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flowersbby · 3 years

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Star Struck | Corpse Husband x Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Swearing (If I’m missing any let me know please! :) )

a/n: You’re a model/ streamer in this one! :D I’m thinking about if I should turn this into a series or not? Lmk what you think. I hope you like it <3

It was a nice morning. The sun was shining through the tall windows that showed you a view of your balcony onto your bed, there was a slight breeze so it wasn’t too hot, and you could hear the birds chirping with the occasional honking due to LA traffic. The only reason you woke up was because the sun was shining right in your face. You groaned and put a pillow over your face. I really don’t want to get up right now. Just a few more minutes.. You thought and right as you were about to take the pillow off your face and turn over onto your other side so you could go back to sleep, your phone started ringing. “Ugh!” You groaned once again and reached for your phone that was on your nightstand. You looked at the caller ID and saw that it was your manager, Chris. You accepted the call and put the phone to your ear. “What do you want?” You asked in an annoyed and tired tone. You were definitely NOT a morning person. You hated mornings.

“Oh my God,” He said in a rushed tone, “Have you literally JUST woken up? You have a photoshoot in 2 hours! Makeup and wardrobe are waiting for you down here!” Your eyes widened. You completely forgot about it.

“I-I’ll be right there!” You told him and hung up. You sprang out of bed and almost ran to your walk in closet, your eyes scanning for a top that would match the black leather skirt you wanted to wear for the day. You decided on a black mesh body suit with a black crop top under it. All black today. like your soul. You quickly put on some black heels and brushed your hair, cringing at how the brush tugged on your hair when it reached a knot. You didn’t bother doing your makeup since your makeup team would take it off anyway. You fast walked to the door of your apartment, grabbed your purse off the hook, and opened your door to leave to your photoshoot.

🖤🖤🖤

After a lot of yelling from Chris for holding the makeup and wardrobe team up, you did your photoshoot and got to go home. When you got home, you took a mirror picture of your outfit and uploaded it to Instagram, putting the caption as “Fashionably Late 🖤💋”. You smiled at the influx of likes right as it posted. You were truly lucky to have your supporters, but you wanted one person in particular to see it.

Corpse’s POV

I was casually playing Among Us with my friends while they streamed when I felt my phone vibrate slightly on my lap. I began to feel anxious to check my phone since I only have notifications on for one person but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the screen since I was following Jack, who I was sus of. Right when him and I entered electrical, he broke my neck. I felt relieved though since I got to finally look at (y/n)’s post.

My eyes widened when I saw the picture of her outfit. She looked good. Very good. I double tapped on it and immediately went to the comment section out of curiosity of what other people were saying. I looked at all the comments saying how pretty she was and smiled, but the comments made by creepy people made my blood boil. I wish I could just reply to them and say “That’s my girl. Stop.” but we both agreed to keep our relationship out of the public eye and I was truly fine with that. I just wish I could protect her from the creeps out there.

I wasn’t even paying attention to the game until I suddenly saw “Victory” appear on my screen. “Let’s goooo!” I said into the mic. Everyone else was celebrating as well.

“Hey!” Rae exclaimed, “Let’s get (y/n) in here, she just got home.” My heart skipped a beat and I smiled.

“Yes!” I said a little too excited. Everyone else didn’t notice it though and agreed with me. I quickly texted her out of excitement.

Your POV

After receiving an invite from Rae and booting up your computer, as well as getting everything prepared to stream, you got a text from Corpse. You quickly grabbed your phone to respond back to whatever he said.

My Love 😊💖💖

im so excited to hear your voice

i’ve missed you

You blushed at his messages. You thought about what to text back for a minute until you figured out what to say.

You

I have so much to tell you from today

I missed you so much bb

ft later?

You set your phone back on your desk and loaded up Among Us, joining the discord call while you wait. You were greeted by everyone as you joined.

“(Y/n)! Good noon!” Greeted Rae. You smiled as everyone in the call erupted in hello’s.

“Hey, (y/n).” Corpse said after everyone else had their chance to greet you.

Your stomach did backflips from him just saying your name. “Hi~” You said in a sing songy voice and started streaming. “How are all you guys doing?” You asked as your picked up your water from your desk and started drinking.

“Good now that you’re here..” Corpse muttered. You choked on your water and erupted in coughing, taken aback from what he said. Good thing your were muted.

“Corpse?!” Yelled Poki.

“What did you say?!” Also yelled Felix. The rest were just erupting in Aw’s.

“U-uh,” Corpse stuttered, “I meant that because (y/n) is such a good imposter and I’ve been a little off my game today so I’m hoping we get imposter together so I have some content for a video.” Good cover up.. You thought as your coughing got under control. I think he forgot to mute himself.

“Yeah!” You exclaimed, “We got this my dude!” You took a glance at chat and saw everyone going crazy. Half of them were typing in all caps asking for someone to clip that moment, and half were shipping you and corpse.

“I can only play one game anyway,” Corpse said, “I have stuff to do.” You frowned at what he said. You haven’t gotten to talk with him all day because of how rushed you were this morning and now you won’t have time to talk with him now because of how different your schedules are. Even though you two loved each other a lot you have had your arguments about this with him. You hate that he lives two hours from you or else this wouldn’t be an issue. You would be over at his house everyday if he lived in LA. You hated long distance.

You had a great time playing with your friends, but when Corpse left you got a little gloomy. He wasn’t answering your texts either. You sighed and changed into his hoody he left in your closet when he visited last and put on some grey pajama shorts. You tied your hair into a messy bun so it wouldn’t get in your way for the rest of the night even though you were just going to watch Netflix in your bed and eat chips. After grabbing your snacks, you walked to your bedroom and opened the glass door to the balcony in your room, turned your LED lights to (f/c), got comfortable in your bed, and turned on your favorite show on your TV.

You were scrolling through Instagram as you heard a knock at your door. A scared feeling washed over you and you paused what you were doing. It was like you were frozen in time and if you made one sudden movement everything would come crashing down. They knocked again. You were scared that some crazed fan found your address to your apartment. Cautiously, you walked to your door and looked through the peek hole. Butterflies fluttered in your stomach and a wide grin appeared on your face as you saw who it was. You quickly unlocked your door and opened it. You wasted no time and grabbed Corpse’s face and kissed him with so much passion you didn’t want to stop. He lifted you up and held your thighs in his hands, walking into your apartment and shutting the door with his foot. “I’ve missed you so much baby.” He breathed as he kept kissing you.

You pulled away from the heated session and Corpse carefully placed you on your feet. You hugged him. “I missed you too.” You said and didn’t want to let go. Corpse placed a kiss on your head as he hugged you and rubbed your back. You realized something and pulled away from the hug. “Where’s your stuff?” Noticing he didn’t have a suitcase.

He looked at you with a blank expression. “Fuuuckk....” He groaned. “I forgot it.”

You looked at him confused. “How do you forget your stuff. It’s a two hour drive here!” You laughed.

He scratched the back of his neck embarrassed. “I really missed you and I was excited to surprise you,” He explained. “I didn’t want to get here late and have you asleep so I didn’t even think about packing.”

You smiled. “Well, at least you have a ton of clothes here you’ve left.”

He smirked, looking at his hoodie on your body. “Yeah, I see that.”

You smirked back at him, turned around, and began to walk back into your bedroom, wanting him to follow you. Corpse quickly swept you off your feet and put you over his shoulder, plopping you on the bed as he got on top of you. He looked into your eyes. “I’m tired.” He muttered.

“Let’s cuddle then, baby.” You smile. He smiles back at you tiredly as he moves off you to be the big spoon, pulling you against him by wrapping his arm around your waist. You felt happy in that moment. You finally got to be with the only man who loves you for you physically, instead of two hours away. You both fell asleep, taking in this moment.

#corpse #corpse x reader #corpse husband #corpse husband x reader #corpse husband x you #corpse husband x y/n

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tocastielandback · 3 years

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Take Me Away (Helmut Zemo x F!SE Asian!Plus Size! Reader) [PART 1]

Word Count: 1244

Description: The unassuming prison librarian catches Zemo's attention. When he escapes, she could take him back to prison. But does she?

Author's Note: Guess who's finally sliding in with their Daniel Brühl character fic debut? I was going to write all the parts first and post them all together, but I don't even know how long I want this to be and which events from the show I'm including. Hopefully uploading in chapters like this will also motivate me to write more and eventually create a routine (*laugh cries in I write whenever the fuck I feel like it*)

Special thanks to @unlikelymilliner for that post about Zemo's books, because only God knows how long I'd be looking for the title of that Machiavelli book.

Warnings: Mentions of experimentation

(Y/N) didn't think she would ever fall in love with a criminal.

She lived a good deal of her life under the oppressive thumb of a group of them.

A remnant of that past remained in the form of what was essentially a shock collar strapped around her neck as part of one of their sick experiments.

Thankfully, the strip of velvet sent electrical jolts only when an attempt was made to remove the device.

No one knew the story behind it, save for one man.

She quickly took note of him the moment he walked into the library. Several inmates had already come in and left, but none had paid her any mind. She didn't expect them to. They came to get their books and went about their day. But there was one person who left an impression.

He wasn't intimidating like most other inmates. In fact, she was shocked to discover he was in solitary confinement.

It helped immensely that he was easy on the eyes, though she knew better than to let something like that put her at ease. That's how they get you.

Due to his status, he wasn’t allowed around other prisoners. It was just the two of them, plus the guard who stood by while he browsed the non-fiction section.

She greeted the man, just as she would anyone else, and received a small grin in return.

Dorothy, the head librarian, had given (Y/N) the task of updating the book logs since the computer was down the previous day.

The latter logged in with her newly acquired employee ID and got to work inputting names, ISBNs and book titles.

Halfway through the list, she sensed someone in front of her.

When she looked up from the computer screen, the man who came in stood at the other side of the big walnut desk, a book in his hands.

The first thing she saw was a pair of brown eyes that turned gold when the fluorescent lights hit them at a certain angle. The second was a mild-mannered aura, similar to the one she’d seen earlier. Something about his face seemed different this time. It almost reminded her of herself

She wouldn't have picked up on it unless she stared enough at both, which is what she was doing.

Unbeknownst to her, he'd spoken.

"Are you new here?" he inquired again.

His inflection showed no signs of incredulousness, simply curiosity.

Over the course of her working at the library, she would have the displeasure of prisoners telling her off when she politely asked them to keep noise at a minimum or leaving the seating areas in disarray. While she only knew this man for all of two minutes, (Y/N) could see he wasn't going to cause her trouble.

She said, shyly. "Today's my first day."

Now that they were engaged in conversation, she observed a few more things about him: he had short, light brown hair, most of which was straight, save for the curl framing one side of his pale face.

When he smiled, his lips didn't take on the shape of a crescent, as one's normally would. Instead, they formed a soft "w".

He had an accent. From where, she couldn't place. Russia? Germany?

"Ah... well," he placed his book on the countertop and slid it towards her. "It's nice to see a different face, especially a kind one."

Her cheeks got warm, a tinge of pink upon them. Thankfully, her tan complexion made it nearly impossible to detect. Yet, somehow, she thinks he did.

She averted her gaze, and in doing so, she remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

"Let me just log your books real quick," she slipped a chart from the bottom of the four-paper pile on top of the one she was transcribing earlier.

The book was Fortuna ist ein Reissender Fluss by Roger D. Masters. From what she could tell, it was about Leonardo Da Vinci's and Niccolò Machiavelli's quest to turn Florence, Italy into a seaport.

Intellectual, she thought to herself while writing down the book information.

"Have you read Machiavelli?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

For the fraction of a minute, she was torn between lying and looking stupid. If she said yes, he would more than likely ask what she thinks of something she's never even read before. He would see right through her. If she said no, she would out herself as someone who was uneducated, which was true to some extent. Yet another person would see her the way she felt since she left her homeland: a girl from some faraway place barely anyone knew existed, let alone cared about. The only stories about her people she's heard from outsiders were of inhabitants who didn't go to school, only wore rags and lived in filth.

She didn't want someone who has been so decent to her so far turn against her because of these prejudices.

"No, I haven't, actually..." she replied, meekly.

He nodded a bit with a small grin. "What I find intriguing is the relevance it holds today as well as its testament to his era. I think everyone should read them."

"I'll have to look into it," she hummed curiously and turned the form towards him, setting her pen down parallel to it. "I'm always looking for something to read."

"What kind of books do you like?" he asked while writing his name and initials.

He made eye contact with her again when he was finished.

"I've read a bunch of different genres: horror, satire, poetry," her lip perked when his eyes lit up.

She felt more confident and continued, "I'm currently reading a biography on RFK. When I heard how he was sensitive, the 'odd man out' in his family... I knew I had to learn more about him. I think his empathy allowed him to see past the labels society put so much weight on, like social class and race. I like biographies and learning about certain people. Some more well-known than others."

Though she wasn't able to attend a university due to her captivity, she was lucky enough to have a grandparent who was a teacher, instilling a sense of discipline and dedication to learning. Once she got to a mainland, she read constantly. She managed to restart her education and a new life from the ground up.

"Hm," the prisoner hummed, seemingly mulling over her words. "Impressive."

He threw her another smirk, one she found charming.

"T-Thank you," she mirrored the expression, except she was sure she looked like a timid schoolgirl.

What was he doing to me? she asked herself.

The guard at the door caught both their attention.

"Hey," he said sternly to the man and tilted his head towards the hall, hinting that they have to go.

The latter nodded and turned back to the librarian, taking the book in his hands after she'd stamped and closed the back cover.

"Well, it was nice chatting with a fellow bibliophile. I hope to see you again," he glanced at her name tag. "(Y/N)."

"You as well—" she was about to refer to the log he'd signed, but he saved her the trouble.

"Helmut," he smiled again, eyes crinkling a bit and waved his book in farewell before leaving.

She watched the two men leave and read the log.

In the third column, was the name: Helmut Zemo

She swore she knew it from somewhere, but where?

#The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #Daniel Brühl #Helmut Zemo #Baron Zemo #Helmut Zemo x reader #Baron Zemo x reader #that library is in the Netherlands #and I don't imagine the one in the actual prison being this nice #but shhhh #no one has to know #my fics #mine

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bnhayyy · 3 years

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The Call (9)

Chapter Title: Betrayal

Wordcount: 5.4k

Fic Tag: Click

Ao3 Link: Click

Chapter Summary: Mikasa receives an alarming phone call.

Notes: My final upload for @mikannieweek ! Day eight was a free prompt, and I went with... well. You'll be able to see what I went with.Thanks Celadon for the beta!

Mikasa woke up with a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach. It spread out through her body and into her limbs. It did not make the world seem softer or kinder - she had seen too much for such a thing to be possible. But it did make her feel that much more capable of facing the day ahead. It made her exhaustion a little weaker and her will to fight a little stronger. Maybe, just maybe, that was because it was suddenly so much easier to remember that she had a reason to fight.

What she was feeling wasn't love. Mikasa had never experienced romantic love, but she knew enough to know that this wasn't it. It was too new. Too fresh. There was too much that she didn't know about Annie, too many feelings that came up when she thought about her that she hadn't yet identified. This was something vague and tentative and mysterious. Yet it was also undeniably nice. Refreshing. It was the knowledge that she wasn't alone anymore. That there was someone who understood her, and an attraction that drew them closer together. It was...

...If she allowed herself to hope, she would go as far as to say that it was something with potential.

Mikasa hadn't allowed herself to hope in a long time. She wasn't entirely sure if she was ready to do so now. So instead, beyond a moment of consideration early in the morning, she didn't allow herself to think too heavily on the feelings. She would simply settle for being happy that they were there.

Her day panned out to be a simple one. Annie was busy, but Mikasa didn't have any plans other than trigonometry class in the evening and patrolling after it. That was fine with her. She used the opportunity to get caught up on her admittedly daunting pile of late trigonometry work. Assignments from that class piled up quickly, and even with Annie taking some of the weight off her shoulders, she hadn't managed to get fully caught up.

It took several hours to work through her to-do pile, but she didn't mind. There was something nice about being able to block the problems of the rest of the world out and focus on numbers and equations.

Then, an hour before she had to get going to trigonometry class, her phone rang.

Mikasa ignored it at first. However, not even a minute after it stopped, it began to ring again. With a frown, Mikasa pulled it out of her pocket and checked the ID.

Unknown number.

She let the caller go to the answering machine without picking up.

They called again.

And again.

She broke down and answered on the fourth call. As a rule, she tended not to answer her phone for unknown answers. However, if something was urgent enough for someone to call her four times in a row, then she supposed she could give them the time of day, however irritating it may be.

"Hello?" Mikasa answered.

"Ackerman," replied a familiar, unwelcome voice. "It's Ymir."

Mikasa's good mood died instantaneously. She reflexively tightened her grip on her phone, the device straining beneath the pressure. "How did you get this number?" she hissed.

"Doesn't matter," Ymir said.

"Was it Krista?" Mikasa pressed.

Ymir scoffed. "You really think Krista is going around sharing her classmate's numbers?" She barreled on without giving Mikasa a chance to respond. "It really doesn't matter. I have something important to tell you."

Mikasa grit her teeth. "There's nothing I want to hear from-"

"Bertolt and Reiner are vampires."

The air around Mikasa seemed to freeze. "Excuse me?" she breathed, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Bertolt and Reiner," Ymir repeated. "Annie's friends? They're vampires."

"No," Mikasa said, not a hint of hesitation in her tone. "That's impossible."

"Why?" Ymir questioned. "Because you've seen Reiner in the sunlight?"

Mikasa pursed her lips. "For a start."

It was impossible because Bertolt and Reiner were Annie's friends. Reiner was warm and kind. She may not have seen soft-spoken Bertolt as often, but he was supportive and treated the people around him nicely. They were her allies. At this point, she might even go as far as to say that they were her friends as well.

They weren't soulless monsters.

However, Ymir seemed set on a different story. "Ever noticed that ring Reiner wears?" she asked. "Gold with a big green stone?"

There was no reason for Mikasa to hesitate. There was absolutely no point in her entertaining a single word that this vampire had to say. Yet something in Ymir's voice, the confidence and condemnation, sent a shiver running up her skin. That made her pause for a moment.

Ymir seemed to take that pause as an invitation to continue. "It's called the Gem of Amara. You can ask your watcher about it. When a vampire wears it, it grants them complete invulnerability. Can't be staked, can't be beheaded, and holy water, crosses, and sunlight all have no effect; but they're still a vampire."

Mikasa stayed silent for another moment, trying to wrap her mind around the ridiculous story that Ymir was trying to spin. It was a mistake. Ymir paused for just a second, and when Mikasa failed to cut her off, she added in a forceful, demanding tone, "you've been all buddy-buddy with Reiner. Tell me, have you ever touched him? He's awfully cold, isn't he."

"Reiner isn't a vampire," Mikasa snapped. "He's a good person, not a murderer."

"Then how come Krista and I found him tossing a body in the river last night?" Ymir snapped right back. "He was going to kill her for walking in on him. Want proof that he isn't human? We can meet up; I have a broken leg from our little fight."

A faint, cold feeling began to sink in Mikasa's stomach. She ignored it.

"You're lying," she said.

"I'm not," Ymir replied. "But okay, you won't believe me about Reiner. What about Bertolt? Tell me, Ackerman, have you ever seen him out in the sunlight?"

This was a dangerous game. She didn't want to give Ymir any information that she could use. At the same time, she couldn't just stand there and let those accusations slide. So slowly, cautiously, but as cold as the winter's frost, she said, "it's his schedule. He works all day and takes classes online."

"Have you checked?" Ymir asked.

Mikasa faltered. "What?"

"Have you checked," Ymir repeated. "Because if you look for a roster of the college's online students, I guarantee that he won't be on it. Hell, do you have any proof that he actually has a job? Ackerman. Is there even one shred of evidence to support those claims?"

Mikasa didn't allow herself to be moved. "Annie's a slayer. That's evidence enough."

"Yes," Ymir said, her voice deepening with enough gravity to make a lump form in Mikasa's throat. "She is. And that's why you need to understand that you are in serious danger."

The coldness in Mikasa's chest began to spread. She ignored it. "Why would you care if I was in danger?" she asked.

"I don't," was Ymir's immediate response. "But I care about Krista, and Reiner was going to kill her last night."

