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royonninjago · 4 months

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The Ninja's Roles Within the Team

Something I think the various Ninjago shows do really well is the characterizations of each Ninja. If it was bad, then kids wouldn't wanna watch the show or buy the Lego sets to reenact their favorite moment and create new scenarios for the Ninja to go through.

However, for the past few years a problem I've had with the TV show is that some characters feel more... useful than others. Then there are moments when one character is missing, but the team seems to operate just fine without them, and I think that does a real disservice to the characters.

In contrast, take the ATLA episode "Sokka's Master". It's one of my favorites because it separates Sokka, the only non-bender in Team Avatar, from the rest of the team. The episode demonstrates to both us and the rest of Team Avatar why Sokka is essential to their team. Without him, they're bored, can't figure out where they are or where they're headed on a map, and are overall completely directionless. Its like the precursor to those dime a dozen fantasy mangas where the weak member of a dungeon divers gets fired and the rest of the party ends up deeply regretting it.

I want the Ninjago TV show to demonstrate to us why each member is essential to the Ninja Team, and why without one of them the Ninja Team is worse off or have to work twice as hard to compensate.

Dragons Rising had such a good opportunity to explore this, but unfortunately it seems like the biggest problem the Team faces from being separated across the merged realms is lack of manpower and not much else. In lieu of this, here are some of my ideas as to how each character could prove to be essential to the Ninja.

Lloyd - The Leader. This one is definitely the most obvious. He's had a very clear leadership role since he became the Green Ninja, and ever since Wu left this distinction has only gotten more pronounced. However, I do find myself wishing to see a bit more of a dark streak with him. He was originally introduced as an antagonist, and I don't know about y'all but I still find myself enjoying Three Days Grace ever since I played the Halo 3 campaign at a friend's house while listening to AMVs of their songs.

Kai - The Weapon Master. Although there was never anything to support this, I always thought that Kai made the weapons that the Ninja used in the pilots. He is a blacksmith, after all. I think it would be cool if this aspect was more leaned into and not only make him the guy that creates all the swords and throwing stars and whatever other simple weapons the Ninja use, but to also be the best one at using those weapons. A sword is obviously his go to, but put any kind of simple weapon in his hands and I think he'd be able to use it very well. Imagine how much cooler it would have been in season 11 if Kai managed to defeat Aspheera's sheer power with his incredible swordsmanship skills. It'd certainly tie into his arc that season much better than what we actually got.

Jay - The Scout. Remember that scene in the pilots where the Skulkin cars were trying to reach 88 mph or whatever and Jay was gaining on them just by running? The writers sure don't! Though in all seriousness, whenever the Ninja need to learn a new technique to do something, Jay always picks up on it really quickly. First to perform Spinjitzu and summon his Golden Weapon Vehicle, second to unlock his true potential, third to summon his Elemental Dragon, he managed to surprise Ronin when practicing Airjitzu, not to mention his laundry list of hobbies. If they really leaned into his speed, combining that with his skills as a Ninja would make him perfect for running ahead and reporting back on the enemy forces. In my own little world, I like to imagine him as a PG version of the Scout from TF2 (Jay even had a slight Boston accent in the pilots!).

Cole - The Muscle. This one is also fairly obvious due to Cole's signature Earth Punch, but I feel as though it should be noticed more when he's not around, especially in Master of the Mountain. If I'm remembering correctly, they don't fully acknowledge his absence until they're locked up in the Vengestone cage about to be executed. If I regularly hung out with a dude that could lift a car over his head, I'd be lamenting about his absence whenever I needed to lift a heavy box.

Zane - The Information Officer. Another obvious one, but in this case I feel as though they lean a bit too heavily into it. Yes, he's a robot and yes, it's his job to know things, but I want to see his more dorky and silly side from time to time. Give us more Zane following a bird because it danced and him just chilling (literally) in the fridge at midnight for no reason type of stuff. After all, his greatest fear is losing his humanity.

Nya - The Strategist. I feel as though on a 'don't judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree' level, Nya is just as smart as Zane. Due to his physiology, Zane can hold much more raw information many times over Nya, but I feel as though Nya is much better at putting that information to use. Going back to Master of the Mountain (I realize I'm referencing it a lot, its still fresh in my mind), when Kai and Zane were lost, they relied entirely on the raw data from Zane's internal compass, and because of that they got lost and had to rely on Geckles capturing them to reach their settlement. On the other hand, when Lloyd, Jay, and Nya were lost, Nya was able to determine the location of the Munce settlement by searching for signs of life and finding footprints. Also, I think this characterization fits the Master of Water really well considering water adapts to whatever environment it resides in.

The new Ninja from Dragons Rising are still very inexperienced and still haven't really found their grooves within the team, but I'm still gonna try and analyze them here.

Arin - ???. Right now, Arin's main skills are his unique Spinjitzu skills and his talent with a grappling hook. Its still so early in his Ninja training that he hasn't really carved out a distinct role for himself, though I hope this changes as time goes on. Not too long ago I proposed a cool idea for his future if any of y'all wanna take a look at that here.

Sora - The Technical Specialist. While I don't enjoy the idea of PIXAL being replaced as the Ninja's primary vehicle builder, with Sora being the Elemental Master of Tech it seems very possible that this is where things are headed. Instead of that, I think it better for her to either focus on using her skills in the field or to specialize in Mechs. Both of these ideas come from the Elemental Mech mini-series. I thought the idea of switching up parts on a mech in the middle of a battle to be a fun concept and one giving credence to her being a Field Tech, and whenever she uses her Elemental Powers its for the purpose of creating or altering or fixing a mech about half of the time.

Wyldfyre - The Dragon Expert. Even before the Merge, the Ninja encountered Dragons a lot. Now that there are dragons seemingly everywhere, Wyldfyre seems like the perfect liaison for communicating with these dragons, assuming she can learn to cool off when its needed. She also seems to know a good amount about dragons, considering that she was easily able to identify the Wasting Sickness and make a soup to help ease the pain it caused. There's still a lot she needs to learn before anyone can consider her an expert, but with her love of dragons and the belief that she is one, I think she'd be more than willing to learn.

And there you have it. If you have any ideas or head cannons or questions surrounding this topic, I'd love to hear them!

#lego ninjago #lego ninjago dragons rising #ninjago #ninjago kai #ninjago jay #ninjago zane #ninjago cole #ninjago lloyd #ninjago nya #ninjago arin #ninjago sora #ninjago wyldfyre #dragons rising

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serenelystrange · 9 days

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Summary:

“I think maybe I am actually allergic to bee stings,” Eddie says, before collapsing into a heap. In which they've survived the bee-nado, only to feel the sting of the aftermath. Or, how Eddie almost dying (again) dominoes into them finally getting out of their own way, and into happiness!

Rating: G / PG

Post-Season/Series 07, Post-Canon, Near Death Experiences, Fluff, Feelings Realization, Getting Together, First Kiss, Love is stored in the kitchen, Humor

At AO3, or below the cut.

Feedback is love and always appreciated! <3

Notes:

Screw that one NPR dude, bee-nado is freaking delightful.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“Hey, guys?”

The team turns at the sound of Eddie’s strangled voice, simultaneous expressions of horror dawning as they take in the red welts springing up all over his face.

“I think maybe I am actually allergic to bee stings,” Eddie says, before collapsing into a heap.

“Eddie!” Buck says, darting forward and just barely managing to keep his head from slamming into the concrete. He lowers Eddie down gently and leans in, hearing the raspy wheezing coming from his rapidly closing throat.

“Shit, he can’t breathe. Do we have any Epipens left?”

“On it,” Hen says, crouching down with Buck and pulling the pen from her medic bag.

“Good thing he already lost the turnouts,” Chim says, eyeing Eddie with concern. “I’ll get the stretcher. Come help me, Buck?”

“No,” Buck says quietly but with no room for argument, attention completely focused on Eddie.

“I’ll help,” Bobby says, hurrying off with Chim to get the prepped for the hospital.

“Sorry, bud,” Hen says to Eddie as she slams the pen down into his thigh, holding her breath the whole time she’s holding the plunger down.

“Come on,” Buck whispers urgently, meeting Eddie’s panicked eyes with a matching gaze. “You’re not letting bees take you out after everything you’ve been through.”

Eddie gasps for air as the medicine kicks in, twitching up with the adrenaline roughly.

“Easy,” Buck soothes, cradling the back of Eddie’s head and helping him up into a sitting position slowly. “Just breathe, you’re ok.”

Hen doesn’t even bother trying to get Buck to move, she just works around him, feeling Eddie’s throat and making sure he isn’t going to die en-route to the hospital.

“I’m ok,” Eddie rasps, closing his eyes and leaning back into the hand now cupping his neck for just a moment. “Thanks,” he says to Hen, gratefully. “That would have been such a shitty eulogy.”

“Nobody wants to see Buck cry through a whole speech,” Hen agrees, lightly. “Now up and at ‘em, let’s get you to the hospital.”

Eddie stands shakily as Chim and Bobby wheel up the stretcher, and groans.

“I can walk and sit in the bus,” he protests.

“I will carry you,” Buck warns.

“I’m a dad, too,” Chim adds, “don’t make me pull the dad voice on you.”

“Fine,” Eddie huffs. “But I want it noted that I’m operating under duress.”

“Duly noted,” Bobby says dryly. “Now can we please go to the hospital?”

Eddie rolls his eyes but finally does as he’s told.

“Finally,” Eddie says hours later, when they’ve finally released him to his ride home.

From the driver’s seat of the Jeep, Buck frowns over at him.

“You almost died,” he says. “Again. I’d be upset if they didn’t want to observe you for a while.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Not your fault,” Buck says, shrugging. “But you couldn’t see your face swelling up, Eds. It was scary as hell.”

“Thanks for stopping me from cracking my head open, by the way,” Eddie says. “I didn’t remember until everything wore off, but I definitely should have hit the ground harder than I did.”

“Just glad I was fast enough,” Buck says, grinning. “Score one for lighting-quick reflexes.”

Eddie just groans.

“See what I did there?” Buck asks, in a much better mood now that Eddie isn’t in anaphylaxis.

Eddie sighs. “Can we please just go home? I need a hot shower and a drink.”

“Can’t get warm?” Buck guesses, already pulling off his soft hoodie before Eddie finishes nodding.

“It’s probably not the freshest,” Buck admits as he hands it over, “but it’s warmer than your t-shirt anyway.”

“You can just put the heat up,” Eddie laughs, “you don’t have to literally give me the clothes off your back for a thirty minute drive.”

“Shut up,” Buck huffs. “I’ll do both. Just wear the hoodie so I’m not worried about you freezing the whole way home.”

“Fine, fine,” Eddie says, pulling it on and snuggling into the cozy material happily before buckling his seatbelt.

“Still warm,” he says, giving Buck a quick thankful look and shoving his hands into the front pocket of the hoodie.

“Good,” Buck says, before finally turning the car on and heading home.

“We didn’t have time to get a whole cake,” Hen says on their next shift. “But that new bakery down the block did have these…”

Eddie groans as she opens the box to reveal a few dozen bee-shaped cake pops.

