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singularity-sam · 1 month ago

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Insane Stories From Belobog's Trash Cans - Volume 8: Adopted Wings

Tagged People: @tragedy-of-commons, @veraties, @theother-victoria, @snobwaffles.

(Disclaimer: This story contains mentions of death, trauma, anxiety, and hardship throughout.)

“Everything will be fine. I may be new to being a ground crew pilot, but my practice in the exams is paying off. I promise, I’ll be safe!”, Qingni said to Yukong as she headed out the doors of the Sky-Faring Commission that morning. Even though she told her to be cautious and that they’ve reconciled over their differences recently, her anxiety over her safety flying Starskiffs still crept into the back of her mind. Thoughts like, “Will she really be alright? Does she know what she is doing? What if… the Starskiff crashes…?”, flooded her mind. Regardless, she remained focused on her current tasks as Helm-Master and reassured herself of her daughter's strength.

For most of the day, all was well. The entire morning and early afternoon went by without any issues. This made Yukong feel more relieved and her worries began to subside little by little. “Looks like she can handle herself.”, she thought, “I do worry about her too much. I should have more faith in her. She is Caiyi’s child, after all…” Realizing her mistake, she shook her head and internally corrected her thought with: “No… She’s mine, too. And I need to continue to look after her.” This put her mind at further ease and she managed to get even more work done than usual, feeling extra motivated by Qingni’s resolve.

As mid afternoon approached, Yukong was snapped out of her diligence by a conversation she overheard two members having in the corner near her desk. “I heard the ground crew’s having trouble right now.”, one of them said. The other nodded and replied with: “Yeah, that’s at Stargazer Navalia, I believe.” They walked away after they said this, so Yukong couldn't hear anymore of it. Their words made her uneasy, since that was the exact location and occupation her daughter was working at that moment. Still, she rationalized her worries by thinking, “No need to worry. It doesn’t sound serious. Besides, there are many others there…”, to herself calmly.

However, any pretense at being completely calm and stoic were shattered when she heard what sounded like a small explosion in the direction of Stargazer Navalia. As her Foxian ears perked up and registered the sound, her heart rate spiked immensely. It didn’t sound dangerous, with no one else seeming to be bothered by it, just the location of it unnerved her. Yukong took a long, deep breath and thought logically once more. “Perhaps I’m just hearing things…”, she said quietly to herself, “I must let these doubts go.” While this didn’t dissipate all of her anxiety, it slowed down a bit. She wasn’t usually this uneasy, but her typically independent and hard-working nature breaks down a little when it comes to Qingni.

Before she could get back to work, her secretary, Xikui, came up to her desk to speak with her. “What should we do about the recent Starskiff crash?”, she asked. This froze Yukong in place and caused her to zone out for a few moments. Her previous anxieties came back with a vengeance and she couldn’t even speak. All of the hair on her ears and tail stood up in shock. As she thought about what Starskiff crash Xikui was talking about, her gaze flew over to the model Starskiff that sat on her desk. Her time as a pilot flooded her mind, all the nostalgic and painful memories both came forth. The nearby ceremonial candle flame that also was near her desk triggered her trauma to even higher degrees.

Images of her best friend came up, along with all the loss of her absence. The haunting moment of Caiyi's last wish for Qingni and her charred, mangled body that Yukong held in her arms while crying next to her destroyed Starskiff in the Third Abundance War wormed its way into her vision, overlapping the model and flame… Tears began to form in her eyes as the thought of Qingni, who bore Caiyi’s visage every day, suffering the same outcome became too much for her panicked mind to bear.

Despite the irrationality and hastiness of her thoughts, she knew what she should do. She managed to regain some of her stoicism and asked: “Xikui, can you watch over the Sky-Faring Commission while I’m gone? I need to make sure Qingni is fine. I’ll be back shortly…” Xikui turned and looked at her with a slightly puzzled expression before answering with, “Yes, Helm-Master.”, in a neutral tone. Yukong then swiftly headed to the exit of the building. Once she exited, she started to walk in the direction of Stargazer Navalia, moving fast while Qingni’s well-being occupied her thoughts all the way there.

After a little while of fear-inducing steps, she reached the cargo section of Stargazer Navalia. She looked around somewhat frantically, searching for Qingni. Of course, she was worried that she would find a crashed Starskiff or worse… When she didn’t see her anywhere, she wasn’t sure what to think. The anxious thoughts took over and she needed to find her. As she was about to go off and search for her further in, she heard someone walking towards her before stopping behind her. “Mom? What are you doing here?”, Qingni stated, “I still have an hour left of my shift. You seem worried… What’s wrong?”

The sound of her voice made Yukong swivel around and face her with a relieved smile. “Qingni… You’re safe!”, she said while sighing. She gave a wry smile and replied, “Sure I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”, while shrugging her shoulders. Yukong took a deep breath and prepared to voice her concerns about what she heard earlier, feeling better each second after seeing that Qingni is fine. “I… just heard some people at the Sky-Faring Commission mention some trouble around here.”, she explained, “As well as an explosion coming from this direction earlier, along with Xikui mentioning a recent Starskiff crash…” Qingni giggled after hearing her words, saying: “Oh, that? We had some of the cargo around here being delayed, that's all. And the explosion was just a routine cannon fire from the Skysplitter in preparation for the upcoming Wardance ceremony. I think that Starskiff crash happened last week, if I recall correctly. I told you, everything’s fine… You’re over worrying again…”

Yukong then looked down at the ground, feeling embarrassed by her overreactions. “You’re right, I got carried away… I deeply apologize, Qingni. I should have more faith in you…”, she said solemnly, “It’s just… hard to let the past go, since I worry about you so much…” Qingni nodded and smiled warmly. “I understand… That’s why I’m doing this pilot business one step at a time, out of safety. And I really appreciate you looking out for me, Mom! I used to be annoyed by it, but I understand it’s because you really do care for me and my life… So, thanks for checking on me. It won’t get worse, I promise. You’re my mother for a reason!”, she said.

Despite Qingni’s empathetic words, Yukong still doubted herself over her flaws. She gripped her hands together as she pessimistically said: “Do I deserve to be called that…? You look nearly identical to Caiyi, your birth mother. I may have been her best friend, but I haven’t done well enough while raising you… I only just realized I was hindering your dreams recently, and I feel like I’m not good enough to be a parent. I appreciate your sympathy, but it still feels like I’m not living up to Caiyi’s legacy somehow…” Qingni frowned in reaction, before proceeding to close the distance between them while responding, “Don’t say that, Mom! We talked about this before… You ARE my mother, always have been and always will be. And like I just said, you’re doing fine, and so am I. We’ve already worked out our differences, so we should be closer, not farther… Besides, your friend is my mother too. And I like having two mothers! She would be happy for you, I’m sure of it…”, to her in a long hug.

Yukong reacted to her child’s moving words and affirmations by tears forming in her eyes and sniffling out the words: “Thank you, Qingni… You’re right once again. You really are my sweet little daughter. And we shall continue to remain close, it’s what your other mother would’ve wanted… You really are the mirror image of Caiyi.” She held her closer and gave her a kiss on her forehead, finally feeling some affection towards her daughter for the first time in a long while. And though Caiyi wished for Qingni to not become a pilot as she died, when Yukong now looks upon her face, perhaps her friend’s face being present there is a way of showing that maybe she only said that out of desperation, and would be more accepting towards their bond, if she were still alive…

After another minute, they let go of each other and wiped the tears from their eyes. Qingni laughed awkwardly, hoping others didn’t see them. “Heh, glad that’s taken care of now. I feel better already! Well… I hate to say it, but I have to get back to work.”, she stated while scratching her head. Yukong smiled warmly and said, “...I do as well. And don’t worry, I won’t come out here all worried like this again.”, in response. Qingni nodded in contentment and began to turn to leave.

“Before you go, I would like to ask you something.”, Yukong said to her, causing her to stop and turn around to face her, “When you get more training and experience, would you mind taking us on a Starskiff flight, just for fun? I have wanted to fly again for hundreds of years, and if you show me how far you will surely come, I feel like I can fully face my past and move on, once and for all… How does that sound?” Qingni stood stunned for a few moments once she processed her mother’s request, before then smiling widely and following up with: “I’d love that, Mom! It would be good for you too, I agree. And my other mom would definitely want that, surely! Anyway, I’ll see you at home this evening. Just you wait, you’re gonna love my flying skills! It’s a promise.” Then, she waved her mother off before walking away towards the cargo and other crew members.

Yukong watched her go and stood in silence at the docks for a while, thinking about all that occurred that day. She looked up at the Luofu’s skies, seeing the stars surrounded by various energy sources and spacecraft, most notably Starskiffs. She knew that she had to go back to the Sky-Faring Commission soon, not wanting Xikui or the others to get overburdened. But she wanted to savor the view just a little longer, since it reminded her of her past, and Qingni’s future…

“She really is your child, Caiyi… Both yours and mine. That’s why we were such good friends, we were proactive about Starskiffs and flying… I hope she surpasses both of us and Guangyuan at this passion. But perhaps this can put you fully at rest as well… While I may not fly anymore, our little Qingni has given us the wings to continue on with life in this galaxy, no matter what happens… Now, I believe that adopted wings still work as well as natural wings, since they carry people to greater places. Starskiff or not, she shall make us happy!”, she said with integrity. As she finishes her monologue, a lone Starskiff flies overhead near the sky barrier. She imagines herself riding it, with Qingni as the pilot all grown up and Caiyi watching over her. Her family is her wings, and they will carry her out of her regret and into the skies where freedom touches everything!

[Writer’s Commentary: I’ve had this topic about a story with Yukong and Qingni for a while now. I love the quest involving them and I thought creating a follow up of sorts to see how their relationship has progressed would be nice. I know this perhaps got a bit too overly sentimental, but I loved doing it. Healing bonds between parents and children is something that gets me in the feels and I almost started crying while writing the ending… I think that Yukong’s tragic past deserved a happier conclusion, like an expanded version of the quest’s ending, so I’m glad I could do that. I’m a little worried that I mischaracterized her and the others, but I did the best I could. I know this is not perfect, but I’m not trying to be. It made me feel something, and I hope it does to you as well! That’s all there is to say, it came out longer than I expected. So, enjoy and I wish you to feel freedom, too!]

#—stellaronhvnters.#honkai star rail #hsr #star rail #yukong #hsr yukong #hsr qingni #hsr xikui #hsr caiyi #oneshot #fluff #angst #fluff and angst #gen fic #family #family love

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inadaydream99 · 2 years ago

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Even When You Were Invisible

Based on the movie The Princess Diaries (2001)

NCT Dream Jisung x fem reader, fluff

A/N - so I recently rewatched The Princess Diaries and just had to write this into a oneshot. This focuses more onto the budding romance side-plot of the film, so I’ve taken some liberties and adapted the narrative a bit. This is also unedited for now - please excuse any spelling/grammar mistakes!

Disclaimer: I have used a direct quote from the film which is in italics. I am not trying to replicate the film, just use the plot as inspiration. I do not take any credit for this plot. This does not represent any of the members in real life and is for entertainment purposes only. Jaemin’s character does not reflect him and is purely to fulfil the shallow character he plays. Mild use of language (like 5 swears, maybe??)

“How’s my baby?” You gleam at Jisung, catching him off guard from where he’d been so focused on tinkering around with the car engine in front of him. He bolts upright beside you, quickly grabbing hold of the car bonnet and slamming it down before reaching into his pocket to pull out the rag he uses to wipe off the engine oil from his hands.

“All good.” His voice comes out strained, watching as your smile somehow grows wider. He observes the way your hand smooths over the shiny baby blue metal of the car, gazing into the way it reflects your loving expression.

“Well, she looks amazing.” Your eyes flicker up to meet his, watching the way his Adam’s apple bops. “Thank you, Sungie.”

“Oh, it was really no problem…” he gushes, playing down all the turmoil your precious car has given him over the last few weeks. Not that Jisung ever plans on telling you about all the extra hours he’s spent fixing up your car for you. He doesn’t mind at all. He spends most of his free time at the garage anyway because his band is also allowed to practice there in return for Jisung helping out repair some cars.

It’d be a dead giveaway to all of the feelings he has towards you and he also knows you’d insist on paying him extra for his time if you knew when you’ve already put every penny of your savings into repairing the car you’d worked so hard to get.

Besides, with the way you look at him now, radiating so much adoration, Jisung feels it’s more than enough compensation for his hard work.

“You’re the best!” You reach out to ruffle his hair the second he ducks his head shyly from your compliment. Whispered giggles tumbling from his lips as his cheeks burn. “Can I pick her up tomorrow after school?” You shine those big doe-like eyes at him.

“No problem.” Jisung nods, smiling warmly. And he watches you skip out of the garage with so much excitement, shouting a “see you at school!” over your shoulder. Just as you have left his line of sight, Jisung is called over by his band mates for practice. And while they spend the rest of the evening playing their songs, Jisung continues to replay your interaction over in his mind. Damn, he’s down bad for you.

You reach home quicker than usual, thanks to the spring in your step from Jisung’s amazing work with your baby. You’re so unbelievably excited to finally be able to drive your dream car. You’ve wanted a baby blue mustang since you can remember, so you’d scraped all of your savings from your part time job together to buy the old beaten up car and payed the garage where Jisung works to make your car dreams come true.

“That you honey?” You hear your mom call as you walk further into your house. She sends you a smile over her shoulder when your bag clatters onto the kitchen table. Picking up an apple from the fruit bowl as you watch her refocus on the painting before her.

“Did you get another commission?” You speak through half-chewed apple.

“Uh-huh.” You mom hums, placing down her brush carefully onto the tray beside her easel before turning to you. “Who knew posting my art online would rake in so much work?”

“I did.” You tease, taking another bite of your apple.

Your mom shakes her head at you while rinsing her hands in the sink. All the while, you push yourself away from the counter, grabbing your bag to begin heading to your room.

“(Y/N), wait!” Your mom calls just as you reach the stairs. “Your grandmother called today. The live one.” Your mom adds upon seeing your shock.

“The one I’ve never met?” You tilt your head in confusion, bushy eyebrows furrowing. “What would she suddenly want?”

“She said she wants to have tea with you after school tomorrow.” Your mom explains. “Something about important news she needs to share with you.”

“Oh, I was supposed to pick up my car tomorrow… but I guess I’ll have to rain check.”

That was two weeks ago now and little did you know at the time how much your life was about to change.

The following afternoon, when you’d arrived at your estranged grandmothers house - or should you say mansion - you’d had your world flipped upside down.

“A-a Princess-” your mouth hangs agape, unable to comprehend the situation at hand. Your eyes dart around the room, looking from your grandmother to her staff, then the security, before finally landing back on your grandmothers perfectly calm expression. She’s not joking. “No no no nonononono." You shake your head.

“You’ve got the wrong person. I’m the furthest thing from a princess. Look at me!”

As it turns out, they did not have the wrong person. Your father, who you’d never met, had been heir to the throne of the small European country you’d never heard of and after his death, that left you - his only child - next in line.

You’d come to an agreement with your grandmother that, before anyone made any rash decisions, you’d give it some time to try out the role of Princess. And so commenced the ‘Princess training’ every day after school with your grandmother. You’d learn how to walk, talk, sit, stand and live like a true Princess within the agreed trial month between this life altering news and the annual independence ball.

Sworn to secrecy, you’d not told a soul about your new informed identity. So, while your private life has somehow changed in every single way, your school life has not budged an inch. From the hours of 8-3 you’re the same invisible girl, with your two bestest friends since kindergarten, Jisung and Chenle.

“Woah, he’s so dreamy.” You gush, resting your chin in your palm as you watch Jaemin walk past your lunch table. Jisung simply rolls his eyes at the way you simp over the most popular guy in school, like always. He doesn’t get the hype around Jaemin. So what if he’s the captain of the football team, extremely lean and always seems to have perfectly shiny hair? Anyone could have all of those things. Jisung could have all of those things…

Despite the fact that he’s almost flunking gym class because of his terrible hand-eye co-ordination in football.

Jisung feels his only consolation is that Jaemin is dating Nina, the head cheerleader.

“Anyway…” Chenle speaks a little louder, “as I was saying before (Y/N) let her hormones take away from the crisis at hand. How am I going to get another guest for my show on Saturday?”

Ah yeah, you were trying to console Chenle on his last minute drama. His school curricula radio show, Talking with Chenle, had finally been getting more than three listeners a week. And ever since his audience has started to slowly grow, he’s been putting more and more pressure on himself to promote the topics he cares about with guests.

“Dude, chill. You still have four days to find a replacement.” Jisung grumbles from beside you. He looks a little like he’s sulking, although you have no idea what could have possibly made him so annoyed within the last thirty minutes that you’ve been sat at your lunch table.

“So much help you are.” Chenle fires at the grumpy Jisung on your left as he stands from the table, slings his bag over his shoulder and storms off.

You turn your attention to said grump, frowning.

“That wasn’t nice Sungs.” You watch as regret consumes his face, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as he mumbles a muted apology.

“So, are you collecting your car from the garage tonight?” Jisung finally builds up enough courage to ask you. He’s been battling in his mind for the last few days on how to bring this up, so he’s a little nervous, but tries his best to suppress the shyness that wants to win over.

“Oh I can’t.” You guiltily grimace. You feel terrible putting him off again, especially when you were meant to pick up your baby weeks ago. But, since you’ve been having your ‘Princess lessons’ everyday, you’ve had no time. “I’m seeing my Grandmother.”

“Again?” Jisung regrets how quickly the word slips out of his mouth. But you don’t seem offended, nodding yes in response.

“How about Saturday?” You quizzically raise a brow, biting down onto the corner of your bottom lip in anticipation.

“Saturday works…” You let out a breath in relief upon Jisung’s agreement. “…and maybe you can stay for a bit, hang out?” Jisung suggests.

“…it’s just my band are practicing that afternoon in front of a few people and it’d be great to have a bit more of an audience…” Jisung trails off, cutting off his word vomit just in time to notice the way your smile reaches your eyes.

“Sounds perfect.” You beam, just as the bell rings for class.

You were beyond nervous. Petrified, if you’re completely honest. Yesterday evenings ‘Princess lesions’ with your grandmother had turned out to be a head-to-toe makeover and you’d come out the other end of the evening looking like someone entirely different. Some may even say, like a Princess. Gone were your glasses, bushy eyebrows, your hair had been cut and the frizz tamed. To you, you look almost unrecognisable. To Chenle, you look amazing. But to Jisung, you look like the very thing you’d always swore you’d never want to be - a popular - and it scared him.

While you liked your new look, you felt like a bit of a sellout for complying with the makeover to look more ‘regal’ - as your grandmother had described it. So you’d walked into your first class of the day wearing a grey bucket hat, so as to cover as much of your new look as possible.

Jisung had to do a double take when you entered the classroom and took your usual seat beside him. He’d always thought you were beautiful before, but wow, you’d somehow managed to ascend to another level quite literally overnight. From under the hat, he could see your bright eyes and long lashes. The neat shaping of your eyebrows and the plumpness of your lips, accentuated by the baby pink lip gloss you’d applied. Although, he’s unsure of why you’re wearing a hat on such a warm summers day, especially when you’re inside.

“Okay class, simmer down.” Your teacher, Mr Sums enters from the back of the room, hushing all of the excited chatter in the room as he places down his bag on the front desk and begins to set up for the class. “Yes, Nina?” He acknowledges without so much as glancing in her direction.

Nina sat in the seat behind you, perfectly poised and ready to strike. She’s the head girl in your grade for a reason, with her off-scale intelligence, popularity and cunning attitude. She will take down anyone who gets in her way. Which, right now, is your hat covered head that’s in her line of vision to the front of the class.

“Mr Sums. Isn’t there a rule about no hats allowed?” You can feel her smirk on the back of your neck, letting out a concealed huff as you try to prepare yourself for what you know is going to happen next.

“You’re right Nina.” Mr Sums sighs, “(Y/N), please could you remove your improper dress coded attire?” He glances at you and your mortified expression, watching as you gulp down your nerves while simultaneously reaching up to reluctantly slip your hat off.

Out tumbles your perfectly smooth hair as it cascades down past your shoulders. Jisung’s eyes almost pop out of his head from beside you. Not that you notice, too busy being consumed by the gasps from your classmates.

“Oh wow.” You hear Nina laugh, “Look who’s trying to fit in now?”

Her sickly-sweet tone only makes your cheeks burn deeper and you try to sink into your chair.

“Well, I think (Y/N) looks stunning, actually.” Your head whips towards Jisung, grateful for him sticking up for you. You send him a thankful smile as class begins and everyone’s attention is turned away from you. For now.

“So what’s the deal with your sudden change of appearance?” Chenle questions as he shovels his salad into his mouth. His words come out slightly muffled between the half-chewed lettuce and Jisung just rolls his eyes.

“Nothing.” You try to shut down the topic, bowing your head into your own lunch.

