#A mistake is often something not consistent between drawings because… you know… it’s not intentional.

[thygoddessouijathicc]

People nowadays be like: “Nono you don’t understand this 4 year old’s drawing is cringy! It’s cringe! Yes I have to say something how dare this 4 year old be cringe!”

Like bro shut up, cry more.

[gregoftom]

sculder and mully a la s7 💚

full pic is here. it doesn't show anything per say, but it's a bit spicy. i have some headcanons regarding their relationship when it comes to the sexual which i'll put underneath the cut if anyone is interested - and will also explain any future art i draw.

so we all know mulder is a sweet, sensitive, gentle guy who gets taken advantage of endlessly because of this and his willingness to believe, right? and we all know he's been used and hurt by women in the past, particularly colleagues of his. so it would be no surprise that when he comes across a female colleague he actually really likes, not just attracted to, actually likes as a best friend, he wouldn't want to lose her.

but at the same time they're so intimate, so close, the tension between them is so tangible, that there's no way it can't evolve into something else or it would explode.

the term 'friends with benefits' would loosely describe them. but as mulder once said, they don't fit the conventional norms for a relationship. so i think they have been sexual with one another since s1 except for full penetrative sex. let me explain - the general (and often sexist) idea is that females become overly attached with a guy they sleep with, especially for the first time (and i have strong reason to believe that scully is a virgin and mulder ends up being her first time, but that's another story) but that's not the reason mulder is the one who refuses full on sex, he respects her too much for that.

it is he who would become attached.

and he wants to avoid his previous mistakes. because he loves and cares for scully a lot. it's complicated. they can relieve their urges and stresses and tensions between each other - and explain the damn jealousy, the gazing, the touches, the fact that people often mistake them for a couple etc, without the risk of a full romantic relationship. i mean ofc they're idiots because they clearly fall in love, but that was the intention. and it takes until s7 for them to finally take that leap and for mulder to let scully convince him to have full sex with her. imo it starts soon after she saves him from his brain surgery with csm because he acts very very very attached to her, like, first time sexual intercourse with her attached, and she acts very sexually confident, something very unusual for her. his confidence has also grown, but it has consistently throughout the whole season.

anyways. rant over! if you have anything else you wanna know or wanna discuss further, dm me! :D

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

[olivinesea]

Here but I’m Gone

a/n: I had a Hotch-thought about where that hand thing started and then I wrote something! It is a little bizarre and very imperfect but oh well. Only 1k words so it’s like a small snack. Implied abuse I suppose but nothing graphic.

The exact memory of his fingers being crushed had been lost. There had been yelling and crying and pain, most certainly pain, but unfortunately there were too many memories like that for those to be helpful markers. Had it been an accident? It was possible. The distinction between accident and intention blurred with each carefully recounted story. When he was very young, his mother made a game of it. “Tell me how it happened,” she’d prompt, except in this game none of the words meant what they should. Then she’d have him repeat after her, exactly how it did not happen. He would say it first for practice, then for consistency. If you played correctly, the repetition eventually made it true. The key to belief was the inversion of meaning. It wasn’t lying, only a message lost in translation.

He wasn’t sure if he had been leaving or returning, only that before he could make it all the way there, the door had been slammed shut. Though the events surrounding the moment are long gone, the image of his hand without fingertips is crisp. Unnaturally abbreviated and frozen, the clarity of that instant made it a touchstone in the uneven landscape of his childhood story. What he did remember in detail were the months that followed. The time spent watching his small, dented fingers swell and then darken, the nails turning black where he had been caught.

He can remember days later, the world spinning indifferently onward, forgetting himself and gripping a pencil full force. His hand dropped it immediately, insulted by the carelessness. He stared down at the uncooperative digits, then experimentally pressed down on a bruised nail. He had gasped at the sharp pain, quickly releasing the pressure. But then he did it again, a little longer this time. Again and again he repeated the test with each of his fingers. The three in the middle had sustained the majority of the force and produced the clearest pain. He imagined that pain as a needle, drawing all his focus to its point. Everything else faded out, not real enough to be a part of this revelation.

He discovered he could use this powerful focus to his advantage. When the tension at the dinner table crackled like an electric storm, he pressed his thumb against his injured middle fingernail and like a wish fulfilled, his mind slipped out of the present. Neither parent noticed, his wide, unfocused eyes trained down on his untouched plate. Their currents of anger snapped uselessly above his head, no longer a lone figure on a hill. Instead he sank into the controlled discomfort, an unusually docile cousin of the chaotic rage that permeated his home. He built a room inside that sensation. It was simple, austere maybe, white walls and white floors. It could be blinding but so much more preferable to the dull purpled-blues and black-reds of reality. He visited this place often: when the yelling downstairs became one sided, when staccato footsteps hunted in the hallway, when he couldn’t remember the correct answer to “What’s your problem?”

He thought he had always been nervous, though not inevitably so. In a different set of circumstances his sensitive reflexes would have made him a celebrated competitor. Instead he was a trapped animal, neurons rapidly firing information to brain, all desperately repeating the same instruction: run. Convinced he would listen to their overwhelming plea, his systems started doing the work of escape. His heart beat faster trying to pull him forward with its own momentum. His lungs dragged in as much air as possible but were never satisfied, each gasp trying to outdo the last. Every muscle strung so tightly he could hear the tendons singing. He didn’t move though. He pressed on a fingernail, outlining the nail bed with his thumb. It released the tension like a steam valve. Now he could be still, now he could do as he was told. Slowly the fingers healed, the damaged cuticle growing out into shadows like tired moons, disinterested in rising. The bruise black became algae brown became waxy yellow.

One day he made a mistake and knew the correction would not be easy to endure. Seeking to hideout in his stolen space, he applied a now-familiar gentle pressure only to have the entire fingernail pop off. He looked at his hand in horror, suddenly as foreign as first sight. Where a whole nail had once been was something small, thin, the pale pink of new skin. It was still a fingernail but only half the size it should be. He felt it gingerly and found there were deep grooves in the plate, no longer smooth and perfect. Recognizing an underlying truth exposed, he brushed it with his thumb again, memorizing the new topography. He was so caught up in the discovery that he didn’t flinch when a familiar crack echoed through the house.

He wondered if the other nails would fall off as well, revealing more of the gnarled creature he knew lay beneath. One did not, but one did. He was content with two out of three. The nails grew larger but never lost the ridges. He felt them frequently, assessing their shape, their progress. The months of seeking escape this way created a habit he was no longer in control of. Each time his anxiety rose, his fingers curled around themselves, seeking comfort in a finely cultivated sensation.

He managed to grow up whole and left as much of that house and those memories behind as he could. He didn’t have to hide in an imaginary room, only able to protect his mind, and that just barely. He was the one to fear now, but he did his best to not let that be the only truth about him. He didn’t realize he still rubbed his fingers instinctively when he was uncertain. No one would ever point this out to him. Everything else about him was so controlled that they noticed, they wondered how he didn’t notice. They won’t know how it started or how he would find a twisted humor in this lingering piece of a carefully excised childhood—that his secret comfort has become his only obvious sign of unease. They leave it be because everyone is allowed a little escape.

[mbti-notes]

My esfp brother has recently started saying racist things, talking about how white men have it worse in this country than anyone, etc. I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’m intp, so my instinct is to counter with a factual argument, but this is not an effective way to communicate. For one, he tends to see challenges or contradictions as personal hostility, even when they’re gently stated, and a debate usually ends up with him digging in, raising his voice, and resorting to statements (1)

[con’t: like “It’s just my opinion” or “You just hate me no matter what”. Secondly, he has a slippery relationship with facts and not a lot of philosophical integrity, so logical debate is pretty pointless; sources that confirm his argument are real and ones that don’t are Fake News, and he’ll also freely change his line even if it contradicts what he was arguing yesterday. For these reasons, our family doesn’t usually take the bait when he picks fights or says something outlandish (I think in our interactions, he’s motivated to be racist because he likes to provoke and knows it’s one of the few things he can say that will consistently get under my skin, and also because he thinks I look down on his alt-right friends (he’s right, though I’ve always tried to be diplomatic about why I find that worldview disagreeable). I don’t want to think my brother is a lost cause, and I don’t think he’s as invested in the ideology as some of his friends are at this point but I still don’t know what if anything I could do to get through to him. Any ideas?]

I often hear people say that they hope to have “a reasonable debate” about controversial issues, but then what they proceed to do is not debate but rather squabble, lecture, preach, proselytize, compete, or browbeat. You know that constructive debate (i.e. one that reaches a satisfying conclusion for both parties) can only happen under very specific conditions, including:

good faith: the willingness to give fair consideration to the opposing viewpoint as well as the willingness to allow fair critical examination of your own viewpoint

higher purpose: a commitment from both parties to seek out the truth and put it above personal ego and pride

critical reasoning: the ability to carefully construct and deconstruct arguments such that one can draw logically valid and sound conclusions

I’m not making any statement about you or your intentions. I think you’ve shown patience and restraint. I’m simply pointing out the fact that most people are not prepared to have a proper debate because they do not meet the conditions for being able to debate well. This matters in the sense that you should ask yourself whether it’s worth it for you to engage in debate with someone who is obviously not debating in good faith. This also matters in the sense that, if you are the person who isn’t able to engage in good faith, then you might be part of the problem in creating and continuing the conflict, despite whatever good intentions you possess.

I think many of us know someone who likes to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Perhaps they like the drama of provoking people. Perhaps they like the feeling of being “special” in going against the grain or belonging to an “underdog” tribe. Perhaps they hide behind victim mentality (i.e. claiming “persecution” of their beliefs) because they don’t want to feel responsible/guilty for their ignorance or complicity. If someone is irrationally motivated to hold on to their beliefs, they’re not open-minded, in fact, they might even “debate” you just to use you as an excuse to double and triple down on their beliefs. It would be nice if everyone in the world were rational and came to their beliefs rationally and listened to reason all the time, but humans are just not that simple.

People at low levels of ego development have a very difficult time admitting when they’re wrong, often due to misplaced pride. Also, Fs use their moral beliefs to define who they are, which adds an additional obstacle to changing their mind. ESFPs are not particularly serious people, and that can be an advantage because it means that they are mentally flexible in terms of easily getting bored with any one idea. If you are right that your brother is only “flirting” with these beliefs and doesn’t actually believe in them wholeheartedly, then you should be careful about pushing him the wrong way. You don’t want to push him into a position where he is: 1) too embarrassed/ashamed/guilty to admit to being wrong, and 2) too personally identified with these beliefs to change his mind.

Fs are often insecure about their intellectual abilities, so perhaps it is difficult for you to understand how they feel when they have to admit to being wrong - it is a vulnerability for them that serves to harm their self-esteem. Different types have different vulnerabilities, but most people don’t like feeling vulnerable and do what they can to avoid it. Therefore, if you want to change someone’s mind, do it in a way that lets them maintain a sense of dignity in their vulnerability. In other words, make it easier rather than more difficult for someone to change their mind by being sympathetic (e.g. by creating a “we all mistakes” social atmosphere) rather than indulging the desire to humiliate or punish them for their mistakes. 

If he’s just trying to provoke you to get your attention, then he’s not interested in debate, right? It’s a “game” that he plays with you, on repeat. ESFPs are mostly about having fun because they are easily bored, so perhaps this is his way to create some interesting drama between you, though it isn’t fun for you. If you take it too seriously, you push him into defending his beliefs, which has unintended consequences. Studies have shown that simply being asked to defend a belief for a few minutes leads people into identifying more strongly with it. Therefore, avoid putting him on the defensive too often, otherwise the beliefs get gradually subsumed into Fi, and then he really won’t budge.

Also, note that he may genuinely feel that he has it tougher as a guy, etc. Something that people often don’t understand is that inequality hurts everyone. It doesn’t hurt everyone equally, but it does hurt everyone in some way. For example, men also suffer from rigid gender expectations in that they are extremely limited in the ways they can express their identity. Maybe this is the point he’s trying but failing to make. If so, you’d do better to acknowledge the feeling itself while not agreeing with the subsequent conclusion/belief. Of course, you know that feelings do not equal fact, but he doesn’t, because FPs treat feelings as facts. You coming in to counter him with your facts doesn’t work because you’re ignoring that his beliefs don’t come from "fact” as you define it, rather, they come from his personal feelings. Instead of letting him bait you into conflict and invalidating his feelings, tell him that you respect his right to have his feelings/opinions, though you disagree. 

Explicitly establish that you agree to disagree, and you stop playing your role in this game of his. Show people that you understand why they have their beliefs (despite them being wrong), or let them know that you will continue to love them (despite disagreeing with what they stand for). Then they have little reason to feel defensive and hold even tighter to their beliefs. When people approach you with the attitude of “winning” or getting the upper hand (though you have nothing in particular to lose), you should NOT join in and try to get the upper hand over them, because this will make it harder for them to change their mind, since they will perceive it as being “defeated” and then feel “inferior”. Leave people their pride by remaining as neutral about them as possible, then they are more likely to calm down and be reasonable. 

Remember that Fs value relationships and, deep down, they often want nothing more than to be validated and loved. If they have psychological development issues, they may choose the wrong methods for seeking love and attention. In that case, it’s up to you to be the bigger person if possible and avoid playing their game of “bad attention is better than no attention”. He already knows your beliefs at this point, so there’s no need to debate him in circles over and over again. You can simply say that you disagree and leave it at that. If he suddenly shows the willingness and capacity to examine his beliefs, then by all means guide him. But, until then, don’t give him an excuse to engage in tribal mentality and fashion you into his enemy, especially when he’s already feeling “aggrieved”. Focus on the fact that he’s your brother and you care about him. Remember that “to err is human; to forgive, divine”. From there, your approach should be empathetic enough to create the space that is necessary for him to change his mind without losing too much face. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to admit that you can’t help people who don’t want help and/or you might not be the right person to help them at this time.

Yes, some beliefs are quite morally abhorrent and difficult to stomach. But the fact is that they exist out there. The point isn’t about eradicating them, it’s about trying to discover the best strategies for reducing the number of people who believe. One subject I came across in my studies was about people who had been politically radicalized and then later de-radicalized, e.g., incels, terrorists, white supremacists, etc. If you are interested, you might benefit from reading a book or watching a documentary about why people get radicalized so that you understand how it happens and how to avoid exacerbating the process.

[itsclydebitches]

I know you say that the Adam stuff in v3 was a good example of visual storytelling in rwby, do you think there is anything else, in your opinion

Yes! Let’s praise poor RWBY for once lol 

I’m sure there’s a lot that I could choose from but that would require me combing back through old content to jog those memories. So let’s stick to Volume 7. Overall, I quite enjoyed the JNOR vs. Neo fight. There are plot convenience issues (the stupidity of having the group carry the relic around instead of putting it in the vault) and choreography issues (I’ve heard a number of complaints about the slow-mo and how Jaune and Oscar don’t integrate well with Ren and Nora), but the fight does a good job of conveying a lot of information visually. It’s one of the few moments in the volume where I felt like RT was successfully a) using the medium to its advantage and b) achieving more than one thing in a single scene. 

Warning: Here be lots of screenshots. 

First, I want to acknowledge that lately RT has been demonstrating a talent for horror-esque writing. RWBY obviously isn’t in the horror genre, but via the Apathy we saw that RT can crank up the creep factor when they choose to. This scene does something similar (though admittedly much more subtly) and it starts with the opening shot of the destroyed guards. 

It’s a simple thing, but note how dark the room is, especially compared to the hallway outside. This is supposed to be a terrifying moment. The team has just arrived looking for Oscar and have instead found a disaster zone. There are scorch marks on the walls. The guards aren’t just lying powered down, they’ve been hacked to pieces. Though AIs without aura or souls, they’re designed to look like people and at first glance it definitely seems like we’ve got three bodies decorating the bedroom. Nora’s panicked cries tell us how bad the situation is, but we get that loud and clear from these visuals first. Also note how, despite being lighter, the hallway is dominated by a very deep red. I’d actually say to a certain extent this is a mistake - the pink/reds of the environment make it easy for Neo and Nora, with their predominantly pink costumes, to blend in too well during the fight - but in regards to color associations we get some nice shots throughout that convey danger and high emotions. 

When “Oscar” comes on the scene we know, instantaneously, that it’s not Oscar. Not just because we as the audience know that Neo is off doing something nefarious, but because via the language of film/television that’s not how you re-introduce an established character. You don’t hide their face like that unless you’re about to reveal something - like the fact that that’s not really them. This is also the first of a number of medium closeups on the relic, putting emphasis on it first because someone currently holds it who should not have it, and then as a means of reminding the viewer what this fight is about. 

