a pleasant – albeit dopey – smile. “What are you doing…” Akaashi said, barely even as a question; almost daring him to answer.

“I thought it might help, but your coat’s so thick your body heat doesn’t seep through like I’d hoped.” Bokuto’s brows furrowed in thought and Akaashi rolled his eyes before he took another sip of cocoa. He decided it had been too long a day to care and simply allowed his Senpai to stand there with his hands on his ribcage as he nonchalantly polished off his not-so-hot-chocolate. “OOooo- wait a minute, I’ve got a better idea!” Bokuto exclaimed making Akaashi jump, half turning his head to the elder.

“W-whoa, whoa- hey! No!” he spluttered, quickly stepping out of Bokuto’s reach and spinning around to face him, slightly crouched in a defensive stance and brandishing his nearly empty cup like some kind of hilariously pathetic makeshift shield.

“But, Akaaaashiii ~ my hands are so coooold ~!” Aaaand the whining was back.

“Stick your hands up your own shirt, then?”

“Akaashi. My hands are cold,” said Bokuto concisely, looking at Akaashi with a maddeningly incredulous expression. “If I put them under my shirt, I might as well take off my coat and lay in the snow…”

“Bokuto- “

“Oh c’mon, Akaashi, just for a second! You can warm back up really quick!”

“No, Bokuto.” Despite Akaashi’s insistence, Bokuto was advancing on him. “Bokuto, No! This is your own fault for not bringing gloves! Leave me alone!” And they were off. Using the bench as a protective barrier between them, they moved in sync from one end to the other, Akaashi tying to escape and Bokuto tying to head him off. In a flash, all in one movement, Bokuto had snatched the cup from Akaashi’s hand, set it on the bench and grabbed his Kohai’s now empty hand to pull him into his chest. There was a short-lived squabble in which Akaashi was trying to keep Bokuto’s hands out of his coat and nearly caught the larger man’s wrists but he slipped out at the last second.

“AAAAaaa!!” Oh wow, Bokuto was right… His hands were cold.

“See? Cold, right?” Bokuto’s grip on Akaashi’s sides tightened when the setter gripped his arms for dear life and began tugging and squirming to get away. “This is a lot warmer, though.” And when – god knows why – Bokuto trailed his hands up to his ribs and began rubbing them lightly up and down (for the warmth of the friction, he supposed), he panicked.

“Bokuto! Bokuto- no- please! L-let me go! Pleahese!” Shit.

Bokuto’s hands stopped and Akaashi froze.

“Are you laughing?”

“No.” Damn! That reply was way too quick.

“No, no you were- … Oh wait, I get it! Akaashi, you’re ticklish!” There was no room for refute in that statement; Bokuto had made that conclusion and the only way to change his mind was to physically prove him wrong. No chance of that happening, though. If he didn’t escape now, right now, Bokuto was going to tickle him and he was going to react like any ticklish person would. There was no helping that; he was ticklish after all. Very ticklish.

“Let me go!” he said rather than denying it. He struggled harder than ever when Bokuto rapped his arms around his waist and he was really starting to feel the threat now.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Oh god, Akaashi could hear the excited grin in his voice and there was no way he was getting out of his gorilla arms. Still with his hands under his coat, Bokuto began softly kneading into his ribs. A choked giggle slipped through before he could stop it and his only defense now was to press his elbows into his sides, hoping to squish Bokuto’s wiggling fingers.

“No, please dohon’t!” Dammit, don’t laugh; this was so embarrassing.

“Oh c’mon, Akaashi, just laugh, will ya? How come I didn’t know about this, huh?” Akaashi was about to loose it. If this kept up much longer- oh…

“Haaaaha! W-wait- aaAAAhahahaaaa!” Bokuto had only been scribbling at the sides of his ribs as he held him like a human straight jacket, but now he had started rubbing deep circles into his ribs, adding the last straw to break the camel’s back and there was absolutely no chance at stopping the laughter now.

“Yeah, there ya go! And- and my hands are finally warming up! Wow you’re really ticklish, Akaashi! What about here?” Akaashi couldn’t tell if Bokuto was teasing him or just making conversation, but it was pretty hard to read the guy right now anyways; he was a bit preoccupied with something else.

“AH- NAHo! B-bokutohohohahahaa! Bohokuto- pleahese- NAHA!” No amount of squishing his elbows into his sides was going to stop the upward journey of Bokuto’s fingers. And now they were under his arms, wriggling tirelessly and driving Akaashi mad. He lunged forward like his life depended on it, twisting any way he could. Oh good, now he was crying, too… Holy hell it tickled so bad, thank god there was no one around!

“You’re so wiggly, Akaashi!” Bokuto was laughing too now. He had never seen Akaashi like this; lively and desperate. Sure he could get into it during a volleyball game, and if it wasn’t going well, he would get pretty high strung and snap occasionally, but this was different. Red-cheeked and teary-eyed while he laughed his heart out; laughing harder than Bokuto had ever heard him laugh before. He couldn’t help but laugh with him.

When he moved one hand down goose at his hip, Akaashi wheezed and lurched forward, slipping out of Bokuto’s grip a little and making the ace loose his balance.

“AhahaHAHAA! NAho NAHAT Thahahat! Bokuto, PLEAHEEEEhese!” Bokuto barked a laugh at Akaashi’s whiney plea. He added his other hand to his other hip and Akaashi squealed – a sound Bokuto never thought he would hear from his Kohai – before he wheezed himself into silent laughter, finally toppling out of Bokuto’s grip and falling onto the powdery snow on his hands and knees with Bokuto following. He was rolling in the snow, pawing weakly at Bokuto’s hands and completely unable to speak now when the torture suddenly stopped.

Akaashi opened bleary eyes to see Bokuto sitting crisscross in the snow, hands in his lap and grinning goofily down at him. Akaashi chuckled again, rolling onto his back and looking up into the sky with a goofy smile of his own.

“You suck.” Akaashi said, tipping Bokuto into a roaring laugh. “Are your hands still cold?” he asked, a teasing edge to his voice as he looked at Bokuto from the corner of his eye. There was a pause…

“Maybe…” he finally said with a grin Akaashi did not like.

“Wait- No!” Faster than he believed he could, Akaashi had jumped to his feet and took several steps back from his Captain who was now also climbing to his feet, still with that expression that Akaashi decided he definitely hated. “We- we still have shopping to do! This can- this can wait until later, Bokuto!” he shouted desperately when Bokuto started advancing on him. Bokuto laughed again.

“Later, huh? You’re right, we should finish getting the team gifts… but I’m gonna hold you to that ‘later’ thing.” He reached back to grab Akaashi’s not-so-hot chocolate and handed it to him with a clap on the back and a rather threatening wink before he lead the way back across the street to the shopping strip.

Feeling stunned, Akaashi stood there slack-jawed holding the nearly empty cup in his hand as he watched Bokuto’s retreating figure. He tipped the last of his cocoa down his throat, tossed it into the garbage bin and forced a steadying breath which he released in a terrified huff.

Shit. Maybe if he dragged the shopping out long enough, Bokuto would forget about this…

Shit.

#Squealingsanta2k20 #Squealing Santa 2k20 #SS2K20 #haikyuu!!#tickle fic #bokuto kotarou #akaashi keiji

169 notes · View notes

thegreatobsesso · 3 years

Text

A longer bit feat.: Callie and Simon angst. :)

Talking with @drippingmoon got me thinking of some cornerstone scenes in the enemies-to-friends slow-burn I do with these two idiots and this one, I think, stands out as the dead-center point, so I’m gonna not second-guess myself and just post it. 🥴

Tagging @thelaughingstag too! (I remembered!)

Context: Callie broke into Delaney to steal an ancient magical artifact and, believing she meant nothing but harm, Simon stopped her. But while waiting for the cops to come and drag her back to prison, Simon asks her to just tell him the truth, once and for all. Callie agrees to let him read her mind all the way back to the beginning, thinking she’s got nothing left to live for. Simon gets hit with a truckload of tragic backstory he wasn’t prepared for and is asked to follow them back to Downing Bay, the prison she’s being held in.

They’re still mentally connected, even after Simon has let go. He can hear her, and she can hear him too, which definitely isn’t normal.

Word count: 3,200

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

failure. failure. failure

She wasn’t even doing this on purpose and it wasn’t just the word reverberating through his skull.

More like a full-bodied feeling flooding his consciousness as he left Delaney, a steady stream of self-hatred punctuated only by expletives.

Stop, he begged her.

i can’t, you stop listening

I can’t.

She laughed, out loud in her cell. He heard it and felt it, over the miles that separated them, the ocean and metal and glass.

He’d overextended; that’s what caused this. It took him awhile to put it together because he’d been so upset - maybe even been in a mild state of shock, in retrospect - and he spent a lifetime being so careful with his powers that he’d never done it before to know what it was like.

And so that was bad, yes, but come on. How much longer could it last?

He was stepping onto the boat to Downing Bay when the pain started - hers, and not the torrent of existential agony he was struggling to adjust to but pain, physical and substantial.

What’s happening? he tried to ask, but it got lost - she could barely think, suddenly, let alone focus on sending him mental telegrams.

The cluster of metal buildings hovered threateningly on the horizon, and as they got closer, minds inside got louder, almost drowning Callie out. He wanted to tell them to turn around and take him away; the claustrophobia was overwhelming, the collective sense of being trapped.

The boat brought them underneath the smallest building; a scorched sign read Diagnostics in block letters with an arrow pointing up. What might’ve once been a loading dock was sectioned off with caution tape and hanging sadly down into the water, barely still attached to the rest of the infrastructure. They laid a make-shift bridge between the boat and platform to walk across.

Once inside, they asked him to empty his pockets and leave all his belongings in a small box.

“This stays with me,” he said, holding his Headmaster’s key, bronze and solid, in the palm of his hand.

“No, sir,” said the tired corrections officer, unaware of who he was. “All belongings.” She shook the plastic container for emphasis, rattling the rest of his stuff around.

“I’m the headmaster of Delaney of School for Magicians,” he said. “This is a master key and it doesn’t leave my neck. If you need to call your superiors about it, please do it, but I won’t leave it here.”

A few minutes later, he put the chain back around his neck, dropped the key down inside his shirt, and was escorted inside.

“No one’s suppressed me yet,” he said to one of prison officers. He waited until the last second; surely they knew their own duties better than he did. He didn’t wanna insult anyone, but they hadn’t done it and they were bringing him though thick, reinforced doors to the warden’s office and if not now, when?

“We’ve not been asked to, sir. This way.”

The warden smiled when Simon entered his office, waved everyone else away. He introduced himself as Warden Prescott and extended his hand - it was thin and cold when Simon shook it, despite the muggy warmth.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said. “How fares your school?”

“It’s seen worse. It looks like she hit this place harder, to be honest.”

The warden smiled, and Simon caught an image of a collection, varying people with differing characteristics on display in tiny boxes, one of them out of place. “Yes, she put on quite a show on her way out. Destroyed all our boats and did a significant amount of superficial damage, but nothing structural, thankfully.”

Of course not - living her memories alongside her showed him she made sure she didn’t hurt anyone, only crippled their ability to pursue her.

It was too warm in here and he wondered how the warden could be so buttoned up in thick polyester when he had to unbutton his own light jacket.

“A hearing will take place tomorrow morning and your presence will be required,” he began. “I suspect I know at least part of the reason why. News reached my ears that you behaved quite badly.” He made a tsk-tsk sound and shook his head at Simon like he was a naughty child.

“I did what I did,” he said flatly. “I shouldn’t have read her mind, and I accept the consequences for it, whatever they’ll be.”

“Oh, I meant absolutely no disrespect,” the warden said. “The opposite, in fact. I daresay if I had your powers, I’d like nothing more than to take a stroll through that mind of hers. She’s an interesting one. The fact that you did so might work to our advantage, in fact. You see, we’re in a bit of a bind with all this. May I speak plainly?”

“I wish you would,” he said. The warden was carrying his collection of dolls in his mind, all unique and valuable and distinctly dehumanized, and Callie’s thoughts were still flowing like a steady IV drip, making him feel irritable and short.

“Well, Mister Bennett, the facts are as such: we’ve got a limited testimony from you that the authorities will need expanded upon, that says you’ve seen the original crime in the first person, and your account differs wildly from the one she’s given. There are additional crimes stacked up past that - her escape from prison and attempted theft of an undisclosed item from your school. And the world wants to know how an infamous killer managed to become the first person in history to escape Downing Bay.”

“It’s a valid question for them to ask.”

“With an undesirable answer. But I think you’re in pain, Mister Bennett. Do you need a doctor?”

He was, but it wasn’t his own injuries that made wince.

“It’s her,” he groaned. “You’re hurting her, what are you doing?”

The warden sighed. “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

He took Simon down the hall, into a sterile room filled with recording equipment and a solid wall of glass. On the other side of the it, Callie. She sat a bare table in prison scrubs, hands cuffed to its surface. IVs were inserted in both her arms, the needles taped down, liquid flowing from bags hanging behind her. The metal collar around her neck flashed blips of red, yellow and green, reminding him absurdly of a Christmas tree.

She bit her lip and shuffled restlessly, an involuntary response to the pain she was trying to ignore.

“You’ve got to stop this,” he said.

“To be fair, this isn’t what diagnostics usually looks like,” the warden said while he swallowed down a wave of sickness. “Typically, we focus on finding a long-term suppressive solution that both nullifies abilities and has minimal side effects for the prisoner. We are, unfortunately, in disaster minimization mode rather than long-term maintenance with your friend here.”

This was the strain being put on her body - the combination of every drug known to medicine that could hold back the expression of magic for any amount of time at all. “She’s not my friend,” he muttered. “Isn’t this unethical?”

“Should we allow all her power to rush back in so she can kill my people and escape again?”

“She’s not killing anyone,” Simon said with certainty.

“That’s not what she said a few hours ago,” the warden recalled. “We had no less than five guards trying to process her and she threatened their lives.”

Dammit. “What we you doing to her?”

“Attempting to place her segregation.”

He resisted the urge to groan in frustration, to punch the glass in front of him. “She didn’t mean it,” he muttered, not relishing the job of being her translator. “She’s terrified of solitary confinement, she just didn’t wanna go.”

“That’s unfortunate, given that we can’t very well place her back into general population. This is all that’s left, a quarantine unit, meant for contagious disease.”

On the other side of the glass, Callie squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head. A fresh wave of pain ran over him too.

how much longer, how much more?

“How long can you keep this up, these stop-gap measures? Surely they won’t work forever.”

Warden Prescott raised his eyebrows. “These measures aren’t even working very well, Mister Bennett. I daresay if she wanted to, she could be gone before nightfall. I’m afraid she’s only here at her pleasure.”

Pleasure? He looked back at her in the next room, her face contorted. “You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I was,” Warden Prescott said, with a small smile. “We’re in the dark here, fumbling through uncharted territory without a map. She’s got my best techs feeling like children when they try to interpret the results of all this treatment. She’s a thing that isn’t supposed to exist: a hybrid. Focused magic and Eclectic, all at once.”

The implications of the warden’s words began to stack up in his already overtaxed mind and part of him thought, ridiculously, of a vacation. Of sitting on a beach with a book getting a suntan, drinking something with a slice of pineapple on the rim, smoking a cigarette or two or fifty - of not having a care in the world, for just a little while.

A hybrid, then. Focused and Eclectic.

He’d walked through her life with her and even she didn’t understand that, not really, not in such terms. She, and everyone else who knew what she’d done to Peter, had thought of it like an acquisition of new powers; not a fundamental genetic change.

Did Riley know this? Riley, who gathered Callie’s DNA and did extensive testing on it, who still had it?

“Has anybody been in touch with the family?” he asked, unwilling to explain why he was asking.

“I know someone’s reached out,” the warden said. “I don’t believe there was any reply.”

No, he supposed not. Riley would want nothing to do with any of this. Still, she had to be sweating, didn’t she? How could she know Callie still held up her end of their deal?

