#and that comments he had to cheat on the intelligence test to be able to keep a low profile

[fragmentedblade]

"The Creation Furnace provides energy to the Artisanship Commission and ensures its normal operation. Rumor has it that the energy stored in the Creation Furnace is heliobus, an elemental being. A thousand years ago, the heliobi unsuccessfully attacked Xianzhou and was thus ordered to supply energy to the Xianzhou Alliance forever".

[virtualcarrot]

[KKIR] Pen on paper - Part 3

[Ao3] [Part 2 on tumblr]

When Masato’s finally considering setting them loose on more advanced material, a courrier interrupts his lesson.

Masato’s supremely unimpressed.

“Yes?” he snaps, hand lowering from the blackboard.

None in the room are really pleased with the delay. They’re about to be given access to a room of--carefully vetted and unrestricted--scrolls and the class is abuzz with the excitement of new knowledge. It’s thrilling. Or it will be, as soon as they can get back to it.

Faltering under the weight of a classful of unhappy eyes, the young woman at the door clears her throat.

“I have a missive from the Rokudaime of Konohagakure, to be delivered to one Umino Iruka.”

The blood drains from Iruka’s face. A formal missive. Few things sound more ominous. He hopes Naruto’s okay. He hopes Hinata’s okay. He hopes Boruto--Oh gods, did Hinata miscarry?

“-inappropriate,” Masato’s saying. “Official communication from the Hokage should go through the Mizukage’s office. This is a gross sign of distrust and secrecy.”

“Kakashi-san probably didn��t realize the diplomatic implications,” Iruka hears himself say, ears ringing from the adrenaline rush.

“And what does this Kakas--” Masato begins to say, rolling his eyes at the implication of incompetence. He cuts himself short, likely as he notices the actual name he’s repeating. “You mean, the Rokudaime? Hatake Kakashi himself?”

All eyes turn on Iruka, who blinks in incomprehension. Ryo elbows him under the table and mouths a silent ‘ san ’ like a kid whispering the cheat to a test, except with a wide-eyed look of utter dismay.

“Kakashi-sama,” Iruka rushes to amend. “I meant Kakashi-sama.”

Masato welcomes the correction with a sneer. “Regardless, Intelligence should read it first. Iruka-san is not a diplomat. There is no privilege.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Nobuko retorts out loud and with an exceedingly dismissive snort. “He’s an official envoy from Konoha. What kind of moron would interfere with mail from the Hokage himself?”

If looks could kill, Nobuko would be dead on sight. Since it doesn't, she weathers Masato’s glare with indifferent aplomb. In the doorway, the courier seems to be considering the disproportion between her own pay and the whole hassle.

Finally, Masato relents.

“Very well. But make sure to inform the Mizukage’s office.”

“Yeah, sure,” the courier says unconvincingly.

Iruka barely glances at her. He’s too busy tearing the envelope open.

He skims over the content, two single sided pages of Kakashi’s sharp and concise strokes, the writing of someone used to efficient writing both on the field and in the office.

Then he blinks. He gives the pages a slower perusal. As far as he can see, everything’s fine. It is, in fact, pretty much a letter telling him just that, and one after another the clenched muscles of his body begin to ease. 

By the board, Masato sniffs, radiating sarcasm. “May we continue the lesson, Iruka-sama?”

“Ah, yes, of course. Sorry.”

Iruka shakes himself and puts the letter away for later.

*

Dear Iruka-sensei,

It's come to my attention that you were worried about the effects of your absence. Be assured that Konoha still stands.

The mission desk is running smoothly. The newest clerks must have been suitably filled with fear of your retribution upon your return. As for the users, if any nurtured hope of slacking off on their reports out of your watch, they were quickly disabused.

I was able to meet with Hiroaki-kocho. He praised your work at the Academy and your positive influence on the teachers. We had an interesting conversation on how to tackle the old guard and draw them to new methods. I’m sure it's a topic you’ll have ample things to comment on.

(Incidentally, I was unaware that Hiroaki-kocho is such a connoisseur of spirits. The sake bottle was much lighter from his visit)

Naruto’s doing fine. It seems he's slowly coming to understand that the office has demands he can't simply talk his way out of. Just yesterday, he asked Shikamaru for further clarification on administrative procedures. The care of war orphans, I believe was the topic. I thought you'd want to know.

Hinata and Boruto are also well, as are Sakura and Sarada. Konohamaru remains promising. He will likely make jounin soon. If I forgot anyone you'd like to know about, please let me know.

I've also been made aware you might be under the impression that I oppose this enterprise. Understand that it is false.

Arm yourself with all the knowledge you want. If I'm lucky, you'll be kind enough to share it with me. After all, you'll soon be the one in charge of imparting it. You will be ready to be Headmaster well before Naruto takes the mantle from me.

Please take this letter as proof of my full support. I hope it finds you well.

Regards,

へのへのもへじ

*

“You okay?” a disembodied voice asks from on high.

Unable to look away from the words swimming on the paper, Iruka mumbles a vague acknowledgement.

From nir perch, Ryo has a clear line of sight of the meager furniture of their shared room, from the cramped closet to the other beds to the rickety table Iruka's using as a desk.

Ne peers over the railing of the top bunk bed. “I think you stopped breathing. Is it bad news?”

Iruka slowly lowers the letter, dizzy with longing. “No. No, it's… very much the opposite.”

“Are you sure? Or is it, like, secret?”

“He's fine, leave him be!” Nobuko yells from outside of the open sash window.

She’s sitting on the other side of the wall through core strength and chakra alone. They’re on the second floor. A hint of the smell of her cigarette wafts inside, carried by the smoke that the tori-based seal she summarily slapped on the raised pane is struggling to keep away. It’s the same she’d been using all of last week and it’s clearly losing power. Iruka will have to warn her. He doesn't mind it too much but Ryo tends to scrunch nir nose at the smell.

