#actually kinda hoping someone argues with me so i can explain more of my thoughts

[clamsjams]

felps would understand the joe hills difference™️ and joe hills would understand the felps square™️. do not argue with me on this one i know in my heart of hearts that it is true

[babykittenteach]

A couple extra notes about the theft post, and then I kinda hope to be done making any posts. I swear this is not a drama blog. I'm Todd in the Shadows taking a break from music videos to well actually James Someton and then hopefully never doing it again. Cut for length, no reblogs because I'm not trying to get anywhere with this except explaining some thoughts.

No one's really brought this up in reply to me, but just to be clear in case anything sounds like claiming ownership over ideas: being inspired by other people is normal and good. You are supposed to be, I would argue. Particularly, when we're in fandom and these are all transformative works. When I've made a piece of art, if it was inspired by someone else, I am going to be mentioning them. I ask authors if they don't mind art, I tag people who inspired things and link to their posts, etc. etc. I'm happy to do that. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but I actively enjoy getting to use art as part of an ongoing media conversation. I like getting positive attention and little numbers that go up for my work, yeah, but that's not why I'm driven to draw or write. I'm trying to express something in me to other people, and I hope they respond. I can't imagine trying to hide that conversation. Especially if it means I can foist off blame for something cursed onto someone else. Helpful guide by unadulteratedkr here, btw. See, this is a very easy thing to do, linking.

Further, I make art. Occasionally. Allegedly, I even write. I am 100% certain something I've made has been similar to something that already existed that I just wasn't previously aware of. That happens. It's normal. I accidentally did that with my username. I don't think random coincidence things like that are plagiarism or even necessarily a bad thing. If you find out later that someone had already done something and you want to be clear about it, just add like a little note? But most of the time it's obvious people just had similar ideas. It's not, for instance, an ongoing behavior stretching months and at times being "literally saw the original 11 minutes ago" or "kudos'd the original last night."

Like, for real, fuck this guy. I glossed over this in the post, but reaching out to me like that privately when he found out I also write was almost certainly groundwork. If I may explain: I talk to people a lot about things I make because they come say hi. That's normal, it's lovely, it's good, it makes me happy. Please do not for one second get suspicious of normal people who are, even when the world is this fucked, by and large good. I promise most people are good. This guy used a good and normal thing for another purpose, like someone hiding a hand buzzer in a handshake. People are good; that guy's an asshole. I don't think for one second that normal human interaction was why Atticus reached out to me the way he did. Given what I know about how he talked to other people and how he justified his bad behavior to them, with more and more examples of this popping up from newly revealed private interactions, he was using the access and the good faith of apparent friendship to get things and get away with things. After almost a year of my being in the fandom, that was the first time he'd slid into my private messages and it was probably to test the waters. See if I was going to gush back, see if I was hungry for approval, etc. because then I'd be easier to jerk around. You make excuses for people you look up to; you make excuses for people who give you something you need. That's what he did, and I'm not saying that to lecture anyone; the opposite. It's why he got away with things, because people want friendship and approval. It's why, even after one of the most frustrating fandom periods of my life, I genuinely am sorry for people who got jerked around even when they didn't want to hear me out.

If someone hurts you and tries to guilt you into forgiving them with shit like "our friendship means so much to me" and [insert medical or mental health reason here] instead of just admitting they fucked up, please please please please please pleasepleasepleasePLEASE be careful with them. When I hit the block button on him, I even sent the prediction that he would make a post about it to friends. He hit the "i thought we were friendly" and the "I'm so stressed about--" points real quick. If I had bothered to explain it to him, it would have looked like all the other Didn't Mean Tos he's been revealed to have done. Please have more respect for your feelings than he did.

tl;dr-- okay but no, really, honestly, truly fffffffffffffffuck this guy. I hope to not make another post about this. If you need to, you can dm me here or on Discord, babykittenteach there too.

[storytowrite]

hey ml, how are you? 🫶🏻 thought i’d request something if that’s okay?

(i’ve been listening to this song and it gave me a wicked idea)

OT8 skz x 9th Fem!member reader where she argues with the boys and they all ignore her for a while which causes her to get into her head and she starts going a bit crazy? She is filming her solo MV as apart of SKZ-REPLAY and lets all of her crazy/psychotic thoughts out. The boys are told to come into jyp to talk about readers MV (which the boys hadn’t seen yet) and they all sit in shock whilst watching you go on a psychotic breakdown with the most sinister grin on your face?

Hello love ❤️ I really, really like the idea and I will definitely write it. Also I love the song! But please be patience because I have my finals so I’ll probably start writing again after I pass everything.

I’ll tag you anyway.

Kisses 😘

Hello love, As promised I wrote this idea and I hope that you would enjoy reading it. I'm so sorry that you had to wait for such a long time :C but the last week of January when I had my finals was so hard and exhausting that actually I needed to rest from everything. But thankfully I passed everything and now, being on my winter break, I can write more :D.

Anyway, here's the story I really hope you'll like it. Please enjoy and have fun reading it. ❤️

……………………..

Title: Happy Face

Genre: Angst

Word Count: 2061

Warnings: swearing, mention of mental breakdown, Lee Know is kinda harsh on Y/N

……………………..

“...And I guess, they’ll never listen, ya know? Because I’m a girl.” Was the last thing you said before smiling creepily into the camera and tilting your head to the side. “But let me tell y'all a secret…” You said whispering. “I don’t need them anymore. Not at all.” You started laughing hysterically. There was something in your voice that made everyone, who was watching your live, shiver. Something’s changed. The switch had been switched and there was no way back. 

……………………..

“Ya! Y/N! Stop acting like a fucking child!” Changbin screamed as you ran before him, trampling over his music sheets. “I’m working, don’t you see?!” 

“I’m sorry Binnie! I’m just late and…” You started to explain yourself. 

“I don’t fucking care!” He scoffed. He didn’t like being interrupted in his work and you knew that. Everybody knew. You sighed heavily. 

“I said I’m sorry…” You said with a pout on your face and just left the room. Living with eight men in a dorm as a ninth member was sometimes hard. Especially before the upcoming comeback, when everyone was busy and stressed out. The season was just hectic. 

You arrived at the practice a little bit late. You entered the practice room, being welcomed by a disappointed view of coldfaced Lee Minho. “You are late.” He said harshly. “Why are you always late?!” His voice raised a little, which made you squirm.

“I’m sorry… I got stuck in traffic and…” You started but he didn’t want to listen. 

“I don’t care, Y/N. You should have left earlier then. We were waiting for you for almost 20 minutes! We don’t have this room reserved for long!” Minho was angry. 

“I’m so…” You started but again was interrupted by someone. 

“Okay, no need to actually fight… let’s start the practice again, all right?” Felix said softly and looked at you with a slight smile. “You remember the routine?” 

“Y-yes, I remember.” You answered. 

“Good.” Said Hyunin and turned on the music. “Let’s begin then.” 

The practice was good, but the tension between you and Lee Know was strong. You couldn’t understand what got into him. You did your best and gave more than 100%. You were a perfectionist so you always tried to be better and better.

Dancing with the danceracha was most of the time fun. But this time you couldn’t enjoy it as much as you would like to. Minho was harsh and pointed out each mistake that you made or at least the mistake that he thought you made. 

You were tired. You didn’t know what actually was happening with your body. You couldn’t stay straight most of the time. Your muscles ached and you felt a little dizzy. Your body didn’t want to cooperate with you at all. 

“Minho, I need a break.” You stopped the routine in the middle, panting heavily. “I really have no strength and my body is…” 

“I don’t care Y/N, you said that you remember everything. Just focus and dance again.” He said, rolling his eyes, creally annoyed. “You need to master these movements.”

“No.” You said looking at him. “I will not dance again now, I need a break. I’m tired.” 

“Let me repeat it, Y/N. No one cares that you are tired. We all are! You are messing up the whole choreography. I’m not going to change the routine again, just because you can't focus.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry that I am tired and my body can’t dance properly.” You rolled your eyes, snapping at him. “Maybe if you weren’t a douchebag you are right now and let me take a break just for ten minutes as you did with Hyunjin and Felix I’ll be in better condition to dance once again. I told you, my body…” 

“Maybe if you practised more you wouldn’t be as tired as you are right now?” He raised an eyebrow. “Instead of spending time gossiping around you should come here and practise often!” 

“First of all I don’t gossip! And second of all it’s none of your business what I do in my fr…” You couldn’t finish the sentence since Hyunjin interrupted you. 

“Y/N, just listen to the hyung. He’s right. You are messing up the choreography. And we are as tired as you are of repeating it all over again . You need to focus.” 

“I am focused! And stop interrupting me!” You raised your voice annoyed that Hyunjin is taking Minho’s side. “You both think that I don’t do anything?! I am trying to be as good as you guys are!” 

“Then try harder!” Minho shouted. “It’s not the first time you are messing something up! You are always messing things up! You think being an idol is supposed to be a light job? It’s not a playground Y/N! We are all tired of you and your constant excuses and being fucking tired. If it’s too much then… ”

“I don’t have any excuses! What the fuck you are talking about Minho?!” You were pissed. “I get that everyone is stressed out because of the comeback but don’t yell at me just because you are ruthless fucking douchebag, who thinks that by being mean…” 

“Call me a douchebag once again and I swear I’ll…” He started but you interrupted him. 

“You’ll do what, hm? Hit me?” You looked at him provocatively and Minho clenched his fits. 

“Okay, Allright.” Someone entered the danceroom. “Calm down everybody. Calm down. What’s all this fuss about?” It was Chan, who looked at you and Minho, seeking the explanation. Behind him the rest of the Stray Kids entered the room and looked at the two of you. “Why are you fighting? Everyone in the building can hear you.” 

“Apparently Y/N is once again tired of actually doing nothing.” Minho said venomously. “She doesn’t want to focus and I had to change the choreography too many times and…”

“Apparently Minho is treating me worse than he treats others.” You said sarcastically, rolling your eyes. “He doesn’t let me take a break while Hyunjin and Felix rested all the time!” 

“Hey! That’s not true!” Felix and Hyunjin said at the same time. 

“Y/N I told you that you are messing the choreography up and…” Minho started once again.

“And I fucking told you that I’m tired, okay?! Why is no one listening? I have no strength recently and…” You interrupted him. You could feel the tears that formed in your eyes, both because you were pissed and just sad. 

“And that’s enough, watch your tongue Y/N.” Chan said firmly, sighing heavily. He didn’t let you finish your sentence. “Y/N, I heard from the boys that the only thing you've been doing recently is complaining. And I actually observed it by myself. If you need a longer break, we can talk with the managers about the hiatus and…” he looked straight into your eyes. 

“But I don’t want to go on a hiatus! What are you even talking about right now? Why is no one listening? You know what? I’m done for today.” You said, feeling like you were going to cry. You literally felt betrayed but all of the boys. “I need some time alone, ya know? I am done with all of you.” You grabbed your belongings and left the practice room, leaving all the eight men behind you. Nobody even tried to stop you. 

……………………..

A few hours have passed. You took a break and spent some alone time outside the building. You had time to rethink and calm yourself down. Maybe they were right at some point, but at the same time they didn’t listen to what you were going to say. It felt like you were just some kind of burden for them or they were annoyed with you with no further reason. 

After a long while you decided to come back to the JYPE building once again. It was really late and you were sure that no one was even there. You went straight into the danceroom, where you were going to practise. In the upcoming comeback, you not only had the performance with the danceracha but also had your solo song and MV as a part of SKZ-REPLAY. And at this point Minho was right. You had to master everything. 