“I wonder,” Warden Prescott drawled, “if your trip through her mind was quite so extensive that if she were back inside your school, right now, you’d trust her not to hurt anyone.”

“It was,” he said. “And I would.”

He couldn’t imagine this would be easy for anyone else to swallow. He certainly wouldn’t believe it himself without first-hand insight. “I want to talk to her.”

The warden nodded his assent at the guards lining the wall.

“As I said, everyone wants to know how she managed to escape,” he said, walking Simon around to the entrance of the adjacent room that held Callie. “The thing I’m most curious about it why she even waited so long to do it. Is that something you know, from your jaunt through her mind?”

“Yes.”

“Are you inclined to share?”

He decided earlier, definitively, that he didn’t like the warden: the way he looked at his inmates like specimens, pinned inside a case. “No,” he said.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “Although you might be asked tomorrow, by someone more powerful than me, in a much more formal capacity. We’ll be leaning on your expertise considerably to entangle that mind of hers.” He shook his head in admiration. “The unsuppressable Callie Ray.”

“I wouldn’t toss that around,” he muttered.

“Why not?”

The guard undid a stack of locks on the quarantine room door. “I don’t want her hearing it,” he said as they pushed the door open. “She’ll like it too much.”

—

Little black cameras dotted the corners of the room; he knew the warden would be listening on the other side of the glass where’d they’d just come from, and he was certain they were being recorded too.

She lifted her head, smirked at the sight of him. “I’d say hello,” she said, her voice scratchy. “But it’s like I never left you, isn’t it?”

She looked awful. Her red-rimmed eyes matched her hair; one was still swollen, decorated in bruises. “I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for this.” He gestured between his head and hers.

he just says it, just like that

“Did you get a good spanking for it? I’m sure nobody expected that from their golden boy.”

Her words were hollow to him now; they washed over him uselessly and left him thoroughly unimpressed. He pulled up a chair and sat opposite her at the steel table, mirroring her position with his hands folded in front of him, except for the absence of cuffs, obviously.

We could talk like this, he said, if you don’t want them to listen.

A jumbled negative reply came across their connection. He nodded.

“There’s a whole team of people on the other side of the door, trying to figure out the best ways to keep your magic suppressed on a minute-to-minute basis,” he said.

“Can you believe it?” She tried for a smile, but it was poorly constructed. “All this for little old me.”

“Well, you’ve convinced the world you’re a dangerous monster and now you’re being treated like one. You did this to yourself.”

“Did you hear me complaining?”

Another wave of gnawing pain; she was sweating, her jumpsuit damp in the armpits. It hit him too, surely just a fraction of what it felt like for her, and he’d already had enough.

“Just tell them,” he said. “Tell them what I know, that it was an accident from the start and you don’t wanna hurt anyone else, and they might let up.”

“I don’t want them to,” she said, voice strained, hanging onto composure by a thread. “I like the pain.”

if I’m in pain I’m getting what I deserve I don’t have to feel guilty

He’d never felt a mind twisted up into knots like this, how did it get this way?

“Is that why you’re still here?” he asked. He looked toward the glass where he knew Warden Prescott was still standing, watching and listening. “They know you’re letting this happen. That if you wanted to, you could stop it.”

She blinked; a powerful emptiness surged up inside her. “Where else am I supposed to go?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question - she was interested in an answer if he had one, but he didn’t. He lived her life alongside her in a compressed whirlwind of tightly-packed failures and she had no family to take her in, Delaney certainly wouldn’t have her, there were no relationships, no friends…

He pulled back; it hurt to be near.

“Just because you say you’re not gonna try to escape again…” He fumbled, trying to lay out the mess. “They still can’t hold you on your word, Callie. You’ve got the public frightened that Downing Bay can’t hold you and the authorities are scared you’re gonna prove it.”

She nodded and winced; something crossed her mind too quickly for him to get a good look. “What are they gonna do to me?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think they do either.”

“Why don’t they just kill me?”

The way she said these things - it was infuriating. “They can’t just execute someone because they don’t know what else to do with them.” He narrowed his eyes like it might help him see her clearer. “Is that what you want? To die?”

She rolled it around in her head. “Not really,” she shrugged. “But I don’t really wanna live either.”

Hopelessness emanated from her; he felt her future the way she saw it, a vast, meaningless chasm of nothing. It made him want to scream.

“Don’t,” she snarled, her awareness of their connection snapping to life. “Don’t you feel sorry for me, you jackass. I don’t want your pity, I’d rather you spit in my eye.”

“I can’t help it,” he groaned. “You sit there acting like this while… it’s, it’s like two different radio stations blasting into each of my ears, I can’t think.”

She swallowed thickly, like she was nauseous. “Do you wanna know exactly how much sympathy I have for you right now?”

“No.”

“Zero,” she said anyway. “Nobody made you drill yourself your own personal pipeline into my brain.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Oh, so sad,” she pouted, turning her bottom lip out. “You made your first mistake. Feels like shit, doesn’t it?”

he’ll tell everybody, then everyone will know how stupid, how useless, how embarrassing, and he’s listening to you RIGHT NOW, he knows it all, i wish i WAS dead so i didn’t have to, would be easier than this-

“You let me think you did it on purpose,” he bit out, too overwhelmed to hold it back. “You let me think the absolute worst of you.”

“The worst of me is the truth, the shit you know now.”

“No, it’s not. What you are is not worse than a cold-blooded killer, a, a liar, somebody I could spend the rest of my life feeling like a fool for letting in, how do you justify doing that to me?”

She shrugged, blinked slowly, helplessly, like she couldn’t believe she had to put words to something so simple. “I… the damage was done.”

He scoffed - he couldn’t help it. “It wasn’t. There was a lot more damage left to do, and you did it. You did it all.”

Anger, fresh and bitter, burned through their connection.

i was trying to fix it if you would’ve just walked away none of this would be happening i could have made it go away-

“At what cost?” he asked. It would sound like a non sequitur to everyone listening but he didn’t care. “Even if the orblex could do what you were planning, you can’t possibly predict how it would’ve worked. Did you think it would just drop you off on Christmas twelve years ago and let you start again? No one knows how Time magic works and you wanted to just unleash it. For all you know you could have ripped the world apart.”

Disbelief. how could he say something like that?

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked. A crack in her voice - a tear springing from her eye that hadn’t been there a moment before, rolling down her cheek. “You wouldn’t take that risk, Bennett? To bring him back?”

He wanted to say no, but it got stuck in his throat. She still grieved for him, as hard as he ever did, and it annihilated the space between them, blurred the final lines.

He pushed his chair back and got up - he needed a second. Not to be looking at her, not to be sharing feelings.

“Where are you going?”

are you leaving? don’t leave

He clasped his hands behind his head, breathed in and out, shut his eyes.

say something say something say something say something-

“There’s gonna be a hearing tomorrow,” he said, cutting off the flood of her thoughts she couldn’t control. “Or, not a hearing. A discussion, I guess.”

He turned to face her again; she was listening with rapt attention. She hadn’t been told yet.

“They’re gonna talk about whether there’s any kind of precedent they can fall back on for this, anything at all. I don’t know if they want me there as a witness or a human lie detector, but they asked me to stay for it and I’m staying. After that, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see you again, maybe I won’t. I have to think this-”

He gestured to the space between their heads again, at a loss for what to call it. “This’ll fade with time and distance. It’ll have to. It can’t stay forever.”

It couldn’t, could it?

#tw: suicidal ideation #tw: swears #tw: prison #writing #writing snippet #writing excerpt #original novel #my wip #oc: callie #oc: simon

7 notes · View notes

februaryberries · 4 years

Text

Study (?) tips that you don’t see on every study post

Hi gamers, I just finished my first year at college/university!!

This year was really a struggle for me because I was trying to get the help I needed for my mental health, and I did not succeed until literally the week before finals spring term. I just got diagnosed w ADHD and put on meds (thank god) and I’m excited for the next year to come.

Though this year was absolutely grueling I did discover some little tips that can really help ! This is coming from my experience w ADHD but it could relate to other neurodiverse learners as well ! Even if you are neurotypical some of these might help !!

This post got really long so I’m gonna put it under the cut but, main Idea is bolded w a more in depth explanation underneath ( for those like me who see a block of text and go running)

In no particular order:

If you can/are up for it take a class before noon even if you are not a morning person. I am NOT saying take an 8am when u regularly go to bed at 4am! Bc that is dumb bb pls get some sleep. In my experience once I go to class my brain is like “oh things are happening now, it is actually a day and not just existing in a timeless hellscape.”

Once I am out of bed/out of my room I am at least mildly more productive for the rest of the day. Going to a class before noon means you are up and doing things for the day and early enough that you still have light. This ties into the next one

Start while it’s still light out!! At least for me I gain so much happiness from natural light/sunlight, and it is very hard for me to do things let alone START things once it’s dark out because my brain is like nope the day is over now. Plus in the fall/winter days days are getting shorter and shorter so it’s important to make use of as much daylight as you can. I feel like a plant w how much I rely on light to survive but it really does help!

Put on ‘Real People’ clothes. This is something that really helps me, even if it’s just like, jeans and a turtleneck, maybe tucked in w a belt. I’ve found that when I put on academic-y clothes or like Adult clothes it helps me switch my brain into school mode. It’s kinda like putting on a uniform for work? If I’m in too loose of clothes or like pyjamas for example, I’m much less likely to be able to switch my brain into productive mode. For me especially its when i’m wearing tighter clothing rather than baggy ones? Like i said a turtleneck which like the sleeves are fitted to my arms, and jeans or pants that are fitted to my legs. I think it helps because it makes me more aware of my body in the space? Idk. figure out what real people clothes feel like to you, and then have a couple of go to outfits you can slip on when you’ve been in a hoodie and sweatpants all day and really need to get some work done.

On that note, put on shoes. For me along w the tight clothing, I do better in shoes, specifically ones that lace up and can be tight. Like hightop converse, or boots, or even dress shoes w laces. I think in a way my body needs to be contained so I can focus on something? I’m not sure why I feel like that but i’ve learned to work w it. Putting on shoes for me helps because

1. I’m not distracted by what I’m putting my bare feet on (i cannot stand wearing socks unless im wearing shoes so yes bare feet)

2. I’m not getting distracted by my floor n the fact that hey maybe i should sweep bc there are some crumbs sticking to my feet now.

And 3. You put on shoes when you are going to go outside and go somewhere. It’s like putting pyjamas on to go to bed, you’re brain associates those items with doing something, so putting on shoes can signal to your brain hey we are doing something now, and that something is work.

Talk to your teachers !! I understand sometimes you have a teacher from hell and honestly idk what to tell you at that point but in a lot of cases teachers can be very understanding !! The amount of support I’ve gotten from my teachers this year is absolutely insane and 100% the only thing that made it so I didn’t get kicked out of college. Like reaching out to your teachers shows that you care! if you have to take a mental health day sometimes let them know !! i would always let my teacher know that I really wanted to be in class but I just couldn’t handle it that day. They also can help connect you to resources you didn’t know about !

Look into what resources your school has !! I was talking about how next year is gonna go now that I’ve been diagnosed and such with my friend, and how I was gonna contact the DRC (disability resource center) and she didn’t know you could get support for having ADHD!! Like I know you can get extensions on due dates, attendance forgiveness, and even potentially note taking assistance when you have ADHD and talk to them. even if you are medicated it doesn’t 100% solve everything and there are still ways to get support! Whether its study groups, writing centers/support, tutoring, or even contacting your drc or whatever your school has, it can really help!! I’m definitely going to take advantage of these resources if I can next year !

Find a place outside you can go to clear your head (or have a mental breakdown)

I can’t even begin to count the amount of times i’ve been freaking out over something or stressed out of my mind and my room started to feel to stuffy and claustrophobic and i just needed to get OUT. try to make sure it’s somewhere safe and close that you can go to even at night. (maybe try to shoot a text to your best friend that you’re out and if you don’t let them know you’re home by a certain time to start raising alarm, your safety is the most important) I tend to like to be up high because i’m further away from people, and the streets and I’m closer to the sky.

My go to thinking/breakdown spot is the roof of the parking garage a block away. It has stairs that are easy access and the top levels are usually empty even during the day. It really helps me to just go out and listen to music and collect my thoughts sometimes. My head can start going a million directions at lightspeed and I need to stop and be present, and being outside helps. It’s a good way to regroup.

Spend 10 minutes picking up your desk/work space. I tend to let my room get cluttered and messy and out of control a lot, to the point where I know it’s going to take at least a couple hours to get it clean again. It is also hard to focus when you’re in a messy environment. I would stress myself out and be like “well i HAVE to clean my whole room because I can’t focus if my space isnt clean I cant start until I clean” and then I would put all of my productive energy into cleaning, and get maybe halfway done before burning out and going to bed.

You’re never going to get any work done if you keep in this mindset. So instead just spend 10 minutes picking up the garbage off your desk, put the dishes in the kitchen, and put things back in their place. Then you will have enough space to work on your assignment and that space will be free of clutter so it won’t be as stressful.

DRINK WATER DRINK WATER DRINK WATER

Have a water bottle in front of you when you’re studying/in class. I get fidgety a lot when i’m in class/studying (thank u adhd) and so having a water bottle is a way for me to fidget I guess? Depending on the water bottle, you have little steps you have to do to drink that help u fidget,

for example: pick it up, take off the lid, drink, put the lid back on, set it down.

Or pick up, push button that opens drink hole (?), set back down.

When I have a water bottle on my desk it satisfies my need to do something with my body and comes with the bonus of staying hydrated, without me having to lose focus doing something else. Also you won’t get distracted by a sore throat or the realization that you are really thirsty.

Pay attention to why you’re not paying attention. Not everything that works for me is going to work for you, so you have to figure out what works for you. I started to notice that I would be uncomfortable or feel funny working when I was in baggy clothes and that helped me figure out I needed to wear real people clothes. If you find yourself getting distracted, take note of what is distracting you. maybe try literally making a list of things that distract you, so then you can identify patterns and how to combat them !

That’s all I have for now, I hope some of these could maybe help? All of these have helped me actually complete an assignment occasionally, and somehow keep my ass in college. I just want to say that my experience is my own and things that work for me aren’t going to work on every one. college can be really tough, especially your first year when you’re trying to figure everything out. I may not have all the answers but feel free to shoot me a message!! i’m here for you if you want to ramble about an assignment you’re fed up with or a teacher you hate or anything thats bothering you !! Everyone’s college (and life) experience is different so don’t feel bad if yours doesn’t look the same as the people around you ! Remember to take care of yourselves !!!

Have a good day :)

#mine #study tips #college tips #study advice #adhd tips #?#studyblr #study #bullet journal #bujo #dark academia #light academia #I'm fucking trying academia #notes #muji #college advice #idk how to tag #i hope these kinda sorta make sense lol

185 notes · View notes

cyberhwas · 3 years

Text

➳ pairing/characters: hercules! mingi x reader, wooyoung as terpishchore (muse of dance), seonghwa as erato (muse of love poetry), hongjoong as euterpe (muse of music), jongho as polyhymnia (muse of hymns), yeosang as thalia (muse of comedy), san as clio (muse of history), yunho as urania (muse of astronomy)

➳genre: fluff, greek mythology au, inspired by hercules (the animated disney film), romance, angst, mutual pining, denial of feelings (reader is very stubborn hehe)

➳ tw: mentions of death, slight violence, light swearing, soul-selling, servitude, mentions of bullying (nothing too intense)

➳ disclaimer: may contain slight inaccuracies concerning dates, i also changed the story a little bit to make it a less bit intense, so there won’t be anything like what happened in the movie, which is honestly a bit intense? i mean, hercules goes to the underworld and retrieves meg’s soul after she gets crushed by a boulder so i won’t be including that outcome in this series.

➳ rating: m, 18+

➳ wc: 5.8k

➳ summary: after your first relationship had ended quite tragically, love was the last thing on your mind. however, after countless encounters with song mingi, the beautiful hero, being open to love again seemed possible.

