#How to Learn Programming Language Fast

[redo-rewind-if]

You're dead. Or, at least, you should be. You remember what it felt when the bullet pierced your chest, the blood rushing out too fast, too much to stop. The man in red smirking above you. And yet, here you are. Alive. Safe in bed. One week before the day of your death.

Redo; Rewind is a story about time. Of an ordinary person working an ordinary office job. Sure, you might work for an info broker and, sure, you sometimes (often) commit acts of corporate espionage for said job, but that's just business.

This is something far beyond that ordinary life.

Time travel. It seems you of all people are capable of it. To manipulate time and bend it to your will. It may not be something you asked for, but you need it now more than ever.

Someone wants you dead. And they've already succeeded once. You can't allow it to happen again.

(Please note that Redo; Rewind is currently rated 18+ for depictions of violence/death, references to drug and alcohol use, explicit language, and heavy themes.)

Play as a customizable MC! Choose your MC’s appearance, gender, skills, and more!

Romance, befriend, or antagonize any of the 3 romance options.

Learn how to master your time control ability and use it to your advantage.

Avoid past mistakes and inadvertently come up with new, much worse ones!

Try not to die. Again. And again. And again...

Victor/Victoria Zhang [M/F] - Your boss and owner of VZSystems, the front for their true work as an info broker. Clever, professional, and cold—a classic business major. That's how they appear, anyway. Having worked for them for sometime now, you know that, despite their intimidating appearance, they hide a much softer side underneath. Will you maintain the status quo as employer and employee, or will you cross the boundary set by your positions?

August Astaire [M] - Hitman, assassin, whatever you want to call him, the man's a killer. That much is clear after he put a bullet through your chest. But is that all there is to him? As arrogant and cruel as he seems, you can't help but wonder if there isn't more to him than meets the eye. Maybe if you play your cards right you could even turn an enemy into an ally. But, even if he plays for your team, how much can you really trust him?

Amara Ingram [F] - Your coworker of about two months now. You don't know her well yet, but she seems genuinely kind, with a good sense of humor and a sharp mind. Since being hired, she's quickly earned her place, proving to be an invaluable asset with her skill in engineering and programing. Undoubtedly, someone you're glad is on your side, but could your feelings for her extend beyond the professional?

[Demo] - Available Here! (Last update: September 15th 2024)

[ROs] - Additional Details Here!

[ravenrothstr]

I SHOULDN'T HAVE MET MY IDOL

summary. y/n chasing her dreams of working as a graphic designer at SM to meet Jaehyun, just to find out expectations are different than reality

genre. idol! au, fluff

words count. 12.0k

disclaimer. the story is fully fictional. other names mentioned are just for the story and pure imagination, with no bad intentions

tags. @dulyrana

-- ★🎸🎧⋆｡ °⋆ --

You have been living in Seoul for almost five years now. Well, it wasn't the best thing that ever happened in your life but when you opened the email today, every bad day just flushed down the toilet in your brain.

Congratulations! I am writing to formally offer you the job for the trainee program on Graphic Designing and Creative Media for SM Entertainment Co. We strongly believe that your skills and expertise will help our company to reach great heights...

You read it twice, thrice, quadruple, quintuple and millions of times. It is just too good to be true. Tears stung your eyes like shards of glass, slowly recalling the hardships you had gone through throughout the journey.

--

It was cold when you finally left to finish your work on a Friday night during her first job in Seoul as an intern at a small firm. You looked at the phone to check the temperature immediately regretting how thin she dressed that day.

-11

The cold wash over your skin repeatedly as you freeze in front of the company. You threw your arms around yourself to hug, hoping to feel warmer. Just then, you heard footsteps approaching out of the company door in which you immediately recognised the person. It was your supervisor and head boss. You quickly gave them a warm smile and a gentle bow, although you were unfamiliar with that culture.

"Hello", you greeted. The head boss just grinned at you as he replied in Korean which made you struggle to understand but lucky enough to have your supervisor translating it for him.

"He's asking if you wanna join for a drink"

"Oh sorry, I can't drink"

"Ah it's okay, I'll let him know", just then the supervisor translated it to the head boss but a different meaning.

"Sir, she's not going. She's not like us", leaving a remark.

You definitely understood that, you managed to learn some Korean before she came here. The head boss gave you a side eye, looking down at you as he scoffs and heads off with the supervisor. You stared blankly towards their direction, hearing the supervisor continue to speak to the head boss. With the knowledge of the Korean language you knew, you mixed the puzzle of words to understand why the supervisor was complaining about you.

The supervisor had the right to complain, though, you thought.

You messed up big time that day. You had the design wrong again this time because you misunderstood the client during the meeting. It was hard for you to catch what they were talking about, every word seemed too fast for you and no one bothered to help or clear it out. By the time, the supervisor presented the new design, they were too furious. You had to remake the design repeatedly for the client until they were satisfied. They suffered a lot that day.

The emotions caught you as she looked down at the ground that is now turning into white snow. You dragged your feet to the studio she lived in, making your way to the bed. Thinking to yourself.

Have I made the right choice to come here?

--

This thought came up again when you was working as an assistant graphic designer at another firm when you witnessed the design that you spent sleepless nights on it to not be selected for the presentation. Your coworker, who had the simplest design, smiled widely when they presented hers in front of the client.

The unfairness killed your confidence as you grew smaller and smaller in the community. Sinking in the pile of majorities. With you timid attitude, it makes it easier to bully her at work. You did most of the editing, the hard ones, and the complicated ones and you never complained. Because deep down, you knew this work was what put the food on the table.

You closes the lights at the desk, making your way out of the office. You were again the last person to leave the office. Lifting up your face, you saw the snow falling to the ground. Significating another year's end. You took out the earphones you plucked them into your phone and brought it to your ear. Looking at your recent playlist, you picked a song for your walk back home.

Timeless - NCT U

You start walking back home as the song starts, it reminds you why you came here in the first place. It was no surprise to anyone that you would be moving to Korea since you were very influenced by the Korean industry ever since you were in high school. You loved everything about it.

Food. Music. Drama. Outfits and of course.

Idols.

Throughout the years, you stan a lot of groups but never beats NCT. It was everything to you. Your happiness, comfort, sadness. You named it. Nothing cures you more than them, same goes for other fans out there, you feel connected with them. Despite of being very immersed in fangirling, you is too just an average girl out there living her life.

--

“You really think I can have my internship in Seoul?”, you questioned your friend sitting in front of you.

"Of course, a lot of our seniors did it. You can apply for that program since you like kpop so much, you should go"

You shrugged your shoulders, even if you wanted to your confidence wasn't thick enough for you to crush all the obstacles you imagined and your friend was quick to notice that.

"Come on, y/n. You'll have fun there, and who knows you might meet Jaehyun. He's your bias right?", you smirked at her comment.

"He's everyone's bias. Besides that's too impossible to happen. You know fans and idols are separated by reality"

"And you know fans are dreamers, and you can't go into reality without waking up"

You didn't say anything. It was true that meeting up and being close to your bias is very delusional but as a fan who dreams for it to become true, you hold onto something called hope.

This memory was definitely a core reason for your hope to work somewhere near Jaehyun. The greatest thing about it is that you really loves your job and you love kpops. Therefore, you always find yourself pushing through the hardships of living there alone.

--

You stretched your neck from side to side as you relieved your tiredness from your work. It has been almost three months since you worked at SM as a trainee, and you like working there. Most of your colleagues treated you nicely, not to mention the bossy seniors but overall it was alright. However, it does dishearten the fact you haven't met any idol yet. You were starting to believe that trainees don't get any opportunities to meet any idols. Just then, you heard someone tap your shoulder softly. It was no surprise to you this time when you saw a familiar figure standing behind you. Your face immediately lifted up a smile.

It was your trainee partner, Beom Seok.

"Meet me at the pantry", he mouthed. You nodded as you headed to the pantry after him.

"Are you still working on the mood board for the new group debut concept?", Beom Seok asked leaning his back on the countertop and taking a sip of his coffee.

"Yeah, you know how fussy Daeun can be", rolling your eyes back as you stir your coffee next to Beom Seok.

He smiled.

"It's amazing, isn't it? You get involved in concept ideas for the new debut as if they are letting us decide what's the new trend-"

"Or our supervisor is just not that up to date with the latest edit trend of Photoshop so she's asking her little minions to explore it for her"

"Well, if you see it in that light. I can't stop you from being a pessimist, just like how you can't stop me from looking at how great you are"

You chuckled, Beom Seok is definitely a 'words of affirmation person' and he has a lot to share with you. The days go on as you continue editing your work, reconsulting it and repeating. She looked around the office to see who was still available. She felt relief when she saw Daeun and Beom Seok at their table. It was really a hectic week for them.

They decided to call it a day not long after, Daeun offered them to have dinner together saying she had to get rid of some nervousness for a crucial presentation but Beom Seok politely declined as he headed home straight away. Although you couldn't drink, you figured it wouldn't hurt to accompany Daeun. Besides, it was going to be at her apartment so you didn't have to send anyone home or worry about how to get back.

--

Your eyes widen when you enter Daeun's apartment. It was so white-coded, with the minimalist interior it makes the place warmer. Daeun opened her coat and tossed her keys at the table. Your eyes were scanning the room when you caught on something to your liking.

Regular-Irregular

"Unnie, I didn't know you liked NCT 127"

"Oh that?," Daeun responded while setting up the table.

"I was involved in their comebacks a few times before. Also, for the upcoming next year", she continues. "Tomorrow's presentation is about their comeback. It might be a bit tense even if they approved the concept",

You could only nod to her statement, not ignoring the jealousy you felt inside. In fact, you did come here with the hope of getting close to Jaehyun. Daeun showed you the ring book about their concept as your eyes read the title.

2 Baddies.

Daeun continued to show and explain to you about the concept, with the thought of her practising for tomorrow. You were all ears for it. With the cars and race suits, they're definitely gonna look amazing. As time passed by, Daeun took a sip from the glass. It was the fifth bottle of soju. Your eyes pulled closed at separate times as they fought to stay awake, the sleepiness was getting into you.

You squeezed your eyes shut due to the tiredness. The next thing you knew you were witnessing the sunlight rays through the sliding door across Daeun's living room. Your body shoots upright in the chair as your mind tries to deny the reality the sun is up.

"Daeun, you have to wake up or we will be late for work", you aggressively shake Daeun, hoping you shake her off from the drunkness.

But it was no use, she was still completely wasted from last night.

"Unnie you have a presentation today, get yourself together!"

Daeun begins to groan as she tosses and turns her body around. She was clearly not ready to go to work. You grumble in frustration.

"Daeun, I'll get going first. I am so sorry", you apologise. You quickly made your way out of Daeun's apartment and you headed to your house at the speed of light. Luckily, your apartment wasn't that far from Daeun's.

The clock on the wall of your office was showing you 15 minutes late. Your heart started pumping with the calves burning, breath forming clouds in the air from your face. Your feet fly over stones and leaves. The clock on the wall of your office was showing you 30 minutes late. when you entered. You tried your best to look calm in front of the others as you made yourself comfortable at your desk.

"Are you okay?", Beom Seok mouthed from his desk, next to you.

You just gave him a small nod and started to work as usual.

--

Daeun was nowhere to be found when they began to search her for the presentation. The voice of your senior teammate's roses as they called decline again. The clock struck near to 2pm, and the team got more and more restless of Daeun missing in action. You and Beom Seok kept your head low, trying your best not to get involve in this matter.

You secretly prayed for Daeun's appearance. You would be in great trouble if they knew you were with her last night. Just then, you heard one of your senior teammates answered a call.

"Daeun, where the fuck are you?!"

Your shoulders pulled back to the chair, letting out a long relief when you thought Daeun coming to the office anytime soon.

"What do you mean you're not coming? Did you drink last night?!", the senior scolded.

You could the shivers under your skin, making you turning into white. Daeun has always been a pain in the ass to the team but you didn't expect her to bail out on work last minute just like this. You tried your best to ignore the conversation and remind yourself it wasn't your fault for Daeun's action but you couldn't help when you heard the senior mentioning your name.

"You passing y/n to present because she revised the presentation with you?", the senior turned her head towards your direction.

Blood drains from your skin, and your entire body becomes impossibly still. There was no way they were letting you do the presentation just because your drunk supervisor said so.

Just before you can protest, you find yourself standing in front of the door meeting room with your other seniors rehearsing the presentation with them. They make sure to tell you all the ethics of the meeting and also remind you that the meeting will be recorded for their content.

"And also, there will be the members in the room so don't go throw yourself at them. Remember you are the concept creator and you must stay professional"

The comment made you stand rigid with terror, too overwhelmed to move. You're not ready for this, not in this way. But if you told your seniors now you couldn't do it, you felt like you were passing the burden instead of lifting it up for them. It's indeed your job and you are here for that.

You entered the room with your seniors and other teams. You assume they were all working together too for this comeback. The more you scan the room, the more nervous you get. NCT was definitely there at the end of the room with all cameras directing to them. What's happening was so surreal to you but you kept yourself composed as you focused on the meeting.

--

The presentation went well for you, although most of the time you were just filling it with compliments on how the members would look great with the concept because you had no idea what the presentation's content was. As soon as the director gave the cut queue, everyone started bowing at each other. The sight of NCT approaching you caught your eye and you immediately went into panic mode, making sure of a good impression.

You gave a smile and quick bow as soon you made eye contact with Jaehyun, the first member approached you. Feeling the butterflies in your stomach and your heart fluttering. Luckily he replied with the same smile before he spoke.

"Are you new here?"

"Yeah, but I'm just here to give the presentation on behalf of Daeun sunbaenim"

"Ah I see, I wonder too where was she"

He knew Daeun?, you scoff at the thought in your head as Johnny gets in your view.

"Well, hope to see you around. It was nice meeting you"

You again smiled uncontrollably at those words as you brought it to the dinner table with Beom Seok.

"I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE I NOT ONLY SAW THEM IN FRONT OF ME! THEY WERE CONVERSING WITH ME!", you said excitedly at Beom Seok. He only continued to grill the meat for you, just before you could continue fangirling Beom Seok raised his voice at the owner of the restaurant.

이모, 소주 주세요

"One bottle of soju, please". You took a hint he might be having a hard time at work today.

"Feel like drinking today? Should I invite Daeun?" you try to lift up the mood.

"No, it's okay. Just wanna have a drink with you"

--

"Beom Seok, let's get you home. You are really drunk now", tapping gently at his shoulder who's now putting his face down at the dinner table with a hand on the soju glass.

“You’re being… ridicu-lush… ’m not that drunk…”

You rolled your eyes at the comment. Beom Seok was totally wasted too at the other end of the table. And here you are, struggling with how to get him home after paying for the meal.

"Beom Seok, we need to get you home now", you said, trying your best to lift him up. Just as you made it to the door with Beom Seok, you caught into a familiar person covered in long black coat.

Oh my god

"Oh, it's you again", said Jaehyun.

"Hi-"

"This is really bad timing actually", you tried to laugh off the embarrassment.

"Are you okay? Do you need help?"

"Actually yes, he's quite heavy"

Is it really Jeong Jaehyun helping me?

He took Beom Seok's arm from you and continued to carry him.

"So do you know where he lives?"

"I- I don't actually too", Jaehyun laughed, clearly you guys weren't that close yet. Nor friends with benefits.

"We can take him to my apartment first, then we can search for his address"

"WHAT?! I don't think we are allowed to do that. Besides, if you know me, I should be the last per-"

"You're a fan, aren't you?"

The question caught you off guard, you could only stare blankly at him before Beom Seok's sudden nausea hit you back to reality. Seems like bringing him to Jaehyun's apartment was a good option.

You tried a few times to unlock Beom Seok's phone, while Jaehyun went out of the room to take off his coat. It took longer than you expected to unlock his phone. Apparently, the fingerprint or face ID wasn't working and now you had to figure out the passcode.