“It’s clearly not nothing.” Chenle deadpans, before narrowing his eyes at you. “You’re hiding something.”

“Am not.” You grumble into your sandwich.

“So you’ll be coming to my baseball game after school then, like we agreed weeks ago?”

Shit. You’d completely forgotten about Chenle’s baseball game and you know for certain you can’t get out of seeing your grandmother.

“I can’t.”

“See!” Chenle drops his fork into his salad, folding his arms as he turns to Jisung for support. “What? Are you just bored with us now? Don’t want to be friends anymore?”

“No, that’s not even close!” You cry in distress.

“Then tell us what’s so important that you keep dropping us (Y/N).”

You bite down on your jittering bottom lip, your worried eyes casting from Chenle’s unimpressed expression to Jisung’s concerned one.

“I’m not allowed to tell…”

Upon this half-confession, Chenle drops his attitude and leans across the table to speak quieter.

“Are you in trouble? Being blackmailed again? Do we need to beat someone up?”

“No!” You shut down his conspiracies, hands flying up in surrender.

You know you shouldn’t tell anyone. But you also know that if you don’t spill it all to them now, you’ll risk loosing the only people keeping you sane. Heaving a deep sigh, you know what you have to do.

“Okay. You have to promise me you’ll keep this strictly between us.” You point between your two intrigued friends, encouraging them to lean into the table so you can whisper. “I’m serious. The repercussions if this gets out-”

“Just tell us.” Chenle rolls his eyes.

To other students, it simply looks like your gossiping like any other group of high schoolers. But if they were to look closely enough, they’d notice the way both Chenle and Jisung’s eyes blow wide and how the colour seems to drain from Jisung’s face faster than lightening.

“You’re a what-” you cover Chenle’s mouth before he has a chance to shout anything further, covering it with a “Shhhhh.”

“Promise this stays between us.” You stick your pinky finger out for them to link, watching as both of your friends entangle theirs around yours.

“Damn. Wish I could be a…” Chenle begins to mutter.

“Dude!”

Walking into school the next morning feels a little more unnerving than usual. You’re barely through the threshold of the gates when someone spots you and shouts “that’s her!”.

Everything’s a blur from that moment. With a frenzy of people shouting “Princess!”, a crowd of students swarm you in seconds, phones and cameras are flying in front of your face as they all take pictures and videos. You feel nauseous from being elbowed and shoved in the midst of the unfolding chaos. However, just when you think your about to spew your guts from the motion sickness, you feel a pair of hands find your waist and clutch onto you, wrapping you into the taller frame of your saviour and using their body as a shield until you’re safely out of the crowd.

“Follow me.” Your saviour moves you away from their hold, clutching onto your hand and forcing you to run as you’re dragged along behind them to a place of refuge. You’re pulled into the main building and twisted through the narrow corridors until there’s no one on your tail.

It’s not until you’re hidden inside a janitors closet that you’re able to look at the person before you and realise it’s Jisung.

“How do they know!” You rush back into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his torso and burying your face. Jisung is winded a little from the impact, tumbling a few steps back with you before he regains his balance.

“It’s ok. Everything’s going to be ok.” He whispers into the top of your head, fluttering his eyes shut as he inhales the floral scent of your freshly washed hair.

Of course, Jisung has no idea how your secret had gotten out, or what to do next. All he knows right now is how perfectly you fit in his arms and how much he wants to protect you.

“I want you to know, it wasn’t me.” You pull away from Jisung, peering into his worried eyes. You’d never once doubted it would have come from him and there’s nothing more in the world you want right now than to let him know that. Cupping his cheek, you brush your thumb over his soft skin.

“I’d never even consider that being a possibility.” You soothe.

Jisung drinks in every drop of affection you give him as though he’d been traversing the desert for days on end without water. Knowing you never could have accused him rehydrates him and makes his heart feel like it could burst.

“It wasn’t Chenle either. I was with him all evening after his baseball game.”

“I don’t doubt him either.” You reassure. “This feels bigger than just some school gossip.”

After cooling down in the janitors closet for a while, you’d managed to sneak out and into your first few classes of the day without too many people bombarding you. Your principle had made an announcement to not cause another commotion and all staff were on patrol during lesson changeovers and breaks.

“Wait, (Y/N)!” You turn to find Chenle forcing his way to the front of the cohort of students following you, instantly linking his arm with yours as you continue to uncomfortably make your way to class surrounded by your new admirers. “You’re an overnight sensation!” He beams, loving the attention on you both.

“Tell me about it…” you mumble, juxtaposing Chenle in every way. Unlike your friend, you’re not made for the limelight. You don’t like all the attention on you. Not now, not ever.

This was one of your biggest fears about people finding out you’re a Princess.

“So, you’ll be my special celebrity guest on Talking with Chenle this Saturday, won’t you?”

Your mouth gapes, finally making eye contact with him and ready to outright refuse. Until, you see how hopeful he looks.

Damn it. There’s no way you can turn him down.

“Sure…” you sigh, unable to hide the small smile that forces its way onto your face when he jumps in excitement.

“You’re awesome!”

“(Y/N)!”

You’re just closing your locker when you hear your name, your heart picking up pace from the unmistakeable voice of your caller.

Spinning around, you find none other than Jaemin, smiling at you with his signature smile and staring at you with those heart melting eyes.

“How are you holding up? Been a bit of a crazy day…” He leans one arm on the locker beside you, standing so close you can smell his earthy cologne.

“Just a bit.” You giggle sweetly.

It’s amazing how Jaemin can have such an affect on you. One word and your mind has gone to putty and you’ve forgotten how to act like a normal person.

“Well, I just wanted to apologise for Nina this morning…”

“Huh?” You furrow your brows, feeling yourself come back down to earth.

“She was the one who shouted when you entered the gates and made everyone swarm you?” Jaemin’s tone comes out unsure, not realising that you weren’t aware when you let out a light “oh.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I do not condone that at all. In fact, I broke up with her because of it.”

“You did?” You gush, surprise written all over your face.

…and you’re off in space again.

“Yeah, it was totally not cool.” Jaemin nods. “Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the end of school beach party with me this Saturday?”

Oh my gosh! Na Jaemin just asked you out!

“Yes!” You blurt. “I-uh I mean, yeah” you swallow, “sounds cool.”

“Cool.” His smile reaches his eyes. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

You watch dreamily as Jaemin walks away to join his group of friends at their lunch table. You’re only pulled back into reality when you spot Jisung perched on the edge of the fountain across the courtyard.

“Guess who just asked me to go with him to the beach party this Saturday!” You park yourself next to Jisung on the ledge of the fountain. “Jaemin!” You squeal your answer when Jisung simply raises an inquisitive brow at you.

“But, what about seeing my band practice?” Jisung tries to not sound depleted.

“Well, I was hoping we could reschedule? I just, I’ve been wanting to go out with Jaemin since forever and you’ll have other band practices, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Jisung forces a smile, feeling himself deflate the second you’ve squeezed him in a tight hug before skipping off to get some lunch.

His attention flickers over to the table where Jaemin sits. How could Jisung ever compare? He’d always felt you were unattainable to him because of how he was too shy to express his feelings. And that was before your new look and title. But now? He has no shot.

You’re a Princess for goodness sake. You belong with the most popular guy in school. Not a shy keyboard player in a band that sings in the local garage like him…

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here!” Your grandmother rushes to you as you arrive for your ‘Princess lesson’ of the day. She takes you by your shoulders and peers at you intently.

“Now,” she exhales a deep breath. “We’ve got the press under control with the looming promise of the annual independence ball, so long as they keep a little distance for now.”

You nod in understanding.

You were honestly a little nervous about seeing your grandmother this evening. You’d been worrying about her reaction to this all getting out, even though she is calm and has dealt with an unimaginable amount of trials and tribulations during her many years of reign. She is also strong willed and has made it clear to you that - even though you have yet to make the choice to accept your title and duty - the expectation of this trial period would be as though this is your future.

“And we’ve found that the leak was from the stylist we’d hired.”

There’s more relief in knowing your Grandmother knows it hadn’t come from you than there is from the culprit being found out.

“And we’ve got him doing a formal apology to the press this evening.”

Saturday rolls around quickly and before you know it, you’re on your way to the beach party for your date with Jaemin. Everyone who’s anyone is there; dancing, sunbathing or cooling off in the ocean as the sun begins to set.

You feel a little awkward as you walk down the beach to join the other party-goers. It seems like it’s well underway already and you’re not typically one to mix with the crowd in attendance.

“Welcome to paradise.” You almost jump out of your skin upon hearing Jaemin’s voice from your side. You had been so engrossed in your awe of the scene in front of you, you didn’t notice he’d walked over. “I got you a drink.”

You accept the plastic cup, your fingers brushing accidentally with his. Chuckling a flustered thanks before taking a sip, you try not to be affected by his amused grin. He thinks you’re so adorable. How had you been kept so hidden before?

“C’mon.” You feel Jaemin’s hand slip into yours, gently tugging you along with him to head further into the crowd…

“Hello, welcome to Talking with Chenle.” Chenle professionally introduces when his fellow producer Mark signals they are live. “On todays show, we have a special interview with the newfound Princess and close friend of mine, (Y/N).” Mark hits the applause button.

“But, before our main guest’s appearance, we have a short segment on the upcoming senior class projects, presented by our very own Mark.”

Mark jumps in with his pre-written script, listing out the upcoming events for the semester. Meanwhile, Chenle checks his phone to see if you’ve tried to contact him about your whereabouts. Nothing. You should have been here 30 minutes ago…

Back at the beach party, you’re having the time of your life dancing with Jaemin. Uncontrollable laughter tumbling from your lips as he takes your hand and spins you around.

“Who knew you were such a good dancer?” You teasingly glance up at Jaemin as he leads you out of the crowd of dancers and to the side for some much needed air, your hand still firmly in his.

“Well, who knew you would make such a great dance partner.” He praises back, succeeding in making you flustered.

You cast a shy glance up at him through your lashes, still unable to believe that this is reality. You really are here with Jaemin, hand in hand in front of everyone. You feel like you should pinch yourself, just to double check your not dreaming all of this.

That is, until reality comes crashing down in a burning rage. What you’d simply brushed off as a plane flying above you, turned out to be a helicopter filled with paparazzi. It lowers, the wind from the propeller cutting off the party and almost knocking everyone off their feet as multiple cameras flash at you, trying their best to get a good snapshot.

You panic, a million questions buzzing around your mind. What should you do? How do you get away? But most of all, how did they know you’d be here?

“Quick, follow me!” Jaemin pulls you, both of you running towards the lifeguard shack at the back of the beach.

Once inside, Jaemin bolts the door shut and silence and darkness settle around you.

“I’m so sorry.” You plant your face into your hands as you fall into the chair behind you. Being chased by paparazzi - all shouting Princess at you - was not a part of your imagined date with Jaemin. And it’s mortifying to know that’s the reality.

“Hey.” You hear him whisper, his larger hands coercing yours away from your face. In the time you’ve been wallowing, Jaemin had made his way over to you and knelt down to your level so the first thing you see are his eyes and the way they catch the moonlight that filters in through the crack in the curtain covered window. “It’s not your fault.”

His sincerity mesmerises you and washes away your humiliation. How does he do it? How does he seem to know the exact right thing to say?

Meanwhile, Chenle’s radio show is crashing and burning live on air. The last forty-five minutes have been filled with Marks terrible jokes and ramblings and it’s all because of you.

“Alright, I’m off.” Chenle sounds defeated, taking off his headphones and making a stand from his chair the second the ‘live’ light goes dim.

Mark doesn’t respond, nodding his understanding as he watches his friend walk away. He knows it’s not his fault. Heck, Mark did everything he could to act on the spot and make the best out of the shit situation. Chenle is grateful for Marks loyalty and perseverance.

But damn, he still wishes you’d showed… they both do.

“Ok, I think they’ve given up.” Jaemin asserts, peaking through the curtain to find a dark and empty seeming beach. The relief that fills you has you following Jaemin out of the lifeguard shack without thought.

“Thank you for sticking by me, it means a lot.” You timidly smile at Jaemin, allowing him to take your hand in his as you begin to walk up the beach.

Before you have time to register, a bright flash snaps in front of you, the momentary blindness giving time for multiple lurking paparazzi to spring out from their hiding places and surround you both.

“Princess! Who’s your date?”

“Is this your boyfriend?”

“Princess, give him a kiss!”

The crowd shout as you panic, looking around to try and find an escape route.

You spot a slither in the sea of bodies and pull on Jaemin’s hand, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, he complies to the crazy demands of the privacy invading press and scoops your body into his. His lean arms make your desperation to get away worthless and before you know it, he’s cupped your cheek and forced you to look at him.

With one final deer-in-the-headlights look at him, Jaemin crashes his lips to yours.

It takes you a few seconds to register what he’s doing, before you muster up the strength to shove him away and force yourself out of the circle.

You can’t believe he just did that.

“It’s really not that bad.” Jisung tries to console you.

You’re flopped over the table, head in your arms as you try to block out every piece of reality. After Saturday’s kiss fiasco, the picture had been posted everywhere. There was no escaping the horrifying image of your first kiss with Jaemin. No less because you’d always dreamt your first kiss with Jaemin would be magical, like something out of a fairytale. And while you may be a Princess, this feels nothing close to those magical Disney princess movies you adored so much growing up.

For starters, where is your fairy godmother? You could really use one of those right about now…

He can’t lie, Jisung’s a little heartbroken seeing the picture of you kissing someone else posted everywhere. He’s upset for you, knowing how much you hate the situation. But, selfishly, he’s more gutted for himself. That should be him in Jaemin’s place. In fact, if he’d been lucky enough to kiss you, the image wouldn’t have existed because he never would have done it in front of the cameras. Knowing that Jaemin used you to get his 15 minutes of fame angers him too. The first time he saw the picture online, his fists had clenched so tightly from the rage that bubbled up in his stomach his nails had left little crescent moons in his palms. And yet, he can’t bring himself to not look at the grainy image.

“Not that bad?” You retort. “Any hope I had of being Princess has gone down the drain.” You begin to sob.

“What’s my grandmother going to say?”

Jisung doesn’t realise how stern his face had been until he finally looks away from the picture to find your eyes peaking out from their hiding spot. His gaze softens in a heartbeat, his hand reaching out to instinctively rub your back.

From your peripheral, you recognise the group passing by and tear your gaze away from Jisung’s to find Jaemin and his friends snickering as they walk past.

“Hey (Y/N), great kiss.” Jaemin puckers his lips mockingly.

You’re not sure what hurts you more, having reality shred the mask to uncover his true, obnoxious personality to you or knowing how many years you spent pining over someone so shallow.

“Ugh.” You bury your face back into the safety of your arms, blocking out all daylight and - you hope - reality.

After a lot of pep-talk from Jisung, he finally managed to coax you into going to your next class. But it’s not until final period, when see Chenle enter the classroom, that you realise you hadn’t seen or heard from him since last week. You send him a smile when he makes eye contact, feeling confused when he frowns back before taking a seat on the opposite end of the room.

You find yourself casting glances in his direction throughout the class, hoping to catch him looking over at you at least once. But nothing. Not even a peep is sent your way.

“Chenle,” you chase after him. Barely five seconds after your teacher had dismissed class, Chenle had been out of the door and down the corridor. You’d had to sprint through the throngs of students just to get to him before he got out of the building. “Why’d you not sit with me?”

But your question is met with the biggest eye roll you’ve ever seen as Chenle continues to make his way out of the school grounds.

“Did I do something?” You press.

“Did you do something?” Chenle fires back at you, narrowing his eyes vehemently. “Try what you didn’t do!”

You’re dumbstruck.

“I have no ide-”

“My radio show Saturday?” Chenle sasses. Thank goodness you’re down the street by the time Chenle finally stops walking and begins exploding on you. “I had to listen to Marks lame jokes for an hour.”

“Oh my god! I’m so unbelievably sorry.” Your eyes go wide, mortified at how you’d completely forgotten about being Chenle’s guest. “I’ll make it up to you next time, I swear!”

“There won’t be a next time.” Chenle scoffs, turning away once again. “Oh,” he stops himself to mention one last thing. “and, just so you know, just because you a Princess now, doesn’t mean the only thing that matters is you.”

“Hey Sungs.” You mournfully approach where Jisung finishes polishing your car. The garage is oddly quiet, no music or clatter sounding in the usually busy space. No. Instead, it seems like it’s just you and Jisung here. “Thank you for taking such good care of my baby.”

“No problem.” Jisung sends you a half-smile as he hands over the keys. “She’s all yours.”

“You don’t know how much this means to me.” You warmly smile, but feel your mood drop when he doesn’t reciprocate like he usually does. There’s a silence that fills the space between you. You’ve never felt so awkward with Jisung before.

“Well… I better get going…” you try not to sound too deflated, jangling your keys in the air as you go to open your car door.

You watch as Jisung takes a step back from the car, his hands stuffed awkwardly in his pockets as he wordlessly watches you.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” You timidly look at Jisung, stopping yourself from clutching the car door handle in front of you. “You don’t think I think the only thing that matters is me, right?”

There’s a timidity to your tone that makes Jisung gulp. He knows all about the argument because Chenle had ranted down the phone to him for a hour after school and he can tell Chenle’s words have gotten to you. At the same time, however, he feels a little dumbfounded that you seem to only realise this now, after you’d had someone shout it in your face. It’s even more ironic you only ask Jisung of his thoughts when you are just about to take the finished car home. The very one that you’ve been stringing him along with for weeks. He knows he has to be honest with you.

“There were times when I would say I agree, yes.” Jisung nods. “I mean, you dropped me for Jaemin in a heartbeat and he’d never once given you the time of day before your Princess glow-up.”

“Right. I really should go…” you voice comes out hoarse. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jisung feels terrible as you spare no more time getting into your car and starting the engine. It revs to life and roars as you drive away, leaving him alone once again. But the it sinks in how much you’d made him feel used. You’d chosen to walk away from the truth when you’d asked him for it. And Jisung can’t help but feel disappointed.

Walking through the halls the next day you feel so insecure. Groups of students stop their conversation to stare at you as you pass, their expressions unreadable, leaving you unable to tell if they are judging you or just fascinated.

Reaching your locker in the courtyard, your eyes light up in hope upon seeing Chenle a few doors down at his locker. You watch him until he notices you, forcing a meek smile his direction when he does. But instead of him smiling back and making his way over to you, he frowns and slams his locker shut before walking the opposite direction.

You self-consciously peer around, hoping no one had witnessed that rejection and your eyes light up when you spot Jisung.

“Jisung!” You call as he walks past. But he doesn’t even acknowledge you. Instead, he picks up his pace and your eyes follow him as he catches up with Chenle. You turn back to focus on getting the right books out of your locker, trying to hold back the tears that threaten to spill.

How had you managed to mess up so bad that your friends won’t even acknowledge you…

With tears still in your eyes, you enter your next class with your head hanging low. You can’t bear to look up and see your two friends, knowing they won’t speak to you. Instead, you rush to the back of the room and take the seat furthest in the corner.

But when you do eventually look up towards the front of the classroom, you catch Jisung glancing your way. He turns back to face the front a split second after. But there’s as hope that flows through you from catching the longing in his expression.

Maybe there’s still a way to win them back.

It’s taken a few days to figure out, but you think you know how to get your friends to forgive you. Starting with Chenle.

First you have to sneak up on him so he doesn’t get away when you try to talk to him, which from his avoidance of you the past week, has proven more challenging than you thought. But you do manage to corner him in class as everyone leaves for lunch.

“Chenle, I want to make it up to you.” You plea. “I just want everything to be right between us again.” While you’ve technically been successful in talking to him, he’s still refusing to look at you. “Tell me what I can do…”

This piques his interest.

“Stop being a Princess.” He flatly states. If only he knew…

That was actually something you’d been working on, deciding days ago that you don’t think you’re cut out for accepting royal duty as a Princess. You’ve already spoken to your grandmother about this and, despite her reluctance and assurance that you would be more than capable for the role, you’d come to a mutual agreement to make no public announce until the evening of the ball.

You wish you could tell Chenle, but you can’t break your promise to your grandmother. You’re done breaking promises you’ve made.

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of attending the independence ball this Saturday?” You send him a hopeful beam.

You take his blank expression and lack of a quick response as a good sign and continue to persuade.

“It’s invitation only…”

Chenle sighs. Damn him and his weakness for exclusivity. Plus, he’s always wanted to go to a ball and he doesn’t know when he’ll get this type of opportunity again.

“Fine!” He caves. “You’re forgiven.”

You squeal, jumping into him to squeeze him in a hug. You feel his chest vibrate with laughter and look up to finally see him smiling.

“I missed you.” You gush as you pull away and begin walking down the hallway together.

“I know.” Chenle laughs heartily when you shove him and roll your eyes.

You finally feel like you’re on the right track. If you can get Chenle to forgive you, then you’re pretty certain Jisung will too. Now you just need to find him.