Via some great attention to detail, we see again the clear wrongness about this “Oscar.” That’s not how Oscar stands. That’s not how Oscar smiles. More than just animating him differently, this shot pulls from those subtle horror tropes. He has the dead-eyed look of a doll or a supernatural being that immediately makes the viewer (if not Nora) go, “Wait...” It helps that Oscar is a short boy with dark hair. Put him in different clothes and he could play any number of possessed kids. 

With Neo’s deception revealed, we get what the fandom knows is not good visual storytelling. AKA, Oscar charging down the whole length of the hallway while Neo just stands there and lets herself get hit. I don’t need to re-hash how stupid that was. What I like a lot more is the subtleties in how she communicates given that, obviously, Neo can’t rely on any dialogue. Coming out of the hit she immediately has her umbrella leveled at the group and pulls out the blade to communicate, “Yes. I’m taking you on.” The neat choice though is that she brings the umbrella down to do it. She takes her weapon off the group, if only for a moment. Jaune has just gotten done insisting that she should give up because it’s four to one. The blade says, “I’m taking you on” but lowering her umbrella likewise says, “I’m so confident about taking you on I’ll even make myself vulnerable for a second.” 

Which retroactively makes her getting hit like that even stupider but it’s fine we’re moving on. 

During this time we also get a lot of insight into Oscar. Check out how utterly bedraggled he is, showing us how tough the initial fight with Neo was and how lucky he is to have escaped. He clutches the relic close to his chest and stares, scared, at the rest of the team. Oscar hasn’t reached a point yet where he instinctively draws his weapon and prepares to defend himself (indeed, he didn’t even have his weapon out during that initial encounter. That’s one hell of a rookie mistake). He’s still a terrified kid who hopes he won’t have to fight at all, literally hiding behind more powerful friends. This is all great characterization, the only problem is consistency. Nothing about Oscar has been consistent. One moment he’s holding his own against Lionheart and insisting he fight Hazel. The next he’s getting his ass kicked by Neo and cowering at the prospect of more. One moment he’s positively done in by these fights, horrified, scared, unsure of himself. The next he’s confronting the general of a kingdom with all the wisdom of Ozpin. This guy: 

and this guy: 

Exist about fifteen minutes apart. Because though RWBY is great at visual storytelling within each scene, they don’t keep it consistent from one scene to the next. Which is why Oscar is (accurately, imo) animated as an inexperienced kid in Scene #1 and then inexplicably becomes a wise old mentor in Scene #2. Not because anything occurred between Scene #1 and Scene #2 to create that change (let alone such an extreme change), but only because the show suddenly wanted Ironwood to look like an unhinged character. How do you achieve that? Not by having the guy he’s talking to act as winded, wild, and emotional as him, but by having Oscar speak calmly, rationally, softly, sounding oh-so-persuasive so you don’t listen to the actual words he says and how nonsensical they are (you’re as bad as Salem). Instead, you pay attention only to the visuals (Ironwood looks crazier than Oscar so he must be wrong). Ironwood is a great example of how RT sometimes tries to get visual storytelling to outweigh basic logic/what’s been said on screen. 

Anyway, I’m getting off track. The fight begins and I do still love how Oscar is depicted here, even if it doesn’t align with what we get later. The moment that umbrella and cane cross was great because who doesn’t love visual symmetry? Oscar grabbing Neo is wonderfully in character because he’s barely trained! He’s a kid! He’s flying by the seat of his pants and going with whatever vaguely successful act pops into his head. The absurdity of, “I’m just going to grab her” is tempered by Oscar’s furiously determined expression as well as Neo’s brief look of shock. It works up until they realize what Oscar grabbed was just a copy. 

I mentioned early that JNOR often doesn’t work well as a team, unless it’s specifically in the context of Jaune giving orders and the others executing them. Oscar and his lack of integration is obviously exempt from this, being the newbie both to fighting and this particular team’s dynamics, but Ren, Nora, and Jaune have no excuse. The first half of this fight is a good example of what I mean. We see Nora attack. She’s tossed aside. Then Ren attacks. He’s slammed into the wall. Oscar attacks (umbrella vs. cane) and it’s only at the last second that Jaune arrives with his shield to stave off a blow that would fell him too. Why is everyone taking turns here? They know none of them can beat Neo one-on-one and Jaune just said that their victory lies in it being four-to-one. So why separate out all the attacks? Arguably we can read this as a major flaw of JNOR’s and visual setup for something they’ll have to overcome later. In reality though I highly doubt this was deliberate on RT’s part, leaving this as bad visual storytelling (in that it makes the characters look stupid) as opposed to good visual storytelling (JNOR will realize this flaw and work to correct it). 

After Neo disappears we get a chase through the hallway that does a great job of showing us precisely how weaker Oscar is compared to his teammates. He doesn’t have their stamina, breathing heavily and falling further and further behind. At one point (screenshot #2) he arrives just in time to find the team turning back in the direction he’s just come, showing not only how he can’t physically keep up, but also his place in this team/the group. He’s literally not with them. Anyone who has followed my blog knows my thoughts on how the group has treated Oscar and if (again) I were inclined to think that RT was aware of that treatment and working to integrate it into the show with the intent to resolve it, this would be another great detail. As it is, I think Oscar as a character is just continually going to get the short end of the stick. In particular, the crane shot shows us exactly how far behind Oscar is. The others charge ahead without him, not caring where he is or if he can keep up. Which leads to this. 

Oscar rounds another corner and they’re gone. Nowhere to be seen. If anyone had the thought, “He’s not that far behind. It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be,” Ren, Nora, and Jaune were clearly moving fast enough to round another corner and leave Oscar stranded. Here those subtle horror elements come back into play, particularly the maze-like design of the corridors. The only unique marker we get is the info board, otherwise it’s all identical hallways, housing a killer, with Oscar now left alone in it. The long shot makes him look small and emphasizes his isolation. 

Then he’s attacked and it’s suitably scary. The hand over his mouth. The dark room again. We only get the briefest glimpse of Neo-as-Nora before she attacks, but that one second is another excellent moment of animation. Nora has never sauntered away like that. Even the quickest look in an action-driven scene is enough for the viewer to go, “Nope. Not Nora.” 

The attack itself is the one moment where I think the slow-mo serves a good purpose. We might know (via that quick shot, how characters act (Nora is unlikely to pull Oscar aside like that) and expectations for how a story functions) that that’s not Nora, but Oscar doesn’t know that. The slow-mo gives us - and him - the chance to focus on Neo’s eyes changing, that stomach-dropping moment of realization, and we see Oscar’s horrified shock in the close up on his own eyes. Though RWBY doesn’t always grapple with the emotional implications of every encounter, I think it’s worth noting that this can really mess someone up. Oscar thought he was safe with an ally and had the rug pulled out from under him. He will now forever have the image of Nora attacking him, regardless of the fact that it was really “Nora.” Jaune likewise exclaims in horrified surprise when “Nora” charges him down the hallway. The ability to turn into someone else is an advantage that Neo knows how to use to its fullest. Not just in regards to spying, but how to unsettle your opponent too. 

Waiting for the day she turns into Pyrrha ngl. 

We see that same work when she encounters Ren. Admittedly, I’m torn on this one. If only because I agree with others when they ask, “Doesn’t Ren spar with Nora all the time? He should be able to hit her.” The context of “Barely trained kid thought he was with a friend and then watches said ‘friend’ attack him” is not the same thing as, “Much more experienced fighter realizes the moment ‘Nora’ rounds the corner with an umbrella that that’s not her, has no doubt hit her numerous times in the past during training, yet for some reason can’t bring himself to hit her now.” It... doesn’t quite work. Here, I think RT does a good job of showing us Ren’s distress, it’s just that this is paired with a very bad job of establishing what that distress is and why it exists. This is what we needed to hear about during the party conversation. If Ren and Nora had actually talked rather than just kissing, we might have understood why Ren is suddenly incapacitated here when “Nora” looks at him sadly. 

As said though, the emotion of the scene is great even if we don’t quite know where it came from. Neo’s pitiful look, Ren freezing in shock (check out the red there too), his dumbfounded expression as he just sits in the middle of a battle, and when we come back to him we see the tear tracks. Overall, this scene does a great job of incorporating lots of information beyond “Team JNOR is fighting Neo for the relic.” We just need to connect that information better to what came before this scene (Ren) and what comes after (Oscar). 

Finally, Neo slams into the other guards and transforms again. I love this final shot of her, both for how she moves and the implications of the transformation itself. Meaning, Neo is a professional. She had a job and she did it. Once the relic was in her possession and she had an escape route, she took it. Neo doesn’t get distracted by taking revenge - these are some of the people we fought against when Roman died - or trying to take them out to please Cinder, or even just going after them because she’s Evil. Neo is focused, no unnecessary actions taken, and that, just as much as her semblance and skill, is what makes her dangerous. 

[nightwingshero]

Full bingo angst answers for Wren please! 💋💕

Thank you, baby!!! Kinda hitting it where it hurts today, huh?

TW: Mentions of self-harm, alcohol abuse, and child loss...just kinda...it’s angsty. Sorry guys. 

💙 What would your OCs last words be (or if they’ve died what were their last words)? What were their final moments like? How did they die?

Probably...man, knowing Wren, she’s gonna go down fighting and defending a loved one. She...Wren will use her Wrath to draw the attention to herself, even if she knew it was a battle she wouldn’t win--sacrificing herself to give the other person a chance. Her last words...would be deep and meaningful, something that would hit hard. She would either quote something with a deep meaning or something so pure from the heart...I could also see her saying “Free...I’m finally free.” Or maybe being excited to see her mom again. 

💧 What’s the worst pain your OC has ever been in? Mental or physical? What was the cause of this?

That’s a toss up between her father blaming her for her mother’s death/being mentally and emotionally abusive or the car accident and losing the baby. Both had Wren spiraling in very different ways, both still giving her nightmares to the point of insomnia some nights. Then also losing John later in life. It hits her hard to know that her life partner died sacrificing himself for their son, and that he’s just...gone. It’s hard for her to bounce back from it. 

🔷 Has your OC ever had to leave something behind or abandon something they didn’t want to? Have they ever had this happen to them? How has this effected them over the years?

There’s a locket, a gold locket with a tree on it, that her mother used to wear before she died. It was one of the things she held onto dearly after her mom died, because it was pretty much all she had. Her father got rid of most of Lily’s things, including the piano, and so Wren clung to it through her childhood, drawing strength from it. It “mysteriously” disappeared after her father found out about it, just a few days before she left for college. In turn, she stole her mother’s ashes to scatter them, but it still haunts Wren. It had a picture of the two of them together.

🔵 Has your OC lived through any particularly traumatic events? Does this event (or events) still effect them or have they tried to bury it? Is there a reason why this event is so traumatic for them?

JFC, where to even begin? Honestly, the cards are stacked against her in the worst way, I feel for her. The biggest ones would be abusive childhood, losing her mom, unhealthy relationship with college professor, the horrible car accident, the drinking problem that followed...Wren tries her best with it, truly. It still effects her, mostly through panic attacks (triggers) and her nightmares. She will fall into depressive episodes as well. Most of the time, she will bury it though, like, she’s guarded--if you’ve been through some shit, you could probably pick up on it, you know? But with anyone else, you can’t tell. She hides it well. 

❄️ What is (one of) their biggest regrets or biggest mistake they’ve made? Is there anything they can do to fix this or is it so far gone there’s no point anymore? Is this something they dwell on a lot?

Wren...Wren is on the path of learning what she can and can’t control, and it’s...going as well as it can, because she has such a control issue. She tries to tell herself to not dwell on the things she can’t control...but the thing with Wren is that she needs to feel in control. The biggest ones would be the college professor and the path she took after the car accident. Wren hates giving parts of herself for it to be taken for granted or advantage of. She also sees the alcoholic chapter in her life was a little too close to her father than she cares to admit. But well...you can’t fix the past. 

💦 Does your OC have any self destructive habits? Addictions? Urges? What is the cause of these or the reason for them?

Wren used to have a drinking problem, mostly because of an emotional thing versus having to have alcohol. She just used it as an outlet, but most of the time, it just lowered her walls and made her more emotional in a self-destructive manner--depressive, angry, and antagonizing. She would start fights, which is why she got in trouble and got her shit together. Wren internalizes too damn much, overthinking and jumping to conclusions based on her own observations because she’s not one to trust someone else’s intentions or words. While Wren isn’t judgmental, she’s very open minded and accepting--she can be quick to judge in cases where you’ve invoked her wrath. Did some shit when you were young? Who hasn’t, I still care and accept you. You just crossed and betrayed me? I’m going to make it my personal goal to make life hell for you-- She also has a tendency to use her wrath to push people away and then close off, hurting them both in the process. 

🌊 What is your OC like at their most depressive? In the middle of a breakdown? Having a panic attack? What are they like with dealing with anxiety and stress?

Wren during a panic attack starts with her not being able to formulate actual coherent sentences because her mind is going so damn fast, and her hands shake. Her muscles will stiffen, making her super tense and she shuts down mentally. Most of the time, she will curl up on the ground (in the corner of a room, etc) with her legs hugged to her chest, forehead against her knees. Mostly to hide her face and to make herself as small as possible and to provide herself some sort of comfort (sometimes she’ll grip her hair, too). If someone catches it (if they know what to even look for), they can intercept and help kinda deter it. But Wren internalizes, closes herself even more, buys a ton of whiskey or wine, and just sits with her dark feelings. They consume her easily, which is why she usually tries not to drink when she’s down, it makes it too easy to spiral. Wren handles stress the best she can, but she internalizes that too. Anything negative has a chance of coming out in the form of wrath, so she can be a bit...yeah.

☄️ Does your OC struggle with their emotions and trauma? Do they find it easier to open up to strangers or those close to them if at all? Do they tend to hide their pain from everyone?

Wren struggles hard. Like, she has a harder time coming to terms or understanding the why behind everything, and has a constant struggle with her desire to change what happened that her emotions and traumas don’t fully get resolved. She’s so desperate to be free of it, but there are times where she’s holding her own self prisoner for it due to guilt and heartbreak. She will never open up to strangers, she doesn’t trust people easily, you have to have earned your way close to her before she’s confiding in you. She hides her pain (or tries to) from everyone, including herself. You have to actively pursue Wren and be supportive consistently for that to spill from her mouth.  

📘 Write a sad journal entry, an unsent letter or short sad drabble. + bonus, give a theme!

A piece from Wren’s journal while going through therapy:

"I wish...it starts off normal, and it’s inconceivably misleading, but it draws me in anyway. Then...then its sneaking up on me, so before I know it, I’m in the deep-end, drowning in something dark and sticky, feeling as if it will become my second skin and suffocate me in the process. That’s when I start to hyperventilate, desperate and clawing to find the surface, but I can’t. I start crying, my chest constricting in panic. I turn...I turn and I see an open door, the inside is even blacker than what’s around me and I slowly start getting pulled back into it...and he just watches--laughing and taunting. I cry more, because there’s nothing else to do. Until the hand...it grabs me and yanks me back...I wake up then, screaming and panicking before the door slams shut. I take a shower once I wake up, because I can feel the hand, I feel the darkness on my skin. I don’t sleep most nights. Not anymore.”

🔹 Does your OC have any scars? What are the stories behind them? Do they have any mental scars? Talk about the effects of their trauma in general on their day to day life.

*Nervous Laughter* Scars....alright...so, Wren growing up would often resort to self-harm to cope, unfortunately. She avoided her wrists and opted for her inner thighs, aiming to hide the marks better. Once hitting college, she moved on from it, until the car accident. She started again once she spiraled, even using it a bit as she stopped drinking. It didn’t happen too often, just in major low points. She dropped it completely after she started going to therapy, learning to try and find healthier coping mechanisms. Wren’s traumas come out daily in the form of her having to be in control of herself and situation at all time. She’s the one driving, she makes her own choices, she sits on the outside in booths at diners and whatnot, having the option to leave when she wants. Wren hates feeling trapped and is super claustrophobic because her dad would lock her in the basement or her room for hours at a time. She buys a Jeep so she has the option to remove the top and the doors, everything in on her terms. You don’t touch her unless she wants you to, you don’t come visit her space unless she wants you to. Things like that. 