You took off the hoodie you were wearing and put on the music. The routines weren’t that hard as you thought before. After some time of practising you, being content with the results of your hard work, decided to talk to somebody and share your thoughts. You were still upset with the boys so instead of calling them or your manager, you decided to make an Instagram live. The only people that you could rely on right now were your fans. 

“Hello guys, this is Y/N from Stray Kids.” You greeted your fans with a bright smile on your face. “How are ya?” You asked them and started reading some comments. “Am I in the practice room? Yeah, I’ve been mastering the movements for the new comeback… Uhm.. No, no I’m here by myself.” 

The fans started asking you questions about the comeback, the track and the boys and you tried to answer most of them with a big smile on your face. But it didn’t feel real. After a few more questions your smile started to drop. You didn’t want to show your fans emotions you were actually hiding all day, but eventually the bubble just burst. 

“Y/N is everything all right?” You’ve read out loud as the fans started asking you more serious questions. “Actually… no. Nothing is okay, ya know? I’m tired of being in this band. No, I am fucking exhausted! Don’t get me wrong, the guys…” You started and suddenly smirked looking straight into the camera. “Or you know what? Fuck it. Get me all wrong!” You laughed a little. “Maybe if I say what I’ve been trying to say recently, you’ll actually listen. Because believe it or not, there are people who don’t listen.” You let out the little giggle. But it wasn’t a happy giggle. You were trying so hard not to show the emotions that culminated in your body, that now you couldn't even pretend. 

Your fans started to be more concerned about your mental state. The people who were watching you at that moment were just scared. You didn’t act normal. You smiled at the camera, but there was something in your smile that no one could even name. 

“I’m happy! I’m happy! I’m happy today!... Hey! Put on a happy face!” You sang and started laughing. And your laugh was echoing in the empty room. Everyone who was watching your live was scared. But you didn’t care. The comments have stopped. No one dared to say anything. People were just looking at you but they didn’t know what to do.  

……………………..

At the same time that you were having a mental breakdown in front of thousands of people on the Internet, eight men sat in your dormitory, accompanied by managers, and watched you silently. They were either horrified or concerned, or both at the same time. Mixed emotions consumed them.

They were sure that they were the cause of your breakdown. Recently, they haven’t been very understanding. They didn’t want to listen to your silent cry for help. They were too focused on themselves that they didn’t see that you also had been experiencing a hard time. The instant remorse immediately seized them. 

“...And I guess, they’ll never listen, ya know? Because I’m a girl.” Was the last thing you said before smiling creepily into the camera and tilting your head to the side. “But let me tell y'all a secret…” You said whispering. “I don’t need them anymore. Not at all.” You started laughing again, but this time you laughed hysterically. There was something in your voice that made everyone, who was watching your live, shiver. Something’s changed. The switch had been switched and there was no way back. 

It was the only thing you added before you truly switched. They looked at your live with horror in their eyes. 

“Hyung… We have fucked things up. We all did.” It was I.N. who dared to speak, breaking the heavy silence. And those words will stay with them for a really long time. 

@ihrtlix

[nexttrickanvils]

B2J with any boss of your choice with anger 3

Anger 3. How is this my fault?

“HOW IS THIS MY FAULT!?”

“You don’t explain stuff clearly! You trying to give me directions is like:”

May proceeded to wave her arms around which just seemed to further anger Eve.

“I do not explain clearly!? What on Earth was that flailing supposed to represent!?”

Zuke sighed. He had hoped when he and May offered to help Eve with her current project that it would be a good chance to bond.

After all, he and Eve had agreed to try things again as friends and she and May have been taking steps to get along.

But he probably should have seen the “creative differences” coming.

He stood by as May and Eve continued to argue until finally walking away from each other. May collapsed onto a nearby loveseat (earning yet another glare from Eve) and sulked.

Eve practically stomped out of the studio, claiming she had to look over something.

Without a word, Zuke walked over to May and sat down next to her.

“Want to talk?”

“UGGGGGGHHHHH”

“...Is that a "no” or…?”

“How does she expect anyone to understand what she's talking about!? I'm not freaking psychic and being in her head last time resulted in us getting stomped on and flicked at and lasered!”

May looked at Zuke with confusion in her eyes.

“The two of you used to be close, how the heck did you manage to even talk to her?”

Zuke looked thoughtful for a moment before replying.

“Well, Nadia always preferred to let her art and actions do the talking for her and as someone who tended to be quiet, I kind of related to that. That said… we had our fair share of communication issues.”

Moments where he misinterpreted what she meant, moments where he took her too literally, and more that just added to the growing rift between them.

“I know you prefer when people are more direct, especially when they’re trying to tell you to do something and Nadia can do that but she never liked the idea that “art had to explain itself to be understood” as she’d put it.”

“I mean I guess she’s got a point but where am I supposed to even start with “Embrace your fire!?””

With that Zuke stood up from the love seat and shot a reassuring look to May.

“Look, I really want what we’re doing to work out so I’ll talk to Eve, okay?”

May immediately stood up and grabbed Zuke’s arm before he could take a step.

“No, I should talk to her. We all want this to work out and that’s not gonna happen if we just make you be our middleman instead of talking like grown-ups.”

Zuke looked surprised but then smiled, “Okay.”

Before anything else could be said, the door to the studio swung open. Eve came back inside, looking less stressed than earlier but still a little tired.

“Alright. Let us start this again from the top.”

Zuke then glanced at May and gave her a nod. She then took a deep breath and made her way to Eve.

“Actually before that… I’m sorry about getting angry and yelling. I know you want your art to speak for itself but… It’s just kinda hard for me to figure something out just from vibes.”

For a moment, it looked like there was a gleam of understanding in Eve’s uncovered eye.

“I… I must admit that I prefer to express my thoughts in a more abstract way than most would prefer. So I also apologize for losing my temper at you.”

May smiled, “Great! So… if you don’t mind, what was it you meant when you told me to “embrace my fire?” I know you’ve compared me to fire before… in not a nice way but still.”

“Yes when I made the comparison, I was thinking of how wild and destructive fire can be. But I do realize now that that is not all fire can be…”

Zuke watched in relief as Eve and May started to have a more productive conversation. 

There were still issues of course, with May’s impatience with Eve’s explanations and Eve’s frustrations when she had to repeat something.

But he could tell that the two were trying to do better.

It wasn’t much but Zuke was proud of the two taking those little steps of progress.

[pumpkinsy0]

https://www.tumblr.com/pumpkinsy0/783290736707829760/whenever-i-talk-to-someone-about-how-i-dont-rlly

expound pretty please im curious bcs most people who read the book usually really enjoy the themes

ok lets hope i dont anger anyone bc i truly do not wanna argue, plus im kinda shit at explaining what i mean seriously, this isnt ALLLL my thoughts on it im speaking as general as i can, but its good enough for me to say outloud

tldr: i wish the whole “things are rough all over” discussion in the fandom had more nuance than just “we r all human so we should treat each other as such❤️” and ppl who defend the socs didnt immediately assume that u just dont get the book at all or hated the socs or whatever for saying u dont like it, bc truly thats not the kind of message to leave everything at. like i get Y they do it, talking about this can b a slippery slope, especially considering that its cherry who said it and this fandom is weird w female characters, i understand but id like to think we all have good media literacy and r pretty smart!!! if u want to truly fix the issues the book was exploring we need an actual discussion deeper than “just empathize and everything will come after” like what happened in the book, we can criticize the books message a lil bit ESPECIALLY bc its very important in the times we r in rn👍🏽

now☝🏽☝🏽☝🏽i DO agree that things r rough all over we all DO have our own issues HOWEVER COMMA!!!! to sit here and write off/ignore that one group ISNT more vulnerable than the other is being flat out stupid and dangerous. that is not “playing oppression olympics” for pointing it out nor is it “comparing trauma” it is a genuine fact that one of these two groups is being actively harmed and exploited by another, leaving them vulnerable in SOME way.

YES socs go through their own issues im NOTTT saying they dont and u will never find me saying they dont, but the greasers can go through their same exact issues (if not exact they go through it in some other form) AND systemic ones that add on other problems bc everything is quite literally stacked up against them. in fact we HAVE examples of this bc we have BOB and DALLAS as evidence of it!!! both of them exact parallels of having neglectful parents, they both act pretty much the same, but bob was doing it WHILE exploiting the system and u will still see ppl somewhat baby him every which way FOR having shitty parents and then shit on dallas all the time

like im not saying dallas sexually harassing cherry was less important and should b ignored however on the otherrr handdd ppl dont treat bob nearly killing pony and potentially johnny as seriously, this fandom is pretty classist. bob is not treated like a criminal to the degree dallas is in the book (which ok fine u expect that) AND in the fandom, so leaving that lesson of “we all go through shit” alone as is right there, has a part to play in it bc ppl feel they have to defend and excuse the shitty behavior of another rich character bc of what they went through and how it “might get skimped pass, grrrr did u not understand the lesson”

do u see what im saying here😭😭like truly what does arguing THAT solve, idgaf that that perm boy had neglectful parents??????? he tried to kill a poor orphan bc he knew he could get away w it and needed an “outlet”😭😭😭😭ppl use the socs issues and that ONE LINE!!!! W ZERO OF THEIR OWN THINKING PUT INTO IT, to EXCUSE instead of EXPLAIN the actions

lets all imagine there wasnt poor, middle class, and rich for a sec yea. bob is still white, ponys idfk whatever race other than white. bob was going after ppl who r not like him bc its not a secret that he can do things pony cannot do, all the damn time and suffer no consequence from it. if u do not take seriously what bob did, u would INADVERTENTLY b defending this as well (bc a disproportionate amount of poc experience poverty, but even if that wasnt the case, there is no difference between THIS and what actually happened in the book, its the same damn issue both times)

and yknow what my issue w that discussion doesnt rlly lie w the book, more so the fandom bc im not expecting a book written in the 60s by a white woman to have THAT much nuance towards oppression topics, im rlly not, its the fandom i kind of expected to talk deeper w it.

and dontttt take this as me saying the greasers arent also a lil fucked for beating up other ppl thats not right either, but this cycle is happening BC OF ppl who have more money than them pushing them away from having chances of bettering themselves

i understand a theme is supposed to b 1-2 lines-ish, but after the book is done we can form our own thoughts through our own knowledge of history class, a bit of math, and our own experience to expand on it to make sure we arent pushing “small” harmful things

grrrrr i hope u get what im saying here i give up💔💔💔

[ravenonice]

Hearts of Glass - Chapter 3

Scores and Program Layouts

As promised, here are the details about the programs in the newest chapter! I always pour a lot of energy into making sure it's as acurate as possible and to provide a little insight into the details that I didn't get to mention.

So if you too like to geek out about fictional figure skating: Enjoy!

Spoilers ahead!

First we have Viktor's free skate, which gave me a MAJOR headache honestly. Because I wanted to push the scores down a little bit to leave a little bit room for growth in the next season.

Yuuri's canon free skate record he sets at the GPF in Barcelona is 221.58. In my first version of the story i went with something around the 218 mark, which i think is about what it could've actually been in the show. However, this time around I went with something different.

Viktor scored 214.69 in this chapter.

I took the layout from a magazine translation that had the planned technical content (which I annoyingly can't find anymore...) so it should be cannon. However, I decided to give it a little twist.

Because if there is something I think makes a character interesting it's little flaws. Even in someone as accomplished and respected as Viktor is.