“Wassup bro.” Chenle greets Mark as you join his table for lunch. You’re familiar with Mark because he helps Chenle out with his radio show and you’ve always found him really bubbly and sweet on the few occasions you’ve spoken.

“Sup guys.” Mark greets you both warmly. “I see you’re back on speaking terms.”

“Yep.” Chenle responds through a mouthful of food.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about all of that.” You grimace towards Mark. “But I heard you’re on your way to becoming a comedic genius.”

“I think I’m good with sticking to the pre-scripted topics.” Mark laughs loudly.

“Oh, hey Jisung!” Chenle’s sudden shout almost makes you jump out of your skin.

You turn your attention to where Chenle looks to find Jisung casting an embarrassed side glance over to your table while trying to continue his conversation with one of his band mates Renjun.

You don’t really know Renjun, other than what you’ve observed. Even though he’s part of Jaemin’s popular group, he seems like a nice guy and there’s always been a part of you that’s been curious to know how he ended up with friends like Jaemin, Jeno and Donghyuck. All so loud and attention loving in comparison.

You watch as he bids Renjun goodbye and approaches, stuffing his hands into his pockets once he’s reached your table. It’s clear he doesn’t want to hang around…

“Aren’t you gonna join us for lunch?” Chenle snickers at his friend, his tone mocking at the way Jisung acts so hesitant.

“Actually, I-uh have,” Jisung gulps. “I have last minute band practice.”

“But you just said goodbye to Renjun?” Mark furrows his brows.

“Gotta go!” Jisung takes off as quickly as he can. He doesn’t look back when he hears you call after him, instead only ducking his head lower and picking up more speed. You have to run to catch him. Damn him and his long legs. You hate running.

“Jisung.” You pant, catching him by the arm and using all of your body weight to slow him down. He lets out a defeated sigh as he stops, knowing there’s no escaping having to talk to you now. “Please talk to me…” you beg, pleading with the best, saddest puppy eyes you can muster.

“What is there to say?” His voice comes of quieter than he wanted it to. He’s so hurt and upset with you and he wants to be able to express that. He usually can when it’s towards other people. But when it’s you on the receiving end, there’s just something that stops him. No matter how much you broke his heart.

“Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have run away from what you’d said.”

Theres something in your words that makes him wake up and finally realise that he’s been running away too. Not just now. But for way too long. Jisung’s been running away from telling you how he really feels about you. For so long he’s talked himself into waiting for you to fall in love with him, to wake up and finally see that the person you should be with has been by your side the whole time. His feelings have been repressed and he’s forced himself to be invisible for too long. But he’s done with that now.

“Sungs, are you ok?” He blinks back into reality, not having realised he’d gotten caught up in overthinking for too long.

You watch him, wide eyed as he stands up straighter, determination written across his face.

“Actually, I have something I need to say.”

You nod, waiting intently.

“I’ve been an idiot for too long.” And… you’re confused. “I’ve let you walk all over me for years because I’ve been so in love with you.”

“Heck,” Jisung laughs at himself. “I even let you off when you ditched me for Jaemin because I kept telling myself that I wasn’t good enough for you.”

You feel your heart break knowing Jisung had been putting himself down like that. Any and every emotion courses through you as you try your best to take in the weight of his words.

“I-” you begin, but Jisung cuts you off before you have a chance to say anymore.

“I know you don’t feel the same… it’s ok.” Jisung forces a smile. “I just need some time apart.”

You feel like you’re suffocating, unable to voice anything as you watch Jisung walk away. Chocking on sobs as the weight of the world hits you like a ton of bricks.

You just wished you’d realised sooner. Because if you had, then maybe you wouldn’t have lost your best friend, you wouldn’t have hurt him for so long and maybe you wouldn’t have had your heart smashed to pieces like you just have.

“Can’t you just have someone do the speech for me?” Your voice is muted by the duvet that you insist to remain under. Your mom perched on the side of your bed as she encourages you to at least go downstairs to eat something.

It’s the morning of the annual independence ball and you’ve not left your bed since you’d gotten home the day before.

You’d had many home truths and realisations from Jisung yesterday. But cocooning yourself inside your duvet has really helped you process a lot. Like the fact that you love Jisung too… and not in just a platonic way. He’s always been there for you and you’ve taken that for granted.

You’ve been so dumb to your feelings for so long, brushing infatuation off as excitement or just that you really care for Jisung, when reality is that your heart doesn’t flip every time he smiles just because he’s your best friend. It flips every time he smiles because his smile is one of your favourite things in the world. It eases your worries and brightens your day.

Just being around Jisung makes you feel like everything’s going to be ok. He’s always so supportive and soft-natured. He takes care of you not because he’s a good friend but because he loves you.

You know that if he were to be here today, you’d be able to get through your speech this evening, facing crowds of people and answering to them why you are abdicating your royal duties. With Jisung by your side, you can get through anything.

Without him you’re lost.

Similarly, Jisung has been trying to drown out reality since he confessed to you by focusing all of his energy on his band practice and fixing up cars. He went straight from school to the garage and worked through the night to try and get his mind off of you.

Which is why he jolts awake to Chenle shouting in his ear for him to “wake up!”

“Why!” He cries, rubbing his sore neck from the poor posture of his sleep on the couch by his band’s equipment.

“You seriously slept here last night?” Chenle doesn’t hold back any judgment, raising his brow at Jisung as he grumbles out unintelligible remarks under his breath.

“I get you’re heart broken or whatever, but that doesn’t mean you should give up now.”

“Well, what else should I do?” Jisung, still sat in the chair he’d slept in, sulks like a child.

“Uh, I don’t know, go after her?” Chenle retorts like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“But she doesn’t feel the same, I’d just be making a fool of myself…”

Chenle scoffs. How does he not see it?

“Of course (Y/N) feels the same. It’s so obvious.” Chenle leans down to place his hand on Jisung’s shoulder. “Trust me. I’ve had to watch you both almost every day for years.”

He’s not joking. He really has. All the times he’s rolled his eyes at the way you both act so soppy towards the other. You’ve both been too wrapped up in either convincing yourself that you have no shot, or mistaking your feelings to notice.

Jisung springs to his feet. With the way Chenle remains so serious, he knows he must be telling the truth.

“I need to win her back!”

You frantically pack, shoving everything you can into your bag before anyone catches on to what your about to do. You feel so hopeless, like a complete failure and you know you can’t face the crowd of influential people and reporters to decline your role of Princess. So you’re running away.

You’d managed to convince your grandmother to not send a limo because your mom wanted to take you to your first ball. And you’d also lied to your mom, telling her that your grandmother had organised a limo to pick you up.

As soon as your mom had left, the race against time had begun and you’d been flying around your room packing.

You pick up the embossed faux-leather diary your grandmother had gifted you when you’d first met and found out you were a Princess, stilling when it slips from your grasp and falls open to reveal a letter that had been tucked in between the pages.

Carefully picking it up and unfolding it, you realise it’s from your father before he passed away.

His heartfelt words bring tears to your eyes as he expresses all the love he has for you and his country as soon to be King. But the final line strikes something within you that makes you rethink everything you had planned to do.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on you’ll be travelling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.”

Helping Jisung come up with a plan to win you back is easy for Chenle. With the independence ball being that evening, nothing could be more perfect than Jisung turning up, declaring his love and sweeping you off your feet. Just like a true Prince. So he’d offered the plus 1 you’d given him to Jisung.

Waiting in the grand hall for your arrival feels like an eternity. Everyone seems to be here except you.

“Have either of you seen (Y/N)?” Your mom rushes up to Chenle and Jisung in a slight panic. Both of them shrug, shaking their heads no in response. “She told me a limo was picking her up, but apparently she told her grandmother I was bringing her.”

Shit. There’s something in Jisung that springs into action upon the possibility that you could be in danger.

“Stall until I get back.” Jisung directs Chenle.

“Where are you going?!” Chenle shouts back, but it’s too late. Jisung’s already run off.

“Oh no no no…” you whine as your car conks out, the heavens pouring down on you and pooling in your hatch-back. “Is this what I get for messing everything up!” You shout at the sky, flopping back into your seat and sobbing your heart out.

You don’t blame the universe for this payback. You deserve it after all your selfishness. But you have been trying to make amends, to right all of your wrongs. You have every intention to go to the independence ball to share your decision in person. It’s the least your families country deserve. It’s the least your family deserve. But, right now, you’re failing. Failing at getting to the ball on time just like you failed at making amends with Jisung.

Gosh, even when you’re trying to do something else it’s still seems to end up on Jisung…

Just as you’re giving up all hope, a car horn jolts you up in your seat with a gasp. The headlights blind you momentarily as they round the corner, until the car has stopped beside you.

“Need a ride, Princess?” Your mouth hangs agape as the window rolls down to reveal Jisung in the drivers seat.

Although you can only see the top half of him, you’re heart summersaults from his attire. There he is, coming to your rescue, dressed in a black tuxedo and bow tie. He looks just like Prince Charming.

“How did you find me?” You remain in your car, unable to move from the shock… and the cold. You look like a drowned rat as the storm continues to shower down on you.

By this point, Jisung had gotten out of his car, into the pouring rain and rushed over to help lift you out of your vehicle to transfer you into the warmth and shelter of his own.

“Lucky guess.” He smirks from the drivers seat, twisting the keys and bringing the car to life again, before racing through the dark deserted streets.

You watch him from the passenger seat as he remains focused on the road, mesmerised by the steady focus of his eyes and his tight jaw, the way his hair - now wet from your rescue - drips little droplets of water onto his forehead and nose, down his cheeks to his perfectly plump lips.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You’re caught off guard by his question as it breaks the silence that had settled. You hadn’t even realised you’d been staring that long, or the fact he’d noticed.

“I was… just looking.” You blush, turning to look out your window. You’re just thankful it’s dark right now.

A few seconds go by and you begin to recognise the street just as the car pulls into your grandmothers driveway and stops at the entrance.

“Wait!” You clutch onto Jisung’s arm as he goes to open his door. He freezes from the touch before slowly twisting back to look at you. “Thank you.” You whisper.

“It was no problem.” Jisung sends you a tight lipped smile.

“No. I mean, thank you for always being there for me.” You elaborate, moving your grip down his arm until you get to his hand, entangling your fingers with his. “For loving me.”

Jisung’s breath hitches. He’s not sure what to say. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. And the way you continue to stare at him makes him feel so warm and fuzzy and loved.

“(Y/N), I-”

“I know you said you wanted space.” You cut him off. “But I’m so lost without you.”

“Why me?” He whispers.

You slowly reach up to cup his cheek, drawing him in closer and closer until your noses touch. Your eyes flutter shut as you breathe in his signature piney scent. The familiarity makes you feel like you’ve arrived back home and gives you the courage to utter your next words ever so breathily.

“Because you saw me when I was invisible.”

The next thing you know, Jisung’s lips are smashed against yours. You’re unsure which of you initiated it, not having had your eyes open in fear of his rejection. His lips are just as soft as you’d imagined they’ve be and you feel yourself unable to suppress the smile that explodes across your face, causing Jisung to smile into the kiss too.

Everything seems to fall into place again. Who knew kissing your best friend could feel so right?

Pulling apart breathlessly, you both continue to smile at each other, idiotically in love.

“We really should get inside and put Chenle out of his misery.” Jisung chuckles, only imagining the chaos he’s cause by trying to stall.

“I guess…” you trail off, sending Jisung a sheepish smirk. He knows exactly what you’re thinking. “…Or we could kiss some more?”

“We can do that later. But first, you have to tell your country you will be their Princess.”

~ bonus ~

“How’s my baby?” Jisung rolls his eyes.

“I told you to stop calling me that.” He deadpans, failing to hide the blush that tinges his cheeks from the way you smirk at him.

You know he loves it really.

“But it’s cute!” You continue to tease, laughing as you speak.

“Whatever you say Princess.”

#nct fluff #nct angst #nct oneshot #nct drabbles #nct fanfiction #nct fanfic #nct x reader #nct jisung #nct dream fanfic #nct dream imagines #nct dream x reader #nct dream #nct dream oneshots #nct dream fluff #nct dream jisung #kpop fluff #kpop angst #kpop x reader #kpop fanfiction

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thesorcerersspouse · 1 year ago

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Hi!!

I'm Dune/Tevenn, a 23 years old selfshipper who loves traditional art and crochet !!

This is my main blog, I'm more connected on here and I tend to interact mostly with it.

I'm a bit hesitant talking to people, but I'm not against a little chat !!

I can have troubles with communicating sometimes, struggling to put my words right, or I can misunderstand stuff easly, so please be patient with me 💜

For more infos and my BYI/DNI F/Os list, check out my personal carrd :

DISCLAIMER:

While this blog is selfship focused and my love for my f/os stays unchanged, my interest do switch from medias to medias, it can last a few weeks or a few months I have no control over it. So if you want to follow me, please understand that and don't be mad if I stop posting about a character for a while!!

(I also would appreciate if you followed me because you truly like my stuff and not just a specific thing, or stop following me as soon as I stop posting about said thing, but I can't control what you do so, do as you wish)

ART STATUS:

Commissions: Always open !! Check out my commission carrd page if you're interested, it's at the end of this post :3

Art Trades: Always open for mutuals, sometimes open to anyone, look out for announcement posts (current public status: closed)

OTHER BLOGS:

OC art, fanarts & Crochet: (anyone can follow) (I mostly follow craft and non selfship related content with it):

https://dunetevennartsncrafts.tumblr.com/?source=share

Suggestive/Censored NSFW (MINORS DNI) (I won't follow anyone/like anything with this blog): Just ask me in DM and I'll give you the link, but keep in mind I'm not super active on it

Commission Carrd:

https://dunetevenncommissionsheet.carrd.co

#dune tevenn #dunetevenn ship #promo post #presentation post #self insert community #self shipping #self ship community #proship dni

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swan-of-sunrise · 4 years ago

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Civil War (Chapter Six)

Summary: Bucky’s suspicious escape from the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre and the fallout surrounding it makes (Y/N) reevaluate her opinion of the Accords.

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings/Disclaimers: None

A/N: Last week’s chapter was really angsty and it kinda took a toll on me so here’s a sort of short filler chapter with slightly less angst! Thank you for reading, I hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Six (Previous Chapter)

While she couldn’t claim to be a spy or secret agent, (Y/N) had picked up a thing or two from hanging around so many of them over the past couple of years; she knew that Bucky would eventually need an exit once he was finished tearing through everyone in the building, and it was a safe bet to assume that the skilled assassin would choose to fly himself out of there instead of travel on foot at the risk of being apprehended. She was quick to locate the building’s stairwell, hurrying up the steps as the emergency lights and alarms continued to blare; when she reached the top floor, she flung open the door and stepped out into the dark and deserted hallway.

“God, I hope this thing works…” Mumbling under her breath, (Y/N) fiddled with the dials of the walkie talkie until she could hear the indistinct chatter of voices, only letting out a sigh of relief when she finally heard the one she needed to speak to. “Agent Ross, this is (Y/N) (Y/L/N). I need backup on the-”

“(Y/L/N), what the hell are you doing?!”

“Your job, it would seem! I’m on the top floor and have reason to believe that-!”

Just then, a metallic hand came out of nowhere and ripped the walkie talkie from her hands, crushing it to pieces before tossing it aside. (Y/N) acted on instinct, rolling underneath Bucky’s outstretched arm and pulling a stun disc out of her pocket; landing upright, she chucked the stun disc at his metallic arm and took advantage of the assassin’s distraction to sweep his legs out from underneath him with one of her own.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you were a Sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II!” She shouted, keenly aware that the distraction would only last a few more seconds. “You were Steve Rogers’ best friend and a Howling Commando!” Hastily backing out of the way, she watched with widened eyes as he ripped the electrified stun disc off his arm and leapt to his feet. “Bucky, I don’t believe that you bombed the U.N. but you need to stop and remember who you are!”

Bucky’s face was blank and devoid of any emotion, a far cry from the frightened man in the containment cell. He stalked towards her and while she had just enough time to duck the first punch he threw her way, she couldn’t dodge the second; the force of his fist’s impact on her jaw sent her flying back and crashing to the ground, her wrist screaming in protest as she tried and failed to break her fall. While he strode down the hallway to where she was sprawled on the floor, she hurriedly ripped all the stun discs out of her pocket and began throwing them as she crawled backwards. He avoided each and every stun disc she threw, but it bought her enough time to pick herself up off the ground and side-step his next attack; before she could land a kick or punch, though, his metal hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her easily into the air and slamming her hard against the wall.

(Y/N)’s hands came up to uselessly clutch at the metal fingers that were digging into her skin and her legs kicked out in desperation as she struggled for air; just as her vision was beginning to darken her eyes focused on the small tear in the sleeve of his shirt and the corner of a red star it barely revealed, and in desperation she cried out, “Sol…Soldat!”

The assassin froze, and (Y/N) watched as his hardened expression shifted into confusion. His metallic hand quickly loosened and she instantly crumpled to the floor, coughing and gasping for air, unable to move or even defend herself. Bucky’s heavy footsteps faded away and with a wheezing breath, she lifted her head in time to see Steve burst through the same stairwell door she’d come through moments before.

“(Y/N)!?” He hurried to her side and dropped down, his grease-smudged face filled with pure panic as he tugged her into his arms. “Oh God, you’re bleeding…!”

Steve’s free hand came up to touch her scratched jaw but she grabbed his wrist to halt his movement, ignoring how his brow furrowed in confusion as she whispered, “G-go, Steve…Bucky’s heading for…for the helipad…”

He firmly shook his head, blue eyes already set in determination. “No, baby, I’m not leaving you.”

“Bucky needs you!” (Y/N) insisted, suppressing her wince of pain as she stared up at him with a fiery resolve; sensing the conflict within the super-soldier, she released his wrist and gently rested her hand against his cheek with a sad smile. “Go.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Steve nodded and carefully eased her back onto the ground, giving her one final look before running down the hallway after the assassin; right before he turned the corner, she closed her eyes, unwilling to watch as the love of her life chased after the deadly assassin by himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the second time in two days, (Y/N) quietly sat and allowed herself to be patched up by a kindly paramedic. Not only did she still have a ruptured eardrum, she also had a large laceration along her jaw that required five stitches, a sprained wrist that was secured in a sturdy brace and a smattering of darkening finger-shaped bruises around her neck. Others weren’t as lucky as you were, she reminded herself, sadness washing over her as she thought of all the critically injured and dead CIA agents who’d also encountered the dangerous Winter Soldier during his rampage.

Once the paramedics finished treating her wounds, she made her way back to the control room and was immediately met by a sympathetic Natasha. “Here, I got you some tea with honey; it’ll help your throat feel better.” The spy handed her a warm to-go cup before wrapping an arm around her shoulders and leading her into the glass-walled conference room, where Tony was already seated and resting his bruised head in his hand. “Secretary Ross’s gonna be here in a few minutes, hot-shot, so please try to be on your best behavior no matter what he says to rile you up.”

(Y/N) merely nodded and took a sip of her tea, wincing in pain as she swallowed. The injuries to her throat didn’t stop her from speaking but her own conscious did; she was beginning to realize that no matter what she could say or do to convince them that Bucky was innocent, they’d never listen and even if they did, there was nothing they could do about it under the Sokovia Accords. So, she made the decision to bide her time and wait until the right moment to bring up her theory.

The three of them sat together in weary silence, the turmoil of the past two days seeming to catch up to them, until Secretary Ross barged into the conference room with his trademark sneer on his face. “You two wanna fill me in on what happened and why a civilian’s still sitting in the middle of a covert CIA control room?”

As if sensing (Y/N)’s simmering irritation, Natasha stood and moved to lean against the back of her chair, placing a calming hand on her shoulder as she replied, “Barnes escaped custody with the aid of the U.N. psychiatrist sent to evaluate him; they knocked out the power grid to the city and used it as a distraction, and (Y/N) here was already in the building for questioning. She’s one of the many who tried and failed to stop Barnes from leaving the building.”

“After taking (Y/L/N) out of commission, Barnes tried leaving in a chopper but ended up crashing it on the helipad; he, Rogers and Wilson are all missing in action.” Tony glanced over at (Y/N) before returning his gaze to the Secretary of State. “That’s all we’ve got.”

“I don’t suppose you have any idea where they are?”

“We will, GSG-9’s got the borders covered, and Recon’s flying 24/7. They’ll get a hit; we’ll handle it.”

Secretary Ross scoffed at the billionaire. “You don’t get it, Stark, it’s not yours to handle. It’s clear you can’t be objective, so I’m putting Special Ops on this.”

The spy’s hand on her shoulder flexed. “What happens when the shooting starts? What, do you kill Steve Rogers?”

“If we’re provoked,” (Y/N)’s eyes widened in horror and in her shock, she almost missed what Ross said next. “Barnes would’ve been eliminated in Romania if it wasn’t for Rogers; there are dead people who would be alive now. Feel free to check my math.”