“No bad puns?” he laughs. “I’m sure there’s a death-by-bee related joke in there somewhere.”

“Buck vetoed it,” Chim says. “Apparently ‘near-death experiences aren’t something to joke about, Howard.’”

“Since when?” Hen says, amused. “That’s kind of our whole thing after these ridiculous situations.”

“You’d be upset if someone joked about Karen almost dying,” Ravi says, joining the conversation and grabbing a cake pop with a happy hum.

“You weren’t even there!” Chim says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.

“And Karen is my wife,” Hen says. “That’s different.”

“Is it though?” Ravi asks.

His sharp brown eyes look directly into Eddie’s soul for just a moment before he grabs another cake pop and scampers off.

“What the hell,” Eddie says, looking at Hen and Chim’s amused faces with wide eyes.

“Go find Buck before he gets emo,” Chim says, handing him two cake pops. “He probably needs some sugar anyway.”

“And the cake pops,” Hen adds, mildly.

They leave before Eddie can even argue.

“Bzzz, bzzz,” Eddie says in greeting, finding Buck on the little couch they usually play video games on, staring off into space.

“Hilarious,” Buck says, dryly.

“We gotta laugh,” Eddie says, handing Buck one of the cheery yellow cake pops. “Or we’d probably never stop crying.”

“I know,” Buck says, sighing and moving over so that Eddie has room to sit beside him. “I’m just in a mood I guess.”

“It happens,” Eddie says, easily, polishing off the treat in a few bites and putting the stick on the coffee table to deal with later. “That’s actually really good.”

“I’m not hungry,” Buck sighs, offering Eddie the cake pop back.

Eddie takes it and puts it on the table before looking at Buck with concern.

“Not hungry?” he asks, reaching out to touch Buck’s forehead with the back of his hand. “You burn like a million calories a day, you should be starving.”

“I’m not sick,” Buck says, frowning at Eddie’s hand as he pulls it away.

“Then what’s up?” Eddie asks.

“It’s dumb,” Buck says, quietly, looking at the floor in front of them.

Eddie shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “But you should still tell me.”

“Tommy broke up with me,” Buck says after a long moment of consideration.

Eddie hums in sympathy and gives him an encouraging nod.

“Through text,” Buck adds, and Eddie hisses out a breath.

“Ouch,” he says, “that’s rough.”

“It’s whatever,” Buck says, finally looking up from the floor and over at Eddie. “I mean, we weren’t that serious yet or anything. But it was nice. And turns out, getting dumped by a guy sucks just as much as getting dumped by a girl.”

“Yeah, well,” Eddie says, “he’s an idiot for breaking up with you. It’s his loss.”

“Maybe,” Buck allows, giving Eddie a wry grin. “He probably won’t want to fly you out to super violent half-naked sports now, though. So like, sorry about that.”

“You know,” Eddie muses with an amused grin. “Somehow, I think I’ll survive. As long as I don’t run into another 100 bees.”

“I hate you so much,” Buck says, torn between laughing and groaning.

“Nah,” Eddie says, leaning in until their shoulders are pressed together. “I’m your favorite. At least until Chris comes back. If he comes back.”

“He will,” Buck says, firmly. “If he doesn’t give in by the end of August I’m going to drive out there myself and get him.”

“Please don’t kidnap my son, Buck,” Eddie laughs. “The Texas cops won’t give you as much leeway as Athena.”

“It’s not kidnapping if I’m bringing him back to his father,” Buck huffs. “It’s a rescue mission.”

“He just needs some time,” Eddie says. “Hopefully. I’m trying not to catastrophize here, you’re gonna have to meet me halfway.”

“What’s halfway to El Paso?” Buck asks.

“Somewhere in Arizona, probably,” Eddie says, thoughtfully. “But I meant more emotionally.”

“I can multi-task,” Buck says, before closing his eyes and resting his head on the back out the couch, reaching out and wrapping his hand around Eddie’s wrist.

“I’m really glad you’re ok,” he says, swallowing around the wobble in his voice.

“Me, too,” Eddie says.

He’s surprised to find that he actually means it.

Chris comes home the second week of August, and graciously allows Eddie to hug him for almost an entire minute before squirming away and asking what they’re having for dinner.

“I haven’t gotten groceries this week yet,” Eddie admits, looking around at a whole lot of random ingredients that require too much effort for his currently mental capacity.

“Is Buck ok?” Chris asks, worriedly. “Is that why he’s not here?”

“What?” Eddie asks, before reassuring him. “No, Buck’s fine. He’s just working, he was gonna come by tomorrow after his shift to see you.”

“Oh,” Chris says, sighing in relief. “Good. I thought he stopped getting our groceries cuz he got hurt or something.”

“I buy our groceries, Mijo,” Eddie laughs. “We just shop together sometimes. Buck needs food at his house too, you know.”

“Dad,” Chris says, looking at him with one impressively raised eyebrow. “Do you even know where the waffle mix is?”

“Uhh,” Eddie hedges, eyes landing on the pantry doors. “In the pantry, obviously.”

Chris rolls his eyes.

“We don’t have waffle mix,” he says. “Buck makes the batter with actual ingredients.”

“Waffle mix is ingredients,” Eddie argues lightly, “just all mixed up already.”

“I’m going back to Texas,” Chris drawls, before giving Eddie a sheepish look. “Too soon?”

“You’re a brat,” Eddie says, ruffling his hair. “And I love you more than anything in the world. But yeah, maybe we don’t joke about you running away again for at least a year, ok?”

“Fiiine,” Chris says. “Now about dinner…”

Eddie laughs and pulls up his phone, handing it over to Chris to choose somewhere to order from.

His baby is back, they deserve the treat.

“Chris!” Buck shouts the next evening, letting himself into Eddie’s house and heading straight for the boy, scooping him right off the couch and into a gently bone crushing embrace.

“Buuuuck,” Chris whines as he laughs. “I’m too big to pick up!”

“Never,” Buck says, grinning. “If you ever get as big as me, I’m just gonna have to get stronger so I can keep carrying you.”

“You already bust out of all your sleeves,” Eddie says, watching the scene with soft eyes. “You better just let him love you, Chris. For the sake of t-shirts everywhere.”

“He can love me and put me down,” Chris says.

“If you insist,” Buck says, making a show of dramatically placing him back on the couch. “I just missed you, kid.”

“Missed you, too,” Chris says. “Can I watch TV now?”

“I see how it is,” Buck laughs, shaking his head and following Eddie into the kitchen, leaving Chris to his own devices.

“Teenagers, man. Ouch.”

“Brutal,” Eddie agrees, grinning.

“And yet you look happy as a clam,” Buck laughs.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie says, shrugging minutely. “My kid is back where he should be. That’s enough happy to last a few weeks at least.”

“Yeah, it is,” Buck says, clinking the beer bottle Eddie had handed him against the one in Eddie’s hand.

They sip their drinks in comfortable silence, and Buck can’t help but think back to that night in his kitchen years ago. It was different then, more frustration than relief, but a thrill all the same. He’d been so sure Eddie was going to hit him, he’d practically begged for it, really.

“I, uh,” Buck says, keeping his voice low so Chris doesn’t eavesdrop. “Remember when you were Mr. super secret fight club, and we were still pissed at each other?”

“In your kitchen?” Eddie asks, already knowing the answer. “I remember, yeah. Why?”

He takes another long sip of his beer, watching with interest as Buck’s eyes follow the movement of his throat as he swallows.

“I think I was flirting with you,” Buck says in a rush. “I just didn’t realize it.”

“Hmm,” Eddie says, nodding and taking one last swallow of his drink before putting it on the counter. “Yeah, that makes sense. You were pretty, uh,” he makes a vague hand gesture, “crotch-forward with the swaggering.”

“Not on purpose,” Buck says, blushing pink. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Eddie says. “Pretty sure I was flirting back.”

Buck freezes, giving Eddie an incredulous look.

“And you didn’t say anything?” he asks. “For five years??”

“Yeah, well,” Eddie says, “it’s been a crazy few years. I couldn’t handle a sexuality crisis on top of it.”

“Oh,” Buck says, before his eyes widen in realization. “But you can now?”

“I think so,” Eddie says, turning to face Buck fully. “The single women of Los Angeles will be relieved.”

“What about the men?” Buck asks, laughing softly at Eddie and his terrible dating history.

“I only care about one of them,” Eddie says. “And he’s standing a foot away from me at the moment, so I guess I should ask him that question.”

“Oh,” Buck says again, before smiling sappily. “I’m also really relieved you’ll no longer be terrorizing the hearts of L.A. women.”

“Just yours?” Eddie asks, dropping his gaze to Buck’s lips. “Do you think it’s worth the risk?”

Buck kisses him instead of answering, pressing him gently against the counter and cages him in with his arms, catching his startled gasp against his lips.

Eddie murmurs something that Buck can’t make out, but it’s not stop, so he doesn’t. Eddie grabs his waist and pulls him closer as he returns the kiss, fingers hooking into the belt loops of Buck’s worn jeans to hold him in place.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Eddie says when they pull apart, staring at one another and catching their breath.

“You’re always worth the risk,” Buck says, stealing another quick kiss. “Every time.”

Eddie grins bright and joyful, and Buck feels his breath catching at the sight.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says with awe. “But I’m so glad you don’t have that awful mustache anymore.”

“Rude,” Eddie laughs, punching Buck’s shoulder playfully before tugging him into another kiss.

They can argue about facial hair another day.

By the time they make it back to the living room, Chris is scrolling tik-tok, a 70’s show dubbed in Spanish playing on the TV in the background.

“The Incredible Hulk?” Eddie asks, watching the green-painted man with bad hair and cringing. “This does not hold up, yikes.”

“Mark Ruffalo is way better,” Chris agrees. “I thought this one would be fun in Spanish, though.”

“Well,” Buck says, giving the screen a dubious look. “Some things are bad in any language.”

Chris dissolves into giggles at his solemn tone, and that sets Eddie off into laughter, until Buck is left staring between them both and their matching squinty faces, shaking his head with amusement.

He’s never been happier.

The End

Notes:

Hope you like!

#buddie #buddie fic #buck x eddie #evan buckley x eddie diaz #911 fic

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runnning-outof-time · 2 years

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The Good I’ll Do | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Request: no - written for @sunsetbeachesandwriting ‘s 500 Follower Celebration

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader

Summary: Tommy and (Y/N) finally step over the line after the celebration of the legal betting license that was given to the family.

Warnings: drinking, smoking, roaming hands and heavy kissing (pg-13 rated)

Word Count: 2458

A/N: this was such a fun story to write. I chose the prompt: “What's going on inside that head of yours?” and also drew inspiration from the song The Good I’ll Do by Zach Bryan. Congratulations on your milestone! Enjoy! :)

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future stories similar to this one!

Drinks were flowing at the Garrison, everyone was in good spirits. Tommy had managed to get the family a legal betting license, which meant that the operation that was run out of their Watery Lane home was on the verge of an expansion. Things were looking up, and to (Y/N), it felt like they'd won the lottery and become millionaires. No one could touch the Shelbys now.