I decided to give Viktor edge warnings on both his Lutzes. Quick explaination for those not really familiar with skating: A Lutz takes off from (when jumping counter clockwise) a left backwards outside edge. The only thing making it different from the Flip is that edge, because a Flip jump takes off from a left backwards inside edge.

Viktor's signature jump is the flip. It's likely his best jump and also the one that has the most meaning to him. He probably feels most comfortable with that jump and might even slightly prioritise it in his training.

Now, it is a common thing that skaters who are good with one tend to get edge warnings or even calls on the other. A warning means they don't stay on the required edge until take off and instead slip on a flat edge or slightly on the other. You'd get an edge call if you completly went on the other edge during take off.

This is often also refered to as a Flutz.

I think it gives Viktor a little twist as a competitive skater to not have him be completely flawless. It might have gotten swallowed by the stories POV, but it's reflecting in his score. And it will become more relevant later on.

Another thing about Viktor's free skate that gave me a massive headache was the monstrosity that is the 3A+3Lo+3Lo in the second half. What a fucking maniac honestly. Also a reason why I had to find a reason to deduct him elsewhere bc that monster ALONE is worth 20.57 points in base value are you kidding me Viktor??? I went in depth on why I think this is rediculous in another post lol.

Also finding this out kinda kills my vibe of the loop being Viktor's weakest jump but oh well I am rewriting this anyway am I not...

As for Yuuri, I don't think I need to go into much detail because most of this reflects in the chapter.

He lost points because he fell on the loop and also landed it on the quarter, as well as underrotated the Salchow. Everything else was pretty solid.

One thing you can tell for both of their scores is that I don't ever give out perfect +3 GOE. I needed to give both a bit of room to grow.

I gave them both equal scores in skating skills and Interpretation. Though in retrospect, I probably should've put Yuuri under 9 for Interpretation as well...

One thing I wanted to make clear here too with that PCS is...Yuuri really wasn't overscored. And fans might even argue he was actually underscored if you take Viktor as comparison. Just like Viktor admitted himself, Yuuri's skating skills might even be better than his own...yet Yuuri receives the same marks for them and less for his transitions.

Well, I think this is enough of me geeking over scoring things lol.

If you read this far I hope you enjoyed this little extra insight into my thoughts <3

[agent-toast]

@dopey-dragon @bewithdagays

ieytd reincarnation au (name under works - do give suggestions) practice fic! not sure if this will be canon or not. also hope it's ok to tag!

my writing is pretty rusty but oh well

link to au context (if it doesn't work please tell me!) but if you want a quick summary, this au is agent phoenix actually reincarnates kind of like doctor who, and each version of agent phoenix is inspired by one of my irl friends and they all have different personalities. but all of them love annoying john juniper

[note: this lil practice fic takes place after ieytd3. zinc, persimmon, mayflower, midnight and crimson phoenix have all returned to their old office after a very eventful evening with the whole Operation: KBOOM thingy. just to be clear, only zinc left for the mission but something something then he came back with the others. fun! additionally, none of the characters are really described because the description is planned to come earlier before the time this fic takes place.]

-

Phoenix's old office used to be littered with dozens of trinkets stolen collected from their missions - champagne taken straight from Doctor Zor's car, small shiny crystals that tinkled when you hit them on Phoenix's desk (they definitely hadn't done that a million times before their handler came specially to their office just to scold them), a few books from Zor's winter cabin (they were unsuccessful in resisting the urge to burn them), and many more things Phoenix would have definitely gotten in trouble for keeping in their office, if their handler hadn't argued their case. 

Now, though, the room was eerily bare, save for their now empty desk and bookshelves.

Support Agent Reginald Crane sat at the desk, one hand rhythmically tapping the wooden surface, and stared round at the room. 

Why had he come here? He wasn't sure.

(Oh yes he was; he was worried for Phoenix. There was no point in denying it.)

The office door opened without warning, interrupting the silence. Startled, Crane rushed towards it.

If Agent Phoenix isn't standing in the doorway, I will actually break something.

Thankfully for all nearby breakable objects, Zinc was standing there, a slightly sheepish, heady grin on his face. He looked tired, but alive. Oh-so-thankfully alive.

"Hi. Uh. I kinda have something to explain-"

"Agent, my god!" Crane exclaimed. "You don't know how much you scared me, when your feed cut out I thought you'd- you know, pulled a stunt like that peace summit incident again, but this time there was no way I could see you surviving at all, and-"

He was cut off by the sight of someone very familiar walking behind Zinc through the doorway.

"Damn, handler, what have you been doing with my office, it's turned into a fucking IKEA showroom-" Persimmon stopped, turned and waved at a slightly singed fake potted plant. "Oh, long time no see, you stupid plastic abomination. Good to see you're still flammable as ever."

Crane blinked. "...Agent? Is that-"

"Yeah, uh-" Zinc piped up, "I was going to explain that but you-"

Three more familiar faces walked into the office, and Crane did a double take. "What- how the hell did this happen-"

"If you would just let me explain, handler-" Zinc was close to throwing something out the open window.

"If you want, Zinc," Mayflower stage-whispered into his ear, "I can take it from here."

Zinc immediately stepped back and gestured for her to take his place. "Please do that. Please. I have had enough of this shit for one week." He sunk gratefully into the desk chair nearby, looking ready to pass out.

Mayflower smiled at Crane. "It's been a wild three hours, handler. Not just because I had to babysit these four kids during the taxi ride here." She side-eyed Midnight, who was trying to balance a stuffed shark on Crimson's head.

"...Mayflower. It's certainly been a while since I last saw your face." Crane, thankfully, seemed to have calmed down.

She cleared her throat. "From what Zinc told me, || ||||| ||| | |||| || ||| || ||||. ||| |||||||| ||| |||||, || ||| |||| ||| || ||||||||| || || ||||| ||| ||| |||||||| ||||||||| ||||..." [nuh uh spoilers >:) you dont get this]

"I myself am starting to question whether that was a good idea or not. But hey, we're here now, aren't we?"

Perched on the windowsill, Persimmon called out, "Hey! Handler! Do you know where a girl can get food in this place? Even that old agency van I was stuck in for a week had food. It had oranges, handler, oranges. Though, now that I think about it, it didn't have cheese sticks. Remind me to fax the heads of EOD and tell them to stock their agency fridges with more cheese sticks. Oh, and get air fryers. Do we have enough money for air fryers?" 

Everyone stared in silence at her. 

"What? I like cheese sticks. And you can't eat cheese sticks cold. Hence the air fryers."

In the corner of the room, Crimson was silently nodding, a serious look on their face. 

"SEE?? SOMEONE agrees with me."

Zinc - very muffled, with his blahaj smooshed over his face - mumbled, "Kinda hungry now that Persimmon's been going on about cheese sticks. Let's go eat something." He lifted the shark just high enough for his voice to sound clearer, and continued, "then I should probably go to the hospital. I'm pretty sure I've broken at least more than two bones. Oh, shit, wait, I'm caring about my physical health. That's a first."

"As you can see, Zinc, it's working out very well. Do that more often." Mayflower replied encouragingly.

--

criticsm highly encouraged as long as it's respectful!

[analviel]

ATLA NETFLIX, some of the thoughts I wrote down while watching:

The costumes!!!!!!

Fire. Bending.

The bending in general but FIRE bending and the way it left the victims.

Gasp! Oh, oh, oh! Help was sent to the earth kingdoms, maybe not the best fighters but still a lot of them, that's why the air nomads were wiped out and the southern water was devastated while the Earth kingdom stood the strongest. I like the way they set this up.

AAAAAAANG!!!

AIR NOMADS!!!!

Monk Gyatso!!!

Kinda bummed that Katara didn't break the ice by getting angry but I'm gonna be optimistic.

Hoooooo Sokka and Zuko exceed my expectations! "His destiny". "Repeating it doesn't help".

Although, the face burn is a bit underwhelming especially with what we just saw of the previous fire victims.

Sooooo excited for all the bending!!!

THE COSTUMES! THE TATTOO, ESPECIALLY THE WAY IT'S PLACED AROUND HIS ARMS!!!

Idk why maybe bcs Katara is my favourite so I'm watching her but she feels so.... Hmmm. Quiet. What happened to her lines at the beginning, for someone who's words are the first we hear in the OG.

When Sokka said "Before you kill someone", I expected at least a "Sokka!".

I do love the actress with the lines she's been given tho. With the rant to Sokka on the Air Temple. Gets that hopeful glint Katara has.

Zuko flipping out yes! He's so... Spazzy, does that make sense?

I'm not too young, I just haven't seen the world yet- Suki

Suki and Sokka are sooooooooo awkward I LOVE IT!!! Also that Mulan make-up remover. Asians are just built different I guess.

AANG AND KYOSHI!

Katara standing in Zuko's way- I can't wait until Zuko offers to kill her mother's killer with her!

We got Azula!!! Oh I love those first lines delievered like that!

Did I mention I love how Zuko is visibly falling apart, barely able to keep himself together, because I do, I really do!

Okay I'm gonna say it, Katara feels like she's just being dragged around everywhere. No- no initiative.

I....

Do not like that.

Feels like she's not getting riled up enough by Sokka maybe.

Mai is SO Mai, you can hear it so well!

They did Jet's intro good!

My Cabbages! The most passion so far!

Ooooh! Oh I do adore the secret tunnel scene in this!!!!

The Bumi actor is so good.

A friend. A friend! The direct Aang/Zuko and Gyatso/Iroh parallels.

The Zuko redemption storyline is living up to itself so far.

As for Azula, I really wished they left the breaking down era a little bit later. Like yeah, Azula wasn't right in the head from the beginning but that was shown more in how terrifyingly aloof and unstoppable she was in the earlier episode I believe but, well.

There's already a bond between Aang and Zuko but I've yet to see anything half like OG Katara and Aang!

Hmmm, actually, regarding Azula..... Ozai is, weirdly, invested in Zuko in a way we could've said OG Ozai would never say that. Which explains Azula here.

I love the avatar state glowy effects!

The sexism against Katara doubled and coated with genuine concern and real-life reasons that makes it hard to counter argue is making me lean in, in anticipation of how it will make my Katara blow up.

...... So no plan?..... I'm working on it, Uncle.

Sokka rushing towards Katara to 'convince her'.

Azula and Katara in the same episode is foreshadowing parallels.

Excited to have Katara's bending to visibly improve, like in the OG. And by that I meant how organically her water whip evolved smoother and faster in the animation. Like, you could see it.

........ Pakku vs Katara. Love the action, the effects. It could've been so good in regards to catharsis if Katara had just raged...... I'm just. Not going to.

Getting rid of their machine controls renders the fire army sitting ducks in the middle of ocean. Which makes me think of that reverse AU where the water tribe conquers the world.

If the water benders all work together, they can just have a giant tsunami turn them all over.

Master? Master Katara?...... That's so.... It's surprising rather than something you'd anticipate and cheer when we finally gain it.

Not a single waterbending training montage with Pakku. I'm still not sure if Pakku trained her or just gave her the title.

I like that I can tell that they know what they want to do with Sokka.

Not so much with Katara.

I gasped when all the Northern Tribe female waterbenders stepped forward like that.

So. There's a lot of stuff that they removed and added that I didn't like- less 'added', and more 'rushed'. Things that should've built up gradually, that could've been revealed in little bits were just immediately shown to us- my example here is Azula. When I first saw Azula, she was terrifying, her and her group were both my dream group and incited fear and awe in younger me, I didn't think she was insecure, I didn't think she was scared, she was practically the damn terminator with that epic episode of tracking the gaang slowly but steadily and driving them to exhaustion.