Tony’s eyes flicked over to meet theirs, an uncomfortable look filling his gaze as he turned back to Ross. “All due respect, you’re not going to solve this with boys and bullets, Ross. You gotta let us bring them in.”

“How would that end any differently from the last time?” The Secretary of State demanded.

The billionaire’s expression hardened at Ross’ silent implications. “Because this time, I won’t be wearing loafers and a silk shirt. Seventy-two hours, guaranteed.”

“Thirty-six hours,” Ross corrected, giving them all a pointed look before turning and walking out of the conference room, calling out over his shoulder, “Barnes…Rogers…Wilson…”

“Thank you, sir!” The glass door closed and Tony slumped in his seat with an exhausted sigh as he clutched his left arm. “My left arm is numb, is that normal?”

Moving around the table, Natasha patted the billionaire on his shoulder. “You all right?”

The two Avengers continued to talk in low tones but (Y/N) couldn’t focus on what they were saying; all she could think of were Secretary Ross’ cold-blooded words and the way he’d said them without so much as a hint of remorse. What horrified her more, though, was the fact that Tony and Natasha didn’t appear to be bothered by the threat against the lives of their former teammates. This is all wrong, she thought as her vision began to blur with unshed tears, her heart sinking into her stomach while she realized that Steve’s worst fears about the Accords were materializing right before her very eyes; blinking away her tears, she looked down at her now-bare ring finger and the longer she stared, the more her anger with the two Avengers grew.

“…head downstairs to talk to T’Challa. I’ll bring (Y/N) with me, since he seems to tolerate her more than the rest of us.”

“Before you do, though, she’s gonna need to sign the Accords; I don’t want Ross looking for any excuses to arrest her so we need to do this by the books.” She looked back up as Tony and Natasha turned to her, the billionaire’s brow raised in expectation while he continued. “That okay with you, Austen?”

(Y/N) was silent for a long moment and when she finally spoke, it was with a forced calmness and a clenched jaw. “Did I ever tell you two what my new novel Bring A Folding Chair is about? It chronicles the rise and fall of second-wave feminism in America as told through the eyes of a young investigative journalist.” Getting up from her seat, she crossed her arms over her chest and began pacing. “I focus on the successes of the movement while also highlighting its failures and shortcomings, because even the most well-intended things can inadvertently end up hurting others.” (Y/N) shook her head in agitation and glanced over at the two confused Avengers. “When it came to the Accords, I knew from the moment Secretary Ross told us about them that they were wrong, but I turned a willful blind eye to the truth because I was selfish and only cared about saving my relationship with Steve. But now…now my eyes are wide open.”

“(Y/N), take it easy-”

“Do not tell me to take it easy when you just sat there and listened to Ross practically order a hit on three people – two of which are your friends – who haven’t been legally convicted of any wrongdoing!” She yelled as her sore throat ached in protest but she ignored it, all the frustration and pain that had been building up inside of her finally boiling over. “Steve was right when he said I was too idealistic; I thought the world was made up of enough good people who would keep the Accords from becoming too authoritative but unfortunately, it’s made up of cowards like us who are only looking out for our own self-interests.” Her gaze shifted from Tony’s stunned expression to Natasha, whose face remained neutral but whose eyes conveyed the pain her words had caused; she swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded before continuing. “Well, I don’t know about you two but I can’t do it anymore.”

Without another word, (Y/N) stormed out into the control room and down one of the hallways to Agent Ross’ office, her uninjured hand curled into a fist at her side as she walked; the door of the agent’s office was open and he was in deep conversation with Sharon Carter, who was tapping away on a tablet while they talked. They both looked over at her as she entered the office, and Agent Ross’ brow furrowed in concern while he took in her injuries and stony expression. “Miss (Y/L/N). Agent 13 told me that you got roughed up pretty badly earlier; are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Agent Ross. Am I free to go?” The agent raised his brow, looking more amused that surprised by her demanding question, and she gritted her teeth before continuing. “In the past forty-eight hours I’ve attended a friend’s funeral, was nearly blown up in a suspected terrorist attack, was unjustly interrogated for several continuous hours, broke off my engagement to the love of my life and was nearly killed again by a brainwashed assassin. I’m filthy, I’m injured, I’m exhausted, and I’m just one more incident away from completely losing my shit so can I please leave now?”

Sharon cast her a fleeting glance and took a step forward. “Sir, she’s already given multiple statements to our agents and…well, to be frank, the Joint Terrorism Task Force is already facing scrutiny for not stopping Barnes’ escape. The criticism will only intensify when the news outlets catch wind that we’re holding an injured, world-famous author without probable cause.” Agent Ross considered her words, and Sharon shot her a warning glance before continuing. “I’ll drive her to a nearby hotel and keep an eye on her in case Rogers tries getting into contact; based on the events of the last few hours, though, I’m not so sure that he will.”

“All right,” He finally answered, his expression softening a little as he looked back at her. “But for the time being, Miss (Y/L/N), consider yourself on the no-fly list.”

Nodding in thanks, (Y/N) glanced back at Sharon and the agent gave her a brief smile. “I’ve got a few things to wrap up here so I’ll meet you down in the parking garage in ten.” She reached into her pockets and withdrew her car keys, pressing them into her open palm with another fleeting smile. “My car’s the grey Audi parked by the stairwell.”

(Y/N) walked out of the office and down the hallway but since the mechanics were still working on fixing the elevators after the power-outage, she was forced to take the stairs all the way down to the underground parking garage. She quickly located the agent’s car and unlocked it, climbing into the passenger seat and buckling her seat-belt; now that she was finally alone, she couldn’t stop herself as she lowered her head into her hands and cried, allowing all the pent-up emotions inside of her to finally be set free. In that moment, all she wanted to do was go back to when everything was normal, back before Lagos and her constant fighting with Steve and the goddamn Accords; it wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was a hundred times better than what they were all currently going through. “I’m so sorry, Steve…”

As her sobs finally began to subside, the stairwell door opened and Sharon walked through the doorway; she took a steadying breath and wiped the last of her tears away just as the agent opened the driver-side door and got it. Sharon reached over and opened the glove-box to reveal a package of tissues, flashing her a brief and sympathetic smile as she pulled one out and blew her nose. “I tend to start feeling better after I’ve had a good cry. How ‘bout you?”

“Not really, I still feel like shit except now my eyes itch and my nose is running,” (Y/N) half-heartedly quipped, dabbing at the corners of her eyes and sighing. “So, you know any good hotels around here?”

“The Kurhotel Strӧszek’s nice and it’s not too far from here, so that’ll make Agent Ross happy. On our way, we’ll stop at a pharmacy and pick you up some first aid sup-” The ringing of Sharon’s cell phone interrupted her words and she was quick to answer it. “Agent 13 here…Steve?” (Y/N) instantly perked up and with a brief gesture for her to stay quiet, the agent switched to speakerphone. “Okay, I’m alone. What’s up?”

“We’ve figured out what’s going on,” Steve’s voice answered through the phone’s speaker and (Y/N) bit her lip to keep from making a sound at the comforting timbre. “The doctor framed Bucky for the U.N. bombing in order to find out where Hydra kept him. They created five other Winter Soldiers back in the 90’s and had them cryogenically frozen; he’s planning on waking them, says he’s doing it to see an empire fall.”

“So, you three need your gear before you can go after him.”

The super-soldier sighed. “I know that it’s a lot to ask, Sharon-”

“You’re trying to stop a squad of murderous super-soldiers from taking over the world, Rogers; if this is how I can help stop that from happening, then I’m in. I’ll send you a message when I’ve got the gear and we’ll arrange a meeting.”

“Thank you, Sharon, I owe you one. How…how’s (Y/N) doing?”

“She’s okay; lacerated jaw, sprained wrist and a whole lot of bruising, but she’s fine.” Steve breathed a deep sigh of relief that made (Y/N)’s heart warm and the agent gave her a sideways glance before continuing. “You should know that she’s refused to sign the Accords. I’ve been assigned to escort her to a hotel, where she’ll stay until she’s taken off the CIA’s no-fly list and can go back home…”

There was silence over the line and just as she began wondering if they’d somehow been disconnected, Steve quietly spoke, “I’ve already asked you for one favor but can I bother you for another?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“If I write a letter, can you make sure that it gets to (Y/N)? There’s a lot that I need to tell her and since I don’t know what’ll happen where we’re going…well, she deserves answers one way or another.”

Sharon’s eyes flicked between (Y/N)’s saddened expression and the cell phone in her hand as she nodded. “Of course, I’ll pick it up when I hand over your gear. Talk to you later, Rogers.”

Hanging up, the agent tucked the phone into her pocket and quickly started the engine, buckling up and driving at a steady speed through the parking garage and out onto the street; (Y/N) fiddled with the hem of her wrinkled shirt for a thought-filled moment before stating, “You’ve already got a plan.”

“Let’s just say that I’ve been prepared to follow through on a favor like this one for a while now,” Sharon spared her a sideways glance and focused back on the road. “But I won’t say anything else about it on the off-chance the CIA decides to question you somewhere down the line; the last thing I want is for you to be charged with aiding and abetting in the theft of government property.”

(Y/N) glanced down at her bare ring finger and thought back on Steve’s words during his phone call; she was desperate to find out what was in the letter but at the same time, she knew in her heart that she needed to hear whatever it was directly from him. The thought reminded her of their conversation about the problems within their relationship in the London hotel’s bar, the last truly calm moment they’d shared before everything went sideways…

“Whatever it is, we can work through it together. We make a damn good team, after all.”

“Of course we do, sunshine.”

There’s something I have to do before Steve and the others go after those super-soldiers, (Y/N) thought to herself, her shoulders squared in determination as she turned to glance at Sharon beside her and pondered the best way to ask the spy for a third and final favor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Russian Translation: Soldat-Soldier

A/N: Next chapter will have even less angst so yay! Thank you all so much for reading and commenting! I’ve created a Spotify playlist inspired by this series, and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter. Enjoy!

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4TsJ2TY1F2HDXhEYOfzCjY?si=b1abdaeccc4c4d21

Chapter Seven

Civil War Masterlist

Tagging: @mrs-obrien @lahoete @awkward117 @cminr @natdrunk @momc95 @savedbystyle @miraculouscloud @awkwardnesshabitat @marinettepotterandplagg @khuang3 @supersouthy @benakenalove @brooke0297 @hufflepeople @becausewelie @outoftheregular @supreme-tantrum @ladydmalfoy @mads-weasley @username23345 @crist1216 @aesthethickks

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bush-viper-cutie · 5 years ago

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Love Me Roughly: Risking It All

Pairing: Snape x fem!reader

Word Count: 2,080

Rating: M for Mature

Plot: Severus must come clean and risk everything he has with the woman he loves. He tells her every horrifying and awful event from his past, expecting her to leave him and hate him forever.

A/N: This is part 6 of 7 for the Schedule 1 week 1: Snape Lives AU for Snape Appreciation Month 2020! @snapeloveposts

DISCLAIMER: I have edited (drawn over the original) the artwork (taken from a 80′s bodice ripper novel) for the purpose of this short series and will post more information about the original work here.

Posted: 6/6/20

Chapter List

<– Last Chapter Next Chapter –>

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

Severus was out of the cabin, walking Jiggy in his white shirt and thinking through a great many things. First, he needed to tell her everything about himself. He couldn’t bare losing her, but he couldn’t take the guilt of knowing he was keeping everything from her.

She had been asking him questions about his life and he had told her basically nothing because he had been dancing around the fact he served a vile and hideous master for years and on two occasions, and that he had been working at Hogwarts for all of his adult life and technically murdered his employer.

By some miracle the more she has gotten to know him the more in love she has fallen, which was perfect considering he was as much in love with her. Too much actually. His heart ached for her and the guilt made it so much worse.

Second… He was growing sadder at the realization he had lost all his friends… well colleagues are what he would have called them then, but now he sees they were indeed his friends. He missed talking to Minerva every morning before breakfast, drinking coffee and complaining mostly.

He missed hearing the baffling stories Poppy would tell him every month about what annoying injuries students were coming to her with. Pomona was the only one who knew all the gossip and rumors going around school and Hagrid always offered to have him over for tea, though he refused every time.

If Hogwarts hadn’t been invaded, attacked, and burned, students would be packing their things and getting ready to get on the Hogwarts Express back to London by now. He sighed and shook his head, forcing all his memories out of his head. They were useless now.

Jiggy came running up to him indicating it was time to head inside for breakfast.

“How was the walk?” she hugged him tight, waiting for an answer.

He gave a weak smile and nodded, “As expected.”

The kitchen now looked like one that was in constant use. She had given him many of her pans and pots, ladles and spoons, jars and bottles which now filled the cabinets and counter. The table had placemats and a nice center candle that matched the color of the cushions on the chairs.

She had brought over her plants and flowers to fill the living room with life – though she claimed it was so she wouldn’t worry about watering them. There was also a rug and another reading chair in the living room with small bookshelves behind it. This was now a room where they both enjoyed sitting and reading together instead of an awkward empty place for Jiggy to lick his privates in.

They finished their breakfast and Severus headed upstairs to finish thinking through his decision. He came back down and cleared his throat. She looked up from Love Me Roughly – she had started reading it now after him – and closed it.

“Yes?”

Severus crossed the room and sat in his chair next to hers and closed his eyes shut, “I need to tell you about my life.”

He heard her shift in her seat, “I’m all ears.”

“No, you don’t understand… It’ll change the way you view me,” he sighed heavily and paused for a minute to center himself, “I need to tell you because there are things I’m feeling for you and I can’t allow this to go on without knowing that you understand exactly who I am.”

“Severus, I know who you are. I may not know your past but it’s not like you’re pretending to be someone you’re not…”

Severus nodded, “But there are some things I’ve done that you might not forgive me for…” He opened his eyes and turned to her. “If you’re going to hate me I’d rather it happened now than – ” his words caught on his throat and he swallowed his emotions down, “So let me explain myself.”

He stood up and placed his hands behind his back. He started pacing and began the story of his years after losing his best friend, joining the Death Eaters, and handing the Dark Lord the prophecy that would ruin his life and the lives of others.

He watched her eyes carefully, going from amusement to shock to anger, tears rolling down her cheeks, but she said nothing and made no motion to leave. He felt her hatred for him as he went on about finding out his oldest and only true friend he ever had was being targeted, and about how it was his fault she died.

He held back tears and kept his emotions in check as he went on about caring for the boy of his childhood bully, about being sent back to serve his old Master, and about murdering the only person who knew who he really was, good or bad.

She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms and wiping away tears as he spoke. He couldn’t bare to look at her as he continued with all he had to do among the Death Eaters, even sitting there to watch as a colleague died before his eyes.

He sat back down on his chair and wiped a single tear as he explained his appointment as Headmaster and all that went on at Hogwarts, and the battle between Minerva and himself before he ran from the castle. He ended the story by recounting the events of the battle at Hogwarts and how he was attacked by the Dark Lord’s snake and how after curing himself and realizing it was all over, he had ran away and left the world behind.

“By now I’m sure they suspect I am alive or that one of the Death Eaters took my dead body. Though I don’t think anyone cares and would prefer it if I were dead,” Severus finally looked over at her.

She was wiping her tears and sniffling but did not meet his eyes, instead focusing on the book she held in her hands. She nodded and he took that as a que to leave the room to let her process all he had said. He headed upstairs and lay in bed where he let all his feelings come forward. He wept silently until his eyelids became too heavy to keep open.

. . .

Severus opened his eyes and squinted, unable to see in the darkness. He sat up and felt a hand slide down his chest and onto the bed. She had crawled into bed at some point and wrapped her arms over him. He turned and swept hair from her face.

Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up as well, “Severus… I’m sorry you went through all that.”

She pulled him into her and held him tight, stroking his hair and hugging him as close to herself as possible. He started sobbing quietly, relieved that she was still treating him with love and care. He was sure that when he woke, she would be gone for good out of his life.

“They’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done,” he choked, “I’ll be hated ‘till the day I die.”

She pressed her lips to the top of his head and sniffed, “You can explain everything to them as you did me – ”

“And risk them hating me even more for not staying dead? No. Never,” he pushed away from her, “(Y/n)… You don’t understand. They will NEVER accept me back. When I-I started teaching there, I was so young and they forgave my mistake. Minerva took a while to come around but they accepted I had changed and learned from it… How could they possibly excuse my actions as an adult?” He started sobbing into his hands and was pulled back into her arms.

“You said he forced you, commanded you, to do all those things. They knew you were a spy – you can tell her – ”

“My only proof was murdered by my hand and they’ll accuse me of falsifying my memories…”

“What about the boy? Ha – ”

“Don’t. Speak his name.” Severus didn’t want to be reminded of him. He didn’t want to be reminded about anything to do with him. He knew he could never apologize for the things he had done, to his mother, to him… The boy knew everything now and all he could hope was for him to understand why things had happened the way they did… and how very sorry he was.

“I’m sorry, Severus… The reason I was in London was because of the battle. I was taking care of my nephew while his mother did her Auror duties for the Ministry… Not at the school but I still heard about how awful it had all been… I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

After several more minutes of crying, Severus was helped to his feet and out of his day clothes. She pulled his nightshirt down as he dropped his head on her shoulders and hugged her tight, unable to focus on anything. She pushed him into the bed and hugged him tight for hours until he fell asleep once more.

. . .

After hours of sleeping Severus was able to push everything back once more, using the rhythm of the warm water in the shower and the soft humming he heard coming from downstairs. He dressed and headed down, expecting a small breakfast but instead receiving what looked like a feast.

There were plates of bacon, sausages, eggs, pancakes, and waffles. There was a glass pitcher of orange juice and one of milk out on the table. He sat down and laughed.

“You realize I barely eat what you serve me normally, right?”

She laughed, “What you don’t eat put in the fridge because I won’t be here for three days, I’ve been called in to relocate another Wizard at five today,” she sat down and started filling her plate.

He arched an eye, “For a second I thought you had quit… You haven’t done that since… well me.”

She smiled and nodded, “Well I’ve been turning them down but I know this one will be a big commission so I feel I must take it.”

“Was it written in your tea yesterday?” he smirked, knowing she hated how he teased her about being a seer.

“As a matter of fact,” she took the last waffle from under his fork, “It was.”

He reached for the last sausage quickly and poured out juice, “Are you taking Jiggy?”

She hid her face behind her hands.

Severus put down his fork and sighed, “Must he always jump on my legs with dirty paws? How can I walk him when he finds me more interesting than the bushes and trees outside?”

“It’s only for three days, and if you put the leash on he can go by himself. He hates it and comes right back demanding for it to be taken off, happy?”

“Well I’m not pleased.” Severus took the empty plates and charmed them into washing themselves. “I need to get started on some potions anyways, so I suppose it’s best. They’re rather fowl smelling.”

“Please keep the windows open then,” she headed upstairs and left him to clean up the rest of the things.

Severus smiled. He was glad to have gotten everything off his chest yesterday. Nothing could possibly upset him after learning that such a unique and amazing woman could look passed all his flaws and accept it all willingly.

He wiped powder off the counter and placed everything in a jar and in the fridge for breakfast the next day. He cleared the table of the candle and pulled the chairs up against the back wall readying the space for his potion. He set out his jars and cauldron on the table and personally washed his stirring rod, making sure not a single smudge of anything was left on.

She came back downstairs with packed luggage, “I’m heading out now. My portkey leaves at four, but I need to go over some things at the office.”

Severus kissed her goodbye and stood back as she apparated out of his house. In the back of his head he heard a voice tell him she’d just left and would never be back, but the loud bark of her dog told him otherwise.

He chuckled, wondering if that was why she had left him. To keep him company and to assure him of her return.

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

Chapter List

<– Last Chapter Next Chapter –>

#pro snape #snapeloveposts #severus snape x reader #severus snape x you #severus x reader #severus x you #snape x reader #snape x you #severus snape #severus #snape #snapedom #snape fanfic #snape fanfiction #snape appreciation month #snape appreciation month 2020 #snape x fem!reader

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nobody-wants-ice-cream · 5 years ago

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Everything Wrong With The Umbrella Academy. Episode 6, The Day That Wasn’t.

We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals

Run Boy Run

Extra Ordinary

Man on the Moon

Number Five

Disclaimer: This is all in good fun! I wanted to do a really nitpicky re-watch of the series and found some really cool and interesting things I didn’t notice before. This is meant to have a Cinema Sins-esque tone. However, I did take off a lot more sins than Cinema Sins would have because I do genuinely like the series and the people that made it possible. So all of the good things got one sin off and all the bad things got one sin added. This is a really long post, so grab some popcorn. If there’s anything that I missed, feel free to add it!

I would also like to add that normally you wouldn’t watch a show this way. I am purposefully looking for mistakes, easter eggs, and other things that we’re not supposed to notice. I am watching not with the goal of entertainment, but for analysis. So most of the things that I sin, I am seeing for the first time.