"You're a vampire," Mikasa said, not even acknowledging the other lie.

"And that means I can't have anyone I care about?" Ymir retorted.

Mikasa took in a long breath and slowly let it out. "I don't have time for this," she said.

Ymir snorted."Good, because I didn't call you to talk about philosophy. Bertolt and Reiner are vampires, and Reiner's going to be damn hard to kill, but they're also just pawns working for something much longer. Ask your watcher about the Tybur Group."

A moment of silence. Mikasa wanted to protest, defend Annie. Find the flaws in Ymir's argument and point them out, because there had to be so, so, so many. What Ymir was saying couldn't be the truth. She shouldn't even be entertaining the thought. Yet the faintest whispers of doubt had begun to sprout on her mind, and they were enough to freeze her solid.

The moment was shattered by Ymir's low but urgent hiss. "Think about it, Ackerman. What could pose a bigger threat to a slayer than another slayer? Leonhardt and hers didn't come here to help you, they came here to get you out of the way. "

It was a lie. It had to be. Annie was all about teamwork (it got her close to her) and had found her because she didn't want to be the only slayer anymore (she'd said so little about herself). Bertolt and Reiner were kind, friendly people (element of surprise). Meeting Annie in the graveyard that night might have been the best thing that had happened to her in years (good things didn't just happen).

Mikasa should have said something.

She didn't, and so Ymir pressed on. "You care about the well-being of the world, right? Well, if they kill you, Tybur will have the one and only slayer in their pocket. And once that happens, the world will start looking a lot different."

Her words shocked Mikasa out of her stupor. "That's ridiculous," she said, because it was. It had to be. The big, devastating picture Ymir was hinting at was a betrayal of Annie's very nature as a slayer. Mikasa's stomach twisted with guilt at even entertaining the thought. (Yet the coldness of suspicion continued to spread through her veins.) Besides... "Annie saved my life when we met."

"And Reiner's been doing a good job of worming his way in with your friends, by the sound of it." Ymir paused for a heartbeat. When she resumed speaking, her voice had grown fractionally softer. Sympathetic. "It's a cruel game, Ackerman. That doesn't mean they aren't playing."

Mikasa felt sick. She reminded herself that that was probably Ymir's aim. The vampire had probably called her to knock her off balance and make her doubt her allies. Mikasa opened her mouth to say as much, but before she could get a word out, Ymir was talking again.

"Don't trust me. Then talk to Leonhardt. But not right away. Take your time, think it through, and get ready to fight for your life first, because she is not the person you want her to be." Ymir paused and Mikasa heard a faint huff and the sound of shuffling papers. "I have other idiots to warn, but. Good luck. Try not to die."

The line went dead.

Mikasa pulled the phone away from her ear, and for a moment, all she could do was stare.

Then she started to plan.

***

Erwin would want to know about the phone call. However, Mikasa dismissed the thought of going to him as soon as it had occurred to her. This was between her and Annie, and she could handle it without his interference.

So she blocked all thoughts of her watcher from her mind and focused on the facts.

Mikasa liked Annie, more than she had expected to, maybe even more than she should. She trusted her. Over the past handful of weeks, she had even come to depend on her to a degree.

She did not know her well. She did not know Reiner well. She was only somewhat familiar with Bertolt. As much as it hurt to acknowledge those facts, to let that whisper of suspicion in, she would be a fool to not acknowledge it at all.

Ymir was right about one thing. This whole thing could be settled by a conversation. Odds were, the vampire was hoping that Annie would be hurt and offended that she even considered Ymir's accusations. She wanted the weight of the accusation to tear them apart. However, Mikasa trusted that Annie was more logical than that. She had to be aware of how little she had told Mikasa about her own past. She would understand that Mikasa couldn't just brush Ymir's story off without looking into it at all. The distrust may sting a bit, but it would not tear them apart completely. They may even come out stronger for having had the conversation.

Once that was over with, Ymir would be well and truly dead. Neither of them would tolerate a vampire messing with them like that, especially one who already killed scores of innocent people. They would double down on their hunt and Ymir would be dead within the week.

It was a headache, but it was straightforward and simple.

Except it wasn't. Mikasa also had to consider the elephant in the room, the entire reason why she couldn't just ignore Ymir's call.

The possibility that she was telling the truth.

That possibility made Mikasa text Annie to tell her that she wouldn't be in trigonometry class today and request that they meet in the graveyard. It was the reason why she readied her crossbow, one of her knives, and a sword, but didn't bother with a stake.

A stake was far from the most efficient weapon when dealing with a slayer.

It probably wouldn't come to that. Mikasa knew (hoped) that it wouldn't come to that. However, there were parts of Ymir's warning that just wouldn't be shaken off. So, on the tiny, improbable, impossible chance that the vampire was telling the truth and her fellow slayer was the enemy...

She got ready to fight for her life.

***

The sun had long set by the time Annie appeared in the graveyard. It wasn't an accident. Mikasa had asked her to show up later than usual, just to be safe. If there was going to be a fight...

There wasn't going to be a fight. Ymir was messing with her, Annie and her friends were allies, and they would have all of this cleared up and sorted out before the night was over. Mikasa was taking precautions even though she knew there was no real reason for them. However, if, theoretically, two slayers were going to fight, she would want to minimize the odds of them being spotted.

Annie only had her sword with her. That was good. Mikasa glanced down at her own weapon, clasped tightly in her hand, before turning her attention back to the other slayer.

Annie wore a somewhat puzzled expression, but otherwise looked like she wasn't going to comment on her fellow slayer's odd behavior. That changed when she drew a little closer. A slight frown fell across her lips as she took in Mikasa's expression, followed by a furrowing of her brow. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Ymir got my phone number," Mikasa said.

"Ymir," Annie repeated, surprise flickering across her face.

"Yeah," Mikasa said. "She... told me a story, about you, Bertolt, and Reiner."

For a second, the surprise lingered on Annie's face. Then it began to fade away into an expression that wasn't quite stony. It should have been, but there was something under it, feverish, wild, and fighting to get out.

No.

"Oh?" Annie asked, lips quivering.

Prove her wrong, Mikasa thought.

"She said that Bertolt and Reiner are vampires, and that you're here to kill me."

Please. Prove her wrong.

Annie stared.

Then she began to laugh.

No.

Mikasa took a step back, but the laughter continued. Annie's face began to flush bright red as she tilted her head back and placed a hand over her stomach.

Moving thoughtlessly, like nothing more than a puppet powered by the knowledge of what she was supposed to do when faced with an enemy, Mikasa extended her sword.

"I told- I told Reiner this was a bad idea," Annie wheezed.

"Is that a confession?" Mikasa asked, voice colder than she'd heard in months.

Annie straightened her head to give Mikasa a wild, joyless grin. It was nothing like she had seen on her before. Or more it was more true to her than anything she'd seen yet. Looking at it, Mikasa suddenly realized that she wouldn't know the difference.

"Mikasa," Annie said. "It's been fun."

And then the other slayer drew her sword and lunged for her throat.

Mikasa ducked and raised her sword. The clash of steel against steel was as much of an anchor as it was a shock, a reminder that this really was happening, that she couldn't allow herself to think or feel yet. She pushed back against the force bearing down on her. When she felt Annie's sword begin to slip, she lunged to the side and sprang upright.

Annie swept her leg out to try to knock Mikasa's feet out from under her. Mikasa jumped and swept her sword out at Annie's still-moving leg. The side of it grazed her thigh, drawing a line of blood to the surface but earning no outward reaction from the other slayer.

A flash of Annie's free hand told Mikasa that she was going for her dagger. Mikasa lashed at her with her sword, but Annie ducked down and somersaulted forward, springing up only inches away from her face.

Annie thrust her dagger forward.

Mikasa dropped her sword and grabbed her wrist before the blade could plunge more than a centimeter into her stomach.

Mikasa wanted to gasp. She wanted to gasp from the pain of the knife in her gut. She wanted to gasp because this was actually happening. She wanted to gasp because she had been foolish enough to end up in this situation in the first place.

Instead, she looked Annie in the face. Time seemed to freeze as their eyes met, Annie trying to force her dagger further into Mikasa’s stomach while the other slayer’s grip on her wrist held firm.

Annie’s eyes darted down, and time resumed. Mikasa brought her leg up and kicked Annie in the stomach. The force of it made her drop her dagger and sent her flying several feet.

Mikasa turned her mind away from the pain and forced herself to move quickly. She pulled the dagger out of her stomach - painful and risky, but necessary to keep fighting - and opened her bag to drop it in. Instead of picking her sword back up, she kept the bag open long enough to grab her crossbow, already primed and ready to shoot.

When Annie got to her feet, it was to find the crossbow aimed at her face. She glanced down at the sword in her hand, then at the weapon, then at Mikasa's face.

Their eyes met, and Mikasa did the worst possible thing.

She hesitated.

And Annie turned and ran. Mikasa adjusted her aim and pulled the trigger. A bolt flew forward and embedded itself in Annie's shoulder. The rogue slayer let out a sharp cry and stumbled, but did not stop running. Mikasa took off after her, but couldn't run as fast as she needed to with the sharp, persistent pain in her stomach.

The chase couldn't have lasted for longer than a few minutes. Soon Annie was gone, and Mikasa was left alone in the graveyard. The graveyard, where she absolutely could not afford to stay right now. Because if Ymir had been right about Annie...

A massive weight came crashing down upon Mikasa's shoulders. Everything that she had been naive enough to shuck since she met Annie, plus the reality of this new situation. More than the stab wound, it made every step feel like a marathon as she limped her way back to where she had dropped her sword.

The sword that Reiner had given her.

Mikasa stared blankly at the weapon as she picked it up. It wouldn't do to leave a weapon sitting around in the graveyard, but she was suddenly very certain that she wouldn't be using it much in the future.

***

Walking back to her apartment was grueling. The pain radiating from her stomach made her want to walk slowly, but she couldn't afford to. If someone caught her walking around with a stab wound, she'd have to make up a cover story and waste precious time with a hospital visit. If an enemy happened upon her in this state, she would be at a stark disadvantage.

And it seemed that she had more enemies than she had realized.

No. Not seemed. The blood smearing across her stomach was proof of how foolish she had been.

Mikasa closed her apartment door, then leaned heavily against it. The keys shook and slipped in her fingers as she locked it. When she finally heard that click, it didn't come with its usual sense of security. Instead, Mikasa just felt... numb. Empty. Foolish.

Alone.

She looked down at the sword still grasped in her hand - Reiner's sword - and let it go. It fell to the ground with a clatter. Next, she let her shoulders go slack and felt her weapon's bag slip off and onto the floor beside it. Her keys were pocketed, but for a moment, it felt like those would slip from her fingers as well. It was tempting to allow herself to drop to the ground as well, to slide down against the door and give in to the emptiness and despair inside her.

She didn't. Couldn't. She was the slayer, and that meant she had a duty to do. That duty wouldn't be aided by tears or emotions.

Mikasa had to take care of her wounds, get back into fighting condition, and then she would do her duty.

Blood dripped onto the carpeting as she walked into the apartment. She noticed it, distantly acknowledged that she would have to clean it up later, but it quickly disappeared into the depths of her mind. Everything did. The only thing she allowed herself to focus on was taking one step after the other.

She walked through the kitchen on her way to the bathroom. As she passed the kitchen table, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and set it down. Her fingertips left little smears of blood on the back of the casing.

Upon reaching the bathroom, she headed straight for the tub. She squatted down beside it in order to avoid jostling her stomach too much, put the stopper in, and turned the hot water on. Then she stood up and turned to the first aid kit sitting beside her sink.

A consequence of being the slayer was that a normal first aid kit wouldn't cut it. Mikasa's was larger than most people and contained, among other things, advil, rubbing alcohol, a suture needle, and sterilized suture thread. Those were the items that she fished out and carefully set on the toilet.

First, she swallowed a couple of advil dry. Then she began the painstaking process of taking off her blood-stained clothes. It was difficult to do without jostling her stomach too much, especially her shirt, but she managed.

She didn't know if doing this in the bathtub was a good idea, but at the moment, she didn't care. It was going to be painful, unpleasant, and difficult no matter how she went about it. The warm water might make it a little more tolerable, so she was going to take advantage of that.

Mikasa got in the water before getting started. She allowed her torso to sink beneath the water and winced at the fresh sting when water seeped into the wound. Her blood rose into the water in a cloud of pinkish-red. For a moment, she stayed still. Then she began to tenderly rub at the edges of the wound, washing off the bits of blood that had dried against her skin.

Her eyes began to water. She didn't allow herself to think about the reason why.

Once her skin was clean, she used her foot to turn the tub's faucet off, then pulled herself up so that the wound was out of the water. The movement sent a fresh burst of pain through her torso, to which she grit her teeth and reminded herself that the worst was yet to come.

Mikasa reached over the edge of the tub, toward the toilet, to grab the rubbing alcohol. She opened it and dropped a splash onto her wound, then gasped at the sting it elicited. Still not the worst part.

The needle and suture thread were in individual packages. She opened both and threaded the needle, then dipped the needle in the alcohol just to be safe.

Then came the miserable part.

Mikasa had to focus on what she was doing to make sure she handled the stitching correctly, but it was also easy enough that she didn't have to put much conscious thought into it. That was how she powered through. Although a good portion of her willpower was spent on staying still, she focused the rest of her mind on everything that was worse than having to suture her own stab wound.

Mikasa had tricked herself into believing that a second slayer meant that she wasn't alone while getting cozy with an enemy. Because that was what Annie was. A threat. A rogue slayer. An evil slayer, if she was cooperating with vampires. Because that was what Bertolt and Reiner were. Vampires.

None of them had truly wanted to work with her or be her friend. They had espoused the merits of teamwork to her because she would be easier to kill if she trusted them. She could see it now, how the manipulation worked, where she had been too quick to trust.

She had decided to trust someone for the first time in years, and this was where it had gotten her.

Annie wanted to kill her. It was her mission to kill her, from what Ymir had said.

Mikasa may not have known Annie half as well as she had let herself think she did, but she knew that she would not give up on a mission easily. Not a real one, one that she had truly dedicated herself to.

If Annie wanted to kill her, then Mikasa would have to kill her first.

Just like she would have to kill Bertolt, who was rarely seen not because he was shy and had a busy schedule, but because he couldn't step into the sunlight without bursting into flames.

Just like she would have to kill Reiner, who was a soulless murderer with a ring that granted him invulnerability.

None of them were her friends. And Mikasa had been foolish and weak to let herself think that they were.

The thoughts created a miasma of anger and guilt that didn't quite dull the pain, but redirected it enough for her to power through the operation. She clung to it until she had sewn the final suture, at which point she, blinked the tears out of her eyes, tied off the sutures, and broke off the needle and remaining thread with a sharp gasp.

Mikasa allowed her muscles to go law and slumped back against the bathtub. She didn't sink low enough to submerge her stitches, but it was a close thing. The edges of her vision flickered black as pain coursed through her. It was a sharp stabbing in her stomach, as if Annie were still digging the knife in, that faded into a throbbing ache as it radiated out into her limbs. She knew that the pain would begin to fade if she just gave it time.

She didn't have time to wait for the pain to fade. The most she could justify was waiting until it had dissipated enough for her to be able to move. Regardless of her personal feelings for Erwin, she could see where it would be foolish not to inform him of all that had happened. Plus she would have to warn everyone else about Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt.

They wouldn't take it well. Annie and Bertolt had kept some distance, but most of the group had grown attached to Reiner, blissfully unaware of the false pretenses their relationship was built upon. Perhaps it was a good thing that Annie had stabbed her. Physical proof would make it easier for her to get them to believe her. After that, she would only have their actual reactions to worry about.

Mikasa was overcome by a wave of exhaustion that had nothing to do with her injury. She leaned her head back and allowed her eyes to slide shut.

When she opened them a few seconds later, Eren was standing over the bathtub and staring down at her.

His eyes were glistening.

"Mikasa," he said. "I'm so sorry."

Mikasa glanced down at her stomach. Flecks of blood welled up around the crisscrossed black of the sutures. If she squinted, it almost looked like a mouth snarling up at her.

"It's fine," she murmured, voice dull and lifeless. "It'll heal."

"That's not what I meant," Eren said. There was no denying the pain in his voice, something caught between desperation and loss. Mikasa may have tried to analyze it at another time. Right now, with all her earlier feelings flowing out of her as exhaustion and pain took over, she just couldn't bring herself to make the effort. Instead, she watched as he knelt down beside her. He started to reach out a hand, but faltered and withdrew it when his fingertips were a few inches away from her arm. Or the illusion of them, at least.

"I'm sorry that I let this happen," Eren clarified. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about them."

Oh. So this was what was happening.

Mikasa tilted her head back and closed her eyes. "I should have figured it out," she said. "I let them trick me, and I only have myself to blame. I don't need you to remind me."

"That's not what I meant," Eren insisted, the strain in his voice building until it sounded like it might break. "I hoped that you could reach them, and maybe we wouldn't-"

"-Eren," Mikasa cut in before he could get any further, or the stinging in her eyes could get much worse. She'd already cried too much today. She didn't need to add any more tears to her mess. "I can't do this right now."

A moment of silence. Then, just before Mikasa was going to open her eyes, Eren whispered, "alright. Just remember that I'm sorry. I didn't... This wasn't my intention."

"I know," Mikasa said. "But when I open my eyes, I need you to be gone."

No response. She kept her eyes shut for several more moments, just to be safe. Then, slowly, she opened her eyes.

She was alone once again.

Mikasa allowed herself to linger in the bathtub for several more minutes. It could have been more, but the water was beginning to grow cold. The whisper of a chill dancing over her skin reminded her that the world wouldn't stop and wait for her to have a breakdown.

With gritted teeth, she began the painstaking process of extracting herself from the bathtub. Standing up made flashes of black cling to the edges of her vision once again. She braced a hand against the tub's wall and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, the pain hadn't faded, but her vision had refocused, which was enough for her to work with. She grabbed the fluffy white towel hanging from the shower rod and carefully wrapped it around herself. Pinkish droplets of blood-soaked water sank into the fabric, telling her that she would need to include it in her next load of laundry.

She made her way into her bedroom and pulled on a pair of pajamas. It felt like a defeat - the admittance that she wouldn't be doing anything else that night. She dealt with it by reminding herself that she shouldn't risk anything more. Tomorrow she would be healed enough to put actual clothes on. However, if she tried for too much tonight and tore her stitches, then her healing would be set that much further behind.

Once she was dressed, a deep, guilty part of her wanted nothing more than to lay down in bed and go to sleep.

Mikasa pushed it down and forced herself to walk into the kitchen. There, she sat down at the table and picked up her phone, which was now flecked with dried blood.

Three calls were waiting on her voice mail.

As she stared at the notification, her phone started ringing once more. She answered it immediately.

"Mikasa," came Erwin's voice, rushed and urgent. "You need to get to my house immediately."

Mikasa swallowed down the lump rising in her throat and asked, "why?"

"Marco Bodt has been murdered."

#mikannie #yumihisu #mikannie fic #snk fic #snk #attack on titan #my fic #my writing #the call

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cinematecally · 2 years

Video

youtube

ENHYPEN (엔하이픈) 2022 Season's Greetings: WEATHER LAB

Just when I thought I was so done with purchasing anything related to KPOP, here we are again. This time, with a new group too!

I find the Weather Lab concept a bit too random, I was hoping for an academic-related concept, given their whole Dilemma era. But the package is cute, with the whole filer outbox vibe going on, so I’m just going with the flow.

Inclusions:

Making Video Digital Code Card

I find this one really nice because let’s face it, no one really bothers to play the CD anymore. For my previous Season’s Greetings from past groups, I usually look up fan uploads of the making or never watch whatever was in it at all. As of late, I have not checked out the contents for this, but we’ll never know when I’ll be able to, we have a whole year ahead.

Desk Calendar and Diary

Both these two items are your standard Season’s Greetings must-have. Though I still find the whole concept random, and the photos not as unified, I guess it’s still a given with the whole pandemic situation.

Index Poster and Paper Holder

These were a bit clever, they held the whole package together along with the outbox, which was cute. A whole filing system on its own.

Mini Poster Set, Weather Card Set, and Photo Card Set

Cute collection of photos, because of course we need them to survive through the year.