They weren’t all originally set to bunk together until Nobuko decided otherwise and bullied the original occupants into a switch. Although first disgruntled, the hostel owner opted to turn a blind eye. Likely, he measured the worth of arguing bed distribution against the effort it’d take, and came up with a negative result. He’s since been leaving them to their own devices, though not without pinched looks of judgment at their now mixed dormitory.

Thus far, the most debauchery they've indulged in is a late night game of koi-koi with the hanafuda Ryo provided. They drank a couple of cheap beers while playing, after which Toru blessed them with a taste from his personal stash of umeshu.

It tasted lovely but Kakashi would probably find it too sweet.

Iruka drops his face in his hands with a groan. Even his thoughts won’t give him respite.

“Shower’s free,” Toru announces, walking in with his damp towel thrown over his arm. “If you’re fast enough, it might still be when you get there.”

As if on a spring, Ryo scrambles into motion. Then ne stalls, one leg hanging over the precipice of the bunk bed. Iruka doesn’t have to see it to feel nir beseeching look.

He lowers his hands with a sigh and leans back to meet nir gaze. Out of the corner of his eyes, he catches Nobuko crushing her cigarette on the window sill and maneuvering to come inside. Her chakra control isn’t bad for a non-active operative but she’s clearly better skilled at sticking her back to the wall than shifting anchor points.

“I’m vice-principal of Konoha Academy,” Iruka reminds them. “I was worried about taking a leave. Kakashi-sama has been kind enough to keep me informed.”

Nobuko sucks her teeth. “Sama, is it now?” she mutters on her way to the trash can, where she drops the cooling cigarette butt.

Justifications crowd the tip of Iruka’s tongue. Kakashi insists on a lack of decorum, he wants to say. He’s never sought praise, he’s never sought fame, if anything he’s been haunted by it. Only his sense of duty keeps pushing him in the spotlight.

Kakashi’s down-to-earth. He takes pride in his work, because he takes pride in work well done and he takes pride in doing it well, but he’s not self-important. He doesn’t like being made to feel special. Kakashi, Iruka thinks, has been made to feel special too many times for too many wrong reasons over the years.

Kakashi favors teamwork. He values friendship. Probably, being called an equalizing honorific makes him feel less alone.

Iruka rubs the back of his neck with a wince and says none of it.

“Ah, about that. Slip of the tongue,”  is what he goes with. “I’ve known him before he was appointed. He was jounin-sensei to some of my students.”

It’s the most honest and the shallowest reply he feels safe to give.

He ignores Nobuko’s noncommittal scoff. Ryo has made nir way down the top bed and is staring at him with something strange in nir eyes, like ne’s seeing Iruka for the first time. It’s unnerving.

“I didn’t realize you were so close to the Hokage,” ne says and Iruka suddenly recognizes with a flare of embarrassment what the shine in nir eyes is: admiration.

The mere fact of knowing another person isn’t worthy of that much.

“I’m not. I just used to be a teacher, is all. Nothing much.”

By the closet door where he's hanging his towel off to dry, Toru tuts in disapproval.

“Nothing much?” he repeats, sounding genuinely upset. “You’re Vice-Principal of Konohagakure Academy. It’s unfair that you speak of your duties so lightly. That’s a lot of responsibility. I hope you take it seriously.”

Iruka doesn’t think there’ll be an age where he isn’t vulnerable to disapproval from an older, respected figure. That is likely why he doesn’t snap back over being scolded by what, all things considered, is very much still a near stranger.

In fact, Iruka ducks his head, admonished.

“Of course I do! I almost canceled this trip, I was so worried about leaving!”

At his words, Toru’s gaze turns considering. Then he smiles, satisfied. For a brief, grief-stricken second, Iruka wonders if the Sandaime would also be pleased with him. With who he’s become today.

“Your kage seems to think you do, anyway,” Toru grants lightly, packing away his toiletries. “To take the time to write to you. That's quite the honor, you know?”

Iruka does. He knows it all too much.

No matter how much Kakashi insists on informal terms of address, there’s nothing equal about them. 

*

The scroll Masato unrolls barely reaches the length of the table. It’s surprisingly short for the amount of power it radiates. In a slow succession of groups, the students are invited to crowd over to examine it.

Iruka’s group is among the last to reach it.

“Amazing work. See the lines here?” Toru says in a low voice, finger tracing over them from afar. The library assistant watches him eagle-eyed in case he comes into contact. “They drive the chain of triggers.”

Iruka peers over, squinting in interest. At the center of the scroll, Inu presides. Smaller characters circle it, disposed with elegant symmetry along what Iruka suspects to be cardinal points. Long, fluid strokes of ink tie them together, swirling back and forth from Inu and the other characters. The result is mesmerizing.

“This isn’t just a trigram, it’s a nodal seal,” he whispers. It’s not even on purpose. His throat has gone tight with awe.

“The crowning achievement of Kiri style sealing,” Masato confirms with a puff of his chest.

They spend the rest of the afternoon studying the strokes, trying to figure out the order they were drawn and whether the sequence of catalysts would follow the same path. While Toru and Nobuko are busy arguing opposing interpretations, Ryo keeps glancing up at Iruka.

He doesn’t know what ne expects from him. In spite of his origins, Iruka has no practice of Kiri technique. If anything, given the intuitive ease with which Ryo’s been picking it up, it’s nem that Iruka should be looking to for help, not the other way around. And he sure needs it. He’s been struggling.

After a moment, he stops scratching down notes with a sigh. “What is it?”

“Did you reply?” Ryo asks before adding, in the face of his confusion: “to your Hokage?”