Also, no I can’t do better. I am in no way qualified to give this level of criticism about anything.

[Today we got the s2 release date!! I am so excited. To answer any questions about that, I will probably do a season 2 version of this a year after it comes out. Since some of my sins involve fandom and any fic tropes/theories we might come up with, I want to make sure that has time to happen.]

The Day that Wasn’t

Only Dave notices Klaus coming to Vietnam via briefcase. The flashing blue lights and loud “oof!” isn’t loud enough to wake anyone else up. +1

Cody Ray Thompson’s workout routine. -1

“Katz” isn’t a fandom thing! The dude that is yelling at all the soldiers and Klaus to get ready (some sort of commanding officer?) calls Dave “Katz”! -1

Klaus is so confused that he just puts the pants on without really questioning it. What the fuck was going on in Klaus’s head? +1

Where is Ben? +1

Right where I’m paused Klaus’s face is hilarious. “It was at this moment Klaus knew. He fucked up” -1

The Power of Boners is what keeps Klaus in the fucking Vietnam War. +1

For all future Dave sins, I am calling it The Power of Boners because Dave gets one line. As soon as the show corrects this and shows us why Dave was so wonderful, these remain sins. Sin for the show for not providing more Dave content. +1

Overly saturated forigen country cliche. +1

Seriously, why is Vietnam so orange? +1

The Doors. -1

This one shot in the foreground of the girl with white boots. I want those boots so badly. Costume people, where did you get them? Sin until I know, damnit! +1

Cool white boots are cool. -1

Klaus’s dance moves. -1

Klave. -1

Scene does not contain a lap dance. +1

Or any other indication that Dave and Klaus didn’t just make out once and decided to remain friends. Please give me more Klave content show. If anything, just to flesh out this character who motivates Klaus for half of the season. +1

Luther barges in on people in the bathroom. He has six siblings! Anyone with at least one sibling knows that barging in on people in bathrooms is a shitty move. Heh, shitty move, bathroom, get it? +1

Klaus’s face when Luther deadpans “the world’s ending in three days”. It’s the face of someone who completely forgot about that since he’s been in the 60s for ten months. -1

Also, the way Luther tells Klaus “the world’s ending in three days” is the same way I might tell my brother that it’s time for dinner. +1

“Five’s a little- [coo coo whistle]” Emmy Raver-Lampman kills this line. -1

Luther’s face when Allison asks “what did Five even see?” brings me so much joy. That is the look of complete panic. Love that. -1

Luther can’t lie for shit. Checks out. -1

Anyone with siblings can relate to Diego, Allison, and Klaus’s reaction to this bull. -1

The dramatic music leading into the little “we died” followed by a sip of coffee. Priceless. -1

Title umbrella scares the shit out of Klaus! -1

Comic power foreshadowing? Sin until we get answers. +1

Foreshadowing that Five is in HQ by sending orders that don’t follow the same format as the rest of the ones on the shoe. Fiveshaddowing? -1

Kate Walsh plays an excellent villain. Part of that evil demeanor is getting all up in Five’s personal bubble. This is the closest Five has been to someone in the entire show without any injury or being drunk. -1

The Handler is creepy. +2

Five makes demands after setting foot in the building for less than one minute. +1

The masks from the comics are on the wall in the briefcase room. -1

Based on the two agents we see in the briefcase room and Hazel and Cha Cha, the uniform of the commission assassin is a blue suit, yet all of Five’s are grey or black like management. Inconsistency. +1

Typewriters. I hate those things. +1

I think Aidan Gallagher forgot what he was doing in this scene. His expression doesn’t look like Five, it looks like some kid who is letting a math lecture wash over them. You could make the argument that Five is sort of letting this wash over him too, but I would call bullshit. Five knows how dangerous of a situation he’s in right now. He shouldn’t look this calm. +1

The Handler touching Five’s face. +3

Dot has the “i’m in danger” expression when meeting Five because Dot let Five live in hell for 45 years. Five also looks like he wants to kill her. Great acting, Patrice Goodman. -1

Five’s expression when Dot says “No hard feelings” brings me so much joy. And fear. -1

The Handler makes Five the teacher’s pet on his first day by calling him leadership material in front of his new coworkers. +1

Kate Walsh was temporarily directed by Tim Burton for this scene. +1

That weird look one of the commission management people gives Five once Five sits down and starts working. I don’t like it, I don’t like it! +1

The Hargreeves mansion looks really fucking chaotic on the roof. I don’t like it. +1

Leonard’s face at finally being allowed inside the Hargreeves mansion. Just the right dose of satisfied and creepy. Well done, John Magaro. -1

Leonard is raising so many red flags that he may as well be a stop sign. +1

Umbrella Academy action figures. Oh, Reggie. +1

Luther has to explain that everyone in the whole world dies and not just them. The Umbrella Academy School of Delayed Reactions due to Stupidity was too long of a name so Reggie shortened it to The Umbrella Academy. +1

Allison’s right, Vanya isn’t being fair. However, Allison isn’t specific about how Vanya is family but Leonard is not. Sin for both of them for being dumb as hell. +2

“I’m gonna go find Vanya” “There isn’t time, we need to figure out what causes the apocalypse” irony. +1

“Nuclear war” cited as one of the possible causes of the apocalypse. Comics fans, enjoy this sin off. -1

“But I’m thinking this is about the Moon, right?” well yeah, but not for the reasons you think. Foreshadowing the moon. -1

That creepy portrait of Five behind Diego. No, not the big one, the other one by the bar. What the fuck, Reggie? +1

Leonard steals the action figure of The Monocle (reggie for those who don’t know the comics), which symbolizes the way Leonard feels he is controlling the Academy through Vanya. -1

Leonard is creepy. +1

Ben doesn’t realize that Klaus is going through withdrawal despite seeing it the day before. Sure, Ben could have been more focused on the tourture, but because Ben points out Klaus’s withdrawal by name in Man on the Moon, we can assume he noticed and that this is a continuity error. +1

Vanya’s powers affecting the world around her as soon as she is a safe distance away from the academy because reasons. Seriously, there should have been at least something while she was confronting her siblings. Show plays fast and loose with the rules of Vanya’s powers. +1

“If you tie me up after.” “Come again?” Diego and Klaus have the most sibling like relationship on this entire show. -1

Klaus’s Diego impression. -1

Excessive use of the word “bro”. One sin for every time I have to hear it in this scene. +2

“Mr. Five”. Is Five’s first name “Number” or did he not give the Commission any other name? Does this imply that he doesn’t go by Five Hargreeves? +1

This is one of the few scenes where Aidan Gallagher no longer looks like Aidan Gallagher and instead looks like Five. Acting. -1

Dot is really trying to get murdered. Don’t engage the man you put through hell for almost fifty years, moron. +1

The Handler has nothing better to do than to stalk Five. Does this lady have a job or did she take the day off specifically for this? What was she doing in the tube room?+1

The origin of “deadly little thing” is fucking Gloria? Really, fandom? +1

Five is too good of an actor. I understand why Aidan Gallagher might make some of these choices as an actor but I don’t understand how a man who grew up alone in the apocalypse can act this well. +1

The Handler keeps singling Five out in front of his coworkers. +1

The Handler’s arm around Five’s shoulders. +1

Creepy dude is back. I’m not even going to try and look up this guy’s name, but the expression suggests something I don’t want to think about. +1

Creepy guy’s name is Herb. Of course it is. +1

The file Five picks up just has a smiley face inside of it, which suggests that the Handler put it there as a red herring. Nice touch, show. -1

Gender neutral bathrooms. -1

Five’s expression when the Handler continues talking to him as she is peeing. -1

The Handler talks to Five while peeing. Gross. +2

His expression when she starts coughing is so funny. -1

Rugae +1

The Handler peeks over the door of the bathroom stall. +10

Cha Cha says, “Sure, shoot” when Hazel asks if he can ask her a question. +1

Where did the gunshot come from if Cha Cha didn’t shoot Hazel? I get they’re using it to make us think that she did, but there is no other explanation for the noise. +1

Luther frantically searching for his moon research makes me very sad. +1

Also, I’m kind of bored with this episode at this point. It’s such a low episode with the only interesting parts that make me as excited as the last episode Number Five, being the Commission parts. Everything else is kind of boring. Pick up the pace, show. +1

Reggie is a dick to Luther. +7

Luther looks so lost and broken and sad. I’m sad. Fuck you, Reggie. +1

Why the fuck was Luther carrying an axe?? +2

And rope?? +2

When and where did Luther find the time and money to get the engraved gold locket for Allison? This interaction is so full of plot holes and stupidity. +1

However, Cameron Brodeur and Eden Cupid do well with this dumb writing. -1

Seriously, who wrote this scene? The fact that I can’t bring myself to care about what is going on right now says a lot. +1

Reggie jump scare. +1

Cliche record scratch. How did that happen? Did Luther or Allison bump into it? Sin for lack of clarity and for destroying a record. +1

“Fun and games are restricted to Saturdays between noon and half past noon” Reggie is a dick to his children. +7

Klaus and Diego bonding. Literally? -1

Ben is in this scene! -1

I forgot how weird the soundtrack is for this scene. It’s too ominous. Scoring is important. +1

“Dave must have been a very special person to put up with all your weird-ass shit.” -1

“He was kind and strong and vulnerable and beautiful” that’s great, show. Why don’t you show us that instead of having Klaus say it. Just once scene where Dave shows these qualities so that he’s a real person instead of someone created to drive Klaus’s storyline? Please? +1

I feel really bad for Ben in this scene. From Ben’s perspective, he wasn’t good enough to motivate Klaus to get sober, but this random guy was. Ben angst. +1

Also, Justin Min manages to convey this without any lines. Major props. That takes some serious skill. -2

Bro. +1

“Everyone I like is already dead”. Fridging. +1

I can’t tell if this is Ben walking away or if this is the transition between Diego and Klaus’s point of views. If this is meant to imply the pov switch, It would have been easier to have Ben disappear from the same spot. If it’s Ben walking away because he can’t take being told that he isn’t good enough to get sober for, Ben angst. Either way, it’s a sin. +1

“Aww shit! I need to pee.” Diego’s expression is amazing. -1

“If this [having powers] is even true, everything I know about myself would be different.” That is Vanya’s storyline in a nutshell. This line is really underrated. -1

All of Leonard’s lines point towards the book. All of them. Which makes total sense. -1

Vanya is starting to show more sass and personality because the pills are gone. I wish fanfic writers would explore this. Including myself, I am sinning fanfic writers for not taking into account how cool Vanya is without the meds. +1

“I’m sorry you got stuck with the ordinary one” See! +1

“Ordinary” This word keeps coming up. Probably because of the whole rumor situation that we’re not supposed to know about yet. Rewatches are fun. -1

“My life is so weird” “I like weird”. And if you weren’t such a colossal creep, Leonard/Harold, I would like you too. This line is super sweet. Sin for manipulation. +1

Ellen Page isn’t my girlfriend. Have you seen this scene recently? She looks so cute/hot/beautiful here. +1

No transition, just straight from Leonard and Vanya kissing to The Handler slurping her smoothie. It’s jarring. +1

I want to know why they decided that killing Archduke Ferdinand would start World War I. Noodle incident. +1

“I had a bad Twinkie in the apocalypse once. Kinda put me off desserts.” Yet you still ate the fluffernutter sandwich, Five? +1

The Handler’s office is really cool. Once again, set designers you win this one. -1

Why would Five go straight for a decade instead of a flavor? How does something taste like the 1950s before it tastes like a popular candy from the time for example? +1

The suit is blue like the rest of the time travel assassins have. This suggests a uniform that the Commission didn’t make Five wear before, and suggests a sort of power play. Details. -1

The Handler is a fucking creep. +1

“M26 grenades from the Vietnam war”. This is the comment that sparked the theory that the Commission killed Dave. I want answers. +1

The candy that tastes like the 50s is really chewy. Why is Five still chewing it? +1

The Handler gives Five a pistol and he doesn’t immediately shoot her, which suggests that the pistol is empty. So why was the grenade still operational if the other weapons were not? You would think she would make sure that the grenades couldn’t be used against her. +1

The Handler is a fucking creep. I think Aidan Gallagher was a little uncomfortable in this scene. The look in his eyes isn’t something you can fake. +1

Kate Walsh is an awesome actress. -1

Out of all the candies in the bowl, Five conveniently takes one that is an actual candy and one that is a tracker. +1

So I want to talk about Luther. I think the show did him a great disservice by setting up his story this way. Compared to the Commission stuff, Luther’s story arc doesn’t seem important, hence the “Dad sent me to the Moon” jokes. If this was in a better order, then maybe the fandom would like Luther more. Not that I know what that order should have been, but it definitely shouldn’t have been this one. This whole episode seems kind of disorganized and Luther’s character suffers for it. After this sin, I’m going to shut up about it, so I’ll just add a few and move on. +5

“Four years of my life. A lie” “What an asshole” That’s a bit of an understatement, Allison. Seriously, this Moon research has got to have some value to it. Luther was studying the moon for four fucking years. Who knows what kind of crazy shit he could have found out about the moon’s atmosphere and what the Earth was like when the moon split from it. Those soil samples would tell us a lot about what the developing planet Earth was like. Luther’s moon research is important scientific material. And Reggie just locked it away. +3

This scene is excellent independently. Tom Hopper and Emmy Raver-Lampman play off each other extremely well. -1

“Can I show you something?” +1

The tools in the greenhouse have not moved in seventeen years. +1

And neither has the dust free record player. +1

Two cans of generic cola from seventeen years ago. And these two morons drink them. The family brain cell is dying. +1

This is such a sibling moment. Trying to do something nice and then it all goes up in flames? Sibling. Culture. -1

You know what isn’t sibling culture? The fucking locket. +3

This is a really human moment for Cha Cha. Burning the note shows that deep down, she cares about Hazel. -1

However, I don’t understand why she’s so pissed about Agnes. Is the show trying to ship Hazel and Cha Cha? Because that would be a stretch and I really don’t see it. +1

Klaus asking for one last hit is believable. Diego’s reaction is really good too. Well done. -1

Klaus’s ptsd. Putting my boy through trauma. +1

The wound on Dave’s chest has to be an exit wound. He was behind the barrier, so there’s no way he could have been shot from the front by the enemy. Someone (like a Commission agent) shot him from the back. So I guess we sort of got answers? I’m going to sin this until we know for sure. +1

Klaus is distraught. My poor boy. +1

Why is the chandelier still on the ground? You would think somebody would have attempted to pick that up at this point, right? It’s been two days. +1

Grace’s more relaxed hairstyle shows that she isn’t under Reggie’s strict control anymore. The tight pin curls are now replaced by gorgeous waves. Symbolism, well done hair stylist. -1

Grace lies because Pogo is standing behind Diego. Otherwise, I think she would have told him the truth right then and there. Secrets. +1

Yo, @ Luther. Who the fuck eats a hot dog like that? +1

Also, it was bright daylight when Diego was talking to Grace and now it’s pitch black out. What happened in those hours? +1

Talking about their regrets, Allison says “we can’t go back”. Insert every season 2 headcanon and the whole “Where are they?” tag line from the season 2 promos. +1

Allison attempts to see the silver lining of child abuse. This works and is a valid coping mechanism that I think is totally in character. Well done, writers. -1

The kiss on the cheek is very “this is the last time I will see my sibling whom I love very dearly and who also loves me for me”. This should have been it for Allison and Luther kissing because it’s a really good moment. -1

I love the dancing in the moonlight scene because it’s a reference to something from the comics. -1

The choreography is really, really good. Emma Portner fucking rules. -1

And I love the earrings that Allison is wearing. No joke, someone please tell me where I can find them, they’re adorable and I would love to have them. -1

However, the show made us see two sibling characters kiss. In a very romantic way. +15

And it’s very clear that this kiss happens outside of the fantasy too. +15

Also, without the lights and the music, were Allison and Luther just two weirdos dancing in the park to nothing? +1

The transition to get back to the Commission is really good. -1

“Gloria. The Handler knows that Five is up to something. Get this to Hazel and Cha Cha immediately.” Was the extra info about Five necessary? I feel like a regular person wouldn’t say that. +1

Gloria doesn’t know who the second best assassins are. +1

Five gets that stapler out of nowhere. This goes back to his unexplained power from episode 1, but now the question is: Is this switching power stapler based? +1

Five’s expression when he finally gets the name of the man who will cause the apocalypse. -1

And now we know the origin of the terminate Hazel message. Five, you clever bastard. -1

Did we see the terminate Cha Cha message before this? I can’t remember. If we didn’t then it’s a great reveal. If we did, then I didn’t care enough to pay attention. [I looked back] We didn’t. Great reveal. -1

Five, hide your bodies better so they don’t start waking up for comedic timing. +1

The comedic timing of Gloria waking back up. -1

“You’re a first rate pragmatist!” no he’s not. Have you been paying attention to Five’s character at all, Handler? If he was, then he never would have broken his contract because he was safe in the Commission.+1

Also, this is what a lot of fanfic writers base Five off of. Not his actual character, this fucking line. Sin for the fandom. +1

Why did they have to split up this scene? The Handler just attempted to shoot Five and now we’re supposed to care about Mom and Diego?? +1

Grace finally gets to tell the truth! Sin for Pogo and Reggie for forcing her to lie. +1

The truth. -1

The Commission desk people do care about Gloria. Caring. -1

Vanya finding Reggies book. This could have been the original trigger to the apocalypse in the first timeline. I want answers. How did it go down originally? +1

Dave! -1

“I do owe a debt. But it’s not to you.” This is one of those lines that will be referenced in a future season. “See, [this character and/or relationship] was referenced in season 1” or something like that. This is my favorite Five line, too. -2

Five once again stands too close to an explosion. Fuckin’ run, dude! +1

The ending of this episode reminds me of the “and it was all just a dream” ending that 5th graders write. Nothing in this episode has any consequences. +3

And I am adding back the sins I took off and then some for the important bits like Diego and Klaus bonding, Grace telling Diego all the secrets, and Klaus seeing Dave. +4

Wednesday. 8:15 A.M. (...again). The time stamp is pretty good though. -1

“What gives us a win this time?” And then Five appears. -1

Five snatches Allison’s coffee. And he should be bleeding from the shrapnel wound. +2

Allison’s face when Five snatches her coffee. -1

Diego, Luther, Klaus, and Allison are all watching Five stumble weird and chug Allison’s coffee with the funniest expressions. I want to know what they were thinking. Ya know, beyond “What the Fuck?”. +1

Those expressions, though. -1

“So if y’all don’t get your sideshow acts together” Five this whole season has been you saving the world and everyone else as a sideshow act. That’s gonna take a lot more effort than saving the world. +1

Aidan Gallagher fucking nails this scene. Expletive required. This is why I respect him as an actor. This scene would have been so easy to over act, but he kills this monologue. -5

If you look closely at Five’s hair, it looks sort of like the triangular shape from the comics. I can’t tell if that was intentional, but it was a good detail. Hair department. -1

“Who the hell is Harold Jenkins” followed by a coffee slurp. That is how they end the episode? Really? It would have been stronger without the coffee. +1

Season 2 comes out on July 31, 2020! I got the announcement just as I was finishing this episode! I’ll take off a sin because we finally know! Whoop!! -1

Overall review:

After the powerhouse that is episode 5, this episode feels odd and out of place. My favorite parts were the Commission parts, and everything else felt like an interruption. Even more so when you consider that the commission parts are the only parts of the episode that actually happened. Sure, it’s great character building, but without any consequences, it feels cheap. I feel like I’ve said everything I needed to say, so I won’t get crazy with the analysis. I would say more if anything in this episode actually mattered.

Total: 112

Sentence: The Umbrella Academy of Reacting to things Slowly due to Stupidity. Say that 10 times fast. Then I will undo all your hard work through the power of time travel. Seriously, fuck this ending.

#The Umbrella Academy #all in good fun #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #dave katz #leonard peabody #harold jenkins #the handler #dot #gloria #the commission

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ficcrimes · 5 years ago

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sundown

Fandom: Tangled Characters: Varian, Rapunzel, mentions Cassandra and Eugene; hints of New Dream A/N: commission for @mogadeer, a sequel to sun in your eyes. same disclaimer applies to this fic as it did to the last. this one is set post-S3, though not by much. inspiration drawn from this fanart Mo drew awhile back. Summary: if this were any other version of this story, maybe he’d finally get to tell her.

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He should be happy for her. It is, after all, her wedding day.

It’s not like he didn’t see it coming; everyone saw it coming from a mile away. Black rocks and betrayals and ancient evil forces aside, it really should have probably happened sooner. And it probably would have, had all of that not gotten in the way.

But now the evil is defeated and the dust is settled, and there’s nothing stopping Rapunzel from marrying Eugene anymore. Some small, aching, twisted part of Varian wishes there were. Nothing like what they’ve been through, Heavens no. He wouldn’t wish that again on anybody. But is it too much to hope for some sort of trivial disaster to befall them, to prolong it a little further?