Monitor Memo Board

I’m not gonna lie, this is the item I was looking forward to the most. I could imagine using it for my external monitor, or if worse comes to worst because I need my happy pills near me, I’ll have it stuck on my office screen for my own sanity.

Random ID Card out of 7

Well, this one was a bit of a surprise. Jungwon came home! My sister was on a Heeseung streak with all my purchases, this one was sort of like a lucky strike to end the year.

The whole set is not that bad. It’s honestly more generous than most releases from other artists, so there’s not much room to complain. Though the single-use plastic for each item was a bit wasteful, I hope in future releases companies should look into alternative packaging too. Overall, you may color me satisfied with this purchase!

#2022 #ENHYPEN #엔하이픈 #ENHYPEN (엔하이픈)#Season's Greetings #Weather Lab #K-POP #Unboxing Video #Video Blog

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an0nymousghost · 3 years

Text

simblr asks v2

here are my answers! find the questions here.

i wrote soo much ahaha. like however much you think i wrote, i wrote more than that. imo everything i write is gold though

1. are you going to buy the new pack (cottage living) when it comes out? no, it looks really nice but i legit never ever buy packs at launch, especially cause this one is a expansion and it will probably go on sale at some point

2. do you p*rate your dlc or buy it legitimately? buy it legitimately 👌

3. what’s your favorite world? brindleton bay, it gives like seaside cottage vibes. willow creek is good but it’s boring.

4. if you use a queue, how many posts per day do you set it as? 3 or 4. i used to do like 12 lmaoo what even was wrong with me

5. do you watch sims on youtube? yes, i watch mainly malixa, oshinsims, and msgryphi

6. what are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (dream home decorator) those sectional couches look good! but honestly im kinda annoyed because now it’s even harder to have all the items filled in when i place lots from the gallery. like i’m just saying like a lot of builds will use that pack probably and if i don’t get it then i can’t really use builds/save files

7. how many packs/kits do you own? lemme count

expansion: all - 10/10 game: 5/10 stuff: 9/18 kits: none xo

24/38 - 63%

8. what’s your origin id? is it the same as your url? 🤗 it’s in my title, it’s celeschul. it doesn’t look that nice in my title but i use celeschul in my package files and i’m guessing people search things like, “celeschul penny hair” or something like that in order to find my cc- so i keep it in there so the search results are easier. i do want to change it though..

but no it’s also not the same! well i mean it’s the username i use for cc. my origin id used to be an0nymousghost but i changed it. i wonder if anyone’s taken that one?

9. is your simblr your sideblog or main blog? main blog ✌️ my old blog @stardze is a main blog as well.

my old old simblr was a sideblog but it had like 1 follower and it literally a bot so i don’t think that counts. i have a multifandom sideblog though

10. do you have a cc finds blog? i wish. i was thinking bout it earlier and that would be sooo neat but sometimes i download stuff that doesn’t have a tumblr post attached to it, and also it’s stressful to keep up with so nah

11. are you wcif friendly? yes sir. in fact i bring the trouble of wcifs onto myself but doing them even when nobody asked.

12. what’s your favorite sized household to play with? (ex. 1 sim, 4 sims) gonna have to think on this one, honestly 1 sim is really fun and stuff goes by so fast. doing stuff with astrid when she was on her own, it was much more efficient.

for families, i haven’t done that in a while actually. 5, 2 parents and 3 kids is cute tho. why did i write this this is honestly such a hard question

13. if you have c&d, do you play with pets? i feel like i haven’t played with cats and dogs in forever. honestly i just have no paitence. noelle fae was supposed to get a cat (there’s a food bowl + cat bed in her house) but when summer vacation started, the amount of time i spent playing ts4 decreased a lot. (this doesn’t really make sense, i have a lot more time. honestly it just has to do with my recent obsession with a certain anime/manga and some other personal thing)

i did random nightmares in may though and i had pets frequently. g5 didn’t because sofia scarlett lived in an apartment, but g2/3/4 had cici, and g1 had all the cats. but that was back in march so it’s been a while.

14. what lifespan do you use? i really want to do aging off but then i feel like it drags on. but aging legit stresses me out, sometimes i just want to sit down and do some cas stuff but i only have 2 hours in real time and there’s like 4 days left till one of my sims’ birthdays.

15. if you own a lot of packs, how many of them have you actually played through? just so everyone is aware this question was made for me

i feel like eps require a specific save made for testing them out, but the only save i’ve ever made for an ep is noelle fae’s get famous save.

that is literally a lie - i made a save for island living with one of my 100bc kids, maisie acapella. i did actually post it on tumblr BUT then i deleted all the posts BUT i reblogged them on my alt account BUT i privated my alt account so i honestly forgot about it

i have never played through discover university or watched anyone do it on youtube, i’ve read gerbits’ story about it so i think i’m pretty qualified. i’ve always wanted to do one with periwinkle acapella but i never got around to it

another ep i know nothing about is get to work

i tried doing a eco life playthrough but i hadn’t watched any videos and i was like..what is going on. so i quit lolx d ;;;;; i mentioned it but the whimsy stories legacy was the first time i had played with the eco lifestyle features so technically i think i know what im doing

i got outdoor retreat literally on monday of this week so i haven’t played through it yet.

jungle adventure i still don’t know what’s going on. i remember last year before i bought the pack i was brainstorming, and wanted to do a ja playthrough with luna and cedar, who are a couple who i did a random legacy with and it was all queued to post when i deleted everything (if you’re wondering why, it’s because my queue was literally 200+ posts). except this time i didn’t save them to my sideblog so i lost them.

i still havent had a restaurant in dine out

also never did the vet thing from cats and dogs

i have no idea what that rock climbing thing is from snowy escape but i did most of the other stuff because rn g5

city living i did through psc stage 5 and also it was the first pack i bought anyways

the rest of them are either stuff packs or i ended up playing them through casual gameplay (seasons, parenthood)

16. what do you do as you play sims? (ex. listen to music) i listen to music most of the time, or listen to commentary youtube videos because i am an alpha chad. i also used to talk with my friends on voice call but i don’t do that anymore 🥲

17. which sims challenges have you tried? random legacy, whimsy stories, perfect sim challenge, 100 baby, legacy (just the plain get-to-10-gens one), random nightmares, berry zodiac, astrology legacy, apocalypse

i feel like im forgetting some.. honestly most of the stuff i did before simblr was either 100 baby (i love that challenge) or random saves that lasted for 2 seconds.

18. do you like the new(ish) hair swatches? nah.

i do appreciate that most cc hairs have a true (ish) black, thank god! and the fact that the hair update is what inspired me to update and fix a bunch of hairs with different issues is pretty nice. but will i use them? no.

plus it takes up like 5 gb? depending on how many packs you have.

19. post the latest screenshot you took 📸

i live in cas

20. what is the cc/ingame hair that looks the most like your own? i think that dream home decorator side part hair looks a lot like my hair. honestly i havent see much like my hair but that one is kinda-? close

21. who is your favorite sim of yours and what is their story? noelle and alari fae i think!

link to post

noelle is blonde and has blue-grey eyes. she wears purple contacts pretty often though (because she wants to 😌)

alari has light brown hair that is kinda curly, and she’s got pretty vibrant blue eyes.

they’re sisters, alari is 3 years older than noelle. noelle was 19 and alari was 22 when they got spotted

they worked as models when they were young adults. their jobs involved dyeing their hair blue/pink, and they would model like clothes and stuff. anyways, they were pretty successful. like not ultra famous but they had enough money to not work for the rest of their lives.

their modeling group was made of 4 girls, the others were named paisley autumn and they were green and red, respectively. some things are:

paisley and alari started dating during this

autumn was a single mother to a little girl named destiny

noelle dated many people during this but never ended up finding the one <3

when their contract ended after like 6 years, paisley and alari went to go live together and noelle decided to get into acting. so thats when get famous playthrough started!

there’s more but basically they’re like oc’s with sims on the side. xoxo

22. if you use cc, are there any cc creators that you have like ALL of their items? this is such a good question! i hoard hair very heavily (my folder is 11gb) i so i have like 97% from most of the popular hair creators.

i think i had legitimately EVERYTHING from simstrouble though, i went through multiple times to check and i also have all of her retired stuff.

i have everything from ridgeport i think-? because of the fact that she uploaded all her stuff in one big zip.

i think that’s it.. for a long time i also had everything by clumsyalienn, but then i ended up deleting it and only keeping my faves.

and looking at my collection, maybe ah00b? i might be missing a couple but i at least have like 99%.

23. what’s one pack you think is underrated? dine out, it’s laggy af yes but it’s such a nice thing for my sims to do.

24. what are your favorite sims stories/legacies? melons by gerbits always and forever

this question was inspired by this ask anyways so

25. if you could change one small thing about ts4, what would it be? most of my suggestions are pretty complex but literally just - when you add tray files, they appear at the top. my life would be so much easier

this took me literal hours to answer

#replies #replying to MYSELF

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knivestothroats · 4 years

Text

New series!! I don’t have enough I’m working on!! Basically I wanted to create something with less of a plot so I could just use the OCs/setting to do prompt fills n shit.

(update: here’s the masterlist)

CW: gunshot wounds, guns in general, knives to throats (heh), death threats, not exactly hunted for sport but a similar vibe

Buck put all of his determination into running. He tore through the woods, trying not to limp or stumble through pure determination, but the adrenaline could only do so much for the pain, and the wound in his leg eventually brought him down.

Managing to steer his collapse, he half-fell, half-dove behind a tree and pressed his back up against it. He put one hand over his mouth, trying to muffle his own heavy breathing, and one hand over the bullet hole in his thigh.

Buck had no idea how much ground he had covered. Existence was disorienting. He could have been running for miles, he could have made it five feet. The shooter had been a good distance away, but Buck knew. He could feel the dread like cement in his stomach. He hadn’t made it far enough. The woods weren’t thick enough. They would find him.

There was a rustling close by. Buck flinched, his heart nearly giving out from beating so hard.

A person came into view from behind some trees, still partially shrouded by the undergrowth. Not one of the ones Buck had seen – not one of the ones who had shot at him. Just a hiker, he figured, dressed in a flannel, denim jacket, and a knit cap. They were walking past, in the direction Buck had come from, but they saw his form crumpled against the tree and stopped.

“Don’t go that way,” Buck hissed, not wanting to make too much noise. He tried to push himself upright, but the pain radiated out through his body. “We need to get out of here. Can you help… me….”

He trailed off as the hiker stepped out from behind their foliage cover, his eyes flickering down to the gun in their hand, dappled sunlight glinting off the metal.

The hiker pulled a walkie talkie from their belt and spoke into it, “I found your runner.”

A slightly distorted voice replied, “Copy,” and they returned the walkie to their hip. They approached Buck.

“Yeah, I can help you,” the hiker said, lowering to one knee in front of him. They draped their forearm over their leg, displaying their gun in a faux spectacle of casualness.

Buck sagged, letting his head fall back against the tree, and closed his eyes. His hands were still clamped around his leg.

“Well, let me see,” the hiker said. They gestured ever so slightly with their gun in the direction of his injury, not quite pointing it at him.

Buck very slowly let go of this thigh and held his hands in the air, blood from his palms beginning to drip down his arms.

The hiker looked at the wound for a second, their face framed by dark hair that hadn’t been tucked under their beanie. Buck was aware that strands of his own long hair were plastered to his skin, but he didn’t dare move to brush them away as the hiker turned their gaze to his face.

“You seem like a smart guy,” they said. “I’m going to put my gun in its holster. I trust that you know better than to try to make a grab for it. It won’t end well.”

Buck clenched his jaw and nodded.

The hiker holstered their weapon and shifted closer. They reached out for Buck’s leg, examining the injury. Buck hissed in pain as they shifted his limb, feeling for the entrance wound.

“Not bad. Bullet went straight through, so that’s good for you. Really clipped you on the edge here, more or less, so I don’t think it hit anything important.”

They drew their hands away. Buck hesitantly replaced his own, trying to cap the flow of blood as much as possible. He was already starting to feel lightheaded.

“Were you facing them or running away when you got shot?” the hiker asked.

Buck licked his lips. “I was running away.”

More rustling through the trees. Careless, and getting closer. Two figures emerged - the same two Buck had seen before. He could be sure, despite the distance in the previous encounter, because one of them immediately raised their rifle and pointed it at Buck.

“Lower your fucking weapon, Dayal,” the hiker ordered. “I am right here.”

Dayal pointed his rifle at the ground. His face twisted like a kid who got scolded by a teacher.

“We need to review gun safety later,” the hiker said.

“I know my gun rules,” Dayal protested.

“Yeah?” The hiker raised an eyebrow. “Recite them.”

“Assume the gun is loaded, don’t rest your finger on the trigger, don’t point the gun at anything you’re not going to shoot…” Dayal rattled them off.

“Yeah, Dayal,” the hiker interrupted. “So why the fuck were you pointing it at us?”

“I was pointing it at him!”

“Yeah,” the hiker stood. They took two purposeful steps toward Dayal, looking down on him. “And I was right. Fucking. There.” They pointed at Buck’s leg. “That’s your marksmanship, I take it?”

“Yeah,” Dayal answered uncertainly.

“Is that where you were aiming?”

Dayal said nothing.

“Mmhm. I wouldn’t bet my life on your aim.” The hiker turned back to Buck. “Someone fill me in quickly before this poor fucker bleeds out.”

“I got it,” the woman next to Dayal muttered. She pulled a scarf from around her neck and tied it tight around Buck’s wounded leg, eliciting a groan of pain.

“He was snooping around the grounds,” Dayal said.

“I wasn’t snooping,” Buck said, shaking his head weakly. His mouth felt so dry. “I wasn’t snooping. I was just – argh – hiking.”

The hiker – or whoever they really were – eyed Buck with a cold gaze.

“Summers, check him for weapons, bugs, anything of the sort,” they ordered.

The woman knelt down next to Buck and began to pat him down. The hiker watched carefully as Summers emptied his pockets, setting his phone, wallet, keys, a compass, and a small pocket knife on the ground. When she was finished, the hiker picked up his personal items. They opened his wallet and looked at his ID, flipped briefly through the keys, examined the compass, opened and closed the blade on the pocket knife. Finally, they held up the phone in front of the others.

“This is the most dangerous thing he has on him. More than the knife, even. Can anyone tell me why?”

“He can call for backup,” Dayal suggested.

“It can be tracked,” Summers said.

“Well, that’s what I – that would bring back up,” Dayal said.

“You’re both right,” the hiker said. “It can send information, basically. His location through tracking, and anything else he knows when he calls, texts, or uploads information. Now that we have it, any information on here could be useful to us to find out more about this guy. However, us having it is also dangerous because that means our location is being tracked. So I’m going to turn it off until we’re ready to go through it.” They powered the phone down. “Under different circumstances, it may be wise to just destroy the SIM card if you know the phone is more of a danger than an asset. And, if you’re dealing with the government, turning off the phone might not be enough…” the hiker looked down at Buck. “But I think we’re okay.”

They pocketed all of Buck’s items, except the knife. Instead they opened the blade again. It was small, but it was sharp, and it could still get the job done if it needed to. They knelt down close to Buck again.

“What’s your name, friend?” the hiker asked. They already knew the answer – they had seen his ID – but starting off with easy, innocuous questions is a good way to ease people into talking.

He swallowed. “Buck.”

“Do you know who I am?” the hiker asked.

Buck blinked in confusion, eyebrows pulling together briefly.

“No,” he said.

The hiker stared at him for a beat.

“The name’s Fletcher. Nice to meet you.” They rolled the knife in their hand. “You wanna make this easy and tell us what you’re doing here?”

“I’m really – I’m really hiking,” Buck insisted breathlessly. “I don’t know… what this is. And I don’t – I don’t want to know, and I don’t, uh, want to be involved, or, or, talk to anyone, or whatever, um, the concern is. I didn’t…” he covered his eyes with his hand – the back of his hand, as to not get blood on his face. “I didn’t even see your faces.”

Fletcher laughed and pulled his arm down.

“Okay, Buck. Answer me something else then.” They rested their arm on his shoulder. “Where’d you get this knife?”

Buck swallowed. “My – my father gave it to me.”

“Did you name it?”

“Uh… no. I didn’t,” Buck said.

Fletcher made a disapproving noise. “You should always name your weapons. They’re your partners.” They trailed the blade over his collar bone, past the collar of his shirt, and slowly up his throat, resting the point under his chin. Buck tilted his head back, unable to get away. “What do you use it for?”

“Um… I… uh, not – not a lot. J-Just, um, uh, opening things, mostly,” Buck stammered. “I, um, just always bring it with me hiking, just, uh, in case. I guess. I don’t – I don’t know what… I would use it for, really….”

“Yeah, about that,” Fletcher said, pulling away. “You’re pretty deep in the woods for a hike.”

“I’m… a serious hiker…” Buck said lamely. “I always hike for miles.”

“There’s no trail out here,” Fletcher said.

“Well, I have a compass,” Buck said. “So as long as I know which direction I came from, I can make it back.”

Fletcher stared at him, saying nothing. Buck, growing increasingly nervous under their gaze, spoke up again.

“Um, I’m not from around here, so if this is s-something where, like, everyone knows not to go into the woods, uh, I just didn’t get the memo, so…”

“Oh, you’re new in town?” Fletcher raised their eyebrows. “Or just visiting?”

“New, uh, new in town,” Buck said.

“Hmm. What brought you out here?”

“Um,” Buck shook his head, trying to focus his thoughts. “Just… needed a change of scenery, honestly.”

Fletcher said nothing, just stared again. Eventually, Dayal spoke up.

“What do you think?”

Fletcher smiled, folded the knife and slipped it into their pocket, and stood.

“You know what I think?” Fletcher began, smiling down on Buck. “I think this guy’s a survivor. I bet he could walk all the way back to the house on that leg.”

Buck’s eyes widened.

“You know why?” Fletcher continued. “Because he knows the only other option is to lay down and die in the dirt. Or, you know,” they shrugged to their companions. “Try to run away. But that’s not much of an option. So, what’s it gonna be, my dear?”

Buck’s eyes flickered to each of the faces of the people standing before him. Each time he was met with a detached expectancy and nothing more. He put one hand on the tree and began to slowly, agonizingly, stand up. He kept his weight on his left leg.

“Great!” Fletcher said. “Follow me.”

The others walked slowly through the woods, allowing Buck to limp along behind them. Every step was an exertion of energy he didn’t have. His head was swimming and pain was flowing through his body in waves. And, with whoever these people were, he was mostly likely walking to his death.

Buck came to a stop, leaning against a tree for support.

Once he got to this house, would he ever come back out? There was no way he could run away; he was hobbled and at least two of these people had guns. But was it any better to prolong the inevitable? To force his bleeding leg to carry him all these useless steps?

Buck sank to the ground. Fletcher stood over him.

“Just leave me here to die,” Buck said, sweat coating his ashen face.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Fletcher said. “It’s not humane. I would put you out of your misery.”

Buck hung his head, breathing heavily, but raised his eyes to meet Fletcher’s gaze.

“What do you want with me?” he asked.

“I want to see if you can make it,” Fletcher said.

Buck tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. Fletcher put out their hand.

“Little help,” they said. “For free. Where would any of us be without help from others, right?”

Buck closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then reached out and took Fletcher’s hand. Fletcher steadied him as he struggled to his feet again. They kept walking.

The house wasn’t far, but at Buck’s speed the group took a long time to get there. Buck was stumbling frequently, leaning on passing trees for support. He could feel sweat rolling down his skin.

Fletcher opened the door for Dayal and Summers to walk inside, before turning to Buck and waiting. Buck stood frozen, gazing into the dark doorway. His heart was pounding, blood screaming in his ears. He slowly became aware Fletcher was talking to him.

“Buck. Hey. Buck,” they snapped their fingers.

Buck turned his weak gaze from the doorway to Fletcher.

“Is there a problem here?”

“Of course there is,” Buck said, his voice dry and weak.

“You could still try to run,” Fletcher said, a wry smile tugging at the corners of their mouth.

Maybe it was better to be shot now than to face whatever would happen inside that house. Buck turned, ready to try his best to run. Put a real effort forth as his last act in life, even if he only gets a few steps in.