[lilmajorshawty]

Mercury In The Houses: Mental Space

Mercury In The First House: A rams Mind 

(Zella Day - Mustang Kids Feat. Baby E)

The mind is quick, but can be lacking in future thought. the tendency to think of the situation as it is rather than what it could become is very present. The idea of “now” rules the head space which can cause a few short comings when it comes to planning. The “gun ho” perspective they have on their environment and those they interact with can be limitless in its potential but slightly limited in its afterthought. The mind is often the first thing people notice about these natives, That can be their mischievous nature, alert eyes, or their tiny squinted features. Smaller facial features and or eyes can be indicated by this placement of mercury. Their is a crude and rather overtly blunt nature to these natives but its very genuine and simplistic in its meaning that makes these natives very honest people at heart. mercury here can create pixie like features.

Mercury In The Second House: The Stubborn Mind

(Nav - Know Me) 

The point A and B of matters is usually on their mind. very rarely will you catch them entertaining small chit chat as they prefer conversations with substance. They can have a melodic or rather pace by pace manner of speaking. The neck in some ways can be long or fragile. because of their easy link of sensory information and mental connectivity they are able to collect and store crucial facts and intel rather easily. That being said they’re a bit slower when It comes to learning and require a more hands on or physical manner of being taught as it means far more to their brains to have palpable information. They take time to make decisions and aren't the types to jump down the rabbit hole without “feeling” everything out first. Much like animals they can sense energy and vibes via smells, skin touch or even just their own hairs raising. The mind here is living off the 5 senses in such a way it creates its own 6th sense. These natives much like their Eighth house counterparts tend to love the lyrical aspects of rap, most can enjoy the sultry songs or something that embraces low sax and bass. for them the more sensual their realm the more of their mind they feel like sharing. make no mistake though, these natives are extremely independent minded and loathe anyone who doesn’t respect a stance they’ve chosen to take. It’s not so much a “my way or the high way” energy but rather a “you can feel that way, but don’t overstep”

Mercury In The Third House: The Scattered Mind 

(Jacques Greene - Unreleased; Night Service Feat. Cadence weapon)

Mercury is often elated to be here, but for the native with the placement it can feel like mental gymnastics as every brain cell plays the audience. The mind in more understood terms is multifaceted. It has as many heads as the hydra and as many layers and intricate colors as the stars in the sky. The curse is that as vast as the mind is, it lacks grounding here. These natives can often hear audio from seemingly nothingness. a certain type of premonition like wavelength inhabits their mind subtly. The high vibrational effect of this placement can cause shifts and sudden thought burst sometimes causing the native themselves to write off some of their more outlandish celestial call back as either being too good to be true or rather too crazy to follow. Reading the intentions and emotional states of others is easy for these natives, this makes them great performers and chameleons when It comes to playing a “role.” but the draw back is that figuring out their own thoughts and feelings is a constant and ongoing journey for these natives. They can compact and isolate feelings and sensations which can make their speech and mannerisms seem “distant” or far away in a sense to strangers and even to those who know them. The mind is immensely adaptable allowing them to devour information quickly and use it just as fast. keep in mind the third house is half of the ninth house so despite their fast mind they can sometimes only scratch the surface of topics never digging deeply enough to make use out of it. Mercury here can make the arms fragile and a bit on the smaller side. Bodybuilders with this placement tend to get rather lean arms as opposed to bulky ones unless another planet rest in this house. This placement tends to create individuals with escape rooms from aspects of their personality, especially the darker sides which is why they can seem like different people at different moments and sometimes all at once.

Mercury In The Fourth House: The Quiet Mind

(Drake - Light up) 

The mind here is rather sentimental at heart but can be rather overwhelmed with the psychic call back it receives from its surroundings. The tendency to become recluse or silent is mostly a response to the draining aspects of relating to others in a superficial environment. Mercury being so close to “home” makes these individuals crave authentic and deep relations with others. sometimes they can convey mountains of truths and pains in one symbolic phrase or sentence, while other moments they are unable to convey the deep intensity of their feelings into something as trivial as words. It can be quite suffocating and even heavy when these natives fall into one of their moods as being so heavily run by their heart they can often cause them to fly in-between moods, thoughts and feelings just as quickly. people around them can feel on edge or a bit unknowing when it comes to the feelings and desires of these natives due to how constantly they fluctuate. Outlets like music and poetry are very healthy ways for them to express the un-expressible. These natives on the onset can wear a rather aloof expression but the eyes themselves can seem sad or unavailable. these natives are keen readers of body movements and often learned from their parents in doing so. they tend to take sudden energy shifts, changes in tone or a emotional tension very seriously and cause them to instinctively act out in a defensive manner. Mercury here is self defensive as a means to protect the natives inner realm. these natives can fly between rational vs irrational constantly which causes them to on occasion lie about what it is they’ re feeling towards something even if there actions say otherwise. The manner of speech is moody and can sway between talkative to detached. the home life could’ve been busy and rapid. natives like this tend to have a highly talkative home life or at least on that was filled for better or worse with “communication.” the chest can be rather fragile or boney in both men or women unless another planet rest here. these natives can be far more talkative and scattered at home that they would out and about.

Mercury In The Fifth House: The Prideful Mind 

(Neon Indian - Slumlord & Slumlord Re-release) 

The mind here is in a constant groove. These natives tend to find a natural illuminance in their day to day lives no matter how hard things get. These natives tend to seek out stimulation even more so than most other mercury placements. in some ways they are searching for excitement whilst in others they are searching for the moment of inspiration and gull. to them life is one long tirade and if you can’t find a way to make amusement out of it, its a waste. they can be hard to read in many ways, because much like a lion their attention can shift and lapse quicker than you have time to blink. they crave acknowledgement and can easily grow bored the second they notice the tone in your voice is lacking in that delicious “oomf” they need. they’re very creative when it comes to hobbies and many with this placement adore books and quotes and often tend to pass on this mercurial nature to their children. They can draw the attention of rather brainy children and tend to debate with kids quite a bit. That being said romantically they can be either choosey or a wild card. they want to meet all forms of intimacy, but this “thought” can be fleeting especially if something more entertaining catches their eye, be it drama, art, children or a new fashion trend. so make sure if you’re fancying a mercury in the 5th you keep in mind how quickly the chase can turn into a solo jog. These natives can have beautiful backs as mercury creates a rather slow arch and increases the smallness of the ridges along the back. that being said the spine and back can be very fragile.

Mercury In The Sixth House: The Practical Mind

(TV Girl - Every stupid Actress)

This placement is what I like to call the sad gal/boy aesthetic placement. I’m kidding of course(please don’t take it seriously lmao) that being said this placement can produce a very somber and rather mentally pessimistic person. they tend to see the world in a far more untrusting and linear way then most, but can also feel the world in a way some of us could only dream of. the way they process information and navigate the world is physical in nature as they often need to experience the world, as if they’ve done it for the first time as some tourist from a far away land. The nerves tend to be bad here so often these natives tend to develop “time killers” or “nerve relaxers” be it reading, jogging, working out, smoking, drinking, sex or otherwise. they tend to place value in the consistent aspects of life and this can make them seem rather dull and dry to most people as they’re the few people who actually tend to place value in what lies there before them in proof rather than a feeling things might “be” as they want them to. These natives can seem like the bad boy or girl as many of them don’t actively support much of society or the norms people have in place. they conform and work in the silence but underneath that readily servicing mind they are in fact observing and yes, they are ranking, ordering and neatly filing everyone like files in a drawer. moody or dreamy types can piss them off as they live in a more fabricated/rose colored world than these natives do which often makes them rid the nonsense or take on a more aggressive attitude. the belly can be rather sensitive to foods and the natives themselves can be conscious about their tummy. they often have jobs that require a lot of movement or communication in some way. 

Mercury In The Seventh House: The Bicameral mind

(Empress Of - Everything to Me) 

The mind here is actually a two sided coin. on one end there is a talkative social butterfly, eagerly embracing thoughts and ideas of others but inadvertently remaining passive towards these ideas, never inputting their own thoughts. on the Other end we have a less talkative side, observing and speaking only in response, this time every response being a direct inner opinion and thought in response to what has been spoken. these natives can be a true half of halves due to their tendency to take a particular side or stance unknown to them. The challenge is figuring out which side you’re talking to as these natives can be immensely detached when it comes to more serious and tense testimony. they love interacting but can at times lack the tools to direct a conversation on their own. they tend to appreciate a certain level of calm and chance in their meetings with others and attract this same energy to them. they’re sweet and generous but have a perfect balance of knowing when to retreat or give space to others. they tend to need marriage partners who are just as much as a conversationalist as they are. in men this can mean an attraction to a more lean or skinnier partner whilst in women this can mean the same. the buttocks can be rather fragile or petite in its look. the pelvis region can on occasion have issues whilst sleeping as well. 

Mercury In The Eighth House: The Rhythmic Mind  

(Asap Rocky - A$AP Forever Remix Feat. Moby, T.I., Kid Cudi)

These natives are the epitome of the gambler. The type I'm referring to isn’t just the casino but rather it’s the fact that these natives take a certain level of excitement in pushing the limit. for them there isn’t a line, its merely a hurdle people fool themselves into creating as a form of limitation. These natives deeply believe in pursuing life and all of its aspect in every extreme. some who are disconnected with their eighth house eventually feel this placement as its something that grows in its intensity as the years go. these natives are where the “testing” comes from. many blame Scorpio for the trials and tribulations, when in reality these natives are the judge and the jury in that regard. they can read people, infact people are mini character studies for them. everything they learn from others is in some way etched into the character and melded to become a new trait, a new defense, a new tactic. they’re intimidating and in many ways far more than any Scorpio mercury due to how intense mercury swirls in the world of death, inheritance, loss, communion, and most of all the other side. they can often have a curious mind when it comes to the undead but often the spirits they attract can be mischievous, childish and irritating. in some ways spirits pose as children to lure in this native and often times these natives can have a certain level of darkness they flee from related to their own childhood. Mercury here makes people rather fearful but in a strange way trusting of telling these natives their darkest secrets. These natives can have rather petite or tight genitals. for them sex and intimacy is a meeting of the minds even more so than the body. they can be detached towards sex if a mental connection isn’t formed no matter how many “I love you’s” are said. the eyes can be deep, penetrating and ICE like a cool winter sky. they are not the types to let someone hold control over them in a conversation and will easily snake it in a way that suites them. 

Mercury In The Ninth House: The Loud Mind 

(Jacques Greene - Nordschleife) 

These natives are ambiguous in nature. the mind can be thinking a million and one different scenes and scenarios and in reality what is spoken can completely be a whole other concept in itself. Their mental aptitude is something to be commended as they can easily dance circles around anyone with their vast mental compacity. they have a keen sense of the world, the land, its ancestors, it’s lore and history as if they’ve lived it countless times. That being said in opposition to its third house sister, these natives can lack the small and more crucial baby steps or mental facts that are necessary to give the bigger ones a face. They are gracious and gluttonous when it comes to ideas and knowledge as they love to soak up everything. knowledge and perspectives are the fountain of youth for them as they often need those different views and concepts to further deepen their minds. although mercury is a bit estranged here, he still bubbles and gasses at the Hugeness of the ninth house. foreign travels are usually riddled with opportunities to “learn” and are often plentiful in compacity. These natives are very hard to catch and even harder to maintain as they often have their own set of beliefs that they will fight tooth and nail to convince you to see. they can have a bi-polar relation with religion and can either support or ignore it depending on which side wants to be present that day. University life is often stimulating as hell for these natives and provides them many opportunities for self expansion if properly used. the thighs tend to be petite and rather intricate in form. these natives usually have a rather “entertained” expression as if they’ve already given themselves all of the conversation before you even appeared.

Mercury In The Tenth House: The Heavy Mind

(Drake - 9) 

for These natives the mind can be rather intense. In many cases mercury being situated in a house it would normally share and in-conjunction with in theory can be a bit tense as they say. the mind is extremely disciplined here and often the manner of speech can be pressed or withholding as these natives often slip into moments of silence or intended distance. sometimes these natives do it for the masses while other times its because of the rather unfair critique they give themselves. they aren’t the types to act and many prefer to present themselves authentically which can make them seem like a cold, mercenary. in some ways they are the queens and kings of detaching emotions from intellectual situations but in moments when emotions are needed these natives can still  struggle to turn on the sensitive switch. The value work and ethic and place a high caliber to who and what they care to listen to as far as opinions go. they can do what must be done to rise to the top as they don’t have the same limitations others would from tearing down the competition. these natives have a rather fragile bone structure and can easily damage their body if they overextend themselves. They are well known through media and through their careers by being a communicator and someone who is competent in electronics, photography, and so on. the dream career could be one in the media in some way or even to a lesser extent acting(but for the most part anything in communications)

Mercury In The eleventh House: The colonized mind 

(Julian Casablanca's + The Voidz - Dare I Care)

Mercury in this house can produce some far out head spaces. These natives can live in a whole new parallel but at the same time you wouldn’t know unless you really got to know the native. they tend to enjoy the game of hide an seek when it comes to which persona they’ll show you. much like all the other air houses, the multiple faced persona is a big play on into how they express themselves. om one hand they revel in their uniqueness but on the other hand unlike Aquarius mercury they are not set on being above or beyond others, they simply want to connect, connect, connect until they have seen it all, every part of it. they can be geniuses, their minds and the way they think is both humbling and terrifying as these natives in most cases struggle following more common or relaxed means of relation. For them the real joy is the build up, the initial hum and drum of relating to someone you share nothing in common with. they tend to be broad minded and adore a multiverse of different personalities, archetypes, scenarios and settings. to them so long as it’ s different or new they are down for the time it takes to understand what they’ve gotten themselves into. strange and more isolated themes are fascinating to them as they often want to know the why and how of it. as far as dressing goes these natives are very unique, but naturally so. they just have this electric. sensational energy to them that makes everyone want to catch a whiff of their beat. Their friends tend to have Gemini placements or operate on a mercurial vibration. they can adore communities and groups and be involved in many. the ankles tend to be small and thin depending on what else rest in this house. 

Mercury In The Twelfth House: The vibrational Mind

(Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest)

Mercury in the twelfth house is a rather complex placement, more complex than any other placement. unlike its other water house sisters, mercury in the twelfth is about more than fluctuating thoughts, or intensity, rather its about the lack of. mercury here is quiet, mercury almost takes on this ghostly role. these natives suffer from what I like to call the silent miss syndrome- this is the act in which certain actions or feelings are felt and thought upon but acted out in passive aggressive and dismissive ways. these natives tend to avoid their emotions and thoughts which creates a separate means of dealing with both that makes these natives in concept difficult to read or even understand. they can express one thing and not just feel something else but do something else completely opposite of what either of their previous actions or thoughts had dictated. the mind here is cloudy and changing, but above all else it’s mute because its never consciously expressing anything. mercury in the 12th Houser's are expressing their feelings but rather as a frequency or a current rather than anything direct or visible to the naked eye. mercury in this house creates an energy in which what ever is internally felt by these natives is picked up by others and passed on into them, almost like an electrical current. it changes the moods of those around them in their  environment in a powerful way. Their sadness, happiness, anxiety, pain, rage, hate, content, tiredness, all of their inner feelings become voices in the environment causing an almost domino effect. this is one of the hardest placements for mercury and for most of their early years these natives can be rather introverted and have self- isolating tendencies due to how sensitive and vulnerable to others they truly are. they can feel everything, and anything almost like a psychic sponge. their dreams can be riddled with the being communicative or in a way far more hand capable than they might actually be in the real world. They are so beautiful and gentle spirits but for a long time until they learn to fly free of Neptune's waves there mercury will be held in a glass cage. 

[sundropscribbles]

Not Her | Ten x Reader | 5.4k

A brand new story for everyone, but mostly for @starflight4842!

You’re an absolute angel for being so patient with me, of course. Apologies are a common occurrence with me, obviously, but I hope this little drabble lives up to your expectations! Thank you. ✦

Things don’t go to plan.  

Not that it’s all that much of a surprise; things hardly ever went to plan when it came to your adventures with The Doctor. It was the opposite way around on most occasions, in fact, and on a normal day, you didn’t count that as a problem. You had quickly become accustomed to the idea that there would be an inevitable threat looming around every corner — you had been traveling with The Doctor for a couple of months, now, but that particular detail hadn’t taken you more than a couple of days onboard the TARDIS to figure out.  Today’s outing had gone especially awry, though, even by comparison to the thrills and chills that had become your every day life. 