Iruka crosses his arms, feeling a scowl darkening his face. “What’s your obsession with this?”

Undeterred, Ryo does an antsy windmill motion with nir hands. “You got a letter. From your Hokage! How can you be so cool about it? You think the Tsuchikage would write to me? I don’t think he even knows I exist!”

Iruka can’t help but smile, struck with the sweet relief that this isn’t about him. He remembers being young and desperate to prove himself. He remembers what it was to hope to be noticed.

 On the other side of the table, he catches sight of Nobuko and Toru’s looks of amused interest. Iruka rubs his chin in the appearance of thoughtfulness.

“Hm. But why would you want him to?”

Ryo falters with a frown of frustration. “I don’t know? It’d be cool? If the great kage himself acknowledged me?”

Iruka’s been so stuck feeling inadequate and inferior, these past days, that he forgot how much wider and bigger the world is than him. He completely missed Ryo’s insecurity. Ne’s younger, after all, nearly as young as Iruka was when he started teaching. He hadn’t realized just how much of a difference these ten years between them make. He hadn’t realized how much he, himself, has matured.

“Why do you need him to?” he prompts. “Will that make you stronger? Smarter?”

“Of course it won’t,” ne replies, upset to be misunderstood.

Iruka nods. “No, it won’t, because you’re already smart. You’re hardworking. You’re curious and sharp-minded. I see it. Toru-san and Nobuko-san see it. Sure, it’s not as fun to brag about than the Tsuchikage,” he adds, good-naturedly ignoring Ryo’s stammered disagreement, “but the Tsuchikage doesn’t know you. He’s not the one sharing a room with you. He isn’t fleecing you at cards. I’d say, we’re much better suited to give you accurate feedback. Better looking too,” he adds with a wink, just to break the ice.

Ryo flushes at that, and then flushes deeper when ne notices ne’s the focus of Toru and Nobuko’s attention.

Suppressing a smirk, Nobuko turns back to her notes with a carefree roll of her shoulders. “Eh, you’re alright. Less obnoxious than Toru, definitely.”

Following that, they resume their study of the seal, trying to identify usable patterns. After a while, Ryo lowers nir pencil.

“Does that mean you, like, know the Hokage?” ne asks, less combative than earlier.

“As I said, he’s taught some of my students.”

Ryo gives him a mean look over his evasive answer. When even Toru’s expression turns disapproving, Iruka sighs.

“I’ve known Kakashi-san for years. He was a good team leader to me, before I became a teacher. Tried to take the fall when I messed up. He’s a good guy. He means well and he cares about the students. More than I gave him credit for, to be honest.” He scratches the bridge of his nose, feeling sheepish. Then he catches their curious looks and clarifies: “we’ve been working on reforming the Academy.” He meets Ryo’s gaze before ne gets any ideas. “Trust me, it’s not glamorous. Late nights of paperwork, takeout, and finances spreadsheets. Not anybody’s dream of a pleasant evening.”

Except Iruka, apparently, who has grown terribly fond of those meetings.

“Are you and the Hokage… friends?” Ryo asks, but this time ne sounds more puzzled than wonderstruck.

The question hits a bit too close to everything Iruka’s been trying and failing so terribly to push away from his thoughts.

He shrugs one shoulder. “The Hokage’s a private person. But yeah, we’re friendly.”

Toru gives a sharp, meaningful little nod. “The burden of power is not an easy one,” he says, to which Nobuko lets out a tortured groan.

“I swear, Toru, you say the lamest things,” she says, looking for a distraction by tugging one of the schematics out of the pile they’ve drawn.

Ryo perks up at the sight.

“Oh, I think I see it, now,” ne says, and proceeds to draw and trigger a two-nodes seal that floods their desk in a matter of seconds. Iruka manages to crumple their research to the dry safety of his arms, but only narrowly.

*

Inspiration strikes Iruka the next morning, while he’s applying balm of sea foam to his temples. He keeps it in mind all day, scraping a few errant minutes here and there to write it down and waiting for the time to complete his parcel.

At the end of the day, the old man at the apothecary squints at him in recognition. Iruka would be surprised, hadn’t he lived the most of his life with a very identifiable scar running across the middle of his face.

“Back already? What did you do, eat it? You’re not supposed to.”

“Ah, no. It’s not for me. But I was wondering if the balm couldn't also help someone back home.”

“It’s not hand lotion. Can’t go around just giving it to anyone.”

Iruka stamps down on his irritation and reminds himself that he’s a guest in Kiri. He tries to figure out a way of wording the issue without divulging state secrets, and gestures in the vague direction of the right half of his face.

“My… friend… used to have a seal over here. For years. Now that the seal’s been taken off, they’ve been having trouble adjusting.”

Thoroughly unimpressed, the shopkeeper snorts. “And what, you don’t have medinin in… wherever you’re from?”

“Konoha. And my friend has a high tolerance for pain,” Iruka replies carefully.

“Ah. The grin and bear it type,” the shopkeeper hums, sounding vaguely sympathetic. ”Tell me the symptoms.”

Something about the folds of his skin seems wry, like he’s very aware he’s about to be given a summarily redacted version of the situation. At the end of Iruka’s account, he scratches his cheek.

“Hm. Chakra migraines. Yeah, unpleasant. Balm of Sea Foam might help, alright. Force chakra flow, plug the leak,” he says, disappearing into the backroom with what Iruka’s beginning to suspect is customary curtness.

Iruka leaves with his purchase wrapped in coarse brown paper. He tucks it into the envelope he folded while at the Archives, along with the letter he penned during lunch break.

The receptionist at the hostel greets him with her usual disinterest. She barely glances at the envelope, even as she grabs a notebook to add it to her to-do list. It’s not the worst she’s had to deal with: three days ago, one of the researchers handed her a chest-wide package to send to Suna. It took up a third of her counter until she was able to push it onto a courrier.