Fletcher bolted forward, effortlessly knocking Buck to the ground. He stared up at them from where he lay prone on his back, squinting at the sun haloing Fletcher’s head. They put a boot on Buck’s chest and drew their gun from its holster. Not aiming it at him – just holding it in their hand, finger off of the trigger.

“Think this through,” Fletcher said gravely. “If you’re alive, there’s a chance. If you’re dead, you’re dead.”

Buck said nothing. He closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and tried to breathe with the boot on his chest.

“If that’s what you want,” Fletcher said, “I can give that to you. Or you can get up and walk inside, and we can stitch those bullet holes shut.”

“And then what?” Buck wheezed.

“Who knows,” Fletcher said. “We won’t know until we get there.”

Buck took a rattling breath, and then another. He raised his arm, trembling with the effort.

With a smirk, Fletcher stepped off his chest and leaned down to help him up.

Buck was swaying in the breeze, and Fletcher took his arm and wrapped it around their shoulders, holding him up with an arm around his waist.

“Well, Buck,” Fletcher said as they crossed the threshold, “welcome to The Hunting Lodge.”

(update: here’s the masterlist)

#writings #original #whump ocs #whump series #guns #knives #gunshot wounds #hunted for sport #buck

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munstarr · 4 years

Text

The Guardian

Hello everyone!! I just edited this again and decided to re upload because I wasn't happy with it originally and I wanted to write something id love, now I can say I am super happy with the outcome!! This will be a slow burn, eventually nsfw! Currently working on the next part! Id love and appreciate some feedback! Please feel free to DM me! Thank you so much for reading!!! ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥

A little over eighty years ago Earth scientists sent out a signal into space in an attempt to make contact with other beings. In a surprising turn of events an alien alliance ship happened to be passing by, how had they missed earth before? Well the milky way was merely a skid mark compared to the rest of space. After months of back and forth between the alliance and Earth. Many planets had decided to make contact with earth with wonderful intentions and were more than willing to share their technological developments. In exchange most species requested to study human life and their history. After many trials and errors the Earth officially joined the planetary alliance. Together they worked out many systems and programs to mix species and learn from each other, Thus our current story begins!

Planet Yalnak was an unearthly forest filled planet with cool days and a deep purple sky. The program they had implemented was different from others in the Alliance. Humans could only sign up to live on Yalnak to be of service to the home species, the Nuks or to study a trade. Yalnak was one of the more stubborn planets who were hesitant, after learning of Earth’s hatred they were the last from the alliance to make contact. It wasn't until learning and witnessing of Human’s surprising endurance and loyalty that they joined and formed an earth acceptance program.

On Earth, Azura flipped through all the different planetary Alliance program brochures.She had been working as a hospitality and business specialist. Working towards her degree and getting to her dream job in less than three years time. After chasing her career goals she thought she would be happier. Another busy day of working had her coming home drained for what felt like the millionth time. She sure could use a change she thought. Sighing deeply she placed the brochures on the coffee table in front of her. ‘’Pfft’’ She blew a piece of coily raven hair out of her face, Maybe a hot bubble bath would ease her stress instead. Azura drew herself a relaxing milk bath, filling it with different oils; after setting out lots of candles she slipped into the hot soapy water. She sank into the tub closing her eyes, these were the only times she felt that she could truly relax. Her big bundle of raven curls spilled out of her clawfoot tub. Rubbing her rich mahogany body with her creamy bath butter, she whimpered. Her lathered up pink loofah traveled all over her , leaving a trail of bubbles all over her curvy body. It had been a long time since she’d had any sort of real pleasure. Not that she felt she wasn’t attractive, at twenty - four she was a small chocolate woman with a lean body and a bosomy frame ,or so she had thought. It had been a long while since she had been with anyone, let alone on an actual date. She sunk deeper into the warm bubbles as she roamed her body with the loofah, slowly caressing with the soft fabric. With closed fluttering eyes she imagined the type of person she fantasized to be with her. He was strong and tender as he gripped her throat tightly squeezing as he circled her clit with his strong roughened fingers. He caressed her hot button as her head fell back against his solid chest, nibbling her bottom lip as she let out a muffled moan. Azura imagined such a thing could happen to her. She’d gone through college as a studious maverick, putting her grades above all else. She was paying for it now she felt, getting nicely along in her career but feeling very lonely at times. She had been getting a degree in helping others have fun essentially, without ever really having any herself. Without even having any close family or even friends she was starting to feel more alone than ever. “UGH” she grumbled aloud, splashing her hand against the water and huffing in frustration. Now she couldn’t even relax with herself! Of course, only she could make herself sad in the middle of a fantasy. She pouted and decided to drain the bath and cut her losses. After drying off and oiling herself up for bed, she slipped on a satin red slip with a lace peekaboo. Another night of eating dinner alone to the sound of terrible reality tv, after two episodes of bad reality she clicked it off deciding it was time for bed. On her way out of the living room she decided to toss her brochures into the recycling, none of the programs were right for her anyway she thought. Huffing she tossed them into the bin. One dark colored brochure had fallen out, she hadn’t noticed it before. It said very plainly in black letters on the outside the word “YALNAK” . Azura had heard of this planet, it had accepted the least amount of humans into their program, only posting new ads when they had specific positions open. She picked it up reading the first and only page which had ads for tradesmen to study and helper companions. Azura thought being a helper could be interesting but didn’t want to waste her time being a glorified errand girl. Every ad was submitted by individuals of the planet it seemed. There was an entry that caught her eye and was offering triple the pay! The only downside was that she had to submit qualifications and pass an assessment, she’d never been great at taking tests she thought. The description was vague but seemed to offer interesting benefits and career opportunities. Her interest was piqued of course, so she decided to give in and opened her telepad to do the application, what's she got to lose? After uploading her resume and completing the exam online she uploaded both to her telepad. This could be a long shot but she was ready for a new adventure, besides being a helper companion couldn’t be so bad. She decided to send an introduction to the ad placer to tell them about herself and to say how she could be right for the job and how she was ready for a change, whatever it was. Maybe it sounded desperate? No, she shook off that silly anxious thought and hit submit. After sending she smiled to herself and decided to go to bed, excited about new possibilities. A few days later Azura decided to check the ad to see the status of the position , since she hadn’t heard anything back yet. Checking her telepad she frowned, it said in bold red letters “FULFILLED”. She was disappointed but she knew it was a gamble to begin with and probably not even worth her time. Shaking off her unexpected disappointment she went on a run to clear her mind and think about her future. Her big coily space buns bounced on top of her head as she ran, her rich skin shining in the sunlight. After a few times around the block she was tired and decided to walk the rest of the way home to enjoy the cool breeze. Approaching her apartment door she noticed her mail had been delivered. She had received a large metal box and a thick black envelope place on top. Taking the huge box into her house she carefully sat it on her coffee table. “What the hell..” she whispered to herself. She sliced open the letter and it read “ Congratulations Azura Elaine Emem from Earth, You have been chosen to be a helper companion for the honorable guardian Mirin”. She reread the letter in confusion, she was great at what she did but she wasn’t sure how she could be of any assistance to some honorable guardian! The letter continued “Please read the inclosed packets for further briefing on your new assignment”. Azura opened the box to find it contained brief information about the planet, it’s customs, and a request form for Earth foods she’d want while there, and last but not least a black square and a note. Azura picked up and inspected the intricate wax seal before carefully peeling it off and carefully unfolding the letter. In beautiful writing it stated simply ‘Dear Ms.Emem, I wanted to personally contact you because I am looking forward to working with you and want to set you up for success. Inside the black holding bonds I have included your uniform for the beginning days of training along with my crest, please wear this on your right side of your garment.’ With a short goodbye it concluded. Azura was stunned, she wanted a new life but wasn't expecting it to actually happen. She felt a new fire ignite inside of her, she was nervous for a new life but excited nonetheless. With a slurp of her melting iced coffee Azura smiled, wondering what sort of life she had signed herself up for.

#exophilia #my writing #munstarr #oc #slow burn #monster boyfriend #Intergalactic #Original Work #poc fic

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collectsfallenstars · 4 years

Text

Couples in the Republic of Korea Spend Time Near the Water Like This

*Fanfiction inspired by this photo of Lee Minho and Kim Goeun and a 5-Word Interview of Lee Minho. He was asked if he was happy in that interview and he answered, "Very happy." He was wearing the same crimson sweater in a behind-the-scene picture uploaded by a staff member. In the picture, it looked as if they were interrupted in the middle of a serious conversation.

He watched her get up from the bench and walk over to the railing on the river’s edge and he forced himself to stay still. Six months of shooting this drama with her had made his whole body so attuned to her movements, her scent, the sound of her giggles, the soft way she would murmur her lines to herself, and even the blur of her ponytail as she would flit from one part of the set to another. Wherever she was, he could always find her. And any time his eyes landed on her, the rest of his body would soon follow and he often found himself walking towards her – like gravity.

Like now. Even though he had told himself to give her a little breathing room, that resolve only lasted about half a minute. They were about to shoot a tender couple’s moment by the riverside so he really should go to her and make sure she’s comfortable. He was older, the one with more experience in the business. It was his duty. He had plenty of other excuses in his pocket but he deemed those two to be enough to justify why he was now standing beside her.

“Do you miss the water?”

He made no secret that he had been lurking about on her Instagram and found all her posts of beaches and sunsets that nearly matched all of his.

She turned to him, her delicate face breaking into a tired but fond smile. “Yeah, I do,” she murmured as she turned back to gaze at the river glittering with the reflection of city lights. “I bet you miss it just as much.”

That gave him a start. So she had looked at his Instagram, too.

Then she continued, “Maybe when the shooting for The King ends and all the press work are done, I can go back to the beach and maybe go diving again…”

At the mention of their time together ending, his felt his heart clench a little. He couldn’t imagine a time when he would long for the sight of her face in the middle of a fit of giggles or the scent of her hair in the breeze, turn, and not find her. Like his character, he could feel time pressing down on him with this portal to a magical world with her about to close soon.

“Don’t go somewhere nice without me. Think of going together.”

Her lips quirked in a goofy smile and her eyes sparkled as she turned to him, recognizing that what he said was her own line from episode 9. And because she was a consummate actress, she knew his next line and threw it right back at him, “I think I’m going to miss you so much!”

Then she made a sad face, a parody of the sad one he had given her on that episode. She loved making fun of him whenever they had to do a serious scene. She often pulled him to the side just to show him her version of his serious Pyeha face. The entire staff had found it funny but it would be one of the rare moments when he could feel the heat of her small hand wrapping around his wrist so he endured the teasing and laughter just so her hand would stay just a little bit longer on his skin.

His heart ached. Then it told him to be brave and jump. “Will you?” he asked her softly. “Will you, really?”

She held his gaze even as her face stuttered for a few seconds. Her eyes searched his and he let her see it – his whole heart laid bare. Her mouth, always so soft, opened slightly as he heard her sharp intake of a breath.

She understood.

“It took me 33 years to find you,” he started.

“No, Lee Gon says 25 years,” she says automatically, cutting him off.

“No. It took me,” he said, his voice low and his pause, patient, long enough to let it sink in, “33 years to find you. You don’t know, or maybe you do, how being with you, even just near you, has made me so happy it’s almost as if I never knew what happiness was before you. I don’t know why it took so long but I think, maybe, it’s because I had to deserve you first. I’m not saying I deserve you right now, right this second but—”

Her eyes moved over his face slowly as he spoke, taking in his words as carefully as she would study her lines. She knew him, how he never wasted words, and how his face could never lie. She swallowed a lump in her throat as her eyes finally gave away that she understood the enormity of what he had just told her. Her cheeks had turned pink, from the wind and from his words, and she looked down at their bent elbows, both resting on the railing.

Space, she thought. There’s so little of it between them and yet she could feel the rising gulf of emotions that were threatening to drive a wedge between them. His fans. Her fans. The public. Social media. Just thinking about it all made it a little harder for her to breathe right then.

But then he moved and she knew without even looking that he had just bent his whole 6 foot 2 inch frame low enough so he was at her height and his face turned fully to the side that if she chose to look up at that moment, she would find herself face to face with him. She knew this. She knew when he would do this.

“Will you let me show you that I am worthy of you? Will you let me try to make you as happy as you make me?”

He often did it when he asked her a question and wanted an answer.

She bit her lip, afraid to meet his eyes. Their elbows fascinated her. The space wasn’t there anymore. Through the wool of his crimson sweater, she could feel his warmth spreading from their joint elbows, across her chest, and settling strangely around her wildly beating heart. She found herself releasing a breath she hadn’t know she had held in. She could breathe fine. Her heart slowed to a steady thud. But his warmth stayed and she found herself leaning more towards him, wanting more of it, for far longer than she realized.

“Minho-nim! Goeun-nim!” Their names being called out startled them and both turned back just in time to see one of their staff holding a camera. Years of media work took over and she immediately broke out one of her signature soft smiles. He, on the other hand, tried to muster up the energy to smile but he couldn’t. His question still hung in the air between them and he was still waiting for an answer. Unlike Lee Gon, he didn’t have the benefit 15 more episodes to wait for an answer to his proposal. Nor did he have the patience. Their staff quickly took their picture, probably for more promotional work on Instagram, and moved on to their next task.

They turned to face each other once more but before either of them could say anything, his manager called him from across the set, gesturing to a young man beside him. He had a MEDIA ID around his neck and he realized he still had to do that 5-Word Interview. It couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. But he prided himself on his work ethic so he knew he had to attend to it right away.

Sighing heavily, he turned to her, ready to apologize and beg her to continue this later. He was surprised to see the same regret he felt staring back at him on her face.

“Do you have to go? Right now?” Her voice felt small, tentative. He had to fight the urge to wrap her in his arms and never let go until all the doubts and worries he could feel emanating from her moments ago disappeared.

“I don’t want to,” he said miserably, “but I have to.” His whole face had crumpled into a frown. Then he felt the smallest of nudges on his arm. He glanced down and saw that she had moved a little bit closer to him until their elbows and upper arms were pressed up against each other. Even bent over like that, she was still so small compared to him that her shoulder only reached half of his arm.

She looked up at him then. Her eyebrows were lightly scrunched together in worry but her eyes were bright and brave. She scrunched up her nose in that adorable manner as he had seen her do during their press conference. He had told her to hold on to his arm while the press took their picture, a poster of The King: Eternal Monarch looming large behind them. And then she gave him a small smile; held his gaze before dipping her head in a short, sweet, nod.

His eyes widened. His heart stopped as if it had just passed through the obelisks into a parallel world. “Do you? Is that a…”

Her head dipped once more. Her smile was just a little bigger this time. But her eyes stayed on him.

“Yes.”

Her voice was still as soft as the strands of her hair that escaped her ponytail. But it was clear and strong and it rang through his chest like a forest of a thousand bamboo flutes. His world righted itself and time began to tick by once more.

But his life wasn’t the same anymore.

“Minho-nim!” It was his manager again, much more insistent this time. He felt his body straightening up, slowly turning away from the railing. But he kept his gaze on her, a smile that started from his chest had climbed up to his cheeks and up to the corner of his eyes.

“Yes?”

He bent his head, as if to nuzzle it against the top of hers the way he had wanted to for episode 6. He remembered how she had found his suggestion so ridiculous at that time. She drew away from him now, laughter bursting from her. Her cheeks were still tinged pink; her hair, a little wild from the wind. Her eyes glittered with a river of city lights as she playfully gave him a little shove towards the direction of his manager and the reporter.

“Yes. Yes! Yes! Now go do your interview!”

He let her push him, still a little bit dazed. Kind of like Lee Gon when TaeEul finally told him that she loved him. They weren’t there yet, him and GoEun. But unlike Lee Gon whose world was about to close, his just opened up. And he was going to make damn sure that she would be there by his side to share all of his beaches and sunsets.

But first, he had to do that that 5-Word Interview.

#fanfiction #thekingeternalmonarch #lee minho #kim go eun #leeminho #kimgoeun #leegon #lee gon #jeongtaeeul #jeong tae eul #behindthescenes

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ohwereusingourmadeupnames · 4 years

Note

‘your tie is crooked.’ - starker wedding, maybe?

The One I’ve Been Dreaming Of

Pairing: Peter Parker/Tony Stark Rating: Mature (M) Word Count: ~5K Notes: I kind of gave you a wedding! Maybe I’ll write a second part to this, who knows. Thanks for the prompt, nonnie! Warnings: it’s very soft, watch your step. Summary:

Peter Parker meets Tony Stark when he manages to snag a booth spot at the notorious Stark Expo. Cuteness ensues.

do the thing, send in all the prompts

During his sophomore year of college, Peter Parker met Tony Stark. He’d been working day and night for the entire semester to get his biodegradable fluid turned containers done in time to get them into the Stark Expo – Peter managed to barely sneak in, but he did it. In all of his years being in New York, Peter had only heard stories about the big collection of incredible inventions and technological advances, and he couldn’t wait to be a part of it.

So nervous leading up to the day, Peter didn’t secure any tickets for any of his friends or May – they all looked at him like he stabbed them in the back, so he went about trying to fix the problem. The ability to flash his badge at the door and get immediate entry into the expo hall made his heart race. It still blew his mind, the fact that he managed to create something good enough to snag booth space in one of the greatest tech expos in the entire world.

In all of his star struck glory, Peter lost track of where he was – his wandering eyes and overactive mind couldn’t focus on just one thing. The booths were pretty much ready for the opening the next day, so he looked his fill with no one around to watch him – or so he thought, at least.

“You know, the expo doesn’t start until tomorrow,” Peter heard from behind him. Turning quickly, Peter couldn’t help the way his jaw dropped. Tony Stark stood there in the flesh, his hands stuffed into well cut suit pants. His deep brown eyes were taking him in, a definitive curiosity settling within them.

Shaking himself, Peter shifted on his feet, his fingers fiddling with the ID badge around his neck. “Mr Stark, I –“

Tony spoke up suddenly, his voice on the right side of demanding. “Tony, please. None of that Mr. Stark bull shit,” Tony said, one of his hands coming out of his pocket to gesture in front of him. Peter watched the movement with wide eyes, his lips turning up in an amused grin.

“Tony, then. I’m Peter Parker, sir. I came in hopes of securing a few guest passes for a few of my adoring fans – this is the first time any of us have gotten this close to something so cool, everyone is pretty excited.” Peter found himself wondering why in the world he let all of that come out of his mouth, but it was out there now. It’d been a long time since word vomit came around and kick him in the face. Clenching his jaw, Peter fiddled with the badge a little more – idle hands were the bane of his existence.

“Oh, you brought in that biodegradable fluid that has bunch of purposes, right? Pepper showed me that one specifically a few days ago,” Tony admitted, his posture relaxing now that they seemed to be in more familiar territory. “What booth number are you? I want to stop by and hear the whole spiel.”

Taken aback, Peter caught himself smiling, his neck tingling from the praise he received from someone who didn’t know him from Adam. “Really? I mean – I’m in the C section at booth 109. The holoscreens you’re letting us use made putting my presentation together a total blast.” Peter didn’t mean to gush, but he spent so much time uploading his blueprints and making them presentable on the multi-dimensional tablets. Tony Stark was an absolute genius and Peter was not afraid to marvel in his presence.

“I’d be honored if you came and listened, Tony,” Peter added after a moment of silence between them. He felt a rush of heat move across his face and down his neck – the words were some of the boldest he’d ever let pass across his lips.

For the first time since stumbling upon the man, Peter recognized the look that passed across his face – Tony Stark blew up magazine covers with the most divine shit eating grin; having it projected at him seemed like a bit too much. Sucking in a breath, Peter passed the toe of his shoe across the floor, his entire body on fire from the intensity of the look.

“Count me in, Peter Parker. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tony shot him a wink and kept heading down the row and back towards the exit. Peter had to stand around for a couple of minutes before he could force his legs to move. He wasn’t sure what made him feel more winded, the fact that he ran into Tony Stark, or the fact that the gorgeous genius promised to stop by his booth. Either way, Peter knew he needed to make sure his presentation was spot on – so he headed back to his dorm room, determination fueling him.

It didn’t cross his mind that he forgot the guest passes until he was standing in line with Ned, MJ, and May the next day – the three of them buzzing with excitement. He spent the entire time they waited trying to figure out a way to get them in without causing a commotion – it seemed a little bit too late to tell them he’d been irresponsible because a gorgeous man stood 20 feet away from him and smiled so nicely.