The creatures that you had had the, er… pleasure of encountering today had been less than hospitable, putting it lightly.  The Doctor had been raving all morning long about this little planet he’d been planning a visit to, going off on tangents about the sights that you would see and the wonders you would behold there — all the usual. Apparently those wonders included a waterfall three-times the size of anything you’d have seen on Earth, at the heart of something that he had referred to as the Valle de la Luna. 

“Valley of the Moon,” he had translated for you, even though you had been fairly certain that you knew what the name meant. “Absolutely beautiful. Bit vague, though — there are 3,860 moons at this end of the universe alone. Should really’ve thought of that when they picked the name, since it’s only meant to be named for one of those moons. Xelraeria 34, to be exact.”

You, of course, had tuned out when he had started waffling on about the particular moon that the valley was named after. You didn’t think you could be blamed, not really — The Doctor was hard to keep up with, both physically and mentally, on the best of days, and you would be seeing everything that he had talked about shortly anyhow. Surely you weren’t missing much. And if you were, well — The Doctor would certainly be the first to let you know. 

You had traipsed on out of the TARDIS and into the open atmosphere of this planet (called Aarmis, apparently) expecting to be met with one of the many sights that The Doctor had talked about. To your surprise, it had been fairly barren to start — well. Not barren. It was greener than green, just the way The Doctor had described it, and the expanse of thick, green grass was speckled with what looked to be some breed of wildflower, similar to something that you might have found back on Earth. This scenery had been what stretched on for miles, and while it was utterly breathtaking, it was definitely lacking the gargantuan waterfalls and the Lagoons and the rocky cliffs that The Doctor had implied would be present. When you had voiced your confusion, however, he had informed you that the Valle de la Luna was quite a distance from where the TARDIS had initially landed.  You had supposed that that had made sense; there had been trails, after all, paths here and there and everywhere that appeared to spiderweb off in a number of different directions, and there had looked to be mountains — or something similar to mountains, at the very least — in the distance. 

There had been a stretch of walking from that point onward which had consumed roughly an hour, maybe and hour and a half’s time, and had consisted mostly of you asking questions about the planet’s history to distract yourself from the ache in your calves and the cramps in the soles of your feet. The Doctor had been answering those questions in as much detail as he could; in fact, he had just begun to explain the structure of the cliffs, the geology of the massive things and how they had come to be what they were, when your impromptu nature walk had been interrupted by a decently-sized group of the planet’s natives — or so you had thought. 

The Doctor had contradicted your first impressions near immediately, muttering to himself about how he had thought that Aarmis was still uninhabited; not because it was uninhabitable, but because it was what most beings in the universe referred to as a leisure planet. Like the national parks and day spas of the universe, he had told you once before, on one of your earliest adventures. 

Nonetheless, he had brushed off his surprise and proceeded to introduce himself to the group, just like he always did. And apparently, that had been his first mistake. 

The creatures had reacted to The Doctor’s friendly grin and forward greeting not by introducing themselves in return, but by scuttling backwards defensively and promptly drawing weapons that had looked a bit like blasters. You had recoiled on instinct, but The Doctor had been persistent in gaining the creatures’ trust.

“Oi, c’mon now, boys. No need for any of that,” he had said, and had then proceeded to  reach into his suit pocket (for his psychic paper, more than likely) — his second mistake.  These beings were especially tetchy, evidently, because they had jumped to the conclusion that The Doctor was reaching for a weapon of his own, and hadn’t hesitated a second before jumping on the offensive and subduing the two of you. 

  You had yelped and squirmed as two or three of the aliens had restrained you, twisting one of your arms and then the other behind your back and rendering you incapable of using them at all. They had been humanoid, definitely, but they looked to be made of rock, which — obviously — meant that being gentle wasn’t exactly in their nature. They had struck the backs of your knees, too, which had effectively forced you into a kneeling position in the dirt. 

“Doctor?” you had squeaked, confused and afraid as the scene had unfolded. He had looked to be in a predicament similar to your own, but his gaze had been as reassuring as ever as he had looked over the shoulders of his own crowd of hostile aliens to meet your eyes, so you had tried not to be too concerned. The creatures were intent on making certain that he wouldn’t pose any threat to them, right?  Maybe they would cool off once they realized that you were only here for a vacation, just like everyone else. 

The scuffle had gone on, and to your dismay, had seemed to get worse the more that The Doctor attempted to explain your side of things. One of the creatures had cut him off mid-explanation to say — or to roar, more like — that Aarmis was the property of the Klojfio, and that there were no tourists here; only the Klojfio and the quarry. It was certainly out of line with everything that he had told you about this world, and to make matters worse, the Klojfio didn’t seem to be a race whom he was familiar with in the least. Even in your very limited experience, it was never a good sign when The Doctor wasn’t immediately familiar with his surroundings.

Your mind had begun to reel from that point onward, wrapping question over question and weaving a nauseating panic into the mix as you had knelt there, with gravel cutting into your knees and a blaster just a few inches from the back of your head. In your defense, you were still fairly new to all of this. You knew a fair bit about ducking and running from one alien species or another, and a bit more about smiling and laughing and playing along with the charades that The Doctor so often used to talk the two of you out of harm’s way, because they usually went over a bit better than this. Much better than this. 

This was the first and only time that you could recall that things had spiraled out of control so quickly, and it had terrified you. It wasn’t too often that The Doctor wasn’t able to sway things in his favor near immediately, and you’d had trouble seeing a way out of the frightening situation. 

It’d all worked out in the end, of course.  As it happened, The Doctor was much more familiar with this kind of situation than you were, which, really — you definitely should have expected. He had been able to formulate an escape plan within moments of your capture, and had made a noise under his breath to draw your attention not two minutes after the creatures had drug you to your feet, growling something about bringing you back to their base for “a proper feast” (which you suspected didn’t have anything to do with feeding you). 

The Klojfio hadn’t bound his arms behind his back the way they had yours, and unfortunately for them, he had been able to tuck a discreet hand into his pocket to retrieve his sonic screwdriver.  As soon as he had your attention he waggled the device in between his fingers and nodded to his left, toward one of the blasters being used to subdue the two of you.  You hadn’t understood immediately, not until he had mouthed a single word to you: “disable”. 

It had hit you, then, what he was going to do, and you had nodded your head frantically, immediately onboard.  These aliens were large and angry-looking, sure, but that was about all they had going for them as intimidation went.  They were made of rock and considerably strong, yeah, but they didn’t seem to have fangs or claws or anything else that could pose a threat to you once you were an arm’s length away. The assumption was that they wouldn’t be overly threatening without the use of their weapons, and all you had been able to do in the moment was hope that that assumption was correct. 

It had been, to an extent. You had heard the quiet buzz of the sonic screwdriver, first, and then a chorus of hollow clicks from the Klojfio’s blasters.  They had all been momentarily startled and distracted by the sound, and you and The Doctor had seized the opportunity to duck out of the creatures’ slackened grip and take off running back the way you had come. 

“Terribly sorry to ruin dinner, fellas, but I’m not much feeling up to being boiled and fed to the masses,” he had shouted as you had run, and you had smiled, because there it was. The clever, cunning snark. The quick wits. “Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt up to that!” 

The initial rush of adrenaline and your amusement had kept you running, keeping pace with The Doctor nicely, but the relief that you had felt upon escaping hadn’t lasted long.  You had gotten away, yeah, but you were still miles from the TARDIS with little to nothing in the way of places to take cover.  It was a matter of time before the Klojfio caught up to you, wasn’t it?  You had said as much to The Doctor, but he had reassured you that there was no need to worry; the TARDIS had a homing device, apparently, and when given the signal she could find him no matter where he was in the universe. 

He had gotten on with giving that signal as he had explained it to you, pointing his sonic into midair and hitting the button a few times in quick succession. 

“She’ll find us,” he had said as he had tucked the screwdriver back into the pocket of his coat and kept on, never for a second looking unsure of himself. What had followed had been a few more minutes of running with the Klojfio hot on your heels (for creatures made of stone they were quick, damn it), and desperately hoping that the TARDIS would meet you in the middle soon. 

You had just begun to feel like you might make it out of Aarmis alive when things had taken another nasty turn; a nasty turn in the form of a rogue patch of grass, dead in the middle of the path you’d been following. The Doctor had managed to dodge it, but you hadn’t seen it in time, and it had caught the toe of your shoe and sent you tumbling through the dirt. 

The fall itself had been enough to shake your focus, but your misfortune hadn’t stopped there. To top it off, one of the Klojfio had gotten its blaster working again, and the next thing you had felt was a horrible shock of pain, radiating from your right shoulder outward.  A part of you knew that you had been hit, hard, and that putting additional stress on your body by running probably wasn’t the best thing to do in the moment, but you didn’t let it stop you.

It would have been worse, after all, if you had allowed yourself to be captured by the hostile creatures determined to make a meal of you, and so you had scrambled to your feet and taken off running once more.  Trouble was, your fall had disoriented you enough that you had bolted down the wrong path — not that it was any more dangerous than the original. It may not have been much different from the trail you had followed into Aarmis, but it had definitely taken you in a completely different direction than The Doctor. 

You had heard him call out your name as you had run, but by that time you were well off the beaten path, and the fear and adrenaline burning beneath your skin wouldn’t have allowed you to turn back if you’d wanted to. You were vaguely aware of the heavy footsteps chasing after you — the Klojfio — so you had kept on, running and running until you were sure your lungs would burst and your legs would buckle from beneath you, until — a tree. 

A patch of trees, actually, just off the trail.  

Your first instinct had been to veer toward them, and you had followed it, tearing through the tall green grass with one palm pressed to your wounded shoulder.  Could the Klojfio climb trees? Would they simply shoot you down from your perch if you climbed up into one of the trees?  You couldn’t say for sure.  There was nothing certain about this mess you were in, and you hadn’t climbed a tree since primary school, but you had gathered every ounce of your strength and leapt up to grasp at a low branch, anyways. 

The tree you had chosen hadn’t offered much for climbing, in the end. You had been able to scale the trunk one, maybe two branches higher from the ground before there had been nothing else that you could reach, and you were effectively trapped.  Your assumption that the creatures wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you out of the tree had been correct, too, because it wasn’t another moment before they were firing freely, aiming their blasters and shooting into the leaves that only barely concealed you.  Round after round grazed you, close enough that you felt them whiz by, but you had managed to avoid them (thank god for that— the wound you were harboring from the first one was beginning to sting like nobody’s business, and you couldn’t say you were keen on the idea of having any more of them to tend to).  

Another few shots from the Klojfio’s blasters had caused you to shuffle where you’d stood, and you had nearly lost your balance more than a few times.  The next blast had done it — one of the creatures had damn good aim, apparently, because it had landed a shot right at your feet, and your attempt to protect yourself from the fire had sent you sliding and flailing as your feet went out from under you.  You had hit the ground fairly hard and twisted one of your ankles in the process, which had been evident the moment that you had tried to pick yourself up and take off running again. 

With your feet having gone uselessly out from beneath you a second time and the angry, stone creatures advancing on you, you had made a half-hearted attempt to shield your face — as though that would somehow protect you against the aliens’ hungry rage — and braced yourself.  You had just begun coming to terms with the fact that you were well and truly doomed when the familiar, rumbling grind of the TARDIS’s engine had come thundering onto the scene, effectively startling the Klojfio long enough that there was a window of opportunity for you to make an escape. Or, well — for The Doctor to come hurrying out of the TARDIS and scoop you up into his arms. 

“Yeh, sorry, you’re not getting her either. Not today,” he had grumbled, more to himself than anyone else as he had hurried back toward the TARDIS once more, giving a quick snap of his fingers to close the doors hard and fast behind the pair of you as soon as you were inside. 

You had barely had time to process what had just happened — let alone the fact that he was holding you, carrying you through the console room — before he was scolding you. Well, no, not exactly scolding you so much as expressing his concern… passionately. 

“Blimey, Y/N, you had me scared stiff!” he’d admonished you, but had given you a little squeeze, just a ghost of a thing, before he had laid you down lengthwise across the bench beside the console — where you were now.  “Don’t run off — that’s rule number one, you know that!” 

The Klojfio were persistent, still, pounding and clawing at the doors of the TARDIS, so The Doctor had taken pause in caring for you and run to the console, rushing about hitting this button and that to get you away from Aarmis.  You weren’t sure where you would wind up, exactly, and if you were being quite honest, you didn’t think that he knew either. It didn’t matter, though; what mattered was that you were both out of the way of immediate danger.  Even if you wound up smack in the middle of space somewhere, not a planet or moon or an asteroid in sight, it would be better than where you had just come from. 

He returned to your side, eventually, once the clawing and the pounding had ceased and the TARDIS’s engines had settled, and crouched down beside you to have a look, first thing, at the damage to your ankle.

“You know, in my defense, I was being — ouch — chased,” you argue, hissing mid-sentence as he prodded at your injured ankle with long, cool fingers, rotating it from one side to the other.  He scoffs at that, clearly doing his best for a good few moments to remain annoyed with you. It doesn’t hold very long, though, and his smile betrays him, eventually, as he spares you a quick glance before returning his attention to your ankle. 

“Alright, so it wasn’t entirely your fault,” he admits begrudgingly, leaning back a bit and shrugging out of his long coat in favor of balling it up and lodging it beneath your ankle as a makeshift pillow. You smile at that, making your best effort to ignore the flutter in your chest as he turns his focus on your wounded shoulder. 

You hadn’t really taken the time to look at it in the heat of things, but you can’t very well help stealing a look as The Doctor very gently moves the sleeve of your top aside, taking care to remove any of the burnt bits from the worst of the wound.  It did, in fact, look more like a burn than anything else, which was both a blessing and a curse. It didn’t seem that there were any bullets for you to worry about removing, but it was painful - extremely painful, as burns tended to be. 

You bit back a whimper as he went about exposing the wound to the open air, and he winced along with you as he ran one careful fingertip along the angry red edge of it.  

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, shaking his head a bit. “So sorry.  Your ankle is definitely just sprained, but this is a nasty burn.  Bloody pulse phasers.  Don’t worry, though, we’ll get you patched up.” 

Before you have the chance to respond he disappears from beside you, hurrying into another room to collect some first aide supplies (or so you hoped, anyways).  You take the moment of alone time to allow yourself a full-fledged reaction to your condition, which comes in the form of a loud groan, muffled against the crook of one elbow.  Your frustration is directed not only at the pain of your injuries, but at the embarrassment, too.  You had really, really thought that you were getting better at all of this, but here you were, battered and bruised and unable to care for yourself.  How were you ever going to prove that you were worthy of traveling with The Doctor if you couldn’t keep yourself out of these kinds of situations? 

“Oh, come now, it’s not that bad, is it?” you hear him tease, and you fluster, cheeks reddening as you look up just in time to catch him sauntering back into the room with an armful of supplies — some of which you were familiar with, some not so much. 

“It is,” you mumble, still quite irritated with yourself. You can’t help but smile as he laughs, though — that bright, lively laughter has never failed to make you smile since the day you’d met him, and today is no exception.  He proceeds to kneel by your side once again, dumping his gathered supplies on the floor beside him and sweeping his unruly hair out of his face as he reaches and positions your arm so that he can tend to your shoulder properly. 

He’s as gentle as ever as he goes about cleaning up the bits of your skin that’d been burned by the blaster (or phaser, as he’d referred to it), but it still hurts like mad — not even his murmured apologies put a stop to the pain, so you busy yourself watching his expression as he works. 

It’s not the wisest decision, you know; especially not in your current predicament.  Watching The Doctor work for any length of time inevitably led to an embarrassing infatuation, to butterflies in your stomach and rushes of affection that clouded your judgement… all things that you had been trying like mad to stave off for weeks now. It was a bit difficult, though, when he was in such close proximity — and caring for you nonetheless.  His brown eyes are intense as he concentrates on his task which, now, has gone from cleaning up your wound to applying some sort of a balm (a numbing agent, it seemed), to a larger area of your arm than was probably necessary. 

You’ve just begun to allow yourself to enjoy the gentle way he’s touching you, to believe that maybe, maybe you could mention the way you felt about him without it taking a violent turn toward disastrous, when he speaks up and promptly proves you wrong. 

“Don’t dwell on it too much,” he says, and you blink yourself out of your stupor, tilting your head as he meets your eyes. “You’re still quite new to all of this, after all.  Something similar happened with Rose a long, long time ago.  Only it was about a hundred times worse, and we wound up trapped, hiding out in this cave — a cave, Y/N. Musty air, drippy icicles hanging from the ceiling — the whole lot.”  