“Where’s it going?” she asks in a monotone.

“Konohagakure,” Iruka supplies helpfully.

“To whom?”

“Hatake Kakashi.”

“Address?”

“Hokage tower.”

A credit to her lethargy, it takes reaching the middle of the address before her pen skids in confusion.

She looks up warily.

“Hatake Kakashi. The Hokage. Of Konoha.” An eyebrow lifts in judgment. “Through common mail?” At Iruka’s nod, she shakes her head. “Don’t you have, like, messenger birds and sh--Oh, what am I saying. Yeah, sure, I’ll take care of it, whatever.”

“Right,” Iruka says, before expressing bemused thanks.

When he reaches it, the dormitory’s empty. A fresh tori seal is cycling air through the window. He throws his legs on the other side of the sill, feet dangling while he sits to take in the view.

It doesn’t go far. Kiri’s imposing tower karsts block the horizon, safeguarding and secretive. The salt of the sea at large still finds its way over, carried by the wind even past the tobacco smoke. Beneath, a lake of ambient mist rolls sluggishly, puddling in the many dips of Kirigakure’s uneven ground like water in rocky shores. The sinuous streets and stairs that complete the landscape draw labyrinthic paths between the cylindrical architecture of the village.

Iruka misses Konoha’s overgrown forest. He misses…

When Nobuko holds out her cigarette, he doesn’t startle.

“Didn't peg you as one for hero-worship crushes,” she says, back and feet adhering to the wall.

“I'm not,” Iruka denies.

He gives a minute shake of his head. She pulls her hand away with a shrug.

“Ah.” The tip of her cigarette flares in the corner of his eyes. “Don't worry, kid. Heartbreak passes.”

Seagulls squawk in the distance, where the eye can’t see. At the windowsill, Iruka pulls up a knee to brace on.

“You?” he asks.

Nobuko takes a silent, drawn out drag. She blows it out in an even longer breath. Her gaze is far away. She rubs the lower half of her face then shakes off the cobwebs of her thoughts.

“Eh. It’s happened. But love needs making yourself vulnerable.” She sucks her teeth and huffs a humorless chuckle. “I'm not made to be vulnerable.”

She offers the cigarette again, pinched upright between thumb and forefinger.

Iruka takes it.

(He coughs, just a little)

*

Dear Kakashi-san,

Thank you for your letter. I was a bit homesick--I've gotten rusty and complacent, I think, staying in Konoha--and it was the perfect cure for it! I'm very grateful. It's a relief to know everything is going well. And to have your support.

You'll find enclosed a little balm. I know your headaches tend to flare, and I thought this might be of help. The apothecary is a grumpy and kind old man that seems perpetually peeved, but his advice has been sound. I use it myself [...]

*

[Part 4]

[nifolution]

Baby Blues 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes / Reader

Summary: Bucky and his wife have been trying for a baby. Will they get their wish or will it all fall apart? Will there be too much deception, pain and anger to make it work?

Warnings: Angst, smut, fluff, infertility, heartbreak, cheating, manipulation, noncon/dubcon, harassment, pregnancy, argument, therapy, making up

A/N: This is a revised copy of my oc fic. 18+ only due to smut and noncon/dubcon situations. No stealing, no reposts, no translations, no feeding to AIs. Comments, reblogs and likes are always welcome and appreciated.

Series Masterlist Main Masterlist

Chapter 1

Y/N met the love of her life at work, of all places. She worked as an equipment designer for the newly reestablished S.H.I.E.L.D. and was recently assigned to the Avengers division. Y/N adored her new position, even though Tony could be a pain in the ass. He was her direct boss and boy did he work her to the bone. Burning the midnight oil was an understatement and coffee was a food group. Sometimes she wouldn't see her bed for days, but she loved it still. And she loved it more when he walked into her life.

Bucky had joined the Avengers after his time in Wakanda. Apprehensive initially, it would prove to be the best decision he ever made. Steve had escorted him to the equipment lab to be fitted for his suit and weaponry. There was only one person working that morning but she didn't seem to notice them. Her head was down, diligently working on some device that kept sparking. Steve cleared his throat to alert her of their presence. When she looked up, her bright eyes locked with Bucky’s and in that moment he knew he was done for. This was the woman he would spend the rest of his life with.

After that day, Bucky would look for any reason to stop by the lab. He'd often bring Y/N her next meal, knowing the crazy hours she kept. He loved watching her work, fascinated by the technology and her intelligence. Her smile never failed to dazzle him. Bucky knew she was too good for him, he was damaged goods after all. Knowing she would never return his affections, he continued his friendly visits just to spend time with her. Until one night he got the courage to kiss her. He thought he'd never be happier than when she kissed him back….

...He was proven wrong. His happiest moment was when she said I Do.

---------------

Bucky and Y/N have been married almost three years. They have a beautiful house not far from the compound. Like any couple, they had their ups and downs, but they always saw it through together. Their hardest struggle being their longest. They wanted a family. Longing to fill the empty rooms, have children running around laughing. The failure of being able to have one weighing heavily on them both.

The couple had been trying for a baby for almost the entire marriage. A few late periods getting their hopes up, only to be torn to shreds a few days later. After the first unsuccessful 6 months, they sought medical assistance. The doctors assured them that everything was physically fine. To just relax, work less and it would happen.

However, after another two years without a baby, Y/N was losing hope. She wanted to throw up with anxiety at the sight of a pregnancy test. After 30 negatives, she couldn’t bear to take another. She began hating the women she'd see with their babies. No, not hating them, hating herself. But she couldn't help the resentment that would bubble up seeing them. She wanted to give her husband children. After all he'd been through, he deserved the family he dreamt of. Why couldn't she give him one? The doctors must be wrong, she must be broken.