Getting to the door, Peter gave the man at the door his name and flashed him his badge – he felt the tension of trying to come up with a lie in his jaw, his teeth grinding slightly. After a few seconds of looking at the list, the security guard shuffled through a couple of white envelopes and handed one that said P. Parker to Peter. Inside were 5 guests passes and a note.

Thought you might need these. See you later.

Peter let out a huge sigh of relief and chalked the racing of his heart up to the endorphins rushing through him – it totally wasn’t the care in which Tony took to get him something he mentioned in passing – not that at all.

He quickly pulled three of the passes out, giving one to each of the people surrounding him. Walking forward to get them out of the line, Peter stopped everyone before they entered the big expo center. “Those will get you into everything except the backstage stuff. Have fun – but don’t forget to come watch me give my presentation at 2:30. Familiar faces in the crowd would be very much appreciated.”

MJ and Ned scattered quickly, the two of them looking at the badges around their neck the same way Peter did his the first time he saw it. Before leaving herself, May pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’re going to kill it. Just let that nerdy little brain go and everything will be perfect.” She gave his arm a soft punch, then turned on her toes and headed through the door into the lively expo center, leaving him to it.

Walking in, Peter was totally astounded by the difference a few hours made – the lights were bright and people were pressed into the space ass to elbows. Suddenly glad he got to see some of the stuff while it was still calm, Peter tucked his head down and headed towards his booth. He wasn’t the only person that wasn’t totally up and running yet, but he hurried, anyway. The mass of people moving up and down the line of booths were people he could convince and impress – the quicker that happened for him, the better off he was.

It took him a couple of people to really warm up to the bouncing around the booth thing. Many people asked the same question, so he came up with a little rhetoric that would cover all of the basic things. There were only a few people that were genuinely interested – Peter spent a lot of extra time and energy talking with those people. It was exhausting, trying to stretch his brain in so many different directions.

Thankfully, Peter got to take a 20-minute break before his presentation – he capitalized on it by sucking down a Dr. Pepper and stuffing two Snickers bars into his mouth. The rush of sugar hitting him peaked right around the time he flicked his fingers across the front of the holoscreen to wake it up.

Before he started to talk, Peter felt a familiar stare on him – he looked up to find Tony Stark inconspicuously standing amongst the crowd. Tony threw Peter that same wink from the day before and nodded his head. To say he wasn’t waiting to see if Tony would actually show up would be a total lie.

The drumming of his heart against his ribcage slowed down, but only just slightly. A whole new set of nerves were trying to make their way to the forefront – having Tony Stark listen to something he spent so much time and energy on seemed like a pretty huge deal.

By the time Peter really got going, though, he totally forgot about the fact that there was a crowd around him – he simply talked about the science he’d been working on for a long time. He knew everything about the fluid he randomly stumbled upon during AP Organic Chemistry his senior year. Talking about it was easy and the more that came out of his mouth, the more natural it all became.

Wrapping up, Peter finally tore his eyes way from the incredible piece of technology housing his life’s work and locked eyes with Tony once again. This time, he grinned widely – the stealthily charming way his face changed from one emotion to the other practically kicking Peter right in the teeth. It took a second for him to catch his breath – human people shouldn’t be allowed to look that good.

The act of shaking everyone’s hand took up his attention almost immediately after breaking eye contact with Tony – he was swarmed by people dropping names and credentials like it meant anything to him. Peter simply gripped their hands, tried to pay attention as much as possible, and took the business card he was given. Though he knew he’d never use any of them, the thought of people being interested in his creation was a rather nice one.

May, MJ, and Ned all pulled him into a hug when they eventually made their way to the front of his booth. Over the past couple of years, Peter used the three of them as a sounding board every time he got stuck, or just needed to run through his findings again.

None of them needed to hear his presentation – they lived through it. Regardless, he was happy to have the support; even if their presence was entirely because of the man who’d been hanging back, obviously waiting for a free second to approach him.

Finally, after what felt like way too long, Tony Stark was standing in front of him. It took Peter a few seconds to collect himself enough to actually get words out of his mouth. “Thanks for coming,” Peter decided on, slipping a hand into the space between them.

Tony took it without hesitation – his fingers were warm and covered in callouses, the fact that he did his own work apparent in the well-worn nature of his palms and fingertips. More than beauty, then.

“Wouldn’t have missed it. You’ve got something interesting on your hands, Pete. With a little bit more funding and some better equipment – you could really have something.” Tony only dropped his hand then, Peter’s skin on fire from the tight grip and intense ‘zing’ that shot through him. Despite being covered by purple glasses, Tony’s eyes were recognizably watching him, the depth of their brown only enhanced by the darkness of the lens.

Peter let the words sink in now that the distracting touch wasn’t pumping liquid fire through his veins. Tony Stark, greatest brain in the world, thought he had something. What could that possibly mean? Peter knew the direction he wanted to take the biodegradable fluid, but also wanted to be the one to take it there. Whatever it was – the simplistic idea that Tony thought it was good seemed like more than enough.

“Probably the coolest thing I’ve ever heard,” Peter babbled, a hot blush slipped across his cheeks as he spoke, but he couldn’t even help it – this entire interaction seemed like a dream.

A deep laugh settled in the space between them, Peter reddening further when he realized just how nice the sound actually was. It pulled a bubble of excitement and laughter from Peter’s chest, too – the collection of sound immediately absorbed in all the madness surrounding them. He tried not to smile too widely – the last thing Tony Stark needed was another person gushing over him.

Which made the next thing to come out of Tony’s mouth a total surprise. “I’d love to hear more about it. And you, honestly. Any big plans after the expo hall closes tonight? Or could I possibly steal you away for dinner?”

Eyes bugging widely, Peter looked at him incredulously. When Tony didn’t put his hands up in jest, Peter let a huge smile spread across his face. The answering one from Tony himself was even better. Sucking in a breath, Peter didn’t spend another second hesitating. “No – no big plans. I would love to be stolen away for dinner.”

Thinking quickly, Peter took a pen from the table next to him and pulled Tony’s hand to him. Tony stared at him for a second, then spread his finger, turning his palm up – what Peter was about to do becoming apparent. “I’ll be here until 8. Let me know where to meet you.” He wrote his number carefully, leaving no room for confusion.

The smile they shared made Peter’s heart beat a little faster. Tony’s face was split wide by the smile, his cheeks crinkling at the corners from the force of it. His eyes got a little squinty, like he was staring at something bright instead of Peter himself. It felt like a long time before either of them moved a muscle – Tony finally stepped away, the hand with Peter’s number waving back at him as he retreated.

A few minutes later, Peter’s text message notification went off. Pulling his phone from his pocket, Peter found himself beaming.

Maybe – Tony Stark: Meet you at your booth when you’re done. Maybe – Tony Stark: Looking forward to it.

Quickly adding his contact, Peter glanced up at the time and let out a long breath – he still had 5 hours to get through.

----

After street tacos from a food truck a little outside the Brooklyn area code, Peter had a hard time not falling heels over head in love with Tony. The recognizable nerves in Tony’s eyes when he pulled his fancy car up to the slightly sketchy looking eatery made Peter laugh – he reached over and grabbed Tony’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “This is perfect.” Peter reassured, his stomach grumbling in agreeance. “How’s their barbacoa?”

From there, things took off without much of a hitch. It took Peter a while to get used to the fact that every single one of his moves with Tony was highly publicized – the idea of being famous was not one he ever played around with before. There were a few moments of doubt that put a bit of separation between them, but even then, Peter was unable to stay away. Tony’s patience and the respect he gave to Peter’s feelings spoke much louder than the clicks of paparazzi cameras.

The minute Peter finally gave himself to all that surrounded Tony, things between them got so much better. Tony took him in and showed him so many things about life that Peter couldn’t have possibly imagined. They shared the lab where Peter had access to everything he could’ve possibly needed to transform and adapt his biodegradable fluid. And when he was stuck or at the end point of one of his experiments, Tony would gesture him over and catch him up on whatever he’d been working on.

They did lots of things outside of the lab, too. In the many moments they spent together, Peter got to see a side of Tony that no one else did. He’d been around Tony and Pepper together and Tony and Happy to know that he kept walls up the entire time. Regardless of the fact that those two people were some of his oldest and closest friends, they weren’t privy to the final and most essential piece of Tony – the enormous heart that resided in the darkest confines of his chest.

During the still times with the older man, Peter learned that he snuffled in his sleep and when he was really tired, he’d talk about the experiment on his mind or recite words in Italian. Every now and again, Peter was conscious enough to put the word in his notes to be looked up later. Tony liked to be held when nightmares caught up to him and played the big spoon all other times – which was fine, Peter was not opposed to being held tightly against the warmest chest he’d ever encountered.

Physicality wasn’t instantaneous between them, either. Peter had to admit that he appreciated the restraint – getting to know Tony without putting the barrier of raging hormones between them to begin with made it even better when it did eventually happen.

In his teenage years, Peter was always embarrassed to admit that he kept his virginity – it seemed like a turnoff to the more mature people he always wanted to attract. Handing it over to Tony, however, felt like passing off something special – his boyfriend approached the situation with knowledge and care; Peter didn’t think many people could say their first time was THAT good.

Once Peter got the itch for pleasures of the flesh, they were all over each other. The 6 months it took for them to actually come together in that way was cherished – Peter got to know the little things before his brain became a beacon for insatiable want and desire. The way Tony made him feel was a welcome distraction and the final straw that broke into pieces to open up the dam of feelings he’d been doing his best to keep in check.

Tony took him out to celebrate finishing the semester about a year into their relationship – Peter only had one more year left and couldn’t wait to be done. A part of him wanted to take the many job offers Tony whispered in his ear when he amazed him in the lab, or when they discussed the homework that got progressively harder the further into his degree that he got. The part that always won out wanted to be absolutely prepared for it, though, and knew he wouldn’t be until he at least had a platform to stand on.

For once, Peter let Tony take him to a fancy place – he aced all 21 hours he took that semester, so it only seemed appropriate. In New York’s finest Italian establishment, Tony got them a private table in a fancy room attached to the main dining area. The table looked tiny compared to the empty space around them. The hostess left them with a nod – there wouldn’t be any menus that night, they were in for whatever the chef’s special was.

The conversation was easy, Peter listened to Tony recall a disgruntlement between Pepper and Happy, his cheeks alive with the smile that slipped across his face. Comfortability looked good so good on him. Reaching across the table, Peter grabbed Tony’s hand, a look of adoration slipping across his face. Tony quirked his head, a question in his gaze. “What?”

Peter shrugged his shoulders, his grip on Tony’s hand tightening a little. “Nothing. How good you look just caught me off guard.” His voice was level, the words obviously genuine.

Soft lips on his hand sent a shiver down the length of his spine. Peter shook his head, a nervous laugh escaping him. “That’s so cheesy.” Tony said as he pulled away, his smiling growing. “I could say the same for you, though. Your excitement is written all over you.”

“Good – I’m happy. Finding success and being in love agrees with me.” Peter held his breath, mentioning love hadn’t been the plan, but it couldn’t seem to be helped. The red wine they were sipping on loosened his lips and the openness of his heart made it that much easier. He didn’t have any intention of going anywhere. The feeling was only going to get more intense – the depth of it different with each passing minute. Why not admit it?

“It does – there are times when it’s devastating, how beautiful you truly are lit up like this,” Tony replied softly. It pulled the breath from his lungs, how earnestly Tony said those words. He pulled off his glasses for the first time all evening, the molten brown of his eyes shining. “I love you, Pete. I’m in love with you. In that weirdly desperate sort of way. Have been for a while, too. A long while.” Tony disguised the vulnerability of his words with a chuckle, his hand tightening within Peter’s grip.

Grinning widely, Peter started to babble – “Same. Me too – I mean, I love you, too. So much. It’s insane, being with you – but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

And there wasn’t – no matter how much MJ and Ned fought against the age gap between them. To Peter, age was just a number and there wasn’t anything that was going to convince him otherwise. Tony kept up with him and when he couldn’t, he stood back and let Peter do his thing – no matter what age, doing something like that was hard for any person. Despite the labels that floated around Tony’s head, Peter knew better and understood Tony’s tendencies and attitudes. There were certain things that would always protect a person – and Tony chose walls to build as his.

Taking the time to look behind them was a challenge that Peter was more than willing to take on – the things he discovered when doing so were more than worth it.

When the moment he’d been hoping for since they met came, Peter said yes without hesitation. It wasn’t grand or out in the open, the way Tony asked him to be his husband. They were sitting out on the balcony after a last-ditch effort meal they threw together with the remaining goods in the refrigerator, clearing space for the food delivery set to come the next day. Tony poured them an aged scotch and they curled up in the swinging seat they built themselves.

Peter leaned into the weight of Tony’s arm around him, his head settling against his chest. It’d been a while since they got to do anything other than pass each other by, so it felt stupidly good to be butted up against his greatest comfort source. A soft sigh left his lips, his chest relaxing for the first time in days.

“This is nice,” Peter said – the silence around them seemed to absorb the words, adding them to the atmosphere they created in the little bubble they were existing in in that very moment.

Tony pressed a kiss to his forehead, the scratch of his goatee making Peter’s eyes close, the touch enticingly familiar and soothing. “Everything about this, us, is nice, Pete. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Tony tugged him a little closer as he spoke.

The words took his breath away, but they were only the beginning. “I’ve had this thing in my pocket for months now,” Tony remarked as he shifted a little, a black box coming into view. Strong fingers flipped it open – a damascus steel wedding band sat within it. “I can’t even remember what I was waiting for, but it seems silly now. I want this forever, Pete – the ease and comfortability and passion that exists between us. Does that sound okay? Will you be my husband?”

Peter looked between Tony and the most unique ring he’d ever seen. Without thought, he nodded his head – “Yeah, yes – of course!” Peter put his untouched drink down on the ground and used his free hands to grab Tony’s face and press their lips together.

It took a few minutes to pull away from each other, Tony insistently kissed him the second their lips touched – Peter could feel the rush of so many emotions releasing in the caress. He kept his grip on Tony tight, Peter unwilling to let him get away. When the need for oxygen finally forced the issue, Tony sat back, pulling Peter’s hand with him, slipping the ring onto his finger. The swirl of the two metals together looked like an optical illusion against the paleness of his skin.

Tony pulled Peter’s hand to his lips and placed a kiss against the ring resting on the skin of his third finger.

“Forever it is then.”

----

The actual planning of the wedding was a lot more exhausting than Peter initially figured. Pepper, the beautiful human that she was, took care of a lot of it – she had friends that were wedding planners, so the most stressful things were handled flawlessly. It was the little things, however, that tripped them up the most. Tony wanted whatever Peter wanted, and that made deciding twice as difficult.

For the most part, Peter worked on instinct. He knew Tony’s favorite color was a dark red, which went perfectly with the gray of the suits he had in mind. The idea of having too many flowers anywhere near the place he said ‘I do’ made his stomach turn, so he focused on the food and alcohol choices that seemed a little more necessary. All of the extravagance seemed a little silly when Peter would’ve married Tony in a paper bag if that was the only option – but he knew tying himself to Tony Stark came with obligations, starting with a wedding that people could be seen at.

Despite that, Peter kept the guest list pretty small and decided to keep it simple and have it on the penthouse level of Stark Tower were they’d slowly been making a home for the last couple of years. A moving crew came in two days before the ceremony and removed all the furniture in the living room, dining room, and kitchen – the space now empty and equipped for the eclectic collection of foods that would be offered after their brief ceremony.

Before anyone knew it, they were getting ready for the small rehearsal dinner that May insisted she help with. Thankfully, Peter managed to cut the guest list down to their immediate friends making it much easier to handle. There were going to be more than 100 pairs of eyes staring at him the next day, the less people he needed to deal with the night before, the better.

Peter spent an extra couple of hours in the lab before going up to get ready – his mind was delightfully clear after getting his hands dirty. The stress he’d been feeling started to boil down into nothing the closer it got to marrying Tony. It’s what he wanted – a forever with the person that made him the happiest. No matter what happened that evening or the next day, getting to call himself a Stark at the end of it all was the only thing that mattered.

Tony ended up having a meeting until right before dinner, so his presence in the bathroom while Peter finished up getting ready made him jump. “Tony – holy shit!” Peter shouted, his voice echoing around them. Arms wrapped hm up, a chuckle huffing against his neck the only answer he knew he was going to get.

“I got done a little early. Thought I’d see how you were handling the suit,” Tony muttered, his lips moving across the length of Peter’s neck as he spoke. His hands moved down the length of Peter’s jacket, and across the crisp leather belt holding custom fit trousers. “Looks pretty good, except – “

Quick hands turned him around, Peter grinning when he came face to face with Tony’s dark eyes and soft smirk. “Your tie is crooked.” He worked the knot until it rested on the hollow of Peter’s throat, his fingers caressing the skin there. He was decked out in the dark red Tony liked, his shirt, vest, and tie etched with black seams and outlines. Tony wore black with the same shirt, vest, and tie combination. They looked like they went together.

Leaning forward, Peter stole a kiss from Tony before the man could even reciprocate. He pulled the sides of Tony’s coat closed and patted his stomach, affection dripping from him. “I can’t wait to marry you.” He looked Tony straight in the eye, the words somehow more serious that way.

The crinkles at the corner of Tony’s eyes got a little deeper as the happiest smile Peter could remember seeing spread across his face. “Yeah, me either.”

#starker #ironspider #ask prompts #bobbie writes #wedding au #weddings #nonnie #anonymous #the one i've been dreaming of

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imagine-by-susu · 4 years

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Ex-Husband!Mycroft x Ex-Wife!Reader - People do stupid stuff

A/N: Work got a tight grip on me, so the uploads are going to be a slow process. Anyway, here is one request I acutally finished. Request came from anon ^^ REQUESTS ARE OPEN! Fandomlist Word Count: 2.456 Warnings: Mentions of blood, injuries and the like Thanks to the betareader @nightofthefallingstars :) _______________________________________________________________________

Not everyone would assume that the great Mycroft Holmes was married. It seemed so unrealistic and untypical for the man.

If Sherlock wasn’t at the wedding himself, he wouldn’t believe it as well. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were worried about their sons not finding the special someone, not having a family of their own despite both men telling them multiple times to not worry about it.

So, for their oldest son they arranged a marriage going against his protest. At first (Y/N), that was her name, wasn’t happy about it either, but over time she got used to it.

To please his parents Mycroft played along, he wasn’t the husband material (Y/N) might have thought he was. She had to learn that the hard way.

They never spoke, just a few words in the morning and a few in the evening when he returned home from work. (Y/N) ate dinner mostly by herself.

This marriage she was forced into didn’t feel like marriage at all, more like a flat share. It broke her heart when she realized it one day after five years of marriage.

Over the time she had grown a liking to the stoic Holmes. Even though he ignored her most of the time, she couldn’t hate him for that.

There was no need for her to play the happy housewife anymore. He didn’t need nor want her in any way. To him she was only a burden, a person that only got in his way.

And, with a heavy heart, she left the flat she had shared five years with Mycroft Holmes. Her wedding ring on the kitchen table together with the divorce papers that only needed Mycroft’s signature.

She never heard from him again. He never called, never asked why she just left without a word.Just like she had thought he didn’t care at all for her.

(Y/N) tried her best to live on without him, but despite him being away almost every hour of the day she still missed him. The marriage meant something to her after all but not to him. Her parents weren’t happy after she confessed the divorce however they had to deal with it in the end.

“I am sick of living a lie.” (Y/N) had told them when they tried to convince her that it all was a huge mistake.

After that confession (Y/N)’s parents stopped bothering her with it.

Her life went on, lonely yet happy in a way. She met up with friends from time to time, went to restaurants for a nice evening out or just taking a stroll through the London streets.

It was calm live (Y/N) lived and she wouldn’t have it any other way, but one day her luck had to run out.

One evening, it was raining in London, (Y/N) received a phone call. Surprised to see Sherlock’s caller ID she picked up.

“Sherlock, why are you calling me?” she asked, confused, without giving him any chance to explain himself first.

The man on the other end of the line sighed in annoyance before he interrupted the woman with her questioning.

“It would be easier for the both of us if you would just let me speak.” this made her shut up and silently she waited for his next words.

“It’s about Mycroft.” he started to explain and before she could protest he continued.