"Hurry up what's your passcode", you clench your hands in frustration, wanting to throw the phone away.

You closed your eyes, letting you a long sigh. This was one of the reasons you hate the idea of drinking. It brings you back to your childhood.

--

The image of your alcoholic father drunk on the sofa flashes before your eyes when you peck through the door of your room. Again today, he came in with another woman wrapped around his arms.

"Mom, are you done at the restaurant?". you said as soon as your mom picked up the call.

"I'm sorry dear, we're almost done. We're just closing, I'll be back soon I promise"

She said that every time.

And every time you called, you hoped for her to enter the house to witness this messy affair herself. Little did you know, the day your mom found out about the affair was the last day you ever saw your mother. If you knew she couldn't handle the news, you would have brought the affairs to grave. She must been having a tough time with her life.

--

"Hey, are you okay?", Jaehyun gently placed his palm on your shoulder, bringing you back to reality.

"Yeah, I'm just really tired"

"That's okay. You really should spend the night here-"

"NO", you quickly protest.

"I'm sorry, we should leave. I think his wallet is here somewhere and we can get a taxi from her-"

"I think it'll cause more trouble if you leave my apartment at night. I saw some sasaeng on our way back here"

You felt bad, this is your first time encountering your bias and you have caused much trouble for him. Seeing how persistent Jaehyun were, you decided to stay. Besides, he really didn't seem uncomfortable leaving the house at the moment after mentioning the sasaeng.

You opened your iPad as you made yourself comfortable on the sofa and started studying the repackage concept after the upcoming comeback for 127. Thanks to the impromptu presentation, you have the slides for the next comeback. You were focused on studying when suddenly Jaehyun went to you with a pair of white tshirt and a plaid sleep pants.

“Here, you can change into these if you want too and it’s okay too if your not comfortable doing so”

“Thanks, I’ll just stay in this outfit for a bit until I finish studying”

He smiled at you at your gesture, looking at how immerse you are at your job.

“So what are you studying?”, he asked as he sits besides you at the carpet.

“Well, from what i know this is the repackage concept for your comeback. You wanna have look?”

“Yeah, sure. Gotta make sure I look good in it”, he jokes.

You laughed at his actions. The night continues with both of you sharing experiences with each other, you share your concert experiences and how you ended up in Seoul while he shares TMI during their trainee's day. Both of you shared the warmth of the conversation together that cold night.

Later that morning, you left the apartment with Beom Suk once he was sober enough to walk. You made sure to thank Jaehyun for the night before you left.

—

As another Monday comes in, another chaos comes around. You and Beom Suk sat quietly at your desk, listening to the argument between Daeun and the rest of the team. Apparently, SM decided to sack off Daeun due to her inappropriate attitude lately.

It's been weeks since the Daeun incident. With no supervisor around, you and Beom Suk had little task to do and seems like everyone was just too busy for you guys. You question how the system and organisation really works. Regardless, you still try your best every day.

You sat in front of Beom Suk at the lunch table, your appetite was long gone along with your motivation. Beom Suk lets a sigh as he looks at you playing with your food. He saw 127 members entering the cafeteria. He thought it might be a good chance to lift up your mood, knowing how much you like them.

"Y/n, look it's 127", Beom Suk shakes your little hand, making you turn towards them.

"What's the use of that? Our work is not even close to that. We are to be sacked off too like Daeun unnie"

Beom Suk answered nothing, as both of you returned to your lunch quietly. Just as you entered the lift together with Beom Suk, you met the senior who was with you during the presentation.

"y/n it's been a while", she said, smiling at you.

"Hi, it's nice to see you too. This is my coworker, Beom Suk"

She exchanges bows with Beom Suk.

"I heard about Daeun resigning, it must have been a tough position for both of you"

"Yes, it is, do call us if there's any work we can help you with", you answered politely.

"Actually, we do have some work if you like. Do you have some time?"

You give it a look to Beom Suk, unsure if it's a good idea for both of you to jump at another team's work but you figured out Daeun used to be a part of another team as well and you guys had extra lunchtime so you decided to stop by. They showed you around with the NCT team, the album photo shoot, the fashion line and the choreography for the upcoming tour. It never fails to make you feel more proud of them.

Once the lunch hour was over, you and Beom Suk made your way back to your office floor and of course, you could not stop talking about how much you liked the concept and you had already imagined the fans (you) would react. His tender smile naturally reflected his genuine feelings, he was happy for her.

"But don't you think the youngest fashion designer looks familiar to you?", you asked Beom Suk.

"Well, I really couldn't tell. There were too many people back there"

Your mind went puzzled, you were so sure you'd made some of them somewhere but none of your memories rang the bells. You shook the thought off when the lift indicates the office floor.

--

"You think this colour suits him more?", Yun Hee asked.

"Hm yeah, Johny really suits any colour though but black does matches his hair"

"If then, let's go with shirtless! We can add more accessories", you were stunned.

"Suit yourself"

You have been visting 127's team lately with Beom Suk, the team also love that you were there often. They really appreciate your idea. You were there again with Beom Suk during their album photoshoot, lucky you, your design team allowed you and Beom Suk since there were not much work for you guys for the time being.

As you entered the room with Beom Suk, you can see the car in the middle of the set, covered with white wall around. When Yun Hee and the rest of the styling team entered the room, you knew the members was ready for the shoot.

"I think they look great!", Yun Hee whispered to your ear as she dash next you and Beom Suk.

You turn over your sight towards the members entering the room after Yun Hee.

You froze with your muscles locked in a momentary paralysis, surprise with the visual in front of your eyes. You felt your inner fangirl could scream any moment now, just like when they first appear at any concerts.

"Hey, didn't expect you here", Jaehyun said when he pass by you.

He was the last member to enter the room. It quickily snap you back to reality. Reminding you are here as a stuff at SM.

You were unable to think, you wanted to answer him perfectly that you eventually missed the chance. You just replied to him with a smile, as he made his way to the set.

The photoshoot went smoothly, you observe how they started editing the pictures as they also started shooting for the individual photoshoot.

Jaehyun started talking to you now and then whenever he was free, you were glad he did not ignore you completely after the incident at his apartment yet you can't help noticing youngest member of the fashion line had been eyeing you and Jaehyun all day. It definitely felt weird, more like she was stalking you.

"Are you feeling uncomfortable?", Jaehyun asked, he was quick to notice the situation.

"I am a bit uncomfortable actually, maybe it's because of the cameras", you lied.

"It's okay, just ignore them. You'll get used to it soon"

"You're saying it like I'm the one who is an idol", you joke.

"Well, if I would want to talk to you again, would it be in a situation like this too?"

Your mind went puzzled again.

"Do you mean you wanna talk to me more often?"

"Yeah, I would like to. It's nice to have a conversation like this once in a while"

A soft smile played on his lips, you stared at the in front of you. It cannot be more perfect.

You pushed the thoughts aside when they call Jaehyun for the individual shoot and offered you and Beom Suk to edit the photocards for the album, which both of you gladly took the job.

--

“Y/N?”

You heard someone calling you as you step out of the company, finally ending the day. It took you by surprise that it was the one was who calling you was the familiar fashion designer you talk about to Beom Suk the other day.

��Hi. I am Rose, I haven’t formally introduced myself to you”, she reach out her hand to you.

“Hi, odd to meet you here. Can i help you with anything?”

“No no”, she quickly cleared the assumption before continuing.

“I just wanted to invite you to dinner, since now we are on the same team”

She sounded very uncanny, but she was indeed really kind to the rest of the team and you wanted to get to know her more so you accept her invitation to dinner. It took you by surprise on how ordinarythe dinner was. Both of you exchanged stories and really had nice conversations.

“Are you 127 fan, y/n?”

“Yes, I am a fan. Although I do love my job as a graphic designer at SM, I won’t lie working with your bias is a good motivation”

“Is Jaehyun your bias? I saw you talking to him on the set today”

“He is, I’ve been a fan since-“

“Is that’s why you go to his apartment the other day?”, she confronted you.

That’s when it hits you. Rose was one of the sasaengs that waited outside Jaehyun’s apartment. Suddenly, everything makes senses to you.

Her gazed immediately changed when her intention was out. It creeps you out the fact she is working for the 127 inside the company. Having a lot of access and information about the members.

“You misunderstood the situation, Rose. It’s nothing like you imagined”

“I know it’s not like that, we know”, giving insight to you that she’s not the only one.

“I have an offer to make. How about you tell me about Jaehyun or what’s is in his apartment and we pay you and release a insight he is dating someone like you?”

You could not believe what Rose was doing. Of course it would be flattering that Jaehyun had a scandal with you but being paid for being in a scandal while you know it’s less that true is really beneath you. You felt insulted.

“I am not interested in selling Jaehyun’s name or to be in your dirty game, Rose. You know this is against the company and idols policy”

“We’re never know, y/n. I can already imagine how heartbreaking it is for you when Jaehyun reveals his true colours”

You remain silents. It is true idols are products of how the company have groom them to be and it will be devastating to know that they might not be the same as what you had pictured them. But you can’t let Rose get into your head, Jaehyun deserve to live as much as you do.

“Nice dinner with you, Rose”, you stood up from the table and leaving some cash enough to pay your portion of the dinner.

“You can always find my number in the group chat, y/n”

“Your just selfish because you couldn’t have your bias to yourself”, your turn your back to Rose, storming out of the restaurant.

—

Not long after, you and Beom Suk joined 127 team. Your previous team had a great conflict on the new upcoming team, where they are considering taking out some members of NCT. The conflict worsen day after day until they decided to discontinue the team for the time being. As a fan, you felt bad you couldn’t defend the members. The best you could do now is wait for the company to decide and give out an official statement before you and Beom Suk could continue your original work.

Today, you focus on editing the cover of the album. It’s due by the end of the week. The nearer the comeback date, the more workload you have. It gives you a lot of pressure, it’s the first time you handle editing for a comeback. You wanted to excel your work, especially for NCT.

Looking at the clock that strikes 10 p.m, you decide to wrap up your work. You search for Yun Hee, hoping she’s still around but she was nowhere to be found at her desk. So you thought she might be with the members for some measurements or final fitting.

You press the button to the practise room floor, you’ve been there a few times with Beom Suk when both of you worked on the content editing during the time both of you were waiting your own desk. Those moments definitely became core memories for you.

—

“Let’s have dinner together, y/n”, Johnny said to you, who was focusing on the editing.

“Pardon?”

“I said, let’s have dinner together. Everyone here is going. It’s hyung’s treat”, he grinned at the choreographer.

During that time, the incident with Rose was pretty recent so you thought it’s better for you to avoid being with them too much. Being at the practise room frequent was good enough for Rose to follow you around.

“I’ll have to rain check this one. I’m really sorry”

“Are you skipping dinner? Again?”, Beom Suk asked worriedly.

“No, it’s just that I really have to finish this editing so-“

“Y/n, it’s we have to finish this editing. Come on, I’ll help you out later”

“That’s not it, Beom Suk”

“Then why are you not going?”

Johnny quietly witnessed the situation, he too wanted to know why you have been skipping a lot of their invitations. At the corner of your eye, you can see Jaehyun was there too waiting for your answer.

It was hard for you to explain, you should told them about the sasaeng situation in the first place so that it won’t be complicated for you. You held back screams of frustration. Deep inside you felt mad at Rose for making you feel obligated to her, at the same time you were disappointed in yourself for being scared of her. It took a while for you to process your thoughts when you finally made the decision.

"You know what? Let's go", you said, closing the laptop in front of you.

Johnny and Jaehyun begin to grin ear to ear at your decision. On your way out of the building, the choreographer starts to counsel you on how you shouldn't stress out and give yourself a little fun along your career until all of you make it into the lift.

"Hyung, I think she gets it already", Jaehyun placed his hand on the choreographer's shoulder.

He certainly has saved you in that situation. You peek over your shoulders at Jaehyun. In moments of bliss, both lips curved into matching smiles.

All of you headed to the restaurant, and you tried your best to not walk closely or look too friendly to the members. You walked at the back of them, looking at the ground figuring out how things around.

"Y/N", you heard.

You immediately lifted up your head.

"Yes, Jaehyun. Is there something wrong?", you were concerned and he let out a chuckled at your action.

"I think I should be the one asking. You seem uncomfortable again"

"There's so much going on right now with the comeback", you tried not to spill out about Rose to him.

"Is everything okay? You know you can talk to me if you want to"

And that statement itself made you flutter, you smiled uncontrollably. Although you tried your best to hide it, it was pretty visible to Jaehyun. He couldn’t help but smile at you.

"I haven't sorted out my mind on this stuff that I'm not okay with, but I really should warn you to be careful with the people around you"

At the end of the day, you wanted Jaehyun to be happy and live comfortably just like a normal person except that you regretted saying that when his soft expression turned immediately to anger and worry.

"Has anyone been hurting you? You were blackmailed?", this was the first time you saw this side of Jaehyun and you wished it was your last.

"No, no Jaehyun. I'm fine. It's just I've been watching a few sasaeng fans videos during my work and it worries me that it's might be you going through"

Jaehyun came back to his normal state as you too tried your best to calm down.

“So your saying you want me to be careful of people around me?”

“Yes”

“Have you seen anyone suspicious around me?”

“Yes”, you spoke honestly, making an eye contact with him. He stared at your eyes, both of you stayed at that position for a while.

“Okay. I was about to tell you not to worry so much about things around and enjoy your times with us. Why don’t you help to keep an eye for me since I don’t know how is the suspicious person-“

You felt bad, you should’ve be the whistleblower and tell the company about Rose.

“And in exchange, I’ll spend more time with you”, Jaehyun continued.

“You mean more conversations? Because that’s the only thing we do”, you giggled.

“Yeah that would do, i can be your listener if you want someone to talk too. Plus, I like hearing you speak”

“Thanks, Jaehyun. I really look forward to that”, both of you smiled at your shared secret, making your way to restaurant to enjoy the rest of the night.

—

Once the elevator stops at your floor, you went straight ahead to the practise room area. You took a peek at the door, making sure it’s 127’s room before entering. You saw Yun Hee at the corner of the room measuring Yuta while the other members were practicing.

“Is everything okay?”, you asked, looking at how intense Yun Hee is.

“Apparently someone lose the measurements for the concert outfits, now we have to measure it all again”, she was so focus she couldn’t bother lifting up her face to you. You understood her actions.

“Was it you, Yun Hee?”

“Of course not. Do you think I take my job lightly?”

You were stunned at the sudden burst, Yun Hee was at her peck moment. Luckily Yuta was quick to address her.

“I don’t think she meant that way, Yun Hee”, he explained.

“It wasn’t her and I’m sure of it. The person who has been measuring us the same person all the time. It’s not Yun Hee”

“If she’s measuring it all the time, doesn’t mean she can use the previous measurements?”

“She doesn’t have all those, she’s new. I assume she lost the whole book or just didn’t bother to keep it”, Yun Hee spoke.

While you try to understand the situation, you heard the door swing open, followed with the sound of small steps close enough to tell they were running.

“There you are. You should be here the moment you lost the book”, Yun Hee said to Rose.

You didn’t like what was happening. Instead of helping Yun Hee, you questioned more Rose intention. Did she really lost the book or she’s just trying to get on people’s nerves? Yun Hee started scolding her, as you can Yun Hee has been in deep stress lately. The members are stop their practise and slowly approaching them.

It made you realise Rose really wanted to be noticed by the members. Regardless whatever it takes.

“Yun Hee let’s not do this here, you need to focus on what to do next”, you quickly reminded her before it gets worse.

Yun Hee looked at you sternly, as she let out a long sigh and looked at the ground.

“I’ll help you. We can get this done by tonight, I’ll call for Beom Suk. He’s always here”, you continued.