---------------

Lately they stopped trying, not that Y/N wanted to. For the last two months when she’d get frisky, Bucky would say he's too tired. He’d also been spending less time with her. She can’t remember when they last had lunch together. Half the time she didn’t know where he was. He must be avoiding her, upset it's taking so long and not wanting to discuss it. She knows how important this was to him. Bucky wanted kids more than anything and she was failing him.

Y/N began missing her husband. It was understandable when he was away on missions, but another thing entirely to miss him when he was right in front of her. Like there was an ocean between them. Something wasn’t right even when Bucky was home. He seemed off. Acting strange, saying things that did not always make sense to her. He also smelled different, a scent on top of his normal cologne. Y/N couldn’t help her rising suspicions that he'd given up on her, but she was too scared to say anything. She didn’t want to make things worse. Bucky just needed time.

---------------

Bucky breathed a sigh of relief walking into his home. The majority of his day had been training a bunch of whiny recruits that couldn’t throw a proper punch. The break for dinner was nice though, but now he just wanted to sleep.

He smiled when he spotted Y/N in the kitchen. Bucky walked up to her, watching as she finished cooking some chicken breast. “I’m surprised you're eating again, Honey.” She turned to look at him and he smiled. How’d he get so lucky to have her.

“Ya well, we gotta eat, right?” She furrowed her brows, wondering once again what he was talking about.

Bucky couldn’t help his eager reply. “I’m fine, but I’m starting to think you may be pregnant if you're this hungry. Or maybe you worked up an appetite after today's activities,” he chuckled.

Kissing his wife, Bucky tells her he's going to shower and go to bed early. Y/N stood there very confused. Activities? All she did was her basic lab work. Equipment repairs mostly. Not even working on anything new or interesting. When he kissed her, she got a whiff of that smell on him again. What was that? She ate dinner alone, lost in her thoughts.

Y/N crawled in bed later in the evening. Bucky was fast asleep, but something was stopping her from cuddling up to him. He was only a foot away but it felt so much farther. She put her back to him, accepting the distance.

Feeling the bed dip as Y/N got in, Bucky sleepily scooted over and pulled her close. “What ya doing way over there?” He nuzzled her and kissed her hair.

Y/N felt all the tension leave her body as she relaxed against her husband. She was worried about nothing. The divide between them was only in her head. He must just be too busy with missions and training, that was all. “I love you, Bucky.”

“I love you too, Honey. Goodnight.”

---------------

Y/N was upset. She was swamped at work and couldn't make it to see Bucky off before his mission. They always liked to have a “good sendoff” when they knew he would be gone for more than a day. He was understanding, but equally disappointed to be leaving for so long without a proper goodbye.

Tony couldn’t help but notice how distracted and miserable his employee looked. As much as he did not care for her choice in a husband, he took pity on her. “Okay, stop moping. Take a long lunch. Go home and have your good luck quickie. I’ll hold the fort.”

“You sure you’ll be ok til I get back?”

He scoffed, “Absolutely. I have my lunch,” holding up his coffee cup, he realized it was empty. “No, I don't. Bring me another on your way back, would ya.”

Y/N shook her head, “When is it enough coffee for you?”

“When I start twitching, then add 5 more cups.”

Grabbing her purse, she called out to Tony, “Don’t have a heart attack while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

---------------

Y/N is pretty sure she broke some laws in her rush to get home. There was plenty of time before he had to go, but she was excited. She couldn’t wait to surprise Bucky. The house was quiet when she walked in. It was too early for him to leave, maybe he's still packing. She walked further into the home, “Babe?”

She started to pick up on some noise as she neared her bedroom. She felt a prickling on the back of her neck, warning her to turn back. Her hands began to shake, but her feet kept moving forward, like she was in a trance. The bedroom door was wide open, the sounds of grunts and moans flowing out. Y/N stopped when she reached the doorway, froze to the spot when she saw them.

It was like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. There was her beloved husband, holding some woman’s legs on his shoulders as he railed into her. Y/N felt her paralyzed heart tumble out of her body. Feeling sick, she closed her eyes. This can't be real. Her Bucky wouldn’t do that to her. It’s a bad dream, that’s all.

“Fuck, you feel so good. I could pound this pussy all day.” Her eyes flew back open as she heard her husband's praises. The woman responded in kind, “Yes, yes. Fuck me harder, Bucky.”

Y/N had no clue how long she watched them, feeling as if she was glued to the floor, silent tears rolling down her face. She was too afraid to move, still praying it was a horrible nightmare. Her mind refused to process what she was seeing.

Bucky didn’t notice her standing there, too busy having his fun. He closed his eyes, his head rolling back. He started panting harder, fucking her faster. “I'm gonna come Honey, gonna fill you up.”

“I’m ready, baby.” The woman turned her head toward the door. It was Tanya, Bucky's trainee. She gave Y/N a big smile and waved.

Y/N turned and ran as fast as she could. The sounds of her husband moaning through his climax, and Tanya’s scornful laughter following her.

Chapter 2

[issaxcharlie]

Falling like the stars✨

Pairing: Alive! Luke Patterson x Fem Reader

Summary: Luke and Y/N never got to be a thing. Whatever they had ended abruptly when she settled on someone with far more status than the aspiring guitarist. Months later, now single, Luke entangles her in a scheme to make Sunset Curve more popular. The only thing she needs to do is fake date him for 2 weeks.

Songs used: Holy Ground by Taylor Swift, Loved You First by One Direction and Falling Like The Stars by James Arthur.

High school is a world by itself. It has its own system and everyone moves through it. It is something that although it is not discussed, everyone knows. Including the three members of Sunset Curve, who are lying in the yard trying to find a solution to their latest problem.