Is she actually insecure and batshit insane and scared? Yes. Was that what you were supposed to be able to tell with a single glance? No.

At first I thought maybe I was just biased with Katara, but I also feel like a lot of stuff they did with Azula was just.....

They did Sokka good, which was actually who I was concerned about the most. Zuko- I really love his portrayal. My moments of doubt with Aang are actually closely tied with Katara, which makes sense because hello, their friendship and bond was very important to the whole thing. Would've been a wonderful contrast to his Past bond with Gyatso and his Future bond with Katara.

I do think it's good.

Let me marinate on this.

[mithliya]

hi! i’m actually nervous to be typing this because i’m always afraid of what people think of me being in feminist spaces (weird i know), but anyway i had an online argument today in a space where i have frequented for a few years. this space has a good amount of LGBT people within, but mainly TIMs. this online space is actually one of things that made me peak as of recent.

the argument started on how one of the TIMs says a twitch stream with someone in a dog cage getting some donations, and they claimed they wanted to do it too. one person mentioned how being humiliated for pennies doesn’t seem right, and i agreed. i said maybe instead of selling your body for less, you could work at somewhere like mcds because even most OF workers only make ~$150 a month, which is barely anything. a lot of people got mad and livid. “it’s my choice. so what if i want to sell pics and stuff?!” i tried to explain why the act of selling your body for barely anything isn’t worth it (even if i didn’t want them to sell their body at all because SW is exploitation), and many got mad again. even though they were a TIM and probably wouldn’t understand where i was coming from (spoiler : they didn’t), the main thing i was trying to combat was the idea that choices are made freely with no influence, only based on the person’s (i used women actually) wants. after arguing for an hour, where people probably thought i was annoying, the argument finished. i didn’t get through that TIM and probably many of the others because i still had people making jokes about me afterwards, but i’m glad i got to say what i believed in and maybe someone was reading/lurking and will think about it some more?

i say all this to say that while i might not be a rad-fem (because i’m OSA with a male partner), i hope to combat and empower women. since i work in a school, maybe i could make some kind of club one day where it’s all about girl’s understanding what they can do and more. for now, i think i’ll read more literature.

p.s., this space is mainly males (ofc), so i felt kinda pressured to shut up, but i didn’t. a lot of them couldn’t understand my experience, so i was just “preaching” to emptiness. that’s okay with me, but it shows me even progressive men will laugh at a woman fighting to be heard.

good on u for speaking up and standing ur ground! many of those people try to use bullying and intimidation, so im not surprised they did that to you but its awesome that youre taking these opportunities to try to enact some kind of small change <3

youre right about progressive men. unfortunately most of them are all talk

[venusbyline]

NOT A HOTD RELATED QUESTION! BUT, I need your help..

You're my only mutual that I can rant to as I have no one. But, my sibling is dating someone ( less than 2 months )  

I'm kinda chill about it, I just think that they should take it slow as they barely know the Bf / Gf and the Bf / Gf is slightly wrong for not trying to make a good impression with our Mom. 

( they don't talk to her - say hi or ask how she is, running away to avoid speaking / being near her, etc )

BUT, I also feel like the Bf / Gf is acting wayyyyyy too comfortable at our grandparent’s house 

( eating food from the fridge like they pay rent, watching tv in public places - lowkey hogging it, getting butt hurt cuz I gave them a 5 second look of confusion as to why they are acting like they’ve been there forever ) 

Am I wrong for like being a little irked by them? Or am I acting like a protective brat?

It's okay anon!! 💕💕 First of all, I'm so sorry about your situation, I hope everything gets better soon!!! 🥺🥺 I don't know if your sibling is really close to you or your mom, but I imagine that's making you quite frustrated either way (and rightly so).

You're right to be irked by them. I don't know how old your sibling is or how old their Bf/Gf is... But trying to make a good impression with your mom should be essential even if they're just teenagers. Actually, trying to have a good connection with our partners' parents is indeed something very important, unless ofc our parents-in-law are prejudiced against us and despise us, which isn't what your mom is doing, considering what you told me. So if that isn't the case, they've no reason to act carelessly and disrespectfully towards your mom.

And about their Bf/Gf acting this way at your grandparents' house, I would say that it's indeed a bit disrespectful. This doesn't just seem like he's being "well-received" at your grandparents' house, your sibling's Bf/Gf is being rude. Idk your family's culture or what their family's culture, but I doubt that this is just being friendly, especially considering that they aren't like this at your mom's house.

My advice about all of this... If your sibling is a teenager or at least a young adult, there's more chance of the relationship ending than actually working out, so this issue may not be something that will last "forever". If you've a good relationship with your sibling, try to talk to them and explain how you feel about it, and they may understand. But if you don't have a good relationship with them or you think that talking to them will only lead to a argument that won't be resolved, then don't say anything and wait for them to get frustrated with their Bf/Gf on their own. Maybe your sibling will realize that this situation was unfair to you and your mom and apologize later, or maybe not, cuz unfortunately we can't force people to empathize with us and apologize, even when we're right about these things.

Imo you're right to be frustrated about all of this. When I was 19, my ex-boyfriend treated my family exactly the way your sibling's Bf/Gf treats your mom. At the time, I didn't really care and I was getting annoyed when my parents argued with me about it, I thought they were just overreacting. After my relationship ended, I realized that they were completely right to be upset about the guy's behaviour and also with my nonchalant behaviour too.

[nella09archive]

Marriage. 42

Chapter 42: to the rescue! Vegeta?

Won’t Bulma be so happy that I got the dragon ball, and not get killed. Uh? Why does everyone look scared? What! Vegeta was here, and that green guy. Crap! It’s so not fair. Thank goodness I don’t have to carry Bulma. Now that we’re in a new location, Krillin wants me to meet the Grand Namek. I’m scared. What if, it was Vegeta who hid the ball? Oh no! No! No! That means if he finds out I’m dead!

The only bright side, is that daddy is on his way. And that was like 4 days ago, so that means I have to make it 2 more days. Then dad would show all of them. And then I get to go home to mom. Ok, got to keep my power level down. This is so hard, but I have to do this. Mr. Piccolo is counting on me. All of friends are counting on us.

…

Oh, this is so cool. I feel so much stronger. Maybe now I could face Vegeta, and not get beaten to death. Never mind, I’m not risking that.

Oh, Vegeta is mad at me. But he looks more scared of those strong power levels coming to the planet. At first, I thought it was my daddy, but taking a second to actually sense them, I’m not too sure. It feels like there’s five strong power levels, well, actually four and a pretty ok power level. But they all feel very mean. Meaner than Mr. Vegeta. Wait. When did I refer Vegeta as Mr? Not important right now.

Mr. Vegeta wants us to follow him to the other dragon balls, he took from Frieza. He wants to get our dragon ball, and then make his wish. Then we come to find out we can make 2 more wishes. These dragon balls are awesome. Bulma is surprised and scared that Mr. Vegeta is with us. But no time to explain and argue. I kinda feel bad that we’re leaving her behind again, but Krillin says it’s ok.

…

I can’t believe this gravity. I wish I knew about gravity training before. Then again, do I? Well, I better be careful. I don’t want to actually hurt myself too bad, then I’ll be useless in helping everyone. Looks like I’m also running low on senzu beans. So, guess I definitely need to take it easy.

Only a few hours till I reach Namek. I should take a nap, so I can be refresh when I get there. Also, a bath, I reek. If Chichi were here she would be so mad that I let it get this bad. It would also feel nice to have her scrub my back. Her back scrubs are the best. Especially when she hums, or sings a catchy tone. My wife is so perfect. I miss her. These six days has been pretty lonely, and quiet. Gohan. Don’t worry son, daddy’s coming.

…

I hope my boys are ok. I wonder if Goku got there yet? I do wonder why everyone seems so worried. And why is no one telling me what’s going on? As I walk the halls I over hear something. I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but from what I can tell it’s Bulma. And what I could make out, something about being stuck, Vegeta, and more powerful beings that also after the dragon balls. Also, how Krillin and Gohan just left her all alone. Vegeta? More powerful beings? OH NO! MY BABY BOY!

I slam into the room, and grabbed hold of Dr. Brief, by the neck. I demanded him to tell me exactly what’s going on, or I’ll rip him a new one. Everyone else comes rushing into the room, and tries to pull me away. Roshi is even trying to touch me, while pulling me away. I can’t stand this! My baby in trouble! Nobody was going to tell me! On top of all that, THIS PERVERT OLD MAN IS TAKING ADVENTAGE AND TOUCHING ME! I have half a mind to kill him where he stands. I pull him off me, and threw towards the wall. The impacted leaves the wall intended. Everyone then slowly backs away from me, and I grab Dr. Brief by the collar.

“Get that ship working by this afternoon! I need to rescue my baby boy!” With that, I leave the room storming. I really need to calm down, and figure out how I’m going to get my baby safely. The last I hear before I’m away from the room, is someone calling me crazy.

How am I crazy? Don’t they get that a child is in space, away from his mother? Don’t they understand, that he’s in danger? I’m his mother. I’m worry sick about my baby. After all, he’s only four years old. He should be in school, having fun with other kids, and enjoying life. Not in space, trying to survive. Goku! I really hope you make it in time to save our baby. I don’t know what I’ll do if something happened to him. I’ll especially won’t ever, EVER FORGIVE YOU, if something happens to him! Dragon balls or not, my baby shouldn’t be going through this!

I soon found myself in one of the restrooms, crying away. It’s so painful not knowing how’s my son doing. It hurts to not be there with him. I just hope he’ll come back to me, unharmed. I want him back in my arms, and to never leave me.

…

This is just too crazy. I don’t know what to do. Mr. Vegeta is shaking, and that purple guy took all the dragon balls. And now three of them are playing rock-paper-scissors to see who will kill me and Krillin first. Today just keeps getting worst. Oh great. The little guy has the honor to kill us. He doesn’t seem all that powerful, but Mr. Vegeta is telling us to keep on our toes. I don’t like this.

Wait! Where he go? Oh, there he is! Me and Krillin try for another attack. Again! He’s gone. What the hell is going on? One more attack.

Crap! We’re stuck in a weird cloud. I can’t move. Is this really how it’s going to end? I don’t think I – Uh? What just happened? I can move again. That’s when I saw it. The little guy’s head is gone. What happened? I looked back to see that Mr. Vegeta looks like he shot his own attack. He saved us. “I didn’t save you. I just saw an opening, is all.” What in the world? I don’t care if he didn’t do it for us, he still saved us.

As much as I’m scared right now, I still am happy that he saved us. Hopefully it’ll buy us time till dad gets here. It has been six days already. Then that big guys starts to fight with Mr. Vegeta. Mr. Vegeta is stronger than he was on earth, so maybe he can win.

Oh, no! Mr. Vegeta look out. I was able to save him in time. But clearly that upsets him, especially since I’m weaker than him. But so what. He should be grateful. Besides it’s the least I could do, since he saved me. Consider that a debt paid. “Say that when we get out of this with our lives.” Ok, this is weird. I shouldn’t question it, but I’ll definitely ask when this is over. “And I’ll think about answering. Now stop thinking, and get ready. He’s not done with us yet.”