“No, we can’t. The members really need to rest tonight. We can’t drag any more time”

“It’s okay, Yun Hee. Yun Hee right, your name?”, Johnny asked.

“You can measure us quickly now, only we’re a bit sweaty now. Sorry about that. Here, measure me now”, he pick up the measuring tape and pass it to Rose.

Yun Hee smiled a little, she was glad to see people are willing to help. You softly put your hand at her shoulder.

“I’ll help too, okay?”, picking up another measuring tape.

Although you are not sure of what to do, but it won’t hurt to help. Jaehyun approach you while you were trying to figure out how and what to measure.

“Please measure me, miss”, he said, opening his arms straight to the side. Indicating he was ready, you laughed at him and played along.

“Okay sir. Please note this is my first time, I might need to measure you a few times”

“As you please, madame.”

You and Jaehyun had fun as you two played around when you measured him. Of course the other could see how the both of you enjoying each other’s company, so they let the two of you have sometime together.

“Y/N, can I check the measurements?”, Rose interrupt the laughter.

“Yeah sure, here is it. Is it okay?”

“Well, apparently there’s a lot weird measurements here. I think I need to remeasure him.”

She immediately took the tape and start to measure Jaehyun, pushing you slightly. Jaehyun didn’t like what he was witnessing, he reluctantly gave Rose a glare. Her intentions were clear to you, but you did not want to make things anymore complicated so you start help measuring other members.

The night was late after all of you finished with the measurements and as to make up to it, all of them decided to have some drinks that night.

You were about to make your way out of the studio along with other, when Jaehyun gently pulled your wrist.

“Hey, let’s walk together. To make up with the wrong measurements”, he trying to taste the water making sure your okay.

“Sure.”

The group disper off in their own direction heading towards home after the drink. Some of them were really drunk, unlike you. You're glad Beom Suk was there to make sure they didn't ask you much about why you weren't drinking.

"Are you sure you don't want me to walk you home?", Beom Suk asked.

"Looking at your stand, I'll be the one walking you home. Thanks for offering anyway."

Beom Suk smiled at you as he waved at you before heading towards the opposite direction. Just then, Jaehyun ran out of the bar after you.

"Do you care for some midnight walks?"

--

Under the cloak of night, the Han River becomes a place of quiet contemplation. The rhythmic hum of traffic fades into the background, replaced by the soothing melody of crickets and the occasional splash of a fish breaking the surface. The city skyline twinkles like a jewel in the darkness and there was you and Jaehyun.

In the dark night, he sure shines bright to you.

You thanked all your bad days that led to this moment shared with him. Both of you stop at the fence of the river, looking down at the gentle waves of the river.

"Have you protected me today?", he broke the silence.

"I have", you said proudly, and he was glad.

"Funny how some of us come here, feeling depressed while some come here, feeling content", you continued.

"So how do you feel?"

"Healed."

He admired how you were able to feel content and appreciate the days, even when they were tiring or difficult. The more he got to know you, the more he could appreciate his own days.

"You are truly the strongest person I know, y/n," sliding his gaze slightly towards you as you did the same.

"I have great motivation here", you said smirking.

"What's your motivation?"

"NCT"

Both of you laughed at the answer. It felt a bit awkward for you to say it in front of a member, maybe because you never had to chance to join any fan meet or win a fan call event. Even though, saying it through fan meet and fan call would definitely be less embarrassing.

"I admire how fans have us as motivation and their pillar strength, making tough times easier. I envy that sometimes", he opened up to you and you listened to him dearly.

"What will shine the brightest to you will definitely come to you during the darkness. You'll find your light, trust me. You're my light!"

Jaehyun felt pleased listening to you. The night ended with you and Jaehyun walking down the street heading home to rest, filled with laughs and giggles along the way.

"I wish we could do this every night, it will heal me", you joke.

"Then let's do it."

Their gazes locked, and time seemed to pause, an eternity encapsulated within a fleeting moment following Jaehyun's heartfelt statement.

You contemplated what to answer him, and in that moment of uncertainty, you simply bid your goodbyes and headed your way, leaving him alone on the street, pondering the depth of your interaction.

--

“You looked really tired. Do you want to take a day off? I can help you out with the works”, Beom Suk looked at you worriedly.

“No, I’m really okay”

“Do you perhaps still hangover from last night?”, Yun Hee asked.

“No, Y/N don’t drink.”

“Thank you for remembering”, you grinned at Beom Suk.

As the members and rest of team entered the meeting room before they start the short briefing for the comeback and schedules. There will be a tour this time, it will be more work for the team and the members yet you can see how all of them were happy for this opportunity. It has been a while since they had a tour, looking at how much work they will be doing later really shows you how much NCT has grown.

“And that is all”, said the team leader, indicating the end of the meeting.

“Oh and the graphic team, don’t forget to submit the album for printing”, he quickly added.

You and Beom Suk nodded.

The editing team was chaotic that evening. The deadline for the album printing is today, and all of you gave out your last 100% for this.

“Please make sure you check the folder before sending”, the team leader reminded you and Beom Suk.

Both of you struggled with saving and making sure none of the graphic are pixelated. After so much trouble, you check one last time on the folder and clicked send.

“We did it”, Beom Suk reached out his hand for a high five to you as you replied it.

You sank your weak body into the chair, ready to end the day at the office.

--

The comeback happens smoother than you could have imagined. Everyone's spirits were high, eagerly anticipating the tour and embracing their new schedules with enthusiasm. Your friendship with Jaehyun continued to progress, deepening over time. Well, you didn’t go to Han River every night, but you and Jaehyun find time for each other perfectly. Moreover, you found yourself gradually overcoming your anxiety about Rose. Nothing could go wrong, you thought, as you filled your heart with each passing day.

You were making your way at the bar with Jaehyun, laughing on today’s inside jokes together. As you approach the red tent, Jaehyun automatically rise his hand lifting up the tent for you.

“Ladies first”

“Thank you”, you replied.

It took a while for you to search for the rest of the team and members. Most of the tables were taken by the time you reached. Although in the mid of your search, Jaehyun froze when he noticed Daeun at the table with the rest of them.

“Y/N, Jaehyun, over here!”, they called for you.

The rest of dinner was delight for you, it has been a longtime since the last time you met Daeun. You excitedly told her how well the concept is been going for the team that you. However, you couldn’t help but noticing how Daeun has been exchanging and taking glances at Jaehyun who was beside you at the table throughout the night.

It did made you feel uncomfortable, it felt like you were holding Jaehyun back from something so you decided to go out of the tent for a while with faking that you wanted some fresh air from the smell of alcohol and Daeun did seize the opportunity to approach Jaehyun.

Through the tent, you can see Daeun absolutely hit it off with Jaehyun.

“They really look good together”, Johnny said, taking you by surprise. He went out for smoke when he saw you peaking on them.

Only god knows how much you wanted to scream “NO!” on top of lungs to Johnny’s question. But again, you’ll suffer more living in this imaginary world of yours.

“Yes”, you answered. “They would be a perfect couple.”

Daeun comes over to talk to you when you return to the bar, but is only met with awkward conversation instead of the same boisterous talks you had. You wanted to blame it so much on Johnny’s statement that melded in your mind but deeply you know you was just upset if wasn’t you.

You would be lying if you say you didn’t cry yourself to bed that night.

“At least it’s sends me to sleep”, you thought to yourself when you woke up with puffed eyes the next morning.

Regardless it didn’t stop you from work. With those eyes, you sat on your desk the next morning and continue editing. Shallowing all the pain and heartache you felt last night.

—

The atmosphere among the office workers is tense and fraught with unease as you arrive at the desk that day. Beom Suk and the other colleagues are frantically searching through files or documents, while the team leader is furiously typing emails and making urgent phone calls. Your emotions run high, with feelings of anxiety and perhaps even panic palpable in the air. You aren't sure what's going on in the office.

"Yes, we are very sorry. We will address and amend the cover straight away," you hear the team leader say on the phone.

Your eyes widen in alarm. It was you who emailed the cover for printing. Just then, the team leader calls her out to the meeting room and scolds you about the mistake on the cover. Apparently, SM had printed out the album and released it. Soon, the fans noticed Doyoung was not on the cover, and the situation went viral on the internet.

As hard as it is for you to brush off the emotions, you begin going through the files again and resending the correct folder for printing. Despite the lingering anxiety, you focus on rectifying the mistake and ensuring that the issue is promptly resolved. Once the situation is handled and the correct files are sent, you step out of the office to take a moment to calm down. You sat on the bench on the terrace alone with your coffee when a familiar figure came next to you.

"Hey", said Beom Suk, you felt calm again.

"Can I cry now?", Beom Suk immediately taps on his shoulder and shoves it slightly towards you, ensuring you he'll be there for you.

It made you smile, even with tears rolling down your cheeks. You lean on towards him, putting your head on his shoulders.

"Beom Suk, I have something to tell you"

"What is it?"

"I didn't send the wrong file"

“What?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard what had been said.

"I checked the files before sending, in fact, Doyoung was the last person I edited so I remember it clearly," you explain, trying to ease his confusion.

"I'm not sure how, but the email was sent twice, and the second one wasn't from me," you add, feeling a pang of frustration at the situation.

"Well, do you know who it is? You should really clear out your name," he says, his tone edged with frustration as he tries to stand up from the bench, ready to confront whoever is responsible. But you quickly reach out and hold his arm, stopping him.

"It's okay, you'll find out who it is later. Let's just stay like this for a while," you say softly, wanting to diffuse the tension and find solace in each other's company amidst the chaos.

That night, the members invited you out for a drink again. However, halfway through the evening, you begin to feel uneasy about being with them at the moment. You decide to personally apologize to Doyoung for the mistake. Thankfully, he forgives you and offers you some comfort, reassuring you that he didn't take it personally and urging you not to worry about it.

Grateful for his understanding, you thank him sincerely before excusing yourself from the bar. Despite their invitations, you feel the need to retreat and process your emotions in solitude, hoping to find clarity and peace of mind away from the distractions of the night.

At times like this, you can't help but feeling sad, wishing you could stroll along the peaceful Han River with Jaehyun by your side. But ever since that night with Daeun, your once-close friendship with Jaehyun has faded, The silence between you weighs heavily on your heart, leaving you feeling lonely. Despite longing for his company, the unspoken tension makes it difficult to bridge the gap between you two.

--

“Where have you been? Aren’t you supposed to protect me?”, Jaehyun smirked.

“Oh sorry, Jaehyun. Things got messed up again”

“Great, I like messes!”

You laughed.

“No, you don’t”

“I do, come on tell me what’s going on. You left the bar alone again last night”

The image of Jaehyun hanging around with Daeun flashes back in your mind. It was almost like your still at the bar.

“Nothing that big nor about the comeback, so don’t worry”, you continue to march on with your arms crossed, hoping Jaehyun would scoff off any minute but he caught you arm holding you back.

“Y/N, do you not want to talk to me anymore?”, he looked serious.

“Not today, I’m sorry”, as you push his hands away from you and walk off.

As you expected, he didn't try to stop you from leaving. You glance back at Jaehyun as he walks away, feeling regret. You realise you've become used to getting what you want lately, and now you're feeling greedy for his company.

You forget your thoughts as you see Rose passing by the corridor. Without hesitation, you march towards her and quickly grab her wrist.

"What are you doing?", she struggles to release her hand from your grip.

"I'm letting you know that the tricks you are playing are not funny anymore and you should stop hacking into someone's computer", letting go of her hand.

Rose smirks at you with a wicked gleam in their eyes. Behind those eyes, she enjoys how agitated you are. She can't wait for the next evil scheme.

"Looks like reality is finally hitting you, y/n", Rose said to you, making you frown.

"You really don't scare me, Rose"

"Of course, I don't. Your job will"

"And Jaehyun's true colours with do it themselves to you", she added.

You strode away from her, your footsteps thundering down the hall. Clouded by a storm of emotions and rage, you feel torn. Protecting Jaehyun means everything to you, yet your job is equally important. Juggling both was taking its toll, gradually wearing you out.

You were about to pick up a tray as you arrived at the cafeteria when Beom Suk approached you.

"Hey, have the team leader spoken to you?", grabbing your attention.

"About what?" you ask, your tired body making its way through the food section.

"The tour, we're coming with them"

You flinched at his words. After Rose hinted at her sinister intentions, you couldn't shake the feeling that it had something to do with the concert. It seemed like she knew all along that you were going to follow them on tour as well.

"No", you protest.

"Yes, y/n. Remember when you told me you wanted to travel a lot during your 20s? This is a perfect opportunity"

"Perfect opportunity for Rose", you thought.

Beom Suk was right. After returning from lunch, the team leader called for a meeting and announced that you and Beom Suk would be joining 127 on tour to work on the stage graphics. While others congratulated you happily and mentioned it as an opportunity to become a permanent member, your heart couldn't fully embrace the joy. Instead, anxiety crept in, overshadowing any sense of excitement you might have felt.

—

After weeks of sleepless nights, this morning you marked crossed on the calendar at your house, looking at the reminder that you wrote on today's date.

TOUR TRIP D-DAY

The nerves crept in, making the moment feel surreal. It seemed too good to be true, yet you knew deep down that you deserved this opportunity. You and Beom Suk had worked tirelessly for this comeback and tour, overcoming countless obstacles. Through all the challenges, you poured your heart and soul into your work, and now, you found yourself at the top. Despite the anxiety, you wanted to allow yourself to feel proud of your accomplishments.

"Hello, yes, Beom Suk?" you picked up the call, abruptly halting your daydream and bringing you back to reality.

"Hey y/n, sorry to break it to you, but we're having a serious problem with the flight tickets," Beom Suk's voice crackled through the phone.

"What do you mean?" you asked, your heart sinking.

"I'm with Manager Hyung right now, and it looks like our tickets, along with Jaehyun and Taeyong's, were not booked."

"WHAT?" Your disbelief echoed through the phone, mingling with a rising sense of panic.

You made your way to the company straight away after the phone call. As you reached the advertising and promotion floor, you spotted the member gathered on the couch near the entrance, their expressions reflecting a sense of hopelessness. A wave of pity washed over you, stronger for them than for yourself.

The manager went to get their flight tickets earlier this morning when they found out the reservations had been mysteriously cancelled by someone in the company.

The atmosphere filled with frustration and anger grew as they tried to rebook flights at such short notice proved difficult. Hours passed with no solution in sight. Jaehyun and Taeyong sat quietly, tired and disappointed.

In a tough decision, they sent Jaehyun and Taeyong back home temporarily while the rest of the members and team proceeded with their scheduled flight. It was hard, but it was the best decision they could make.

As they bid goodbye, promises were made to keep Jaehyun and Taeyong updated on the situation. With heavy hearts, they watched their friends leave, hoping for new tickets soon.

You remained there with Beom Suk, both of you tiredly trying to sort out the situation and waiting for the staff to deal with the new tickets. Taking a seat on the couch, you let out a long sigh of exhaustion. With your eyes closed, you lean back, resting your head against the soft cushions.

"Are you okay? You've been staying up the whole week to finish this work", Beom Suk asked, he was worried for you.

"I'm a bit tired, I should be sleeping on the plane by now"

"Just hold on for a bit, okay? It will be okay soon", you nodded to him.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting and uncertainty, a sense of relief washed over the room as the staff finally announced that the new flight tickets had been successfully booked.

You and Beom Suk exchanged tired but grateful smiles, your weary expressions giving way to a glimmer of hope. Both of you quickly gathered your belongings.

--

As you called Taeyong and Jaehyun for the pick-up at the airport, your heart sank when Jaehyun didn't answer his calls. Concern etched into your brow as you tried multiple times, each attempt met with the same silence.

Thoughts raced through your mind, imagining various scenarios that could explain his lack of response. The driver wasted no time and headed straight to Jaehyun's apartment. You and Beom Suk hurriedly made your way to his building, heartbeats quickening with each step. With the passcode provided by the manager, you swiftly punched in the numbers and the door clicked open.