"We need more people to support our music. If we can't get this little school to support us, how are we going to fill clubs or sign with a label?” Reggie wonders aloud to himself, no matter how hard they try, they can't get the Los Feliz student body to listen to their band.

“We should have thought about it before, Reg. Now we're just the problem kids who most likely won't finish school. Why would they come to see us at those seedy little clubs when they can go show off at football games.” Luke stands up suddenly after Alex words, one of those huge smiles that comes out when he has a really bad idea on his face.

“Well it seems that the solution is easy, boys. We have to make them see us on the same level as those jocks.”

“Oh yeah, and how are we going to do that, genius?” Alex fiddles with his hands as he rests his head on Reggie, both tired of not being able to come even close to fulfilling their dream.

Luke points to the nearest post, on which there are at least 5 posters to support the homecoming king and queen.

“Really? Do you think someone would vote for you? Before all those star athletes who also have a cheerleader to back them up? You basically have just us and I don't think I can do one of those tricks.”

“We’ll think of something. Winning that stupid thing would put us directly in the top of the pyramid. We’ll find a way, we always do.” Before anyone can respond, some screaming and commotion can be heard.

“Savannah is accusing Y/N to mess with her man! Run, they are in the hall!" students mention as they start running to watch the discussion.

“Oh god, Y/N. I’ll better go and see if I can help her somehow.” Alex gets up and Reggie begins to follow him, but not before turning to make sure Luke is following too. The guitarist makes an irritated face but ends up walking behind his friends.

From the moment they enter the main hall they can hear the screeches of probably the most popular girl in school, Savannah Miller. One of those typical unbearable girls who for some reason always reach the top of the elite in schools despite treating everyone badly.

Y/N Y/L is on the other side of the discussion, she looks calm and even bored. The first thing Luke digests from Savannah's words is that she thinks Y/N was making out with her idiot of a boyfriend during third period. What's interesting about the situation is that Diego cheated on Y/N with Savannah maybe a week and a half ago and had been dating her ever since.

But that's not Y/N's style, no matter how angry she is.

Luke knows her well enough, or so he wants to believe. She was always good friends with Alex and Reggie, and her relationship with them remained strong over the years despite how unstable and fleeting her relationship with the guitarist was.

He's never going to admit how deeply he felt for her. How much it screwed him up that just when he finally began to believe they could be something else, she completely walked away from his life so she could date the man that would end up cheating on her just because he looked more promising at the time. Rich, popular, the quarterback of the football team, the ‘perfect guy’ she said to the boys.

But hey, that's past.

Luke looks up to meet Y/N's eyes on him. In the moment she realizes she was caught, she sneakily turns to Alex, who is just inches from the guitarist and smiles at him.

“Are you actually smiling? You think this is funny?” The girl looks furious, but she's smart enough not to make this a battle of strength.

“I already told you, Savannah. It wasn’t me.”

“I can count, Y/N. Neither you nor Diego were in class."

And that’s when it hits him. The possibility of getting to the top of the pyramid in front of him. Because maybe Y/N is not the most popular, but it is undoubtedly one of the most loved by everyone. Intelligent, caring, beautiful, talented. And she certainly has the status after dating Diego Hernandez for one semester. No one had managed more than 3 months with him and the guitarist thinks that was a good sign that that idiot is not a good idea but well, it wasn’t his choice.

Luke begins to walk towards the center of the circle, Alex tries to stop him but cannot catch his arm in time. Both girls turn to see him surprised, but neither says anything.

"You can go find culprits elsewhere, Y/N was busy with me at the time. You can ask whoever you want and they'll tell you that I wasn't in class during third period either."

Of course, he wasn't there because the trio got into Reggie's old truck to get some hotdogs but no one has to know that.

His hand goes to take her firmly by the hip, just like all those nights that now only remain as memories. He is looking at every inch of her face, searching for her reaction, and is surprised by the naturalness with which the girl accepts the gesture. As if his hand belongs there. And maybe, just maybe, it does.

“Do you really want me to believe this?” Savannah asks, clearly annoyed.

“Y/N and Patterson? There’s just no way in hell. C’mon babe, he’s just pathetic, you could do better.” Diego says out loud as he approaches the scene in the middle of Y/N and Savannah.

There's something about the disgruntled way they both said it that makes Luke want to prove that a girl like her could want him. He doesn’t know how to distinguish if it is pride or insecurity but at the moment he is not interested.

He's barely going to open his mouth to defend himself when Y/N starts talking. "No. You can speak as badly as you want of me but you're not going to bring Luke into this."

Luke lets go of her so he can step back a few inches and see her from a better angle. She’s definitely not calm anymore. Her face looks altered and she is undoubtedly in protective mode. She turns to see him when she feels his hand leave her body but he offers her his hand and she intertwines it between her fingers without hesitation. At this rate she is taking control of the situation so he is going to let her continue and try to achieve his goal along the way.

“I know you need a partner to have any hope of winning the crown, but choosing Patterson is a desperate move.”

And that’s his cue. "If my baby wants that crown I will get it for her. It's that easy.”

“What? I do-” At that moment Luke panics and pulls her by the hand that they have intertwined and with the other holds her face while bringing their lips together. When he reacts to what he is doing he is afraid that Y/N will push him in front of everyone but to his surprise she kisses him back instantly, releasing his hand to bring him closer to the neck.

The kiss is passionate and almost desperate, but it only lasts a few seconds since a voice brings them back.

"This feels like deja vu." Reggie whispers to Alex, they both walked during the discussion towards the circle and are so close that Luke and Y/N heard him clearly.

“Well, we already clarified that she was not with your boyfriend so, I’ll take my girl. It was a pleasure, we should repeat this another day... said no one ever." Luke takes her hand and leads her to the nearest empty living room, Reggie and Alex locking the door behind him.