Probably. He’s also aware that thinking like that isn’t exactly healthy. Rapunzel doesn’t deserve that, and above all else, he wants her to be happy. And if that means marrying Eugene, then Varian will have to learn to deal with that.

He’s young, after all, and he’d come to terms with his feelings some time ago. And coming to terms with them also meant not having them reciprocated. It was obvious to anyone with eyes and a coherent thought process that Rapunzel was madly in love with Eugene, and nothing in this world - or any other, apparently - was going to change that.

Still… No matter how he tried to logic his way out of the way he felt, his heart didn’t seem to understand a word of it. It focused on the little things that meant so much to him, and that she would never know about. Things like how she forgave him for all of the terrible things he had done, and even how she had gone that step farther to keep a promise he had thought she’d no longer care to honor. She gave his father back to him, and did her best to help him settle back into the kingdom.

And when Cassandra had come for the scroll, and wound up taking him instead, Rapunzel had come for him. But of course she had, because that’s just the way Rapunzel was. She would have come for any of them, had they been taken in Varian’s stead, but he doesn’t let that get to him. It still meant a lot to him that she had come, and risked her life to get him back.

There was also the matter of Cassandra as a whole, and the incantations, and Zhan Tiri… But it couldn’t hurt to focus on the little details, too.

And speaking of the little details, he really couldn’t help the squeezing of his heart as Rapunzel pulled out a ring for Eugene. Even if he couldn’t hear everything that had been said, he hadn’t had to. It was more than obvious what the ring was meant for, and he quietly hated that the prism he needed to uncover the final incantation somehow manifested in the form of an engagement ring.

Given the situation, though, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he put his own feelings aside to do what had to be done. Dire straits were an excellent way to ignore the ache in his chest.

When he’d fallen from the tower, two things had battled inside his mind. One was that he was going to die, which was completely understandable given the circumstances. The other was that Rapunzel was going to save him. Her hair was going to come swinging down and grab him, and pull him back up to safety.

But she hadn’t caught him. Lance had. And while he was extremely grateful to be alive, to have had anyone catch him and be glad to have caught him at that, it had filled him with pure dread that Rapunzel hadn’t been the one to save him. He didn’t think for one moment that she had forgotten him, of course not, but the fact that she hadn’t come for him meant something bad was happening. And by then there had been no way back up, and she was up there fighting Cassandra on her own, and he couldn’t help.

That had pained him more than the anxiety of the free-fall, more than the broken ribs he wouldn’t even realize he had until they were safely back in the kingdom.

And then there had been the fight with Zhan Tiri herself, and nearly all of Corona had been willing to lay down their lives for the Kingdom, and for their Princess. Varian was no exception. And when things had looked their absolute worst for a moment, decay setting in around him, holding onto his father’s hand, he thought he could have been proud to die in that moment. It may not have been enough, but he would have died fighting with and for her.

That didn’t happen, obviously. He’s grateful to be alive, astounded by the power Rapunzel harnessed. He’s never really put any faith in a Higher Power before, but he thinks that maybe that’s what Goddesses are supposed to look like. Not that Rapunzel would ever accept such a compliment, and so he keeps it to himself.

After Zhan Tiri was defeated, life just seemed to go on. What damage had been caused was repaired - physically and emotionally - and things went on until he wound up where he was now.

Which was having just watched this incredible, wonderful, magical woman marry her roguish prince. And it was such a conflicting, complicated experience. He was happy for them, they deserved this, but some part of him still ached. Not that he’d ever had a chance with her anyway, but now it just seemed so final.

Still, he plucks up his courage and stands himself up when there’s a pause between toasts. He clears his throat, and somehow that’s enough to get mostly everyone’s attention.

“Hey,” he starts, giving a small wave while glancing about the room. “Hi, everyone. It’s Varian,” he introduces himself, as though no one in the room knows who he is. It’s silly, unnecessary, but his nerves are getting to him and he’s only just started.

“I - I’ve got something to say to the happy couple, too,” he says, and mostly everyone is smiling approvingly at him. “I hope nobody minds,” he adds quietly.

He’s met with a few encouraging words from the crowd, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

He takes a deep breath, and turns himself to face Rapunzel and Eugene at their table. They both look incredible, and Rapunzel is simply glowing. His heart gives a little jump, and he smiles so softly at her.

“First, I want to say congratulations. I really am happy for the both of you.” He is. He means it. “But especially you, Rapunzel,” he says, and he gives a quiet, airy laugh at the look of surprise she’s suddenly giving him. “After everything you’ve done, for all of us, you deserve to be happy.”

He moves closer to their table, to her, without even really thinking about it. The nerves he’d worked up over speaking in front of such a large crowd have dissipated and he focuses on her, only on her.

“For Corona, and for your friends, and for me. You never gave up on any of us, even if we deserved it.” That’s another can of worms he’ll open up one day, but not today. This isn’t about any of that.

“There’s no way for me to really express how much it all means.”

He reaches across the table, and takes up her hands in his. He catches a glimpse of Eugene’s soft smile, and Varian gives Rapunzel’s hands a small squeeze.

“But I can try.”

And he’s there, holding her hands and staring into her eyes, and if this were another version of the story, maybe he’d finally get to tell her -

I love you.

But this isn’t that story, and maybe it never will be, and so he settles for the next best thing, and he hopes that she understands just how much she means to him when he says,

“You’re my best friend, Rapunzel.”

#tangled #tangled the series #tts #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rta #rapunzel #varian #varipunzel

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angel-with-a-pipette · 6 years ago

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Be mine

Chatpter two: I want you for a life time

Summary:

“I can’t do this, Riku.” “Yes, you can. All you need to do is walk over to her, offer her a fruit and bite into it.”

Sora finally wants to share a paopu with Kairi, but things go differently than he planned.

Rating: G

Genre: Romance

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Disney/Square Enix.

10 months ago, I submitted a first draft of this story to the mods of the twosides fanzine, a charity fanzine focusing on Sokai and Rokunami. I can proudly say that I wrote this before KH3 was released (but after the TGS trailer dropped, so I was HEAVILY inspired by it and the lyrics of "Don't think twice") - so I've been giddily sitting on this for quite a while!

I’ve posted the first ‘chapter’ quite a while ago which actually contains cut content that didn't make it into the zine because the story became too long. Today, I can finally share the piece that has been printed in the zine :3

A huge thank you to Liv and Raye for making the twosides fanzine and for making this fic possible ♥

Also available on: ao3

Please enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as he heard sand crunching beneath his feet, Sora slowed down. Staying at the edge of the wooden bridge, he pressed one of his hands against his chest, willing his breath to calm down again, only to realize how quickly his heart was beating.

How could planning to commit to the girl he loved be so much more nerve wracking than trying to save the entire universe?!

Sora started to move again, towards the crooked paopu tree on top of which Kairi sat. She stared ahead, into the slowly setting sun, a soft breeze playing with her hair which only lead to Sora's heart pounding even harder in his chest.

He couldn't do this.

He took a step back and caught his foot on that one wayward root of the tree that was strangely shaped like the head of a mouse. He yelped lightly before catching his balance again and started to chuckle lightly, throwing a sheepish smile in Kairi's direction, sure that she had caught every second of it, ready to tease him.

But she didn't. She continued staring out to the ocean, her lightly upwards curled lip the only indication that she had witnessed his moment of embarrassment. And suddenly, Sora understood.

She was giving him a way out.

He had asked her to meet him today on the paopu tree. It didn't take a genius to figure out what Sora wanted to talk about, especially since the both of them could have talked any time while staying in Radiant Garden. Yet, she patiently sat atop of the tree, ankles gracefully crossed as her hands rested on her lap. She waited for him to make the first move – as she always did.

No more. He wouldn't make her wait one more second.

Swallowing his nerves once and for all, Sora hauled himself up onto the tree. Before he could scoot closer however, she turned towards him, a dazzling smile spreading over her lips and Sora prayed to Zeus, Poseidon, even Hades that the evening sun would hide the blush creeping up his cheeks.

“Hey Sora!”

“Kairi,” he replied breathlessly and patted down his left trouser pocket as inconspicuously as possible.

Still there.

“I know you wanted to tell me something, but please, can I go first? It's urgent.”

Upon her words, Sora let go of the flap of his pocket and his brows furrowed in confusion.

“Sure. What's the matter?”

“My lucky charm worked decently up until now, but I feel like we need something stronger, something more reliable. Your last fight with Xehanort,” she faltered and her eyes flashed to the spot on his abdomen where she knew he had been injured, “it was too close of a call. And I wasn't even there to protect you.”

“It's not your job to protect me, Kairi-”

“I could have lost you.”

Sora knew that it was true. He had been in and out of consciousness for a day and bound to his bed for another two, despite countless Curagas being cast on him and gallons of potions being rubbed into his skin and poured into his throat to help him heal.

He would do it all again if it meant that his friends stayed safe.

“The coming battle is unlike anything we have faced so far… this charm will make sure we won’t be separated again.”

She let a small, red pouch slide into his outstretched hand and he looked at it curiously. It was lighter than he anticipated from its looks, tied up with a golden cord that he cautiously pulled at while Kairi began to explain.

“I commissioned this from the Moogles in Radiant Garden. To make sure we won't be separated, they worked a Thalassa shell into it. And to make sure you never get hurt as badly again, I asked them to put as many protective spells onto the charm as possible.”

Sora's eyes widened as he stared into the pouch.

“I know,” Kairi continued, suddenly shy, “it's probably weird that I asked for a ring to be made. I know you don't wear jewelry apart from your necklace, but I wanted the charm to be small and practical, so I figured a ring would be the best choice.”

“Rings.”

“Excuse me?”

“Rings,” Sora repeated and looked up to meet Kairi's eyes again who stared at him in confusion. Wordlessly, he turned the pouch upside down, emptying its contents into his open palm: two slender silver rings, a big one and one slightly smaller, with an orange-red inlay of a Thalassa shell.

Kairi stared at his hand, back at his face and again at his hand.

“Oh,” she finally uttered and even the sunset wasn't able to hide the blush that was spreading over her cheeks as she got a faraway look... before her eyes suddenly hardened. “That explains why they overcharged me! Those little..!” She shook her head. “Anyway. Maybe you can just wear both of them on a necklace? But then again, you already wear your crown necklace. Maybe you can just slip them into your pocket? Or – oh!” Kairi started to gesture frantically and Sora couldn't help but follow the movement of her right hand as an idea formed in his head. “You wore a key chain in the past, didn't you? You could put both rings on it. Or-”

“You could wear the small one.”

Kairi fell silent mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open as the familiar nervousness spread through Sora once again.

“I want you to wear the second ring,” he clarified. “You said this charm will make sure we won't be separated, right? It can't work if I hold onto both rings. And if I get lost, my ring will lead me back to yours.”

All of a sudden, something soft pressed against Sora's lips, but before his brain caught up with what was happening, the sensation stopped and Kairi threw her hands over her mouth, eyes wide in horror.

She had kissed him. Kairi had kissed him!

A dopey grin started to spread over Sora's face and he carefully tugged on Kairi's right hand and held the ring up.

“That's a 'yes', right?”

After she nodded a little dazedly, Sora slipped the ring onto her ring finger. It fit her perfectly.

Kairi took a deep breath as she regarded her new ring. She giggled lightly and reached for the other ring, but she hesitated when she looked at the hand Sora offered her.

“Your left hand?”

“Yeah,” Sora nodded in agreement, “just to make sure that my Keyblade doesn't wear the ring down. Also,” Sora lowered his gaze and stared at Kairi's hand picking up his ring while wearing her own. He couldn't help the smile that tugged on the corners of his lips upon seeing how well her ring suited her. “If I wear it on my left hand and you wear yours on your right hand, they'll touch whenever we hold hands. So they won't be separated.”

“O-Oh,” Kairi nodded, but despite the sudden tremor in her hand, she managed to slide the other ring over Sora's finger. It, too, fit perfectly.

They had just exchanged matching rings. Wow.

“Sora, I-”

“Kairi,” Sora interrupted her as he reached for his pocket. He absolutely couldn't wait any longer.

“I don't want there to be any doubts about my feelings for you.” He pulled the paopu out of his pocket, drawing another gasp out of Kairi.

“Please. Be mine.”

This time she dove forward, cradling Sora's face in her hands, the metal of her new ring cooling his skin as her lips found his again, a little longer this time before pulling away.

“I thought you'd never ask.”

Together, they held the paopu in their hands, smiling at each other. They leaned in, each biting off a piece of the fruit. Sora swallowed greedily and looked at Kairi in wonder.

She was his. He was hers. They had finally shared a paopu.

He reached out for her face, gently cupping her cheek and stroking it with his thumb as she leaned in. He couldn't hold back the “I love you” that tumbled from his lips, but there was no need to anymore. Instead, he was rewarded with the same words and the sweetest smile. A grin spread over Sora's face and he pressed his forehead against Kairi's.

“So? No impulsive kiss?”

He could barely suppress his laughter when he felt Kairi pull back from him, cheeks blown up in mock-annoyance. Cocking his eyebrow, Sora continued.

“I thought third time's the charm? I'm a little disappointed.”

“Well, I wanted to give you the opportunity to surprise me for once, you lazy bum!” She retorted as she stuck out her tongue at Sora. “But I guess if you really don't want to-”

“Who said I don't?”

Sora quickly pulled Kairi close, relishing in the feel of her body against his and smothered her short squeak of surprise when he finally caught her lips with his own.

#Sora #Kairi #Sokai #Twosidesfanzine #KH #Alja's fanfictions

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becomethevoidstuff · 7 years ago

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September-October 2018 Featured Creator

What is a Featured Creator?

Write Way Studio’s “Featured Creator” segment is my way of showing appreciation for the creators of the world. Creative outlets are limitless, because there is no end to human imagination. Every month shows the succeeding featured creator. If you would like to be a part of this collaborative project, contact me at [email protected]!

Time for a quick update to the segment: that my Featured Creators will be holding two months instead of one after our one year mark!

My twelfth guest creator is an artist known as SinG, marking the one year anniversary of my Featured Creator segment!

Introduction

She is Gabriella Sinopoli to normal people. But with her art, she is known as SinG, a nickname is a mishmash of her surname and the first letter of her first name. On July 26th this year, she turned thirty-three years old. Her biggest job yet? Being a mom!

She mentioned that her official job, though, is being a “Comic Colorist.” While she is a freelancer, she mostly works for an “art studio [called] Arancia Studio.” She has also has worked as a colorist and/or an assistant with Italian editors, such as Panini Comics! For a comic recently released in the United States by Image Comic named Unnatural by “the wonderful and amazing artist Mirka Andolfo,” she revealed that she “was also one of the assistants [for the comic].” Currently, she is an assistant colorist for a comic with a French editorial house called Glènat.

With concerns to her education, she participated in an art school affiliated with her high school. But university stayed out of reach. So she is mostly self-taught! A few things she’s learned with her job, on the other hand, revealed what truly matters: “what you can do, being serious . . . [and staying] punctual with the deadlines.”

What Sparked the Creator Passion?

A Little Dream with a Big Spark

When asked this question in particular, Gabriella recalled how “I drew ever since I can remember [with] a strong passion for cartoons and videos games.” As she grew older, she realized that she wanted to work in comics. Unfortunately, her high school teachers were unsupportive and attempted to discourage her from that path. So instead of what she wanted, she diverted and “[focused on] graphic and web design.”

But she never gave up her dream for one second. And when the opportunity arrived for her to make it a reality, she took it! She has a lot of catching up to do, or as she put it “still running and working hard every single day so that one day I’ll realize my dream, which is to make y very own comic published.”

Comic Encouragement

When she was eight, she read a manga for the first time, Dragon Ball Volume 25. After that pivotal read, she became more interested in the comics universe. She has a particular passion for shonen (or young boy) manga, as she is “very addicted to Boku no Hero Academia, the masterpiece of the amazing Horikoshi Kohei.” The series is known as My Hero Academia in English. While she has mostly read manga most of her life, another influence of hers happens to be the U.S. comic companies like Marvel and D.C., both of which focus on super humans and heroics.

When it comes to artists, she noted how “I find inspiration in [arts that] appeal [to] me.” As her dream is coming to fruition, nevertheless, she has been strongly influenced by Mirka Andolfo, the previously mentioned creator of the comic Unnatural. She admires her, from her determination, dedication, and staying humble. SinG thinks that this should be a standard that artists reach for, of people admiring and using the admiration to reach for what they want. There is a huge list of artists she admires.

Her close friend and artist extraordinaire “RaRo, or Rosalia Radosti,” helped to fill the gaps in her artistic training and continues to do so. She is also a pillar of support for her in the dark moments of doubt. Then there is her husband and children, all very important in her life as she reaches her goals!

The following is her final statement that concluded the matter: “Having people that support you is really one of the best things one can hope for, but [it] also [gives you the] boost you need to go on and run, as fast as you can, to reach your dreams.”

Future Projects

Believe it or not, SinG wants to create her own comic! She is currently hard at work to bridge the gap of necessary experience to make it a reality, especially with adequately adding to her work portfolio. For now, she practices her art style. She plans on also creating a few fan-made comics for things she loves.

Hopefully, she will be hired as a comic colorist in the near future for comic editorials or a comic company.

Where To Find You? Support You?

Luckily, Gabriella is available on multiple online platforms. She is more active with Twitter and Tumblr compared to the others. Keep that in mind as you search for her!

Social Media

o Facebook

o Tumblr @singartworks

o Instagram @singartworks

o Twitter @singartworks

o DeviantArt

Remember, every little bit counts when supporting her work!

o All About Commissions!

o Donate a cup of Ko-fi!

Last Tidbits

In the words of Gabriella, she is an “incurable fangirl.” When anything catches her eye, she cannot fight the urge to fan-art like crazy! Amusingly, when it comes to romantic or sensual moments in her artwork, her face remains ablaze and shifts continuously from one weird face to another during the entire drawing process. The job will get done either way. But she wishes so much for no one to see her as she draws it!

Important Notice

Please understand that some information will not be shared by the creator’s request. If you cannot understand that, there is not much more I can do to help you. Safety is a top priority here, and I am here to help the creators, not instigate negative behavior.

Collaboration Disclaimer

The information provided in my Featured Creator articles is, in fact, from the real people, not some random Internet bot. I do not use random stock photos to fill an imaginary photo quota. Any photos in the Featured Creator segment are provided by the creators with permission to use them in this manner. I want to support the original person behind the work, not a random online copycat creeping around.

To Gabriella,

I really appreciate you working with me on this segment. I know it was crammed, much more than what is most likely recommended (or dared.) Despite the problems, it was still a lot of fun to learn more about you as both a person and an artist. You have a detailed style and distinctive coloring method that I cannot help but adore! You also happen to be one of my inspirations to getting back into my art again and staying confident with myself in what I do. It has been a long year for me, and I think encountering you and your work really helped to put me in perspective. I thank you for that, even if you did that unknowingly.

I can only hope you enjoyed this as much as I did! Maybe if I finally manage to visit Italy, we can have a proper obsession session about All Might. I know that you will do so much for the art world, one fan art at a time.

Sincerely,

Jasmine Love

MLA Citation (8th edition)

SinG. Personal E-mail Interview by Jasmine Love. September 2018 Featured Creator Collaboration, 14 August –22 August 2018.

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wisestudentninja · 7 years ago

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July 2018 Featured Creator

What is a Featured Creator?

My tenth guest creator is an artist and writer known as Emi!

Introduction

This lovely lady goes by both Emi and Emily! She was born the sixteenth of March, currently twenty-one years old. Her home resides in New York. At the moment, she is a college student going for Computer Animation and Interactive Media, with an Associate’s in Illustration. She absolutely adores character design, complete with storyboarding and writing in the art of storytelling. As an emphasis on her passion, Emi confessed that “you can always catch me with a sketchbook in hand and story ideas to discuss.”

She comes from a variety of educational backgrounds, from primary Catholic school, public high school and then the college she presently attends, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City (or FIT for short). There is one year left for her Bachelor’s degree. She is unsure of what she will do afterward, either to go to a community college to potentially gain a teaching degree or extend her Bachelor’s into a Master’s degree after the graduation from FIT.

What Sparked the Creator Passion?

Cartoons and video games influenced Emi early in life. For television, she grew up on PBS Kids and KidsWB while her older brothers played with a Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Nowadays, it’s mostly cartoons she watches, especially if it is animated. She plays any video games she can get her hands on – new and old! A family trait of hers that she inherited would be the artist’s eye, a characteristic that would influence her even today.