Me, Krillin, and Mr. Vegeta gets ready to fight again. This where a bad day turns ugly. Not only is Vegeta badly hurt. Krillin is on his last legs too. And now I’m face with ugly. What follows is the worst pain imaginable. Krillin keeps telling me to stay down, but I just can’t. No way am I giving up. Mr. Piccolo is counting on us. I just have to keep— That’s when I heard a crack, and all feeling stopped. I can’t move. I can’t feel anything. Am I still even breathing?

…

I finally made it. I take a quick intake and see what I could feel. Whoever that strong power level must be Frieza. And over in the other direction— NO! One of them is dropping fast, and it feels like… Oh crap! I did cut it way too close with this. Hold on Gohan! Daddy’s coming!

Get away from my son! I got Gohan away just before the big guy stepped on him. Gohan isn’t responding, but he’s still alive. Thank goodness, but no time to rejoice. I try to quickly feed him a senzu bean, and he quickly recovers. Thank goodness. But no time to show emotions, but I better clean him up a bit. My little man made it. Thank Kami.

I then walk over to Krillin, and he’s ok. I give him a senzu bean, and try out a new technique I wanted to try. For some reason it just feels like I could do it, so why not. That’s how I found out about everything that was going on, and even Vegeta saving them. So, I gave him the last senzu bean. Krillin seems kind of upset with my choice, but Gohan seems to take it well. I tell them to stay out the way, while I deal with the guy who caused this mess.

I beat them, and was it easy. I never thought I could be this strong. It feels almost intoxicating. Makes me want to just show off some more, and have a little more fun. But I can’t do that right now. What the hell? He just had to kill them. They couldn’t defend themselves, but he states it doesn’t matter. How they can’t change. That they enjoy other people’s pain and torment. Almost like you. “They’re more monsters than I am.” Wow. Did he just? “Shut it Kakarot! You and your boy ask way too much.”

I looked down to my son. “Yeah. I don’t get it, but yeah.” Ok then. We then head off to face the other high-power level. When we meet up with this purple guy, Krillin and Gohan tell me to watch my back around this guy. I try to reassure them he’s nothing compared to me. With that I get ready to fight, when Vegeta leaves. Krillin is upset, and Gohan is just as surprised as me. I tell them to follow Vegeta, and let me fight ugly.

…

Mr. Vegeta was right, that Frieza guy did leave his ship. Wow. It’s so big. I hope my dad is doing ok. “Me too kid. With any luck both my problems will kill themselves.” Hey! That’s not nice! “No one said I was. Now shut up and help me find where Frieza hid the dragon balls.” Would it kill you to say please? He then gave me a snarl. Ok, ok. I’ll behave. Jerk.

Soon enough daddy caught up with us, but something seems different. Why is he doing those funny poses those other guys did? And why is he talking funny? Oh no! “Krillin, that’s not my dad.” Krillin doesn’t believe me, and tries talking to him. Damn it. Krillin is hurt. Who the hell is this guy, and what did he do to my dad?

Great, just great. My dad is now the purple guy. Just my luck. What a damn wonderful day. “Sun shine and rainbows kid.” Mr. Vegeta is just full of it. Whoever put a stick up his butt should pull it out. “One more smart remark kid, and I’m gonna shove my foot so far up your ass, I’ll wear you like a boot!” I’m just gonna walk away. No need to get violent Mr. Vegeta. “And stop calling me Mr. Damn it!”

…

I just had to let my guard down. I just had to think this was an easy win. Now I better find him, and get my body back. No way I could stay like this. What would Chichi think? Oh no! She will tell me how ugly am and not even want to kiss me, or worst. I need to get my body back! Or else my wife will never touch me or look at me ever again! I would rather die than let that happen. Careful Goku. Don’t want that coming true.

As I finally reach my son, Krillin, and Vegeta they seemed to be having problems fighting me. With some work, and luckily a frog, I was back to my body. Plus, Vegeta didn’t get his body taken. But boy did my body take a beating. Thankfully Vegeta told us about a medical bay on ship. When we got there, I saw a needle flying, and I wanted to hightail out of there. Thankfully, I didn’t need needles, and was place into a huge tank. It feels weird, but calming. Vegeta states I should be fine within an hour. I hope everything goes ok till then.

[bakersfield-row]

Am a Windows user, have never used anything but windows, am comfortable with windows.

Convince me to linux. Explain

I’m going to keep this short because I could make this infinitely long.

In a world where you really cannot trust big companies, windows has gotten very self conscious that they could track and sell every piece of data from their customer and add unnecessary features and no one would notice it, even though it actually makes the user experience worse. If you don’t have a key, you probably also have to over a hundred dollars just for some basic amenities, like changing a wallpaper.

Linux, in the other hand, is free and open source software (FOSS), which, in its simplest form, means that all the code is there for you to change and revise. Because of this openness, most Linux distros usually never have features to sell your data, and if they do, someone’s bound to make a patch to have that not happen. This means that Linux is much more safe and secure than windows by a long shot, and you really don’t have to worry about your information being sold to dubious companies.

Linux, with all its FOSS-ness, also allows anyone to make theirs distro look anyway you want. For instance, I personally prefer the look of MacOS to Windows (I know, probs controversial opinion). On windows, it’s be a pain in the ass to get it that way, especially without a key, while in Linux you can easily do that with relative ease, as long as you have a guide. Linux is just more freedom, something probably over said but still very true.

There’s other reasons why people would want to switch to Linux to. I didn’t really note that it’s less “bloated” than windows, which means that it has a lot less unnecessary features and thus will run way faster on any computer, especially old ones. Bloat has been kinda a controversial word in the community, since people like to argue that some distros are worse because they have more features. However, no matter what you choose, it’ll probably be better than windows.

The biggest drawback to Linux, in my opinion, is obviously app compatibility. I’ve mentioned gaming before, but that’s something that’s seedy vastly improved over the years. However, some popular apps are just incomparable with Linux, most notably the entire adobe suite and (unsurprisingly) Microsoft office. There’s a couple other things you can do to circumnavigate this.

You can try to find alternatives. GIMP works as a nice alternative to photoshop, Davinci Resolve has native Linux versions, and libreoffice is probably capable enough to replace word or PowerPoint.

You can try to install wine and pray to god it’ll work (though it probably won’t).

You can run a virtual machine and run windows with that, thought that’s not GPU accelerated and thus might be laggy.

OR, and this is the best option in my opinion, you can dual boot windows along side linux, so if you really need to use it, it’s there as an option. If you’re going to do this option, make sure to install windows first before Linux (because of some stupid thing where it erases it in grub or smtn) and that the two operating systems are on separate drives. Also try to debloat windows though guides on YouTube, but know that it won’t be as private as Linux.

Honestly, that’s as much as I have to say about the subject matter. Others are free to add on, since I probably missed a few things. You might not like it at first, but I do encourage you to at least try it. Hell, you might even like it so much that using windows is now alien to you (like me, lmfao).

Hope this helped, and remember, never type “sudo rm -rf /” in the terminal. (Aw fuck, I forgot to explain the terminal. Oh well, I hope someone can explain it to you, and if you get stuck on it there’s always guides online)

[gyu-dloml]

To Wonu, who's my sun, moon and all the stars ☆

Jeon Wonwoo. How are you so calm? Maybe you're not. Maybe you're just lazy and very unbothered. But I like to think you're calm. Calm like the sunrise. I've always thought sunsets were blazing and distracting. So you're like sunrises Wonu. Beautiful, still and peaceful to look at.

But when the sun is rising, it emits so much heat and scientific stuff when you look closer. But we don't see it. You don't let us see, Wonu. And for that I think you're incredibly strong. And it is very selfish but I'm glad, glad that you've been a constant and a pillar for a year and more of my life. Although I hope you have someone to lean on too sometimes, and I'm sure you do, it's the least what the world could give you.

Realistically speaking, I can't really give you anything. Nothing even close to the comfort and love that you and your members have always given me. Yes, some might argue that I could give my love. And trust me when I say this, seventeen already has all of it. But the love my clenched fist sized heart could give won't be enough, would it?

Wonu you're also the moon, like everyone says. You're my favorite thing in the sky. Tonight as I was trying to see the moon, I realized I can't see it properly, that's because I didn't have my glasses on. I still couldn't see it with clarity with my glasses too :( Well, that's a depressing story for another time, we're getting off topic.

You don't really need me to say anything. I don't even think I'm entitled to say anything, but something I'm sure of is that, you're a great son. I'm sure you always have been and always will be. Not only that, but you're also a great friend, a great idol and a great everything actually. You're also such a smart-ass. I always say it, but I mean it everytime that I hope you receive all the happiness and love that the world and I can give. It's impossible to always smile but I hope you smile more than anything else.

Oh my lovely Wonu, where would we be without you? I don't know and I don't want to know. So I'm ending this although I feel like I could say more. But you're not a sappy guy who'd like to hear me rant about how much I adore and admire you. So I'll shut up and try to keep this overflowing love contained all in my relatively little body. (Just kidding, I know our Wonu is very kind and would let me chew his ear off.)

Thank you and I love you Wonu <3 Please take care and do whatever makes you happy. You make me happy and giddy. I cry when you do, I'm a sensitive human :') You guys have always kept your promise - we cry together, we smile together.

Sincerely, with all my love,

Tia :3

To be honest, the feelings were very different than what I've written before for the other members. I wrote every members letter (or whatever this is) feeling very love sick kinda and admiring. But Wonu's was something else, I can't even find the word to explain it. I genuinely just hope in my heart that the world makes him happy. And it may be because of certain events that have made me view him in different light. A lot of us have faced loss, and so have I so it just feels like I want to give comfort to whoevers gone through what I have. If you've been having a rough time lately, although it's a shitty thing to say - this time will pass and you will heal. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't experienced it myself. So to my lovely peeps reading this, thank you so much for coming this far. I wish the best for you and trust me, happiness finds it's way. Keep holding on to that strong person you are, for Wonu. It's going to be very hard but it's nothing you beautiful being can't handle. Take care and eat well, my loves! Until next time <3

[uwuwriting]

Denki, Dabi and Bakugou in a secret relationship

Request: hii!! i loved your post about the secret relationship being exposed and i was wondering if you could do the same for dabi bakugo and denki - anonymous

Um this was supposed to go up yesterday, I had queued it but tumblr decided to just deleted. Oh well. I hope you like it you guys even though its a day late. This was fun to write. Love ya. 💖💖💖

rules

warnings: some sexy times mentions, fluff

Kaminari Denki

-Kaminari is an idiot.

-I don’t even know who you’ve managed to keep your relationship a secret.

-90% sure the whole school knows and just pretends to be oblivious. 

-Anyways.

-It kinda bothers him that he has to keep it a secret. 

-He wants to scoop you up and spin you around in the hallways, hug you after a really rough training session with Bakubro, kiss you when you are being extra extra cute. 

-Plus he wants to brag to the other idiots for getting a girlfriend first. 

-But alas he respects your wishes and tries to keep it all under wraps. 

-Your parents are pro heroes and have warned you about the dangers of dating since you are their kid. 

-Villains wouldn’t hesitate to threaten you with your significant other if it means they’ll get to your parents. 

-So now Kaminari is stuck sneaking in your dorm late at night only to spend a few hours with you and give you as much kisses as he can fit in the little time you have. 

-Surprisingly he has kept it a secret for almost a year now. 

-No slip ups, no marks on his skin after a spice night, none of your clothes could be found in his room whatsoever.

-Apart from his usual flirty nature towards you, there was nothing that could indicate that you two were an item. 