“What the hell was that crown bullshit? Why did you even cover for me? What are you up to? At least tell me is fun... or that includes you shirtless.” She jokes, a cheeky smile spreads in Luke’s face.

“I need a favor and thought you’ll appreciate an alibi.” She raises her eyebrow in reflex.

“Why would I help you, Lucas?” Luke can only think of how she makes a name as simple and boring as Lucas sound so sexy when she says it. Is incredible.

“Cut the act, beautiful. We both know you've never been able to resist me.” Y/N laughs amused at the boy’s sassiness. She won't admit it but she missed his eyes on her. She missed the way he uses that cocky stupid voice that melts her when he wants something. How he gets closer with each sentence, or his lips on her mouth.

Before she can counter attack, Alex stands in front of the guitarist raising his hands. “I know he’s an idiot, but we really need your help, Y/N. If we want Sunset Curve to gain popularity we have to start here, and this is our last year. Gaining popularity among the elite of the school would help us a lot.”

“We are getting desparate.” Reggie adds, a sad smile on his face.

“And pretending I made out with Luke in third period and getting to be homecoming dance queen and king helps you... why?”

“That crown is literally a test of popularity and status. It would put Luke on the same level as the popular kids like Savannah and Diego. People would be more interested in Sunset Curve after that. For now, for them we are only three good for nothing that one day will not appear around here again. You heard yourself that those two didn't think Luke was good enough."

Her face flushes with anger as soon as she remembers the contemptuous tone of voice they used to refer to Luke. If they hadn't been in the middle of the hall, she probably would have said a lot more than she did. That single comment is enough to make her decide, so without thinking Y/N asks “What do you need me to do?”

“Just play perfect couple with Luke until homecoming dance. Then you are queen and king, Sunset Curve gets the fans we deserve, you get to laugh at Savannah’s face and you can separate next day if you want to.”

“I’m not sure If someone is going to believe it.” She blurts out loud as she glances at the guitarist.

“Oh please, you know each others mouth better than your own names.” Reggie says without thinking, Luke snorted with laughter and Y/N blushes like crazy.

“Yeah, and you used to spend a lot of time together too, two weeks shouldn’t be that hard.” Alex tries to recover the seriousness of the situation to close the deal.

“Okay then. If I can help Sunset Curve and get that smirk of superiority off Savannah's face then sounds good to me. Are you willing to date me, Patterson?”

Their eyes meet again and without a sign of hesitation her now officially boyfriend for the next two weeks, answers.

“Beautiful, you have no idea.”

There is something about relationships that never get to happen that make the heart weigh more, that nostalgia to be stronger, the person more difficult to forget. Luke can't help but remember during the last periods of the day just how good it felt to taste the girl's lips again. Feelings of desire, of familiarity, of belonging. All colliding and going deep into his bones.

He decided a long time ago he didn't do relationships, but if he did, it would have been with her. He was willing to break that rule for her, but she had the final decision and it wasn't him. He accidentally put himself in the perfect situation though. All those what if’s will finally have an answer.

For two weeks he can test what it would have been if Y/N Y/L had chosen him. And when he finally tries the experience he will be free. Free from all the what if’s, free from her, from her memory. And there's also the part of how much the band will benefit. The main objective of doing this, obviously.

The last hour is finally over and Luke sped off toward Reggie's truck. In front of it is Alex already waiting and he can see Reggie and Y/N also walking in the same direction. The four of them regroup and Y/N starts to discuss game plan.

“If we are going to do this, we are going to do it well. There will be a party at Finch's house this Saturday and the three of you are coming with me."

The three members of Sunset Curve make an annoyed face at the words of their friend. "That's exactly why no one supports you. You think you are too cool to hang out with the people but then you want everyone to happily buy your shirts and listen to your music."

“She has a point there.” Alex agrees, and puts his arm around her shoulder.

“Okay, let’s do this. If you all come with me, we can leave early and crash one of those places you usually play. Maybe even have some people of the party to come with us and hear you rock the shit out of that place.” All three smile with bright eyes In response.

“You got yourself a deal, pretty lady.” Reggie says in a flirting tone and winks at her. Luke gives him a light punch on the arm.

"I'll see you on Saturday in my house then, at nine. Goodbye boys." She winks at Luke and walks over to her car, making sure to do a perfect walk because she knows pretty well that the guitarist isn't going to stop watching her until she pulls out of the parking lot.

Luke gives her a perfect smile one last time before Y/N leaves school. These two weeks are going to be weird.

The four members of the band are in the truck, Bobby decided to get out of school recently but a party and a gig sounds like a rad Saturday. Luke gets out and walks to the door to wait for Y/N to come out. When she finally comes down he feels like all the air is coming out of his lungs.

She's wearing the black Sunset Curve t-shirt that he forgot one of the many times he climbed up to the second floor of the house to see her. A short black skirt and one of his red flannels that he probably left there several months ago as well. Black fishnets stockings which he can't help but imagine ripping out with his teeth, her lips in that tone of red that drives him crazy, and her classic black boots that he hadn't seen since she started dating the cheating idiot.

“Genius huh? Is there anything that says more ‘Luke Patterson’s property’ than this? I don’t think so." She smiles proudly and blushes when she notices Luke's gaze locked on her legs. Fishnets may have been included in the outfit due to a certain weakness that the musician has towards them.

The hair that the guitarist is used to seeing in a perfect bun lately, is now loose and tousled. As rebellious as the day he met her, moving in harmonious tune to the rhythm of Now or Never.

Luke reaches out to to entwine his hand in her hair and whispers slowly into her ear “You look... fucking hell, you are not playing fair, baby.” Lightly biting her lobe when he’s done speaking.