Your eyes widen as you entered Jaehyun's apartment. The smell of the house felt familiar to you, even some of the stuffs seems familiar to you. Although it was hard to recognise where you seen them. Just then you found yourself in front of the master bedroom, the door was slightly open enough to have peek in and the view was a disappointment to you.

Clothes shuttered on the floor, both a man and woman clothes. You gather up all the courage you ever had in you as you lift up your head to the bed. You saw Jaehyun's naked body, sleeping with his arms wrapped around Daeun's naked body.

"At the end of the day, Jaehyun is a man of his own and I am a delusional fan", a bitter realisation settling in your heart.

As your eyes slowly turning into glass, Beom Seok quickily reach out the door knob slamming the door close. Hoping it was enough to wake up the lovebirds inside.

"Hyung, your flight leaves in 3 hours we need to go now", he screamed from the door.

Beom Seok turned his gaze to your stone figure. He knew how much Jaehyun meant to you, caught Jaehyun in bed with someone who is close to you definitely breaks your heart in pieces and Beom Seok can see that through your eyes.

"Y/N, please grab Jaehyun's luggage and passport at the living room. Take it down at the car, okay? Wait for me there", he said as he bends down to catch your eyes.

You wiped the drolling tears across your cheeks and responded to Beom Seok's instruction. The next thing you know, you witnessed Jaehyun and Daeun bid goodbyes. Giving them one last kiss before all of you made it to the airport after picking up Taeyong.

The fans ran everywhere, pushing each other and flashing their cameras and phones at them. Your body was definitely exhausted by now as you tried your best to make it through the crowd of fans following Jaehyun and Taeyong. As you continue walking, you feel your leg trembling like a jelly. With no hesitation, you held on to Beom Seok's wrist for support and whispered.

"I can't stand"

"Hold on to me, we'll find a place for you to sit at the gate", firmly fixing your hand on his arm, both of you continued walking like that until the gate.

Jaehyun watched the scene unfold with a heavy sigh, realising the toll their fame was taking on you. It pained him to see you and Beom Suk caught up in the chaos, especially now that you had witnessed his relationship firsthand.

Finally reaching the gate, you collapsed into a weary nap against Beom Suk's shoulder, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to you.

"Y/N, we need to board the plane now", Beom Seok shook you gently.

"Oh really? Thank you Beom Seok, for letting me lean on your shoulder"

"No problem Y/N, you really needed that nap", he replied as all of you made your way to the plane.

"Yeah, I'd love to continue that in the plane. I'm reserving your shoulder again," Beom Suk smiled at your statement as he glanced at your boarding pass.

"But Y/N, your not sitting beside me"

"What?", as you searched for the seat number on your boarding pass.

Your heart skipped a beat when you made eye contact with Jaehyun as both of you boarded the plane. The stewardess asked for your seat, and even Beom Suk refused to believe it.

"I'm sitting next to him", you said to the stewardess.

--

Jaehyun helped put your bags in the compartment above before both of you made yourself comfortable in your seats. You remained silence at your seat, giving Jaehyun the cold shoulder, still hurt by what you had witnessed earlier.

Jaehyun, sensing the distance, felt the guilt for the discomfort he had caused. He gently reached out to offer you a blanket, and headphones when your's didn't work, and even adjusted the air conditioning, hoping to provide some comfort during the flight as he was determined to mend the strained relationship.

You stubbornly ignored his gesture, your gaze fixed firmly out the window. Jaehyun was unfazed by your actions and persisted, quietly asking if you needed anything or if you were feeling alright.

As soon as the flight dims the lights to indicate nighttime, your emotions overwhelm you once more. Tears welled up in your eyes as feelings of betrayal washed over you, you wondered why Jaehyun had toyed with your feelings if he wanted to be with someone else.

Trying your best to conceal your sobbing, you assumed Jaehyun was asleep. But as you struggled with your tears, a gentle hand reached out to touch your shoulder, surprising you. You turned to find Jaehyun looking at you with concern, his eyes filled with empathy.

"Y/N, are you okay?" he whispered softly, his voice laced with genuine concern.

You longed for Jaehyun's comfort and presence, but the reminder of his relationship status held you back. You missed him, yet you couldn't ignore the boundaries.

You couldn't bring herself to open up to Jaehyun anymore.

"I... I don't want to talk right now." you declined Jaehyun's offer of comfort, your voice trembling slightly.

It pained you to push him away, but you couldn't ignore the reality of their circumstances. With your decision you turned away, seeking solace in the solitude of your thoughts as you grappled with conflicted emotions.

--

As you reached the destination, you, Beom Suk, and Yun Hee went on an exhilarating tour of the country, exploring its sights and immersing yourselves in its culture in every free time the three of you had aside from work. Every moment was filled with laughter and joy as you created cherished memories together.

Meanwhile, the members dedicated themselves to rehearsals, pouring their hearts and souls into perfecting their performances for the upcoming tour. Their determination never wavered.

Amidst the excitement and busyness of the tour, you found yourself avoiding any mention of what had happened between you and Jaehyun. You pushed aside your feelings of sadness, burying them deep within as you threw yourself into the distractions of sightseeing and work.

One night, you found someone texting you in the middle of the night after work and the second you saw the text you knew who was it from.

‘Glad you found yourself a ticket to the tour. Suprise with his true colours yet? We are ready to have you here’

You were tempted to give out the details. It haunts you that you were tempted. The feeling of betrayal and anger lingers in your mind. Tears starts to gather in your eyes as soon you found yourself typing out Jaehyun caught in bed with ex staff, you couldn’t click send. It kills you to betray him.

He has nothing against you and so do you. Again, you reminded yourself what you use to tell Rose.

“Your just selfish because you couldn’t have your bias to yourself”

As you switch off the phone and tossed it aside. You tried your best to calm down, so you decided to go out of your hotel room and sit by the pool. No longer after, Beom Suk approached you.

At first, both of you shared simple and fun conversations but as time went on his usual cheerful character was replaced by a very serious look. You could feel the conversation getting deeper.

"Y/N, with what happened between you and Jaehyun, I just want to remind you it's okay to be sad and mad," he began, his voice barely above a whisper.

"But dwelling on those emotions won't change what happened."

You looked at him, each word carrying a weight that resonated deep within your soul. It was as if he had peeled back the layers of your heart, revealing the rawness hidden beneath the surface.

He placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. His eyes looked the same went he first offered you his shoulders, again he reminds you he'll be there with you for anything.

"I loved him," you confessed,

"And it hurts a little too much," your voice trembling with the rawness of your emotions.

The words carry out the heavy burden lifted from your chest. The emotions finally became too much for you to bear with tears welling up in your eyes.

That night, Beom Suk listened you tentatively. You told him everything that has happened between you and Jaehyun, along with the saseng you met along the way.

He comforted you with his words to your wounded heart. But as the night wore on, Beom Suk gently reminded you to focus on the task at hand – the upcoming tour.

"Y/N, I know it's difficult," he began softly, his voice filled with empathy. "But you're not alone. We're all here for you, every step of the way."

"Remember," he said with a reassuring smile, "fans are counting on us to deliver. Let's give it our all, together."

You nodded in agreement, grateful for Beom Suk's wise words and encouragement. Though the road ahead may be difficult, you knew that with Beom Suk by your side, you were ready to face whatever challenges came your way.

--

Bringing along the lingering tension between you and Jaehyun, you managed to pull yourself together for the tour, throwing yourself into your work with renewed determination. Each performance was a testament to your resilience, a reminder that you were capable of rising above the pain and focusing on the task at hand.

You also you had it enough with Rose after the night she texted. You realised that stooping to her level would only perpetuate the cycle of toxicity and invasion of privacy that had plagued Jaehyun's life.

So with Beom Suk encouragement, you courageously decide to report her to the company, determined to protect Jaehyun and members from the invasive tactics of sasaeng fans.

Soon the truth came to light – one of Jaehyun's stalkers was working at SM Entertainment, a breach of trust that sent shockwaves through the fandom. In response, the company took immediate action, terminating Rose's employment and sending a clear message that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

As the tour came to an end, you found yourself facing a new chapter in your career – working on the debut of a new boy group for SM Entertainment. The opportunity to spearhead such an important project filled you with excitement and anticipation, pushing aside the lingering thoughts of Jaehyun and the unresolved tension between you.

Yet, as the debut day arrived and the new boy group took the stage for their first performance, you felt a sense of pride and accomplishment wash over you. In that moment, all thoughts of the past were pushed aside, replaced by a sense of excitement for the future and the promise of new beginnings.

Years passed, and yet the situation continued to simmer, unresolved and unspoken, until this day. Despite the passage of time, the tension between you and Jaehyun remains an unspoken truth, a silent reminder of the complexities of love and the scars it leaves behind.

--

Jaehyun arrived at the wedding hall, he was dressed neatly in his black suit with his hair pulled up. An old man greeted him at the hall door which he assume is your father, soon he was escorted to his seat along with the members at the table.

"Glad you made it", Johnny patted his back, welcoming him next to his seat.

The light dimmed as they started the ceremony, all the lights reflected on the crystal chandelier making the hall look dreamy. The band starts playing a lovely melody at the corner of the hall.

"It's just too perfect", Jaehyun thought.

The guests began to clap their hands when they announced that the bride was entering. Jaehyun did not dare to face you, he kept his head forward to the stage while others were already admiring you down the aisle. Tangled with emotions, he knew he shouldn't have missed this moment of you. It might hurt him dearly but he would rather get drunk all night than miss your once-in-a-lifetime moment. He adjusted himself in his seat and turned towards to direction.

Your dress was serenely beautiful and looked ethereal in the soft light. With that smile you put on, it does show you are happier now.

He smiled, reflecting on the joy you brought into his life.

"She's really pretty", Johnny commented on the table.

"She is"

"Didn't you say you had a crush on her back then?", he whispered to Jaehyun.

"I did, it's just I found myself back to Daeun"

"Then, you should have married her!"

Jaehyun's eyes went back to you. How he imagine it was him next to you, instead of Beom Suk. Bitter truth, he was hopelessly in love with someone of the married couple.

"I should", he said while his eyes were serenade by you.

"I should have".

-- ★🎸🎧⋆｡ °⋆ --

[adventuringblind]

Hi, I hope you are doing good 🧡

Could you do a Lando x gf where she isn't used to feel loved (for example she isn't used to hearing compliments, receiving thoughtful gifts or affectionate gestures) and when he does one of those things she doesn't know how to react and gets emotional? Like an overwhelming feeling of being loved. Thank you!

Nothing but Love

Lando Norris x Reader

Genre: fluff

Reguest: yes and I'm taking hurt/comfort and angst prompts. I'm actually looking to do specifically mental health prompts because I think it's comforting to read things like that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Summary: Read the request. I'm so proud to have followed it because I was wanting to make it angsty and I stopped myself.

Notes: This is a 4+1 thing.

Masterlist

Gift Giving

Affection had never been something she got much of. It's something her parents struggled with to the point that it seemed like they were always distant. Both with each other and her.

She is affection starved. It's a fact Lando knew about before they even started dating.

He knew it was going to be difficult to warm her up to it at first. He just needs to find her love language and use that to his advantage.

First on the list: gifts.

Lando, in all honesty, does not think this is her favorite thing. He's seen her at Christmas almost die at the thought of people spending money on her.

But he has money, and he wants to use it on her.

He starts out small with things she needs and doesn't make a big deal out of it. She mentions a snack she's craving, and he has it for her the next day. If she complains all her socks are starting to get holes in them, there are new socks in her drawer the next morning.

He keeps it small, and she appreciates it.

Acts of service

Lando isn't expecting her reaction to this one to be so overwhelming. He purposely makes it a point to do small things like clean up around the house and check of tasks on her to-do list.

She doesn't know how to act at first. It's like she's a robot with no programming or direction. Eventually she warms up to the idea and she learns she can just thank him, be grateful, and move on with the day.

It takes a while to get there, and he has to remind her several times that she doesn't need to try and do everything on her own.

Plus, Lando finds it nice doing mundane tasks when his world is so chaotic and crazy most the time.

Quality time

This one is something they both do on the regular anyways. It's one of Lando's major love languages. He himself needs quality time. The difference here is that Lando makes it a point to do her favorite things that she struggles asking him to do with her.

He takes her to see movies she's been talking about for months. They go to the concerts of her favorite bands that maybe he doesn't like as much. He plays her favorite games with her that he sucks at and watches her smile when she wins.

In a way, it's like watching a child get to do all the things she never got to. Always too busy trying to take care of herself growing up. It's one of his favorite things to see.

Her childish smile makes him fall deeper every time.

Physical touch

Everyone knows Lando is clingy. Every moment of everyday he is touching somebody. Not in a weird way, mind you. Simply hugging, holding, cuddling, shoulder patting, anything that keeps him in close proximity to the people he cares about.

It was something she wasn't used to at first. His touch starved human had no idea how to reciprocate his endless bouts of physical needs.

She caught on quick. A fast study. Now she may even be as clingy as him.

People are so disgusted by their constant public displays of affection. It's a never ending well of tight hugs and stolen kisses.

If she goes to him for affection, he never turns her away. It doesn't matter what he's doing. He could be streaming, and he will not hesitate to either turn it off or if she's comfortable will let her cuddle him while he's gaming.

Words of affirmation

This is the one that got her. He wasn't expecting her to be so shocked when he said he was proud of her for eating three meals that day. Or stutter and blush when he said she's the most gorgeous person he has ever placed eyes on.

He makes it a point to remind himself to say things like that to her. Even the littles compliments.

Sometimes she cries and tries to tell him he's wrong. How he's the only one who has ever said such things about her. Oh, how he wishes he could go back and meet her sooner and tell her all the things she deserves too here.

He is constantly showering her in compliments and reassurance. He reminds her she is worthy of praise and affection. She cries about it sometimes and he just holds her and tells her that she's worthy.

He does it daily and as often as he can. He would start every sentence about her with a compliment if he could.

Her parents may not have given her the affection she deserves. But he will, and he'll make sure she gets all the affection he can give because she deserves it.

[dunmeshistash]

Hey, remember that discussion about Marcille role in the magic school? In chapter 17 in English she is identified as "from the research program", which I just took to mean she went to different sort of classes. But the PT-BR translated it as "pós-graduação"(post-grad), which I found interesting. I looked and apparently the Japanese word 研究科 is literally "research section", but it is used for post grad students who continue to study and research at an university. (cont)

I don't think this changed the ultimate conclusion much, as we already knew she wasn't a regular student, but I find interesting this was identified very early in the story and many people didn't realize (English is not my first language, but I wonder if "research program" is just not a established thing in anglo universities so people don't realize what it was supposed to mean).

Also, thinking a bit more I will revise my previous theory. I postulated before Marcille never formally "graduated" and got "homeschooled" instead. I wonder if it is not a mix of both. 2 years seems too fast to join and graduate (we know Falin took longer), but maybe Marcile did join as a regular student 2 years prior, but because she had been learning from her mom she graduated super fast. That would further the mystique she carries with students as we see in chapter 17.

(referring to this.)

That's really interesting! It's not very straight forward how it works. Here's EHScans vs the official english of that scene from ch17 and ch 57

I guess this could be in the sense she wasn't there to learn like the other kids but to research on her own?

She is canonically a genius tho so I agree that she could have graduated formally before becoming a researcher!

[yuyan]

To my darling

A/n: Merry Christmas and have a happy new year! I hope you enjoy it @pavo-ocell-me! This was a very fun event that I loved taking part in @2023gisecretsanta

Pairing: Lyney x gn!reader

Tags: Pure fluff! Modern au, implied school/college setting, penpals, pre-established relationship, reader is learning French, where reader lives doesn't have snow, one curse word just one ^^

"Take intermediate French they said. You'll be fine they said," you muttered to no one in particular as you read the Google translation over and over again. "My French teacher is going to kill me."