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) had known the Shelby family for several years now. She met them through Martha, John's late wife, who was her good friend. When she passed, (Y/N) stayed, feeling like the Shelbys were her people; like she belonged with them. She helped out at the shop, running the papers and checking the books alongside Polly, and had quickly become an integral part of both the business and the family.

"Another one, (Y/N)?" Polly questioned as she walked over to the booth the younger woman was sitting in with two glasses in her hands.

"Can't say no, can I?" (Y/N) teased with a grin, accepting the glass as Polly sat down next to her.

"I've already poured it," the older woman grinned, sipping on her drink.

(Y/N) mirrored her, her eyes falling on the boys again. They were over at the bar, talking animatedly about something, smiles on each of their faces. She was happy to see them smile again. Life after the war was tough on each of them in their own way.

Arthur struggled with keeping his head right, and at times he'd have trouble keeping himself, and his actions, in check. John came home to four kids to watch over, and he was having trouble settling into that role without a woman by his side. And then there was Tommy. Tommy kept everything in and focused every bit of himself on bettering the family business. It paid off, but (Y/N) was able to see what it cost him.

She'd be lying if she said that she didn't feel something each time she looked at him. There was something in the way he held himself; the way that he put himself on the line for his family, that sparked something within her.

Seeing him smile now as they celebrated their moving up in the world made her the most happy. Maybe now he'd slow down.

"It's good to see them happy," she voiced her thoughts to Polly after a few moments had passed.

"It's well deserved," Polly agreed with a nod, a smile on her face. "They'll be happy tonight and then go back to work tomorrow." (Y/N) nodded along, her eyes focused on the three.

—

Some time later, (Y/N) was ready to leave. She finished whatever was in her glass before she pulled the sleeves of her jacket over her shoulders. Things had settled down as the night went on, and now only the Shelby family and some remaining patrons were left in the bar. Harry was working on straightening everything up and the barmaid, Grace (Y/N) remembered her name to be, was still working the bar.

After grabbing her purse, (Y/N) looked around the room. Polly was still sitting with the man she'd taken a shine to. They were in a booth across the room talking about something. What?…(Y/N) did not know. John and Arthur were in the bag, both of them slouched back in the booth that was behind (Y/N)'s. Tommy had gone into the snug to get away from the noise some time ago, and (Y/N) had no doubt that he was still in there.

She made her way over to the side room's door before heading out the main one. She opened the door wide enough to peek her head through, seeing Tommy sitting in his usual chair, reading the paper with a cigarette between his fingers. He looked over in (Y/N)'s direction when he heard the door open. "I'm going home. I just wanted to say goodbye," she told him her reason behind her presence.

Tommy nodded before he set the paper down on the table and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray. "I'll walk you home," he announced as he stood from the chair.

"Oh, Tommy, you don't..."

"I was leaving anyway," he cut her off before she was able to decline his offer.

"Are...are you sure?" she asked, frozen as Tommy walked to the door so that he could open it wider.

"That I was leaving? Yes, (Y/N), I'm sure," he answered her with a slight grin on his face, waiting for her to step out of the way so that he could exit the snug. "Let's go," he nodded towards the door then, and all (Y/N) could do was nod back before she allowed him to make the first move. She fell in line beside him then and they exited the tavern.

— —

"This is mine," (Y/N) said as she and Tommy walked up the steps towards her apartment.

"I know, (Y/N)," Tommy responded, his words making her giggle, "I've been here before."

She took hold of the door handle then, surprised that she was able to insert the key and turn it to unlock the door on the first try. Before opening the door, she turned to look at Tommy again. "I just wanted to tell you in case you forgot," she informed him, her words making him chuckle as he heard them. She held his eyes for a moment then, her insides fluttering at the feeling of being trapped under his gaze. "Do you want to come in?" she asked him then, her voice softer than before.

"Would you let me?" Tommy responded with a question his own, his voice dropping to meet the volume she used.

"I asked you, didn't I?" she pointed out, unable to keep the smile from forming on her face as she giggled slightly.

"You did," he agreed with her, pursing his lips as he tried to hide his smile.

"Come in, Tommy," she whispered, her smile full now as she turned the handle and opened the door to her apartment. Like she'd asked, Tommy followed her, shutting the door behind him before he turned to watch (Y/N) as she took off her coat.

(Y/N), aware of his eyes on her, concentrated on what she was doing so that she didn't make a fool out of herself. She slipped her arms out of her coat, but got caught before she was able to get it completely off of her body. Instead of finding the problem, she began shaking her arms in hopes that she'd fix it. In the midst of her movements, she found that her purse was still on her shoulder and that she’d managed to get the strap caught the coat's arm. She stopped her struggle and placed the purse on the table so that she'd be able to take the coat off successfully. She heard Tommy chuckle once she was finished. "What?" she asked him, turning to face him as her cheeks heated up.

"You're beautiful," he told her, the corner of his lips quirked upwards in a grin.

"I think the proper statement would be 'you're drunk'," she pointed out, giggling slightly as her cheeks got even warmer. She was surely blushing at this point.

"It always affects you in beautiful ways," he told her, his grin growing because he was able to see how she was reacting to his words. She looked away from him then, knowing full-well that his eyes were still focused on her. She didn't know what to do, or say, but she couldn't deny that the feelings she had towards him had now been kicked into overdrive.

Several silence filled moments passed before (Y/N) looked over to Tommy again. It didn't surprise her that he was still looking at her. His gaze hadn't moved from when they finished speaking. She tried to keep herself composed as she opened her mouth to speak again. "Will you stay?" she asked, timidness now apparent in her voice.

Tommy tried to hide his smile again, his eyes shifting to the far wall for a moment before they found hers again. "I'll sleep on the floor," he answered her question.

(Y/N) smiled at his response and walked the few steps between them so that she was standing in front of him. She looked down at his hands before she took them into hers, immediately noticing the calloused nature of them as they wrapped around hers completely. She then let her eyes rise up his body until they found his again, and she noticed how he was trying to keep himself composed. For a moment, she wondered if he felt the same way inside as she did right now. Her heart was racing, but the feeling of his hands holding hers grounded her.

She searched his eyes for a moment longer, almost drowning in their blueness before she spoke again, "I'm proud of you, Tommy," she told him, her voice just above a whisper.

Tommy heard her loud and clear due to their closeness and her words, combined with the feeling of her hands in his, made him gain the confidence to jump over the edge and into the unknown. Time seemed to slow down as his gaze flitted down to her lips before coming back up again.

Nothing else needed to be said. They both knew what would happen next. (Y/N)'s hands left his and moved to the sides of his torso at the same time that his hands rose to take hold of her cheeks. Tommy then closed the gap between them, dropping his lips onto hers in a haste kiss, one that immediately had tongues clashing and hands roaming in hopes to find a place to purchase and hold onto.

"Tommy," she gasped as his lips left hers and trailed down her jaw to find a new spot on her neck. Her hands moved underneath his jacket, blindly working to unbutton his waistcoat so that she could get to the collared shirt that was underneath it.

"I know," he mumbled against his skin, gently pulling on the sleeve of her dress so that he'd be able to kiss her collarbone. She'd just managed to unbutton his shirt when he lifted her up and moved her over to the table. Her dress got hiked up towards her waist and his hands moved from the swell of her hips to the exposed area of thighs, her skin turning white under the path that his nails took.

Moving her hands from his sides, (Y/N) took hold of Tommy's face, making him raise his eyes to hers again. Nothing was said between them. They just smiled at each other, the both of them knowing exactly what the other was thinking. After so many instances of toying with the invisible line that stood between them, they'd finally crossed it. And now that they had, neither wanted to go back.

(Y/N)'s eyes dropped to his lips this time, and she didn't even try to be coy about it. Instead of finding his eyes again, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, kissing him slower and deeper this time; savoring the feeling of his lips on hers. Tommy wrapped arms around her waist again, allowing him to pull her flush against his body. (Y/N) squeaked at the movement before following it with a sigh of content. There was no place she'd want to be more in her life from now on than where she was right now.

—

"What's going on inside that head of yours?" (Y/N) asked Tommy as she ran her hand lazily through his hair. They'd moved to her bed and were now practically laying on top of each other due to its small size. Tommy had taken off his upper layers, leaving him in his undershirt with the suspenders he was once wearing hung loosely off of his trousers. (Y/N) was still in her dress, although it was now slightly disheveled from her trying to find a comfortable position...it was tough having two people on a bed meant for one.

"Hmm?" he hummed in response, his eyes still focused on the ceiling.

"You're thinking of something...I can tell," she told him as she rolled slightly so that she could see him better. He turned his head slightly as she moved, his eyes hooking onto hers for the umpteenth time that night. "What are you thinking, Tommy?" she asked him softly after a few moments had passed.

He didn't speak right away, and instead reached up to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face. His actions made her cheeks heat up and bashful giggles escape her lips. "I don't want to hide anymore...I need someone who I can be with for more than just a night," he told her as he ran the back of his hand down her cheek again. (Y/N)'s heart felt like it was going to burst at his admission, but she wasn't able to say anything in response because Tommy had put a slight pressure on her cheek, physically telling her that he wanted her face closer to his. "Tell me that you need me, (Y/N)," he breathed against her lips, just barely touching them as he spoke.

"I need you," she whispered back without hesitation before she closed the gap and kissed him again.

Their kiss was languid and only lasted a few moments before Tommy pulled back again. "There's so much good I'll do with you by my side," he told her, speaking with an honesty she'd never heard from him before, "this license is just the beginning," he added before matching his lips to hers again. They shared a few more lazy kisses before pulling away again.

A wordless smile was shared before (Y/N) dropped her head down on his chest. Silence fell around them as (Y/N) closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the lines Tommy was tracing on her back as his heart beated steadily against her ear.

Neither knew how much time had passed before Tommy spoke again. His voice was soft, but (Y/N) heard him loud and clear: "I feel like I'm new when I'm with you, (Y/N)." It sounded like it was a sleepy confession, one that a person would say when they thought their partner was asleep, so she let it stay at that. Although she couldn't help but smile at his admission. What he probably didn't know was that she felt the exact same way.

Tagged: @mgcldydrms @the-anxious-youth @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @elenavampire21 @peaky-cillian @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @notyour-valentine @shelbydelrey @december16-1991 @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @tommystargirl @stevie75 @lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @anotherblinder @midnightmagpiemama @cillmequick @rangerelik @lovemissyhoneybee @dandelionprints @letal-y-poetica @raincoffeeandfandoms @itscheybaby @gypsy-girl-08 @lora21 @insanitybyanothername @depxiety @dragons-are-my-favorite @sunsetbeachesandwriting

MASTERLIST

Listen to the song The Good I’ll Do by Zach Bryan

HERE.