“The whole of MI6 has been taken hostage. Someone with big influence is behind all this, but that’s not the point right now. I need you at the address I’ll send you when I hang up. Be there as soon as possible. Mycroft’s life depends on that.” and with that the man hung up not leaving any room for (Y/N) to respond to any of that.

For a moment it felt like her heart stopped before it started to beat rapidly in her chest. Her breathing quickened when she, without thinking twice, pulled her coat over her shoulders and got into her shoes before leaving her flat.

As (Y/N) closed the door behind her, Sherlock texted her the address and within minutes she ran through the busy London streets not stopping for any calls she received for pushing other people to the side.

With heavy breath and fast beating heart she arrived at her destination. It looked like the entire staff of Scotland Yard had arrived, Sherlock and John right beside Lestrade.

John was the first who noticed (Y/N) and waved her over.

“It is good to see you (Y/N).” the blond man said, laying one hand onto her shoulder. (Y/N) only huffed at the army doctor’s’ statement.

“Yeah, I wish it would be under different circumstances.” Lestrade gave (Y/N) a sympathetic look but she ignored it for the time being. Sherlock didn’t even look at her, his blue eyes fixed on the building before him.

“Why am I here Sherlock?” (Y/N) directed the question to the curly haired man who looked up at the building, squinting his eyes lightly.

Still he hadn’t turned to her despite being spoken to.

“Would you believe me if I said that you are moral support?” he questioned and with a risen, unimpressed eyebrow (Y/N) looked at him.

“No. No I wouldn’t.” was her quick answer and Sherlock nodded at that.

“My stupid brother missed a big opportunity.” he muttered under his breath before he finally turned to (Y/N).

“Well, your knowledge in architecture is needed right now. I don’t trust any of these idiots.” Sherlock motioned to the many operatives of Scotland Yard. With an offended look Lestrade turned to Sherlock.

“Hey.” he scoffed, frowning at the consulting detective but Sherlock ignored him unsurprisingly.

“Alright fine. Let me see the blueprints.” she walked up to the table where the blueprints of the building standing in front of her were laid out.

Now the clock was ticking.

With Sherlock’s quick mind, John’s military experience and (Y/N)’s architectural knowledge the Case was solvable without any serious injuries.

Soon, when the first MI6 members stepped outside, (Y/N) relaxed letting out a sigh of relief.

John somewhat was still tense, looking around frantically. (Y/N) noticed his giddy behavior and turned to the man.

“Everything alright John?” she asked him and with a frown on his face he looked at her.

“Wasn’t that a bit too easy? I mean…” (Y/N) understood what he was trying to say and she, too, looked around the people that gathered around the scenery.

Her (Y/E/C) eyes than fixed on Mycroft who, together with his assistant Anthea, stepped out of the building. From what (Y/N) could tell both were unharmed and well. Still she couldn’t relax like she wanted to. John’s words stuck to her mind.

Right as she was turning to Sherlock opening her mouth she stopped, looking over the shoulder of the tall dark haired man.

(Y/N) squinted her eyes making out a shadow in one of the buildings across the street. From the posture of the shadow she could that someone was holding something and without thinking twice she started to run ignoring the yells of John, Sherlock and Police officers around her.

With quick steps she ran up to Mycroft and before he could question what she was doing, she pulled him harshly to the ground in the moment when a gunshot rang through the air.

Mycroft connected harshly with the ground beneath him, his ex-wife over him. Anthea gasped in shock before she ran up to her boss together with a few paramedics that were present followed by John and Sherlock.

“My God, (Y/N) what were you…?” but he interrupted himself as something warm and sticking ran down his hand as he pulled her up with him.

Her eyes closed and not reacting to his calls, she laid there in his arms bleeding from a wound at her back.

John was quick to react as he knelt down beside the two, pressing down onto (Y/N)s wound to stop the bleeding. The paramedics already setting everything for her transport into the nearest hospital.

“Mycroft you need to let go.” Sherlock said while Mycroft didn’t seem to let go of the woman. The great Mycroft Holmes couldn’t wrap his mind around the scenario.

How she just saved his life by taking a bullet for him, literally. Only faintly did he noticed the hand of his younger brother dragging him away from the unconscious, bleeding woman while she was brought into the ambulance after the paramedics made sure she was stable enough for transport.

The shooter was soon caught and dragged to Scotland Yard, John stood beside Sherlock, (Y/N)’s blood all over his hands and clothes, just like Mycroft who only stared after the ambulance.

“Sir?” Anthea’s brought him back to his senses as he looked down at his assistant. The brunette looked back into the direction Mycroft was looking before eyeing her boss again.

“Shall we drive after them?” she then asked him and not even thinking twice about it he agreed to it.

“We’ll come along, too.” John said ignoring Sherlocks expression of protest. The blond army doctor turned to his friend, pointing a finger at him.

“You dragged her into this mess in the first place.” he said before the consulting Detective could say anything witty.

“You called her here?” Mycroft looked at his brother, his jaw slightly tensing.

“Sherlock, if she dies, it is your fault.” he pointed out but Sherlock crossed his arms.

“Well, clearly it wasn’t my decision that she saved your life. Maybe you should be a bit more grateful to her after all she has been through only to make you happy.” A bit surprised John looked back at his tall friend but stopped himself from saying anything else that would tense the mood up even more.

Mycroft chose not say a word, his only goal for now was to reach the hospital, hoping that his ex-wife would be alright.

For days she laid their in her bed. Thick, white bandages all over her torso and all over her hospital gown.

The machines she was connected to beeped in a rhythmic beat. Mycroft got used to the sound too quickly, even for his own liking.

He refused to leave her side until her eyes opened.

“I want to know why.” was his only reply when Sherlock would ask him why he wouldn’t leave the hospital room.

“Who is the smarter one now?” Sherlock said back, as he looked over (Y/N)’s sleeping body. Sherlock felt a bit of empathy for the woman, but only a little bit.

Mycroft only looked at his brother from the corner of his eyes. Like the smug person Sherlock was, he grinned at his brother.

“Well, brother mine,” he mocked his brother’s tone of voice. “Can’t you see that (Y/N) is still in love with you? She always was. All this time she was ready to take a bullet for you. Come on, I thought you were better than me…” Sherlock scoffed at him, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t love, Sherlock.” Mycroft scolded his younger brother but said brother only waved him off.

“Yes, of course. That is why we’re standing next to her unconscious body, waiting for her to wake up.” their bickering continued on, getting more heated with each word that came through their mouths. Totally unaware of the movement from the bed and the groan leaving the woman’s mouth.

“Can’t a woman die in peace?” she said with a hoarse voice, a pain striking expression on her face.

Both men stopped their little childish fight and turned their faces simultaneously around to look at her.

“(Y/N), you are finally awake.” Mycroft breath out, grasp her hand that laid beside her body. A bit surprised by his reaction and his actions she turned her head slightly to him.

“Who are you and where is Mycroft?” this made Sherlock smile lightly.

“Good to see you are still the same.” he said before leaving the room to search for a Doctor, leaving the couple alone for a few minutes.

“Mycroft, I…” but the man interrupted her as he started to speak.

“What were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that stunt was? (Y/N), you could’ve died for God's sake.” he scolded her like she just a mere child and that is what he probably saw in her.

“What I was thinking?” she started, pulling her hand out of his grasp, trying to get up but giving up after a sharp pain went through her upper body.

“I was thinking that I need to save the man I love. I don’t care if the feeling is not mutual but I gave you a promise five years ago and I tend to keep it for the rest of my life.” Mycroft sat there in silence listening to her rants. He didn’t know how to react. For the very first time he didn’t know what to do or say and he absolutely despised it.

The silence was getting more and more uncomfortable while (Y/N) bit her lip. Neither of them said anything at all, the room was quiet, only the beeping of the heart monitor was heard.

“People do stupid things when they are in love.” (Y/N) was surprised to say the least to hear these words from her ex-husbands mouth.

He just quoted from a Disney movie, probably without knowing so and sat there unmoving, not glancing for one second at her.

“Did you just…?”

“Quote from Disney’s Hercules?” he finished her sentence before he nodded. “Yes, yes I did.”

“You know Disney’s Hercules?”(Y/N) didn’t mean to say this out loud but at least they were now looking at each other.

For a moment they just stared at each other, (Y/N) still surprised and Mycroft like always held no expression, well at least not one (Y/N) could put a name on.

“Maybe…” he finally started. “Maybe, I was a bit too harsh on you in the time we were married.” the woman tilted her head lightly, the surprise never leaving her face.

“You changed, Mycroft.” she stated, ignoring his first comment. Now it was time for him to look surprised or whatever you would call the expression he was giving her.

“Well, a lot of things happened while you were gone.”

“Yes, I can see that. When I am not around, you’ll get shot.” the woman stated bluntly.

“Then maybe, you should stay around?” the questioning undertone was once again unexpected from the oldest Holmes brother.

“I would like that, very much.” she gave him a soft smile, holding his hand in hers and brushing lightly over it with her thumb.

Maybe there was still a happy ending for them both, very long after their once upon a time….

#mycroft holmes #mycroft holmes x reader #mycroft x reader #bbc sherlock #ex-husband!mycroft x ex-wife!reader #anon request #request #requests are open #bbc #sherlock #holme #mycroft holmes imagine #bbc mycroft

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rika-kihira · 4 years

Text

Rika Kihira x Gutto sports

A while ago Rika appeared in a Japanese tv program. The program was pretty long and unfortunately a full video of it isn’t available at the moment. However the program, cut in 6 parts, was uploaded on drive and translated by @juronom on twitter.

Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Translation of the most interesting parts, done by Juro, please do not repost without credit. Part 1: Gutto Sport presenters commented that Rika is smaller in height than what her aura gives off. They ask Takeshi Honda and Akiko Suzuki about their shared skating experience with Rika.

T: We skated together at Kandai rink, so I meet her almost every day. I just met her yesterday too.

R: I lost count how many times I greet you already *laugh*

TH: She’s like *comes up to me* “Konnichiwa” (Hello), then skate away, then come back and “Konnichiwa” again.

A questionnaire with Rika on what she thought was her best weapon?

Upper left: Maintain positivity Lower left: No edge error Right: 3A (no 1)

The secret of her 3A:

- “The type that hasn’t been seen until now”-Takeshi Honda

- Comparison with legendary 3A by Japanese ladies:

o Midori Ito: height that can be comparable to men’s 3A

o Mao Asada: beautiful air position (vertical jumping posture)

o Rika Kihira: quick rotation, clear-cut (neat, sharp) 3A => allows her landing to be relaxed&free

On what she used as reference for her jumps:

“In the past, I used to refer to male skaters’ method of jumping quads, etc, carefully observe them. Then I always looked at Mao-chan’s amazing 3A as well. Recently, I rely on observation of) my own best condition, how much of the intensity of (practice) it can handle. Something like “When my muscles are at this condition, I should practice increase the intensity of my practice (practice many times).” On the other hand, if on that day, my jumps are off, I’d stop and let my body return (to its good condition) properly.”

Physical check: the secret why Rika can rotate so fast?

According to Prof Sakurai Tomono- researching on the mechanism of athletes’ muscles: her hip and thigh muscles can contract quickly.

Experiment for Rika: measuring the distance of one’s bunny hop from a kneeling position.

Average for boys: 41cm; girls: 20cm

Rika’s distance was 65cm

Part 2

Another secret: Rika is very “obsessed” with her skates (including blades)

She brought the pair she was using at the moment to the set.

Each of Her skating boots, (like other skaters’), is meticulously customized. When the skates first arrived, she had to adjust the blades’ position and angle, how much they lean forward or backward, towards one side or another etc, by herself carefully. She couldn’t say she could adjust them to their perfect condition, but she tried her best to tune them to as convenient a position as possible for her skating, millimeter by millimeter. Not only the position, but the gap between boots and blades are also controlled. Even if the gap is one 1mm wider or narrower, her skating can be affected greatly, to the extent that she could either do 30 3As in one day or none with the boots.

It takes more than 2 weeks to get used to a new pair.

Presenter asked why she couldn’t keep using the same pair.

It’s because the leather will soften, especially at the area around laces. Rika said when there’re some leather materials coming off around that area, she can’t jump at all. She changed boots around every 3 months, and since the boots take 3 weeks to be produced, she couldn’t change to a new pair immediately, and must notice when the pair in use shows some signs of softening.

The presenters need to stop Rika before she talks forever about her skating boots-her obsession.

Rika: “And then, recently, this part…” Everyone laughs: “She honestly can stop”

Questionnaire with Rika:

What does Rika have on her mind: 100% figure skating.

Takeshi Honda’s question: “Rika, is that really ok?”

It’s about her socks.

Skaters generally stick certain types of specially made socks produced by 1 brand when competing, but Rika is ok with any types of socks and doesn’t mind if her socks are ankle-length or longer. She just grabbed a random pair if she forgot her socks. (t/n: she’s actually using the kind of cute socks sold at tutu-ana (1000yen for 3 pairs) or gift shops lollll)

Akiko Suzuki’s question:

Akiko noticed that at ice shows, before eating, Rika always quickly takes photo before eating, but not in the manner suitable for posting food photos on SNS. Akiko thinks she did it to calculate nutrition value.

Rika: “After a day, I calculate my total calories intake. Combini food has calories value on them, but I don’t know the values for every separate item, so I took photos of everything, then calculate the amount later”.

Presenter: Is it hard to maintain (athletic) body form?

Rika: “Yes, I try as hard as I can. Even if I lose weight (or gain weight). If I lose too much weight, I can’t jump.”

Presenter: As a 17-year-old girl, you may want to eat things like sweets, drink tapioca tea etc…?

Rika: “Well technically I can, but when I eat things like cake or tapioca, which still adds to the amount of calories intake, meat, or such is still important, so I need to eat food that can be converted into energy correctly. If I eat cake or tapioca, my diet’s efficiency will be tampered with.”

Presenter: You can’t even after winning?

Rika: “But still, I still eat the food that can be converted to energy…”

Presenter: “Pizza and cola?”

Rika: *shake her head vigorously*

“If I sleep with an unfilled stomach, I feel like my muscles aren’t there. There are times when I was thinking about whether to get dinner or not, or just only eat the meat properly (not carbs), and then I felt like my muscles decrease, so I concluded that I must properly eat dinner anyways.”

Part 3

Coach Hamada rating Rika:

“She is very disciplined. Her practice ability is very good, and she always has the drive to improve herself. Not in a reckless but proper way.” Scoring (from upper left going right)

- Comprehensiveness (4)

- Linguistic ability (2): “I wish she could handle English questions in interview sessions or press-conferences. Since she is competing internationally, it’d be nice if her linguistic ability could be improved. Also, she may have more and more international friends, and international fans.”

- Performing ability (4)

- Decisiveness (4)

- Athleticism (5)

- Narcissist power(3) (t/n: lol what =)) but sorry it wasn’t mentioned at all)

- Talkativeness (2): “She doesn’t talk much. I’ve never heard her jokes”

- Humor (2)

- Girliness(4): “She has good sense of fashion, how to coordinate clothes.”

- Considerateness (4): “At ice shows, she always immediately wears and takes photos with all the presents from fans. She wants to send her gratitude to fans, and tell everyone she is really happy with the gifts, which she can’t do often.”

Rika: “Yes, I’m bad (at English). There are many times I want to tell (international fans) “I’m very happy that you support me”, but I don’t know how to. So I just *raise both hands and wave nervously while saying “hai (yes)” and nodding*”

Figure skating’s This and That – presented by Satoko Miyahara.

Top 3 Figure skating truths by Satoko

1. I’m very embarrassed when messing up the stsq.

2. I fight time difference (jet lag) every day.

3. I only forget important things. (Satoko’s story about losing her Olympics ID)

On practicing with Satoko:

Rika: “I practice with her almost every day.”

Presenter: So do you talk?

Rika: “Yes, but for things irrelevant to skating. Satoko normally said things like “I forgot my CD >_<”. Satoko-chan is really interesting”

Figure skating truths by Rika

1. What does she think throughout a 4-min performance?

“There’re many things I think about. For instance: “The axel is coming up next”; “It’s bad if I overdo this part”; “I can’t miss this axel”; “If I made mistake on this jump, all the jumps I landed until now will become meaningless”.

Asked about whether she had entered a “zone”, where she wasn’t thinking anything but everything went well.

“In the past, that happened to me a lot too, but recently, sometimes I don’t think when performing, and there’s excitement too. However, when looking at and understand the real event happening, and thinking that “I don’t want to repeat the mistakes I’ve made until now” …then (that thought) appears in front of me, and in my head, then I’d think that “I don’t want to this (repeat the mistake)” and reconfirm the jumps. When I jump, it’s unconscious reflex, but I think about my surrounding, my own conditions or even my nervousness.”

Presenter: It’s the positive feelings of being able to see everything.

Rika: “Yes, it’s like that”.

Part 4

Choreography challenge with Ryouga Haruhi (t/n: Ryouga is known for playing male role in Takarazuka Revenue, a Japanese all-female musical theater troupe)

The program discussed the role of expression.

Presenter asked Rika what she does as supplement to her expression in figure skating.

Rika: “I do classical ballet around 2-3 hours/week, and I also go to dance school”

Presenter: Dance school? Like rock dance and hiphop?

Rika: “Yes, things like hiphop.”

*show vid of her practicing dance in the US *

Rika: “This is the dance lesson I had in the US, but normally, I have dance lessons that use more hip-hop-like music and more strong movements.”

Everyone complimented on her (and Satoko’s) beautiful movement.

Rika wanted to ask Ryoga about the way she and Takarazuka actresses use their expression, how they pose, and the angle of their faces.

Ryoga explained that expressions showed of male and female roles are opposite: soft and flexible vs cool, then she proceeded to give “posing” lesson. She showed the movement patterns of: female role, lower-class male role and upper-class male role.

Rika was asked to do the movement of “lower-class man” then “upper-class man” (the one with hand on her face) and she managed very well, receiving compliments from the presenters. Part 5

About the Nobeyama Kougen training camp, known as the place where “Golden-eggs” of Japan figure skating are assembled. Notable alumni: Mao Asada, Yuzuru Hanyu, Takeshi Honda, Shizuka Arakawa, Rika Kihira.

The training camp is 4 days long, with various training sessions from 8am-9.30pm. The camp’s purpose is to evaluate and search for skaters with potential and to check their living attitude as well, like how they conform to curfews, etc. Rika went to the camp 3 years ago, and she said it was very tough.

Rika: “(Being there), you have to worry about whether you will be seeded or if you will be assigned to any competition, and then there’ll be new comers…so in every aspect, you have no way but show you are the best one. Even off-ice physical checking is so tough, squatting/ running around etc, that on the next day, I can’t even move my legs or climb the stairs, but still have to perform programs.”

Presenter: Do you want to go back?

Rika: “Maybe”

Akiko said being there makes you realize she was hand-picked from among all skating children in Japan. That really changes her working attitude and elevates her determination.

Video about legendary 3A by Midori Ito, done 1 minute before the end of her program at 1992 Olympics. The 3A has become the trail-blazer for future generations.

Rika: “I don’t think I can do 3A in the latter half at all. It’s already so tough to have it as the 2nd or 3rd jump but I don’t think I’ve ever tried jumping it 1 minute before the end of the program.”

Part 6

Rika’s impression of Midori Ito: “I experienced challenging 3A but failing in competitions. The first time I met her, she comforted me: “Ahh 3A is very difficult. Though it’s difficult, I really support you”, such kind actions.”

Presenter: But you haven’t got any chance to talk to her leisurely

Rika: “No, I haven’t”

Presenter: Let’s do it now ^^

Rika: “Heeehhh”

Midori Ito appeared: “You’ve worked hard” (to Rika)

“I’m so happy. You even remember the 1st time we met. That makes me so happy.”

Rika: “I do remember”

Midori: “Really?”

“It’s amazing. You can jump it (3A) stably now” to Rika.

Midori said she contemplated whether to do 3Lz or 3A when she was spinning in that program, then decided to do 3A. She asked Rika: “If you made mistake on the 1st 3A, do you think about the 2nd time?”