The story doesn’t stop there.  He goes on detailing the experience that he had had with Rose, on another planet, in another time, and whatever hope you had been feeling fizzles out. The color drains from your face, as it so often does, and you sit there in silence, humming acknowledgments every now and then as he talks animatedly about the cave, and the snowstorm, and the glacial aliens that had wanted to crown Rose the leader of their species.  

This wasn’t the first time you’d had your hopes crushed, of course, but that doesn’t mean that it stings any less when he looks you in the eye, one hand holding yours steady while the other goes about nimbly placing a bandage upon your shoulder, and talks animatedly about his previous companion.  It had never been quite clear to you whether she had been his companion or his girlfriend, though, and it was times like this that you began to think that it was definitely, definitely the latter. 

It’s quite some time before you really tune back in to what he’s saying. You could offhandedly acknowledge his stories about Rose for days. You had gotten used to it, because a good majority of the time you couldn’t bring yourself to actively listen to them. Not really.  You brush off your own indifference to all of it, and think with a humorless smirk that maybe you would be better at all of this if you did listen to The Doctor’s stories. Took note of them, memorized them, tried to be more like the incredible girl he seemed to miss so much. 

“—but she was clever. So clever,” he concludes his tale, at the same time he finishes wrapping your arm with something that looks similar to gauze. It’s not gauze, though, because gauze isn’t wet, and it doesn’t adhere to your skin the way this bandaging seems to. You refocus your attention on his face once he’s gone quiet, and there’s a twinge of guilt in your heart as you realize that there’s a hint of sorrow, there, a darkness in his expression that betrays the smile he’s wearing.  You sigh, soft and resigned, and put on a smile of your own as you watch him check his work. 

“It bloody well sounds like it,” you agree, despite the fact that you had only caught maybe a quarter of what he had been talking about.  The glint of happiness in his tired eyes at your agreement is worth it, though, and in the next second he’s getting to his feet.  

You think for a split second that he’s about to walk away and leave you be, so you close your eyes and begin trying to get comfortable where you are.  The console room isn’t the most ideal resting spot, with its flashing lights and its humming and thrumming, but it’ll do — you’re not about to try and get to your bedroom with your ankle throbbing like it is, after all, and the day’s ordeal has left you knackered to your bones anyhow. 

Your effort doesn’t go very far, though, because in the next second The Doctor has scooped you up into his arms once again. You cling to him with a surprised yelp, all fluttering eyelashes and flushed cheeks once again as he cradles you against his chest and proceeds to carry you on down the hallway and into your room. Your cheek is pressed firmly to his shoulder as he walks, and you can’t help but notice the scent that clings to the fabric of his suit.  It’s not something you can describe, not exactly, but if you had to put words to it you would say that it smells like thousand-year old cologne and moon-dust. It’s obscenely distracting. 

“That old bench is no place for a good nap, Y/N,” he jokes. His voice is soft as he settles you down onto your bed, and it snaps you out of your preoccupied state in an instant.  You think you feel his thumb brush across your cheek as he straightens up, but you’re not sure whether you’ve imagined it or not, because the feeling of his arms around you has gone and scrambled your brain all over again.  You mentally kick yourself for it, reminding your flighty heart repeatedly that there’s no point in it — none. He was the object of your affections, the unfortunate focus of your primary-school crush, but he didn’t return those feelings. That was that. No blurred lines, no questions asked. 

“You get some rest, now,” you hear him say. “Gotta have you back at the top of your game for our next trip — it’ll be much, much safer, I promise. Well. Maybe not safer, not exactly — I’m not sure I can ever reasonably promise that. But it will be more fun. I can always promise fun.” 

You bite back a bit of laughter at his rambling. It’s typical of him, definitely, but more than that it sounds eerily similar to one of his half-apologies (which was another of the quirks that you had become closely acquainted with over the past few months). Thinking on that, you want to reassure him that none of what had happened on Aarmis had been his fault; he hadn’t known, after all, that there would be hostile, stoney-faced aliens waiting for you outside of the TARDIS doors. How could he have?  You keep it to yourself, though, well aware that The Doctor isn’t exactly fond of facing feelings of any sort head-on.  

“We’ll try to keep it a bit more novice next time around,” he quips as he turns to go, “Bit less climbing trees and running for our lives.  The caves and the icey fellows of the universe can always come later, after all.” 

And that — that stings. 

It was one thing to listen to him talk about her so consistently; that much was tolerable, at the very least. You would be the first to admit that it would always be hard not to take all of his talk about his beloved Rose to heart, especially considering the way that you felt about him, but it was tolerable. You could ignore it when and where you had to, and as they were, the stories weren’t actually hurtful, no matter how impossible they may have felt to live up to sometimes.  To hear him compare you to her so directly, though, and to have him outright call you a novice, of all things (even if it was true), was a bit… low.  It felt very low, and dirty — like an unbelievably cheap shot. And it left a sour taste in your mouth. 

The hopeful side of your brain (predictably) piped up near immediately with a feeble attempt to convince you that he didn’t mean it like it had sounded, but the other side, the logical side, was there to snuff that out in the next instant. How many other ways were there for him to have meant what he’d said, after all?  Sure, maybe his intention hadn’t been to hurt you with his words, but that didn’t change the way that they had landed, not in the least, and no matter how hard you try to avoid it, it all leaves you feeling very… second-rate. 

Before you really come back to yourself, The Doctor turns and ambles out of your room. He makes another offhanded comment about your next maybe-adventure, the next planet you might or might not be visiting once you were up and moving again, but you don’t hear it. You dismiss it entirely, in fact, as you roll onto your side with a huff and a groan, and fight to ignore the sting of angry tears in your eyes. You squeeze your eyes shut stubbornly as you turn your back to the bedroom door, and you vehemently ignore the sound of The Doctor’s distracted pacing as it echoes from the console room. 

As you lie there, you do your damndest to beat it into your brain that this won’t get to you; it won’t, damn it, you won’t let it.  It’s useless in the end, though, even despite all of your determination. Because in the end, you still find yourself lying there with a sprained ankle, a nasty burn, and wet eyes, wondering all the while if you were ever going to be anything to him. A friend, a companion, a partner in crime, a lover, a fling —  anything other than not her.  And when all was said and done, if someone had asked you to make an educated guess? You seriously doubted it.  

[so-shiny-so-chrome]

Witness: Donda

Creator name (AO3): Donda

Creator name (Tumblr): thatonezombiecosplayer

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donda

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: I kind of just tend to find one thing I like, and latch onto it with a deathgrip, though there's not really one specific reason I latched onto Mad Max. The only post-apocalyptic thing I had any interest in prior to Fury Road was a comic called Romantically Apocalyptic, but I wouldn't have called myself a die-hard fan of the genre. I think it was just that Fury Road was such a fantastic movie in so many ways that it really caught my attention, and then when I got involved in the fandom, I found it to be all around a really really great group of people, and they were talking about such interesting things, and I just fell in love and decided this was my fandom home! Since then, I've made some really good friends through this fandom and gotten involved in Wasteland Weekend because of it, so this fandom will always remain near and dear to me.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: I really like to take this dark, gritty world, and make it kind of light and fun, honestly. Or at least as much as one can without completely detracting from the reality of the state of the world. I've written a couple of darker or more serious fics, but my favorite things to write involve putting a touch of magic or an interesting little twist into the world, and handling the sillier side of things.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: I think I had equal amounts of fun writing my Pocket Sized and Corvus Cormax, because they were just light and silly and kind of intriguing situations for me. I also really really enjoyed writing No Going Back, even though it was on the more serious side of things for me. The prompt just grabbed my imagination, and I was really inspired to write from start to finish. For most difficult, I'll have to go with Consonance, because I am presently stuck on it and have been for months and if you were reading and enjoying that one, I am so so sorry. D: Convalescence got the most hits and kudos overall, but I think that was mostly just because it was posted very early in the Fury Road fandom. Just based on response, I'd say Corvus Cormax was my most popular/successful, and was also my favorite overall.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?

A: Hopeful with a bit of humor and sometimes a little wasteland magic. I'm into escapism first and foremost, so the least like our own world I can make things, the more enjoyable.

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: The idea itself usually sparks scenes in my head, and I build around those. Sometimes I'll be writing along and think of something I'd like to happen down the line, or a scene will just start playing through my head, so I'll go write that, and connect the pieces later. Which can sort of cause problems, because when I go writing all the good bits first, filling in the bits in between that are less interesting can get tedious. When I hit a patch that just leaves me completely stuck, most often running the fic by someone else and bouncing ideas around with them helps me tremendously. I tend to like to write from the comfort of my room where there aren't a lot of distractions, but sometimes I'll write on my phone if I'm away from my computer and bored or inspired.

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Honestly I basically always listen to my entire music library on random. It's super eclectic, but I'm so familiar with all my songs that it's basically just background noise. Very occasionally I will skip a song that's not suiting the mood of what I'm writing, but mostly anything goes.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Getting stuck sucks so much and is my most common problem, because sometimes I feel like I have just exhausted all ideas and there's nowhere to go. Bouncing ideas off of other people always helps, but often I avoid that either because I don't want to bother people, or because I'm super protective of my works until I consider them done. I don't know, I just like people to read the work in it's finalized form, as I intend it to be read, and not in some incomplete messy state.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: I'm sure my writing has improved, but it's been such a fluid process that I'm not really sure! I guess I've grown and my work has changed in that I've gotten braver in my ideas, more willing to just go for something and not worry about people thinking it's silly or I'm weird. 

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: I'm aro/ace myself, so fandom ships have never been a big draw of mine. I tag a lot of my works with "platonic soulmates" because I've just fallen in love with the idea of Max and Furiosa being very close to each other, but not romantically or sexually. They have a really interesting dynamic, and I like to explore them really getting to know each other completely platonically. 

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: I've explored some headcanons in my writing, and built on ideas in ways that let me sort of see more into the movie, imagine things under the surface beyond the canon, and feel like I know the motivations behind certain characters' actions, even if it's never explained.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: My works stand alone for the most part. I've got two series that each consist of a couple fics that follow the same timeline, but otherwise each of my fics is a completely different world.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: *Chanting* break canon, break canon, break canon. I like playing with new ideas! Sometimes it's fun to explore some headcanons with fic and build on the movie that way, but I've found that taking the canon and changing a detail and letting it play out from there is the most fun.

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: Immortal!Max is my biggest and most-loved headcanon. I like the idea that he's only sort of peripherally aware of it, too. He knows it's been a pretty long time since the fall of the world, and he's catching on that people who appear his age were born after the fall, but if it even has sunk in that he's not aging and not dying, he actively tries not to think about it too much because that seems like Too Much and he's not ready to face that. He's accepted it as a possibility, but he doesn't put much weight on it. It's just part of him now, and all he can do is live with it.

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: Eheh... My OCs are basically fleshed out juuuust enough to be believable and I put zero effort into them beyond that, to be honest. They're often only there to help along the story for the canon characters, and then I toss them away and never think about them again.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.? 

A: I don't know if my methods will work for anybody else, but three things: 1) imagine the scene like it's a movie playing out in front of you, before writing, while writing, and while re-reading. It helps me keep track of who is where, what's going on, and it makes any continuity mistakes really jump out at me. 2) really get into your characters' heads, think like they do, and share their motivations for what they're doing and their thoughts at what is going on around them in your writing. I think that helps people relate to them more and get into the story more, and it makes you think about how characters would react in realistic, if not always outwardly reasonable, ways. 3) Proof read like a crazy person. This may be weird, but similar to how I get into my characters' heads when I write, I also sort of get into... well, not my own head, when I re-read my works. I try to put myself in a different perspective, and proof-reading my fics with a different mindset really helps me see things that didn't end up making sense the first time around, or sound off, or might be confusing if you don't already know where I was going with it. If I'm thinking like I was when I wrote it, of course everything's going to make sense and work the way I imagined it. If I throw out those preconceptions and intentions, it can almost seem completely new to me, like it would be to a reader reading it for the first time.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: I would love to visit Australia, though honestly when I do, priority number one is going to be bats, weird marsupials, and other wildlife. Australia stands out to me mostly as being this weird giant island where evolution just went fucking crazy. But Wasteland Weekend! Hoo boy am I involved in Wasteland Weekend, let me tell you, and I absolutely love it. I love the themed areas and how they completely immerse you in the world, I love the community (seriously, some of the best people I have ever met) and even though it was originally built on Mad Max, which is generally a pretty violent, hard world, I love the atmosphere people create there: the idea that even if the world ended and society as we know it collapsed, people would coexist, look out for each other, and celebrate life. 10/10, highly recommend, hit me up if you plan on attending in the future.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: I've unfortunately fallen out of writing quite a bit for the time being, so no planned projects outside of what I'm currently working on, but boy let me tell you how much I love the one I'm co-writing with Catlady! We've put a ton of thought and worldbuilding into it, and a lot of character development in the works for Max, as well as his developing relationship with Furiosa. It's an AU that really gets my imagination going, and I'm super excited for some of the things we have planned. If you like Fae and wasteland magic and discovering/learning to accept oneself, go check out our fic Forgotten Ways!

Thank you @thatonezombiecosplayer

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, LIA! You’ve been accepted for the role of PARIS with a faceclaim change to Jordan Bolger. Admin Rosey: Lia, you have no idea how happy we are to finally have a Priam in our midst. He’s a character that has always been very close to my heart because I love characters that you expect to be overlooked, shadowed by more gaudy and boisterous personalities. But you bring a subtle shine to Priam, like a dying star that’s about to explode and consume us all. Your plots for him make me especially excited because even then you bring his voice to life - you make him wholly yours while doing so. I can’t wait to see him on the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | I’m Lia but my friends call me Lil Li Nasty. (not really :/)

Age | 20.

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her.

Activity Level | I’m able to login 3 to 4 days during the week for replies.

Timezone | EST.

Current/Past RP Accounts | You can look at this one if you’d like. ;-)

In Character

Character | The lovely Paris, AKA Priam Taravella. With a faceclaim change to Jordan Bolger.  

What drew you to this character? | Let’s be real, I’m a sucker for morally ambiguous characters with a ton of internal turmoil sdkflfdgk. But I’ve never played a character quite like Priam, which is what drew me to him even more? Like I’ve always played dreamy characters with their heads in the clouds, but this isn’t Priam whatsoever. He has no interest in dreaming, if it isn’t something attainable, then he wastes no time thinking about it. He’s almost practical to a fault, like come on dude you can have one dream! The sheer purposelessness that pervades through his being, his overwhelming desire to belong to something, to someone. All of this contrasted by his inability to understand the concept of love (after all, how can you truly understand something you’ve never experienced?) and his ever shifting principles. Priam is the epitome of someone who gets excited and does something consistently for two days then loses interest and finds something new a few days later aksdjsdlkf I love him for it!

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

il tipo volubile / the fickle fellow — everchanging are his ideas and everchanging are his loyalties. cosimo capulet gave him a sense of purpose and for that he’ll forever be thankful, but priam, ever the opportunist, is partial to whomever offers him the best opportunity. he doesn’t behave this way with the intention of appearing disloyal, but priam prioritizes his need to belong and find purpose over his loyalty. there’s no telling how far he’ll go to occupy his void and betrayal isn’t necessarily out of the question.

mobilità verso l'alto / upward mobility — priam is confident with his standing in the mob, and almost too comfortable with it. i’d be interested in a situation where he screws up, possibly compromising the mob, which will be almost unreal to him because he’s just used to everything going the way that he wants it for the most part? to also keep his position secure, i see him blackmailing a few people, caps and monts, so that’ll be something interesting i see playing out. ;-)

finché morte non ci separi / till death do us part   — just as priam had suspected, the montague heir had blossomed into reasonable competition. an attractiveness unrivaled by most, with a soft disposition outlining sharp features, everything verona wanted and more. him and the phan girl had made quite the handsome couple, her perceptiveness balancing out his altruism, but neither the montague heir nor the phan girl recognized this wasting potential. priam had every intention of turning his and juliana’s engagement into an opportunity, as this was a chance for them to play up their marriage to the veronans, affording them just enough of a peak into their lives that they await with watering mouths, for any other opportunity at sight. the least he could do for the pair of them was make them loved by many. and into oblivion will the montague heir fall. priam desires to be remembered to such a degree, that there simply won’t be enough room in the mind of verona for both of them. and he is actively working for this outcome.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes. >:-)

In Depth

In-Character Interview:

What is your favorite place in Verona? | We recommend looking at the location page and reading it over to figure out where your character’s favorite place is – if it’s not their own house/room.