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x y/n #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby oneshot #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders x y/n #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders one shot #peaky blinders oneshot #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Podcasting "Let the Platforms Burn"

This week on my podcast, I read “Let the Platforms Burn,” a recent Medium column making the case that we should focus more on making it easier for people to leave platforms, rather than making the platforms less terrible places to be:

https://doctorow.medium.com/let-the-platforms-burn-6fb3e6c0d980

The platforms used to be source of online stability, and many argued that by consolidating the wide and wooly web into a few “curated” silos, the platforms were replacing chaos with good stewardship. If we wanted to make the internet hospitable to normies, we were told, we had to accept that Apple and Facebook’s tightly managed “simplicity” were the only way to get there.

But today, all the platforms are on fire, all the time. They are rocked by scandals every bit as awful as the failures of the smaller sites of yesteryear, but while harms of a Geocities or Livejournal moderation failure were confined to a small group of specialized users, failures in the big silos reach hundreds of millions or even billions of people.

What should we do about the rolling crisis of the platforms? The default response — beloved of Big Tech’s boosters and critics alike — is to impose rules on the platforms to make them more hospitable places for the billions they’ve engulfed. But I think that will fail. Instead, I think we should make the platforms less important places by freeing those billions.

That’s the argument of the column.

Think of California’s wildfires. While climate change has increased the intensity and frequency of our fires, climate (and neglect by PG&E) is merely part of the story. The other part of the story is fire-debt.

For millennia, the original people of California practiced controlled burns of the forests they lived, hunted, and played in. These burns cleared out sick and dying trees, scoured the forest floor of tinder, and opened spaces in the canopy that gave rise to new growth. Forests need fire — literally: the California redwood can’t reproduce without it:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/giant-sequoia-needs-fire-grow/15094/

But this ended centuries ago, when settlers stole the land and declared an end to “cultural burning” by the indigenous people they expropriated, imprisoned, and killed. They established permanent settlements within the fire zone, and embarked on a journey of escalating measures to keep that smouldering fire zone from igniting.

These heroic measures continue today, and they’ve set up a vicious cycle: fire suppression creates the illusion that it’s safe to live at the wildlife urban interface. Taken in by this illusion, more people move to the fire zone — and their presence creates political pressure for even more heroic measures.

The thing is, fire suppression doesn’t mean no fires — it means wildfires. The fire debt mounts and mounts, and without an orderly bankruptcy — controlled burns — we get chaotic defaults, the kind of fire that wipes out whole towns.

Eventually, we will have to change tacks: rather than making it safe to stay in the fire zone, we’re going to have to make it easy to leave, so that we can return to those controlled burns and pay down those fire-debts.

And that’s what we need to do with the platforms.

For most of the history of consumer tech and digital networks, fire was the norm. New platforms — PC companies, operating systems, online services — would spring up and grow with incredible speed, only to collapse, seemingly without warning.

To get to the bottom of this phenomenon, you need to understand two concepts: network effects and switching costs.

Network effects: A service enjoys network effects if it increases in value as more people use it. AOL Instant Messenger grows in usefulness every time someone signs up for it, and so does Facebook. The more users, the more reasons to join. The more people who join, the more people will join.

Switching costs: The things you have to give up when you leave a product or service. When you quit Audible, you have to throw away all your audiobooks (they will only play on Audible-approved players). When you leave Facebook, you have to say goodbye to all the friends, family, communities and customers that brought you there.

Tech has historically enjoyed enormous network effects, which propelled explosive growth. But it also enjoyed low switching costs, which underpinned implosive contraction. Because digital systems are universal (all computers can run all programs; all nodes on the network can connect to one another), it was historically very easy to switch from one service to another.

Someone building a new messenger service or social media platform could import your list of contacts, or even use bots to fetch the messages left for you on the old service and put them in the inbox on the new one, and then push your replies back to the people you left behind. Likewise, when Apple made its iWork office suite, it could reverse-engineer the Microsoft Office file formats so you could take all your data with you if you quit Windows and switched to MacOS:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

This dynamic — network effects growth and low switching costs contraction — is why we think of tech as so dynamic. It’s companies like DEC were able to turn out minicomputers that shattered the dominance of mainframes. But it’s also why DEC was brought so low that a PC company, Compaq — was able to buy it for pennies on the dollar. Compaq — a company that built an empire by making interoperable IBM PC clones — was itself “disrupted” a few years later, and HP bought it for spare change found in the sofa cushions.

But HP didn’t fall to Compaq’s fate. It survived — as did IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook. Somehow, the cycle of “good fire” that kept any company from growing too powerful was interrupted.

Today’s tech giants run “walled gardens” that are actually walled prisons that entrap their billions of users by imposing high switching costs on them. How did that happen? How did tech become “five giant websites filled with screenshots from the other four?”

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

The answer lies in the fact that tech was born as antitrust was dying. Reagan hit the campaign trail the same year the Apple ][+ hit shelves. With every presidency since, tech has grown more powerful and antitrust has grown weaker (the Biden administration has halted this decay, but it must repair 40 years’ worth of sabotage).

This allowed tech to “merge to monopoly.” Google built a single successful product — a search engine — and then conquered the web by buying other peoples’ companies, even as their own internal product development process produced a nearly unbroken string of flops. Apple buys 90 companies a year — Tim Cook brings home a new company more often than you bring home a bag of groceries:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18531570/apple-company-purchases-startups-tim-cook-buy-rate

When Facebook was threatened by an upstart called Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg sent a middle-of-the-night email to his CFO defending his plan to pay $1b for the then-tiny company, insisting that the only way to secure eternal dominance was to eliminate competitors — by buying them out, not by being better than them. As Zuckerberg says, “It is better to buy than compete”:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing

As tech consolidated into a cozy oligopoly whose execs hopped from one company to another, they rigged the game. They colluded on a criminal “no-poach” deal to suppress their workers’ wages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

And they colluded to illegally rig the ad-market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

This collusion is the inevitable result of market concentration. 100 squabbling tech companies will be at each others’ throats, unable to agree on catering for their annual meeting much less a common lobbying agenda. But boil those companies down to a bare handful and they’ll quickly converge on a single hymn and twine their voices in eerie harmony:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/16/compulsive-cheaters/#rigged

Eliminating antitrust enforcement — letting companies buy and merge with competitors, permitting predatory pricing and other exclusionary tactics — was the first step towards unsustainable fire suppression. But, as on the California wildland-urban interface, this measure quickly gave way to ever-more-extreme ones as the fire debt mounted.

The tech’s oligarchs have spent decades both suppressing laws that would limit their extractive profits (there’s a reason there’s no US federal privacy law!), and, crucially, getting new law made to limit anyone from “disrupting” them as they disrupted their forebears.

Today, a thicket of laws and rules — patent, copyright, anti-circumvention, tortious interference, trade secrecy, noncompete, etc — have been fashioned into a legal superweapon that tech companies can use to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers, and prevent them from making or using interoperable tools to reduce their switching costs and leave their walled gardens:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Today, these laws are being bolstered with new ones that make it even more difficult for users to leave the platforms. These new laws purport to protect users from each other, but they leave them even more at the platforms’ mercy.

So we get rules requiring platforms to spy on their users in the name of preventing harassment, rather than laws requiring platforms to stand up APIs that let users leave the platform and seek out a new online home that values their wellbeing:

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/lawful-awful-control-over-legal-speech-platforms-governments-and-internet-users

We get laws requiring platforms to “balance” the ideology of their content moderation:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/16/texas-social-media-law/

But not laws that require platforms to make it easy to seek out a new server whose moderation policies are more hospitable to your ideas:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

The platforms insist — with some justification — that we can’t ask them to both control their users and give their users more freedom. If we want a platform to detect and block “bad content,” we can’t also require the platform to let third party interoperators plug into the system and exchange messages with it.

They’re right — but that doesn’t mean we should defend them. The problem with the platforms isn’t merely that they’re bad at defending their users’ interests. The problem is that they can’t defend those interests. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t merely monumentally, personally unsuited to serving as the unelected, unaacountable social media czar for billions of people in hundreds of countries, speaking thousands of languages. No one should have that job.

We don’t need a better Mark Zuckerberg. We need no Mark Zuckerbergs. We don’t need to perfect Zuck — we need to abolish Zuck.

Rather than pouring our resources into making life in the smoldering wildlife-urban interface safe, we should help people leave that combustible zone, with policies that make migration easy.

This month, we got an example of how just easy that migration could be. Meta launched Threads, a social media platform that used your list of Instagram followers and followees to get you set up. Those low switching costs made it easy for Instagram users to become Threads users — and the network effects meant it happened fast, with 30m signups in the first morning:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/06/meta-launches-threads-and-its-important-for-reasons-that-most-people-wont-care-about/

Meta says it was able to do this because it owns both Insta and Threads. But Meta doesn’t own the list of accounts that you trust and value enough to follow, or the people who feel the same way about you. That’s yours. We could and should force Meta to let you have it.

But that’s not enough. Meta claims that it will someday integrate Threads into the Fediverse, the collection of services based on the ActivityPub standard, whose most popular app is Mastodon. On Mastodon, you not only get to export your list of followers and followees with one click, but you can import those followers and followees to a new server with one click.

Threads looks incredibly stupid, a “Twitter alternative you would order from Brookstone,” but there are already tens of millions of people establishing relationships with each other there:

https://jogblog.substack.com/p/facebooks-threads-is-so-depressing

When they get tired of “brand-safe vaporposting,” they’ll have to either give up those relationships, or resign themselves to being trapped inside another walled-garden-cum-prison operated by a mediocre tech warlord:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-algorithmic-anti-culture-of-scale

But what if, instead of trying to force Zuck to be a better emperor-for-life, we passed rules requiring him to let his subjects flee his tyrannical reign? We could require Threads to stand up a Fediverse gateway that let users leave the service and set up on any other Fediverse servers (we could apply this rule to all Fediverse servers, preventing petty dictators from tormenting their users, too):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

Zuck founded an empire of oily rags, and so of course it’s always on fire. We can’t make it safe to stay, but we can make it easy to leave:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

This is the thing platforms fear the most. Network effects work in both directions: if your service grows quickly because people value one another, then it will shrink quickly when the people your users care about leave. As @zephoria-blog recounts, this is what happened when Myspace imploded:

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

When I started seeing the disappearance of emotionally sticky nodes, I reached out to members of the MySpace team to share my concerns and they told me that their numbers looked fine. Active uniques were high, the amount of time people spent on the site was continuing to grow, and new accounts were being created at a rate faster than accounts were being closed. I shook my head; I didn’t think that was enough. A few months later, the site started to unravel.

Platforms collapse “slowly, then all at once.” The only way to prevent sudden platform collapse syndrome is to block interoperability so users can’t escape the harms of your walled garden without giving up the benefits they give to each other.

We should stop trying to make the platforms good. We should make them gone. We should restore the “good fire” that ended with the growth of financialized Big Tech empires. We should aim for soft landings for users, and stop pretending that there’s any safe way to life in the fire zone.

We should let the platforms burn.