You rubbed your eyes, peeking out of makeshift pillow your arms made. Standing tall at the front of the class with a booming voice was your French teacher. She held a small, clear glass jar with folded bits of paper inside in one hand while placing a stack of letters on her lectern with her other.

"Speaking with natives is an excellent and necessary way to develop your language skills (unlike this soon to be 30 minute speech) so due to the cancellation of the exchange program for this year and the long dragged on meeting, we have decided to give you all pen pals!" she announced. Her arms held a wide stance, awaiting for something you were unaware of.

Some whispers and small squeals echoed through the lecture hall. Others groaned and put their head on the desk, waiting for celestia, perhaps even an archon to take them. You did neither.

"I wish I could turn back time," you sighed. After contemplating for an hour whether your teacher would ever find out that you used Google translate to write half your letter or not, you started handwriting it on a stack of fancy paper you really shouldn't have been able to afford. "Shell never know. It's not like he can tell her anyways."

As you dragged your pen along the piece of paper, you remembered the speech about how necessary this was, the small piece of paper you pulled out of the bag and the letter that came with it. With a small smile playing on your lips, you signed off and stuck the small paper that read "lyney" just below your name with a paper rainbow rose you made yourself. It had its imperfections but it's similarity to the fresh ones he sent you left you content.

"Oh my god why did he reply so fast?" you asked yourself. Not even 3 days later and you received another letter from lyney. You traced the grooves of the red wax seal made you shiver. He wouldn't ever know you used google translate right? With pursed lips, you opened it. Perfume immediately muddled your senses as you opened up the envelope. Your peers hadn't even sent their first letter, let alone receive their second.

As you skimmed over the letter, you took down some notes like where he's from–which was so uncessary–what he likes to do and some of his contact details. You hummed, giving yourself imaginary pats on the back for reading a whole three sentences before typing the other two paragraphs into Google translate. You really needed to switch classes, desperately.

It was only then you spotted that a sentence in french came out the same in the translation. "You really shouldn't be using Google translate for these letters," written at the very bottom. Well fuck.

"You are friends with your penpal? Well that's lovely (name)," your French teacher clapped with bright sparkles in her eyes. It blinded you for a second and you had to look away before you lost the ability to see forever.

Instagram

(potato_name):lyney sent a reel.

(potato_name):lyney sent a picture.

(potato_name):lyney sent you a mes...

I didn't use Google translate for this one. Are you proud of me? You wrote at the bottom before slipping the letter into its envelope and sealing it with the new wax stamp set you bought recently.

You rushed back home. You winced at the clatter of your laptop in your bag hitting the floor, deciding it was a problem for future you. Ripping open the envelope and skimming through the letter, you read at the very bottom 'I am proud of anything you do, mon Cheri."

A smile broke out onto your lips as you neatly kept it away in a small box your mother got you from Fontaine when you were little. The small box was made of white marble with gold outlining its edges and gathering in a few swirls in the middle where the golden clasp rested.

The Sun shone brightly despite it being the middle of December. Rays of Sunlight squeezed through your closed curtains and you wondered if it was snowing in Fontaine right now. Did Lyney like playing in the snow?

Letters became less and less frequent as your peers lost motivation in writing long drawn out of paragraphs with nothing but small talk. A year and a half had passed yet your teacher held a strong morale despite the head of languages not enforcing this penpals program anymore. Even they must have gotten tired of the back and forth.

A few days until Christmas holidays. Opening your phone, you checked to see if lyney had texted you anything. Nothing...

Your eyes kept glossing over your texts from Friday 11am. Its been a week. Pictures of him and his two siblings who added you back on Instagram. Even Lynette had texted you today, showing some new tea she bought from inazuma last week.

Lynette

My brother has been writing non-stop for the past few days. Are you guys still doing the penpals thing?

You

No, maybe he is writing to someone else?

Your stomach dropped as you reread your message. "Writing to someone else...I need fresh air." You took your phone and wallet and headed out the door.

"Where are you going?" your roomate called out but you were already heading to the lift. You ran your fingers through your hair, pushing it out of your face with a sigh. It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter but this is the fifth time you've checked your phone this morning and its been a week with only a read tag.

"I seriously need to ban myself from my phone."

Lynette

Oh...nevermind. I'll ask him then.

Sent Friday 10 : 39am

"The christmas carnival was so much funner this year," your friend said, laughing. Then one hiccup escaped from her mouth. And then another one. Until you and your other friend bursted out laughing. "Not funny!"

"Yeah yeah. I still can't believe (Name) won that plushie from that shooting stall," your other friend said. He tossed another chip in his mouth, after finally calming down from his laughter.

"I'm surprised too. Those games are typically so rigged, I mean did you see the look on the owner's face though?" you said.

Holding up the little classic brown teddy bear, you admired it at all angles. Its red bow had a little bell hanging from the centre, jingling as you walked.

Its silly smile matched yours and then you noticed it. The small teddy's bowtie resembled the one Lyney wore in one of the pictures he sent. And the small envelope the size of your palm that the teddy held was a real one made of paper.

"(Name)? Whats wrong?"

"Nothing! I just realised my parents wanted me back at 10 and well its 11 so I have to go," you said with a bright smile, "Bye!"

"You live in a dorm though?" your friend countered, "(Name)!" But you were already walking out of the festival gates.

Picking out the small envelope, you brushed your thumb over the grooves of the wax seal. The same wax seal that you used for the last letter you sent. Did he really get the same stamp?

A mini rainbow rose fell out. The vibrant colours provided a stark contrast to the humid summer night. One letter. Five words. I love you, Mon cheri.

Your eyes widened and you nearly dropped the letter, fumbling with it for a bit. Taking in the cool nighttime breeze, you looked up only to see the person you hadn't talk to in a week standing only a few metres away from you.

Lyney held a bouquet of vibrant rainbow roses in one hand and the other behind his back.

"How are you..?" You took as step back, your gaze falling to the floor then back up at him again.

"I told you I'm a magician in one of my letters didn't I?" Lyney started, "I would appear anywhere if it was to be with you."

[no-hhamani]

Title: Home

Ship: Knock Out x Autobot! Reader x Breakdown (POLY!)

(Cant believe there's a lack of Breakdown GIFs)

You are a scout, while scouting an area with your bestfriend Bumblebee in a complex system of the underground mines, you both are forcefully separated when the structure collapsed. As you walk around the only remaining pathway trying to find a way back to your bff, you came along two mechs you haven't expected to meet

Note: Pronoun of Reader is not specified and there will be OOC!

You groaned when you came up with a dead end. Again.

You and Bumblebee were assigned to scout an abandoned human mine, now filled with pestering drones and whatnot. You were entailed that the mine is about 100 years old, give or take

From the supporting beams itself, you know it's old as fuck. Not older than you but with how short a human life span could be, it is definitely way pass their average life span.

You let out a steam of pressurized air again and went back to where you came, crossing a 'X' on the path in a poorly digitally drawn map by your wrist. You really are somewhat thankful for the tracking chip that was drilled into you, who knew it could be this handy personally?

You again looked at the map, wobbly lines of your walking pattern printed itself in a red line by the screen, only a single pulsing dot indicates of yourself. With your signals and comms disrupted by the fallen debrees earlier, it would have been easy tracking your partner and other forms of sentient beings that could possibly surround you right at this moment or you could have just commed the team and sens a SOS signal but bad luck seems to follow you in dark damp places. Ugh

You turned off the screen and continued trecking on dark paths, it took for a silent while before you started humming and murmuring the song with the tongue of Old Cybertron. It's a song with the oldest language you have learned.

Your scouting program in your processor warned you of such action, which is logical but you're tired. The war is going on for too long and you just want to go back to the times of festivals and bantering with old friends.

Humming such a lively tune warmed up the constricting pressure in any mech or femm's spark. The tune where it reminds of home

You hummed and hummed. Slowly trecking the long tunnel before you stopped and heard familiar voices far ahead and chuckled.

You moved fast but silent, drawing in closer by the dim light and quickly jumping by the corner when you knew they were present

"GLITCHES!" You whooped, immediately dodging a large fist with a loud laugh

"[NAME]! WHAT IN THE DESIGNATION OF PRIMUS WAS THAT FOR?!" Knock Out huffed, holding back the larger mech by the arm to avoid him toppling over you

"Hey, I heard you guys and thought why not?" You chuckled, which earned you a falling mech on you and you squawked

"I should've let him hit you" Knock Out groaned, crossing his arms as he watches the other two grounders piled on the ground

"Miss you too guys" You huffed and hugged the mech on top of you who snorted and did a noogie on your head, that definitely would have scratched your paint off "Nah we miss you more" Breakdown sighed and contently laid down on top of you

"Up Big Boy, you dont want to pressurize [Name] into a flat sheet of metal" Knock Out smirked and watched Breakdown slowly stand up, both then holding a hand out for you as you stood up with their help

"I'd still look pretty as a flat sheet" you chuckled and rotated your door wings to get the debrees out in between cracks which earned you two different actions from them

The three of you then hugged eachother, nuzzling eachother's armor as each bonded sparks hummed a happy and content melody. A melody like home

"Scratch my paint or else."

You and Breakdown froze and took a big gulp

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

You, Breakdown and KnockOut have been conjunxes before the war, but have been separated during the Decepticon uprising.

You had joined the Autobots when the bombing and raid had started, thinking your conjunxes had also joined in but you haven't seen any of them

Only when the war had started to worsen when you caught a glimpse of them with a Decepticon symbol as they boarded a ship

Due to being in different factions, you had tried to secretly meet them in order to avoid suspiciouns from each side. Soon you and your conjunxes saw eachother with relief, they thought you were somewhere safe and hadn't joined any factions. They both had joined in the faction willingly, also thinking they could have found you earlier and kept you safe if they ever found you

From there on, you had kept secret of having conjunxes and them for having a third one. It avoided the affair of cross-faction relationships that could be used against any of you. So, you guys had secretly met up once in awhile

It hurted your spark to be so far away from them, and so were they. But, it kept you all safe.

During the war, with your small frame and a grounder alt mode. You had taken up a scouting role, soon meeting Bumblebee, a young spark, in one of your missions and you both became friends. Soon becoming partners in every mission you went out to

Bumblee actually followed you one time when you sneaked out and found out you're in a relationship with decepticons and he hadn't told anyone. Even you

When the war is finally over, everyone who you were close to were shocked when you kissed each of your conjunx infront of them, while Bumblee is just in the sidelines clapping, happy that his best friend is finally free to love

[lazeecomet]

The Story of KLogs: What happens when an Mechanical Engineer codes

Since i no longer work at Wearhouse Automation Startup (WAS for short) and havnt for many years i feel as though i should recount the tale of the most bonkers program i ever wrote, but we need to establish some background

WAS has its HQ very far away from the big customer site and i worked as a Field Service Engineer (FSE) on site. so i learned early on that if a problem needed to be solved fast, WE had to do it. we never got many updates on what was coming down the pipeline for us or what issues were being worked on. this made us very independent

As such, we got good at reading the robot logs ourselves. it took too much time to send the logs off to HQ for analysis and get back what the problem was. we can read. now GETTING the logs is another thing.

the early robots we cut our teeth on used 2.4 gHz wifi to communicate with FSE's so dumping the logs was as simple as pushing a button in a little application and it would spit out a txt file

later on our robots were upgraded to use a 2.4 mHz xbee radio to communicate with us. which was FUCKING SLOW. and log dumping became a much more tedious process. you had to connect, go to logging mode, and then the robot would vomit all the logs in the past 2 min OR the entirety of its memory bank (only 2 options) into a terminal window. you would then save the terminal window and open it in a text editor to read them. it could take up to 5 min to dump the entire log file and if you didnt dump fast enough, the ACK messages from the control server would fill up the logs and erase the error as the memory overwrote itself.

this missing logs problem was a Big Deal for software who now weren't getting every log from every error so a NEW method of saving logs was devised: the robot would just vomit the log data in real time over a DIFFERENT radio and we would save it to a KQL server. Thanks Daddy Microsoft.

now whats KQL you may be asking. why, its Microsofts very own SQL clone! its Kusto Query Language. never mind that the system uses a SQL database for daily operations. lets use this proprietary Microsoft thing because they are paying us

so yay, problem solved. we now never miss the logs. so how do we read them if they are split up line by line in a database? why with a query of course!

select * from tbLogs where RobotUID = [64CharLongString] and timestamp > [UnixTimeCode]

if this makes no sense to you, CONGRATULATIONS! you found the problem with this setup. Most FSE's were BAD at SQL which meant they didnt read logs anymore. If you do understand what the query is, CONGRATULATIONS! you see why this is Very Stupid.

You could not search by robot name. each robot had some arbitrarily assigned 64 character long string as an identifier and the timestamps were not set to local time. so you had run a lookup query to find the right name and do some time zone math to figure out what part of the logs to read. oh yeah and you had to download KQL to view them. so now we had both SQL and KQL on our computers

NOBODY in the field like this.

But Daddy Microsoft comes to the rescue

see we didnt JUST get KQL with part of that deal. we got the entire Microsoft cloud suite. and some people (like me) had been automating emails and stuff with Power Automate

This is Microsoft Power Automate. its Microsoft's version of Scratch but it has hooks into everything Microsoft. SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Excel, it can integrate with all of it. i had been using it to send an email once a day with a list of all the robots in maintenance.

this gave me an idea

and i checked

and Power Automate had hooks for KQL

KLogs is actually short for Kusto Logs

I did not know how to program in Power Automate but damn it anything is better then writing KQL queries. so i got to work. and about 2 months later i had a BEHEMOTH of a Power Automate program. it lagged the webpage and many times when i tried to edit something my changes wouldn't take and i would have to click in very specific ways to ensure none of my variables were getting nuked. i dont think this was the intended purpose of Power Automate but this is what it did

the KLogger would watch a list of Teams chats and when someone typed "klogs" or pasted a copy of an ERROR mesage, it would spring into action.

it extracted the robot name from the message and timestamp from teams

it would lookup the name in the database to find the 64 long string UID and the location that robot was assigned too

it would reply to the message in teams saying it found a robot name and was getting logs

it would run a KQL query for the database and get the control system logs then export then into a CSV

it would save the CSV with the a .xls extension into a folder in ShairPoint (it would make a new folder for each day and location if it didnt have one already)

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a LINK to the file in SharePoint

it would then enter a loop and scour the robot logs looking for the keyword ESTOP to find the error. (it did this because Kusto was SLOWER then the xbee radio and had up to a 10 min delay on syncing)

if it found the error, it would adjust its start and end timestamps to capture it and export the robot logs book-ended from the event by ~ 1 min. if it didnt, it would use the timestamp from when it was triggered +/- 5 min

it saved THOSE logs to SharePoint the same way as before

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a link to the files

it would then check if the error was 1 of 3 very specific type of error with the camera. if it was it extracted the base64 jpg image saved in KQL as a byte array, do the math to convert it, and save that as a jpg in SharePoint (and link it of course)

and then it would terminate. and if it encountered an error anywhere in all of this, i had logic where it would spit back an error message in Teams as plaintext explaining what step failed and the program would close gracefully

I deployed it without asking anyone at one of the sites that was struggling. i just pointed it at their chat and turned it on. it had a bit of a rocky start (spammed chat) but man did the FSE's LOVE IT.

about 6 months later software deployed their answer to reading the logs: a webpage that acted as a nice GUI to the KQL database. much better then an CSV file

it still needed you to scroll though a big drop-down of robot names and enter a timestamp, but i noticed something. all that did was just change part of the URL and refresh the webpage

SO I MADE KLOGS 2 AND HAD IT GENERATE THE URL FOR YOU AND REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGE WITH IT. (it also still did the control server and jpg stuff). Theres a non-zero chance that klogs was still in use long after i left that job

now i dont recommend anyone use power automate like this. its clunky and weird. i had to make a variable called "Carrage Return" which was a blank text box that i pressed enter one time in because it was incapable of understanding /n or generating a new line in any capacity OTHER then this (thanks support forum).

im also sure this probably is giving the actual programmer people anxiety. imagine working at a company and then some rando you've never seen but only heard about as "the FSE whos really good at root causing stuff", in a department that does not do any coding, managed to, in their spare time, build and release and entire workflow piggybacking on your work without any oversight, code review, or permission.....and everyone liked it

[hers-underwraps]

｡𖦹°‧ Some of my thoughts/headcannon's for the main 6 ｡𖦹°‧⭑.