He pondered the question for a moment, mouth pressed thoughtfully to his fist, before turning to the interviewer with a toothy grin. “There’s a garden on the Capulet estate, just west of the of the glass room.” Priam inclined backwards in his chair, perfectly manicured hands crossed in his lap, his eyes fixated on the wall reminiscently. “Juliana and I were first married there. She’d wanted a dress with a matching veil, but naturally her parents hadn’t approved, so she’d settled for the flower crown I made for her.” He’d been magnetizing. There was something about the way Priam carried himself, that just drew whoever he’d been speaking to in. His hands moved in unison with his words, the pictures building upon the story he told. “I made it out of yellow daisies. Tybalt officiated the marriage, and we’d done a butterfly kiss, and that was that. I intend on marrying her in that same garden.”

What does your typical day look like?

“Talking and more talking.” He chuckled purposefully. “In all seriousness, that’s what my job is. Knowing exactly what to say and in the right moment. It’s a delicate art form, you somehow have to make the other side satisfied, while simultaneously achieving the best possible outcome in favor of your own side.” He toyed with his Ferragamo cufflinks. “When I’m not doing that, I’m working with Cosimo. He’s practically taken me under his wing. I’ve learned so much in these past few years with him. He’s like a second father to me.” It had been an easy position to fill, with Priam’s own father being anything but. “When I’m not working, then I’m working out or spending time in nature. I’ve studied certain scenes so much that I could practically paint them from memory.” Priam had actually had his hand at painting, and while they’d been painted skillfully,per say, the complete lack of passion and lifelessness emitting from them had almost been disturbing.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

Something dark flashed across his countenance, as he recalled the Capulet soldier he’d nearly been caught disposing of. They’d been symbolic of the people who attempted to disrupt his path to wars spoils— the city and the throne. The bride. The notoriety. The name. “There was a time when I was younger,” he begun with pursed lips. “When I wore white socks and black shoes. My parents never let me hear the end of it. I haven’t made that mistake since.” Priam sinks into his seat, smiling humorously, beckoning the interviewer in with his silly, boyish hospitality. He hadn’t the time to dwell on the past or mistakes. Only of the now and what will propel him to the future.

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

Mixing family and work— always a tricky task. Something he learned he ultimately could not handle. It made way to Cosimo gifting him a canvas, giving Priam the opportunity to paint whatever portrait of himself he pleased. Give me at least one part politician and one part killer. That was all that he’d required of him. And thus he began his Capulet reign. “Not losing sight of myself amidst the chaos,” he responded thoughtfully, careful to speak just the right amount. “Becoming one with Verona requires a certain fee. You pay in the relinquishment of your humanity. And if you don’t voluntarily pay, then she’ll force it from you.” Priam, on the other hand, had been on a quest to sell his humanity to the highest bidder.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

“Inevitable. With great power comes great longing. No powerful person ever went without people desiring the power for themselves. And thus erupted a war.” This was one of those moments Priam had grown to appreciate, the ones where he’d been able to speak freely, from whatever parts of him that had remained authentic. He tilted his head with a raised eyebrow, lips etched into a teasing smile. “I’ve grown bored of your questions. Now, if there’s anything else outside of the interview you’d like to further discuss…”

Extras:

myers briggs: the commander (entj-a)

“Commanders are natural-born leaders. People with this personality type embody the gifts of charisma and confidence, and project authority in a way that draws crowds together behind a common goal. However, Commanders are also characterized by an often ruthless level of rationality, using their drive, determination and sharp minds to achieve whatever end they’ve set for themselves. Perhaps it is best that they make up only three percent of the population, lest they overwhelm the more timid and sensitive personality types that make up much of the rest of the world – but we have Commanders to thank for many of the businesses and institutions we take for granted every day.”

random brainstorming for priam.

muse tag.

playlist.

aesthetic—

cartier hoops, a poisoned tongue positioned between antidote lips, fickle values and fickler lovers, indefinite scowls, a pair of sunglasses for every day of the week, provocative realism, a tipsy crown (if it weren’t for the graff vivid yellow diamonds, it’s tilt might’ve been discernible), a gaping void, pompous vexation, flowery tattoos (the only evidence of permanence in your life), morsel of your true self, anything to belong, salvatore ferragamo’s limited edition loafers, an impassioned youth.

[treenewal]

How to Properly Care for a Southern Live Oak Tree

Southern live oaks are a delightful and notable piece of the Texas landscape. These trees can live for quite a long time; however, they can require specific care to remain healthy and look great through our brief yet fierce winters and long, dry summers. Here are TreeNewal’s number one essential tips on the most proficient method to care for your Southern live oak tree!

About Southern Live Oak Trees

The southern live oak tree, or Quercus virginiana, is a type of evergreen oak tree. They are most frequently seen as in, you got it, the south — locally from Virginia right down into Port Lavaca, TX! Southern live oaks are eminently impervious to fire because of their monumental level and are worked to endure most floods and hurricanes considering the components of their mighty trunks.

These majestic trees are likewise well known for their very lengthy life and generally quick development rate. While it takes them as long as 70 years to arrive at their full trunk width, that is a short time span contrasted with the centuries they typically live!

Did you know: The most established realized southern live oak tree is viewed in Louisiana and is assessed as around 1200 years of age.

Step by step instructions to Take Care of a Southern Live Oak Tree

Sunlight

Make a point to plant your oak in a space that gets a lot of sunlight — they need no less than 6 hours of direct sunlight consistently. The species can deal with a touch of shade, however surely does best with full openness.

Pruning

The ideal time for southern live oak tree pruning in North Texas is once your trees have gone dormant for the pre-winter and late-fall seasons — November through January explicitly. This time span will assist with staying away from the dangers related with any unplanned non-life-threatening injuries to the tree that can draw in pests and diseases. It’s simply generally simpler to see where you’re cutting when there aren’t leaves obstructing your view!

Be particularly certain to abstain from doing any oak tree trimming or pruning between the long periods of February and June, as this is the top Oak Wilt season. The uplifting news is an oak tree just should be pruned on normal every 3–5 years whenever they’ve developed. Here is a thing to pay special attention to that lets you in on the ideal opportunity for pruning has come.

Signs Your Oak Tree Needs Pruning

Cracked bark

Intently covering branches

Unnecessary development

Storm damage

Hanging or broken branches

Uneven overhang

Dead appendages

To get more familiar with great pruning methods and practices, look at our Common Tree Pruning Mistakes You Might Be Making post. Recollect that you can likewise generally call TreeNewal to deal with all your pruning needs for you!

Note: Thanks to their huge covering length, southern live oaks should be planted far away from hazardous designs like powerlines. Their crowns frequently stretch somewhere in the range of 75 up to 135 feet across with the actual tree arriving at a full level of 40 to 80 feet tall!

Soil

Oaks will quite often lean toward acidic soil. In their common habitats, southern live oaks flourish with an appropriate equilibrium of potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorous. Along these lines, on the off chance that your dirt isn’t normally acidic, consider adding some peat greenery or pine bark mulch to the region around the tree’s foundations.

However, that is basically their inclination. They’ll endure fine and dandy insoluble soil as well as even dirt and sand assuming that it is accessible.

Pests and Disease

Bugs and ailments can be enormous, damaging issues for southern live oaks. Sap-sucking aphids, scales, and root drills are the most well-known bother reasons for underlying debilitating and branch dieback, while mold, root decay, and ulcer sicknesses lead to very much like outcomes also.

Learn more about root rot and how to control pests this mid-year.

Assuming that you suspect something may currently be out of order, our ISA-Certified Arborist can investigate your trees and plan out how best to distinguish and deal with the issue. Call us today to seek treatment began!

Water

Lastly, make sure to water your oak consistently — particularly during seasons of dry spell. As little saplings, southern live oaks develop shockingly quickly when their foundations are given the perfect proportion of dampness. Nonetheless, that changes radically to just requiring insignificant watering following a couple of long periods of laying out their underlying foundations.

Keep in mind: Always plant your oak trees at a slight height from the encompassing soil to support healthy water waste.

Appropriate care for a southern live oak tree is essential to keeping it healthy and looking great. Our team at TreeNewal is here to assist you with all of your southern live oak needs. Get in touch with us today for more information on how we can assist you with dealing with your trees!

In the event that you want advice or help with really focusing on your Southern live oak trees, reach out to the ISA-Certified Arborists at TreeNewal and appreciate tailored tree care advice.

[getfreelogodesign]

9 Logo Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Designing a logo for your business is like hiring a lawyer to speak for you at trial.

The lawyer works on your behalf to present you to the court in the best possible light. She introduces you, explains what you’re all about, and convinces a jury that you’re the best version of yourself.  

The same goes when you design a logo. After all, it speaks for your business, it serves as customers’ first introduction to your brand, and it represents what your company does. And, just like you’d want the best lawyer representing you at trial, you’re going to want to get your logo right the first time.

While many of us may not have had the unfortunate experience of sweating it out in a courtroom, we all know what it’s like to make a first impression and try to get people to like us.

When you design a logo, there are 9 things you should avoid in order to make that first impression a good one!

1. Going in Blind

You’re a small business owner; nobody also expects you to also be an artist. That said, you need to do your homework before you start creating your logo.

A top-quality photography logo will have different design best practices than a construction company logo, as will a freelance writer from a finance corporation; if you don’t look at what your competitors are doing, you’ll miss out on both the industry norms and potential ideas for your own designs.

Look at what others have done before you to get an idea of where you’re headed; you can familiarize yourself with the logos of some top-performing businesses in your field, or browse through a list of general logos until you see something that speaks to you.

2. Only Thinking About the Trends

As you do your research, you’re going to find all sorts of design trends that will seem super exciting, and you may be tempted to apply all of them to your new logo.

This would be a huge mistake.

Trends tend to turn into cliches within the year, and the last association you want people to have with your business is that it’s outdated and tacky. On the flip side, your business’s logo should be timeless, because a logo that looks current tells your audience that your business is relevant.

This isn’t to say that you should avoid trends altogether; there are certainly logo design trends that will help your logo stand out and make a unique mark on the world. However, many of the trends that populate the design industry are quick to fade after their fifteen minutes of fame, so try to evaluate what’s a phase and what’s here to stay before becoming trend-friendly.

3. Embracing Clutter

Sometimes, we tend to hold on to things even when we don’t need them, but this is an instinct you should absolutely fight against when designing your logo.

While you’re browsing the world of logo design elements, you may get attached to a palette full of colors or an entire family of fonts – and that’s great! However, they don’t all belong in your logo. Simplicity = effective, where clutter = confusion for your audience.

Your business logo should feature the name or initials of your business, an icon, a font or two, and three colors at most.

That’s it.

Aside from a tagline, there is nothing else to include in your logo; don’t even think about bothering with trademark symbols like ‘™’ or a copyright. Remember that if a logo is too busy, it’ll detract from its point and turn customers away.

4. Forgetting Your Audience

What does your audience have to do with designing your logo, you ask?

Everything.

Like we said above, your logo is supposed to intrigue your audience and get them to see you in the best possible light. Failing to consider them when making your logo is like forgetting to include the grapes in a bottle of wine – you’ll end up with nothing usable.

Does this sound extreme?

Well, imagine you want to hire an entertainment company for your child’s birthday party. You’ve heard great things about them, so you go to look them up online – and find that their logo sports a tombstone on a black background. What are the chances you’re still going to take them?

That’s what I thought.

Always have your audience in mind for every part of the logo design process, so you can create a logo that will draw them in rather than chase them away.

5. Choosing Fonts at Random

If your logo doesn’t have an icon, it means the first thing your audience is sure to look at (and judge) is the text.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their text is to choose the first font they see, without putting any real intention behind it. Fonts carry meaning, and you want that meaning to translate to your customers, whether you’re telling them your business is elegant and sophisticated or friendly and down-to-earth.

Also, you may choose to include a tagline in your logo that uses a different font than your main text – and that’s fine. However, there are a number of ways NOT to go about pairing fonts, so make sure to familiarize yourself with fonts that belong together before deciding on a team of typefaces.

6. Throwing Colors at the Canvas

Like with fonts, the colors in your logo are going to send your audience a message about your brand. As much as you may be attached to your purples or your browns, that’s not enough of a reason to apply them to your logo.

Let’s circle back to our audience mistake (#4): Why did the thought of a black logo for a children’s entertainment company immediately put you off?

The answer is that colors have their own psychology, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not. Blues convey serenity and sophistication, where reds convey passion and energy, while blacks certainly don’t convey cheerful-terrific-fun.

Also, as mentioned above, you should limit your color combinations to three at the most (such as black, white, and a third color that stands out). Too many colors will make for a messy logo, while two or three will make for a clean, crisp design.

7. Using the Wrong File

A high-quality file can make the difference between a logo that gets ignored and a logo that gets celebrated.

You’ll want to put your logo everywhere once you have it, which will often mean resizing it to fit the context in which it’s found. Unfortunately, pixelated images and JPEGs aren’t going to cut it, as resizing these files will render your logo illegible and useless.

A vector file, on the other hand, will allow you to resize your logo however many times you want while preserving its quality, including when you want to print it on merchandise or business documents. You can also use a vector if you ever want to edit your logo in Adobe Illustrator or other design software.

8. Poor Placement

While this is a post-design mistake, you can avoid it altogether by planning around it beforehand.

You’re going to want your logo everywhere that concerns your business, whether that’s on the homepage of your website or your printed merchandise. However, many people brand carelessly with their logo, without thinking about how it looks – an obvious mistake.  

For example, logos in the center of a webpage appear awkward, as do logos that take up the whole width of a business card. (The top-left corner of your website, however, is the ideal place for a logo, as is displaying it in the center of your business card.)

Before you begin branding with your logo, picture it everywhere. Try different positions, sizes, and layouts and only then commit to its placement.

9. Being Inconsistent After you have designed your logo and begun to use it, you might be tempted to play around with the way it looks.

Don’t.

Have you noticed there’s no image to go along with this tip? That’s an example of inconsistency – and we know it doesn’t feel right!

Once you start branding with your logo, you need to stick to your design. As your audience gets to know your brand, they’ll come to associate your logo with your business and look out for it in the future. Not only that, but they’ll also come to trust you to deliver what they expect from you, because your logo will stand as a symbol of how reliable you are.

So, don’t start playing with your logo colors or changing the font to match the season. Trust us – your audience will appreciate the consistency in the long run.

[eyedelater]

notes (translation and otherwise) on chapters 100.12 and 100.13

basically i typed these up the day of translation for the respective chapters but never published them because i was feeling weird about them but i figured i’d put them out there anyway

translation notes marked with a * at the front so you can read only those if you want. overall this is pretty long and kind of nonsensical

--

for 100.12

*the "brother you can earnestly compete with" is the same phrase that i translated last chapter as "serious conflict," as in "there's never been a serious conflict between us," and i can't decide whether i translated it too strongly and then too weakly or vice versa but basically the meaning of the phrase (honki de butsukariau) is like, “seriously clash.” yeah, clash is the best word, isn’t it. it’s got all the right connotations, like bouncing off each other and general conflict but not necessarily a destructive fight and also not necessarily a friendly competition. yeah i should’ve said clash both times, huh. do you ever have regrets

*i was right about the sound effect at the end of 100.11 being a flash, sort of..? it was a precursor to this first panel's sound effect, which is "PIGIIIIN" which is an unusual sound effect, or at least, one i haven't really seen before. i mean it's entirely possible to just invent a one-off sound effect for any particular situation, you know? but in this case the sound effect appears to describe the phenomenon of ritsu being utterly immobilized by ???% in an instant

i was wrong about the percentage meter being mob's :0

raise your hand if you lost your shit after doing a double- or triple-take between the omake title and the omake itself and finally realizing what it was

i still need to sort out exactly how ritsu's interpretation of ???% and my ???% hypothesis work out, but i've been too busy playing psychonauts... plus i'm sure we will continue to better understand the nature of ???% as this chapter progresses. [[edit: psychonauts was good, and i’m probably going to reserve judgment on ???% until we get the full story, since there’s no point in speculating when your speculations will be addressed a week later]]

--

for 100.13:

*well, i had a lot of decisions to make in this chapter... which i guess actually just means i was slightly confused/ambivalent a lot. it comes with the territory of not actually being that good at japanese. i've said this before, right? it's on my about page. so don't let it come as a surprise to anyone that i'm not that good at japanese. i mean i'm not terrible, i have a solid handle on it. it's just that my approach to translation is more like decrypting a cipher as accurately as possible and then phrasing it in a way that captures both the meaning and the feeling. i try really hard, but i know i couldn’t be a professional translator without further education. that’s why i never claimed/aimed to be the best or only translator of this series. but i do still believe my work is accurate. 