➳ note: this was originally supposed to be a drabble, but i guess it’s a mini fic series now? oops? anyways, i hope you all enjoy this, and, as always, feedback is always appreciated💖!! i adore all of you so much and i hope all of you are staying safe and drinking lots of water!! please take care of yourselves my loves!! also this is my first time posting a fic on this blog, so it’s lowkey nerve-wracking but here goes nothing!

“it’s too cliché, i won’t say i’m in love.” - megara (hercules, 1997)

( june 1, 1300 b.c.e)

you sighed, wringing out your wet hair, gaze shifting to the muscular male a few feet away, whose cheeks were flushed with pink and looked quite embarrassed. “s-sorry about that.” he mumbled, blush deepening. despite that fact that you had just gotten splashed with water, you couldn’t help but let out an amused laugh. “don’t worry about it, wonder boy. besides, you saved me from the nessus, after all.”

he laughed softly at the nickname, hand rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “it was nothing, really.” you rolled your eyes, fingers combing through your damp hair, ridding it of tangles. “you are too humble, wonder boy.” “i-it’s mingi, actually.” “hmm, it suits you, but i think i like wonder boy better.” you smirked, trying not to laugh at how flustered said male was, turning a shade equally as red as his hair.

out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a flash of pink and green, as well as a tendril of black smoke, and tried not to grimace at the sight. “well, i better go. thanks for saving me, wonder boy.” you turned to go, ignoring the dread pooling in your stomach at having to talk with hades again. “wait, can i at least get your name?” mingi blurted, stopping you in your tracks. you glanced over your shoulder, making sure to keep your expression as neutral as possible. “it’s y/n.” and with that, you disappeared into the heart of the woods, ignoring the erratic beating of your heart.

you braced yourself for the annoying lecture you were going to receive from the god of death himself, watching as he took physical form, tendrils of black smoke filling the air. a few seconds later, hades stood in front of you; his two minions standing attentively at his side. “y/n, how was your first meeting with wonder breath?” “fine.” hades frowned. “that’s it?” “nothing, you know, dramatic happen?” you tried not to roll your eyes at how clueless hades was acting, as if he wasn’t the one that summoned the monster in the first place. “the monster grabbed me, i pretended to act like a damsel in distress, wonder boy saved me; i got splashed with water, that’s about it.” “so, he didn’t, you know, show a weakness that might help me defeat him?”

“no, wonder boy’s as strong and unbeatable as they say.” hades’ dark eyes narrowed. “we’ll see about that.” he murmured, and you ignored the uneasy feeling in your stomach. “good work today, y/n. once wonder boy falls for you, then we can find out what exactly can break him.” you swallowed against the bile rising in your throat, and managed a weak nod.

“don’t forget the deal we made.” you resisted the urge to scowl at the way hades’ lip curled at your reaction.

centuries ago, you were a completely different girl, romantic and open to love. you had fallen in love with your then boyfriend at the time, only to have him taken away from you, permanently. a sickness had plagued the small village you lived in at the time, and your boyfriend had been unfortunate enough to succumb to the deadly illness, and died just a week after he had contracted it. you were desperate and heartbroken, and then during one rainy day, hades had appeared before you, offering you a deal. he would revive your boyfriend, but only if you would sell your soul to him, as well as promising years of servitude. agreeing to such a deal would be foolish and unorthodox, especially for a dead lover, but because your heart and mind were so broken, you had agreed to hades’ terms.

hades had summoned a scroll and a black feather quill, and thus, your soul had been signed away. the god of the underworld had kept his word and revived your lover, but he had soon ripped your heart out by leaving you for another woman. you had never felt so foolish in your life, and from that day on, you swore off love, and built walls around yourself, refusing to let anyone in, afraid of suffering the same fate you had with your first love.

“you’re my servant, don’t forget that. and what i tell you to do, you do it, unless you want to be thrown in tarturus, or maybe suffer the same fate as him?” you fought the urge to punch hades in his horrifyingly gorgeous face as you shook your head, careful not to let your anger show. “i don’t have any complaints.” hades smiled, seemingly pleased. “good, you know what to do, with wonder breath then?” you nodded, tearing your gaze away from his dark, soulless, eyes.

hades gave you a mock wave as he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. when you were finally alone, you collapsed onto the soft, green grass, burying your face into your hands, sobbing.

(months later)

you allowed yourself a small smile at the dainty, white flower in your hand, the sweet-smelling petals invading your senses; the petals soft and velvety against your fingertips. it was a particularly beautiful day, with the sun shining brightly above you, the sky cloudless and a gorgeous shade of light blue. there was even a small breeze that tickled your skin and hair, fresh air washing over you, relieving you from the otherwise unbearable heat. you were sitting on a stone bench in a garden, enjoying the great weather and admiring the flower in your hand. it’d been nearly four months since you had begun to flirt with mingi, and there were days where you had forgotten the reason you were talking to him in the first place. mingi was not only unbelievably gorgeous, with fiery red hair and forest green eyes that turned into crescents whenever he smiled, but he was also unfailingly sweet, gracious, humble, clumsy, and polite.

mingi would also turn an adorable shade of pink whenever you would compliment him, rubbing the back of his neck shyly. you also tried your best not to stare at his arms, which were corded with muscle, as they were quite distracting.

and over the past few months, you had found yourself becoming more and more intrigued and infatuated with mingi, of which you couldn’t help but scold yourself for. there was a part of you that was convinced the sweet words he spoke so often were sincere, but then there was also the part of you that thought otherwise. after all, your last lover had left you to wallow in your own sadness, without so much as a goodbye, even after you had sacrificed so much for him to be able to live again.

suddenly, annoyance coursed through you and you threw the flower over your shoulder in disgust, not bothering to see where it landed. “y/n, seriously? you’re throwing away a perfectly good flower? it’s like you don’t even care about nature.” you fought the urge to roll your eyes. “wooyoung, i didn’t throw it away, i just carelessly tossed it.” “uh huh, sure.” you couldn’t fight the fond smile that tugged at your lips as you turned to look at the muse, who was standing behind you, mock disapproval on his face. beside him, a tall, silver haired male scoffed and smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “would you quit being a pain in the ass, woo?” seonghwa scolded good naturedly. aforementioned male pouted, the gesture nearly childlike. “you’re so mean seonghwa-hyung.” the older rolled his eyes, expression brightening upon seeing you. “hey, y/n, how’s everything?” you shrugged, ignoring how wooyoung’s hazel eyes narrowed in suspicion. “alright, how is everyone?” “oh, you know, being a pain in my ass, as always.”

“ignore him, he’s been having writer’s block and has been moping about it for days, so he’d taking out all his pent-up anger on us by being a mother hen all the time.” “kim hongjoong, you better shut it right now before i throw you into tarturus.”

said muse giggled, head popping out from behind a tall tree, blue hair falling in strands across his forehead. “hi!” hongjoong called out from his hiding place, small hand waving in greeting. “hi , joong, it’s nice to see you!” “likewise!” “what are you doing over there?” “o-oh, i was picking flowers, i was going to weave them into a flower crown.” hongjoong mumbled shyly, a light shade of pink settling across his cheekbones, and you couldn’t help but smile fondly at the sight.

“you’re adorable.” “am not. i am older than you, you know.” “yes, but you’re as intimidating as a baby bunny.” “shut up, i am not adorable!” “fine, fine, whatever you say, joong.” “i hate you.” “aw, i love you too.”

hongjoong sighed as he stepped out from behind the tree, a bunch of pink flowers in his hand, settling down on a patch of grass a few feet away, setting to work on his crown. “if any of you dare to annoy me while i do this, i will bite you.” “wow, cannablism much, hyung?” “san, shut up.” “wow, hyung, you’re so cruel! i just got here and you’re already insulting me!” “san, i swear to zeus, you better shut your mouth and let me weave this gods-damned flower crown before i strangle you.” “damn, someone has a-” “san, would you please just stop being a pain in the ass and listen?” “ok, ok, fine.” san plopped down on the ground next to wooyoung, who was busy admiring the flower in his hand, violet eyes shifting towards you, a smile breaking out on his gorgeous face, dimples indented in his cheeks. “y/n! i haven’t seen you in a millennia! how are things?” “alright, how are you?” “oh, you know, just trying to make sure wooyoung doesn’t get kidnapped or thrown in tarturus, the usual.” “why am i always being bullied?” “because you’re so easy to pick on, woo.” the blonde male gasped in mock offense. “san! how could you say such a thing? i thought we were friends!” said male only rolled his eyes. “quit being so dramatic, will you? you’re giving me a headache! and would you stop yelling? i’m pretty sure zeus can hear you.” “y/n, help me! i’m suffering!” wooyoung whined, falling dramatically into san’s lap, white chiton billowing with the movement. you laughed. “sorry, woo, i’m kind of outnumbered here.”

wooyoung huffed in annoyance. “stupid hyungs won’t go away and leave me alone.” that earned him a finger flick to the forehead, causing him to cry out in pain. “san, what was that for? that fucking hurt, you know!” the former ignored him. “you should be grateful we’re even around to look after you, you big baby.”

you rolled your eyes fondly at their incessant bickering, and settled down on the grass next to san, leaning your head on his shoulder, closing your eyes. immediately, you felt an arm wrap around your own shoulders. ever since you had met the muses all those years ago, you had become extremely close with all of them, and they were not only your best friends, also the older brothers you’ve always wanted. they always looked out for you, no matter what, and was there for you when no one else was, and had always treated you like a sister.

“seriously, though, what’s up with you? you seem happier these days.” san’s tone was light, teasing, but the question was enough to make your face flush scarlet. “you’re as red as a tomato, are you seeing someone?” wooyoung asked, hazel eyes alight with curiosity. one of san’s perfect eyebrows raised in question. “well?” “there’s no one!” “liar.” seonghwa sing-songed from where he was sitting with hongjoong a few feet away, watching the latter with a fond gaze as the petite male wove flowers into a crown. “ok, ok fine, there might be someone.” you mumbled, immediately regretting it when san’s face practically lit up, green eyes twinkling with mirth. “oh? who is it? maybe we know him?” you hesitated, not sure if telling them about mingi was the greatest idea, but you decided to just do it, for you knew that the muses would keep pestering you about him for gods knows how long.

“i-it’s mingi?” as soon as his name left your mouth, san and wooyoung gasped. “NO WAY! SONG MINGI??? AS IN THE HERO HIMSELF??!” “yes?” san gave your shoulder a light shove. “how long?” “how long what?” “how long have you been seeing him for?” you blushed furiously. “we’re not dating.” “oh, so do you have a crush on him?” “what? no!” san chuckled, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. “y/n, you’re not fooling anyone. you definitely have feelings for mingi, don’t you?” you sighed in defeat. “i really don’t know yet. i’m still trying to figure out my feelings.” san hummed in acknowledgment. “well, you didn’t confirm nor deny, which means that we have the right to tease you about your potential lover!” “say it a little louder, will you?” you hissed, a light shade of red settling across your cheekbones.

seonghwa snickered, ducking his head down slightly so that hongjoong could place the now finished flower crown on his head. “there’s no shame in being attracted to someone, it’s normal.” “it’s not that i’m embarrassed, it’s just.. i don’t know if i’m ready or willing to be attracted to someone, not after-” san cut you off by throwing his arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug. “don’t you dare finish that sentence. that jerk deserves to rot in tarturus for hurting you.” wooyoung nodded, expression darkening. “i really wanted to punch his face in that day.”

‘‘we all wanted to.” seonghwa mumbled, crossing his lean arms over his chest, frowning at the memory. “i’m sorry for ruining the mood.” “oh, don’t you dare. you did nothing wrong, y/n. and you did not ruin the mood.” “i did though?” hongjoong shot you a look from across the garden, chestnut eyes flashing with warning. “y/n, please stop blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault. i hate seeing you miserable, we all do.” his voice was gentle, yet firm, and your heart clenched at how sincere he was. “i really don’t deserve you all as friends.” seonghwa scoffed. “i think it’s the other way around, y/n.”

where’s yeosang, jongho and yunho?” “jongho’s probably forcing yeosang and yunho to listen to one of his newly written hymns. he’s very picky about them, you know.” “but aren’t they-” “the muse of comedy and astronomy? yes, which is why yeosang and yunho always complain when jongho asks them for feedback, as they know nothing about music.” “yeah, that’s my forte.” hongjoong mumbled, a slight pout on his lips. “he never asks me for help on anything, hyung.” seonghwa rolled his eyes half-heartedly, reaching out to ruffe the younger’s hair affectionately. “it’s ok, joong, he’ll ask you one day.” “i’ve literally been waiting for a whole gods damn century, hwa!”

seonghwa tried not to laugh as he pulled the younger into a hug, rubbing comforting circles on his back. “i know, i know, just be patient.” hongjoong huffed, but didn’t say anything after that, burying his face into the crook of seonghwa’s neck, sighing. “the day jongho asks me for help on one of his hymns is the day i will throw myself into tarturus.” “please don’t do that, joong. someone has to help me keep jung wooyoung and choi san in check, i can’t do it on my own.” aforementioned muses cried out in protest. “hey!” seonghwa ignored them, hugging hongjoong tighter. san rolled his eyes, falling back onto the grass, pulling you and wooyoung down with him. you laughed and closed your eyes, letting sleep take over.

mingi couldn’t help but smile as he tossed a stone carelessly across the smooth surface of the river, face flushing scarlet as it always did when he thought of her. cheesy and cliché as it was, she was truly unlike any girl he had ever met, for most of them practically fell at his feet, which made him highly uncomfortable, especially when they would propose marriage. he shuddered, remembering coming back from a particularly difficult mission, which had included killing the hydra, a three-headed beast that had begun terrorizing a small, defenseless village, and as he had walked through the streets once home, girls had tried to grab at him and even went as far as to chase him around the town.

while mingi was happy that the village acknowledged him, the female attention was well, irritating. people had teased him for it, claiming that he secretly loved it and just was pretending not to like the attention. he really truly hated it, dreaded it even, and would breathe a sigh of relief whenever he managed to escape his very, very, enthusiastic admirers.

you were different. while you were aware who he was, you didn’t know the “heroic” side of him, which was something that mingi could rarely keep under-wraps lately, and it both surprised and relieved him that you didn’t have a clue about his accomplishments. mingi always felt so awkward whenever people would constantly praise him for his bravery, heroic deeds, the like. he never knew what to say, as he didn’t want to sound arrogant or narcissistic. deep down, mingi hated it when people would talk for days on end about his heroic deeds, for it made him feel a bit uncomfortable. and yes, maybe he asked for all the praise and the glory when he had practically begged maddox to train him, in hopes that people wouldn’t see him as “different” or a “freak.”

when he’d been living with his parents in the small village he used to call home, all the kids wanted nothing to do with him, for they thought the unnatural strength he possessed was scary and abnormal. after enduring their harsh words for years, mingi decided to leave home and try to find someone who would help him control his strength.

at first, maddox had been reluctant, especially after all the past heroes he trained died tragically, but eventually gave in when he realized that mingi wasn’t going to take no for an answer. training was difficult, and there had been times where maddox was ready to give up on mingi entirely, to tell him to go back home, but mingi was determined, and he began to improve.

the training had paid off, mingi supposed, as fighting was something that now came naturally to him. “still thinking about that girl, huh?” mingi fought to hide the blush that was spreading across his cheekbones. “n-no, what makes you say that?” maddox scoffed. “kid, please, you’re making it obvious. you’ve been spacing out a lot recently. plus, you always have that look on your face.” “what look?” “oh you know, the look that says i’m a fool in love, something like that.” “i-i’ve only known her for a few months.” “and?” “there’s no way-” maddox held up a hand, silencing him. “look kid, i know i may not look like the type who’d be in love, but i’ve been there. and you definitely look how i felt centuries ago.” “i mean, i guess i am, i don’t know.”

maddox leaned against a tall tree, scoffing. “you are kid, trust me. i can see the way you look at her, you’re very much smitten.” “i-i guess?” “you’ll see for yourself one of these days.” mingi ignored how his face flushed at the thought of you having feelings for him, and turned away from his mentor, looking out at the smooth surface of the river in front of him, trying not to let his mind wander.