NOTE!!!! : THESE ARE SUPER OUTDATED!!! THIS HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY DRAFTS FOR MONTHS AND I JUST WANTED TO CLEAR IT OUT. SO... there are some of these that are kinda old, I don't necessarily think are that relevant anymore or I've already talked about them on here at some point in time. SO I'M SO SORRY.

I really wanted to start a new list but I also felt guilty about this list just sitting here but I also didn't want to fully fix this list cause it would take a while so that's why I'm posting.

GETTING TO THE POINT, these are probably mid and you've heard them before so this won't be as good as other headcannon posts I've done. I promise I'll do better in the future

With that being said, let's get into it!

(I probably sounded like Barncales in this image typing allat and y'all probs looking at me like shellington)

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Dashi

OMG, SHE'S MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE. AHHHHH

Girlie in STEM. I don't feel like she gets the appreciation she deserves for this. Like my girl is out here building whole ass ROBOTS and people are just like yeah whatever.

I think she would've definitely had a hippie phase. She looks like the type to collect crystals. My girl could live out of a van

ALSO, she's definitely got good fitness. She's one of the more athletic of the crew members. - My girl likes her sports what can I say

She has scrapbooks for everyone on the ship. She has personal photo albums with silly selfies (and photos she's taken when they weren't looking)

She would love Sanrio and she would have a few Sanrio-themed clips (she's my melody coded to me)

I also reckon she would've weaselled it into the other crewmates. (I feel like shellington would absolutely love it)

Indian/Australian

If she was religious - Hindu

LOVES detective movies - (Her, shellington and kwazii bond over this) (Sherlock BBC?)

Over analyses everything

Let Tweak dye her hair sometimes (she would do pink skunk hair/pink highlighting)

She used to have long hair. Everyone else on board had shorter hair and eventually, she felt bad so she cut her hair shorter. It's better this way though, it's a lot less maintenance

She's up to date on anything that's trending and probably influences the other with it. (regularly uses words like demure and tweak lowkey wants to dropkick her)

Paints her nails (sometimes the other too)

SURFING PRO - she got into it when she was really young (her love of surfing definitely sparked her love of the sea)

She IS the Lofi girl - she has GOD tier music taste

Coding god helps tweak with programming the gups/ship

When she was younger, she use to troll people online and find their IP, full name, address etc. when they pissed her off (it really refined her skills)

Makes handmade bracelets (kwasi likes to join in he does a really good job )

I forced them to make a group chat so they would just be silly.

Is a legend at national seaographic (outstanding photos)

SHE WILL DO ANYTHING to get her photos, which often puts her a risk (she and kwazii are twinning) sometimes she does outdo him on the reckless scale the ray and the whale episode

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Kwazii

THE SILLY

Ok Just one thing I wanna point out, I feel like a lot of people think of him as some goofy ahh little kid. YES, he is not "as serious" as other crew members but just a reminder he is the LEUITENT. Just because his leadership style isn't oh ho ho ho, I'm macho serious doesn't mean he doesn't know how to take care of his crew or that he is a child. GROWN MEN CAN BE SILLY TOO.

I'm sorry that's just a sore spot

He lowkey reminds me of Jack Twist (I'm so sorry)

He's the second biggest yapper (only losing to shellington) he can keep everyone engaged for hours with his stories

Has a really fast reaction time

Carbeian

My boy would have a NICE tan

I reckon he could speak Spanish

Loves learning new languages with Shelligton so he can decode his ancient stories and mysteries

A very talented artist - he's really good at arts and crafts and loves hanging out with Dashi as an excuse to do it

Despite his typically "impatient" demeanour, he can lock in and do things with intricate detail (ADHD is out to get him)

Loves map-making places they've visited in his free time. (Potential for him and Min to bond?)

Loves singing sea shanties

Would sing in the shower

pretty boy

Look I know he doesn't show it but I reckon he worries about the crew just as much if not more than Barnacles

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Shellington

THE EEPY LITTLE GUY

I love my little brainiac

He reminds me of Ford Pines. I can see him in the get-up (like imagine him in the fit OOO it would look FIRE)

The biggest info dumper. He is the biggest yapper, he loves telling everyone about everything ever.

As a child, he would try to talk to anyone about his interests. I can imagine him calling people on the phone or talking to fishy's. His family would've eventually gone insane, lol.

When he's not bonkers, he's one of the more chill crew members to be around.

His sleep schedule is AWFUL, our little insomniac needs some sleep

Crewmates would come and chill with him in his lab when they couldn't sleep (they might be feeling homesick or just rattled from the week's events) because he's usually up until the wee hours. They often just sit in silence but he's happy just be a comforting presence

FATHER - he is always looking out for the others in his own little way, he has a very caring demeanour and is sometimes the more approachable one (cause he's not AS intense (EXCEPT for when he's in the zone THEN HE's INTENSE)

He LOVES to study with the others. He's erm... PRETTY STUDIOUS and he studies with all the crewmates when they're in the mood

He studies new languages with Kwasi (especially old and forgotten ones) and they will spend HOURS unpacking mysteries

My guy needs to hit the gym - he's kind of unfit (well compared to the others anyway)

THIS GUY IS BANNED FROM THE KITCHEN ( seems like the type of guy to burn a salad)

Very tall, he is the second tallest after Barnacles

Scottish AND PROUD

He also needs glasses

He is VERY accident-prone. He's spilt quote a few chemicals and given himself a few nasty burns( probs has scars from all of them). He's one of Peso's regulars. wrap him in bubble wrap istg

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Peso

OML THIS GUY'S GONNA HAVE A HEART ATTACK

He was SO anxious when he first started. Like he was in charge of taking care of the two most reckless lack of self-preservation guys ever. Every time they would go out on missions he would just be on edge (like omg are these two coming back ALIVE)

Because of this, I reckon he would get mad at those two (easily after bad scares (LIKE THE MANTEES EP). Like it would make him so upset he'd have outbursts - " CAN YOU PLEASE STOP BEING SO FUCKING RECKLESS ALL THE TIME. I CAN'T BRING YOU BACK FROM THE DEAD" - or something along those lines. (They would feel super bad and promise him that they would be more careful (lies))

Spanish (and can speak)

Grew up a really big family, so he finds a lot of comfort in his octo family

Even though he still gets homesick

He facetime his family every week

HE'S NOT JUST SOME TWINK- LIKE AGAIN JUST BECAUSE SOME GUY ISN'T MACHO MACHO DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE A TWINKY LOSER RAHH

On that note - he's definitely had to improve his fitness to keep up with Kwasi and Barnacles

Sometimes he's cleaning up medbay and he thinks to himself "OMFG, I have the most accident-prone reckless crewmates ever. Honestly, man, I don't know if I can do this" - (when his whole crew got wiped from the snail episode, I know he kept his cool but like when he was alone that night he definitely just pulled a

"Guys, that was not very LIVE, laugh love of you"

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TWEAK

MY GIRL BOSS, MY QUEEN MY IDOL

She definitely has HUGE muscles from all the lifting she does

Naturally has blonde hair (I know a lot of people hc her with brown hair but I've just always personally thought blonde). She constantly dyes it - (Part of me thinks she was bullied for her blonde hair (dumb blonde type of comments) and ever since she hates it. Her natural hair is a sore subject. It used to make her insecure especially because of her field. Although she didn't let it show, the comments about her hair being "too girlie" made her despise it)

Dashi definitely helped her improve her perception of this. Being the kickass she is but also enjoying being feminine helped her get over her insecurity. (She's a little more ok with letting her roots show)

MY QUEEN IN STEM. She graduated with honours. (LIKE MY GIRL IS BUILDING ALL OF THAT, I BEEN SO PROUD OF HER)

She loves watching Matpat (sometimes watches with Shellington)

She loves playing video games

Has God tier Minecraft worlds (she could sell her build designs)

Red stone GOD

Loves wearing bandanas and headbands

She loves her crew so much, (she's worked in hostile work environments before) she loves having free rein and the support

Although she sometimes worries about what would happen to the POD without her (Barnacles knows some of the basics but...)

Camera shy (canon?) (from the volcano one?)

MY GIRL DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK.

She has very little patience and can be very blunt

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Barnacles

OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN

Definitely of Slavic descent. Russian/Ukrainian (can speak) (like I know he's British or whatever but like.... c'mon)

Uber is tall like 6ft+

He's a big guy but super fit. Bro's muscles go insane

Gives the best bear hugs (obviously)

He needs a hug oml

Like zero sense of self-preservation

Would sacrifice himself to save the world ah complex

He reminds me of Raph Rottmnt (2018)

He gets VERY homesick

LET HIM BE REAL PLEASE

I feel like he would be a psychology student if he was going to study anything. LIKE this man CARES about you. (also I reckon he would be like super in psychology he's got some stuff to unpack himself

I know he has his fear of small spaces but also I reckon he has this super duper tiny fear of being alone. He likes being around people but being alone just makes him a little uncomfortable. (when he gets uncomfortable he'll start talking to himself) but generally, he's motivated to get back to his crew that he can preserve and hide it pretty well

I feel like this guy would have his mobile phone super enlarged (like you know when you see middle-aged women and their phones are just like SUPER zoomed in) because he can't see for shit

Needs glasses (doesn't wear them) he should

Sometimes, I reckon he has his moments when he just

Like sometimes he just experiences the horrors

Sometimes he quotes his favourite movies (but they're all super old ) that he thinks are "inspirational" (life is like a box of chocolates ahhh) and the crew is just like huh?

Is an avid enjoyer and user of the minion Facebook memes

*stupid* he can roll a pretty good blunt (stoner Barnacles reference) (he would get stoned which Kwazii)

——————————————————————————-------------------

So that's it. I hope they weren't too horrendous!

I'm working on a more refined list filled with better headcannons so I hope that will redeem this outdated list!

BYEE

[dilfs-bitch]

Again | Jake Sully (nsfw)

Pairing : Jake Sully X Recom female reader ( human before )

Warnings : Mention of coronel Miles Quaritch, Neytiri, Tsu'tey. mention of death, cheating, age gap { Reader in her early twenties, Jake in his late thirties } p in v sex { Reader is virgin } masturbation { fem receiving } mentions of angst (not too graphic, but a warning all the same!

Word acount : 6k

Summary : After you die, Jake never thought he’d see you again, but after fifteen years, the RDA brings " you " back.

I apologize in advance if there are grammatical errors. English is not my first language, and I wrote this with the help of the translator.

Chapter two

Jake was going crazy.

It was no longer a secret to the clan or Neytiri how close he was to you in recent months, and part of him didn’t care to hide it.

Not after fifteen years away from you, he would never forgive himself, no matter how hard he tried, that feeling that he’d done something wrong was there every time he remembered your face, that lifeless face that haunted him for years.

He met you still on earth, despite you being much younger than him, you two used to hook up and even though you two never had a serious relationship, it was much more than just sex. And then everything happened so fast, his twin brother dies on the same planet you’re also going to, then he has no other option besides accepting the invitation that was extended to him. 

You were the Colonel’s squad and do what he told you to do, while Jake was in the Avatar program trying to learn more about the Na'vis, not even he realized how it happened but you two grown apart and even though he would never admit, he knew that Neytiri was the reason. 

So you take orders and don’t think twice about destroying the Hometree, he never understood but also can’t blame you. You were never the most civilized person he knew, but you certainly didn’t have a bad heart, so all your emotionlessness about the lives you took away was some kind of punishment for him. 

He tried, eywa knows he tried to change your mind, but you’ve always been stubborn and now that Quaritch had manipulated you, he knew there was no turning back, but Jake still wanted to know why you were doing this, and he never was able to forget the anger, the pain in your eyes, the betrayal in your voice when you say that was because he was able to betray his own race, betray the woman he said he loved for a Na'vi he met months ago. On that day, Jake didn’t have much time to argue because you’d been hit in the chest by Neytiri’s sharp arrow.

He couldn’t hate her because all she was doing was protecting her people, her planet, but there's a part of him that would never forgive her for killing you, the woman he was in love with.

Moving on was difficult, he was grief for your death, being haunted by your lifeless face and all the memories you two had together, but Neytiri was there, so thoughtful to him that it did not take long for that attraction to become something more, then they mated she was now his mate and Jake becomes the Olo'eyktan of the clan, bonds have been forged in fire and blood and years pass, he’s smarter, older and has a family now, but he wasn’t expecting the RDA goes so far creating recombinants with DNA from the deceased soldiers, Quaritch, and his squad was back but at this time he was more concerned about you, years later as recom.

He wondered if you’d remember him, Jake desperately wanted to know if you still would feel something when you saw him, despite being older, certainly not attractive as before, unlike you who despite your avatar features looked exactly like your human form, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Eywa never makes mistakes. Maybe that’s why you were taken to his hut with a big arm wound caused by Tsu'Tey’s arrow, he wouldn’t let another demon like you destroy his home, but he changes his mind when the ancient spirits surround you. Abusing his authority, the Olo'eyktan decides that you stay to learn more then you can go, Jake was not even thinking that letting you stay was risky, the RDA would look for you, but he can not avoid wanting to be near you even if you're avoiding him, even though some people of the clan was commenting or how their children asked why he spent so much time with you, Jake was not even caring about his mate’s jealousy, he loved Neytiri and that wasn’t a secret, but he loved you much more.

_________________

You were no longer yourself but still had the memories of your old self, and the same regret was there for the destruction that had caused to Pandora. 

Maybe it was a new feeling, or it was the old memories that clouded your mind every time you observe Jake, he looked different, older, yet attractive, but the anger was there maybe caused by the memories of how the feelings he said he had for you meant nothing, the anger was also there for Neytiri, this was not a memory but a video that the General Ardmore showed you at the time of your death and perhaps the worst part was that the man who claimed to love you was with her leaving your lifeless body for the RDA.

Revenge is the only reason you decide to stay, but the real, ultimate indignity of it all is that was those old memories that seemed to betray you or Pandora’s breathtaking beauty, but it didn’t seem fair to destroy the planet once again, any part of you wanted to hurt Jake Sully or is it some kind of illness, an infection that has taken hold you, perhaps it was those ancient spirits that surrounded you in the Omaticaya forest that have bewitched you, any option no matter how stupid it seems was better than admitting that once again you are being betrayed by your own feelings.

“ Utral Aymokriyä, is the tree of voices, if you connect your queue here we can hear the voices of our ancestors "

You close your eyes as your tail coiled tightly low around your leg, trying to refrain from the wave of anger that runs through your body as you hear the Olo'eyktan’s voice, his interest in showing you some more of life in Pandora infuriating you. Annoyed you how he made sure to teach you bow and arrow, he always wanted to be the one to teach you more of the tradition of the Omaticaya clan, and you didn’t like being around the Sully and even less how his voice sounded every time he taught you something like he was happy to be teaching you more about their customs, not even your fiercest scowl seem to discourage his attempts to converse with you.

And even though that was one of the most beautiful places that you had already seen, it didn’t feel right to be in a sacred place, not after all you do to Pandora.

" Are you okay ? " He slowly approaches and reaches out to touch your shoulder.

The feeling of his hand makes you open your eyes, quickly hissing and moving away. Jake is at least startled that was the first time you hissed at him, a bold move considering he was now the Olo'eyktan of the clan, but he walks away feeling your anger and not wanting to start the argument he’s been avoiding for months.