*anyway, starting on the first page. ritsu says "wakatta... wakatta yo..." and wakatta just means "understood" and the "yo" adds emphasis, but we don't quite have any emphasis-adding particle in english, so i changed the latter to "i get it" to make it sound more insistent. even though i really try not to translate the same phrase two different ways, especially not in direct sequence like that. but at first i translated it as "i get it... / i get it, okay..." and that sounded way too whiny, so i thought the better way to phrase it would be to do what i did. i think ritsu feels bad about causing distress to ???% and is saying, like, "i know it feels bad, but i had to do it." (<< interpretation, not a translation)

*when ritsu says "right...?" i was thinking about translating that as "don't you think...?" (what he actually says is just "nee...?" which is just a call for confirmation basically) and while i do think "don't you think...?" would've been the cuter translation, i went with "right...?" because it has the same number of syllables as the raw line and maintaining brevity is important to me sometimes.

*thanks again to femoralynn for hand-drawing the "STOP!!!" on the third page~ i think it makes a big difference. in the raws it was also hand-drawn and it said "TOMAREEE" which means... "STOP," but in english there's no good way to add more letters to "stop" to indicate you're stretching out the pronunciation, so i added three exclamation points in order to convey the intensity and desperation of the line. even though i usually try my best to stick with the punctuation offered in canon without adding or removing any.

*translating newscasters is an ordeal because they use hella kanji but i think i got the majority of it down... the only bit i'm not very confident on is the speech bubble to the right of tsubomi's face, but like, i don't think it will have a huge bearing on the story, and i'm pretty sure it's close enough. i've said before that i'm not going for archive quality, and i'm not going to go back and fix little mistakes unless they're really annoying or really important to understanding the story (like the mistakes i fixed last week).

*i hope it's clear in the "the government has claimed that no official agencies are involved in this matter" line that they're saying that no official agencies are responsible for causing this disaster, and what they're NOT saying is that there's no government agency investigating it. because like. surely there is. like, joseph works for the government, and he dropped touichirou on it, so the government is doing Something.

*yes, ???% uses "boku" pronouns. an established fact, but just a reminder to the curious who forgot or didn’t know in the first place.

*oh, i might've mentioned this in previous translation notes, but whenever i put "power" in quotes like that, it's because it's in quotes in the raws. whenever it's Not in quotes (like in ritsu's "innermost power" line), i don't put it in quotes. i'm not yet sure about the significance of this, because although mob seems to use "power" in quotes consistently, he's not the only one who does it, and yet, not everyone does it. hmm.

i guess i’ve unconsciously switched to using “he” pronouns for ???% sometimes in my meta. this is probably exactly what ???% wants...!

*now about the confusion that led me to post the chapter an hour late. on page 8 of the chapter (labeled page 149 in the bottom right corner), you'll notice that the four speech bubbles in the last two panels have no tails to indicate the speaker. tailless speech bubbles are my mortal enemy, as both a translator and a comics reader in general, and if you're someone who makes comics or ever will, i strongly urge you to add tails to your speech bubbles no matter what (and if the speaker is offscreen, do the thing where you make an inverse tail in the speech bub by taking out a wedge). so basically, i rely heavily on context and got confused about who is speaking in the last two lines of this page. of course, i was also confused by the grammar to a degree, otherwise i wouldn't have had to rely on context in this case. anyway, at first, i thought it was ???% saying, "if you do that, you'll disappear. i live freely." the first line makes sense in a way, telling mob that he'd disappear if ???% disappeared, but the second line seems like a non sequitur, and i couldn't really make sense of it. then i thought, oh, it's mob talking from offscreen, and he's saying, "if only you would disappear. then i could live freely." that's a very reasonable sentiment for mob to express, and it would make sense as mob elaborating on the line that came directly before those two lines... but then, on the next page, it seemed strange for mob to be saying his fifth line in a row. it seemed like it should be more of a back and forth than just mob talking at ???%. and note that i had poor femoralynn typeset all these confused iterations as i thought of them at like 11:25 this morning. sorry again for that. but anyway i finally realized that ???% really IS the one talking in those last two lines (no thanks to the tailless speech bubbles, again), and he's responding to mob's request to go away by suggesting that mob should be the one to go away, since he's the fake one. and finally that makes perfect sense with the lines surrounding it. i don't know why it took me so long to understand that... but the speech bubbles definitely had something to do with it. remember, kids, if you put dialogue in your comics but don't indicate who is speaking, the reader doesn't know either! unless they're the only one on the page, like when mob was yelling into the void inside his own head.

it doesn’t help that in japanese, they often leave the subject (and sometimes the object) out of the sentence entirely and leave it to me to interpret who is doing a verb to what/whom. because in english, you can’t just leave the subject out of a sentence. (e.g. “korosu” is just the verb “to kill” but if you say “korosu” to someone, you’re essentially saying “i’ll kill you.” notice how i had to add the subject [i] and the object [you] even though the literal translation would be nothing but the verb “kill.” so if i see a speech bubble that says “korosu” and it doesn’t have a tail to indicate who is saying it, i Literally Cannot Know who is threatening to kill whom or what, except by using context to make an educated guess. you see why this is a problem? and naturally they do this with tons of verbs completely unrelated to killing, i just thought of “korosu” first because bakugou katsuki says it all the time)

(ONE-sensei is usually very good about tailing his speech bubbles. i wonder if the lack of tails was intentional here, meant to further reflect the fact that mob is arguing with himself and that they’re kind of both technically the same speaker. still confusing though)

(oh and for the curious, the raws for the last 3 lines on that page, page 149, were as follows: 「僕の中からいなくなってくれ。」 「だったらキミが消えてくれ。」 「僕は自由に生きる。」 yeah the "kure" in that second line really threw me off bc i'm a fool and also i translated that same "kure" as "please" for mob but i didn't put "please" in ???%'s line because i couldn't figure out how to put it in there concisely and also it's clear that ???% is being a dick even if he kinda said please. and also because i don't know shit)

(and fuck, if i'm being honest, that "please" probably teleported up to ritsu's "so please... come home..." line, because he didn't actually say please in that line. should i correct it? i feel like a fraud. i just thought the "please" helped convey the sentiment of the line, but in retrospect i could've translated it more accurately without losing the feeling of it.......... what ritsu really says in that line is "dakara... kaettekite ne..." which, if you've watched the one punch man anime, you can only hear as the lyrics to the extremely sappy ending credits song, so maybe that impression of extreme sappiness sapped through into my translation and made me make it sappier than it really was...............)

about how ???% is like "ritsu is my little brother. he was saying that i'm his older brother." i might be wrong in my interpretation (not translation, which is more or less literal, but the interpretation i'm about to give), but i took this to mean something along the lines of "just now, ritsu kept addressing me as his brother. i think that means i am his brother. today i learned that i am ritsu's brother." as opposed to meaning something more like "i'm the one he called 'nii-san,' so i'm his brother and you're not." (plus ???% did not literally say, “he called me nii-san.” i translated that line accurately.) although either way, it seems to indicate that ???% only just recently started noticing (or being able to notice) whom ritsu is addressing as "nii-san;" otherwise, ???% would have known that the other million times ritsu has called someone "nii-san" in his life, it has been directed at mob, not ???%. so even if ???% is suggesting that he is ritsu's only True nii-san, his claim is only based on the last few minutes of ritsu addressing him directly, which would back up my claim that ???% only learned/decided just now that ritsu is his little brother... if any of this makes any sense.

i love how serizawa is like "let's get out of here i'm sure kageyama-kun is fine" and reigen's like "...he's in the tornado isn't he" and seri's like "..........maybe"

and serizawa's new umbrella, which he must have picked out and bought himself specifically to use as his preferred vessel of psychic power, is transparent. is that... a bubble umbrella...?

[singhamelia]

How To Save A Relationship Without Communication Miraculous Diy Ideas

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If you want to divorce your spouse that he or she talks.There are many reasons why marriages fail.If the reasons why people do not think that you have to ignore the voices that are confronted.Take action by getting a divorce, a couple having problems, suggest that there is more likely to file for divorces are recorded yearly basis.Respect Your Differences - mutual interests help a lot.

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There are definitely ways to rekindle your relationship, maybe good but maybe in a marriage, by supporting each other with fun loving people and have a heart-to-heart talk that you shared once had for your spouse, make you a couple of weeks.You'll discover solutions to prevent it and seek help.This means no conditions or strings attached.The best place to do something to look back later, you will need to respect his wife's wishes and come up with your idea and actually much far more private.It may seem expensive, they are grateful for the future.

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Save A Hopeless Marriage

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How To Avoid Divorce Islamqa

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[taeminsphltrum]

Act of Kindness | 06 |

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 07

Yoo Kihyun | Fake Relationship!AU | Fluff | Smut

Since day one, boundaries and personal space were never really part of the picture.

[this is fluffy and smutty as hell. enjoy :))]

Kihyun looks just as puzzled as you feel when he walks outside—now dressed in light jeans and a white tee with no make-up—looking both ways before his eyes land on your form leaning against the wall.

“Why are you out here alone, baby girl?” he frowns as he walks in front of you. “What’s wrong?”

“I just needed to clear my mind,” you reply. 

There’s already a tight feeling in your throat at the fact you’re about to open yourself to him and put everything on the table with no way to take anything back. But Hoseok’s words repeat in your mind and give you this little sliver of hope that you’re going to hold onto until the last second.

“Talk to me?” Kihyun asks, lifting a hand to cup your face. You’ve never flinched at or dodged his touches, so it worries you why your body’s reaction to seeing his soft hand reach up to your face is to lean your head the opposite way. His brows furrow, hand falling limply to his side and the hurt and confusion in his eyes makes you feel like you just kicked a puppy right in the face. “____…”

God, you feel like such a shitty person for bringing his mood down and making him worry about you on the night of his showcase. He was just smiling and laughing minutes ago and now the down curve of his lips is like a punch in your face.

“Why… what happened this week?” you hesitate to ask, trying your hardest to maintain eye contact.

The wrinkles between his brows deepen.

“What do you mean?”

“You disappeared for a week then called me like it was nothing. Maybe I sound like a whiny brat but you even texted me in the middle of learning choreography and other times you’ve been really busy,” you elaborate. You know the next thing you’re about to say has nothing to do with the situation but you really just don’t want to sound like a whiny brat that’s overlooking such a simple situation because of your feelings. Hoseok’s words have no meaning as your doubts start getting to you again. “Did you have another breakdown? You said you’d tell me—“

“No, no. That’s not the case,” Kihyun interrupts you, shaking his head wildly before sighing. “God, I was really hoping this conversation could be avoided a little longer.”

Now your eyebrows are scrunched together. Your heart drops to your stomach because you know this is when he’s going to tell you something that you don’t want to hear.

“Honestly, I was avoiding you.”

And there it is. 

His gushing about you stopped because he realized your feelings and he didn’t want to hurt your feelings by rejecting them. The conversation Hoseok overheard was going in the opposite direction of what he thought. Because this fake relationship has been starting to feel real Kihyun’s been avoiding you because that’s not what he wants. He wants you to remain as the therapist that helps him get recognition in the media that he can hug and cuddle with platonically because when his career started he didn’t have the time to have a girlfriend. He put distance between the two of you because you’re just so fucking obvious and he needed you to get a grip and realize what you guys have is fictional. He didn’t really want you to come tonight. His boss knew that if you showed your face at the showcase it would draw attention and have people talking about Monsta X. Kihyun’s too nice to tell you straight up that you need to get over yourself and that you’re here for business and shitty advice and nothing more—

“And I realized that was a dick move, so I apologize for that.” His voice is low and soft and somehow it makes you feel even worse.

Blinking back the tears of embarrassment and swallowing the thick lump in your throat, you ask, “Mind telling me why?” 

Your voice is surprisingly even and you shock yourself.

“I feel like shit for closing myself off from you after we were getting so close but I did it because I just needed some time to get my shit together,” he laughs bitterly with a shake of his head. “Not really an excuse, but yeah.”

Nodding, you clear your throat. “It’s not that big of a deal. I could’ve reached out but I didn’t, so…” you trail off, looking down at your shoes.

He breathes out a laugh.

“I already know you well enough to know you don’t text first unless something important comes up,” he tells you about yourself, your eyes widening in shock. “I went from texting you as often as possible to trying to avoid you at all costs because of some stupid mistake I almost made that night you came over.”

You swallow harshly.

You already suspected that night was what made him go ghost, but the fact that he’s really telling you this to your face is unexpected. 

At the mention of that night, your mind goes back to it, thinking about when you felt as if he was about to kiss you. But with all these self-doubts and bitterness swirling around in your head, you can’t help but think if you were just imagining it after all. What if you just wanted him to kiss you so you interpreted his actions completely wrong? Literally nothing makes sense when you’re upset and overthinking and it’s annoying you even more right now.

“Stupid mistake?” you whisper, too afraid your voice will crack.

As in possibly almost kissing you or inviting you over and getting your hopes up unintentionally?

If he means the latter option, you might just break down right then and there because of how harsh the reality of the situation would be. You’re not even a super emotional person, but if someone were to refer to inviting you to their place as a stupid mistake, how else are you supposed to react? 

If he’s referring to almost kissing you, it’ll still be harsh, but expected. The first interaction you had with him consisted of him telling you he hadn’t been in such close proximity with a female in a while, so that night at his place he could’ve just been so caught up in the moment with him being so exhausted and so close to you on the couch. No feelings nor ill intentions behind his actions. And if you’re being honest with yourself, after a week of saying the situation hasn’t bothered you, that definitely rubs you the wrong way. Such an act with no meaning behind it, and even though he stopped himself it was too obvious and now it’s been a week without speaking.

Kihyun’s eyes close as he takes a deep breath, his head tilting to the ground. 

“I…” he hesitates.  “I really wanted to kiss you that night and I was about to, but then I remembered what we are.” Heart beating out of your chest you almost choke at his confession, eyes lifting to look at him. Kihyun keeps his eyes closed and head down as he continues, “I tried to blame it on how tired I was the next day but if I’m being honest, I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a while now.”

Okay, your mind definitely didn’t consider that possibility and when the words come out of his mouth you can’t help but stare at him stupidly. He finally looks up at you, and when your mouth opens to say something (even though you have absolutely no sentence that you could put together with all those doubts and his confession circling around your brain) he’s speaking again.

“Let me finish before you say anything,” says, eyes widening before quickly adding, “please?”

You give him a dumb nod that matches your stare.

“We’re a business couple right?” he asks, voice only slightly above a whisper.

You blink at him. Yeah, you’ve been saying that to yourself but hearing the words come out of his mouth rubs you the wrong way.

“We go on dates for the public to see. But that night I invited you to my dorm because I genuinely enjoy your company,” Kihyun explains, pushing his bangs out of his eyes. And if you were to say the look in his eyes and his words don’t make your stomach flip, you’d be lying. “I don’t know much about you other than the basics and we haven’t known each other long… but I feel this attraction to you and I want to act on it.”

At this point, he’s back to looking down. You’re registering his words but you’re having a hard time letting them sink in, still trying to wrap your head around the word vomit that’s spewing from Kihyun’s mouth.

“I just don’t know if the feeling is mutual, hence why I didn’t bust such a bold move on you that night. I’m an affectionate person so I’m a hugger and cuddler when it comes to people I’ve known for a while but I just can’t stop myself from wanting to be close to you when I’m around you. It took me a whole week to come to terms with my feelings and this time apart has honestly been torture,” he admits with an exhausted laugh at the end. 

Kihyun takes another deep breath before shyly looking up at you, to find you still looking at him like an idiot.

“Is your silence your way of telling me it’s not a mutual feeling?”

His question has all those thoughts from earlier in the week that you claimed were irrational swooping back to your mind in less than a second it seems. You read his body language, words, and every other fucking sign he gave you correctly. You weren’t being illogical when you kept having what if thoughts. The questions of being anything more than a business thing all made sense and you don’t know if you want to laugh or cry at the realization because a whole week. It’s not even that long of a timeframe but at the same time, all of this extra time and doubt on Kihyun’s end could’ve been avoided if you were just honest with your feelings that you knew were building up for him. If you would’ve just texted him like your body wanted this could’ve been avoided. The two of you were in the same boat at one point when it came to the uncertainty of what the real terms of your friendship/relationship are.