“so, are you sure you’re not in love with him? not even a tiny bit?” yeosang asked, lifting a perfect eyebrow in question. you scoffed, placing the scroll you’d been reading off to the side of the large wood table in front of you. you and yeosang were currently in the spacious library that the comedy muse often occupied during the week, reading various scrolls. “did the others tell you?” yeosang rolled his eyes. “of course they did. well, it was mostly wooyoung. you know that little shit can’t keep his mouth shut sometimes.” “wooyoung may be loud, but he’s the sweetest and he means well.”

“yeah, yeah. anyways, how’d you meet mingi?” you groaned, burying your face in your hands. “how much did wooyoung tell you?” yeosang chuckled. “too much.” “i will kick his ass later.” you mumbled. “i’ll help.” the former offered, lavender eyes twinkling with mirth.

“he saved me from a nessus months ago, and from then on, we just kept bumping into each other after that.” “by coincidence? or by chance?” you shrugged, ignoring the pang of guilt that shot through you. “probably by chance. we just somehow end up seeing each other in the most unlikely circumstances.” yeosang hummed thoughtfully. “you definitely have it bad.” “what? what do you mean by that?” “y/n, even the dumbest person alive can tell that you are in love with him.”

you threw your hands up in exasperation. “why does everyone think that?” yeosang reached out and gently patted your shoulder, as if to comfort you. “y/n, i love you, you know i do, but it’s kind of obvious. you’re kind of shit at hiding your feelings. even i can tell, and i’m the muse of comedy!”

“he’s right, you know.” you turned to glare at the source of the voice. seonghwa was leaning against one of the white pillars that surrounded the outside of the library, golden eyes practically sparkling in the warm sun. “not you too, hwa.” aforementioned muse shot you a sheepish smile. “sorry, y/n, but it’s honestly undeniable at this point.” “but i’ve only known him for a few months!” seonghwa shrugged, pushing off the pillar with a sandaled foot, making his way over to the center of the room. “so? love is a funny thing, you know. you can realize you’re in love with someone in a short span of time, it’s not unheard of.” the love poetry muse plopped down on the chair next to you, hastily tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear.

“how you long were you standing there?” “not long. i was just passing by and happened to overhear your conversation.” “where are the others?” “they’re in the garden, doing gods knows what.” “is hongjoong with them?” seonghwa nodded. “yeah, but he’s probably making a flower crown and purposefully ignoring wooyoung and san’s antics.” “but, jongho is there, and he scares the shit out of those two, for whatever reason, so i trust that he’ll keep an eye on them while i’m gone.”

yeosang huffed a laugh, picking up one of the discarded scrolls on the table, lavender eyes scanning the contents curiously. “so, what are you doing here?” “i needed a break from san and wooyoung, and well, i thought that, since i’m here, i can look for some inspiration for poems. like hongjoong mentioned, i’ve been having terrible writers’ block recently.”

“do you want help? i’m not doing much today anyway.” seonghwa’s expression practically lit up. “you would do that? it’s not going to be a lot of fun, though.” you shook your head. “i love looking through scrolls, gives me an excuse to read.” “want to join us, yeosang?” said muse in questions shook his head. “i’d love to, but i have some errands to run. i’ll see you two later at the garden?” you nodded and waved him goodbye, smiling fondly as the blond male rushed off.

“he was lying, wasn’t he?” seonghwa asked, an amused smile on his face as he scanned the massive shelves that took up a quarter of the other side of the library. you chuckled. “definitely.”

hongjoong rolled his eyes fondly at the sight before him. jongho, wooyoung, and san were in a heated debate about which olympian god was the best, of all things. he sighed in exasperation and turned back to the flower crown he’d been working on for hours now, ignoring wooyoung’s petulant cries. it was nearly done, and all he had to do was string one more flower together. hongjoong furrowed his brows in concentration as he wove the last flower together, sighing in relief when it stayed intact after he’d finished tying it off. he’d always loved making flower crowns, as it was something that calmed him after a particularly difficult day, or when lyrics for a song just wouldn’t come to him immediately like they normally did. weaving flower crowns often made his anxiety and worries dissipate like smoke. the others often teased him for it, but their words never had any bad intent behind them. he had been mocked for his favorite hobby in the past, and hongjoong was glad that he finally found people, a family, who accepted him for who he was, flower crowns and all.

hongjoong hummed softly to himself, placing the finished flower crown onto his head, making sure it was secure, and laid back onto the soft green grass, letting the cool night air wash over him. he didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he felt someone shake his shoulder gently. “joong?” hongjoong’s eyes fluttered open slowly, and seonghwa was next to him, golden eyes twinkling with amusement. “did you fall asleep again?” hongjoong blushed as he slowly sat up, adjusting the crooked flower crown on his head. “n-no.”

seonghwa rolled his eyes, but his smile was fond as he helped hongjoong to his feet. the former led him to a more secluded part of the garden, where the rest of their friends were waiting, gathered around a table of fruit and bread.

you waved at hongjoong, a sheepish smile on your face as he drew near with seonghwa. “it’s not much, and i know it’s not quail eggs or anything luxurious, but i thought i’d try and prepare something nice for once, since all of you have done so much for me.” wooyoung shook his head and pushed past san, bounding forward and throwing his arms around you, hugging you tight. “don’t say that, y/n! this is more than enough! and you really didn’t have to do this! you already do enough just by tolerating us.” you huffed a laugh, wrapping your arms around the muse of dance. “you guys are too kind to me.”

“we love you, and you know that you’re like a sister to us. you never have to do anything for us.” “i wanted to, though.” “yes, and we appreciate it a lot, so don't you dare say it’s not anything special.” yunho declared from behind san, light green eyes bright with happiness. you fought back the happy tears that were threatening to spill and smiled. i love you all.” “aww, we love you too!! group hug!!!!” yunho shouted. a few seconds later, you were being squeezed tightly by seven muses, and you had never felt so loved in your entire life, which made you feel even more guilty for what you were about to do.

after a light dinner of fruit and bread, you found yourself laying on the soft green grass of the garden that you now considered your safe place, surrounded by seven muses, staring up at the midnight blue sky, stars like tiny specks from afar. the night air was crisp and cool, and you allowed yourself a smile, leaning your head against seonghwa’s shoulder, who immediately wrapped an arm around your shoulders, squeezing gently. stargazing had become a daily thing after hongjoong had first suggested it after a practically exhausting day of work, and you had come to love it.

suddenly, you felt a wave of sadness crash over you, and before you knew it, you were being pulled into a warm and firm chest, strong arms wrapping around you, comforting circles being rubbed on your back. “y/n, what’s wrong?” seonghwa asked, and you didn’t have to see his face to know that he was extremely worried. you didn’t answer, burying your face into seonghwa’s chest, feeling your heart ache with immense guilt. “i-i’m s-sorry.” you choked out, voice shaking. “darling, what could you possibly be sorry for? you’ve done nothing wrong.” you shook your head, reluctantly pulling away from seonghwa’s warm embrace, refusing to look any of your friends in the eye, instead focusing on a blade of grass.

“i really don’t deserve to have you all in my life, and i am the shittiest person in the world. i-i lied to you all.” “about what?” you closed your eyes, turning away from the people you never deserved to call your friends. “about how i met mingi. it wasn’t a coincidence. it was all on purpose.”

“what? what are you talking about, y/n?” yunho asked, and your heart broke at how confused he sounded. “hades.” you mumbled, voice barely audible, but you knew they heard you, from the way the tension in the air seemed to thicken. “what about hades?” seonghwa asked, voice deadly calm. “d-do you remember my past lover?” “the one that broke your heart into pieces? we’re familiar with him, why?” san asked, clear disgust in his tone. you fought back tears as you forced the words to come out.

“w-when he died, i was so heartbroken and desperate for happiness that hades appeared to me and he offered me a deal, which was that if he would bring him back, only if i agreed to sell my soul to him and become his servant. and then, he wanted me to make mingi fall in love with me in order to discover his weakness. hades wants to kill him. i wouldn’t have agreed, but he then threatened to hurt all of you, and i- i c-couldn’t let that happen so i-”

you couldn’t bring yourself to finish that sentence, and felt your knees give out from under you, your pale blue chiton billowing around you as you fell. you didn’t dare open your eyes, as you couldn’t bear to see the looks on their faces. to your surprise, you felt strong arms wrap around you, holding you tight. you felt your eyes flutter open due to shock, and tears practically leaked out of your eyes.

your friends, no, your family, were gathered around you, hugging you tight. san looked up at you, violet eyes glimmering with tears, smiling sadly. wooyoung, lips quivering, reached out and wiped your tears away with the pad of his thumb. seonghwa had his face buried in your shoulder, crying softly, lacing your fingers with his, squeezing tightly. hongjoong was curled up in your lap like a child,small hands gripping the fabric of your chiton, trembling as he cried. yeosang had his lips pursed tightly as he placed a gentle hand on your head, fighting back tears. jongho and yunho were both a mess, swollen eyes and flushed cheeks, resting their heads on each other’s shoulders.

“h-how can you all forgive me? how can you all stand to even look at me?” “we could never hate you.” “b-but-” “you’ve gone through so much, darling, and you grieved in your own way. if i was you, i would’ve probably been desperate enough to do the same.” “i really don’t deserve to be forgiven.” that earned you a light shove to the shoulder. “shush, don’t say that. you could lie to us a thousand times over and we would still love you just as much as we do now.” you allowed yourself a soft, sad laugh as you buried your face in the crook of san’s neck and cried happy tears.

after your shocking revelation and the tears had subsided, you lay back down on the grass with your head resting on san’s lap, letting him play with strands of your hair, while the others were curled up next to you. “thank you.” you whispered. “no need to thank us. just promise us that you won’t keep stuff like that from us again.” you nodded. “is anything going to happen to you?” “probably, you never know with hades.” “we’ll protect you.” you smiled sadly. “i know you all want to, but hades is too powerful. i don’t want any of you getting hurt.” “y/n, we would never be able to live with ourselves if anything happened to you!” hongjoong exclaimed, chestnut eyes glimmering with determination. “the same goes for me, if anything happened to any of you, i would never be able to forgive myself.” “don’t worry, y/n, we’ll figure out a way to protect you.” san reassured you, ruffling your hair affectionately. you returned his smile, but deep down, you weren’t so sure if that was possible.

➳ a/n: this was part one, and i hope you all enjoyed this! let me know if you have any suggestions for the sequel! this was so much fun to write! what do you think will happen in the sequel? let me know your predictions!

tagging: @deonghwa @subinily @hwacinth-main (ily all MWAH)

#mine #drabble #this is for my fellow disney/greek mythology enthusiasts hehe

15 notes · View notes

alo-piss-trancy · 3 years

Note

Ok hi, I didn't wanna say anything, but please don't write knifeplay/bloodplay for Yuri. I def don't wanna spoil anything, but it's learned on a certain route that Yuri has a s*lf h*rm problem (I'll leave it at that).

You honestly seem like you're not trying to be a jerk with this ask, so I'm going to do my best to answer this as politely as possible without compromising my personal beliefs on the matter. This is going to be long and a little serious, but please note I'm not attacking you or trying to start a debate. I'm just laying all my thoughts on this down at once so I make myself clear, because a short answer would leave a lot of nuance out.

I understand what you're trying to do here. For the record though, I also considered that a pretty massive spoiler and I did not appreciate that at all. Even if you all think you're 'helping', don't do that again. Y/uri was pretty much the only character I'd managed to avoid most spoilers on and you killed the surprise for me. This game is already so full of fluffy 'filler' in the beginning that I don't have a ton of big plot points to look forward to in each route.

Now, I realise this is a very delicate topic and incredibly triggering to some people, especially with those two things combined. I am 100% willing to tag it with just about any variation needed to ensure you or others affected can blacklist/block it and never have to see a word of it in the future. I'd also be happy to go back and tag that original text post I made if needed. I mean that. You all are welcome to ask me to tag things anytime, and so long as you're polite about it I'm perfectly willing to oblige to the best of my ability in future posts! If I occasionally forget, just toss me a light reminder and I'll jump into editing and add it in.

That said, I want to make it clear that I am very firmly against censorship. I'm willing to take all necessary precautions to ensure people can curate their experiences on this blog and AO3, but at the end of the day I can still post whatever fictional stuff I choose to. As can anyone else. Same goes for more formally published media.

Now, it's entirely possible I would have gotten to that part of the game and decided 'oh dang, I'm not so enthused about that fic idea anymore...'. My whims and ideas change frequently, and what you mentioned is a heavy topic with a lot to unpack and process. It's also entirely possible that future plot would only provide more fuel.

Fyi, when I originally mentioned the knifeplay I was actually thinking a lot more along the lines of her doing it to the protagonist, not the reverse. But for the record, if I did choose to write it with focus on Y/uri, I would still be well within my rights to.

This next part of my answer is going to address some heavy topics, this is your warning!!!

Sometimes people's kinks are a way to take a thing that is personally scary or upsetting to them and find a way to reverse it. To find pleasure or power or get used to the idea of the awful thing in a safe, controlled fashion. I'm not going to go into the full details on this because there's plenty of explanation and research elsewhere already written up, as well as an excellent book on the subject, and I'm not turning this blog into a discourse debate. But I needed to mention it for my point.

There are plenty of stories that could be explored with Y/uri in this context. Did she have this kink before the self harm events started and it was completely unrelated, or did she develop it afterwards? How did she discover it beforehand? If developed afterwards, did it start out as another way of harming mixed with pleasure in a self-destructive way, often done sloppily and without proper technique? Or was it strictly used as almost exposure therapy to deal with those urges and thoughts in a safer, more contained scenario, maybe even allowing the partner she trusted to wield the knife to prove their bond/reinforce that she can be loved without being hurt deeply, that she is worthy of affection and trust and loyalty. Maybe this finally helps give Y/uri a tool to embrace her 'weirdness' without harming herself and others. Or, what if she thinks it can be a useful tool and is sure she's ready, but partway through the scene she gets triggered or has flashbacks... how does she deal with it? How does her partner? Can it be overcome with effort, research, and taking things slowly, or does she realize this kink is actually completely off the table for her?

What if she has this kink and is excited to try it, but her partner isn't? How does she take that rejection? Or do her poor social skills mean she skipped negotiation to begin with and attempted it in the middle of a vanilla session? Would her partner freak out or even get mad, or try to swallow their fear and let her do it so they don't hurt/offend her, even at the cost of their own comfort?

This topic also opens a ton of potential plots for darkfic, but I'll refrain from discussing that out of respect for you and others.

So as you can see, there's much more to explore than 'Knife=Hot'. I believe those discussions and ideas are necessary and provide important fuel for thought when explored fictionally, especially since mainstream media doesn't cover a lot of them.

~~~

I feel I should take a second to clarify knifeplay for those who may be unaware. It doesn't always equate to actual cutting/drawing blood. That can be an aspect, but usually only by those far more experienced and, you know, actually into that. A lot of participants don't actually go that far. Mostly, it's either about the physical sensation of the knife touching you at all, or the adrenaline/controlled fear and intimate trust of a partner bringing an object like that so close/teasing you with it.

In fact, it's frequently advised in those circles (especially to newcomers) to use a dull butterknife instead, because it simulates the same feelings of metal on skin/can dig in a little without any real risk of cutting/drawing blood. Even if one chooses to use a different knife, it's still pretty common to dull the blade, or some people even substitute with a closed pair of scissors (combined with the partner blindfolded, you can't really tell it apart from the real thing).

These versions of knifeplay are well controlled and ultimately pretty harmless, so long as both parties know what they're doing and stay alert. And more experienced players with sharper knives are even more cautious/have studied extensively to know where/how deep to go without risking scarring/serious injury.

Remember the golden rules of kink: Safe. Sane. Consensual.

With those in place, it is not nearly the same as self harm. Just as controlled, consensual, well-negotiated BDSM with safewords, respected boundaries and a trusted partner is never in the same league as abuse.