" Don’t touch me " You say, staring at him with furrowed eyebrow

You don't quite understand the reason for the reaction, although you don't regret it, preferring to believe it was just the pent-up anger that happened years ago. Your heart leaps at the thought that the real reason for your overreaction is that you missed his touch and not know how to react to it. You want to get out of there, you want to move your feet and get out of that tension that quickly built up ten times worse than before, you want to escape his gaze on your neck like a weight but you can't.

Jake eyed you carefully, his mind clouding with one of the memories of you two together just when they arrived in Pandora, he didn’t remember pretty well the reason but you were jealous, a wide smile on his face remembering that you did exactly what you did now, and Instinctively he found himself making the same move he did that night holding your hand still much smaller than his own, he expects you to do exactly what you did that night but you keep standing there because your body is betraying you, and you don't really want move away from his touch which him take as encouragement, stepping closer behind you.

Jake just stands there his chest pressed against your back while he stayed there waiting for you to calm down, he doesn’t know what to do, but when he realizes Jake’s already nesting his nose against your soft hair, his heart thump against his rib cage and something in his lower belly leap you still smell so good that he is almost purring with the familiar scent, one of his ears tremble, and his tail coiled under your ankle

He cursed himself when your body leaps turning away from him turning to stare at him with the same angry gaze as before your furrowed brows, embarrassed now Jake feels his ears flatten back as he expects you to insult him as you did in all the other times he dared to try to touch you, and yet you remain quiet and Jake swears he can see how your gaze looks a little different now but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t decipher. 

"Stop, stop doing that, " You say poking his large chest with your index finger causing him to lurches back " That’s wrong, you have family, a mate. " 

He tilts his head to the side as if he's trying to figure out what you’re just saying and then something clicks in his mind, you realized what he was doing from the beginning even though it was Instinctively, Jake was trying to make you his mate.

He made sure to teach you personally everything about the clan, and he was not hard on you as he was with the others, Jake even let you speak as you wanted with him. He never stopped loving you but he never thought you realized his true intentions, he never thought that would work, that it that gaze so different was because you wanted him too, maybe not as your mate but you wanted him and your annoyance was obvious cause you to disapprove his actions and he also but couldn’t help himself. He loved you more than his mate, he wanted you to be the mother of his children, Jake wanted to change your mind that day because it would save him years of suffering for you. 

He doesn’t notice what he’s doing until he walks up to you holding your face tight stopping you from moving, your heavy breathing as your eye focusing on anything behind him, so you don’t have to look into his eyes, would be too much when you tried for months not to fall in love with him again.

" I wanted to say I’m sorry for betraying my own race but I don’t, my only regret was betraying you, letting you die. Maybe I’ll regret later for doing what I’m gonna do now but I’m not thinking very well, I don’t think clearly since I saw you, the woman loves most in all my life"

Your tail lashes, the irrational part of you content to hear what Jake says. It feels like a weight is lifted off your shoulder, your heart lurches as he leans forward to rest his forehead on yours, and Instinctively you close your eyes, feeling the positively scorching soft touch of his finger caressing against the skin of your cheeks, your stomach gives a kind of nervous tremor at the thought of why he is doing it, your brain almost stops completely when he leans press a kiss on your lips.  

For a split seconds, Jake panics when you don’t kiss him back, and he pulls back only to be surprised by your smaller hands wrapping around his waist as you insistently kiss his lips, nibbling lightly, and he hums and purrs against your mouth. It’s frantic, passionate, and overwhelming, and your eyes practically roll when you allow him to kiss you with his tongue. 

When one of his big hands falls from your face to the bottom of your thighs and envelops the tender flesh there pulling you up, you release a kind of gasping embarrassing moan against his mouth as your leg winds against his waist, It seems the apex of all his hopes and desperate dreams over the past few months, and Jake can't hardly believe that he’s kissing and touching you like that after all these years, it feels like a dream. 

It doesn’t take long for you to feel the soft bioluminescence moss of the ground against your back, cursed yourself when he pulls back, and you chase his lips, Jake just chuckles, lowering his head to kiss your neck, humming with satisfaction when you tilt your head to the side enough so that he sucks the skin there, your eyes widen in shock because you don't know how to react with the new feeling that shivers your whole body. He pulls back, hovering over you, his pupils are blown wide, his tail caressing provocatively your legs. When he holds your hips tight, forcing his growing length under his loincloth against your open legs, you gasp on how big he is and once again he just chuckles resting his head against your sternum pulling the fabric of your white tank top down.

His tongue is gentle, sliding from your breast over one of your nipple, sucking and circulating his warm tongue there, you arch your back allowing him to do because the feeling is so good that you groan his name, his amber eyes shoot to glance your face of pleasure your body squirm beneath him and Jake tongue goes out to lick your other nipple. You were so beautiful, furrowed eyebrows, mouth slightly open, that drop of sweat that was already beginning to form on your forehead.

" I’ll make you feel good, ma tìyawn "

The sound of Jake's low voice goes directly to your cunt that pulses eagerly with promise and with the affectionate nickname of his voice, a smug smile grows on his face when he realizes it is your scent that lingers in the air tells him how much you like it, and he does it again just to feel your sex throb as he rubs on you.

" You like it when I call you ma tìyawn, don’t you? He whispers, burying his face in your neck, " I feel it "

Even though he’s not seeing anything all you can do is nodded quickly, your cunt clenching around nothing once again hearing his words, your throbbing clit the sodden fabric of its slick folds starts to become a little uncomfortable, so you push his hips with your knee so that he moves away taking his hand up to your cargo pants hoping that he does something and Jake's quick to quickly grope the button to unzip the pants pulling them over your ankle. Your legs close in the failed attempt to avoid his lust gaze but a pair of his strong hands effortlessly keep them apart, that makes you a little embarrassed, slight flushing spreading down your cheeks

" Don’t hide Y/n, I want to see, " he says, a smile playing on his lips as his fingers search for your neglected clit.

You let out a soft sigh as his fingers circled your clit, and he leaned once again your small hands holding his face, kissing him again. Your lips moved against him slowly with more delicacy than before, the burning sensation in his abdomen consuming him, your hands exploring his back down to his waist when you undid the ties of his loincloth releasing his hard cock the leaking tip with pre-cum, Jake is quick to move his fingers to your entrance pushing one finger stretching you out, and you break the kiss choking with burning a little pain there, nothing had entered there before. Your ears have now flattened once again when he stops noticing the discomfort on your face.

" I’m sorry ma tìyawn, I didn’t know " He kisses your temple. 

It only takes a few minutes for the pain to disappear, and you jerk your hips, and he quickly understands what to do, Jake focused his thumb on your clit slowly slides two fingers, splitting you open to what was to come. When he felt you adjusting to him, he started fucking you with his fingers, pumping in and out of your wet center, the already overwhelming sensation that your cunt clenching around his fingers your mouth open in a silent moan when he sucks your nipples and grind his cock against your thigh. The pleasure becomes almost too much, grabbing his biceps for some kind of comfort and his muscles flexing over your soft touch, and that makes the coil in his stomach tenser with the simple touch of your hands.

But then he draws his fingers away from your entrance, looking deep into your eyes waiting for any kind of doubt but all Jake finds are the aroused lust and what he swears to be the same gaze that you has when you looked at him when you were in love, your eyes soften guiding his painfully hard cock to your entrance, pushing the tip in. With your hot and wet sex engulfing him, he realizes that stretching hurts when your eyes water, Jake is quick to kiss you to give you some kind of comfort, you’re sucking him greedily anyway, panting with the feeling of being filled, and when he finally got to the bottom, his tight balls rested against your ass and the tip in of his cock poked you cervix, making a needy moan come out of your mouth when you break the kiss with a string of drool.

" Please Jake " a whine came out from you.

He moans, needing no more incentive than that starting to come out of you, before pushing back and setting a slow pace immediately, his big hands grab your thighs, and you circle your legs around his hips getting a better angle, your tits swaying when his hips meet yours, his cock reaching even deeper inside you and your hands were desperately grabbing his back needing something to hold on to, and it hit him like a wave, the most intense feeling he’s ever experienced years ago has filled his body again, his heart, his head, is everywhere, it was not the bond of tsaheylu, but Jake could say it seemed way much more intimate than that just from you heavily gaze into his eyes he knew that you could feel his love, the regret, the need he had for you and the pain he endured in the last years. 

" I like you Jake " You murmured, holding his back tighter.

The captivating sound of your voice matching what you just said made his heart skip in a beat. The feeling was overwhelming, he could never have denied his feelings towards you, his cock pounding in your tight cunt without stopping and a slight change in the angle made the tip of his cock hit that spongy spot inside you all the time, making you say his name as a prayer, your euphoria starting to form in the inside lower part of your stomach.

" I love you so much ma tìyawn " he gasped in your sensitive ear, making the two squirm at the confession.

He could feel he was near but he wanted you two to came together, his finger circling your clit rudely and his hips stuttering against yours is enough, your walls clinging so tightly that he only manages to bury deeper into you with one last thrust causes your vision to darken and his muscles to relax when your body trembles beneath him, when Jake groans your name tirelessly and fills you with his sperm hot and thick. His breath is heavily, and he buries his face into your neck, kissing there, enjoying the warmth of their sweaty and overworked bodies before rolling off over you with his slowly dripping sperm.

He lay in his back, now pressed against the soft moss of the forest, your eyes closing and Jake smiles pleased as you seem exhausted completely, he pulls his arms over your shoulder pulling you closer, and you are quick to nest your face against his chest, still bright. Your tail curling over his ankle when you fall asleep. And for a moment he doesn't know exactly what to do, so he decides to rest a little and then in the morning would handle the situation.

[rust-official]

Why should I, a web developer who uses mostly Python and JS, learn Rust?

Aside from cargo-mommy, obviously.

(Seriously though I have been meaning to learn a lower-level language but what's the benefit of rust over like, C++?)

There's a lot to unpack in this question! For web development, you can get a LOT of performance and maintainability ouf of Rust compared to Python/JS. Particularly if your backends are CPU-bound there's so much to gain. But beyond that, the type safety of the language in addition to the static analysis of the compiler and clippy linting provide a fantastic foundation for maintainable, quality code that I've not seen in any other language in my 25 years as a programmer. When I was still hacking C regularly, I would turn on ALL the compiler warnings, use multiple free and commercial static analysis tools, valgrind, etc., all to do what you get out of the box with rust (and even those tools don't do for C/C++ what the rust tools do for Rust). It's hard to explain just how helpful these tools are if you're not familiar with them; it's a lot more than just "this variable isn't used", it's "you can write the code more elegantly / with better performance using this construction oh and if you're using an LSP I'll *make the change for you* at the press of a button" and there are dozens of lints like that. Seriously, the tooling for Rust is absolutely second to none. The tooling for Rust is better than the claims MS makes about Visual Studio. Specific to the language itself, Rust is so much more expressive compared to Python or JS. Particularly compared to Python's utterly anemic functional programming support, Rust shines as an example of what a language should be capable of. This thoroughly considered design permeats the language and the standard library, and many popular third-party crates have similarly excellent design. You can get *some* of these features with mypy, pylint, and so on, but the quality and quantity of diagnostics and suggestions provided by the stock Rust tools is just so superior. The tooling Rust provides has ruined other languages for me.

Specifically for the web development domain, there are some pretty lovely crates for that on the backend! I don't know the specifics, particularly how they compare to e.g. django or flask or the like, but I do know they're well-respected in the community. You can also compile rust to webasm and deploy that on your frontend to realize all the above benefits of Rust and also the performance of webasm, all while using a much higher level language than webasm itself.

Why Rust over C++? See above, the tooling is incredible. cargo is so far ahead of tools like conan and cmake that you can't even sensibly compare them. Rust comes with built-in package management, dependency management, project management, build tooling, a test framework, and so much more. Besides this, there's the obligatory, consuetudinary at this point, "no memory errors in Rust" thing. You're not going to have to worry about derefrencing a NULL pointer in Rust (... under most circumstances; as a low level compiled language you can still access memory directly, so it's possible, but not in >99% of code you write). There's just entire classes of footguns that are impossible in Rust. Yes, C++ is implementing some of these features, like Optional<T>, but that's the thing--*starting* to. These features have been core to Rust since the beginning. The community for Rust, at least in my experience, is the most welcoming tech community I've ever been a part of. There's a meme that it's full of trans folks and it's not just a meme, it's true. The stereotype of the trans girl Rust hacker exists for a reason.

I should point out that a lot of folks say rust compiles are slow but that's just not been my experience. I've been building things from source for 25 years and rust is just as fast as C++ if not faster (and if you're using clang, it uses all the same underlying LLVM libraries after parsing to LLVM IL so there's not much difference at that point).

I think that about covers the most important stuff, please feel free to submit further questions if you want more details :3

[wiisagi-maiingan]

This is going to make me sound bitter so bear with me but I'm actually glad that Duolingo doesn't have Ojibwe. Not because I want my people's language locked behind a paywall or shit like that, but because Duolingo is actually going down hill real fucking fast and I genuinely think that any course they could possibly conceive of would just scare people away from trying to learn AND probably completely fuck over any speakers by teaching them incorrect grammar and pronunciation.

The recent removal of community features like forums and discussions is already very bad (and a scary omen for the direction the program is going in), but Duolingo's quality with regards to grammar and explanations and the like has massively declined over the years. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want but I think a big part of the removal of the discussions was because of how many people were talking about problems with the grammar, wording, and "correct" answers on exercises. And so that a previously free feature could then be offered as a subscription-exclusive one instead but, y'know, that's just a given.

There aren't really any decent alternatives at the moment that match up to the quality that Duolingo become famous for in the first place. In our current capitalist hellscape, where profit HAS to come before anything else, I'm also not sure if any viable alternatives CAN be made without them becoming victims to the same enshittification that is killing Duolingo's usefulness now.

[drkmgs]

!System Error!

Cipher (Fast and Furious) x Fem!Reader

Warning: angst, cursing, violence is mentioned, sex is mentioned, mentioned of child lost, divorce mentioned

Story type: One shot

I absolutely have no idea how hacking works, but I do know how hard programming is, because I had to learn the basics, but still can't programm. I think I know more html than any programming language. (lol) This was a request via DMs and I don't remember the plot I was planning for this one, so I came up with a new one. TBH, I didn't watch Fast and Furious, so I have no idea what the plot is.

Happy Pride Month!

"Fuck!" You cursed and slammed down on your desk. This was the ninth time already that someone has tried to get into your system, and sadly, they now succeeded. You pressed a red button to shut down all of your devices, took your leather jacket from your computer chair, and swiped a card to call the elevator.

Entering the elevator, you only had one person in your mind who would annoy you by hacking into your system, and they won't stop until they get what they want. So, you are going to pay them a visit and share a piece of your mind, which might involve violence.

Arriving at the garage level, you took one of your helmet off the shelves, carried it to your recently purchased motorcycle, and settled on it before putting the helmet on. Then, you drove out of the garage onto the streets.

—

On the other side, Cipher leaned back on her chair, putting her feet up on the desk, satisfied with her work. Though she might regret this later on when she hissed at her fresh wounds. It didn't take long for her peace to vanish into thin air when she heard a familiar voice shouting not far where she sat.

"Where the fuck is she?!" You push the guard trying to stop you from entering the room, the guy is twice the size of you and yet you are able to push him away. The guy keeps trying, but once he makes eye contact with Cipher, she dismisses him with a lazy wave of her hand, and he is gone.

You marched with clenched fists to her, and she looked up at you when you stopped by her side, giving her a death glare. "Stop hacking into my system when you're bored, I have been telling you that for the last months now." You said through your teeth, fists still clenched tight.