Here’s the podcast:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/07/16/let-the-platforms-burn-the-opposite-of-good-fires-is-wildfires/

And here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @internetarchive; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_446_-_Let_the_Platforms_Burn.mp3

And here’s my podcast feed:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

Tonight (July 18), I’m hosting the first Clarion Summer Write-In Series, an hour-long, free drop-in group writing and discussion session. It’s in support of the Clarion SF/F writing workshop’s fundraiser to offer tuition support to students:

https://mailchi.mp/theclarionfoundation/clarion-write-ins

[Image ID: A forest wildfire. Peeking through the darks in the stark image are hints of the green Matrix "waterfall" effect.]

Image: Cameron Strandberg (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fire-Forest.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #mp3s #saving the news from big tech #platform decay #enshittification #fire debt #good fire #big tech #lawful but awful #content moderation #content moderation at scale #antitrust #trustbusting #podcasts

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the-hinky-panda · 8 months

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Reparar (Los Regalos Series)

So this is technically the last part of Los Regalos but I'm not completely opposed to revisiting these two again.

Pairing: Colonel Horacio Carrillo x Fem!Reader

Rating: PG-13

Summary: You’re new to Colombia and the Search Bloc, loaned out by the Army to help sift through the wiretaps, sat phone calls, and other communications. After figuring out that it was Colonel Carrillo who was leaving little gifts, the two of you start seeing each other. But after an assassination attempt that leaves you wounded, you two decide to act like you've broken up. However, things are never as easy as they seem.

He wakes up with a splitting headache and the taste of ash in his mouth. Horacio buries his head into his pillow and prays the throbbing in his temples and the vertigo lessens enough for him to remember exactly what happened last night. Grief still presses heavily between his shoulder blades as soberness churns his stomach. How much whiskey did he go through? What happened last night exactly?

It comes to him in flashes. He had spent time looking at the gifts and offerings that you had been sneaking into his office. He knew from the side-eyed looks between Peña, Murphy, and Trujillo, you had some help with this little covert operation. He vaguely remembers the things, but what did he do with them? A box, he put them in a box. Then what?

Oh God. Oh God. He went to your apartment. He knocked on the door. He left the box. Oh God, no. He left the box. The horror of you finding your kind gifts dumped in front of your door is enough to rouse him out of bed. He moves too quickly and instantly regrets it as his head splits apart and his stomach roils. He has to sit there with his head between his knees until the pain decreases and his stomach settles.

While he waits for that, more pieces of last night come to him. The knock at the door. Him not caring to even pick up his gun as he approached the front door. Opening the door and seeing your face, your red-rimmed eyes, and the sad downturn of your mouth. You brought the box back. You brought the gifts back to him. That makes his stomach flip again.

He has to find you. You were here last night, he has a vague memory of you sleeping here. He takes in a couple deep breaths and stands up from the bed. The room spins but after a moment it slows to manageable sway. He moves from his bedroom and leans on the doorway of the small guest room down the hall. If you had slept there, he couldn’t tell. The bed is neatly made, no signs of clothes or shoes tossed over a chair or laying on the dresser. He rests his head against the doorframe and tries to remember if you were really here last night or if he’s just made that up.

There’s a beep that comes from downstairs. Three short beeps followed by a long one. The coffee pot. Someone made coffee. You must have made coffee. He makes his way downstairs, practically leaning against the wall to help balance himself. He’s too hungover to be quiet which is good since his tongue feels like sandpaper and he’s not sure he could call your name, to warn you of his now conscious presence.

But when he reaches the first floor of the house, he doesn’t hear you at all. He doesn’t smell your light perfume. In fact, he doesn’t sense anyone at all. The curtains are all drawn, the rooms pleasantly dark. There is still the scent of coffee hanging in the air and it doesn’t twist his stomach. He ventures into the kitchen and finds two cups sitting neatly in the sink. Did he drink so much that he forgot having coffee with you at some point this morning? Wait, is it morning? He looks up at the clock on the wall and sees it’s almost three-thirty in the afternoon.

You’re not here. You’ve given up on him. And he can’t be angry with you about that. He was the one that kept pushing you away, returning your things in the middle of the night. He’s the one that drank himself into oblivion last night and has no memory of what he said or did. Maybe you’re off crying on Javier’s shoulder now. The single DEA agent had a thing for damsels in distress and what Horacio has put you through could certainly qualify as distress.

He hears the front door open, the loud noise of people walking past and a car horn make him wince before the door quietly shuts and stillness returns. There’s only a handful of people with keys to his home, only a handful of people he trusts with access to his home. He hears a soft sigh being released, a delicate sniff, before a couple clacks of shoes reverberate through the darkened home. He steps back into the dining room which gives him a direct line of sight to the front door.

He almost doesn’t recognize you. He’s never seen you in uniform before. Gone are your sneakers and jeans and linen shirts. You’re in a starched dress shirt, buttoned all the way up to your throat, a fitted olive colored jacket, and straight pencil skirt. You’re in the middle of taking off the plain black pumps so you can walk whisper-like through the house. Your hair is pulled back into a neat bun at the base of your neck while a military hat is perched on your head.

“Horacio?”

It takes him a couple tries before he can force sound out of his mouth. “Querida.”

You still completely. Your hands fidget with something, gloves, as you wait for him to say something else. When he doesn’t, you reach for your shoes again. “I can leave. I’m sorry.”

“No.” It comes out as a command, like he’s standing in front of an inept cadet. “I mean, don’t go. Please.”

You breathe a slow sigh of relief, a shaky smile crosses your face as you go back to slipping off your shoes. “Okay. If you want to take a shower, I’ll make some more coffee.”

He nods mutely, wondering just how awful he must look for you to suggest that to him. He’s still trying to piece together what exactly happened last night, what was said, what wasn’t said, but his head is still pounding and thoughts won’t complete themselves. You pass by him on the way to the kitchen and slip your hand into his, giving him a gentle squeeze.

“We’ll talk when you come back downstairs.” And you smile, truly smile. After everything he has put you through, you smile at him. “It’ll be okay, Horacio.”

The world stops spinning. The ground levels out. You tell him it’s going to be okay and he believes you.

***

You have no idea if he’s going to be okay. You’re so used to seeing Horacio being strong, immovable, and in complete control of whatever chaotic shitstorm is currently surrounding Search Bloc. He’s been made of granite for as long as you’ve known him. But now you can see the cracks in the stone, the weak points, and it scares you. It’s a good reminder though, that he is human, he is just a man under the uniform, muscles, and temper.

This morning has been an eye-opening experience for you. Shortly after you had gotten up and made the bed in the guest room, someone had rung the doorbell. You answered it only because you saw it was the thin, well-dressed woman you had seen at Search Bloc a couple months before. Julianna, you remembered, was her name. You opened the door to her, introduced yourself and invited her inside. Surprisingly, she accepted the invitation. Not sure what to do next, you offered to make some coffee and she accepted that invitation as well.

The two of you had sat at the small kitchen table and she had poured out her grief at her current situation. Even though Horacio had been horribly drunk, he had managed to tell you everything Julianna was now saying. She had come over to collect Horacio so that they could break the news together to the two children. You tell her that Horacio isn’t feeling well, not exactly a lie, that is why you’ve come over to check on him. But the task that she has been handed is a heavy one so you offer to go home, shower, get into uniform, and complete the task yourself if she’s agreeable. She grabbed ahold of your hands so tightly your knuckles are still slightly sore from the desperation in her grip.

You have no idea how people can make a living out of having to inform families that their loved one isn’t coming home anymore. Having to look into the innocent eyes of two children and tell them that their father won’t ever walk through the door again, tuck them into bed, be there for milestones, was one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do. You had kept it together during the delivering of the news, the goodbye with Julianna and the parting hug you gave her before returning to Horacio’s home. But it’s as you're emptying the coffee pot and refilling it that the tears do come. This is how Horacio finds you a few minutes later, sobbing over fresh coffee grounds in the kitchen. He takes over for you, completing the preparation and turning on the coffee pot before directing his attention to you.

“Querida.”

The term of endearment is said with such sadness but understanding. He hesitantly slips his arms around you and you immediately mold yourself against him. You bury your face in the space where his neck meets his shoulder, you inhale the fresh scent of soap and aftershave. He smells like himself now, no longer of whiskey and despair, and you try to get even closer to him by pressing your hands into his broad shoulder blades. He feels so solid, strong and protective.

Julianna has lost this particular kind of comfort. You have not and you’re determined to not waste any moment that you’re given with him now. You try to stop your tears, or at least slow them down, and take in a deep breath. “I’m sor-”

“No, mi amor,” he cuts you off. “I’m sorry.”

Mi amor. Hearing that familiar term of endearment only creates more tears. Could this entire debacle be redeemed? You remember how it felt last night when he reached for you, pulled you close, buried his face against your stomach and told you that he loved you. You remember starting to say it back to him. You had cried yourself to sleep last night, believing that the moment of confessing your feelings has been lost.

Maybe…maybe it hasn’t been.

“Te amo, Horacio.”

You feel his arms tighten around you as his lips brush against your ear. “Te amo, mi vida, mi alma.”

#horacio carrillo x reader #horacio carrillo x you #colonel horacio carrillo x you #colonel horacio carrillo x reader #horacio carrillo fic

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mitsde123 · 3 months

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Exploring Career-Enhancing PG Courses in Maharashtra with MITSDE

In the bustling educational landscape of Maharashtra, MIT School of Distance Education (MITSDE) stands out as a premier institution offering a diverse range of postgraduate (PG) courses tailored to meet the dynamic needs of today’s professional environment. Located in Mumbai, the heart of Maharashtra’s economic and cultural hub, MITSDE empowers students with flexible and accessible online learning programs that pave the way for career advancement and personal growth.

#PG programs #PG in Project Management #PG in Operations Management #Supply Chain Management #PG in Finance #PG in Material Management #PG in Construction and Project Management #online PG programs #online learning #PG course #PG courses

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monstersdownthepath · 1 year

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Milestone Monster: The Oliphaunt of Jandelay

CR 30

Chaotic Neutral Titanic Outsider

Mythic Realms, pg. 58-59 (pic taken from Adventure Path: Rise of the Runelords: Sins of the Saviors, pg. 63)

Only once in all of recorded history has the Oliphaunt of Jandelay trod on soil outside its home plane, called to Golarion by a powerful archmage--one of the Runelords, no less--and used as the mother of all siege animals against his enemies. In its footprints, lakes grew and cities disappeared. Where it passed, mountains moved aside and valleys formed below it, if only to keep its back from scraping the sky. A churning storm of incredible proportions heralded its arrival and marked its departure, the weather itself seeming to fight alongside the Oliphaunt as though the grand storm saw kindred in the apocalyptic beast.

It is a titan in all but name, a monstrosity of such immense size that it appears to be a mountain from a distance. The Spindletorn, over a thousand feet tall, was created by the Runelord who sought to command the Oliphaunt to give him just enough height to look the beast in the eye. This is because the destroyer is utterly immune to all mind-affecting effects unless it can draw line of sight to the creature using them, and most creatures are simply too far beneath its notice for it to even bother separating them from the background. Even then, the caster in question must know how to naturally speak fluent Celestial or the infinitely more bizarre Jandelayan (language-cheating magic such as Tongues does not work!) AND speak loudly enough to be heard over the rumble of its footsteps and the roaring storm that surrounds it, or the Oliphaunt may ignore any attempt to subvert its will.