“It is,” you confess, voice barely audible. 

The look of shock that washes over his features is endearing and you let your tense body relax with a quiet laugh, shoulders dropping comfortably with a nod of your head.

The door opens but you don’t hear the creak it makes, too focused on the smile that has replaced the frown that was on Kihyun’s face. 

“I really wasn’t expecting us to have this talk like th—“ 

Kihyun’s eyes get wide and his body jerks forward. He catches himself with his hands on the wall, his arms caging you in and his face so much closer. If this isn’t deja vu you don’t know what is.

His head snaps to the side and you follow his gaze, only to see blond hair and broad shoulders shaking with laughter, walking away from you two and down the alley towards the street.

“He always has to ruin the moment,” Kihyun curses under his breath with a puff of air. 

“If it weren’t for him this conversation wouldn’t have just taken place,” you say softly.

Hoseok gave you a little push and he’s doing the same for Kihyun.

Another puzzled look washes over his face but you don’t let him question what you mean, bringing your arms up to loosely wrap around his neck.

“You know, right now would be the perfect time to finally kiss me,” you sniff, speaking as if you were simply talking about the weather.

Kihyun’s lip twitches in his attempt not to smile, but he gives up and lets it take over half of his face. The mole above his lip and perfect teeth steal your attention once more.

Hands gently land on your sides. 

“Oh yeah?” he licks his lips while his eyes fall to your mouth.

You nod, rubbing your lips together.

“You sure?” 

“Mhm.”

“Positive?” he asks as he gets just the slightest bit closer.

“One-hundred percent.”

He leans in, mouth centimeters away from yours only to take a detour at the very last second and press a gentle kiss to your left cheek.

“Like this?”

“Not exactly,” you laugh out. “Here,” you bring a hand to the side of his face and barely push on it to bring him back in front of you.

“Oh. So like this,” he pecks your forehead.

You scrunch your nose and put your arm back around the junction between his neck and shoulders.

“For someone who said they’ve been wanting to kiss me for a while now you su—”

This is what you’ve been wanting since Kihyun not so smoothly pressed you up against the wall weeks ago. The soft, hesitant presses of his lips are what you were hoping for that night on his couch. The way your eyes shut slowly, lips puckering to meet his timid, chaste kisses, the way your heart slows down then skips a beat before finding a quicker rhythm than before is all worth the wait. How Kihyun’s confidence kicks in at you kissing him back, him parting his lips to kiss you properly and firmly is all worth the self-doubt. 

His grip on your waist tightens when you moan softly at the feeling of his tongue swiping across your bottom lip before he cradles your face in his hands. Kihyun takes a deep breath through his nose, tilting his head to deepen the kiss and nudging your tongue with his own.

“Ki,” you mumble against his lips, smiling when he hums but doesn’t stop kissing you. “We should leave,” you barely manage to say because a moan threatens to slip out when he steps even closer, a thigh finding its way in between both of yours. “Anyone could walk by and see us.”

“It’s dark and no one is going to come back here, baby girl.”

Teeth gently nibble at your lower lip, almost distracting you from trying to convince Kihyun to get off of you for a few minutes so you can continue this is in a more private setting.

“Baby,” you try, clenching your jaw to fight back a smile when the nibbling falters and he backs his head up to look at you with wide, blown out pupils. “We can go to my place. Krystal won’t be home for a couple days.”

◅ ▻

“Are we—”

You don’t let him finish his sentence, cutting him off with your lips pressed to his.

When you were driving he couldn’t seem to get his hands off of you. Touching your thigh, interlacing his fingers with your free hand. The bulge in his pants easy to spot in his light washed jeans, even in the dim lighting of the night, and easy to feel when he teasingly brushed up behind you like there wasn’t enough space between your body and his bed while you two were picking up a pair of clothes from his dorm. The few members that were at the dorm watched as you guys walked from the front door to his room, then back to the front door with a bag hanging from Kihyun’s shoulder, knowing smirks and eyes squinted in amusement. It was embarrassing because not only is picking up clothes obvious as fuck, Kihyun decided to walk close behind you to not-so-discreetly hide the result of making out.

But now that it’s just you and him in your room with no worries of getting caught or listening ears, the embarrassment is gone.

“We could,” you answer his unsaid question, walking backward until your bed stops you. “Seeing you dance has me curious,” you say lightly, trailing your lips to his cheek.

“About?”

His voice is lower than usual and it makes your stomach stir.

“How good you’ll fuck me.”

That sentence alone sets him off and he’s back to how he was in the alley, removing any space between your bodies as the two of you fall onto the bed. Kihyun settles in between your spread legs after reaching the middle of the bed, putting his weight on his knees and his forearms beside your head on your pillows.

His mouth is harsh and sloppy against yours, nothing but teeth, tongues, and spit. You claw at his sides, grabbing the cotton covering them to pull him down further onto you. 

This isn’t at all how you imagined the night turning out. Watch the performances, greet him afterward with compliments, then say your goodbyes to everyone after hanging around for a little bit. Come home, take a bath and watching tv until you passed out. That’s how you envisioned the night. Not Kihyun slowly grinding on you, making your body heat up and everything blurry with his hungry kisses.

“So you enjoyed the show?” his breath tickles your ears, a shiver running up your spine at him mouthing at your earlobe. 

“Ye—yes,”  you barely get out, Kihyun mouth latching onto the skin at the juncture between your neck and shoulder. The breathless moan has his hips rolling down into yours harder, mouth sucking harder. “God, yes.”

Sneaking your fingers down to the hem of his shirt, you crawl them under the fabric. The uneven skin covering his abs feels so smooth under your light fingertips and you feel the way his stomach clenches at your soft touch.

“I didn’t know you sang that well,” you praise him, stretching your neck to the opposite side of where his lips are trailing up. You feel the leftover stickiness of whatever his makeup artist put on his lips but it doesn’t bother you one bit.

He laughs softly, breathily. “I told you to watch the show.” A hand moves to slide up your torso, stopping under one of your breasts to cup it. The action causes spillage, the top of your breast coming out of the low collar of your jumper. “Maybe you’ll start listening to me?” he questions, voice muffled due to the way his mouth engulfs the newly exposed skin. 

The retort on the tip of your tongue is delayed, replaced by a humming noise that squeaks towards the end because teeth teasingly nip at your chest. 

“If I never listened to you, would you be in my bed right now?” Your voice is weaker, softer than you wanted but it’s hard to care if he knows how much he’s affecting you right now when his tongue is drawing patterns over your clavicle. 

Another chuckle vibrates your chest but you don’t get a verbal response. Instead, his hand slides down from your chest to the button holding your jeans together. He doesn’t undo it, but lifts his head to look into your hooded eyes. 

“This is what you want, right?”

The concern in his blown brown eyes momentarily covers the desire swimming around them, and if you didn’t want him before you damn sure do now.

An arm dangling off of his shoulder and a hand raking through his perfectly styled updo, messing the locks up in the most perfect way, you nod, teeth worrying at your lower lip. The fingers in his hair slip down to gently grip the side of his face, his lips once again slanting over yours but this time softer. Soft nibbles on your top lip, his thumb and pointer finger work at the metal of your button and zipper. With a shimmy of your hips, you assist him in pulling your jeans to the middle of your thighs. Cold air hits the wet spot that’s formed in between your legs, but then Kihyun’s warm fingers replace the breeze, two digits sliding up and down your slit, making you shiver for another reason.

Putting more pressure behind his strokes, his fingertips sink into your folds and find your clit. The moan that bubbles up your throat is muffled by his tongue carefully exploring your mouth.

In a blur more pieces of clothes are tugged at, your hands gripping the hem of his shirt and lifting it off of his upper body quickly. Yours is soon thrown onto the floor, fingertips gingerly gliding over the curve of your breasts with his lips trailing opened mouthed kisses down the center of your chest, going lower until he reaches the waistband of your panties. Slowly climbing backward and off of the bed, Kihyun pulls them down and off. He quickly disregards his jeans and boxers in one tug downward. There’s barely a chance to get a glimpse of what’s below his waist because he’s turning and squatting down, rummaging through his overnight bag so you get a view of his backside. His spine is noticeable in his hunched over position, smooth, creamy-like skin unblemished and calling out for your fingers to caress. 

Snapping out of your trance you reach behind you to pull apart the clasps holding your bra together. Kihyun stands up and turns right as you toss it to the side. The fingers holding onto a squared foil packet clench when he looks at you, laid out completely naked and waiting for him. You’re ogling again, but this time your eyes are taking in the way his chest rises and falls down to his half hard erection.

With a hand reached out towards him you beckon him back onto the bed, him interlacing your fingers together when he has crawled back in between your legs. 

Condom placed to the side, Kihyun coats his fingers in your juice before sliding his middle finger inside of you. 

“Fuck,” he bends his neck forward to see the way his finger disappears then comes out soaked. He adds his ring finger and the stretch coaxes a whimper from you, his eyes snapping up to your face. He spreads his digits apart and your chest starts to slightly heave, the quiet noises coming from your mouth barely audible compared to the slick sounds coming from your cunt. “You ready, beautiful?“ 

Swallowing back another moan you nod, knowing your voice will crack if you verbally answer him.

His wet —drenched— fingers wrap around his cock but you sit up slightly to lightly swat it away, replacing it with your own hand. 

"Open it,” you nod at the condom beside you, keeping yours eyes on the way your fingers look wrapped around his dick. He feels thick and heavy and warm hardening in your palm and the thought of him being inside of you soon makes your mouth water, makes your hand move a little faster. 

Kihyun’s breath stutters and when you take a glance up you see the way he bites the inside of his lips. He fumbles with the packet a little so you go back to your initial pace and weaken your hold just the slightest bit. Once the condom is out he hands it to you with a lick of his lips. Pinching the tip of it, you slide it on. Your heart is beating a mile a minute, anticipation and excitement is running through your veins because this is really happening. 

“Lay back for me,” You’ll listen to anything he demands of you with that husky voice. 

He crawls back on his knees to give you room to slump down until your back is flat on the bed, knees bent. The pace he pushes into you is so agonizingly slow but every inch is delicious and has you gasping for air. The stretch is welcomed and feels so good you grab onto his tense biceps on either side of your head.

“Holy shit,” is groaned into your ear once he’s fully sheathed. 

Holy shit indeed. Your fingers and the head you got from Krystal’s friend (Taeyong? Taehyun? Taeyoon?) months ago don’t compare to how good Kihyun feels inside of you. And when he pulls his hips back to start a steady pace you can’t hold back your moans because he feels incredible dragging against yours walls, whimpers becoming hiccuped when there’s a little more force behind his motions. 

He lifts your leg over his hip and keeps his hand on your thigh, sitting up straight on his knees. His other hand runs up your tense stomach and grabs at a bouncing mound, almost using it for leverage when his dick slams into your pussy at a faster rate. 

You choke on whatever noise was about to come out and keen, pushing your chest further into his palm and trying your hardest to meet his thrusts with a roll of your hips. The coil in your lower belly is threatening to snap already, heat rising and slowly making its way down to your core. 

Earlier you realized how beautiful Kihyun’s voice is on stage but nothing compares to the sweet moans he couldn’t bite back, the groans that couldn’t stay within. 

And when nothing but curses start to tumble out of your mouth he understands, letting go of your boob to snake his thumb to your clit and work firm circles on it. You can’t keep your eyes open any longer, the pleasure too intense and causing them to roll back. Your hands feel around your comforter for something to grab onto and your face twists up into a look of pure satisfaction. 

His hot gaze on you is hard to miss even when your eyes aren’t open. His groaning grows in volume and bubble out of his throat more often than in the beginning. 

“I'm— mm. I'm—fuck Kihyun,” you babble when your lower abdomen continuously clenches. Chest heaving and grip on your duvet tightening you find the strength to crack your eyes open. Kihyun’s attention is on his thumb drawing shapes into your bundle of nerves, but when he feels you looking at him it diverts to you. His brows are furrowed in concentration and his teeth are nibbling away at his lower lip. There’s a scrunch of his nose and everything about him just sends you over the edge, the coil finally snapping and the pleasant burning inside of you spreading down to your legs. Nothing but his name is understood from the mess of words that leave your lips, back arching and eyes squeezing shut as your walls clench and unclench around his cock repeatedly. 

You can hear your pussy getting wetter and wetter, his thrusts only getting faster. Compliments of how tight you are, how good you feel around him are growled and your body is curling into itself at the now sloppy thrusts, him chasing his own orgasm. 

His final thrust is sharp, going so deep into you you almost see stars, body scooting up your mattress a little. His final moan is music to your ears and it repeats in your mind, even as he pulls out, takes the condom off, ties it and tosses it in the trash can beside your nightstand. Even when he’s slumped over you with the side of his face pressed into your right boob, sandwiching you between his slightly sweaty body and the bed. 

Your hands somehow find his raven locks, combing through them and watching the way the strands slip through your fingers. 

The relaxing atmosphere after coming down from your highs is ruined when Kihyun clears his throat. “I’m starving." 

Your hands stop their movements and you get a double chin looking down at him. "When’s the last time you ate?" 

"Like, this morning?" 

You roll your eyes. This isn’t the first time he’s gone a few hours too many without eating. 

"There’s food in the kitchen, feel free to eat whatever you want." 

Fingertips gingerly skate along your stomach. 

"You’re not gonna eat with me?" 

You snort. "Only if you bring the food in here because something tells me I won’t be walking straight if I tried right now." 

"I guess you got your answer to how good I’ll fuck you." 

Choking on your spit you lightly tap your knuckles on the top of his head. God, you really said that didn’t you? 

He retaliates with a nip to the side of your chest he hasn’t gotten comfortable on, then pushes himself up with his arms. With one last kiss to your lips and a mumble from you telling him you’re not hungry his body warmth leaves and he’s slipping his briefs back on. 

"Hurry back. I wanna cuddle,” you say cutely. 

And when he’s gone you slip out of the bed, a little wobbly at first as you make your way into the bathroom. This isn’t the bath you were looking forward to but the spray of the shower is just as welcomed and relaxing enough. 

You’re lazily putting lotion on your legs when he comes back, in a silky night gown. 

There’s a smirk playing on his lips and his steps slow until he’s standing at the foot of your bed, hand on his hip. “Are you trying to get me hard again?" 

"Shut up and take a shower. There’s towels in there for you,” you roll your eyes, nodding in the general direction of the bathroom. 

The sound of the shower starting up again brings a big sigh from your chest. All of this is just too good to be true, but at the same time you’d never question the look of pure sincerity that Kihyun gave you after you confessed you felt the same way he did. The look of raw adoration that his face showed as he saw you laid out for him. There was lust swirling around his irises but there was so much more and that let you know he wasn’t just saying those things just to fuck you.

On the way to turn the lights off, you place the bottle of lotion back on your dresser. Back on the bed you switch on the lamp on your nightstand before crawling under the blankets and tucking them under your chin, facing the bathroom door.

Your eyes grow heavy by the time he steps through it, towel around his hips and another hanging from his head. He throws a smile in your direction and you just scrunch your nose a little in acknowledgment, continuing to watch him as he pulls bottles out of his bag and put them on your dresser. You watch as he does his whole skin routine, combs his hair out and slips boxers and sweatpants on.

“Do you enjoy staring at me?” he chuckles, crawling behind you. 

“You literally make a living out of people staring at you,” you counter flatly. You turn to face him and he welcomes you with an arm in the air, silently giving you the green light to scoot as close as possible. The tone of your voice doesn’t match the smile that begins to stretch your lips as his arm falls down around your waist gently. 

It’s quiet for a while and your breath is just starting to even out, eyelids just a fraction from closing all the way. Kihyun’s guided your face into the crook of his and the up and down motion of your hand on his torso slows to a stop. 

“Do your legs really hurt?" 

The question is soft and hesitant and it takes a few seconds longer than it usually would for you to make sense of his words, but when you do, you chuckle. And when his hand dips down and fingers start kneading at your thigh you laugh louder, apologizing when he winces because of the proximity of your mouth to his ear.

The bearable pain you feel is actually on the insides of your thighs, and though he’s not even touching where you feel the burn, you just let him do his thing.

A/N: okay so this is the longest chapter yet and will be the longest. the way i wrote it might seem like this is the finale but nah, the next one is ;)