Rika: ”Well, but I’ve not thought about it in the latter half, really, (3A) in the latter half it’s sugoii…”

Midori’s secret for her super high 3A is to “skate with all her power at top speed”. Because she entered 3A at a very high speed, she can get to that height. She described that method of jumping 3A is like: “Doing long jump (a athletic sport) but rotating at the same time” (t/n: Rika’s face loll)

Rika said she didn’t jump 3A at top speed because she can’t control her axis.

Midori: “However, in my generation, we just focus on doing our jumps at high speed, but in Kihira-san’s generation, the programs have to be beautiful as whole, and in such programs, there is 3A. It’s a generation that (3A) isn’t effective if the programs aren’t beautiful itself. It’s amazing that there are beautiful programs but at the same time allow to do 3A efficiently.” *looks at Rika* Rika is very happy to receive advice from Midori. Rika: “With this experience, I will try harder and harder every day in order to create a sense of stability. Then, I must perform quads cleanly too.”

Midori’s advice to Rika: “She’s very serious. She is already going forward while staying fixated to her goal. So, *looks at Rika* try to keep yourself in good health. You can’t suddenly jump triples or quads. You can’t say you’ll be free of injury at all, but you have to make compromises with injury and your body conditions. When you’re injured, there’re things you can’t do, so..but then, it’s vital to harmonize things you haven’t done and your techniques. It’ll be nice if you can try to balance those things. I hope that you’ll try your best.”

Rika’s aims: “This season, my first goal is to aim for the podium at the World championship, which I couldn’t do last season. Then, I will make my best effort every day towards my biggest dream of winning the Beijing Olympics.”

#rika kihira #midori ito #Akiko Suzuki #translations #Interviews #interview #gutto sports

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instantenemyphantom · 4 years

Text

The Crazy Secret YouTuber Life!

Hello, my name is Holly and I’m a famous youtuber and my mum takes advantage of it. She uses the money I make, and she spends it on herself. She goes on crazy fun and relaxing vacations without me and she buys herself the most expensive clothes and buys me nothing because she says that she deserves it and I don’t. I don’t know what to do anymore she is out of control of her money spending and she shouts at me if I don’t make ‘her more money’. Little does she know it will soon be my birthday and I will be moving out of her awful house and beginning my life and my life how I want to live it.

“Wake up brat!” My mum yells at me from the doorway but I didn’t respond to her I just got up and had a shower and got in my school clothes and rushed out of the house as fast as I could before my mum shouts at me again.

This is one of my ‘normal’ days I get shouted at by my mum and then I rush get ready and get out of the house as fast as I can possibly can before she starts shouting again, and then I catch the school bus to school and have a great time there. Oh, and did I mention that I must hide my identity so then no one knows it’s me. I just don’t want all the attention on me when I’m walking around in real life.

“Girl where have you been.” My friend shouts to me from the gate.

“Sorry Katie I got up kind of later than usual.” I tell her.

“That is why I tell you to put an alarm on.” Katie tells me as I walk up to her.

“I know. I know. I’ve just been busy that’s all.” I nervously say and she looks at me confused but she lets it slide.

“Well are we going to stand her or are we going inside?” A teacher came up to us and asked us.

“We are going to go inside.” We both told her.

We walked on inside the building with smiles on our faces and we than knew today was going to be a good day. But we did have to split for form, but we had most classes together, so we said she you in a bit and we went to form.

Form is one of the most boring-est of places you could be for the first fifteen freaking minutes of the day. Anyhow after that me and my best friend look at each other from across the hub with a grin which makes us talk and laugh about how we need to stop doing it, but we do it anyway.

Our first period is English, and we have one of the strictest teachers and I mean it she's the strictest teacher in the school she’s worst then those parents in that one T.V. Show where they send misbehaved children to strict families that have strict rules. I think it’s called world’s strictest parent I’m pretty sure.

“Okay you all need to listen up!” Said Mrs Cranberry there was silence in the room because when everyone came into her classroom there was just silence no talking, no laughter or even any whispering, “As you all know school will be ending for an Easter Holiday soon but that does not stop you doing any work. Now if we get all the work done in these next two weeks, I won’t send any homework for you guys to do over the Holiday.”

Everyone was cheering and was so happy this is the first time Mrs Cranberry is being generous about not sending any work home for us to do over the week.

“Alright I get that you are all every happy and excited but let's get some work done before I change my mind.” Mrs Cranberry said in a bubbly voice.

Of course, we did what miss said because well as I was saying before she has never been this generous to not send work out over the Holidays. Just last Christmas she gave us a stack of paper to work on and I mean a stack she gave us two tests three books and told us to write a book review on all the books. P.s. I learned nothing in that class I don’t think any of us did we had no homework for a week on our minds. But that does not stop us from having homework right now, she gave us homework and said we must give it in next Tuesday.

(BELL GOES)

Our next lesson was Science which I hate the most, not because all the lessons are bad, but I have to sit to this kid that make fun of me every time I go to sit next him. One thing he said was look its Holly the freak that doesn’t shower. For the record I do shower it’s him that doesn’t shower, and I out found out that he is saying all this is because he is going through a hard time at home. I didn’t want to know the details his mate was going to tell me, so I walked off. At least I know why he is doing this to me, but at least I learn somethings in this class such as... I can’t think of anything on the top of my head to be quite honest with you.

(BELL GOES)

Finally break time, this is the best time of the day so is lunch time, but I now get to see the rest of my friends and talk to them for the fifteen minutes of this break and then I will have Maths.

“Hey, it’s Holly and Katie.” One of my friends told the group.

“Hi Rio.” Katie goes up to go and hug him.

“HI Holly.” My friend hugs me.

“Hi Vivian.” I said.

We said hi to the rest of the group and we talked for the remaining time of break and then the bell went, and we split up except for me and Katie because we had the same lesson just in different rooms in the hub.

“If you can all line up at the back of the room and place your homework on the front desk when you go in.” Said Mr Dunn.

Great another seating plan. I wish teachers can just put students in one place for each year and leave them and don’t move them. But no Mr Dunn has to move us nearly every lesson and everyone makes such a big deal about it and we never get any work done.

“Alright everyone we are going to be having another seating plan.” Mr Dunn told us, and everyone groaned in disappointment at him. “Guys. Guys this is going to be the last time you have to move places I swear.”

Yeah, we’ve heard that before I thought to myself.

After placing us in the seats everyone started to act up and we barely learnt anything. We did the DO NOW and then we didn’t do any of the work. Oh well I don’t really like Maths that much anyways.

(BELL GOES)

History time. History is quite good I like to learn about what happened in the past like Abraham Lincoln and his son, and King Henry the III and his six wives.

“Good morning.” Said Mr Rise.

“Good morning.” We all said back.

“Ok. Today we are going to be learning about the world War II.” Mr Rise told us with excitement and then everyone said that their great granddads were in the World War II.

Mr Rise was telling us all the important facts we must know for the end of unit test, but he was also telling us the facts that we didn’t really need to know but we left sir to tell us because he loved this topic and I mean loved the topic he had so many interesting facts that he was dying to tell us. You could see it in his eyes and face that he was dying. It took him to the end of the lesson explaining all the information that he wanted to tell us and that didn’t give him enough time to explain everything.

When the bell went, he had a sad expression on his face like he wanted to go on with himself about how wonderful the World War was and the “amazing experience was for the men who joined” or whatever that means.

I met up with Vivian on the way down the stairs to head in the canteen to get some lunch and then my name was called to go to reception because apparently, I had an “appointment” with the doctor.

When got their guess who I saw. My mother. She had “sweet face” on and I know what that meant. That face id telling me I’m dead. I guess I forgot to film a YouTube video and know she is mad because she has now run out of money.

“There you are my lovely daughter. I’m here to take you to your doctor’s appointment.” My Mother said in her acting I’m such a nice mother voice.

“I know. I heard on the speaker. But if we are going to the doctors can I have Mcdonalds for lunch?” I asked her with my big round puppy eyes because I knew she couldn’t say no to them.

“Of course, you can. You are my favourite daughter after all.” My mother told me in the voice again.

“Mother, I’m your only daughter.” I told her.

We got in the car and my mother started yelling at me because I haven’t been uploading any videos. She drove me home and told me to get started on the videos so then I can sacrifice my sleep and get her, “her pay check”.

This time I was not going to do that video because tonight I was going to celebrate for my 16th birthday and get started on plans to move out. Well move away from my mothers. Tonight, I’m going to run away I already said goodbye to my friends and now I’m going to my father's which I have his permission to live there by the way.

I’m so excited to finally see my dad after all these years. I mean the last time I saw my dad was I was six and now after ten years I can go and see him and I’m just so happy yet nervous what if he takes advantage of me being a famous YouTuber?

Anyway, I have to put up with my mother for one more week because exams start tomorrow and I need to revise for them and the good thing is if I can get my notes on paper I can sneak out early in the morning to avoid my mother and read them until school starts, and then I will have tons of information in my brain and then will be able to hopefully get very answer right. I’ve told school to send my results to my fathers and not my mother’s house because I was going to be moving in with my father after the exams so then I don’t have to travel as far.

I met up with my friends at the gate and said, “Are you guys ready for the exams?”

“NO! I forgot to revise for them. I’m going to fail.” Katie shouted at me, “Oh can I borrow your notes?”

“Of course, you can.” I handed my notes to Katie, “What about you Vivian?”

“I’m all set I spent all after school to revise, I swear these exams just came out of nowhere I thought we had all the time in the world.” Vivian said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have all the time in the world. Now are we going inside?” Asked a teacher.

We walked into the building and went to the winter gardens and we waited for our form tutors and year leader to arrive to explain what was going on with our exams and yes, we are going to do them this week hopefully.

“Ok! Year Eleven can I have your attention please.” Said Mr Solano, “Ok today are your exams and you will be doing one paper today and you may leave after if you don’t want to stick around. Well I wish you all good luck went you to where you are being assessed please stay quite when you enter the room and then the rules will be told to you when you sit in your seat and you will be given you tests. Good luck to all of you.”

That was a big speech from Mr Solano. The first one since our first day here. You could see that he was going to cry, and we all knew he was going to miss us, and we were going to miss him and sometimes I wish we didn’t have to leave our teachers but it has been five long years and now we have to move onto do other things. It must feel like a bird leaving the nest, I guess that is what we are doing. Are we?

I was doing my test in the Sports hall because that’s where everyone did their GTECs. Some of the questions where easy well most of them where easy there were a few that I didn’t quite get but I just took a guess and I was praying in my head to hope that got them right. When it was time to stop and leave, I grabbed my phone from the box, and I rushed home after saying bye to my friends and the teachers to continue my packing for my dad's.

I got home and I ran out of breath and when I saw that my mother wasn’t in I made another mad dash to my room and made a short video and posted it and then I pack somethings so then my mum wouldn’t see that all my things were gone and I then I tried to act normal so then when my mother got in she wouldn’t suspect a thing.

And then though out the week I kept this up until my mother realised that I wasn’t posting YouTube videos again and she went in my room to investigate what I was doing instead of making videos. She found my bag under my bed pack with nearly all my clothes and when I got how she had put everything back and she went on a ram page at me she we was screaming and shouting at me like “Where are you going to go. And who are going to stay with. I have done everything for you.”

I may have shouted back at her not because of her shouting at me for where am I going to go, I shouted at her that I was not going to come back and that I never planned on doing because of the way that she was treating me.

I told her, “Did you even love me? You say that you do and that you always will but then you take advantage of my channel and the money that I’m making off of it and that is not fair. Because you never spend any money on me, and you were so blind with all the money that you forgot my birthday. And that is just not fair. So, mother I’m leaving and I’m never going to come back. Especially if you are going to keep treating me like this.” Tears were coming my face and I saw that my mother was also crying.

“I am so sorry that you feel that way but.” She broke character, “I never even care about you and if you do find yourself running away just know that I will find you and I will make you make money for me.”

She walked out of my room and when she closed the door, I knew that was it I texted my dad that I was coming a day earlier then we planned, and I rushed to pack my everything that was put away and everything that was never in my bags in the first place, then I jumped out of my window and ran to the nearest train station and got a train to where me and my father agreed to meet and after what felt like hours we saw each other for the first time in years.

I ran up to my dad and I fell into his arms and we sat on the floor hugging for about ten minutes and then I told him that my mother might be looking for me because she said that she would and so then we hopped into his car and we drove to his house where we were safe. He demanded me to tell him what was going on between me and my mother.

“I’m a big YouTuber and mother was taking advantage of how much money I was making for it.” I told him.

“Wow. Okay. You really made a YouTube channel?” My dad asked.

“Yeah dad. And now I don’t know what I’m going to do because she is going to keep looking for me.” I said with tears forming in my eyes.

“Hey don’t cry. You don’t have to worry about her because I’m always going to fight for you like I was doing from the start.” He told me while hugging me.

He was determined to give me a new life. He introduced me to his wife Hailey and his twin girls Lily and Dana. After a week of living there I felt like I belonged there and that I have a purpose in this family. My family. And I heard on the new that my mother was put in prison for hording drugs. I love this family and I love living with them and now we have a YouTube channel together and I couldn’t be happier.

THE END.

#shortstory

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ilikeoldchangke · 5 years

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Destroying my sister in law’s reputation

This has to be one of the most horrible thing I have done in my life and I would surely go to hell for it.

The idea of doing something like this just hit me out of the blue one day many years back and it has been festering in my brain for the longest time. At first I just wondered if it can be done at all, then slowly as the thought takes root inside my head, it became an infatuation.

Back in 2009 when I was dating my wife, I was introduced to Mandy, her sister. I’ve had the hots for my girlfriend’s sister before but never in such intensity. Mandy really brought out the monster inside me.

My girlfriend Melody then was a hottie too with the figure and brains to match but there is just something about Mandy that attracts me to her.

She is not only the splitting image of her sister, there is this sweet and innocent side to her that makes you want to dote on and pamper her.

You know sometimes you hear people say hey, so and so look like the younger version of a celebrity. A little more cute, a little more sweet. Mandy is just like a younger version of my wife.

Seeing Mandy is like taking a trip back in time.

Constantly.

Even till this very day when I look at my sister in law, I would be reminded of the times I spent with my wife when she was younger.

Melody and Mandy have an age gap of 5 years.

When I got to know Melody as a colleague at work, Mandy was still a JC student.

Looking at her in her JC uniforms, I can picture my wife in that exact same age, dressed exactly in that manner coming home after a day in school. That pair of slim legs and her ankle socks that are barely visible as she walks along the road, cradling her bag in hand looking all innocent and sweet.

That image alone made me attempt to recreate the scene no less than 10 times with Melody.

I’m sure this is something many couples do.

Getting their partners to put on their old school uniforms and pretend they are back in school. As for me, I would pretend I’m the one dishing out disciplinary action to her.

In bed of course.

I could picture myself fucking a younger version of my wife whenever I think about Mandy.

I’m sure if given the chance, you would surely want to be able to do a younger, wilder version of your partner.

Mandy got hotter and prettier as with each passing year.

I literally watch her blossom form a sweet young thing into the hot girl she is today. She got a little taller.

Her breast got a little more full.

There’s more bounce in her buttocks when she walks.

Her lips looked more kissable.

Even the smallest action of her brushing her hair behind her ears would sometimes give me an erection.

Mandy has no lack of followers and fans on her social media sites. She’s not a attention seeking whore or anything but there are occasions she does a bit of modelling for some of her entrepreneur friends.

I shall not waste time by going into detail the kind of fantasies I have of Mandy.

Every conceivable thought and fetish that has to do with your girlfriend sister back then, I have imagined it in my head. I pictured it in my mind and wanked off countless times.

Living in the same household was a added bonus. I live together with my in laws in a Jumbo flat in Woodlands. It’s huge and there’s more than enough space for everyone. Me and my wife’s room is right beside Mandy’s.

We share the same bathroom.

Right by the entrance into the bathroom along the wide corridor sits 3 baskets.

Laundry baskets. One for each of us.

Each time I had to force myself not to look when I see Mandy come home from school or from work as she grew older. The bundle of semi wet clothes with her worn panty and bra entangled into the mix just join the rest of her worn stuff in the basket.

Just think of all the things I can do with Mandy’s clothes. Her lingerie, her sports attire, her socks and heels. It’s a candy shop for a horny adult with a fetish.

I have access to so many things. As long as no one is at home of course.

I had access to Mandy’s laptop as well. She’s not exactly savvy with IT stuff and to be honest, I think she knows her phone better than she knows her computer.

Isn’t this the way things are now with the young people these days ?

I know her login password and ID, I setup the WIFI for the family and I even helped to configure her access to the network printer at home. The best thing I did was help her configure her phone to upload and backup her photos onto the backup drive shared among the family.

Every photo, every selfie. Every wasapp image file and videos.

Once she’s connected to WIFI, it gets backup and I get access.

It’s like stalking on a whole new level.

My relationship with Mandy cannot be better. She looked up to me as a older brother of sort, which really amplified how bastard I am when I do something like this to her.

Through sheer manipulation and the power of association and materials from the internet, I was able to destroy her reputation, wreck her relationship and drove her to the brink of a mental breakdown.

I live by a simple motto.

If I want to do something, I go all the way and this is definitely something that I went all out in terms of the money, time and resources I spent but it was all well worth it in the end.

How far did I go you ask ?

Mandy took down all her social media profile, her boyfriend left her. She quit her job.

When she makes eye contact with another man along the street, she tells me the look haunts her.

It made her question whether they saw the scandal that was floating around the internet.

The fake scandal that I created.

One that her boyfriend and everyone around her believed.

Mandy would shut herself in her room most of the time. Right at her most vulnerable moment, I would be her light at the end of the tunnel.

To lend her a shoulder when I most needed it.

So how did I do it ?

By being the absolute bastard of course.

By absolute, I really meant downright despicable.

The length I went to shock even myself as I did it.

First I need to discredit her and for her boyfriend Yogi to find out about it. Not about the discrediting of course. I wanted Yogi to find out about the personality I created about Mandy.

To paint Mandy in a different light to the people around her.

I plan to do that with the internet.

As a well-behaved goody two shoe, there are things that you would never imagine someone like her doing. I want to create the impression that she is doing something behind everybody’s back.

I don’t need her to be in the picture explicitly doing what want.

I just needed to plan the idea in people’s head and it’s not hard to do that. Given that her boyfriend is also visits the popular sex forums online, it would be a matter of time before he chance upon the charade I created.

For a start, I plan to make use of her own wardrobe against her. Yes, her clothes. Imagine one day coming across the picture of a girl exposing her breast, or her legs wearing the same set of clothes your wife or girlfriend wore to work that day.

Would that not make your heart skip a beat immediately even though no face was shown ?

First, I would need to find someone to play the role of Mandy.

Now it’s impossible to find someone who looks like my sister in law to play the role, I don’t need someone to look like Mandy, I just need someone who feels like Mandy.

Let me explain.

My sister in law has average height and weight.

Not fat, not thin, not too tall.

Just nice.

At 1.6m and 46kg with a proportional body, it’s not hard to find a girl with these stats in Singapore. The challenge is finding someone who is willing to do what I want her to do.

I started by scouring freelance modelling website.

I dropped countless messages and mails but no one seemed interested. I even posted classified ads on free sites and forums, looking for girls of similar stats.

The excuse I gave was for a personal project and that I am willing to pay for a simple photoshoot. However, since I’m not a registered photographer with any portfolio to show for it, it’s natural to expect the lack of replies.

I offered a good deal for about an hour’s work, no hanky panky.

No touching of the model’s body and we will be doing the shoot in public spaces in day time. That should give some assurance to the girls that I’m really not interested din violating them physically.

No face shots. Just the body.

I only needed to use their body, or rather, images of it.

After a 2 months search, I finally got a hit.

Charmaine.

The story here is simple.

She needed money for her school fees and chanced upon my ad. My instructions to her were simple.

Put on a set of clothes that I will be providing, and take some pictures, and I’m willing to pay her 200 for an hour’s work. It worked out easier than I expected.

We met up at a café, she asked for a 50% downpayment and I gave it to her.

I handed her the set of clothes I borrowed from my sister in law’s wardrobe.

Now, selecting the clothes is an art. There are so many, so which one do I choose ?

Well, I went through her photos and social media feeds, I found a few photos which I think Mandy looked pretty good.

She was wearing a short sleeveless white dress with black stripes. The hem of the skirt ends several inches above her knees such that as she walked, you would get this lively bounce that almost gave you a peak of her panty.