The feat of calling it into the world has not been replicated since, as the method of stealing the Oliphaunt from its home was lost alongside the Runelord that first performed the deed, who was either executed for his calamitous crime or destroyed by the retribution of Jandelay when it recalled its creator, slave, and guardian. When Runelord Gimmel gained command over the great beast, he thought himself unstoppable, but what he did not know was the great Guardian of Jandelay makes new saves against every effect holding it in a new plane each day, even if the effect doesn’t normally offer a save. Once it succeeds, it is pulled back into Jandelay... and everything and everyone within five miles of the beast is utterly destroyed. Every creature within the sphere is targeted with Mass Hold Monster (DC 30 Will to avoid), and then the entire 5-mile bubble is wracked with a perpetual Earthquake and Storm of Vengeance that rages for 1d12 months, assuring nothing remains but the memories of those who managed to escape.

It caused a terrifying disaster when it was present, and a worse one when it left. The armies of the Runelords could not best the beast, what hope would something as inconsequential as a group of adventurers have to best such a beast?

Quite a bit of hope, actually. In fact, I advise DMs to play with the system a little in regards to how the Oliphaunt operates, especially since the art of it remains relatively inconsistent with its implied scale. The Spindlethorn is over a thousand feet tall, yet all art of the great beast portrays it as maybe a hundred or so feet, much smaller than any of the Kaiju, which it shares much with (including the fact it’s saddled with the Massive rule). The landscape of the land it moved through is supposed to have irrevocably altered, with its footprints forming new lakes, mountains pushed aside or trod over and reduced to rubble, and entire cities wiped out just by it walking through them. It’s of impossible size and world-shaking power, far beyond anything a normal party should be able to handle were it to turn its attention on them... which is why I recommend, among other things, that the Oliphaunt’s statblock represent a small part of the beast; a section of its back or head that the party has made it to in order to break some device or magic that’s been put into place by a third party. The majority of its attacks aren’t purposeful actions, but things like incidental footsteps, swings of its trunk, thrashes of its head, the lashings of the storm that surrounds it and the backlash of the Wards of Jandelay that coat its body seeking to defend it. That last one is especially fun to imagine, as the Wards already grant it numerous defensive abilities, so why not some offense as well?

I also enjoy the potential narrative change of what its 740 HP represents. Reducing that to 0? That’s doesn’t kill it, that drives it back. It’s still the victory condition, but rather than to slay the Oliphaunt, it’s to break whatever is holding it in the plane to send it back to Jandelay without triggering the retributive destruction of the Guardian of Jandelay (and if it’s already in Jandelay and the players are somehow there too, it should be completely unassailable). The preservation of the Oliphaunt’s mystique is what I aim for with this, especially since--as written--the Oliphaunt doesn’t come back if it’s slain, which is a little odd considering what it is and what it represents.

But what does it take for a party to drive back a living apocalypse? A lot of damn effort. It has DR 20/Epic and Regeneration 35 that’s suppressed only by Acid damage from a Mythic source, and that’s just the start! The Wards of Jandelay that protect the beast raise its AC all the way up to 50, and even its touch AC is an impressive 30 despite its size. It’s also shielded by 41 SR, immune to any mind-affecting effect that comes from a creature it cannot draw line of sight to, and any attempt to get in front of it without the use of physical flight or (as Runelord Gimmel tried) climbing up and meeting the beast’s eye is thwarted by the enormous aura that surrounds it: a 500ft bubble radiating off its body in every direction that forces any creature attempting to use any form of teleportation or dimension-hopping (including but not limited to Etherealness, Shadow Walk, and Plane Shift) into, out of, or within the bubble to succeed a DC 41 Will save or the attempt fails. The Oliphaunt even shuts off Gate automatically without allowing a save unless the creator of the effect is either Mythic or an Artifact, so if you want to maneuver around in the bubble with minimal resource use, it’s going to be via actual running/flying.

... I do not actually recommend flying. Not only is this a good way to draw the Oliphaunt’s incredibly dangerous attention, but it’s also surrounded by a Weather Sphere that’s 5 miles in diameter, and inside this sphere it has complete control of the environmental conditions. It doesn’t matter the season or the setting, the Oliphaunt can create blizzards in a summer desert with nothing more than a thought. It can change the weather inside the sphere once per round as a free action, though for obvious reason it tends to stick with destructive storms (which are difficult to fly in, even with magic). Hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, and deadly lightning spring up constantly around it, harmless to the mountainous beast but devastating for everything around it. Once per round as another free action, the Oliphaunt can call down a bolt of lightning to deal 5d10 damage to anything it can see so long as its weather sphere is set to stormy, which is just a little bit more damage on top of what it can already do.

Whatever section of the Oliphaunt the players are standing on takes up an 80ft square, and though the beast has an 80ft reach, it’s also Massive, so no AoOs against a typical party anyway. Getting onto its back or head to attack it should be the plan, as fighting it from below simply shouldn’t be a viable option. Anyone trying should take the Oliphaunt’s 4d10+25 trample damage every round! Each of its other natural attacks deal 4d10+17 damage each, except for its trunk, which deals 4d8+8 damage instead. Via its stats, it has 2 slams, 4 gore attacks with its massive tusks, and a bite attack, but as per my recommendations, re-characterizing these to be lashings of the storm, the rolling and thundering of the Oliphaunt’s body, and the Wards along its form attacking any creature on it are all possible. The Wards being the aggressor especially make sense in regards to the Ruinous Tusks ability, normally allowing its gore attacks to be treated as adamantine and also automatically afflict any creature they strike with Greater Dispel Magic! which, since it can make four such attacks a round, means it shreds through buffs and defensive magic with frustrating ease and swiftness. That’s basically what creatures need at this level to overcome the buffs that high-level people slather on themselves like sunscreen, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s terrifying from the player’s perspective to have their protection AND hitpoints shredded at the same time.

Perhaps one of the few limbs of the Oliphaunt that could reasonably join in on the battle are its massive ears swatting at troublesome players (is two slams), and of course its winding trunk. The trunk deals the least damage of all its attacks, easily characterized by it simply being too big to impact a creature directly, like a gnat slipping through the holes of a fly swatter, but it carries the threat of Grabbing and constricting victims for 4d8+25 damage each round the grapple isn’t broken. Any creature grappled by the trunk (or the beast’s bite attack/imprisoned by the mystic wards) can also be drawn inside the great beast’s mouth(/constricted by the magic) to take 4d10+17 further damage every round. Unlike many creatures with Swallow Whole, cutting one’s way out of the Oliphaunt presents a secondary danger in simply falling hundreds of feet to the ground.

I find it more than a little amusing that the Oliphaunt has spell-likes, though giving up its potential full-attack to use them is silly. It can use Greater Shout at will, presumably because of its trumpeting, to deal 10d6 Sonic damage to everything in a 60ft cone and potentially stunning and deafening victims. It also can use Transmute Rock to Mud 3/day for reasons I can scarcely understand, since a single footstep has roughly the same effect as the spell upon terrain. Maybe if it needs to mire an army, rather than to destroy it? I don’t know. If the storms don’t stop an army from marching against it, I can’t imagine that a little mud will. It’s strange that it has spells with such minor effects, when compared to the destruction it can wreak simply by walking from Point A to Point B.

One of the strangest things about the Oliphaunt to me, though, is that it’s not actually a mindless beast. it has the Intelligence and Wisdom of a normal human, and even possesses enough ranks in a few Knowledge skills to give it superhuman insight into Arcana, Religion, and Planes. It has a curious amount of Diplomacy, enough to be able to sway any entity it deigns to speak to, though there’s never been a mention of it speaking to anyone. It speaks Celestial and Jandelayan, one uncommon and one unheard of, but that it can speak at all is surprising. Who has heard the Oliphaunt’s voice? What does it say, and to whom?

All of these skills aren’t being used to speak with the Watchers, who are always invisible to its senses (and who fear and worship it), their Inconspicuous ability bypassing its Ward Against Command entirely. So who exactly is it speaking to, if anyone? Who is it using its Knowledge to impress and understand? Who is it using Diplomacy to sway and Intimidate to cow, and who is it using Sense Motive to gain insight into, if not the Watchers or the Collected? It’s said the Collected fear it immensely, grow terrified when it approaches their lands, but this is understandable given its size and what it represents. If such a beast approached me, even with gentle intent, I would be a little spooked too. Maybe it’s Jandelay itself it communes with?

For all the lore it has which tells of the destruction it wreaks with its mere existence, for all the talk of it representing destruction and calamity, it did create Jandelay explicitly to preserve worlds that had been destroyed, at least in some fashion. It protects the realm and is protected by it in turn, and only when removed from its museum of lost worlds does it lash out so violently until its creation, its home, its child, calls it back and wracks the world that took it in the with terrible storms and neverending earthquakes. Elephants are gentle creatures by their nature, lashing out only when provoked, and who’s to say the same is not true for the Oliphaunt of Jandelay? The only example of its behavior ever seen on Golarion is when it was stolen from its land and controlled by a madman seeking conquest.

Perhaps it shares more than a little in common with its fellow CR 30 Colossal and unwillingly apocalyptic Leviathan.

You can read more about it here.

#Milestone Monster #Monster Spotlight #CR 26 and up #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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dispatchvampire · 9 months

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Damsel in This Dress

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x FemaleOC

Warnings: Not many, probably mostly swearing. This is just a bit of fluff.

Rating: PG-13 mostly for language

WC: 1000-ish.

Summary: Layla finds herself stranded at a Stark gala, with her terrible ex circling like a shark. Enter an unlikely savior in the form of one smoking hot Winter Soldier.

Most people would be absolutely elated to be a guest at a Tony Stark party. All the glitz and glamour, celebrities at every turn and, in Layla’s case, not a single place to hide, dammit.

She wasn’t there as an actual guest, really a plus one for her parents, who actually were the guests of Mr. Stark as newly minted business partners. They just merged the R&D department of their alternative energy company to Stark Industries, where she was due to start work in the following weeks. By all rights, Layla should be over the moon with the trajectory of her life.

‘Should’ being the operative word. No, the rain on her parade came in the form of Charleton Zednik, son and heir apparent of a separate business partner of both her parents and Mr. Stark. He also happened to be her absolutely abysmal ex.

As tight as her cocktail dress was, somehow Charleton managed to cling even more tenaciously.

Maybe it wasn’t the most charitable thought, but she’d rather have a raging case of herpes than carry on one more day with his bland ass. He was so rigid, she wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t shatter if he hit the ground for any reason, and what he lacked in imagination, he more than made up for in possessive personality. Since she’d broken up with him over two weeks ago, he’d been blowing up her phone, her socials, and had even had her parents lobbying on his behalf.

On paper, they were the perfect couple, two scions of an up-and-coming green energy revolution, and if arranged marriage was still a thing, Layla knew she would have been out the door the moment Charleton first looked in her direction. Her parents meant well, she knew, but damn if they weren’t still unreasonably old school about some things.