"You should strengthen your walls then. Where I can't easily pass through." She shrugged and smiled at you. SMILED?! Now, you are 100% sure she's gone mad. You are about to lose your mind and might just throw her against the wall.

You leveled down to her, aggressively pulling the chair by the restarm to face you, which cause her feet to drop on the ground and lean forward to you. You trapped her with both your arms in the seat. You looked straight into her eyes. "Listen here, Cipher. You might be one of a hella cyber hacker, but don't forget who broke your fingers once, and I'm not far from doing it a second time. Stop lingering around my system to get my attention! You blew your chance two years ago!" That last sentence wasn't planned. It shouldn't have made it out of your mouth, but you couldn't help it.

If she was doing this, because she wants to get another chance with you, this is where you need to tell her that it is never going to happen. Ever. Again. You knew her already. She'll do everything to get want she wants and then toss you out like you have never shared a bed together and made her cum multiple times with your mouth and fingers.

It was clear that the last sentence caught both of you off guard. You immediately stepped back from her as if the chair you were hold was made of lava. You closed your eyes, pinching the space between your eyes, and exhaled. "J-Just remove yourself from my system. Please." Only a few seconds later, you hear fast keyboard noises and a loud enter. "It's gone. You may go now." For the first time in your life you hear her cold voice, it shot through your cracked heart.

But this situation where both you are right now wasn't your fault. It was hers. She made the choice. She didn't have the right to be mad at you. "Thanks. If you didn't make that choice two years ago, maybe we wouldn't have ended up like this." You had your back facing her.

"How many times do I have to apologize?" If it wasn't quiet in the room, you might have not heard what she said, but the silence of the room was suffocating and made things easy to hear. You scoffed, turning around facing her. "Your apologies can't bring my child back to life!" Cipher stands up straight towering over you. "She is also my child!" She shouted at you. "You! Have no right to say that! The moment you chose that stupid plan of yours, you lost the right to be her parent! So fuck off, Cipher!"

Every sentence you said you pushed your fore finger onto her chest, you saw red, and it's a miracle you aren't throwing punches at her or even throwing her across the room, probably it's because you both got tired of expressing your anger to each other physically, so you are doing it emotionally now.

You can't do this anymore. "I want a divorce." You announced. Cipher staggered a step back, leaning her hands on her desk to keep her up on her feet. She didn't think that the pain she had caused you was this bad. She thought giving you space and time, everything would go back to its own place, and you would eventually forgive her, but she underestimated the damages that had been done.

Is she ready to let you go? Does she want to let you go? Do you deserve someone better? Definitely. "No." Cipher pushed away from the desk and faced you. "Don't make things harder for us, Cipher. We can't see each other without biting each others heads off. Hell, we don't share the same bed anymore! We are partly living in our offices!" You argue. "Then let's get back together! We can fix this! We don't have to go down that road." Cipher took one step closer to you, which made you step back. "Please." You could hear the desperation in her voice, but you chose to ignore it.

The pain is too much. You stepped further away from her. You shook your head, tears threatening to fall before it could you turn around and left her.

[creativehomicide]

I saw people writing doppel headcanons so I wanted to post my own, along with some drawings for how I think their anatomy works

So my headcanon for doppelgangers is that their original forms are comprised of many MANY thin tentacles that intertwine together and morph in order to take the shape of what they want to turn into. The green hands we see before a doppelganger kills the doorman aren't part of their default form, but more so one of many adaptations they can make to their bodies meant for attacking. These tentacles are very flexible and stretchy, and they can heal quickly, making it difficult to kill a doppel.

Doppelgangers are capable of shapeshifting into humans and animals, as well as more monstrous transformations, however the latter is rarely used for long periods of time due to it depleting so much energy. They don't really use it unless it's an emergency (or if the doppel is stupid and overestimates itself/doesn't think things through.)

I imagine they can also weaponize parts of their body to form sharp blades or spikes, or more advanced variations. The best comparison I can think of are the aliens from Parasyte.

It's rare to see a doppelganger in its original form since it doesn't revert back after it's killed, it remains in the last form it took before dying. Also most of the time when someone witnesses a doppelganger mid-transformation, it's from one disguise to another. Plus they shapeshift fast so if someone happens to see a doppel go from the original form to a different one, they only get a brief glimpse.

Doppelgangers are carnivorous and subsist on a diet of raw meat. While in theory it is possible for a doppelganger to survive on a human-free diet, humans are considered the most nutritious and "tastiest." The fact that most doppelgangers have a strong disdain for humanity leads to very few attempting to put that into practice. Cannibalizing fellow doppelgangers has similar benefits, however it has the potential to cause illnesses. They're capable of eating small amounts of human food but too much also causes sickness.

Alcohol also doesn't affect doppels. I imagine if the government was trying to create spies for infiltration missions, doppelgangers getting drunk would be a huge liability so they made them have a high alcohol resistance, plus resistance to poison. (Which unfortunately makes them much harder to kill)

They're also programmed to be fluent in all languages upon reaching maturity, which helps for spy missions. This can be used as a way to detect doppelgangers though. If the doppel isn't paying attention and you switch over to a different language, they tend to immediately switch over to that language as well. Granted this trick only works if you know another language and they're disguised as a person that you're certain ISN'T fluent in that language.

Doppelgangers mature quickly and reproduce at a crazy rate, which is why the doppelganger problem grew so quickly after only a decade. However, a lot of doppelgangers attempt to assimilate and hunt humans before they've reached maturity and fully grasped their shapeshifting capabilities. This is why a lot of doppelgangers we come across in the game are so bad at replicating appearances or don't understand basic human behaviors; it's because they're children and are still learning.

(You look me dead in the eye and tell me this wasn't written by a child /lh)

That's about all the headcanons I have so far. If you actually read through this, thank you and feel free to share your own thoughts in the replies or in my askbox

💜

[roxiewyatthb]

If you’re still down for writing drabbles: I’m a sucker for one character noticing that they’re making the other’s heart beat faster and exploiting whatever worked whilst teasing them about how fast their heart is beating!

YEAH OFC!! Thanks for submitting! Feel free to come back and request something whenever you want 🥰❤️

~gender neutral~ wc: 765 a/n: hi! I'm currently working on about 4 more so thank you guys for your patience ❤️ ✦••┈••┈••✦❤✦••┈••┈••✦❤✦••┈••┈••✦❤✦••┈••┈••✦

The night is quiet, allowing a wide window to be opened -- letting the crisp, cool night air to flow throughout your room and as a result you cuddle up to your partner.

Their body heat seeped into you, warming you up in an incredibly comforting way as you lay on top of them. All in all, it was the perfect night. A cold room with your partner serving as your warmth, your favorite program playing on the TV, couch cuddling, and their heartbeat in your ear. Even if it was a bit distracting.

Since the program was nothing but a distant chatter at this point, you decided to turn your attention to your partner. Curiosity got the better of you -- so you moved your hand that was rested on their chest and grabbed a hold of their wrist.

I wonder what's the delay between their heart beating and the pulse in their wrist. You thought to yourself while gently pressing your finger to their pulse point.

You were only able to feel a few beats before your partner spoke up, "Hey..what are you doing?" they asked in a slightly shaky voice. However, this didn't phase you. You thought maybe they were just a bit cold from the breeze in the room.

"I just want to see how long it takes for your blood to reach your wrist." You responded in an innocent voice.

Your partner couldn't form words. How do they answer you? If they said to stop you'd only question why and that might-

"Your heart got a little faster." You stated with a light giggle.

That'll do it.

Your partner sat up on the couch -- lifting you up with them. "Okay, yeah, hey, um..." they paused for a moment while you looked at them with a puzzled face. "th-that's a bit weird, isn't it?" They questioned you.

"...is it? I didn't think so." You plainly stated, noticing the nervousness in their voice and their change of body language...and are they starting to blush?

Do you question them further? Or leave them be and go back to what you were doing before this?

You chose the former.

"If it made you feel so weird then why are you blushing like you do when you enjoy something?" You emphasize chosen words -- you really wanted to get it out of them. Teasing and probing won't hurt.

"I-...I didn't-"

"You did!" You cut them off in excitement. "Oh, but it was only when I commented on it, right?" Putting your theory to the test, you press your ear to their chest, right over their heart -- which is absolutely racing now.

"Hm...well...I'm not sure if I can get it any faster at this point but I guess I can try." You point out after realizing how fast their heart is already going, but you quickly learn that it can, in fact, get faster. "Oh! There it is...so commenting does work."

Your partner stays quiet and still, gripping at the fabric of the couch you're still sat on.

"Do you like when I comment on your heart?~" You ask in a tone thick with teasing.

They don't respond, instead, they let out a noise that gives off positive vibes.

"I see...so, you'd like it if I say I can hear the blood rushing in and out of your..." Words left your mind, blanking on the medical term for what part of their heart you're talking about -- opting for a mere hand-gesture.

"You know the-" You open and close your hand against their chest, trying to mimic the motion of their heart pumping until you get the word. "Valves! You like it when I say I can hear each drop of blood rushing in and out of your strong valves...?"

Your partner nodded desperately, but that isn't good enough for you. "I need to hear you say it. I can't see you from this angle." "Ye-yes."

"'Yes', what?" You want to hear them say it -- hear the shakiness in their voice as they answer you.

"...yes...I love it when you say you can hear the blood rushing through my valves." They respond with that adorable shakiness.

An amused laugh leaves your lips and you decide to tease them even further, "Did you know you're heart is racing right now?"

They did. You didn't have to mention it.

As if reading their mind you respond, "Oh, boo! You know I had to mention it~"

If they were already like this with so little teasing, you wondered how far you could take this -- and how fast you could get their heart pounding.

[izicodes]

Hiya! My name is Izzy-Loa, and a Jr Web Developer and today, I thought it would be a great idea to just share my own personal coding journey! I have answered a lot of asks in the past about how I recommend other people to start their coding studies, what websites to learn from and roadmaps etc. But one question I kept having to repeat myself answering is the "Okay how did you get started?" - it is completely my fault not writing this down properly~! (I did actually)

Anyhoo, I'll just speed through my journey, sharing what I learnt at what times and what I'm currently doing now! ✨

☆ Starting from Scratch

I started coding back in 2017 during the summer break when I was just 15 years old. At that time, I didn't even know what coding was! It was my dad who suggested that I learn HTML. I hesitated at first, thinking HTML was some "complex high-level programming language". Little did I know, it was just a markup language...

I started with HTML and then moved on to CSS during that summer. However, once school started in September, I set coding aside and forgot about it. The following year, 2018, I decided to give it another shot and relearned HTML and CSS. But again dropped it because of school work and upcoming exams!

☆ The Turning Point

Fast forward to 2020, a year that marked a turning point!. I started creating websites using HTML and CSS. I briefly played with JavaScript but decided to focus on mastering HTML and CSS.

In January 2021, I made a significant decision. I dropped out of school due to personal reasons and decided to fully commit to programming, plus getting my first remote job (non-Tech). From there, I gradually delved into JavaScript a lot more and even dabbled in Python along the way. My learning process was on and off, but I was making progress! Around this time I learnt Git and GitHub!

☆ The Apprenticeship

Around September/October time, I applied for an apprenticeship. My skill set included HTML, CSS, Python, and basic JavaScript. I got accepted and continued to learn Python, delving into C# and Java as well. It was a challenging but rewarding experience! Happily dropped Java towards the end!

At work, I also learned SQL, working with Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL. I even explored .NET Framework and ASP.NET. It was a lot to take in, but I embraced the learning process! The older developers at the workplace were super helpful and very experienced - felt as though they were happy to give me all their knowledge as best they could~!

☆ Expanding My Knowledge

During my apprenticeship, around October 2022, I decided to further expand my skills. I enrolled in a front-end bootcamp, where I revisited HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I also learned jQuery, Node.js, npm, and even ventured into React. Though, due to not practising it enough, I forgotten React and Node.js~!

☆ My Ongoing Journey

Currently, I'm continuing to explore Python and experimenting with Lua. I'm also revisiting JavaScript, jQuery, and recently, I've started working with SCSS (Sass) to streamline my CSS development - I highly recommend people in Web Development to learn SCSS!! I love it so much!

Looking ahead, my learning wishlist includes TypeScript, React, Vue.js, Angular, and C++. However, I'm not rushing into learning everything at once. I'm taking my time to absorb each language and framework thoroughly.

In summary, it has been a continuous evolution, from HTML and CSS to SQL, .NET Framework, and various other languages and tools. I've faced challenges and taken LOTS of breaks, but each step has brought me closer to becoming a proficient developer. I want to be better! But slowly and in good time!

Hope this was somewhat helpful to other people and yeah, have a nice day/night!

⤷ ○ ♡ my shop ○ my twt ○ my youtube ○ pinned post ○ blog's navigation ♡ ○

[river-gale]

2, 5 12, 27 with (of course) River Gale?

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

i think it has to be that scene where they talk about register in english and how all our most formal syntax is latin and greek in origin and our least formal is usually germanic. just, the fact that they know that and are willing to randomly spend several minutes explaining it. i fell instantly in love

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

someone put 'Simulation Swarm' by Big Thief in a mars house playlist and i haven't stopped thinking about it since. river and aubrey....

like wrong gender obviously but i think of them when i hear it. so.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

i put this in a fic once already but i just feel in my heart that they know fortran. the programming language from 1957 bizarrely still in use among engineers. like, if you asked them to solve any problem in fortran, they could do it, and the solution would be bizarre, totally unreadable to anyone else, and LIGHTNING fast. i have programming style headcanons for every pulley character but this one is my fave

27. FREEBIE QUESTION!!

CARTE BLANCHE TO TALK ABOUT RIVER GALE!? LET'S GOOOO

i'm putting this under a readmore because i can't stop yapping.

i have so much to say. i could write individual essays about their politics, their gender, and their relationship to their sibling, but i want to talk about the argument they have with january sort of mid-book

i love this argument because they both have a point! january has a point bc gale's policies suck and because gale is obviously super privileged in their education. when i first read it, i thought gale was being kind of obtuse for not acknowledging that, but...

on like my third reread i realized i've been in this argument on gale's side lmao. i'd like to think i'd respond more maturely now that i've been there a couple times, but in the moment, "i can't argue with you about this because you're too smart for me" is really deeply unpleasant to hear! it doesn't feel like the other person is pointing out privilege, it feels like they're saying "i can't connect or engage with you on this because i (a) don't trust you enough to believe you'll listen to me or pay enough attention to see my argument when i don't express it perfectly, in fact i think you don't care at all about what i have to say, and (b) you are different from me in a way that is inherent and immutable, so much so that i can't even discuss things with you." and it's easy to see why that hurts!

and gale probably feels that last one way more because their halo reading means their brain is actually, physically different from everyone else's! january is 100% valid for feeling overwhelmed in this moment and for these reasons, but to gale, who connects with people by debating them bc they care about other people's opinions, it probably feels like a moderately insulting rejection.

i also think gale is the sort of person who views a debate or an argument as an opportunity for synthesis—disagreeing with someone and pointing out the counterarguments isn't to tear their argument down, it's to make it stronger by giving it an opportunity to address its flaws!! it's to arrive at the truth together!! it's a way to grow closer to people by learning how they think!! but we can see here that january views it as a violent takedown, which is completely valid of him given what gale and their pr team did to him at the beginning of the book!! that WAS a violent takedown, it lost him his job, and it was his first introduction to gale, so it's totally reasonable of him to assume that's how they work all the time, even though it's extremely not!!

i just love gale so much, because they obviously care so much about other people when the other people are right there in front of them. and they try really hard to tone the argumentative curiosity down, because they know it makes people uncomfortable, but it's their truest way of expressing that care. and it's so easy to misinterpret. and if you really think about it this conversation is kind of tragic for them, especially if you read them as having feelings for january at this point!

tl;dr: i think it's a fantastic character dynamic packed into the span of a short conversation! thank you for reading my impromptu river gale essay <3