~~~

Now that that's out of the way, back to my point:

There's no perfect representation or narrative for everyone, in any group (be that gender/sexuality/triggered by certain things, etc). Every human being is different, everyone interprets media differently, and everyone takes away different elements from stories.

What one person in a particular group may find cathartic, relateable, or painful but necessary food for thought, another may find completely repulsive, personally hurtful, offensive, something they can't stand to hear. And guess what? Both of those can be true at the same time. One side is not immediately right over the other.

There are queer characters or interpretations of them in fics that I vehemently despise, might even find hurtful or sickening and think 'how can anyone create this, it's insufferable! People in 'my group' aren't like that, it's a horrible representation. I can't relate to it at all!' But you know what? Other people can and do, may find comfort in those exact narratives and experiences, may heal their pain instead of inflicting more. And that's great. It's what they needed or wanted and if I don't like it, I click away and do my best to avoid it.

There are specific tropes and narrative themes I personally cannot get through without being triggered into anxiety attacks or dragged back to bad times and places in my life. Sometimes I see them tackled in ways that are hurtful or seem insensitive to me. But I recognise that for someone else, it's exactly what they needed to see to get through that or come to terms with it, or see a way they wish that thing could play out. I would never dream of telling those people they aren't allowed to enjoy it, OR telling the creator of that piece of media or a tv show 'Hey ummm please don't use this plot because it turns me into a human wreck for a week'. Because it's not remotely my place to do so. They can create whatever they want, they have no responsibility towards me or my well being. A few might be kind enough to include a warning at the beginning of that episode or in the description, but they are in no way required to. It's up to me to curate my experience and try to keep my guard up/research what might have those tropes, and in the rare occasions I get blindsided, yeah, it hurts like hell. I struggle, I might even backslide a bit. But I just have to try my best to deal with it and make a note to be more careful next time. Because you can't control the world around you, not even the online world, and you have absolutely no right to. The only right you have is to protect yourself without infringing on other people's boundaries/rights.

And there's also another important point. There doesn't have to be a big important point or explanation for why a creator creates something, or why consumers can enjoy that creation! If someone wants to create a plotline with all of my triggers used in the most 'insensitive', 'wrong', pointless ways possible, strictly for Entertainment or pure kink material instead of some deep dissection of the issues involved? They can go hog wild!!! They are 100% allowed to do so on this earth, and I can't (and wouldn't want to) do a thing to stop them.

One person can read a kink fic and it hits a very emotional theme for them/they think it explores a deep topic well. Another person can read that same fic and get nothing out of it except their rocks off. Both of those readers are completely equal and 'allowed' to enjoy that fic. Both reasons are completely valid reasons for why the creator was 'allowed' to post/create that fic in the first place. Nobody needs permission, nobody has to answer to anybody except themselves. Period. This extends to any topic, any type of fic.

Yes, even for things I find absolutely abhorrent and insensitive and don't understand/want to read ever. I may resent everything about its existence, but I will defend to death the creator's right to make it exist in the first place.

It only affects me if I let it affect me. If someone's making content I despise or am upset by and can't handle, I can choose to ignore or avoid them, blacklist those tags, I can block them and move on with my day. I can do anything within my own bubble, but the second I consider going into their bubble and saying they can't make that thing, I am in the wrong. Because I'm not respecting their space and rights.

If someone makes cookies with ingredients I'm highly allergic to, pastes the ingredient warnings all over the box where I read them, and I still eat one, would anyone cheer me on for blaming them when I have a reaction? Would anyone think it was remotely okay of me to start calling up every bakery in town and saying they weren't allowed to bake those cookies EVER, because some people somewhere might be allergic?

No. They'd tell me I was crossing the line, because I'm infringing on other people's boundaries and lives. I'm expecting everybody else to take responsibility for something that, while horrible and painful, was my fault for touching.

Now, if someone sets out unlabelled cookies not realizing I'm allergic to something in them, and I eat it and have a reaction, that sucks. It's an awful experience. But is it the baker's fault? As long as they didn't do it maliciously, not really. They can be advised politely to label it in the future, and I can do my best to remember to ask/be more cautious next time I come across something I'm unsure of, but they're still allowed to bake those cookies for themselves and others.