It was late in the evening and she found herself alone, at the bar, relishing her reprieve as Charleton had to step away and take a work call. Hopefully he’d be gone long enough for her Uber to arrive so she could make a break for it. She ordered a double lemon drop while she waited.

“You look how I feel,” a gruff male voice beside her remarked as her martini glass appeared in front of her. “Are you okay?”

Layla was mid-sip as she turned to reply to the kind inquiry and promptly choked on her drink. In front of her was Bucky Goddamn Barnes. The Winter-Fucking-Soldier, all six feet four inches of him, in an impeccably tailored tux, with his luscious dark hair artfully tied back and sea-glass blue eyes soft with concern.

Flailing for a napkin, she nodded her thanks as he pressed several into her hand. “Um, yeah. Thanks,” she choked out as she blotted her face and attempted to quell her mess. “Sorry. Really. I’m fine.”

“All evidence to the contrary aside.” His smirk should be registered as a lethal weapon.

Layla ducked her head, snickering even as her cheeks filled with mortified heat. “Right.” She sipped her drink again, regaining her composure enough to look the man in the face when a movement over his shoulder caught her eye.

Whatever her face did in that moment must have been dramatic, because Bucky immediately moved closer to her and glanced quickly over his shoulder. Taking a hold of her elbow, he shifted to put himself between the approaching man and her. “Do you need to leave?”

Charleton’s eyes met hers across the room and the scowl on his face grew in intensity as he sped up his approach. Layla looked up at Bucky, who appeared poised to deal with whatever answer she gave him. “Yes please.”

He nodded once and threw a twenty on the bar. “Let’s go.” Gently, he ferried her through the room, the path in front of him opening up as if by magic. If that magic could be attributed to a scowling former assassin with a beautiful woman on his arm.

In no time at all, you were both in the elevator watching the city lights fade on the ride to one of the upper floors. For all that he’d been in her space to get her there, the moment the doors closed, he stepped away and maintained a respectful distance.

“Why are we going upstairs? Why not just hustle me out of the building?”

“He saw us together, right?”

“Right…?

“Then chances are good he’s expecting us to make a break for it and leave, so he’ll likely head down to the lobby and to wait and make a scene there.”

That did sound like him. She was suddenly tired. So, so tired. “So then where are we going?”

“My place,” he replied as the elevator dinged to a halt. He held an arm out and allowed her to precede him onto the penthouse floor. “At least until he cools his jets and leaves.”

“I don’t see that happening anytime soon,” she muttered, feeling both vexed at her ex and slightly exhilarated at the idea of being alone with Bucky. This was not how she saw her night going in the slightest, and suddenly wondered if she remembered to put on matching underwear.

The giant gave her a million-watt grin as he tugged off his bowtie and tossed it onto the dining room table as he led her through the large, open concept room to the kitchen island. “Then you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

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topherwrites · 10 months

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pls pls elaborate singing in the shower & spy au im so curious!! <3

"Singing in the Shower" is the tentative title for a shower sex jake fic with too much plot added in.

here's a snippet from the rough draft under the cut, 18+ only:

His voice takes on a familiar tone, the same one from flight school when he’d be picking apart why a maneuver didn’t work, or more specifically why someone else had failed at it. Like your inability to orgasm tonight is just an engineering problem. A little math, a little grease, and he can fix this. “What isn't working?” “Well, every time I get close I remember whose dick is in me.” He rolls his eyes, his voice taking on a bored tone, “We’ve established that you do not hate me enough for that." You stay silent, refusing to admit that you do not, in fact, hate him enough to deny yourself an orgasm. He hasn't done anything genuinely hackles-raising in some time, having toned down at least twenty percent of his dickishness, so there's less active resentment being worked out while you're fucking. It's easy and fun being with him. Oh god, you like seeing his texts light up your phone. You enjoy his purposively bad sexts, that you're sure he only sends so you'll come over and fuck him to get him to stop. You come to the horrifying, jarring conclusion that he may very well be your friend, sort of. Fuck. Biting your lip, you amend, “Fine, maybe it's not that.” “I gathered.” He nudges you, “I can tell something’s going on up there, wanna fill me in?” “No.” You admit with a little sigh, “I don't know.” “Well, I'm tired, so we’re just going to sit here.” “Sorry, my pussy is broken today.” Your phrasing draws a little stomach-tensing laugh out of him, eyes creasing as he looks at you. His perfectly calloused palms slide up and down your thighs. His lips are curved into a soft little smile. “It’s fine.” “You can just…” your eyes focus on a water droplet on his collarbone, eyebrows jumping in allusion, unable to really say it, “if you want to.” He catches the implication; he can just get off and be done with it if he wants. Annoyance twists his features, his brow furrowing, though it doesn't feel wholly directed at you. “Jesus, I can feel myself getting soft,” he scoffs, “You're not a fleshlight.” And you actually can feel him start to lose his erection under you.

The spy au I'm currently working on came about mostly cause I saw Greg Tarzan Davis in the newest Mission Impossible and simply couldn't help myself. I also love spy stuff, I've always been intrigued by media that had spies in it since I was a kid. I grew up watching the Bond movies and shows like Nikita, Covert Affairs, Burn Notice, and Chuck. Most of which have a decidedly more pg or pg-13 tone than my au.

I'm planning on it being a few different interconnected series (maybe?).

All of their call signs and the nicknames for the reader are codenames in this.

So, an agent who was previously presumed dead, Spectre, she and Jake, aka Hangman, were partners and after her death he was never really the same. He's been on desk duty for the past two years.

Bob, an analyst on the team, was asked by Jake to put an indefinite facial recognition alert for her. So it kicks off with him getting a hit for her in London. The Operations Manager, Mav, brings Bradley onto the case, ordering him not to tell Jake about the revelation until they know more, and sending him to London to track Spectre down.

There in London, to play nice with a foreign government and give the impression that they respect jurisdiction, he's teamed up with an MI5 agent, Rook.

Shit spirals from there.

here's a snippet:

A last wet little gurgle leaves his throat as he goes still, his eyes left staring toward nothing. His head hangs back limply, red clinging to the corners of his slack mouth, the viscera of his throat exposed. Blood rhythmically drips to the floor. The pool grows beneath him. This sort of thing used to shake you, now you just follow a well-run routine, not necessarily numb, but devoid of the emotions doing something as grotesque as this should provoke. Violence should stir, you know this, you used to be stirred by it. The first time you killed someone it was sloppy and panicked, you cried afterward. Mav sealed it with the stamp of self-defense, a good kill, but it didn't rid you of the lingering feeling of being damned. Maybe, the last vestiges of growing up catholic. You used to be a mourner, silently giving them their last rights, knowing the weight of every life. A witness to people’s final drawn breaths. Now, you're a butcher. You don't leave the blood for long, scrubbing your hands in the sink before it settles and dries in the cracks.

#wip game #tag game #answered anon #jake seresin x reader #bradley bradshaw x reader #queue

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kmgkmg · 2 years

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GIFT FROM VIRGO - BOO SEUNGKWAN

word count: 3.2k...

pairing: seungkwan x gn!reader x hansol (iconic platonic trio!)

synopsis: you and hansol decided to help seungkwan out with some shopping, except it's a bit more demanding than you originally thought.

genre/s: fluff, secretly-crushing!seungkwan, idol!svt, non-idol!reader

warnings: none!

rating: pg

a/n: a cute little platonic fic for y'all!! thank you once again @playmetheclassics for being the beta reader for this fic! <33 fic inspired by gift from virgo by beyoncé.

“And so Operation: Gift from Virgo is still a go?” Seungkwan asks with expectant eyes at his friends in front of him.

“We wouldn’t be up at 7 am if we weren’t going to help you, Kwan,” Hansol yawns before furrowing his brows, “but what’s up with the name?”

“Isn’t it named after his favorite Beyoncé song?” You infer, reaching over for a bite of the pancakes left over on Seungkwan’s plate.

Seungkwan’s face beams with happiness, indicating that you guessed correctly, and he moves his plate closer to your spot. He warmly pats your head while proudly smiling. If anyone else saw the two of you, it would appear as if you were a dog-turned-human that he was rewarding and petting. “See Hansol, and this is why Y/N will always be my favorite.”

You return a smile to your friend before going back to focusing on the plate in front of you. You couldn’t help but be persuaded to help when Kwan promised to treat you to breakfast at your favorite brunch spot. The fact that he purposefully left an entire blackberry and white chocolate pancake for you to eat is truly the cherry on top. Or would blackberry on top be a more proper expression to use? Completely absorbed in your own thoughts, you were unaware of the glaring between your two friends.

“That doesn’t even make sense; you’re a Capricorn,” Hansol retorts. He truly was not cut out for the mornings. He continues to give Seungkwan a doubting look but quickly gives up because his energy level cannot compete with Seungkwan’s.

“So everyone knows their tasks?” Seungkwan double-checks, pulling out his phone to review the extensive spreadsheet he created specifically for today. What is it that he is taking so seriously? His periodic ‘Premium Shopping Day’. It had approached quicker than usual and he somehow had managed to rope you and Hansol into helping him this time. One thing you can always count on with Seungkwan is to take advantage of discounts and sales. While your motivation for helping him could be explained by the pancakes you were currently devouring, Hansol's reason still remained a mystery to you.

You notice Hansol eyeing the pancakes that you were nearly done with and you begrudgingly cut off a piece for him. He knew this was your favorite food. Why was he pulling on your heartstrings so early in the morning? As if a lightbulb turned on above you, you started waving your fork in the air and ‘flying’ it to Hansol’s mouth. He may have made you feel guilty for not sharing, but you weren’t going to just give him a bite without anything in return. The price for a bite? Embarrassment obviously. Hansol laughs at your behavior, before opening his mouth and taking a bite. He nods his head in approval with an expression of satisfaction that he reserved only for food that he really loved. You nod back at him, glad that you could make him a bit more energized through the power of the pancake.

Seungkwan snapped his fingers in front of your faces, making you both break out of your food trance. He had an expression of disapproval at Hansol acting cute, nevertheless he was still awaiting your responses to his question.

Clearing your throat, you prepared to answer Seungkwan.

“I’m in charge of going to Aēsop, Hera,” you pause to look at the smudged writing on your palm, attempting to decipher the faded letters you wrote last night. “Sulwhasoo, um, there was one more but I can’t read it.” You embarrassedly confess, causing Seungkwan to facepalm. You both look to Hansol, expecting him to be more organized with the stores he needed to visit.

“And I’m going everywhere luxury clothes related? Balenciaga, Gucci…” Hansol trails off before turning silent, exposing that he hadn’t memorized the places Seungkwan had assigned to him either.

“Y/N, you forgot Lancôme. Use Mingyu’s discount code that he texted in the group chat. Members being ambassadors of famous brands do have perks at times when they’re not bragging about the deals. Chwe, don’t worry I’ll send you a text with the names of the stores you need to go to,” Seungkwan rambles while you make a mental note to visit Lancôme.

The restaurant’s warm lighting was making you drowsy and although you were fully aware you needed to start waking up, it was impossible after eating. Combining your satisfied appetite, the lighting, the relaxing music playing, and the final seal of the deal being Hansol’s subtle cologne, you found your eyelids becoming heavier and heavier. You were scrolling on your phones waiting for the mall to open anyways, so you didn’t think a quick snooze would hurt.