-Now being in your third year, things had gotten rather serious with your hero works.

-Most of you if not all had been working along side a pro hero for the last year or two but that didn’t mean they would take you in after high school. 

-Every student had to wait for the acceptance letter from the agency or an agency in general and they would be set for their hero work after school. 

-You had been working with a hero agency since your first year and you were pretty happy. 

-But the pro hero you had been with decided that after you were done with your hero studies, he would retire leaving you with no agency to boost your career after school. 

-Kaminari was as devastated as you were.

-He tried comforting you as much as he could, extra hugs and kisses, more snacks and movie nights, anything to help you cope with the fact that you would be back to the starting line once school was over. 

-He hated seeing you cry. 

-Then the unthinkable happened. 

-Mt.Lady was a well known hero and one with a desired sidekick position that no one seemed to really fill. 

-You had just helped her stop a major villain attack tricking the villain and capturing him before he could do any real damage in the area. 

-To say that Mt.Lady was impressed was an understatement. 

-She contacted your hero agency and asked if you had already signed a deal with them.

-You can see where this is going.

-When you got the notice from Mt. Lady’s agency you were over the moon and so was Kaminari. 

-He was so happy that the person he loved the most was finally getting what she deserved. 

-He had dragged you to the janitor’s closet to give you his personal congratulations, catching the attention of a certain red head.

-He kissed you like there was no tomorrow, his arms keeping you as close as possible, flush to his chest as he peppered your face and neck with feather light kisses. 

- “I’m so proud of you babe!”

-You tried to keep your giggles on the down low to no avail since Kaminari’s goal was to make you laugh. 

-For a long moment you didn’t care if someone found you, you were so happy and so comfortable in Denki’s arms that you didn’t want to leave the closet and go back to your hidden lives. 

-Then you saw the light coming from the door, getting ready to lightly scold Kaminari for leaving the door open when you made eye contact with Kirishima......and Mina ..... and Sero..... and somewhere in the far back with a pair of ruby red eyes.

- “Babygirl is everything alright?”

-He hadn’t seen them yet, then he followed your line of vision and the man has never yeeted you out of his arms faster in his life.

-Your friends just stared at you in complete shock for a full minute before Bakugou broke the silence. 

- “Oi you own me ramen Kirishima.”

Dabi

-With this guy I’m not surprised that you managed to keep it a secret. 

-Oh no no no.

-I’m surprised you managed to get him into a relationship.

-It wasn’t easy though you would give him that. 

-You were part of the LoV of course and well you didn’t really take any of their shit. 

-The only person you respected was Kurogiri and that was borderline pity. 

-He had to babysit a 20 year old killing machine with issues, many issues, many many issues. 

-When Dabi approached you with his signature flirty and I-only-do-one-night-stands-babygirl attitude, you being the idiot that you are took the bait.

-The LoV knows of yalls nights together but they only thought that that was it.

-Dabi slept around and you were a really attractive person. 

-Plus they knew you both were bored so sex was, to their eyes, the only solution. 

-What they didn’t know though was that Dabi was starting to catch feelings and soon enough he hated seeing you remotely talking with another human being. 

-Then that fateful mission happened and the deal was sealed. 

-You were spying on Overhaul and his lackeys, hidden in his underground lab watching as they went around doing stuff.

-Then you heard a childish scream and it was the first time Dabi saw fear flash in your eyes. 

-You turned around following the source of the screams absolutely ignoring Dabi’s protests and threats. 

-It was like you were in a daze and Dabi felt the terror sink his claws in his throat as you passed by so many of Overhaul’s members nearly getting caught. 

-When you reached the glass door that led into Eri’s experiment lab, he saw the color drain from your face and your knees buckling. 

-He caught you before you hit the floor dragging you away from the lab door despite the fact that you clawed at his coat to put you down. 

-He felt his shoulder getting wet and that’s when he saw the tears that were falling freely down your cheeks. 

-He had managed to calm you down long enough to convince you to leave before you got caught but luck wasn’t on your side when one of the lackeys spotted you. 

-Dabi was a few feet away from the exit, becoming reckless at the sight of freedom not noticing the masked individual pointing his gun at him. 

-You noticed though. 

-And you got in the way, pushing Dabi to the ground as the quirk cancelling bullet pierced your side leaving you to fall to the floor with a grunt and a strangled pained moan.

-The next few minutes were a blur.

-Dabi didn’t remember how he got you out of there or how he was now on a rooftop with you pressed flush against his chest as the affects of the bullet made you tremble. 

- “Shh doll, shhh. I’m here I got you.”

-He knew your trembling was not entirely because of the bullet, he saw how your eyes glassed over at the sight of Eri back in the lab and he knew that this had something to do with your past. 

-He used to get the same glassy eyed look on his face when he would see Endeavour on the news shortly after his “death”.

-Things changed after that. 

-He didn’t take you to the hideout that night, he brought you to his apartment where he helped you clean up your wound and calm down. 

- “I know it’s not my place to ask but what the hell to you happened back there?”

-When you explained what you’ve been through and how those screams brought back things you thought you had long ago buried, he was left gawking at you. 

-For some weird reason he believed that you were just a brat who ran away from home on some rebellious whim. 

- “Ugh what am I saying? You don’t give a damn! Why did I even-”

- “Touya.”

- “What?”

- “My real name is Touya, I-I wanted you to know.”

-Sharing a heart felt night analyzing your past trauma with someone you sleep with is one way to get yourself into a relationship.

-You both agreed to keep it secret and you did keep it like that for a long time, a very long time. 

-The LoV never truly found out. 

-Some had their suspicions sure, Mister Compress had even made a bet with Toga but you two never gave them any further hints apart from the constant paired up missions you went on. 

-The only one who knew was Kurogiri. 

-He had caught you two spending the night together on a rooftop, all cuddled up together your hands intertwined as you looked up at the stars. 

-He was getting back from an emergency snack run when he saw the familiar glow of Dabi’s blue flames and your characteristic giggles. 

-He never said anything and when Dabi came to him to ask for some pregnancy facts, he knew that he truly loved you. 

-No one ever knew and no one will ever know. 

-Unless the run into you two in five years while you’re out for a walk with your son. 

Bakugou Katsuki

-Sparky sparky boom boom man is a lil bitch.

-Don’t try to argue you know that too. 

-You just need to accept it.

-His way to approach you was by insulting the living shit out of you before making you reach the tip of an anger fit. 

-He knew how to press your buttons and it made you fume. 

-You had to give it to him he was hella attractive and his true personality shined through his faced at times. 

-And so did his worry for you.

-You got together after his kidnapping. 

-He suffered from nightmares after the incident and one night he came to your dorm, trembling and cold sweat running down his spine. 

-He had no idea why his feet led him to your room, he just knew that you were now wrapping him in a fluffy blanket and putting on a Disney movie as you hugged him so so tightly. 

-He slept over and the next morning he confessed. 

-Actually you both confessed but those are useless details. 

-In reality it wasn’t even a confession with words. 

-You both woke up facing each other, your noses touching and I don’t know who leaned in first but next thing you knew you were kissing his hand cupping you cheek while the other intertwined with yours. 

-Keeping your relationship a secret with this one is easy. 

-He is still being a lil bitch to you and you are still sassing him back.

-Behind closed doors he is kinda sweet and caring not a lot though because even with you he has to uphold his reputation. 

-After some time though he calms down and is a cuddle bug. 

-Like he will tackle you on the bed the moment you close the door to his dorm, restricting any movement until he is satisfied with the cuddles. 

-Baby even said ‘I love you’ first awwww!!

-He was so shy about it. 

-Anyways.

-That’s a story for another time. 

-He doesn’t really care about keeping it a secret anymore. 

-He’s low key tired of hiding. 

-Much like Kaminari he wants to kiss you whenever he wants, hold you and hug you till you can’t breathe after he gets back to the dorms after a rough patrol with his hero study. 

-But oh well the cat isn’t out of the bag yet and you being third years now you couldn’t really do something about it. 

-You spend so much time with him that you would think that some of your classmates would like sniff you out. 

-But no.

-They all dumb af.

-You would spend a lot of time with him and the Bakusquad since your first year so they just think you’re really good friends. 

-Todoroki kinda knows but he doesn’t at the same time. 

-Some mannerisms remind him while he was in a secret relationship before Momo found out but then he sees how Bakugou treats you just like any other person so he is really confused. 

-More confused than usual. 

-Now you got outed by the man himself. 

-Bakugou is not good with jealousy. 

-Jealousy and Bakugou should never go hand in hand.

-You were talking to Mina in class, leaning on the desk behind you. 

-Your skirt had ridden up show casing your thighs making Bakugou think back to some noises you made a few nights ago. 

-If he got hard he would blame you and he would be extra pissy. 

-He was enjoying the show though. 

-He watched you like a hawk.

-The way your body leaned back making your legs straighten and flex slightly or how he could see the hickey he had left right at the base of your neck the other night that you’ve tried to cover with make up. 

-He could see it because he knew it was there, to an outsider everything was normal. 

-He was jolted out of his daze by Mineta’s voice. 

-And the sound of your name on his lips. 

- “Look at Y/N’s thighs! She could suffocate me with those legs and I would thank her!”

-Kirishima smacked him upside the head trying to shut him up. 

-Kaminari was slowly escaping the scene because he saw the small sparks in his friend’s hand at the comment. 

-He chose life. 

-Mineta though didn’t stop. 

- “I could lose myself between those legs. Oh the noises she must make.”

-Now what happened next is a huge question mark. 

-The end result however was Mineta almost being blasted out the window and into space and Bakugou almost popping the vein on his forehead. 

-You had to get in between them and try to calm down your boyfriend. 

-Most of your classmates had long forgotten Mineta and his whining and had zoned in on your hands on Bakugou’s chest or on his arm that had wrapped around your waist in an attempt to push you behind him. 

- “You ever dare speak my girlfriend’s name I’m blasting you to the next dimension.”

- “Katsuki please calm down it’s fine.”

-Legit you both forgot that your relationship had been a secret for the past three years. 

-You floated back into reality when Present Mic himself asked. 

- “YOu TWo aRe aN iTeM?????”

-Chaos ensued and a crap ton of explanations. 

TAG TEAM AY:

@iwaqchan​ @the-arcana-fan-fic​ @angelwritings​ @axerrri​ @reinyrei​

[smallraindrops-blog]

Hi, just a heads up my ask is kinda specific and I apologize in advance. Could you do Hypnos x male reader, but the reader is the adopted son of Achilles and Patroclus. He’s usually dazed thinking about when he was alive and dwells on what happened when he was. Hypnos gets really excited when Hades sends for Thanatos to go get him from Elysium (currently stays in elysium with Patroclus) cause that means he gets to see him and watch him train. If you want to reject this, that’s okay, I get it.

Hey anon, sorry for the long wait and no worries about the specification. I actually found it kinda helpful. I just hope i got close to what you were looking for!

Wake me from this dreaming

Word count: 3.8

Hypnos x male! reader

Warning: violence, no kissing, some sexual/romance tension, flashback to death and war. No beta.

Just as quick extra note, this is not how real life ptsd works and any fighting advice is just off of Google, please understand that every thing is fictional.

It was the screaming that you remembered the most.

Achilles hunched over Patroclus' body, broken and bloodied. Screaming an inhuman sound that echoed in your head.

You knew you would carry that sound with you beyond your dying breath.

You should be screaming too you think but all you can do is tightened the hold on your spear.

Someone had to pay.