Now, if I deliberately baked cookies with an ingredient that people are very frequently allergic to (ex. peanuts) and set it out in a crowded buffet without a warning label, that's a jerk move. That's intentionally trying to cause harm to others. But simply baking that flavour of cookies still isn't a crime or harmful by itself.

~~~

I'll be honest, I'm running out of steam and I think I've said most of what I have to say, so I'll wrap it up. I want to reiterate that I'm not ripping into you with this long answer, anon! I understand why you sent me what you did and I'm trying not to come off as harsh. I'm happy to go back and tag things and will tag anything else similar in the future!!! But at the end of the day, regardless of whether I personally end up writing that fic or not, or even want to after I get to that plot, I don't agree with telling anyone they can't/shouldn't write it at all. I wanted to try and explain my viewpoint thoroughly, and I hope you can respect that, just as I'll respect and try to accommodate you and other followers. This is the only time I'll really get up on a soapbox like this, and I have no interest in debating these things on my blog further, but it is a topic I've been passionate about all my life so I'm afraid I'm not budging on it.

#bear gets a letter #not omo #tw knives #tw knifeplay #tw cutting #tw self harm #d/dlc spoilers

7 notes · View notes

duchessfics · 5 years

Text

Something in the Air

Lana x Fem!Reader

Warning(s): There is a derogatory term towards lesbians used once, but it’s very minor and not brought up again.

Summary: You and your colleague Lana Winters go out for a walk on a cool, autumn day. And as you are out, you accidentally reveal your secret crush on her.

Word Count: 1296

A/n: This is my second fall-themed piece although it’s a little shorter this time. I chose the sentence prompts from @forever-rogue‘s post “Halloween and Autumn Dialogue Prompts” (Here is a link)

The two prompts I chose were:

72. “You’re beautiful. uh, u-um i mean the weather. It’s beautiful. Not that you’re not beautiful, because you are. I’m just gonna shut up.”

76. “You have bits of leaves all over in your hair! Let me help you.”

I hope you enjoy!

You punch your card into the time clock, rolling your shoulders back and trying to leave the stress of your work behind you as your lunch break begins. But before leaving the office building, you make your way over to the private office of Miss Lana Winters. It isn’t easy to be one of the only women present at this publishing house. Your parents wanted you to become a teacher or secretary, but you had your mind set on writing and editing. So, you went for it and this job is one of the most rewarding achievements you have experienced. However, there are also times when being the only woman present can feel like you are misunderstood by men pigeonholing all women into certain categories.

But Lana is like a beacon of light in the sea of dark business suits you are surrounded by. As soon as she was hired, you made an effort to connect with her. And she seemed to take a liking to you too, accepting your offers of going on walks or out to lunch on your break. As you get to know her better and spend more time with her, you don’t miss the passing whispered rumors of you both going out again and acting like “dykes.” Hearing that makes you panic since you lost your last job because of this, so you keep cautious, not wanting this relationship to harm either of your careers.

You peek your head into her office to see her chin resting on one of her hands, her brows furrowed as she reads over something on her desk. God she is so beautiful. “Miss Winters?” You softly say, not wanting to startle her. She looks up, her red lips curving into a smile and she replies, “Yes?” You smile back and say, “I just clocked out for lunch and with the weather being so nice I thought you may want to go out for some fresh air?” She sets aside whatever she is reading and murmurs, “I would love to.” So, you both take your coats and purses before heading out to Central Park a couple blocks away.

As you begin to walk, you’re glad you brought your coat and cross your arms to keep the cool, autumn wind from blowing through your clothes. But the sun still shines and there’s not a cloud in the sky. Once you make it to the park, you buy a hot dog from a vendor and Lana does the same before you both sit on a nearby bench. You both begin to eat, and you keep quiet, not wanting to disturb this peaceful moment. Lana breaks the silence first asking, “How has your day been?” You make sure to swallow before shrugging your shoulders and replying, “It’s been alright. We are all busy reading and editing this project that’s due tomorrow, so tensions have been a little high. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.” Her warm brown eyes watch you closely and she murmurs, “I bet.” Your face flushes at the compliment and you look down to your half-eaten meal as you ask, “And how has your day been, Miss Winters?” She chuckles and softly says your name, making you return to her gaze.

“You don’t need to call me Miss Winters, honey. You can call me Lana.” You bite your lip, knowing that even baby steps will lead you to her realizing your crush. But you decide to proceed anyways and reply with a smile, “Sorry, I am a creature of habit. How has your day been, Lana?” She lets out a soft sigh, but smiles and murmurs, “I have been a little more busy than usual. But my day is going better now that I’m out here with you.” Your eyes widen and you can’t help the grin on your face. Maybe there is something there after all. After glancing at your watch you tell her, “I still have some time before I have to go back. Maybe we could walk around a bit?” Her cheeks turn a rosy pink as she replies, “Sure.” So, you throw away your hot dog trays and begin to walk down one of the numerous paths within Central Park.

You keep close to Lana, relishing in her sweet, cinnamon scent. But you don’t get too close, not wanting to draw attention. As you walk you both make small comments here and there on the weather or scenery, but the quiet is actually nice after being in the buzz of your office. And the nature around you speaks for itself. You love this time of year when the leaves on trees are rich shades of red and orange with some yellow leaves peeking through. However, you get an up-close conversation with the scenery as a gust of wind blows a wall of leaves into your face.

Both you and Lana gasp and she asks, “Are you ok, honey?” You giggle and reply, “Yeah.” Picking the stray leaves off of your coat and dress. As you turn to face her, she laughs and says, “You have bits of leaves all over in your hair. Let me help you.” Then Lana comes closer and reaches up, gently taking the leaves out of your hair without disturbing the style. Her face is inches from yours and your eyes flick over her slightly furrowed brows and pink cheeks from the cool air, and her lips drawn into a straight line as she focuses. Your eyes get caught on her luscious lips and you feel the urge to close the distance and kiss her, but you remember the public space you’re in. So, you softly say, “You’re beautiful.” Lana’s eyes widen and you clear your throat as you explain, “Uh, u-um I mean the weather. It’s beautiful. Not that you’re not beautiful, because you are. I’m just gonna shut up.” By now your whole body burns and you feel like a complete idiot.

Lana laughs, the corners of her eyes crinkling in the cutest way and she says, “It’s ok. I like you too, honey.” You pause, trying to keep your face guarded as you ask, “You—you like me…as a friend?” Her soft hand comes up to cup your cheek and she murmurs, “I like you as a friend and more.” Your eyes glance around, nervous someone may be looking, but no one is. Then your eyes return to her warm brown ones and you quietly admit, “I like you too. As a friend and more.” Lana grins and bites her bottom lip, letting her hand slip away, the cool air chilling your cheek again.

You still feel stunned at what had just happened, and Lana pulls you out of that by murmuring, “We should probably head back to work.” Blinking back to reality, you look to your watch and have to hold back a disappointed whine. “Yeah. We should.” You answer. So, you turn back and begin the trek back to your workplace. As you walk, Lana keeps closer to you than before and all of a sudden you feel her fingers intertwine with yours, holding your hand. A gasp escapes your lips and you look around for other people. But Lana leans close and softly soothes, “Don’t worry, honey. Our hands are hidden.” You look down to check and see she’s right as the folds of the both of your skirts and coats cover your clasped hands.

Before you enter the building, Lana invites you to her apartment for dinner and you happily agree. You try to contain yourself as you re-enter the office and Lana leaves your side. But you can’t keep your mind from thinking about tonight. And you find this cool, fall day to be turning out much better than you thought.

Tagged: @marilynroselleprentiss, @saviorinsilk, @chokemepaulson, @versonstar

Let me know if you would like to be tagged in later works!

#AHS #ahs imagine #ahs asylum #lana winters #lana winters imagine #lana winters x reader #sarah paulson #sarah paulson x reader #sarah paulson imagine #fall prompts #fall 2019

173 notes · View notes

angst-fairygodmother · 4 years

Text

@ficsandcatsandficsandcats since this is a part 2 of your request I’m tagging you in it. I give up on trying to reblog it onto its original post; this blue hellsite wins. A/N: “*Cries in Douche Prince*” you say? Well, part two is more prince than douche I think, but we all know Valdo is a soft, goopy marshmallow deep, deeeeeeep down. Word Count: 1770

“We could egg the place?” Valdo suggested as he buttered a slice of toast.

“That would make it my problem too,” you rolled your eyes, pouring yourself a cup of tea.

“We could egg her car?” He reached around you to grab the milk, shoulder bumping yours jokingly.

“She doesn’t have a car. She takes the bus or carpools everywhere. Or gets me to drive.”

“I’ll hide in the bushes and egg her on her way to her next date with this guy.” He gestured at you with a jam-covered spoon as he spoke, grinning like it was the best idea he’d ever had.

“Why do you want to egg someone or something so badly?” you laughed.

“I don’t know. You see it in the movies and it just seems like the thing to do. I’ve always wanted to egg something in revenge. She doesn’t deserve something with effort to get back at her.”

You found yourself glancing up at the ceiling as if asking the universe what you had done to get saddled with such an idiot for a best friend, or worse to be cursed into falling in love with him.

“Fine, no eggs. What’s your idea then?”

“Suffer through the next seven months,” you said scrunching your face in annoyance. “Hope she breaks up with the guy or is willing to be the one to break lease to get away from me.”

“There’s no arguing you out of that is there?” He sighed, sagging against the counter as you shook your head stubbornly. “You deserve better you know.”

“She’s my friend. Things are just weird lately, it’s not…it doesn’t really…she doesn’t mean it.” You cringed at how much your tone sounded like you were trying to convince him, or yourself and even more at the knowing quirk of his eyebrow.

“Let me drive you to work?” he offered, pointedly changing the subject.

You smiled at him. “That’d be great.”

You stepped off the bus, feeling better about everything now that you had some distance and walked down the block toward your building. A pile of boxes on the porch made your heart lurch. Deciding to ignore them until you’d had a chance to talk with Karla (and not wanting to pry in case they weren’t your things), you tensed your shoulders and walked past.

When you reached the third floor, you frowned at your door. Something seemed off but you couldn’t quite pinpoint it, until you tried your key and found that it would not fit in the doorknob.

Your fist pounded on the cheerful blue polymer, fuming while you waited. When Karla opened the door, she took one look at your face and stepped out into the hall, arms crossed over her chest defensively.

“What the hell?” you snapped.

“I had the super change the locks,” she said with a shrug.

“Yeah, I got that. Why?”

“This living arrangement isn’t working. And you have like, a higher paying job or whatever so you can find a new place easier than I can. I told you last night that I was going to do it. I figured since you didn’t come back you didn’t care.”

“You can’t just kick me out of our shared apartment and have the locks changed while I’m at work!”

“Well I did. I’ll talk to the leasing company, totally take the blame, if you just…go.”

“You’re being completely unreasonable,” you sighed, all of the anger leaving you in a rush. “Look if you really don’t want to live together we can work something out but can you please let me back in until then?”

“Nope. The boxes downstairs are your clothing and stuff that you probably need sooner than later, and I mean if you want to come by with movers or whatever to get the rest of your stuff that’s cool, just let me know when.”

“Karla, come on.”

She shrugged again. “Sorry, Y/N.”

You thought the day could not leave you more shocked, until Valdo came walking around the corner.

“So that’s taking a bus huh?” he asked, shoving his sunglasses back up so they vanished into his messy curls. “Novel.”

“Who are you and what have done with Valdo Marx?” you teased as you carried over the first of your boxes to place in the trunk of your sedan.

“Don’t worry, I hated it and will not be doing that ever again,” he joked back, grabbing a second.

His smile dropped as he saw your lip wobble in barely-contained emotion. Quickly he wrapped you in a hug.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.”

You scoffed. “I just got kicked out of my apartment and will probably be sleeping in my car until I can find a new one. It doesn’t exactly feel like that right now.”

“Don’t be silly, Y/N. Just move in with me.” He waved it off like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?”

“It’s not perfect, I know, but it’s a sight better than being technically homeless.”

“You’re serious?” you stared at him incredulously.

He shrugged. “Yeah, why not. We’ll have to work out a schedule for who gets the bed and who gets the couch, but there are worse arrangements. It’ll be one big sleepover.” He grinned at you as he hefted another box.

“We’re not working out a couch sleeping schedule,” you said, stuffing the last box in and slamming your trunk shut.

“Fine, fine. I shall be a gentleman and let you have the bed.”

“I’m not kicking you out of bed either.” He smirked and waggled his eyebrows at you suggestively and you blushed at your accidental innuendo.

“Guest sleep on couches,” you explained. “This situation is why the term couch-surfing was invented.”

“We’ll fight it out later,” he said, slinging an arm around your shoulder. “It can be our first big roomie argument, which you definitely won’t win. For now, let’s get food.”

“Pizza?” you offered.

“Sounds good. You’re buying.”

You stuck your tongue out and shoved him teasingly. “Jerk.”

You felt yourself drifting off as you leaned against Valdo and he belted out all six parts of “Cell Block Tango” (or tried to anyway). You jerked back awake, again, and then heard the sound of a remote clacking onto the coffee table and silence fell over the room.

“Oh, I’m sorry Y/N, am I boring you?” he pouted.

You tried to assure him that of course not but the words blended into a huge yawn.

“I’m sorry Valdo, I know we said marathon and this is only the second movie but…”

“It’s been a long day? You’re a lightweight after two glasses of wine?” he rested his cheek on his fist on his folded knee. “You find me terribly dull?”

You stuck your tongue out at him impishly, mind sleep-fogged enough that you couldn’t formulate an appropriately cutting response, and fought back another yawn.

He chuckled and shook his head ruefully. “Alright, to bed with you. We’ll resume right here in the morning.”

“If I’m going to sleep, you need to leave. Your bony ass is currently occupying half my bed.”

“Excuse me! I am sitting right where I’ll be sleeping and you are going up the hall to the proper one. And I am not bony! It’s called lithe.”

You scowled at him. And then your exhausted mind came up with an idea and you blurted it out before you could think it through.

“You have basically the biggest mattress in existence. There is no reason we can’t sleep together.”

“Watch those words angel,” he said, voice low but with surprising softness. “A less chivalrous man might take them the wrong way.”

“Or the right one,” you muttered, flushing and immediately grateful that he had (at least seemingly) not heard as he busied himself cleaning up from your movie night.

After a few minutes of awkward shuffling and blanket sharing negotiation, the pair of you finally settled into the bed together. You found yourself staring at his peacefully resting face in the darkness and had the overwhelming urge to reach out, to bury your fingers in his curls and kiss him and be held by him.

“Valdo?” you whispered, not wanting to wake him but equally unable to contain the feeling.

“Yes, Y/N?” he cracked an eye open with a raised eyebrow to look at you.

You took a deep breath. “Will…will you kiss me?”

You could have cut the silence that fell between you, suffocating and foreboding. Just when you were beginning to think you couldn’t take it anymore, he sighed.

“Y/N, you have no idea how much I want to say yes right now. But,” he reached out to stop you gently when you shifted closer, “it’s been a long day, and you’ve been through a lot and are emotionally vulnerable and I won’t…I can’t,” his voice broke on the word, “when I’m not absolutely sure, for both our sakes, that it’s not just a balm to soothe that ache.”

You felt tears welling up in your eyes as you stared at him, choking up at the gentle passion in his tone as he continued.

“And more than that, I have been drinking and you have had a few glasses and I can hardly think straight with you so close to me and you have always said that we shouldn’t do anything important impaired.”

“It figures,” you interrupted, sighing in mostly mock frustration. “You finally start listening to me at the most inopportune moment.”

“If you ask me that again tomorrow…” he did not want to admit how easily he would surrender to your every request.

“Will you at least hold me then? Please?”

He smiled and pulled you in, tangling around you as if you were built to fit together. The embrace was full of promise for long discussions and change and tenderness. You smiled softly as you buried your face in the hollow of his throat, falling asleep surrounded by his familiar smell and the comforting rhythm of his heartbeat.

If in the morning, you woke up alone and walked out to find him folded awkwardly under a single thin blanket on the couch, in front of an email to an old friend in Transit Authority which contained a promise of an elaborate steak dinner in return for revocation and banning of your ex-roommate’s bus pass, it was a sight so oddly enduring that you would treasure forever. And if he secretly noticed you press ‘send’ before moving to the kitchen to prepare a pancake wake-up call and it warmed his heart, he would certainly never tell.

#part 2 #Valdo Marx #Valdo Marx x Reader #The Witcher fic #reader insert #The Witcher #modern!Valdo #also it was really really hard not to be cheeky and self-referential #or terribly cliche #but I restrained myself #and referenced a different musical and not a love song instead #be proud of me

19 notes · View notes

stillness-in-green · 4 years

Text

The Remedy for Wrongs Is Forgetting (Revised)

I cleaned up and revised the fic I posted before for AO3, mainly by adding an extra 800 words to it. For those who would like to read it there, you can find my AO3 link via my about page. For those (like myself) who would just like to see it in the character tags, here’s the newly completed version, now featuring more highly vague references to Vigilantes canon and yet more details about how I imagine Shigaraki and Kurogiri’s pre-BNHA timeline.

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

He wakes to a harsh white light above him and a voice that reaches into his gut and says, Master.

What the voice actually says is, “Oh, you’re awake. How marvelous. Then it’s time for you to get started.”

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

Kurogiri is, according to the Doctor, not intended for fighting, but for rather for defense, service, and discretion. The Doctor’s experiments are taking up more of his time and growing more sensitive in nature. He will not run the risk of being caught at this stage—and it wouldn’t hurt to have someone around who can ensure he’s eating. Kurogiri is apparently something of an experimental model developed to serve the Doctor’s immediate needs and his streamlined functions compared to the Doctor’s other subjects made his construction comparatively simple.

“How do you feel about that?” the Doctor asks him with an intense stare.

Kurogiri considers the question. The idea of helping people seems—correct. A fact that curls up in his heart and rests there, warm and at peace.

“Lucky,” he answers. “Like I’ve been given a purpose I already meant to pursue.”

The Doctor chuckles.

“I knew I’d picked a good one.”

�� --------------------------

The Doctor shows him how to order food and look up recipes online, the basics of using any kitchen appliances he doesn’t already recognize, and some brief instructions about not mixing household cleaners. He’s prepared a spartan bedroom in which he spends his resting hours.

Truthfully, he spends most of his time in the lab, watching Noumu being sculpted into existence from broken people, growth acceleration quirks, and a battery of audio-visual conditioning that sings with familiarity from the very first time he overhears it. It’s comforting, in its way—a structure to lean on in the knowledge that he, too, must have been pieced together out of bewilderment and ruin.

They do say that art is an expression of pain, after all.

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

The Doctor experiments on children. This is a fact that sits, cold and hard, at the bottom of his throat. Kurogiri tells himself, The Doctor experiments on everyone.

Somehow, it doesn’t quite feel the same. Watching a wailing boy shy back from his mist leaves Kurogiri with an acute awareness of pain squirming over his shoulder, disembodied, disassociated, but inarguably present all the same.

It doesn’t, of course, stop him from carrying out his orders. But the dreams he has afterward—dreams of white clouds and laughter, and a familiar curl of warmth in his heart—leave him privately grateful when the lab is back to housing only its adult monsters.

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

The Doctor has a patron, it seems, a master of his own. Kurogiri is told in no uncertain terms that All For One is now his highest authority, a man whose orders are to be heeded as one heeds the laws of physics.

All for One is broad-shouldered and celebrity-handsome, with an easy, roguish smile and sharp, bright eyes. In photographs, he’s striking, but not, for the age of heroes, uniquely so. In person, however, the man is a force of nature, cloaked in a power that enters the room before him and lingers after he leaves, palpable as the mounting pressure of a thunderstorm.

He is affable, and charming, and promising the man his service is the easiest thing Kurogiri has ever done.

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

“You should see him trying to be good with kids,” the Doctor tells his patron as they amble into the kitchenette from the lab later that evening. “He’s downright chatty! It might even work, if it weren’t coming from—” He breaks off to gesture at Kurogiri, who gives them a shallow bow and holds out a cup of coffee towards All for One.

“Hah.” The man takes it, tipping it in Kurogiri’s direction in thanks, and sips from it with an appreciative gleam in his eyes. “Well, good manners are a virtue. Though, if you say he’s good with children…”

The Doctor quirks one heavy eyebrow at his patron, then the other lifts in realization as he begins to laugh.

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

Shigaraki Tomura is a quiet, sullen child of ten or so, a bundle of nervous tics and resentful neuroses, but he is not afraid of Kurogiri. It’s a pleasant change, and pleasant as well to have a place to exist outside the lab complex, though Tomura is a bit nocturnal for Kurogiri to see much in the way of blue skies.