Instead of a cardigan, she had a faded denim long sleeve top she wore as a jacket. It’s loose, flowly and it covered up the good figure she has.

Shoes is a simple pair of sneakers that is plain light grey in colour.

I picked the same blue backpack she was using in that set of photos and stuffed all the clothes I borrowed into the bag.

These are the stuff I want Charmaine to wear.

Charmaine : The clothes are in here ?

James : yes… just a dress and a jacket of sort. The shoes I think…… let me see…

I took a glance of her feet and told her it might be a little tight but since we are just doing a quick shot, the discomfort should only be for a while.

Charmaine nodded and went into the ladies.

5 minutes later, she emerged in the same set of clothes Mandy wore in one of her Instagram photos.

I tried to picture Charmaine without her face and I tried hard to stop myself from nodding my head.

Looking at just her body, I think she can easily pass of as Mandy.

Charmaine : like this ??

James : yes… looking good…

I appraised Charmaine’s body and I could tell she was a little uncomfortable.

Charmaine : errrr…. So what now ?

I smiled and told her to follow me.

Charmaine : Where are we going ??

James : relax…. Just across the road. … the HDB estate…

Charmaine : take the pictures there ??

James : Yes…. Don’t worry… just taking some pictures….

As we crossed the road to the housing estate , Charmaine looked nervous. She kept looking around the vicinity.

James : Don’t worry… it’s really just taking photos….

Charmaine : Do you mind if I ask why are you….. ermm… why are you…. Doing this ??

I gave her a reassuring smile and told her that I just wanted some photos for my collection.

James : and ermm… you know… I’m single…. And my friends sometimes tease me I got no girlfriend….

Charmaine : huh ?? ….

James : So… I just want to take some photos…. For my own collection…. And some shots to prove to them I am attached…. Not a gay or something….

Charmaine : oh…. Ermmmmmm… that is so weird….

James : haha… I’m paying you for it… don’t worry….

I could tell she still looked unconvinced but I don’t care.

I just needed her body for a while and hopefully if I can convince her how easy it is to earn this quick buck, I could continue using her body for the other parts of my plan.

James : Alright…. Over here….

Charmaine : here ??

James : Yes… let’s go up….

We entered the lift and I hit the highest floor.

We came out on the 16th floor and I took a quick look around.

It’s a weekday afternoon, most of the people are out at work. I gestured to the corridor and we went to the staircase at the end of it.

James : here is good.

Charmaine looked around and nodded at me nervously, staring intently at the phone I was holding in my hand.

James : relax….

Charmaine : What do I have to do ??

James : haha… not much…. Not much…. climb up the staircase…. Slowly…

I brought up my phone and took the first couple of shots before appraising it on the small LCD screen of a old phone of mine.

I smiled as I looked at the photo.

Just like Mandy……. Just like Mandy….

………………………………………………………................................................

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chrismalcolmhnd1d · 5 years

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Who are You?

The Brief

Overview.

Without the use of words produce a series of connected images that visually illustrate who you are?

Create.

Exploring the work of other photographers and/or artists will help you develop a ‘visual story’ for your own work.

Give some thought to the things that are important to you. Everything you have ever done, the places you visit, the music you love, the stuff you keep, the memories and mementos carefully stored away are all part of what makes you unique. Consider how you might best illustrate who you are?

Produce.

1. Relevant research, planning and development of your work in your blog page.

2. One A3 ‘triptych’ portfolio quality print.

(The three images must include:

a. A self-portrait.

b. A place you’re connected to.

c. An object significant to you.

3. Three Individual full res 300ppi jpg files uploaded to My City.

4. An evaluation of the project in your blog page.

What is a Triptych in photography?

Modern photographic triptych

A photographic triptych is a common style used in modern commercial artwork. The photographs are usually arranged with a plain border between them. The work may consist of separate images that are variants on a theme, or may be one larger image split into three.

Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych

Research

Examples:

Alex Efimov “Three persons? Not sure” 2009

Source: https://www.artmajeur.com/en/e-gallery/artworks/3842743/triptych

I like this set up and treatment to portray 3 different sides of the one character.

Dimitri Mais

Source: https://www.dimitrimais.com/about-2

Could my Triptych show my self-portrait from behind and my 3 images? (including the self-portrait) as 3 images in a gallery space (which could be my special place?)

Concepts

Having researched other photographers work using Triptychs, I observe they often tell a story and when using self-portraits, use their images to convey their characters (inwardly and outwardly.) I like the concept of a single image spanning 3 panes with white between, which allows your mind to complete the picture in the unseen areas and when well executed (as in the picture used for the brief) can cover the portrait, place and object sections of the brief in a single, well composed image split into 3.

My concept is to incorporate my self-portrait into all 3 frames of the Triptych in an attempt to convey the 3 different roles I play on a daily basis The “Family Man” (centre frame with portrait shot from behind showing me looking at a photograph of my family (or objects that show I’m a father…Father’s Day gifts?), casually dressed – CENTRAL (and selfless represented by the back of my head shot focusing outwardly on my family) on to everything I do and matter most to me), “Business Man” (left hand frame in profile, looking to the right in an office/corporate environment, looking an object that typifies the business I work in - Still life of Sharpie, LX tape, open MacBook showing set visual? - dressed in business attire) and “Student” (right hand frame, in profile, looking to the left showing the College in the background, which would be the place that means a lot to me as it’s where I’m leaving the old businessman on the left frame to re-educate to be the photographer and new businessman on the right frame.

On reflection, some of the above concepts are fairly basic and possibly overly self-explanatory so I need to think of objects that more subtly hint at the message I’m trying to convey to the viewer and allow them to draw their own conclusions…

Treatment of 3 images:

I could maybe have the image on the left fade or become slightly out of focus to represent the fact that this part of my life is slipping into the past and have the image on the right-hand side coming into focus and sharpness to represent the future… How do I achieve this? Colours and tone of all 3 shots need to be sympathetic to each other, similar feel/family. Slow shutter speed on images left and right to show blurred action in the background and demonstrate fast paced action of both student and business?

Specific examples relating to the 3 stills I’m looking to shoot:

Possible type of shots for student portrait

Possible type of shots for business portrait

Possible type of shots for family portrait

“Old School” photo album from ‘70’s

Father’s Day gifts

Today’s shoot captured the “Place” aspect of the project

This is my home studio where I spend time writing and recording music. Usually for pleasure, but occasionally for video projects or live events I’ve worked on over the years. This is my creative place that means a lot to me.

These are my favourite 2 shots...

Contact sheet from this shoot:

Today I shot the “Stiil life” part of the project and the “Self portrait” shots. Below are the contact sheets from these sessions:

Individual shots chosen for first attempt:

I chose this one as I thought it would work better with the still life shot as it was sharper with the focus being on the mixing desk, rather than using the shallow depth of field shot I had previously chosen above.

I liked this shot as it encompassed the various aspects of my life in ID cards and a business credit card, with the lanyard encompassing everything, hopefully showing it’s importance in the shot.

This, quite subtle silhouette portrait, was chosen as I wanted to show myself working in my office to demonstrate the business part of my life.

Full Colour Triptych

I thought the 3 images would work together better if I made the outside 2 square.

Black & White Triptych

I wasn’t happy that the tonality of all three images worked together well, so I converted them all to black and white in Photoshop. This helps with the tonality, however, I think it’s probably a bit of a cop out so need to look at better ways of making the 3 images work together as a triptych.

Class and lecturer Feedback

The feedback I received from my class mates was comments like “They are a working man”, “Productive lifestyle”, “Workaholic - puts a lot of energy into their work”, “Hard working person, enjoys studying and is passionate” and other very similar comments. This feedback was really useful as it showed I had conveyed part of the message of “Who am I” but also highlighted that I had not conveyed the family part of my message and should look at using the full versions of some of the original shots, which show the other aspects of my character and life. I had constructive feedback from my lecturer too, which gave me ideas on how to improve the shots and hopefully make them “hang” together better as a triptych.

Second attempt at triptych shots

My initial feeling is that while these images MAY be ok individually (although I am no longer happy with the self portrait as I feel it’s too dark), by the time they are put together as a triptych, there is just WAY too much going on in them and no real flow to them. I need to have a re-think and maybe look at shooting 3 more images that work well together, tell the story, as per the brief and I am happy with creatively. A better self portrait could be the answer, so I will re-shoot that this week.

Final shoot for triptych

Contact Sheet:

I realised today, that the best way to make sure all 3 images worked together tonally well, was to shoot them in the same place. Although I was reasonably happy with the still life, it was out of place in the triptych so I decided to drop that shot (along with the very dark and not too obvious) self portrait. The only shot I was happy with was the “place” one, so today, as the natural light coming into my studio/office was really nice and golden due to the time of year and cast interesting shadows, I decided to shoot the portrait there, in the next section of the room and the final “object” shot in the last part of the room, as the sunlight moved and illuminated the different areas in interesting ways.

For the portrait, I selected a shot I thought would work well, used in portrait format, in the centre of the triptych. I think the shot is fairly enigmatic and works quite well with the effects created by the sunlight and shadows. I would have liked better catchlights, however, I think the fact they aren’t prominent lends an air of mystique and maybe even sadness to the portrait.

For the “still life”, I decided to show my object as my iMac, as this is where I spend a lot of time working on content for my events, studying photography and viewing pictures of my family over the years. I dropped in several shots on the monitor on the left to show family are a large part of my life, however, finding a shot that tonally worked and didn’t look really cheesy and posed was not possible so, unfortunately, I dropped that idea from my final triptych and used a shot I think still told a bit of the story but really worked much better to give the flow I was looking for (and the picture within a picture). I really like the shapes in this image and think it works quite well.

Final Triptych

Evaluation

My initial research didn’t really give me anything in particular I wanted to emulate or I thought would work particularly well, with the concept I was trying to portray. The first 3 images (apart from the “place” one), were a bit literal and “corporate” and that was the message I got from the feedback (rightly so). I am happier with my final 3 images as I think the flow together in this triptych much better than the previous 3 which I realised were not only quite detached from each other but also were WAY to busy to allow the viewers eyes to view as single images but more importantly, as one overall image that wasn’t confusing but hopefully interesting, balanced and intriguing. I think that I am so used to thinking in terms of individual images rather than how they would all work together as a series, I found this brief quite hard, however, I am happier with my final triptych and look forward to feedback.

Today I had feedback with my lecturer who suggested cropping the self portrait as a square as he thought this would work better and show more of a relationship between the centre and right images, I did this and think it helps and gives a better balance. Below is the square portrait edit and beneath that, my final revised triptych.

#whoareyou

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haveclotheswilltravel · 5 years

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This post is my honest review of our stay at Sandals Negril Beach Resort and Spa – a luxury, all-inclusive, adults-only resort in Jamaica.

Now all-inclusive, relaxing and beachside are words that are not normally used to describe the kind of vacations my husband and I embark on. We’re usually more of the scaling mountains, jumping out of airplanes, in need of at least 3 days of sleep after our vacation sort of people.

So… would you believe me if I told you the reason my husband and I got our first passport 10 years ago was to stay at a Sandals Resort in St. Lucia? Because it’s actually the truth! Our first international journey together was to St. Lucia to stay at the Sandals Regency La Toc with my husband’s coworkers (and our now good friends)!

Sandals in St. Lucia almost 10 years ago! (With blonde hair too, haha.)

When the opportunity to visit a Sandals Resort in Jamaica for a Press Trip* (a.k.a. FAM Trip) presented itself this fall – I was intrigued. (I’ll explain what the heck that means at the end of the post.) This is not only because Sandals Resorts kick-started my international traveling, but also because after the last 6 years of nearly nonstop traveling, my husband and I are frankly getting a little tired. The idea of enjoying a beach for a little while didn’t sound too bad at all!

So, I dug out my sun hat, ordered a new swimsuit and headed off to tropical Jamaica to check out Sandals Negril and also Sandals Montego Bay. For this post, I’m only focusing on Sandals Negril. (More on their Montego Bay Resort coming soon!)

Click here for current Sandals Negril rates.

Sandals Negril Key Features – What Exactly is Included in Your Stay

So, what are the features that are said to set Sandals Resorts above the rest? This is what you get when you book Sandals Negril.

Unlimited dining at 7 restaurants

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and anytime snacks

Unlimited Premium Liquor, Wine and Beer

5 bars, including swim-up bars

Stocked bars in every room

All tips, taxes and gratuities

Roundtrip airport transfers

PADI-Certified SCUBA diving (and all equipment)

Waterskiing

Snorkeling (and all equipment)

Hobie Cats, paddleboards, kayaks

Professional instruction for water sports

Beach volleyball, bocce ball, pool tables, and a fitness center

Day and night tennis

Live shows at night

Free WiFi (in room and all common areas)

Free weddings! (for stays of 3 nights or longer)

My Experience Stay at Sandals Negril

I’ll go into great detail about every aspect of this stay below. However, as my husband likes to say… “if you would rather just have the baby and not the labor pains” then scroll to the end of this post for my overall opinion of our stay at Sandals Negril.

Airport Arrival

After we made our way through customs in Montego Bay and grabbed our bag, we went over to the Sandals desk to see how our transfer worked.

We checked in with the people in charge of transfers and were then sent to a very nice lounge that had snacks and refreshments for us while we waited for the shuttle bus. (For the life of me, I can’t remember what they’re called but the rum-soaked, Twinkie-looking desserts they had were SO good.)

Then, our transfer was called and our bag was wheeled to the bus. Here is where I was a little annoyed, though. The person who transferred our bag was not actually a Sandals employee. Therefore, he wanted a tip for wheeling our bag from the airport to the shuttle bus.

I know that’s really not a big deal, but I was in the mindset of, “I don’t have to tip anybody for this trip! It’s all already paid for.” (Sandals has a no-tipping policy – it’s all included in your the price you pay for your vacation!) So, when one of my first interactions was with someone demanding a tip for wheeling a bag that I could have easily have wheeled myself, I was irritated. (I also was in need of a proper lunch – so, I was super hangry too!)

The transfer from the Montego Bay airport to Sandals Negril is supposed to take around 40 minutes. However, for some reason, traffic was REALLY bad that afternoon (around 2 pm), and it took us nearly 2 hours to get to the resort!

Which, that’s not Sandals’ fault! You can’t control the traffic. It was also not a bad drive. I enjoyed seeing how many goats I could spot. They were everywhere! Our bus driver called them “Jamaican reindeer.” Maybe it’s because I was sleep-deprived…but I found that super funny.

Checkin

Once we got to the resort, the check-in process was very nice! We were taken to a comfortable room and promptly given some sort of yummy rum cocktail while we waited to be escorted to our room. I also thought it was very nice because the gentleman who had brought us the cocktails was able to whip up a nonalcoholic cocktail for my husband in no time at all and didn’t bat an eye about him requesting one without any alcohol. (My husband doesn’t drink alcohol.)

Our Room – the Paradise Beachfront Walkout Club Level Room

This room was perfectly nice and comfortable. However, for me, its selling point was being right on top of the beach! Check out that view from our patio, below.

The view from our room’s patio!

I liked being super close to the beach. However, this also meant that there is quite a bit of foot traffic outside your patio door. Not that it was ever a problem for us, it’s just something to be aware of.

Here is a little tour of our room, below.

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I also liked that this room came with the option of room service. By the time we got to the resort I was beyond hangry and could hardly form words, I was getting so hungry! I also needed to get cleaned up for a welcome cocktail hour/dinner that evening. So, ordering room service was really convenient.

Sorry, I have no photos of the room service food as I inhaled it faster than you can blink – but I can promise you it was really good and took just over a half-hour to get to our room.

Restaurants

We were only at Sandals Negril for one night, so we didn’t get the chance to dine at every restaurant on the resort. However, I was very happy with the large selection of breakfast food at the morning buffet. I’m also REALLY picky about my coffee, but Sandals Negril did not disappoint in the coffee department and even gives you your own personal thermos of coffee for your breakfast table. (So, if you’re like me and drink an entire pot of coffee by yourself…you don’t have to go on in search of refills!)

Sandals Negril breakfast dining area

We had our cocktail hour at their beachside Piano Bar. It was really a nice atmosphere and watching the sunset over the ocean was breathtaking.

Did not adjust the color at all! The sunset here was unreal!

Private Beach Dinners

I didn’t actually have a private beach dinner. However, I could not stop photographing the ones that were set up! They looked so romantic. I loved that they had flower petals leading up to the table!

Dinner at Sundowner

Our dinner took place at Sundowner. This is a restaurant that offers some great Carribean dishes with a relaxed, but classy atmosphere. I had the chicken that night, which was quite good… but I really screwed up. Sundowner’s coffee-rubbed sirloin is some of the best steaks my husband and some of the other folks we were with had ever had! Be sure to try it when you eat here.

Because we were here on a press trip*, we were also lucky enough to dine in a small group with the resort’s general manager – David Latchimy! Honestly, I would come back to Sandals Negril simply for the fact that it is run by David. He is such a kind and intelligent person, and he truly cares about his employees. He answered all of our questions openly and honestly and was also genuinely interested in our lives. I should have asked to take a photo with him, but I always feel so weird about doing that! So, below is a video of David chatting about how awesome Sandals Negril is.

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The Staff

Given that we didn’t get to stay at the resort for too long, we didn’t get to know the staff as well here as we did at Sandals Montego Bay. However, I can say that the staff we interacted with all seemed very happy to be working here and they all went out of their way to make sure we were having a nice time!

A Look Inside the Honeymoon Beachfront Two Story One Bedroom Butler Villa Suite

I also had the opportunity to tour this fantastic butler villa suite at Sandals Negril! Check out how awesome the inside of this suite looks…

Final Verdict – Would I Stay at Sandals Negril Again?

Absolutely! I would love to get to experience this resort more…even if it’s just to try out one of those amazing-looking beachfront dinners!

Sandals Negril has a very relaxed and intimate feeling compared to the other resorts I’ve experienced. I can see how Sandals Negril is a great destination for a wedding because of this. (Our friends were actually married here too! They had a fantastic experience!)

The only thing I can think of that would be a negative for some people is that the beachfront rooms will have quite a bit of foot traffic near them – as they are literally right on top of the beach. We weren’t there during the busy season, we were here in October, so it wasn’t overly busy at this time and never bothered us. I can see how during the busy season, though, this might bother some people. Just worth noting!

Overall, though, I really enjoyed the staff, the food, the drinks and the atmosphere at Sandals Negril. I would go back in a heartbeat.

Click here for the Sandals Negril website.

*Press trip (a.k.a. FAM Trip) – these are trips where I do not pay for my stay. The resort or hotel where I am staying pays for my stay and expenses. I am never required to write a positive review about my experience, and for this press trip with Sandals, I wasn’t required to write anything at all! They just wanted Have Clothes, Will Travel to experience their resorts.

I am writing this review because I thought it would be helpful to my readers – Sandals does not compensate me for a positive review. I do believe this is a good place to go for an all-inclusive vacation! (If you need proof that I do indeed write negative reviews for trips like these that I do not enjoy, check out this post.)

However, I do make a small commission if you click my Sandals links in this post and make a purchase. I appreciate you supporting the businesses that make this blog possible!

My husband would go back too!

If anyone has any questions about Sandals Negril, please feel free to ask in the comments section at the end of this post! And I’m curious, has anyone else stayed at Sandals Negril? And if so, how did you enjoy your stay? Let me know in the comments!

Again, if you are thinking of purchasing a trip to Sandals Resorts – I appreciate you clicking my links before doing so. I make a small commission off any purchase made through my website. *Click here for the Sandals Negril website.

Travel Insurance

It’s a good idea, no matter where your adventure takes you, to have travel insurance. You never know what might happen! Whether you get sick before your trip and can’t go, or you become sick or injured while on your adventure – being covered with travel insurance is a must. Some credit card companies do provide this service (check with yours), or you can get a quote from companies such as RoamRight. Get a free quote by clicking here.

Visa Requirements

To check if your country requires a Visa for traveling to Jamaica, click here. (If you’re from the US – you do NOT need a visa.)

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Sandals Negril Beach Resort and Spa Review + Photos This post is my honest review of our stay at Sandals Negril Beach Resort and Spa - a luxury, all-inclusive, adults-only resort in Jamaica.

#all inclusive resort #Negril #resort #review #Sandals Negril

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