~~

You thought Elysium was beautiful. Or at least you did whenever you were able to force yourself out of the memories long enough.

Patroclus' voice was usually enough to pull you out. You blinked down at him, "Forgive me, Pa. I didn't hear you."

He waved a hand to the shade that stood before you, their spear at ready. "Another fool seeking glory."

You looked toward the warrior, "I guess I can't ask you to come back another time, can I?"

You stepped forward and Patroclus called out, "Mind your footwork. You were sloppy last time."

Countless Shades had seeked you out for the chance to earn the glory of beating the son of Achilles and Patroclus.

You slammed the bottom of the spear into the ground and walked to the shade without any weapons.

You smirked slightly at the nervous look the shade gave you.

And this fool before you was another thing to take down. And just like all the ones before them, it took a single hit.

You watched dispassionately as the shade fell apart before your eyes. But for a few moments you didn't see the shade but of the every soul you took laid before your vision. And the roaring of a crowd in your ears. You looked down at your fist and you could have sworn you saw it covered in blood.

"Y/n. Y/n." A hand touched your shoulder and you jerked around only to have your wrist caught by Patroclus.

You blinked, before you remembered exactly where you were. "I'm sorry. I-"

"Silence." Patroclus said gently. "Even after all this time?"

You didn't say anything for a moment. "Not all of it." You told him.

Just the worst of it.

Patroclus frowned and looked like he was about to say something when black smoke appeared.

You stared at the god that floated before you.

"Lord Hades had sent for you, Y/N." The god told you. You tried to remember what his name was.

"Why?" You asked.

The god gave you a disapproving glare. Thanatos, you suddenly remembered. You have seen him before...

"Do you need to know why Lord Hades sent for you?"

"Y/N, the god asked you a question." Patroclus shook you carefully. You blinked and pushed the call of the past away.

"A reason would be nice, yes."

"He wishes to speak to you. That is all the reasons you need."

You looked toward Patroclus, "Are you okay with me going?"

"Go. Tell Achilles I expect an explanation soon."

And with that you nodded, "Very well. Take me to Lord Hades."

~~

You weren't sure what to make of the house as Thanatos led you through a hallway. It felt like You were inside a living thing but none of the walls or floors moved.

What you did notice though was another god following behind you just down the end of the hallway. You turned your head around and saw a head full of white curls peeked around the corner, you couldn't quite see their face. A hand stuck out to waved excitedly at you.

You stared, not quite sure what make of the strange being or day you were having.

Thanatos snapped,"Hypnos, I know you have work to do. Leave now."

Hypnos ducked away, only to peek around again after a few seconds.

What an odd creature.

Thanatos opened the wide double door, "This is Lord Hades' private study so mind your manners." He warned as the door closed behind you.

You walked forward to the looming desk in the dark room. It looked just the one you passed with a long line of shades awaiting for Hades to appear.

Achilles stood before it and you could feel his rage coming off of him. When you saw him this angry when you both were alive, it usually meant some people were going to lose their heads. It was a rare sight now to see him almost shaking in rage.

It was all the warning you needed.

Hades looked up from your father and smiled.

It wasn't a kind one.

"Lord Hades, thank you for welcoming me to your home." You glanced over to Achilles, "Father."

You hoped he heard the unspoken words. His blue eyes met your and you almost frowned at the guilt you saw there.

"Now, Achilles, will you explain the situation to your son or shall I?" Hades asked, sounding pleased with himself.

You kept your face blank, not giving away the worries you felt. Achilles took a deep breath before turning to you.

"Lord Hades wants us to make a decision. To keep Patroclus in Elysium, I will be 'retiring' and you will have my current job."

"Or?" You asked. Achilles's mouth tightens, "Or Patroclus will be kicked out of Elysium along with you, and I will not be allowed again to have any contact."

So no decisions, just threats. What did Achilles do to make Lord Hades change the deal?

You looked at Achilles then to Lord Hades. "It would be an honor to serve the house, Lord Hades but may I make a request?"

"Oh? What request is that?" Hades glowered at you but you kept your blank face even if you wanted to personally slam your spear between his eyes.

"My father, Achilles will have his retirement in Elysium along with my other father, Patroclus." You paused, "And the retirement is permanent."

Achilles whipped his head and hissed, "Lad, what do you think you're doing? That was already part of the deal, don't waste it."

"Done." Hades said, "lucky for you, Achilles. Y/N is more like Patroclus, he is able to actually think ahead. You didn't even ask where I was sending you for your retirement. You are both dismissed."

Achilles opened his mouth to argue but you placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He glared at you but kept his mouth shut.

"Of course, thank you, lord Hades." You tugged your father to follow you out. As you followed your father down the hallways, you looked over to him.

"Pa is going to be furious." You told him mildly. Achilles just groaned.

~~

You met Hypnos, the odd little creature that followed you around, on the first day of your duty. Even if the first hour was Hypnos just peeking around the corner.

"I've heard of you, even all the way down here." Hypnos told you when he finally found his courage. He was floating but you see the excitement in his body, if he was on his feets, he would be rocking on his heels.

With his curls and his big golden eyes, he reminded you of those too pretty boys that rich politicians would bring along to watch fights while leaving the wives at home.

He leaned forward, his hand resting under his chin. His golden eyes watching your face with a curious look.

"Y/N, the Greek hero who took out monsters in a single strike, was able to hold off Ares and is the son of Achilles and Patroclus. Both great warriors in their own right." He smiled. "Is it true by the way?"

For a moment, all you saw was Ares' mad eyes staring down at you and the taste of blood in your mouth. Everything else had faded away, the sand and screaming of dying men echoed and all you knew is blood and blood and blood and blood -

“Y/N?” Hypnos’ voice, confused and almost too soft, pulled you out.

"Yes. I fought him.” And you said nothing else and stared at the wall. You didn’t realize the memories had taken you for a trip. Normally, only your fathers' voices were able to pull you back.

"You must tell me how!" He filled in your vision, his eyes wide and hopeful.

“No.” You said bluntly. "I'm busy." And you're too attractive for someone so irritating, you thought.

“But-“ Hypnos pouted and you had made yourself look away before you got caught staring at his mouth.

"Hypnos, don't bother him. It is still his first day." Prince Zagreus spoke from behind Hypnos.

Hypnos spun away from you and floated around Zagreus. "Oooh, so how did you die this time? Did a chariot run you over again?"

Zagreus gave a strained smile in greeting. "Forgive Hypnos, I think he forgot his manners when he heard you were joining us in the house."

You shook your head, "It's perfectly fine, your highness." You stared at the prince, the whole reason you were even here was because he looped your father into helping with his runaway attempts.

Zagreus nodded, his face polite but nervous. "Achilles told me I should train with you. That you are actually better at fighting than he is."

"Only in hand to hand combat, otherwise, if you give my father a spear he would win every time." You told him, trying to push away the memories but you could already smell the sharp tang of blood.

"He fought a tribe of centaurs when he was a mere child, Zagreus and he won!" Hypnos gushed, "And he took down Ares!"

You shook your head slightly and the smell of blood went away. Hypnos did it again.

How odd.

Hypnos used Zagreus' head as an armrest much to the latter's displeasure. Zagreus shook him off as he asked, "You killed Ares?"

"No, just knock him out long enough to let my men escape." You left it at that. Ares was more monster than god, and you would rather not revisit those nightmares.

"Zagreus if you like, I can train you later. It would be interesting to see how different our training might be." You said, hoping they would take the hint.

Zagreus nodded, "Of course, I will come find you later."

Zagreus moved to leave but upon seeing that Hypnos wasn't going to leave, grabbed Hypnos' by his cape and pulled him away.

"Come on, Hypnos. I think you do even less work than I do, and I don't even work anymore." Zagreus said pleasantly but an undercurrent of a warning.

You didn't hear Hypnos' response beyond an offended gasp.

You shook your head, no wonder Achilles only wanted quiet when he came to see you and Patroclus.

~~

Of course when it was time for Zagreus' training with you, Hypnos followed along. You thought about kicking him out but knew he would sneak back in later. You know because this wasn't the first time you trained Zagreus and nothing else seemed to work.

Also for some reason, this god ended up being a grounding point for you. You didn't want to admit it but it made being in the house bearable and not a daily fight to stay in the presence. Not that you needed his help.

You pointed toward Zagreus to the middle of the room and turned to Hypnos who beamed up at you. "You. Corner. If I hear one peek from you…" You warned.

Hypnos held his hands and floated silently to the corner. You ignored how Hypnos' eyes followed you around the room. Hypnos wasn't the first fan boy you had and as long you don't feed the attention seeking, he will get bored sooner or later.

Zagreus was a good student. Mostly. But you could tell your father was more careful with him than he was with you.

You shook your head and held up an open hand, "Hit me again."

Zagreus swung a fist into your hand, only to hit the side of your palm. "Alright, step back."

You crossed your arms, "You need to be more intentional in your hits. You're creating more work for yourself. And you won't always have that sword on you." 

Zagreus frowned, "I'm fighting monsters down there, not humans. If I don't have a weapon, they're not going down."

"Like I said you won't always have a weapon in you. Lord Hades took away my father, and that was your best tool. What are you going to do if he takes away your weapons and you can't get them back?"

You raised a brow and asked "Are you going to stay down here and obey like a good little boy?"

And you could tell you stuck a nerve at the scowl Zagreus gave you. Hypnos made a mocking sound and Zagreus whipped his head around to glare at Hypnos.

You mentally sighed, your father got soft over the years. Just for arguing back, Achilles would have You running laps from sunup to sundown while carrying bags of feed.

"Here, let's wrap up with a quick brush up for your next lesson." You said, not bothering to comfort him. The sooner you can break Zagreus out of your father's soft training, the better. "Do you know all the weak points of a body?"

Before Zagreus could respond, Hypnos butted in. "Oooh, I do! Eyes and groin!"

You took a breath when suddenly an idea came to you. You turned to the god, "Hypnos, since you're so eager, come on over here."

Hypnos looked at Zagreus who shrugged then back to you. "Okay." He dragged out the word with suspicion in his tone.

"Well?" You asked, keeping your tone friendly with a smile on your face. You waited until Hypnos got close enough to grab his shoulders and forced him to stand on his feet.

You grabbed his face with a hand, squishing his cheeks. He made a squeaky sound and you bit back a smirk. A little humiliation should be enough to get Hypnos to stay away and you can focus on what you came here to do. The only reason you bothered with helping Zagreus was because your father asked you too.

"Pay attention, I expect you to remember this for your next lesson." You told Zagreus.

"Hypnos got two right, but he forgot about the nose and honestly, almost anything you will ever fight will have a weakness here." You tapped Hypnos between his eyes which made him blinked. "Hit here or here if you can get a good upward swing ," you tapped the tip of Hypnos' nose, "With preciseness you won't need much force and you save energy as well."

Next You turned his head toward you and could see the start of a flush. Good, it was working.

You pointed to the area between the ear and jaw, "This won't kill but it will make your opponent dizzy and that could buy the second you need to finish them."

You went on listing other parts of the body for Zagreus and Hypnos obediently went along with it. Moving his arm and lifting a leg up.

"And lastly, the groin like Hypnos said earlier but I doubt I need to go in depth about that area." You finished as you let Hypnos go.

"Got it?" You asked.

"Yes, sir." Zagreus smirked at his friend's misfortune.

`Hypnos just stayed silent, flushed to his hairline.

~~

You were sure you wouldn't see Hypnos for a while but the little god surprised you. Just a day after the training, he seeked you out.