Seungkwan looks at the two of you across from him, leaning on each other’s shoulders while closing your eyes. He knew when the two least morning people offered to help him shop, it would only end in a headache for him, but he couldn’t help blushing at how cute your face looked when you were dozing off. He had managed to keep his crush on you a secret from all the members which only made it harder for him to hide his heart eyes towards you whenever you did anything. Remembering the task at hand, he stops admiring you and sits up straight to recite the speech he prepared.

“You both need to be more hyped about this, you don’t understand today is literally the best day of the year to score deals on stuff. The holidays of December are over, and we still have over a week before Lunar New Year! Sure, there might be a lot of Valentine’s Day related products being promoted, but our goal is clear. Get. All. The. Discounts.” Seungkwan emphasizes the final ‘goal,’ and finishes the long winded speech.

You and Hansol sleepily applaud him while laughing at his exaggerated tone of urgency.

“We can see how much these days mean to you, my boo, we’ll be sure to get everything on your spreadsheet. You can believe in us!” You encourage Seungkwan as you try to perk up, nudging Hansol with your elbow to back you up.

Seungkwan looks away from the two of you, still not used to the nickname you gave him. He was positive that he was beet red but tried his best to conceal it by fanning himself, pretending to be hot. He thanked his ancestors for his last name before paying attention to the conversation again.

“Yeah, totally. We might’ve forgotten what stores we’re going to-”

Your eyes darted to the man on your right, surprised by how he was choosing to comfort Seungkwan. “Why would you include that?”

“Let me finish, we might’ve forgotten what stores we’re going to, but that just means it’ll be that much fresher in our minds.” Hansol smiles innocently at you and Seungkwan, unable to tell that neither of you were pleased with how he ended his sentence.

Seungkwan purses his lips, unamused at his friend, checking the time and noticing it was already 8. “How am I friends with you idiots?”

Hansol and you shrug before all three of you smile at each other.

Getting up from the booth, Seungkwan motions for the two of you to follow him. “Anyways, we should head out since the mall is twenty minutes away, and I want to have a head start with the line.”

The car ride to the mall was uneventful, besides the usual routine of Seungkwan putting on a girl group song and turning his car into a makeshift karaoke room. Hansol was sitting in the passenger seat and made a fist to function as a microphone for Seungkwan. Something that you always loved about your friendship with them is that you never dispelled each other’s energy, only ever feeding into each other’s moods and making the time you spent together that much more enjoyable.

You get to the mall’s parking lot in no time and Seungkwan continues his motivational speech by highlighting how you all needed to divide and conquer to obtain everything on the spreadsheet. Hansol and you both salute Seungkwan in a joking manner, picking up on his eagerness to enter the mall. Like Seungkwan had predicted, there was a small line of people already forming at the doors. Being the celebrities that they are, Seungkwan put on a cap while Hansol put on a beanie to try and hide their identities. Sure, everyone was wearing masks due to the ongoing pandemic, but it still was hard to disguise themselves with regular people when they both emitted extraordinary auras. While there had been some chatter from other people waiting, all of them were understanding in Seungkwan and Hansol’s request not to be photographed. Still, they needed to maintain their images as kind idols so they conversed with fans and tried to be as polite as possible.

The doors finally opened after a little over two hours and you could notice the instant shift in attitude of the friends beside you. Their small talk with fans ceased and you knew it was about to turn into a survival game with the other customers. Shopping was never your favorite pastime, but you didn’t mind today since it would make Seungkwan happy.

Seungkwan was speed walking to the next store on his list, but he saw your figure in the distance struggling to carry all of your bags and immediately he stopped and chose to help you. Seeing the efforts you were taking to help him only made him fall for you more and he took a couple deep breaths to calm his heart before making his way over to you.

You had been running around the mall’s various floors for nearly three hours, fighting tooth and nail with people over fragrances and skincare. This is definitely not how you expected your weekday morning to go and it was tiring you out at an alarming rate. You ended up carrying a ton of bags, having your wrists feel like they could fall off at any second. However, you were not going to quit on Seungkwan’s mission. You attempt to hoist the bags up from the ground to continue your tasks, but get stopped by a hand that you were acquainted with. Looking up, you see Seungkwan grabbing one-third of the bags you were responsible for.

You try to high-five him, relieved to see a familiar face but instantly regret it as the bags you still had made it hard for you to raise your arm entirely. He also was not capable of raising either of his arms to high-five you, so you awkwardly put your hand back down before looking him properly in the face.

“Did you get all of the stuff you wanted yet? Sorry that I’m so slow with buying things, I didn’t think it would be this intense and hardcore.”

Seungkwan can see that you’re worn out and opts to lie to you. A harmless lie, really.

“Yeah, I got everything I wanted. How about we take a break at that cafe?” He suggests, tilting his head in the direction of a nearby cafe.

The fact that he was able to complete his shopping didn’t surprise you, but finishing it all in three hours made you raise an eyebrow at your friend. You’re reluctant to say yes to his offer because you still want to finish helping him out, but he doesn’t give you more time to think. He notices your hesitation and takes more of the bags you were holding to put them into his bags. Logically, it did make sense because shopping bags for clothes are bigger than the ones they give for fragrances and skincare. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel sorry that he was quite literally carrying your weight.

You try to grab them back, but he lightly hits your hand, stopping you from doing so.

“I’m the one who practically dragged you and Hansol to go here with me, the least I can do is carry the bags," He insists with a stern look, serious enough for you to tell that this was not an issue up for argument.

His sudden seriousness makes you realize once again that Seungkwan is always the decision maker for your group, something that you usually preferred, but you knew that the bags were probably extremely heavy. Your hands went to grab the bags back one last time, but after you realized you had been zoning out, you also realized Seungkwan was already making his way towards the cafe. With Seungkwan walking in front of you, you finally give up and head to the cafe like he originally suggested. While following him, you were hit with an immense sense of appreciation at how much of a caring friend he is to you. You don’t know who you saved in your past life to end up with a best friend as sweet as Seungkwan.

On the walk to the cafe he talked about things besides shopping, such as how Mingyu annoyed him last night, and when you eventually arrive at the cafe he sets all the bags down on an empty table with a sigh.

“See! The bags were too heavy for you to carry all by yourself,” You scold, resulting in Seungkwan scratching the back of his neck in an avoiding fashion.

“Well, you looked like you were really having a hard time-”

“You didn’t drag us. We both love spending time with you, you’re our best friend. Of course we would want to help you,” You huff, leaving him speechless at your words.

“Oh? It’s not bothersome to be with me?” He asks, in a tone more surprised than you would ever expect from him.

“No! Why would you ever feel that way? We love you, Boo Seungkwan. Hansol and the rest of Seventeen, they’re like your family, and well for me, you’re my boo. Nobody can replace you,” You reassure him, noticing his reddened cheeks at your words. He always was weak to compliments, but you loved seeing your best friend know that he was appreciated and loved by you and his members.

Unable to bear the silence between the two of you, you rush to the counter to order Seungkwan an iced americano and a sandwich to share. He carried your bags, the least you can do is pay for his coffee. You still hadn’t decided what you were going to order, overwhelmed at the large menu. Usually before going to a new place you would look at the menu online first, but Seungkwan’s spontaneity has you thinking quickly on your feet. You ponder on what to get for a couple moments while in line, before reaching the cashier.

As he’s sitting down, Seungkwan can’t help but feel jealous that the cashier was flirting with you and you were seemingly reciprocating. Reality hits and he acknowledges that since he doesn’t want to confess, he’s left with his one-sided love towards you forever. He wishes that he could confess, but he’s too scared that his confession would only ruin the dynamic between the three of you.

After waiting for your number to be called, you headed back to the table with your drinks and the sandwich. You were oblivious to the inner conflict occurring in your friend’s mind. You placed the order down, arranging it on the table and taking a picture of Seungkwan and the food out of habit. Seungkwan and Vernon were always the stars of your aesthetically taken photos, something that you pride yourself on. It always made the picture better when there were handsome models to photograph. Idols as best friends did have their perks.

As you scan the pictures you just took, you notice that Seungkwan looks down. You figure that he’s sulking because as you placed the order, he probably looked at the bags and realized that you didn’t finish shopping. Muttering a quiet thanks, he takes a sip of his iced americano and looks out the window, staring at the other shoppers in the mall.

You knew how to handle his sulkiness, he was your best friend after all.

“I swear on my life that I will get everything on this spreadsheet!” Yes, matching his dramaticness was a sure-fire way to catch his attention. You put a hand on your heart, proving your sincerity to your best friend.

Seungkwan doesn’t know what to say since he didn’t realize his emotions could be read so easily, so he blinks at you a while before saying anything. Eventually he decides to humor you by pretending that he’s upset over you not finishing your shopping. “While I’m upset that you didn’t finish your shopping, don’t fret over it. I actually didn’t finish mine either…”

“I knew that it wasn’t humanly possible to finish all that you wrote in three hours! Seungkwan, your spreadsheet would be hard to achieve even with all of your other members,” You liven up, glad that you hadn’t disappointed him as much as you originally thought you had. You take a bite of your half of the sandwich, soon forgetting Seungkwan’s brief gloomy mood.

Something that he did have to admit is that your obliviousness towards his crush was just another charm that made you lovable to him. He gazes at you lovingly, once again thankful that he was fortunate enough to be friends with you.

“No way y’all are taking a break without me,” You see Vernon’s shock of betrayal at the two of you as he makes his way over to your table. He sits next to Seungkwan, grabbing the half of the sandwich in your friend’s hand and taking a bite.

“It was incidental, I swear,” You defend, making Hansol chuckle at your earnest words.

“You’re doing a lot of swearing today,” Seungkwan teases, causing you to roll your eyes at him.

“Well, let’s go back to the dorms and give the members some gifts,” Hansol yawns while stretching his arms. “This way I can go back to the dorms and nap, too.”

“Typical Hansol,” You and Seungkwan say at the same time. You then pointed at each other in awe at your thoughts being in synch.

Hansol shakes his head, used to your behavior and grabs some of the bags to start heading back to the car.

“Why did you want to come today anyways, Hansol?” You hit his shoulder, curious since he never explained why he tagged along.

“For these,” He shows off a box set of A24 films in a gloating manner. Now it was adding up, the movie buff needed to get his collector’s items.

Your mouth makes an ‘O’ shape, finally grasping his motives as he restarts walking to the parking lot.

“Was Operation: Gift from Virgo a failure?” You ask your other friend cautiously, picking up some bags after having the sandwich re-energize you.

“Not completely! Plus, we can always come back whenever it’s most convenient to turn it into a total success,” Seungkwan replies, grinning at you and Hansol.

You grin back, causing Seungkwan to nearly have a heart attack seeing you smile. He knew that he would never confess to you, but moments like these made him yearn for more. He hoped in some alternate reality you were together, and the possibility of that being true allowed him to accept his friend status in your life. He was your boo after all.

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