He makes a project of cleaning up the wreck of a bar beneath the boy’s room. He dusts and polishes, sweeps, takes stock, disposes of wine bottles with rotted corks, and wrangles the space back into presentability. It takes the better part of a year—he’s only infrequently asked to watch Tomura, when All For One leaves on business he doesn’t deem fit for his ward’s attention, and much of the work of cleaning must be redone with each visit.

After three visits’ worth of circular exchanges and locked horns about basic upkeep, Shigaraki Tomura teaches Kurogiri how to steal.

That’s not entirely accurate. The act itself is simple enough, their quirks being what they are. It would be more correct to say that Shigaraki Tomura teaches Kurogiri how to choose to steal.

They make an exploratory foray into the drug store two blocks down at three in the morning. Kurogiri, on edge from the departure from the spaces he’s permitted to be in, stands at the counter, mindfully keeping a dark portal swirling in front of the security camera, and watches the boy work. He shuffles down the dim aisles, plucking snack foods, sugary drinks, magazines and toiletries off the shelves and depositing them into a shopping cart, two fingers of each hand always carefully raised. At the front of the store, the glass cases containing alcohol, tobacco products and video games—and thankfully Tomura is only interested in the latter—present Decay not even a whisper of difficulty. When he’s finished, he pushes the cart with all its ill-gotten gain back through a portal to the bar and gives Kurogiri a grin of triumph and satisfaction—the closest thing to a real smile Kurogiri has yet seen on his scarred face.

“See? Easy.”

It leaves Kurogiri in quite a thoughtful frame of mind and he and Tomura alike bask in the glow of All For One’s warm, proud laughter when he returns and listens to the story over the bar’s first official drink.

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

The Doctor, when Kurogiri returns, snorts at the tale and says with a tsk, “You’ll spoil him.”

“Shall I refrain next time, then?” Kurogiri asks, tilting his head. He hopes not—he’s come to a tentative arrangement with Tomura about the boy decaying his rubbish in exchange for meals that take longer than three minutes in the microwave.

“The little brat’s not my project; so long as you’re following All For One’s wishes for him, I don’t care how you treat him.” The Doctor waves one hand as he stands from his desk and turns towards the darkness of the lab. “Now come along; you know how the work piles up when you’re away.”

“Of course.”

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

Five years later, when All Might crushes All For One’s skull, all of Kurogiri’s arrangements collapse.

The Doctor works night and day, electric with his terror of being discovered, of losing his patron. He snaps and barks, refusing more than the most basic nutrition. On one particularly fraught occasion, when Kurogiri tries to pull him away from the sixteenth straight hour of staring at his computer combing through his archived research, he snarls a word that Kurogiri doesn’t even have time to consciously register before the blackout fells him where he stands.

Shigaraki Tomura takes it even harder, dissolving as Kurogiri watches into a seething, rancid, rabid creature fueled by spite and fury. He claws his skin until blood runs freely, mutters and paces and screams demands. His bedroom descends back into squalor; one evening after Kurogiri makes him particularly angry, he decays every single bottle of alcohol at the bar, leaving behind a reeking mess staining the shelves and pooling on the floor.

Kurogiri—who’s sent reeling by a nauseous wave of déjà vu every time he so much as looks at All For One’s bandaged head and still form—rededicates himself to his core principles of defense, service and discretion, and does what he must to keep the other two alive.

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

All For One stabilizes, though he’s weaker.

The Doctor stabilizes, though he’s more paranoid.

Shigaraki—stabilizes, though he’s considerably less stable than he was before a few months prior.

Kurogiri recalibrates to the new normal. It’s something like stability, he supposes.

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

“Kurogiri, I need you to look after Tomura,” All For One says, not long after he regains consciousness. “Indefinitely.”

The Doctor opens his mouth—The work piles up when you’re away, Kurogiri remembers—but Kurogiri is already nodding his assent.

“Of course, sir.” Helping Shigaraki Tomura will not be easy, but Kurogiri appreciates projects and the thought—helping someone—rekindles a little of the old glow, a forgotten sense-memory from whatever lost soul he was before being reborn.

“He’ll complain about the babysitting, you know,” the Doctor says, but his earlier protest has already subsided and his tone is one of resigned acceptance. All For One chuckles, then hisses in pain.

“Yes, I’m sure he will. Nevertheless. My timetable has just gotten more pressing.”

“That’s the broken ribs, old friend.” The Doctor sighs. “Kurogiri, go and pack your things, what you have of them. All For One and I have some private matters to discuss.”

“Of course, sir.”

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

He warps into the bar that night. Broken glass litters the floor and dust has begun to build up on the bar once more. The door to Tomura’s bedroom upstairs hangs open; sounds of video game violence crack and burst through the silence. Dancing light filters down the stairs, glittering and gleaming in the shards of broken bottles.

In its own way, it’s beautiful, unintended art in the expression of pain. But there’s such a lot of work to do, too, to make such craft sustainable.

Kurogiri sighs, turns on the lights, and gets to work.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #kurogiri #shirakumo oboro #shigaraki tomura #all for one #ujiko daruma #my writing #ficcing #bnha spoilers #bnha

26 notes · View notes

spiderweb-bf · 4 years

Text

anti-cheating software - a list of resources for students

I found a list of anti-cheating software that some schools use. I’m compiling a list of what they are, what they do, and how to tell if your school is using them.

this isn’t to help anyone cheat or whatever so don’t come for me. it’s just useful information to have so you don’t get an angry email about copying and pasting things from google when all you were trying to do is copy and paste the √ symbol so you could show your work on a math question. not speaking from personal experience or anything.

also, this is morally challenging for me in more ways than one. there’s the question of the ethicality of schools using what is essentially spyware to monitor students taking tests. is it okay because it’s installed only on school-issued computers, not personal ones? is it okay because it’s in the name of academic integrity? honestly I’m not sure, but that’s not what this post is here to discuss. I only bring these things up because I don’t want people coming after me and getting mad lol. all this post is about is informing students of the software their school might be using so they can determine how likely they are to get caught if they do decide to cheat and evaluate if it’s worth it or not. and like I said earlier, it can also be super helpful in avoiding accidentally getting pinged as cheating lmao. knowledge is power and all that.

• GoFormative

This in and of itself is not anti-cheating software. But if your school has you take tests with GoFormative, you should know that it does have anti-cheating software in it.

GoFormative can tell when you copy and paste from “any source.” The discussion I found specifically mentions “webpages, documents, [and] PDFs.” This isn’t the same as plagiarism detectors because in another discussion, a teacher was notified about a one-word answer being copied and pasted, and one word can’t be plagiarized. According to the discussions I found, teachers will get a red exclamation point on answers that contain copy and pasted material and can see which website you copy and pasted from.

source 1: x source 2: x

• LanSchool

If LanSchool has been downloaded on your school device, basically just know that you are being monitored at all times. Can teachers see your screen at all times if they choose? Yep. Can teachers “[s]ave screenshots of a student’s screen to share in parent/teacher conferences or conversations with the student?” Most definitely. Can teachers get notifications when you search a specific term? You betcha!

When I say that everything you do is being monitored, I mean everything. It’s not just your browsing history and application use being saved (although that’s definitely happening). Every single press of your keyboard is also being saved. “All web browsing, application usage, and even keystroke history can be captured and viewed later...”

This application does a lot more than just that, so here is the link to all its features if you’re curious.

How to tell if your computer has LanSchool on it:

“A LanSchool icon (green circle of circles) appears in the system tray at the bottom right corner of the computer screen in Windows. On the Mac it appears as a small icon at the top of the screen. On Ubuntu, the LanSchool icon is located in the center of the panel.”

If that doesn’t help, check out this form to see if it gives you more information.

source 1: x source 2: x

• GoGuardian

This one seems really similar to LanSchool so I won’t go over it too much. Teachers can see student screens, block certain websites, etc. but it doesn’t seem as... invasive and dystopian as LanSchool. (When I was doing research for the LanSchool part of this post, I found a really concerning article that literally sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. But anyways...) Here is the listed features on their website. Here is an article about how to tell if your school computer has GoGuardian on it. If you can’t access the article right now, basically look for a blue circle with a white triangle in it and a black circle with a triangle in it at the top right corner of your screen when you’re on the google homepage. You can also look at the browser extensions that are installed, but this seems to be the easiest way.

• Hapara

Again, this one is quite similar to GoGuardian. Here is what it does. To see if it is installed, look for a symbol of three rectangles decreasing in size from right to left. The one furthest to the left is dark blue. The middle one is lime green. The one on the right is a lighter blue. This link might provide more information if that doesn’t help.

• LockDown Browser

What is it? Well... “LockDown Browser is a locked browser for taking exams and quizzes in Canvas. It prevents you from printing, copying, going to an unauthorized URL, or accessing other applications during a quiz. If a Canvas quiz requires that LockDown Browser be used, you will not be able to take the quiz with a standard web browser. LockDown Browser should only be used for taking Canvas quizzes. It should not be used in other areas of Canvas.”

This one is different than the others on this list because it uses your webcam... “You may be required to use LockDown Browser with a webcam, which will record you during an online, non- proctored exam. (The webcam feature is sometimes referred to as “Respondus Monitor.”)” ...and tracks your eye movement. “Respondus Monitor is a proctoring application that uses a lockdown browser and a webcam to assist with the academic integrity of online exams. ... Respondus will record student movements and will automatically flag the exam if a student leaves the view, if their eyes wander, or if another person comes into the screen.”

As far as I can tell, since this program is specifically for Canvas quizzes, that’s the only time it will be used. So if you’re taking a test in Canvas, expect to have your camera be recording you and your screen to be monitored. You will also probably be locked into the tab the test is on and unable to open new tabs while the test is in progress. If you are being recorded, there will be a camera icon and text that says “recording” at the top right corner of your screen.

source 1: x source 2: x source 3: x

This post is incomplete.

These are just some of the anti-cheating programs out there, and I want to keep updating this post as I discover more. If you have any information, questions, comments, or concerns, my messages and asks are open. Or you can put more information, corrections, and links in the reblogs.

Date posted: February 12, 2020

Date updated: February 12, 2020

#jey's post #long post #i spent like an hour and a half on this post i'm sorry it's so long #paranoia tw #idk but i'm gonna put the trigger just in case #online school #spyware #student resources

15 notes · View notes

mienar · 5 years

Note

Hi Miena! I really love your art and I'm trying to transition from drawing characters to environments, as you had. I was wondering if you could tell us how you got started with drawing environments. >

hi, love!💖💕

ahh! gosh, what a huge coincidence, i actually for real just posted/shared my journey of transitioning from drawing characters to environments on my instagram! feel free to read the whole thing: here!

here are some general things i’ve learned of learning to draw environments (that i hope to be of help), and please do take them with a grain of salt:

take the time to learn about fundamentals of drawing environments: perspectives, angles, compositions, etc. but you don’t necessarily have to use complex angles and perspectives to make a nice-looking environment (at least upon starting out)! most of my pieces are always a straightforward, direct view of the scene. i rarely use 3-point perspectives and whacky angles to make the environment look interesting, it works for others, but so far personally it’s not my type of aesthetic. this is something you’ll have test and try out on your own to find what’s best for you!

something that i realised that it’s not mentioned as often as it should be is that, while learning perspectives of environments is important, drawing the items like the furniture, the character, and all the other miscellaneous items within the perspective is as important too!! meaning that we should learn how objects look like in different angles for it to not look wonky or out of place when it’s in an environment setting. solution to this? do lots and lots studies of the things around you! see a lamp? observe it in different angles and draw in as many angles as you can! a bowl of noodles? learn how the bowl looks like from the side, ¾ view, top view, ¼ view, etc. and basically of anything you like!

not sure what kind of environment to draw? try drawing a room, but with whatever you want! at least when you’re starting out drawing environments, the only person you should please is yourself, so why not draw a room containing everything!! you dream of having!! draw an aquarium, draw a thousand plants, draw pets, draw a retro tv, or a cosy looking sofa with endless cushions on it. filling the room with the things you love, subconsciously (most of the time), takes your mind off of the technicalities of drawing environments

if you’re having a difficult time with your environments looking stiff, try switching things up and draw nature instead! drawing trees, plants, rocks, mountains, etc. helps you stop thinking about angles, perspectives, lines, symmetry and all that kind of things. there’s no right or wrong in drawing leaves, bushes, rocks, mountains, clouds, etc. because they’re all in different shapes and sizes! drawing nature, for me, has been an incredible way to loosen up a little.

and yeah, i think that’s it from me for the moment! (this post is becoming very long) and personally, i think the biggest trouble i had when i was doing environments was worrying about the perspectives and having this need to use to complex perspectives to prove myself to be ‘pro’ but really, drawing simple perspectives does amazing wonders as well! try to also think thoroughly as to what’s blocking you or what’s the cause of you not being satisfied with your environments - taking time to think about it helps a lot! :)

i hope this can be somewhat helpful to you and whoever’s reading this! thank you so much for reading until here! 💞✨💗

TL;DR: take the time to learn perspectives, angles and compositions, though drawing with a simple perspective can make an environment look appealing too. learn to draw items within the perspective - do lots and lots of studies of the things around you to learn how it looks like in different angles. draw your dream room with whatever you like to be in it if you’re not sure what to draw. stiff environments? switch things up and try drawing nature instead!

#long post #long post ahead!!!!!#replies #replies:aboutart #i really hope this is helpful somehow!#thank you so much for liking my art bby!!#i'm really off to work now jsnnfjsg

790 notes · View notes

jamiebluewind · 5 years

Text

Thank You

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for being kind. I know some of you must be... annoyed that I haven't been sharing anything lately (I have too if I'm being honest), but nobody has thrown any hate at me for it and for that, I'm grateful.

I've been resting up since I got out of the hospital, a fact that has been driving me crazy if I'm being honest. Only so many hours in a day and I'm spending so many of um in the bed (doesn't help that dad fussed at me for it)! Then I tell myself that if one of you were in the same position, I'd be fussing your ear off for thinking such a thing and trying to get you to rest, so I'm trying to give myself the same courtesy.

I'm... hesitant to share what went wrong, not for embarrassment but because I don't want yall to worry. Then I realized that this post has probably already make you think far worse, so here goes...

WARNING: Blood mention, illness, body function mention, pain, menstruation, confusion, dehydration, (please tell me if I missed any!)

I got an IUD put in. I didn't want it, but my periods are bad and my insurance wouldn't cover just removing the parts before trying this first. It caused a lot of pain due to having nothing for pain, the person putting it in not knowing what they were doing, and them using silver nitrate without rinsing it off which gave me chemical burns on my cervix. I stayed in pain and they responded saying to take a tylenol and I'd eventually be fine. During this time, I bled constantly. Not a lot, but some. I also had my normal periods to deal with. I found out it was even effecting my mood and making me tired (hormones, constant cramping, or both, you be the judge). Two months in, I wanted it out. They said I just needed to tough it out and I would be fine by 6 months. I'm pretty sure my face did a thing that symotaniously screamed confusion and "fuck you", but I did as I was told.

In the meantime (during December and even now), my heater thermostat started doing something weird. I set the temp, but it would let it get down to like 55° F (12.7° C) at night when it was set on like 68 (20° C). During the day, it would get about 10° F warmer than what it was set (so like 78° F or 26° C). It was kicking on, but not regulating it how it was supposed to. I told my landlady, but they take for-freaking-ever! So out comes an electric blanket to keep me warm at night. I basically lived under the thing after the sun set! I just kept it on one or two so I wouldn't get too warm. I was also feeling crapy (*gestures to previous paragraph*), which meant more bed time than normal.

A few days before Christmas, I got a shot that was supposed to last a month and help block a nerve that causes migraines. I have debilitating hemiplegic migraines and the risk was very low, so I decided to give it a shot. The medication is very new and due to my rare form of migraine reacting atypically to medications, you would think I would know by now not to try medications that haven't been out long.

The fourth and final domino in all this was all the running due to the holiday season. I'm disabled and I have a weak immune system, but I kept pushing myself. I walked so much price shopping for things for everyone that would both mean something and not break budget (even when me left leg wanted to nope out) because Dad gave me a bit of money last minute to help me buy gifts and I only had a week. I wrapped gifts for dad and myself. I cleaned and did some baking. Then there was the driving and the great but exhausting time with family and playing catch with my youngest nephew until my arm was nearly falling off. When I eventually got back home, my whole body had this bone deep ache. Not like overworking muscles after not using them for a long time, but like I had the flu. This is on top of the cramping.

*Note: Some of the information past this point is things the medical staff told me happened, things my dad said happened, and texts*

I would get better and worse. Always worse when I first woke up (remember the blanket?). I went to dad's for a traditional southern New Year's meal. He said I was spacey, lethargic, and far more quiet than normal. My eyes had trouble focusing and I had trouble concentrating. I looked tired so, he made me sleep before driving home. I woke up about 3 am, drank a glass of water, drove home, wrote a post about it (which took entirely too long for me to write), and went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up and just... laid there. I was having trouble figuring out where my body was. It just felt numbed somehow. I called my neurologist thinking it was a side effect the the drug. I'm not sure what I said, but they made me go to the ER.

I'm not sure how I drove there to be honest. I do remember somebody honking. I'm glad it was close, but still. It's a wonder I didn't get in a wreck!

I don't remember much. A yellow floor sign. A woman writing with a marker. Another woman with brown drawn on eyebrows. A machine that had a small piece of that brown first aid tape stuck to it. A name that made me think of the green emoji face (which my normal brain has yet to figure out). I had trouble talking and thinking. I remember repeating "stay still" over and over the (I think it was) several times I was instructed to, because if I didn't, I'd forget. I'm pretty sure I left my room several times. I know I went to my car once. I remember eating food, but I only recall a pineapple cup because I realized partway that I had a spoon that I could use. I kept forgetting to tell them I was hurting when they asked. I had a headache and sick stomach. I also felt so cold and my feet were like ice, but I was running a low grade fever after all.

I started feeling a little better, but the doctor still admitted me. I had a white count, but they couldn't figure out from where. I messaged a few people to let them know what was going on finding typing easier than talking. I used that to my advantage and typed out my allergies to show a nurse.

They struggled getting the IV in, even on my hand. When it finally was in I was hooked up to fluids to keep it open. More blood taken to try and figure out what was wrong. I gave them what urine sample I could which was tinted (I couldn't help it). They had already done some type of brain scan (but I didn't remember it). I kept having minor dizzy spells, but I attributed it too all the blood they took.

They kept giving me stuff, but nothing helped my headache. It wasn't a migraine, but still very nasty. I was grateful when something finally seemed to help.

My nurse came back with lots of juice to go with my super so I'd have something to drink and a container of ice water. She was new to the hospital and hung around at times just checking on me and talking. Just a nice person. It was otherwise a lot of sleeping.

The longer I stayed, the easier it was to communicate, but the tests couldn't figure out why. They ruled out seizures and a stroke. A mini stroke was highly unlikely and didn't fit. They couldn't find an infection anywhere. My white count went back to normal. They couldn't figure it out.

That was until my nurse from the previous day came back. We just talked about general things until I made a joke about the urine sample from the day before. She asked if it was clean catch and I said yes, but just barely. That ended up causing questions and her checking charts. Turns out that despite being there since the morning before, I had peed twice (with the last time hours before). She pressed on my bladder which wasn't distended. 3 bags of fluid, 3 meals (2 of which I know I ate all of), plus whatever I drank. I had been dehydrated to the point that it had caused my white count to go up and was the reason behind my confusion, lethargy, dizziness, headache, nausea, and low urine output. I was pretty surprised. I was released before lunch.