"Achilles didn't teach you how to fight, did he?" Hypnos asked. His dark circles were deeper than normal and you got the feeling he didn't get much rest.

"What makes you say that?" You asked, actually curious about Hypnos' thought process.

"I mean, you're unusually strong and you seem to have, let's say, a more ruthless fighting style than your father does. Not bad, mind you, just different." Hypnos shrugged, "I've seen him train Zagreus. And it's just different."

You thought about bushing him off, but something about how tired he looked made you speak up. "You're right. Kinda. He wasn't my first teacher. I was sold as a child for a fighting ring. And they usually don't let the loser live." You tighten your hold the spear, to ward off the memories.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't imagine." Hypnos said. "I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories."

You blinked several times, "You didn't."

But the look on Hypnos' face told you he didn't believe you.

~~

Screaming. Inhuman mad screaming.

Patroclus' body broken on the ground and Achilles stared past You even as you tried to talk to him.

You felt like you lost both of your fathers as you trailed behind Achilles on his warpath.

Hands wet with blood and you think you should be screaming too but Patroclus was broken and gone and the screaming never stopped-

"Y/N. Hey, Y/N." Hypnos stood in front of you, his big golden eyes concerned. For a moment, you weren't standing in the East wing with Hypnos.

But a burning city and people running and crying. And Hypnos stood in the middle of it.

What was the little god doing here?

“Y/N!”

You blinked and you were back in the east wing, no smoke or no fire or crying followed.

“Hypnos?” You realized you had a tight grip on Hypnos’ arm as if you wanted to yank him out of the memories.

You let go. “I-i my apologies, Hypnos. I-“

“Wowie, that must have been a bad one huh?” Hypnos didn’t look upset and you frowned at him. “Are you not…?” You trailed off, not sure what to say.

“No.” Hypnos said softly. “I know the story about how you… Died and what happened to your head.” Hypnos waved a hand toward his own head, trying to make his point clear. “I guess what I’m saying is no, I’m not upset or mad or whatever. I just wanna know if you’re okay.”

You said nothing for several moments, looking at Hypnos’s kind face and realized to your great shame exactly how little you understood Hypnos and his intentions.

“Yes, thank you.” You told him softly.

~~

You tapped your foot as you waited on Zagreus to show up. You have been in the house for several months now and Zagreus didn't always show up for training especially since he was getting closer to the surface.

Hypnos floated lazily around the room, waiting for you to look away so he could touch one of the weapons.  Normally Skully was here to chase him off but apparently not even Skully wanted to show up.  

After a few more minutes and warning Hypnos off on touching the spear, you got tired of waiting for Zagreus.

"Come on, Hypnos I think his highness must be on one of his attempts." You told him.

"Wait, wait or you could train me!" Hypnos circled you. He gave you the puppy dog eyes and you shook your head.

"Please. I've been so good when you're training Zagreus! Just one time." Hypnos begged.

And of course, you gave in.

"Alright. On your feet."

You chuckled at Hypnos' cheering.

Hypnos was… You didn't know what he was. After the day of failed attempts of embarrassment, Hypnos stuck around. He would follow you around like a lost puppy whenever he could.  

You knew he was lonely, quietly trying to repair the broken bonds with his family. That he had near encyclopedia knowledge about Greek Heroes and monsters, even about your own fathers'. That he loved sweets but would eat raw honey every time if given the chance.

And the fact that just like your fathers, he was able to pull you back into the now.

He was...

Friend, you think firmly, he had become a friend.

~~

“Can I ask you something? Like super personal?” Hypnos said out of the blue one day. You raised an eyebrow, “I have never known a personal question to stop you before but sure, you can ask me.”

“Why haven’t you drunk from the river Lethe? Wouldn’t it help?” Hypnos said, biting a thumbnail.

Oh. No wonder he was nervous.

“I don’t want to forget. I need to remember as much as I can.” You told him gently. Hypnos tilted his head, confusion on his face.

“If I forget, I won’t be the same person. You can’t forget without losing a part of yourself and I want to keep all of me. The bad and good.” You tried to explain, feeling like you sound like a cheesy philosopher.

“Oh. I think I get it.” Hypnos said. His smile was small but warm. Blood and darkness, you had gotten soft. You couldn’t stop the bust of fondness that your chest and you already looked like a fool so why not go farther?

“Like you, I wouldn’t want to forget you, Hypnos.” You said, a blush forming on your cheeks.

Hypnos blinked as if he didn’t understand what you just said but you saw a blush form on his own cheeks.

“I wouldn’t want to forget you too, Y/N.”

Part two

[chefdoeuvre]

Empty Threats

Jay Halstead

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Ruzek!Reader, Adam Ruzek x Sister!Reader

Description: Best friends tell each other everything, right?

Words: 1,360

Requested: yes by anonymous; I had an idea where Adam ruzek has a younger sister (early 20s) who's a paramedic and she starts dating jay and Adam gets super overprotective when finds out a few months into the relationship but is also hurt she didn't tell him

Warnings: fluff (need I explain?), overprotective Adam, Adam being a bimbo (like usual), reader being sassy, mild language?

A/N: Jay Halstead and Adam Ruzek deserve the world. Does this count as a Jay or an Adam fic? I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors.

—

Your big brother Adam, your best friend and largest support system. He was there for you when no one else could be. To say the two of you were close would be a drastic understatement. Both of you went in the same path as first responders, him a cop with the Intelligence unit and you a paramedic at Firehouse 51. You had your respective work families that always managed to come together at Molly's after shifts. Meaning when you were introduced to the resident Intelligence hottie and Adam's work friend you immediately hit it off with him. Drinks at Molly's turned to take out at home watching the Blackhawks. Telling your brother every little thing about your life turned into keeping your best-kept secret, Jay Halstead.

The two of you had a few blissful and dare I say romantic months. You practically began staying over at his place more often than yours. Adam being the oblivious bimbo of a big brother you had, didn't notice anything that was happening between you and Jay when you all gathered for hangouts at Molly's. How could he, someone in the prestige Intelligence unit, not be able to pick up on the longing looks you and Jay shared? You would probably never know. Of course, the only people to know you and Jay were in a relationship were each other. It's not that you wanted to hide it, it was just nice to come home and have each other to yourselves.

Now the two of you were nearing the point of just wanting to come out and say it because the hiding had just become harder to do. Jay never liked to admit it but whenever you were around he was always touchy. Wanting to either keep a hand on the small of your back or your thigh or simply holding your hand. He just had to keep you in reaching distance and whenever you were around friends you had to act like you barely talked to each other outside of that bar. Jay was beginning to get fed up with the sneaking around, sure, he has to the same thing for his job but he didn't feel the need to continue doing it in his relationship. It's not like you explicitly said that the two of you had to sneak around your friends it just kind of happened that way.

Here the two of you were, sitting on Jay's couch cuddled up and watching the Blackhawks game while sipping on a beer and munching on some pizza. In all honesty, you weren't even paying attention to the game on the television. You were too busy playing with Jay's hand he had wrapped around your shoulders. Your head was resting on his chest as you listened to his heartbeat, it almost lulling you to sleep.

Breaking you out of your reverie was a knock on Jay's door. The two of you shared a confused glance before a louder knock was heard. Jay had gotten up to answer the door while you pouted at the loss of his warmth. Five minutes had passed and Jay was still standing at the door. With furrowed brows, you got up and padded toward his entryway.

"Jay, who is it?" You asked, rubbing your suddenly tired eyes.

"Was that my sister?" You heard the voice of your older brother question.

"Oh, crap." You muttered mentally facepalming as Adam pushed his way into Jay's apartment.

"Hey, big brother." You greeted him with an awkward smile as he stood in front of you with a look of disbelief.

"Out of everyone in Chicago, my sister?" Adam asked.

"I'm standing right here you know." You rolled your eyes at his overprotectiveness.

"We'll talk about this later." Adam looked pointedly at you before turning to face Jay, "you and I are going to have an important chat."

Jay stood there with an amused look on his face as he watched the younger man attempt to threaten him, an army veteran and current detective for the Intelligence unit. You stood behind the taller of the two men with crossed arms and your hip jutted out. Jay's eyes flickered over to your figure as he bit back a loud laugh. You looked just about done with this entire situation while Adam continued to drone on with empty threats.

"Adam, can you just stop?" You spoke up in annoyance.

Adam whipped his head around at the sudden sound of your voice. He caught your droopy eyes and pouted lips, ah yes the infamous puppy eyes. The baby Ruzek trademark as he'd like to call it. With his back turned to Jay the man in question smiled widely as he noticed what you were trying to do.

"No, stop that. I'm trying to be serious here." Adam argued, waving a pointed finger at your face.

"It's half past midnight, what are you even doing here?" You questioned with crossed arms.

"It's confidential information." Adam retorted.

"He was asking me advice on how to get Kim back." Jay spoke up from behind the taller man.

"Seriously?" Adam deflated and turned to Jay with a scowl.

"You couldn't have just asked him after work tomorrow?" You raised your eyebrows.

"It was a time-sensitive situation." Adam said flatly.

"Yeah, okay." You laughed unconvinced, "I'm tired, can we finish this tomorrow? I just had a double shift." You rubbed at your eyes again.

"I'll drive you home." Adam nodded as he grabbed your arm to pull to the door.

"But—" You scoffed.

"No, I'm driving you home where you can be sassy without your boy toy to help gang up on me." Adam shook his head.

"Boyfriend." You corrected.

"Whatever." Adam shrugged.

You pulled on your jacket and slipped on your shoes before turning back to Jay and placed a quick kiss on his lips, "I'll see you later." You smiled as Adam grabbed your forearm and pulled you out the door.

Eventually, the two of you pulled up to your apartment building. The entire ride there Adam was lost in his thoughts, meaning he was thinking about the fact his baby sister was dating his coworker and friend. He silently shifted in his seat to face you. You looked at him expectantly while he formulated his thoughts into words.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Adam asked, tilting his head to the side.

"It's not like I did it on purpose. It just kinda happened." You shrugged.

"But you always tell me everything. I guess not anymore." Adam scoffed.

"Adam, if this makes you feel any better you're the first one to know." You suggested hoping to get him to stop pouting.

"How long?" Adam nodded before asking.

"A few months." You answered.

"And I'm the first?" Adam questioned.

"Isn't that what I just said?" You asked.

"Fair enough." Adam nodded, "next time I don't want to walk into my sister and her boy toy though." Adam relaxed slightly.

"Boyfriend." You corrected again.

"Same difference." Adam pursed his lips.

"So we're good?" You asked hopefully.

"Yeah, as long as I get actual information from now on. And if he hurts you I won't hesitate to hurt him and make Olinsky help cover for me." Adam crossed his arms.

"All right, I'll take that." You nodded reluctantly, "just don't hurt him too bad, okay?"

"No promises." Adam laughed.

You leaned forward and placed a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you." You smiled widely.

"What can I say? I'm a great big brother." Adam shrugged nonchalantly.

You laughed before stepping out of his car to head into your apartment.

"No staying over at his place anymore!" Adam called out.

"I'm not sixteen anymore, Adam." You shook your head, "I'll do what I want."

"I swear I'm putting a tracker on you." Adam argued.

"Good luck with that, big brother. Bye!" You waved before opening the door to your building and headed in.

It's safe to say none of Adam's threats worked but Jay played it off for the sake of his sanity. It's not like Jay would hurt you anyway, he's learned from his mistakes if you could call them that.