An Animated Beginning

Emi revealed that “the game that really sky-rocketed [her] love for the world of imagination, and still fuels [her] to this day, is The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.” There are numerous other games she played when she was younger. Banjo Kazooie, Yoshi Story and Spyro name a small few. Japanese-based games introduced her to the world of anime and manga after she discovered the Internet. There were multiple phases as she cycled through an assortment of anime, from Sgt. Frog, Ouran High School Host Club, Black Butler, and Princess Jellyfish. All of them have led to her current obsession, My Hero Academia. Studio Ghibli also holds a special place in her heart.

She recently read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and thoroughly enjoyed the book. She is currently invested in a book called Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates; it is a fictional story sharing the inner thoughts and feelings of the one and only Marilyn Monroe. Emi confessed that Oates is her favorite author since “her level of writing is where I aspire to be.”

“We All Live In A Yellow Submarine”

Yet, there is one film that stands above the rest in her eyes. As she called it, “the magnum opus of all animation, imagination, storytelling, creativity, illustration, and music [can only be] Yellow Submarine directed by George Dunning, produced by Al Brodax, Story by Lee Minoff, Art Direction by Heinz Edelmann, [and] based on the song of the same name by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.” The movie stands as a huge inspiration for her, and since it is based on The Beatles with their songs, only has Emi adoring it more. The experience with the picture repeatedly “kindles [her] aesthetic and motivation to create . . . [because of] how much it means to [her].”

Interestingly, Emi possesses the uncanny fan-ability of quoting the object of the fanatics. In this case, Yellow Submarine, complete with “accents . . . tones . . . and everything.” Oh, yes, being a dedicated fan can definitely come in handy, if you become creative with your resources. Emi even confessed that, for the previous semester, she wrote a final paper of hers (AKA the grade-that’s-most-likely-to-be-OP for a college-level course) centered on the film.

I pulled a similar power move with Studio Ghibli films for a Linguistics class. But that is a story for another time.

Future Projects

For now, Emi is focused on improvement with lots of practice and taking time for herself. Toon Boom is an animating and storyboarding software that she uses for 2D animation. Besides working with the software, she has a plethora of other outlets to utilize.

As previously mentioned, this young lady is concentrating on her senior thesis to rightfully obtain her hard-earned degree. This summer, Emi managed to actively participate with multiple zines as both a writer and an artist in order to remain imaginatively occupied. There is also her summer internship position, where she works on storyboards and animatics for a production company called O.T.O TV.

If you are intrigued to know more about the company, check their social media links down below!

· Twitter

· Facebook

· Instagram

Where To Find You? Support You?

Luckily, Emi can be found on multiple online platforms! There is also the possibility of supporting her creativity by visiting her online shop or even submitting a commission. Don’t hesitate to ask her more about it!

Social Media

o Tumblr

For her original story and characters!

o Instagram

o Twitter

Portfolio Website

Various ways to support Emi!

o Commission Information

o Ko-fi

o Tictail Store

Last Tidbits

There are a few random things to know about Emi. To start, she is right handed and a Pisces! Her favorite food is any form of a potato. She listens to music every day in order to improve her groove. Her favorite Beatle is Paul McCartney and her favorite Disney film is Beauty and the Beast.

Emily then concluded our interview with a message to all of you lovely readers, “I wish you all a lovely day. Thank you for taking time to read up a little bit about me, my life, and my passions. Your support means the world to me.”

Important Notice

Collaboration Disclaimer

To Emi,

I honestly can’t remember how I found you on Tumblr, but I am so happy I did. Not only are you a hilarious young lady, you also are creative and insightful. I am not much older than you, and yet we will be both getting our respective degrees with the completion of the following school year. Most of the other creators I’ve worked with before were, for the most part, already out of school and being full-blown adults. So that was definitely a nice change of scenery I did not expect.

As a fan of both your writing and art, I was really excited to work with you on this collaboration! Despite the problems we’ve encountered across this little project, please know that I don’t make a habit of it. Truly! I had a lot of fun working on this. I hope that happiness shines through somewhere in all of this.

I wish you luck with your final year of school and I can’t wait to work with you again on a different project (if you’re interested, of course)!

Sincerely,

Jasmine Love

MLA Citation (8th edition)

Emi. Personal E-mail Interview by Jasmine Love. July 2018 Featured Creator Collaboration, 18 June – 5 July 2018.

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kati-mariposa · 7 years ago

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Guardians: Chapter 2

Characters: OC, Bill Skarsgard & Jeffrey Dean Morgan

*WARNING: Mild Language

Summary: Can be found in Chapter 1

[*DISCLAIMER: The actors do not represent themselves as actors, but as the characters I created to play out in the story.]

-Chapter 3

“What are you working on right now?” Jeffrey asked, casting a shadow by hovering over me as I sat on the beige couch.

“I’m doing a Christmas themed commission for someone who’s just as obsessed with the holidays as I am,” I replied with my eyes glued to the picture. I drew a stray line by accident and had to erase it gently, so that I don’t bend the paper or tear it. I’d die if that’d happen.

“But it’s not even Halloween yet,” he reminded me as he went around and sat on the loveseat diagonal of me.

“I’m almost always dreaming of Christmas even during Springtime,” I grinned when I glanced up at him, quietly chuckling under my breath.

He chuckled deeply in his chest and gave a warm smile towards me, grabbing a book from the coffee table to read. Sometimes he liked to relax and read anything he can find, while I enjoy drawing, for fun and for business, then practice writing on the side.

“Do you plan to go to bed soon? Or are you staying up to draw?” he wondered while scanning his book.

“Nah. I got plenty of time to work on it more tomorrow before I have to get ready for the Halloween party at Alexander’s house,” I told him as I sketched some new lines on the paper.

There was only silence between us for a minute or two, but it suddenly felt cold in the room. It also felt like a pair of eyes were burning through my head as I peered down at my sketch book. I eventually raised my head to check out my hunch and sure enough, Jeffrey had his dark hazel eyes pierce into mine, which made me uncomfortable and click my mechanical pencil out of nervousness.

“Right. The party. Do you have your costume ready?” his curious tone didn’t sound so pleased.

“Yep. I took care of the finishing touches just before I started drawing today. I only need to make sure I have everything together for tomorrow.”

“How will you be getting there?”

“Bill’s supposed to pick me up.”

“Is he dropping you off back home afterwards or is he planning on taking you to his apartment, into his bedroom for the night?”

I froze abruptly when he said the last sentence, which also began to make me uneasy and I bit my lip out of annoyance.

“Jeffrey!” I said irritated.

“What? I simply asked a question,” he tried to lie with his rough voice. I could tell he was being distasteful of Bill again without being so forward. Basically beating around the bush.

“Yeah, but you constantly try to make him look bad when he’s not provoking you or has done anything to deserve your rudeness,” I defended Bill. My voice began to rise a bit from the small intensity of the argument.

Jeffrey was offended that I snapped back at him for disrespecting my friend, but he had no right to talk about him like he was some kind of sleazy person. Sometimes, I felt like he purposely plotted ways to get me to not like Bill, but I couldn’t fully prove it and it seemed unlikely that he’d be that drastic.

“He’s a young guy. I was his age once and I know what’s on their minds at that time in their lives. He’s up to no good,” he explained putting the opened book face down on the coffee table. I put my pencil and sketch pad to the side of me in order to concentrate on the conversation with my “Guardian Godfather”.

“Oh he’s not like that! Give me examples of why you think “he” of all the other people I know, is such a bad person?” I challenged him loudly, crossing my arms and sitting with my feet planted to the floor for support.

“He’s a smoker,” his response was given.

“You smoke too. But he doesn’t do it so often and he rarely smokes around me because he knows I hate cigarettes. Does that make you a bad person for smoking?”

“No. But I’ve seen the look in his eyes, the way he sees you whenever you’re around. It’s obvious there’s something he wants from you and it’s usually the one and only thing on every man’s mind. In fact, I’m surprised he’s hung around for this long.”

He was pissing me off, so I stood up fast, firmly stomping on the floor and balling my hands into fists.

“Just stop it already! I can’t believe you would say those terrible things about him like that. He’s not what you think he is, so don’t ever talk about him that way!” I yelled at him with sheer anger.

He fixed himself on the cushion, clasping his big hands onto his grey pajama pants as rage also fueled his emotions high. He was silent as he scolded me through his black frame glasses, but he removed them to continue the stare down with me, like he meant business.

“Don’t give me that tone little lady,” he clenched his jaw.

“I’ll stop once you stop insulting Bill,” I dared to tell him. I was so worked up, my hands were nervously shaking, but I kept them firm by my side. The corner of my eyes were tearing up from Jeffrey’s words echoing in my mind. I blinked a few times and ultimately a tear or two rolled down my warm cheek. I couldn’t even make eye contact at that point, I was so upset with him.

“Wait a minute. Don’t tell me… Oh Lord,” he muffled while pinching the arch of his nose.

I didn’t say a word, but I was worried about what he was going to say next. Who knew what was going through his mind. His eyes were focused on the floor for a short few seconds before returning his attention towards me. Then, he started to chuckle, which freaked me out because after that, he grinned.

“You. Oh Kat, Kat, Kat. My little kitten,” he chanted slowly standing over me, showing off superiority, “Are you?”

“Am I what?” I hesitated.

“Sweetheart, are you in love with Bill?” he finished, snickering to himself.

“W-What?!” I was taken aback by his assumption.

“Are you?” he said as calm as he could maintain.

“Why are you like this? You used to not care and suddenly you’re making more of an effort to intimidate him. Why change now?”

“Answer the damn question,” he demanded.

“No! Even if I might be, I’m better off not telling you about it,” I snapped, partially lied to his face.

Deep down, I did kind of have feelings for Bill, but I would never admit it. I especially would never tell Jeffrey after the crap he’s been pulling. I picked up my drawing supplies from the couch and made my away around Jeffrey so I could head for my room. I was too emotional in front of him and I refused to break down and let him win this argument.

“Where are you going? We’re not finished talking here,” he shouted at me.

“You’re not my dad! This conversation is over,” I cried back, ignoring him down the rest of the hallway until I finally reached my bedroom, shutting the door behind me and locking it.

I then tossed my stuff onto my black desk and ran to the bed, crawling under the sheets and pouring my eyes out with unlimited tears. My sobs were discreet because I didn’t want him to hear me. The only things I heard after storming out of the living room was the footsteps of Jeffrey retreating to his bedroom at the end of the hall. He shut the door loud, startling me as I wept under the blanket.

I couldn’t understand it. He was never that way when I was first becoming friends with Bill. In fact, he welcomed him into the family even though we weren’t dating. As a matter of fact, he truly liked Bill then. For a year, Jeffrey showed his hospitality and trustworthiness to him, but something was definitely off nowadays. What did he mean by “the way Bill looks at me”? He saw me differently? It’s just too overwhelming, I thought, it made my head hurt. Things needed to go back to normal.

I grabbed my phone and was about to call Bill so I could seek comfort, but then I side-tracked. It didn’t seem wise to immediately call and complain about Jeffrey’s insults to the one person it was meant for, at least not right away, in my condition. If he heard even a sign of unhappiness and sniffles, he’ll automatically worry a lot and interrogate the crap out of me. Not that it was a completely bad thing, but I was too overcome with anger and sadness to express it to him then. I also didn’t want him to become even more hateful of Jeffrey, since I knew it could cause more problems between all of us.

I care for Jeffrey, but I also care for Bill. This was too much to bear in mind as I uncovered myself from the sheets to get some cooler air. I needed to do something. I couldn’t stay here for the night. I had to leave.

I sat up, pondering what to do. If I wanted to leave the house, I’d have to wait until Jeffrey fell into a deep sleep, but as a start, I had to pack what I was planning to wear for Halloween. So I jumped out of bed, searched and gathered all of my costume necessities, took out a dark red duffle bag from my closet and carefully packed my items inside, organizing at the same time. I would need to wait awhile until I could see that the coast was clear to leave to spend the night at someone else’s place.

“Really hate this,” I muffled under my breath before finishing my packing, then sitting on the bed, waiting almost impatiently for the time to sneak out like a mouse.

#bill skarsgard #jeffrey dean morgan #oc #guardians #chapter two #bill skarsgard x oc #bill skarsgard fanfiction #jdm #fanfiction #fanfic #jeffrey dean morgan x oc #bill skarsgard x reader #jeffrey dean morgan x reader #original character #trust issues #love story #romance #guardians fanfiction

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ophirgottlieb · 8 years ago

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This Stock is the Pick-axe to the Cloud Gold Rush

Date Published: 2017-06-05 Written by Ophir Gottlieb * This is a snippet from a CML Pro dossier originally published on 6-3-2017. LEDE Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) is one of our all-time favorite Top Picks in the cloud theme, and is rising to all time highs. Here is the stock chart:

We do believe, as the Top Pick dossier refers to it, that Arista Networks is the Pick-axe to Cloud Gold Rush. Arista Networks Inc was added to Top Picks on 22-Nov-16 for $94.50. As of today it is trading at $152.26, up 61.1% in six-months.

Ticker Date Added Price Added Return ANET 11-22-2016 $94.50 61.12%

Further, on 4-5-107 we penned Arista Networks: The Opportunity is Here. The stock price was $134 at the time of that dossier, so Arista Inc stock is up more than 13% in just the two-months since we published that highlight. STORY & UPDATE Quickly, the story behind Arista Inc: Of all the revolutionary trends that are coming our way that we look to, from artificial intelligence, machine learning, genomics, self-driving cars, the Internet of Things (IoT), streaming video on Demand (SVOD), and the rest — the enterprise cloud realm may be the largest of them all. WHY THE CLOUD? Of all the revolutionary trends that are coming our way that we look to, from artificial intelligence, machine learning, genomics, self-driving cars, the Internet of Things (IoT), streaming video on Demand (SVOD), and the rest — the enterprise cloud realm may be the largest of them all. The cloud is, generally speaking, just a cluster of computers and hardware sharing resources to power the Internet, apps, video, IoT and anything else that is connected and has data. I always search for the best way to demonstrate the explosion that is coming in data. I like charts, and I like stats, but it’s hard to really convey the astounding growth in data we are about to see. So here’s a chart, and then I’ll try my best with a specific example:

So that’s just mobile and it shows the growth in traffic increasing 1,000% in six years. But here’s how that translates into data. In 2012 the Library of Congress estimated that all printed, audio, and video material came in at 3 to 20 petabytes. That means that one exabyte could hold a hundred thousand times the printed, audio and video material, or 500 to 3000 times all content of the Library of Congress. By 2021, global traffic alone will generate 49 exabytes… per month. That means that data that is the size of 14,700,000% of all the printed, audio and video material of all-time will be generated in a month on just mobile devices. Yeah, that’s just mobile and every month. And if we take that even further out, to say, 2025, the numbers reach billions of percent a day. The cloud is going to be a huge deal. Here is a chart of that growth:

ARISTA The old world where Cisco Systems built a wonderful empire was based on dedicated network systems — a fancy way of saying that Cisco provided all of the hardware and guts to the switches (and routers). But, Cisco has secularly lost market share in switching, today at 53%, versus 70% in 2010. The lost business has gone mainly in the Data Center switching side, where Arista Networks inc and do-it-yourself (DIY) white-label solutions have become more prevalent. First, the image we always reference of market share trends:

But the trend — that is, moving to white-label solutions, has been under reported by the media. Facebook has created a gigantic cloud and has focused on something called the Open Compute Project. Microsoft and Google have joined the Project. These companies are looking to free themselves from the shackles and expenses of the “old way.” Arista Networks Inc is aware of the change — in fact, it has been a part of the change — even the catalyst to the change. Arista’s strategy, which has been to take a more software-centric approach of networking, called SDN, is working. The company’s hardware is strong, it has exposure to the cloud platforms and generally appears to be more agile than Cisco. The Arista Inc story is wonderful, full of opportunity and risk, and we highly encourage a read of the Top Pick dossier: Arista Networks is the Pick-axe to Cloud Gold Rush. But now, onto a critical update that pushed the stock price to fresh all-time highs on Friday. LEGAL FIGHT Arista Inc and Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) have been embroiled in one of the most contentious intellectual property battles technology has ever seen. While Uber and Alphabet Inc's Waymo have gotten the juicy headlines, the guts of the cloud world have had their own heavyweight bout. We wrote extensively about the risks in our dossier Arista Risk Must Be Examined. Here's a quick primer before we get to the update: Cisco has filed a lawsuit claiming that Arista has infringed upon its patents and the accusation is big one. Arista was founded by ex-Cisco employees and the lawsuit claims that essentially all of Arista’s success is a patent rip-off. To restate clearly, this is not a small off on the side lawsuit, this is a lawsuit of enormous proportions with respect to the accusations. In fact, for a moment, the International Trade Commission placed an import ban and cease and desist order covering all Arista (ANET) products. The ITC determined that Arista willfully and intentionally infringed three Cisco patents covering core, Cisco-proprietary network functionality. For Arista’s customers and partners, the cease and desist order blocks the marketing, sale or distribution of all inventory of imported infringing products. It also means that Arista is unable to honor the service and warranty contracts for any infringing products sold after the ITC’s ruling date [of] June 23. For Arista’s suppliers, the ITC orders mean that Arista cannot import parts or components to manufacture infringing products in the United States. Now, all that ended recently when Arista Networks [] got a vote of approval from U.S. customs authorities with its newest versions of its products. But, the risk isn’t gone. While some will say Cisco is throwing up a last ditch effort to protect its technology which, as we saw in the chart at the top, is in full blown competitive free fall, others will say this is a legitimate case of intellectual property theft. UPDATE It appears that Arista Inc has yet again won the battle of old versus new. Here it is, straight from one of our favorite all-time journalists, Barron's Tiernan Ray:

[T]he U.S Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board yesterday issued a decision finding for Arista’s claims that another of Cisco Systems (CSCO) patents over which Cisco was suing Arista is "unpatentable." It is the second time in a week the company received a favorable judgment from the Patent board, the prior one having been from the same case. Source: BARRON'S

The Patent board wrote: "We determine that Petitioner (Arista) has met its burden of showing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that all of the claims for which trial was instituted are unpatentable." We'll save the technical details and get to the conclusion, which is that, for now, the patent fight is finally over and Arista Inc will not have to turn on its manufacturing plant in the United States, which would have taken a bite out of gross margins. We do note that it is quite possible that Cisco Systems Inc is not done yet, the company has been relentless in trying to defend itself and has used aggravated language declaring that Arista has blatantly infringed on its copyrighted command-line interface terms, noting direct copy-and-paste scenarios in which the firm neglected to fix Cisco’s typos. Of course, Arista has argued that the commands aren’t protected by copyright, suggesting Cisco is simply trying to thwart growth of the upcoming firm. It looks like Arista Inc was right. WHAT NOW We like Arista Inc long-term, but the price is high and we don't believe any extra emphasis should be given to the company just because of this ruling. As always, in this toppy market we do see the potential for a correction, but when we look out 3-7 years, we see Arista Inc continuing to take down Cisco Systems Inc moat and growing rapidly into the cloud. OPTION TRADERS For you option traders we offer this read: Options and the Cloud Revolution A classic example demonstrates that four weekly options does not equal one monthly option. The author has no position in Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) at the time of this writing. WHY THIS MATTERS It's finding the technology gems, like Arista, that can turn into the 'next Google,' or 'next Apple,' where we have to get ahead of the curve. This is what CML Pro does. Each company in our 'Top Picks' has been selected as a future crown jewel of technology. Market correction or not, recession or not, the growth in these areas is a near certainty. The precious few thematic top picks for 2017, research dossiers, and alerts are available for a limited time at an 80% discount for $19/mo. Join Us: Discover the undiscovered companies that will power technology's future. Thanks for reading, friends. Legal The information contained on this site is provided for general informational purposes, as a convenience to the readers. The materials are not a substitute for obtaining professional advice from a qualified person, firm or corporation. Consult the appropriate professional advisor for more complete and current information. Capital Market Laboratories (“The Company”) does not engage in rendering any legal or professional services by placing these general informational materials on this website. The Company specifically disclaims any liability, whether based in contract, tort, strict liability or otherwise, for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages arising out of or in any way connected with access to or use of the site, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages, including liability in connection with mistakes or omissions in, or delays in transmission of, information to or from the user, interruptions in telecommunications connections to the site or viruses. The Company makes no representations or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained on this website. Any links provided to other server sites are offered as a matter of convenience and in no way are meant to imply that The Company endorses, sponsors, promotes or is affiliated with the owners of or participants in those sites, or endorse any information contained on those sites, unless expressly stated.

#$anet

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cgpaints · 8 years ago

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Monthly Review, February 2017 - out of the swamp!

Here we are again another month has passed, a lot has happened, I learned a lot, and I was really looking forward to writing this review.