Pushing past my limits, minor medication side effects (including one long term med), staying under an electric blanket too much to stay warm (combined with exhaustion which meant longer in bed and less time awake to drink water), and pain and constant bleeding due to my IUD... all those things combined causing it to happen. I'm still... oof. Still tired. Still weak. Still recovering. Sleeping so much that the days fly by. Drinking lots of water. And otherwise doing just fine (save for my sleep schedule going to shit again). I still love my electric blanket; it's just been temporary retired until I can get myself rehydrated again. That means my other blankets are out of the vacuum bags and piled up to keep me warm ^_^

Speaking of warm, I have my very own love bug/velcro/snuggle buddy Danny who has been on me like white on rice since I got home. He's a good boy

#bluewind talks #story time #dehydration #cat danny #danny is a good boy #tw blood mention #tw menstration #tw illness

4 notes · View notes

stylessemantics · 6 years

Text

X. Something About Sharing

Also called: Sharing is Caring Prompt: All Harry has ever known is to share with y/n. and vice versa. So when she’s knocking on his door, betrayed by a business/job opportunity and now needing a place to stay, he’s glad he’s chosen a one bedroom flat because all he knows is to share with her, to the point where they are both sure they are currently sharing her pain and his happiness to help her get to a happy middle and feel better, but Harry doesn’t know if she’s also sharing that heavy thudding of his heart that is suddenly very loud.

Notes: May have a part two.

In which Harry and Y/N share pretty much everything.

All Harry and y/n have ever known is to share with each other. When he was younger Anne worried that Harry, even though sweet and caring, was never into sharing much with other kids in his class or even with his sister Gemma, but that had seemed to flip 180 when y/n’s family moved right in front and something in little Harry’s mind sort of triggered. He would claim that it was unfair he had a sister and y/n had no one, so he took it as his job to make sure she felt that. Whatever it was, Anne was grateful Harry was learning the valuable “sharing is caring” lesson after all.

No one expected the duo to be so tight, but Harry and y/n kept surprising people through the years as they stumbled through every single stage with the other close behind, holding their hand, to the point where Gemma thought maybe her mom had given birth to twins that were now reuniting. The bond only grew stronger, along with them, making it seem like Y/N and Harry sort of shared everything, from material things, like toys and clothes and even food – half of their closets at each others’ place, and no smoothie gone without two straws – to not so material things, like their actual feelings. To them, there was no point in being afraid, there was always someone there to go through it all with. Everything good was enhanced, everything bad was split into survivable doses.

It was freaky that y/n knew when Harry was feeling down before even seeing him – well, it was already freaky to see one without the other close by to begin with, but nevertheless, the bond was sort of telepathic – and how Harry knew exactly what y/n was craving while on her period and he stopped on his way home from soccer practice to buy it for her. How they managed to not get sick at the same time was beyond people’s minds – except there was that one time when they both caught the chicken pox and were quarantined together in y/n’s room for a week, not that anyone could complain –

Sharing with each other was all they knew, all through grade school and high school, to picking the same colleges – shocking everyone by choosing different majors, but they are, after all, two separate individuals no matter how little it seemed like it – and working together at the bakery down the block and saving up to share a flat through uni years.

Sharing with each other was the closest thing to home they had, no matter where they were.

Living with Harry was easy for y/n. And vice-versa, especially after having had a taste of it with the whole chicken pox thing. What wasn’t easy was knowing in the back of their heads that when uni ended, at some point, they would eventually have to split. Harry knew keeping in touch with y/n would always be easy, but he wondered if it would be the same after having so much of her, for so long. And just like they thought, eventually they moved out to one bedroom flats, a few towns and 5 hour car ride away from each other, in order to grow as functioning members of society and keep a job. None of their friends understood why they picked one bedroom flats – and frankly, when asked, neither did them – even though unconsciously, they both felt like having more bedrooms would make the place too big, and hoped that whenever the other visited they could just slot together into one bedroom and share everything like they had always known to.

And then, the time to share an incredibly small, but somehow comfortable space – in Harry and y/n’s terms – came around

Y/N had jumped at the chance of a new job. While she was ok at her old one, she wasn’t fully happy or pushing her full potential, it was time for a change, time to move up the chain and do better things. And the best part was that it meant some great news for her and Harry. She had packed all her bags and wanted to keep the surprise until last minute, but she couldn’t contain herself the moment Harry facetimed her like he did every other day.

“I’ve been shat on by a bird fo’ the second time this month, y/n” was the first thing he said when she answered, and she rolled her eyes at the statement. “Classy, Harold. Real nice” “Tell tha’ t’the bird! Going ‘round like tha’” “I’ll hand-wash it if you need me to, stop whining” “Yeah, I’ll send you a shit-stained shirt by post, return it nice and clean, please” Harry mocked and dismissed her comment as he settled himself on his desk at work. She could tell he was at his office by the decor on the walls behind him. He worked at a creative boutique, designing for magazines and blogs of different brands and he claimed it was a very creative and relaxed place to work at. Normally during lunch time he was alone and used the time to call y/n. “There might be no need for that” she double tapped her phone to switch to the other camera, showing Harry all her belongings in boxes and bags, bare walls and closed curtains. “Where’re yeh going?” “I might have been offered that job I mentioned last month” she tapped back to the front camera so she could catch Harry’s face as he pieced together the information. Last month, she had briefly spoken about a job opportunity, one so incredibly good, Harry joked it couldn’t be legit, but quickly got on board with when she told him it meant it could also move her to his same town and put them at a tolerable 20 minute distance – which compared to how they grew up as neighbours and lived together through uni, was still very much, but not as much as being 5 hours away – and giving them the chance to do what they knew best, be close to each other.

“No fucking way!” He exclaimed, jolting up from his seat and adjusting his headphones, making sure he heard her correctly. “Surprise!” Harry’s hand was covering his jaw dropped mouth. Y/n would be so much closer. Something felt so right about that, despite whatever doubt any of them had about the new job. He was trying to hold back tears, too emotional to deal with the information he was being handed. “When do yeh get here?” “Tomorrow!” and they continued chatting giddily until Harry was called back to work by his boss, hanging up under the promise that y/n would go directly to his place upon setting foot in his town. She had a copy of his keys anyways, and was welcomed to invite herself in and make herself comfortable after her meeting with her new boss.

But that didn’t happen.

The following day, Harry took off early from his work to try and be home to receive y/n, after she’d sent him a text that the meeting seemed like it would take longer. And a bit longer turned into a lot longer and a lot longer and a lot longer, for it was starting to get dark outside and Harry’s anxiety was about to bubble over before there was a knock on his door. He immediately expected the worst. Y/N had keys to his place for god’s sake, there was no need to knock, ever. But he put on a smile, because the most important part was that she was finally there, and he opened his door ready to engulf her in his arms, something he realised she needed the moment her angry face and glistening cheeks caught his eye. She didn’t get to spit a full word out when Harry had wrapped himself around her and rubbed calming circles on her back. She didn’t need to say a word. Harry just got it.

He pushed and pulled her bags inside his warm flat, as best he could with one hand, the other still holding onto her frame, refusing to let go. Her belongings long forgotten by the entrance as he carried her to his bed where he could properly cuddle her and hopefully help her feel better. She continued sobbing softly, although the look on her face let Harry know she wished she wasn’t crying over whatever it was that was happening. Harry knew she was upset, he didn’t have to see her, he could sense it, and he also knew these tears were not ‘I missed you so much’ tears. Something had happened.

It wasn’t until after a cup of warm tea and some crackers that y/n finally sighed, ready to tell. Something short of an hour had passed and Harry never pushed, only shushed her little whimpers, knowing she would tell whenever she felt ready to tell. The best thing of knowing each other so much is how soothing the other can be. He didn’t need to ask anything; he knew what tea to make, how to make it, with how many blankets she’d want to be wrapped around and what film he’d eventually slip on the dvd player to cheer her up. He knew which one of his fuzzy socks she’d like to wear and what snack she’d love to have and he’d stocked up the night before after learning the news of her move. He was ready for everything and anything. Even for this, still unknown, upsetting thing.

“It was a scam” she hummed at the end of her tale. The job offer that both her and Harry briefly worried over, turned out to be just that. The too good to be true thing y/n and Harry had naively called it. And now, just how they had overlooked those details because the promise of being close again seemed worth every aching wave, they felt defeated. Sure, Harry would be fine after all, but he didn’t grow up sharing everything with y/n not to feel as betrayed and exhausted as her over this. They shared feelings in a spiritual level not even they understood, but learned to accept and work with. They would share her pain, and perhaps it would make it easier for her to handle, that’s how wonderful their friendship was.

Harry reached over his counter, caressing her cheek with his thumb, the palm of his hand resting warm on her face as he soothed her once more. “It’ll be okay, y/n” he whispered but she didn’t believe it. What was she going to do? She had moved her whole life for this job, it was an irreversible trap and now she had… “I have nothing” she buried her face in his chest, full body flush against him in look for comfort, and he let her get it out of her system.

Well. She had something, she realised as Harry kissed the top of her head. “You have me, okay? And you always will” and she nodded, knowing well that it was true.

It was in an embrace as tight as that one they shared in his kitchen, that they laid in his single bed for the night, deciding to catch some sleep and calm down. The single bed was a grand idea, any more space and they would feel like seas apart. This was more than enough. The closeness was all they needed to relax.

For the first time since he’s known y/n, Harry found it impossible to sleep next to her. Something was off, and it wasn’t the fact that she had lost it all. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what she would do, for she knew that she had a home with Harry if she ever needed it, and most likely that’s what was going to happen until she got back on her feet, and while she would hate to be a burden, they both knew the plan wasn’t as insane, and she knew in the back of her head Harry would never feel like she bothered him.

Even so, something felt askew. It didn’t have to do with her, but with him.

His chest ached. It was a weird sensation. He had it the night before and assumed it was excitement over seeing his best friend again, but it hadn’t calmed down since her arrival, if anything it had doubled – tripled even – and he didn’t know what was going on. What confused him tenfold was the fact that she slept soundly. He was glad, don’t get him wrong, she needed it and deserved it after such a day. But it was strange that he was feeling something that he couldn’t place, something so bizarre, so strong, and their almost magical bond had not woken her up from her slumber as it did Harry.

He didn’t know what it was but it choked him up more when y/n cuddled up to him, arm resting on his chest, breathing hitting his neck, legs crossed over his, tangled in a mess of long limbs. He felt warm, like he needed air, but he was worried he’d wake her. Whatever it was, it was too strong to ignore any longer. It would be a lie to say he didn’t have a single clue as to what he was feeling. He refused to name it for months, but he couldn’t deny it any longer.

All he’s ever known is to share with y/n. From material things to memories and feelings. Tears of fear and anxiety threatened his eyes when he thought that maybe, just maybe, there was one feeling they weren’t sharing. That there was one emotion that wasn’t as strong in both their bodies like every other one was. They shared it all, but maybe they didn’t share the heavy thud of his heart against his ribcage. So strong he’s surprised she cannot hear. Maybe they don’t share the complete adoration Harry has for her.

And Harry was terrified of it.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think please! This will have a part two and instead of leaving all of you in the suspense and since I've written a lot of things where Harry doesn’t get the girl in the end, you guys can rest assured that something good will happen for this one.

Smooches - Iv. x Masterlist || My Ask

#numinous #best friend harry #friends to lovers #Harry styles #harry styles au #stylessemantics #harry styles imagine #harry styles blurb #my concepts #fluff #writings #x. something about sharing #something about sharing #sharing is caring #masterlist

201 notes · View notes

noctispostmortem-blog · 6 years

Text

PSA

I did one of these on my old blog and I’m bringing it back but revamping it a bit. This is to all my mutuals! Mainly this is what is in my rules but I thought I’d post it as well as a reminder and to clarify certain things. This did get pretty long so I placed it under the cut. Any questions, feel free to send me an ask.

First of all, if I follow you I want to RP with you.

If you want to drop something, whether it be a thread, a ship, an interaction, anything all, that’s perfectly fine no matter the reasoning. You’re not feeling that thread anymore? Alright, let’s do something else. You’re not feeling this ship anymore? Sure, I’m alright with that! These two muses just aren’t working out in their interaction? Got it! Let’s try something else! I’m perfectly fine with all of it!

My inbox is always open. Send that meme. Say hello. Ask any question that you have! Seriously, I won’t mind!

If I post a starter call, inbox call, or plotting call, do not be afraid to like it if that is what you want to do. Same thing for if I post an open RP’s for my muses, just jump right in if you want.

I love AU’s, I truly do. And they can vary from small little changes to the normal verse to my characters becoming something completely different. Either way, I’m up for it so come at me if you have an idea.

I’m a little shit when it comes to replies, seriously I am. Sometimes I can spew out reply after reply within minutes of each other, and sometimes I will go days without a single one. It’s called life. Sometimes I’m not feeling good, or my mood is too sour. Maybe I’m struggling to come up with a reply I find suitable and really want to take my time and make sure it’s right. Maybe my muse isn’t cooperating with me. There are so many reasons, it’s ridiculous and if you’re worried that I no longer want to reply, just ask. I won’t bite, I promise.

I do not mind having multiple threads with the same mun. Whether that be your muses RP’s with several of mine, several of mine RP with multiple of yours or even if you have more than one blog but want to RP with me on each one. I’m down for that.

I’m a huge lover of shipping. Seriously I am. Ship with me you cowards! But, there does have to be some chemistry between the muses, I have to be able to see that they can go down that path together. If I ship something, that doesn’t mean you have to and if you ship something doesn’t mean I will either. Don’t force anything on me but do tell me if you ship our muses. I probably do too. Plus, there isn’t just romantic ships! Platonic, familial, frienemies, all that good stuff. I love all of that and so much more!

I can do pre-established relationships (not romantically at all though (usually)) but we as muns have to discuss it first to see if the muses can even be on such terms with one another.

I am open to pretty much every kind of plot you can think of. Seriously, I am! So don’t be afraid to approach me on that either if you want a specific genre.

You are allowed to use memes as icebreakers.

You are allowed to turn asks into threads, just please repost it and if you can’t, tell me and I can do it for you.

Let your muse, be your muse. Don’t change them simply to suit the RP. If your muse is a jerk but you feel sorry for mine because they are sweet, don’t make them nicer so that you don’t feel guilty. If your muse is flirty, but mine isn’t having it, oh well. That’s how they are and my muse is more than capable of handling themselves.

I do not care if you take forever on your reply, I really don’t. As I already said, I’m bad with that myself. So don’t stress it, take your time!

You are NOT just a number in my follower count, I promise you that. So, if we’re mutuals, even if it takes me forever, eventually I will reach out to you. Most likely with a meme. However, I will say this much, I generally give a limit of three asks to start an interaction. This means I the first two icebreaker memes I send in that aren’t answered will be given the benefit of the doubt by thinking maybe you didn’t get them or the ask didn’t work or maybe the muse wasn’t good. Each one I send will likely contain a different muse and scenario to give you options. But after three asks are sent to try and break the ice between us and none are answered, I will assume you don’t have an interest in rping with me and will soft block because I don’t see a point in us being mutuals if you’re not interested in rping.

There will be times when I drop threads, there will be times that I don’t answer an ask you sent in, and times that I’m really not good at talking to others ooc. This is nothing against you. Generally, I really only don’t answer asks that just won’t work with anyone (rarely, is what I am saying). If I do these, we can always start a new thread, you can always send another ask which I will be more than likely to answer and if I don’t respond via chat or discord, just give me some time. I’m probably simply not up to it yet but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk with you.

Feel free to specify a muse if there really is one you’re interested in, I swear you won’t upset me because you like this particular muse. If anything, that makes it much easier for me. But, if you’re not sure who to use, let me know and I’ll try to help you.

My activity is sporadic like crazy, I ask that you have patience with me on this.

My page is hella disorganized but I’m chipping away at that bit by bit (ignore the fact that I’ve had this particular blog for eight months now and I’m still trying to get it together)

I do not care about that whole thing that’s going around about reblogging from the source, I truly don’t and it’s even in my rules that the likelihood of me actually doing that isn’t high.

I am private. I am selective. And I most certainly am mutuals only. If I haven’t followed you back yet, please do not jump into my IM’s asking about doing things. That will make me either want to block you or not even give your page a chance. If I don’t follow you back for whatever reason, it’s nothing against you, really. Could be a great deal many reasons as to why.

I am multiship (for the most part because some muses are selective few ship, it says it in their information if they are) but certain muses have their main verse and then they also have their canon verse which is not the same. If for any reason, you wish to be involved in their canon verse, it would have to be thoroughly discussed between us and then I’d have to discuss it with another mun who is involved with the canon verse muses.

I have a very broad range of muses from the most innocent and sweets ones to the worst of the worst. They also range from completely normal humans to vampires, lycanthropes and much much more. But having muses like this means there will likely be a lot of triggering content. I will try to tag it but if I’m being honest, I suck at it.

Will contain NSFW content as well (though certain parts of that NSFW I’m very picky about). Smut is something that will likely take place on here eventually, though not very often. I just generally prefer to do morning afters and all that good stuff.

I do crack/shit post, I do a have quite a bit of ooc posts, I do dash commentary at times too.

If you send your male muse at me, it will likely be responded with by a female muse. This is NOT for shipping purposes. This is because I’ve had a bad experience before where even though my muse was a heterosexual male and the one he was threading with was considered bisexual, they began to try and force a ship between them. Not only was the muse itself being extremely pushy but the mun was as well ooc. This also doesn’t mean that I won’t do it at all, if I know the mun isn’t like that or something along those lines then I will be okay with actually doing it.

You can bet your ass I play favorites. This means that there are certain threads I’m likely to respond to first, there are certain asks I will do quicker than others. Usually, this is because me and the other mun have that solid connection ooc and that the muses just really go well together. But don’t let that discourage you, please. That doesn’t mean I won’t rp with you, that doesn’t mean I’ll ignore you and that certainly doesn’t mean that with time you can’t become one as well.

I use icons, but that doesn’t mean that you have to. Yes, I also edit my text but that doesn’t mean you have to either in order to rp with me.

My biggest peeve is not cutting your posts. I really hate having to scroll so much just to get past one post. If you don’t cut your posts, I won’t follow or if I already do then I will unfollow once it becomes an issue.

When I unfollow, I do it through soft block because, as I’ve said, you are not just a number in my follower count and I think it’s only fair. So, if I unfollow you and didn’t use this method, that means I personally didn’t unfollow you. It must have been a glitch on tumblr or something and you’re welcome to say something to me.

I generally rp at any length but the longer the reply is the longer it takes for me to do it so I usually try to keep it at 2-3 paragraphs.

I do currently have 39 muses and more are going to come. That’s just how I am. The world in which my muses are in has a lot of possibilities and connections that I like to explore and develop more and as I do, muses come out and sometimes it will be just one and others it can be multiple. Really depends but if you don’t like blogs with too many muses that I wouldn’t follow me.

More will be added as I go and this will be reposted throughout my time here. Thank you for your patience and taking the time to read this! I truly do appreciate it!

#|| Speak Your Mind Even If Your Voice Shakes // PSA ||

7 notes · View notes