As in january the image above shows every drawing/painting I made during the last month, both personal and client work (thankfully none of this months clientwork has been under NDA). The first thing that immediately shows is that the amount of pictures is a lot smaller than last month’s. While this has good reasons, and I’ve been the busiest and most productive I have been in a loooong time I still feel kind of bad about it, which is probably dumb. Anyway, lets jump right into it:

Let’s start with Freelance/lifestuff first as this has been my focus this month:

As a disclaimer right up front I want to say that I was not sure how much into detail I wanted to go with this as I am by no means somebody who is in the position to give advice on “business stufff” I am very much figuring things out by trial and error and the solutions I found for myself work for me, I may change them up tomorrow. Everything I am writing here is merely a snapshot of my situation and thoughts as they are right now. I do also think that being honest is the best thing I can do here, I do not feel too proud to share my mistakes or possible dumb decisions I am making at the moment. Especially this post includes potentially sensetive topics like rates and “underselling” yourself which is another aspect why I was hesitant of being totally open about it. Maybe the things I do are actually great and correct or maybe they are going to bite me in the ass someway down the road, I am willing to find out.

As I have already talked about in detail in my previous reviews, freelance has been stagnating quite a bit for me, it got to a point where I was basically broke and looking for a non art related dayjob so that I could pay the bills in march.

Before I did that, however, I wanted to sit down and think all of this through. The thought that “this is freelance and not some kind of magic” just kept returning into my head. If it’s not working there is a problem that can be solved. There must be something where I do something wrong and where everyting falls apart. So I took a closer look.

The basic question is this: Why am I not getting any work?

Is it the quality of my work? Is it the KIND of work I do? Am I not visible enough for clients? What the hell is going on? etc...

After thinking about it I realized something. The solution was easy but it was hard to detect for me as (as always) the answer to these questions is mostly “yea kind of everything plays a part here”

I looked back at it and I realized that I DO have a lot of offers from potential clients who want to work with me, most of them with some kind of budget and willingnes to pay for the work. But I noticed that 90% of these potential clients would jump off as soon as it came to my rates. They simply would not be able to pay for the work. I used to be really hard on myself and other artists who would work for too little money, I had rates for certain types of work in my head and I would quote every potential client aorund the same rate for the same kind of work (company xy pays this much for card Illustrations, thus I should charge everyone this kind of money. If they are not willing to pay, they are not a client worthy of my work”).

The real life result of that was that 90% of the people who contact me would not work with me, all I was left with was the occasional bigger budget client who would come along once in a while. I would do the work that I managed to get on a very comfortable schedule as there simply was no other work to be done and still I would not be working for more than 3-4 hours per day on average. One Illustration would take me up to a month if I was given the time. This would not mean better work, it just would mean halfassing it even slower.

I thought about that for a while. I noticed that I acutally had no fixed ideas about “my finances” at all. All I had were made up assumptions of how much my work was worth based on god knows what. I decided to sit down and to actually think about that for a second. “How much money do I need in a month( to pay the bills, to have enough saved up for my taxes and to have enought money to save up for myself)?” How much money would this make on a daily basis? I wrote those numbers down and noticed that looking at it from this side changed EVERYTHING for me, it enabled me to ask simple questions WHENEVER a potential client would come to me and state his budget. The questions are: “If I break my clients budget down into dayrates, how many days would I have for this commission? Am I able to do the work in that time and do a good job at it”

Simple question, simple answer: I realized that instead of one month I would have to finish an Illustration in 4 workdays to make my dayrate. If I could do this throughout the month, my financial situation would be fine. Easy.

Being in the shitty situation I have been in at that time I decided to bite to bullet and just give it a shot. And guess what, I could do it. Not only could I do it, I did good work and I still was having a managable schedule. Even better: My schedule was acutally resembling the schedule of a working human being. I worked a full workday and after 4 days the thing was done. And it was good!

This was so simple but it blew my mind. I did this for every freelance request I got and guess what: IT FUCKING WORKED! Instead of being rejected 90% of the time I was able to land 90% of the jobs that were offered to me.Within one week I was able to get enough work for the next two months. Every day is filled with work. I am not killing myself but the workload is “comfortably intense”. The weird thing is that while my rates would be lower on average I was able to make more money than I have ever been making during the last almost 4 years of my freelance life.

As I already mentioned, this blew my mind. Not only that but it made me think about myself and how I have been handling freelance and myself as an “artist” in the past. It inevitably forced me to reevaluate myself and to think about the bullshit ego I was building up. It also made me think about my work and how good it actually is.

I used to resent work that would not pay me “enough” but until now I never actually looked at my portfolio and thought about HOW good it actually was. It never came to my mind to realize “wait a minute, this is the kind of work you are currently able to get, with the skillset and kind of work you have right now”. I want to make clear that by “this work” I am not devaluating the work I can get, I love all of it actually, I am merely talking about the price tag attached to it. The reality of the situation is that 99% of my clients are either startups or private clients with rather restricted budgets.

Now I don’t know if this is due to the kind of work I do, the quality and style I am able to do it in or maybe just because I am not showing it to enough potential clients with large budgets but to be perfectly honest, I don’t care at all. The lesson in honesty, workethic and cutting out the bullshit was probably the best thing I have learned in years.

Moreover, I am loving the work!! I am feeling this positive pressure of working quickly and focused, I get to do a lot of different kinds of work and the paycheck at the end of the month is pretty good, better than it has ever been.

So yea to end the freelance rant and to summarize: Things are looking pretty good now, it feels like I am slowly crawling out of a swamp and I feel better than in I have in a looong time. The best thing is that it feels like I achieved this by actively working on myself and changing stuff. I would have hated it if things would have turned around out of nothing (as they do sometimes as well). I feel like I have achieved something and that I am in control of the situation. It’s really really good, I am happy :)

One general off topic “life-thing”: My girlfriend and I are moving to Hamburg-Germany in a few days. Having spent the last three months in the German alps, we are changing things up to inhale some tasty sea air. If there are any artsy people who would like to switch pencils for a few beers from time to time, hit me up on the facebooks :)

ART:

I will try to keep it short(er). As I have already hinted at most of my days were filled with client work, I finished a lot of Illustrations in many different styles which was an amazing change of pace. I got to do some good old fantasy Illustration, some techy photobashings, even some linework and pixelart for some mobile games.

I sunk most of my free time into a personal piece I wanted to go all out on. I am really happy how it turned out and I think that it might stir my portfolio further into a direction I want to take my entire body of work in. I do somehow need to find more time for general studies as well as watercolors. As thight as my schedule is now there is only time for studies where they are needed at a very particular moment. I must not neglect the general “fundamental” studies.

So that is it for February. I leaned a lot! It has been such basic stuff but sometimes these things are the most important ones to be reminded of.

Stay humble, be thoughtful, be honest and do the work!

#art #drawing #painting #illustration #monthlyreview #monthly review #motivation #self improvement #commercial art

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years ago

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How to Make Money Blogging in 2019

I have a major disclaimer before we begin.

A good part of my career has been working for some of the folks in this list.

In fact, I was personally responsible for setting annual revenue goals and hitting those goals while I was the Senior Director of Growth and Product at I Will Teach You To Be Rich. In that case specifically, I’m extremely familiar with revenue totals and what drove that revenue.

Not to mention the affiliate commissions that were paid out to some of the people on this list, numbers that were shared in confidence after a few too many drinks, and second-hand rumors that I picked up along the way.

Unfortunately, I’ve got sad news.

I’m not going to share any of that insider knowledge. Sorry.

Some folks don’t mind publishing their revenue numbers but others keep it extremely private. If I shared that kind of info on how their blogs make money, I’d shatter the trust they placed in me. I take that trust very seriously.

For this post, I’m only going to be sharing revenue numbers that have been shared publicly.

Now here’s what I can do for you.

With the background that I have in this space, there are some common rules of thumb for figuring out revenue. They’re not perfect rules but they do tend to get the right number of digits. And after a while, you get a general sense for people’s revenue based on the size of their audience.

For most folks on this list, I’ll give a guess based on their public audience size and any hints that they’ve released publicly about their revenue. I’ll clearly label at is as a guess and you should take it with a grain of salt.

Ramit Sethi – I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Revenue = I can’t tell you

If you poke around the site a bit, it’s pretty obvious that the blog makes most of its money from infoproducts.

Ramit is absolutely at the top of his game when it comes to infoproducts and I consider this site one of the best to learn from if you’re considering monetizing your own blog with infoproducts. Make sure to sign up for his email list — you’ll start getting the launch funnels and you’ll be able to see how it all works.

There are also a few products available for purchase from the products page. That’s a great source for inspiration to see what an amazing infoproduct sales page looks like.

Marie Forleo – marieforleo.com

Revenue = My guess is several million per year

Marie has been blogging for a while now. She also put in a lot of work into her YouTube channel.

He content has a great reputation and her copy is world class. I assume most of her revenue comes from infoproducts, particularly her flagship program B-School. It’s been a while since I followed Marie closely but for a period, she launched B-School once per year.

She’s an amazing person to study if you want to learn how to produce high-quality positive content. She’s also brilliant at balancing valuable content with going for the sale in an authentic way.

Steve Kamb – Nerd Fitness

Revenue = Over $1 million per year

According to this post, Steve’s doing over seven figures with his business. It’s a mix of infoproducts, coaching, and bootcamps. He also wrote a book called Level Up Your Life.

What I love most about Steve’s business is how he’s chosen a specific segment of the market and differentiated himself from other fitness blogs. The fitness space is crazy competitive but by branding his entire business around fitness for nerds, he clearly separates himself from that competition. Even in the most competitive categories, there are still opportunities to target a niche with your blog and make real money with it.

Amy Porterfield – amyporterfield.com

Revenue = At least $2–3 million per year, maybe more

Amy’s About page states that she’s built a multi-million dollar business, something that I absolutely believe based on her audience size.

I’m assuming that the vast majority of her revenue is from her infoproducts, but it looks like she does some affiliate promotion too. Her affiliate page is pretty classy and well done. It’s a great example of how to promote products in an authentic and non-pushy way.

Jon Morrow – Smart Blogger

Revenue = Over $1.2 million per year

In this post, Jon states that he’s doing over $100K per month in affiliate revenue which is pretty impressive.

He also has several of infoproducts available for purchase on his site. I bet these do about $30–50K per year on their own. I’m not sure what Jon’s email funnels look like but if he’s pushing launch funnels aggressively, he could easily have another few million in revenue from infoproducts on top of his affiliate revenue.

Darren Rowse – Problogger

Revenue = My guess is about $10 million per year

Problogger has been around since 2004. That’s an eternity in online marketing. It’s one of the original “how to blog” blogs. Darren also owns Digital Photography School which has 8X as much traffic and revenue as Problogger.

Darren did do a income report on the first half of 2016. At that time, 46% of his revenue from both sites came from affiliates, 31% came from infoproducts, and the rest from a smattering of different categories.

Seth Godin – seths.blog

Revenue = My guess is over $2 million per year

Seth Godin had plenty of success before his blog: he’s written 18 books, built and sold a company to Yahoo, and then was a VP at Yahoo. And his blog has cemented him as the leading marketing thought leader. If you were trying to come up with an ideal example of a thought leader, you’d have a hard time finding a better example than Seth Godin.

Seth’s blog is the original, longest running, and possibly highest value blog in marketing. He’s posted every day for like 20 years or something.

For a long time, he never montized it. Unless you consider featuring his books occasionally to count as monetization. Recently, he has done a few infoproducts including the altMBA and The Marketing Seminar. I went through The Marketing Seminar myself and quite a few people were in the community, so it sold well. Seth’s site says that over 5,000 people took the course in total. At $800 per sale, that’s about $4 million in total spread over several years. Plus all the revenue from altMBA.

Neil Patel – neilpatel.com

Revenue = I’m not even going to guess

I worked for Neil when he was a co-founder of KISSmetrics. He’s the one that originally hired me. Also worked with him on some other projects after that. I’m not going to even hazard a revenue guess here since I don’t want to reveal anything that Neil would prefer to keep private.

He has stated publicly that his main site, neilpatel.com, generates over 2.5 million visitors per month. I’ll let you figure out the revenue from there.

Selena Soo – selenasoo.com

Revenue = Over $1.6 million per year

In this article, Selena reported that she made $1.6 million in 2017. I assume the majority of her revenue comes from infoproducts that she launches to her email list periodically. Considering the stage of her business, she’s built out a pretty impressive infoproduct portfolio along with some higher ticket mastermind offers.

Sam Dogen – Financial Samurai

Revenue = My guess is about $1 million per year

Sam gives a few hints on what he makes with his site. First, he does give the revenue of his infoproduct ebook which is $36,000 per year.

Funny enough, he chooses not to include his Adsense revenue or affiliate revenue as “passive” income within any of his passive income reports. Most folks in the industry would consider these revenue sources to be passive.

Sam does break down some hypothetical revenue amounts of blogs of different sizes here. One example includes a personal finance blog that’s generating about one million visitors per month. I remember Sam stating somewhere along the line that he has about that much traffic. The traffic estimation tools like Ahrefs also put his site in the range. So, the example that he gives should be close to his actuals. Using his projections as a guide and knowing that he has plenty of affiliate links along with Adsense on his site, a $1 million per year estimate should be close.

Brian Dean – Backlinko

Revenue = Over $1 million per year

He launches infoproducts to his email list a couple of times per year. I believe he has a course on SEO and one on YouTube. With his traffic volume, each of these launches should be doing upper six figures, possibly $1 million per launch.

He has stated in a few interviews like this one that he’s doing seven figures per year.

This is a great example of a business that’s focused really heavily on generating traffic, turning that traffic into email subscribers, then monetizing via a few infoproduct launches per year. It can seem magical to have a business with ridiculous profit margins at this stage. Most of us would love to have a $1 million per year business with a super small team and a handful of moving pieces.

James Dahle – White Coat Investor

Revenue = Over $1 million per year

James used to publish his annual revenue in his annual state of the blog posts but stopped as his blog became more well known. Here’s his 2019 state of the blog. His last reported income was $187,862 in 2014. He does mention multiple times that he’s now running a seven-figure business, so his current revenue is at least $1 million per year.

He does have a book by the same name. Looking through his site, the majority of his revenue comes from affiliates, ads, and sponsorships.

His email list is extremely small for the size of his blog — it’s only 21,725 subscribers. And with a small email list, any infoproduct launch is going to be limited to five figures. He does have an infoproduct on creating your own financial plan for $499. If he focused on conversion to email and got good at infoproducts, he could add another $1–2 million in revenue to his business.

Tim Ferriss – tim.blog

Revenue = My guess is about $10 million per year

Tim has a massive blog that’s been around for a long time. He started it before he even launched his first book, The 4 Hour Workweek.

Currently, I assume that the majority of Tim’s income comes from his podcast sponsorships. I have seen ads on his blog in the past but it doesn’t look like there are any right now. I don’t think he’s ever done an infoproduct or pursued affiliate ads aggressively.

According to this form, his podcast sponsorships go for $36K per slot. At 4–5 slots per episode, that’s $144,000 per episode at least. Tim averages about six podcasts per month, which would produce $864,000 per month or $10,368,000 per year.

The reason I’m not going to even guess is that I don’t have any experience buying or selling podcast sponsorships which I assume are his main source of income right now. Also, sites with Tim’s reach tend to start breaking standard revenue rules. Having one of the largest and highest rated podcasts can give you a lot of leverage, allowing you to charge more than normal on each sponsorship slot.

Otherwise, Tim has used his blog to promote his books heavily over the years. They include The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans, and Tribe of Mentors.

Timothy Sykes – timothysykes.com

Revenue = Over $25 million per year

Timothy has been around for a while now, predominantly selling infoproducts on how to invest in penny stocks. According to this interview with Nathan Latka, Timothy was on track to do $25–27 million in revenue in 2016, $20 million of which came from infoproducts.

Timothy is a great person to follow if you want to see how an infoproduct business looks at scale.

Josh Axe – Dr. Axe

Revenue = Did $11 million per year in 2015, could be as high as $50–70 million per year now

Dr. Axe is a massive site with a huge audience. According to this press release, it has 17 million visitors per month, which is insane. They also push products pretty hard via their email list. It’s obvious that they know what their doing. Their revenue is a mix of infoproducts, affiliates, and supplements.

Supplements are a great category with nice margins. I only have a little experience in the health and fitness category but the advice I always get from the health and fitness experts is to go hard on supplements.

I did hear that they have a solid paid marketing engine going for their funnels. If that’s true, they could be doing easily $50–70 million per year by now.

I consider Dr. Axe to be a great example of what a health and fitness blog looks like when taken to its absolute height. If you’re considering a health and fitness blog, I’d study Dr. Axe closely

Peter Adeney – Mr. Money Mustache

Revenue = About $400,000 per year

According to this article from the New Yorker, Peter pulled in about $400,000 per year as of 2016. Ahrefs reports that Peter’s traffic has been static since the 2016 period. If that’s true, I would expect his current revenue to be around $400,000. Sounds like the majority of the revenue, possibly even all of it, comes from affiliates.

AJ Harbinger and Johnny Dzubak – Art of Charm

Revenue = My guess is $5–10 million per year

Jordan Harbinger didn’t reveal exact revenue but did say that it’s multiple seven figures per year. Based on the fact that the revenue is mostly infoproducts and the overall size of the audience, my guess is that Art of Charm does $5–10 million per year in revenue.

In 2018, Jordan Harbinger split from the Art of Charm and started his own podcast.

Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income

Revenue = $2,171,652 per year

Pat Flynn posts all his income reports here, going back all the way to 2008.

Not sure if Pat decided to stop but it doesn’t look like he’s posted any new income reports since 2017. Regardless, I highly recommend reading through the first few years of income reports from Pat. That’ll give you a strong sense for what it takes to start making money with a blog.

The majority of Pat’s revenue comes from affiliate offers and his own infoproducts, about 50/50 between the two. He also has a few books published, How to Be Better at Almost Everything and Will it Fly? Other than the months he received the advance from the publisher, I bet these books have a negligible direct impact on revenue.

John Lee Dumas – Entrepreneur on Fire

Revenue = $2,029,744 per year

No one really needs to guess at John Lee Dumas’ revenue, he posts monthly income reports directly to his site.

He also put together a nifty revenue breakdown by source:

Sponsorships are slightly larger than everything else. Otherwise a pretty even split between infoproducts, affiliates, and his journals (The Freedom Journal, The Mastery Journal, and The Podcast Journal).

To get a sense for how blogs really make money, I highly recommend you read through the monthly income reports from the last 12 months for Entrepreneur on Fire. You’ll get an excellent feel for what a seven-figure blog looks like. I also recommend you read through the income reports from 2012 and 2013, which will show you what revenue looks like at the beginning and how it changes over time on the path to $1 million per year.

Navid Moazzez – navidmoazzez.com

Revenue = My guess is $300–500K per year

Navid is in the online marketing space and offers infoproducts on virtual summits. According to his About page, he’s earned over a $1 million dollars in “a few years.” Safe to say he’s easily doing six figures off his blog. Hence my guess above.

Tim Urban – Wait But Why

Revenue = At least $100,000, possibly $1+ million per year

Tim Urban got crazy popular and his blog posts were being shared all over the place for a while.

This is probably an example of what most people dream of when they start a blog. They plan to write a bunch of stuff, a rabid fan base will appear out of nowhere, they’ll offer some t-shirts, posters, and a Patreon account to make tons of passive income. They’ll finish by riding into the sunset of eternal blogging glory.

For Tim Urban, that’s basically what happened. And he absolutely deserves it. His content is phenomenal. It’s so good that people have been angry because he hasn’t posted in a while. Very few of us can write content that good. I can promise you no one gets upset when I stop blogging. So for us mortals, we should look to some of the other examples on this list for how to monetize our blogs.

I know that I gave a really broad range on the revenue here. Blogs like this are really tough to guess. Tim clearly has a massive, adoring audience. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s swimming in gold. Although he might be. Blogs with massive audiences like this sometimes make a ton of money, and sometimes they make very little. It also looks like his main source of revenue is his ecommerce store. Unlike consulting, speaking, infoproducts, or affiliates, the margins on ecommerce products are much smaller. It’s entirely possible that he’s making a ton of top-line revenue but only enough profit to live a decent lifestyle.

That’s pretty common with ecommerce entrepreneurs. They claim that they’re making millions of dollars with their business but only take home $50–100K per year. Once you factor in costs of goods sold and overhead, there isn’t a ton left over. I have no idea if Tim Urban falls into this bucket. I simply don’t know.

Ready to build you own blog?

I know the list above is full of people making serious money.

Here’s the crazy part.

For every blogger making a million dollars, there are thousands that make enough money to quit their job and work on their blog full time.

The list is too long to keep track of — I wouldn’t be able to put it together.

It is absolutely reasonable to start a blog with the goal of quitting your job and being your own boss. So many people have already done it you’d be walking a well-traveled path at this point.

I also believe that there’s still a ton of opportunity to be made blogging. I see new up-and-coming bloggers every year. It’s still possible to start a blog today and have it support you. I put together a 12-step guide on how to start a blog here. It’ll walk you through the whole process.

http://www.quicksprout.com/make-money-blogging/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-to-make-money-blogging-in-2019.html

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