They both linger in a trance for a few seconds, considering whether they should just walk in and lock the door. But before they can decide, the boys that already know this story pretty well and are sick of waiting for them while they flirt, get out of the truck. Reggie carries Y/N like a sack of potatoes and between Bobby and Alex take Luke by the arms, putting them in the vehicle so they can finally get to the lame party and then, the gig.

When they finally arrive, the eyes of almost all the girls go to the members of the band, who are definitely dressed for the occasion. Y/N can't help but notice how most of the cheerleaders wink at her boyfriend. Yeah, it’s not real and will last two weeks, but for now she justs wants to forget that part and enjoy the feeling of him being hers.

So she makes a small, harmless gesture to mark territory and puts her hand in the guitarist's back pocket.

Luke turns to see her, an amused smirk on his face. “Jealousy looks so hot on you, I wouldn't mind if you marked my lips with that red lipstick too."

That statement resonates in Y/N’s head. All the times Diego refused to kiss her so as not to stain himself and even forbade her to use that lipstick that for her was part of her brand returning to her head. Followed quickly by every night Luke came down after finishing playing and instantly attacked her lips with his, caring for nothing more than the feel of their tongues fighting for control.

“Not jealousy, just a quick reminder to everyone. You are all mine tonight.” She puts a little more pressure on the hand in his pocket and stands on her tiptoes to kiss the corner of his lips.

“Dance with me?” She asks innocently while giving him a flirtatious smile.

“With you, always beautiful.” He smiles back, winking charmingly.

His hands find hers and she begins to dance and jump gracefully to the rhythm of the music as he spins her around, both singing the lyrics to each other with unmatched energy, happy to be together.

“Tonight I'm gonna dance, for all that we've been through.” She sings with a determined voice, taking the musician by the hair and bringing their faces closer.

“But I don't wanna dance, If I'm not dancing with you.” Luke returns the verse with the same passion, just inches separating their lips. His beautiful and trained voice tends to sound like a more country vibe when he gets carried away and especially in more pop melodies like this, and honestly drives her crazy.

The fact that the rocker at heart gave in to listen to other genres for her and even remembered the lyrics was enough to melt her heart. The last time she was able to let herself go and sing at the top of her lungs like this was with him, listening to a mix of their favorite songs in his car while going for their favorite icecream. Whatever they had was a lot more deeper than what they are willing to admit.

“Did we really just see Luke sing and dance to a pop-country song?” Reggie asks the band, Alex and Bobby behind him laughing at the guitarist who blushes and kisses his date's forehead. “I am not going to discuss this. I'll go get us something to drink." He winks at her and dissapears into the crowd.

“I’ll go too, be right back.” Bobby announces leaving Y/N with Alex and Reggie, who smirk at her.

“It seems that pretending is easier than you thought.” Alex can't stop smiling, Reggie playfully itches the girl's ribs who grins from ear to ear.

"Everything always fits when I'm with him. I ruined my chance. I'm totally aware, and I'm not expecting anything from him, because I honestly don't deserve it. But I plan to enjoy every second of these two weeks that came from heaven to the fullest.”

“You should explain hi-” Before Reggie can finish speaking, Diego appears behind Y/N and tries to forcefully pull her by the arm.

The guys manage to react quickly and release her arm while stepping in front of her. But right away his teammates get behind him.

“Save yourselves the pain, she is going with me.” Diego says confidently, his face showing arrogance.

��Guys, ple-” She tries to stop them from getting hurt, but both step a little forward, determined to protect her no matter the cost.

“You are not taking her, Diego. But you are more than welcome to try.” Alex's voice sounds cool and calm, but Y/N can see how much his hands are shaking and her heart hurts at the sight.

They are all so into their own business that nobody notices the guitarist's return until his lips collide with his girl, who is surprised for a few seconds but immediately recognizes him and gives him space for his tongue to taste her mouth.

They both lose themselves in the kiss for a few seconds longer than necessary and then slowly separate. Y/N grinning from ear to ear as she tries to wipe some of her lipstick off Luke's mouth. He just smirks, as happy as ever.

"Sorry guys, do you need something?" He plays the innocent card. After that kiss, most of the people at the party are watching the scene, so Diego, who looks furious, chooses to leave without saying anything. Right away they can hear a long restrained breath from Reggie and Alex.

“You are a cocky genius, I'm not sure we could have won that one.”

“I’m not sure? Did you seriously think we had a chance?” Alex asks, clearly anxious after what had just happened.

Y/N stands in front of them and throws herself into their arms, whispering how many thanks she can say in a row. They return the hug and begin to relax in each others arms. Bobby and Luke join in the hug, and Luke whispers his own thanks to his friends.

The band decides that it’s time to go and to their surprise, when they let people know that they are going to play at a small club in the center of the city, some decide to follow them. On the way, Y/N spends her time wiping her lipstick off Luke’s face with some wipes she had in her bag, struggling not to press her lips against his every time he made her an adorable grimace or a flirtatious smile.

“You know the drill, beautiful.” Luke turns to see her directly in the eyes, concern on his face just like every time before.

“Front row, not a second out of your sight, so if I need something better wait for you guys to finish performing to get it. Better safe than sorry." She recites, proud to remember every word.

“Thank you, baby.” He smiles a little more calmly, gives her a light kiss on the cheek and starts to help take out the instruments.

They are only doing a few songs from their repertoire, but the energy they transmit drives everyone in the little club crazy. The Sunset Curve members look at a Luke they haven't seen in a long time. The energy and passion in his voice dedicated entirely to the little woman in the front row who sings with all her strength every word and melody, imitating Luke's guitar solos or Alex's drums with her arms.

The 15 students who decided to attend are close to Y/N, trying to get her attention from time to time but nothing can take her eyes off her friends. Not even she knew how much she had missed seeing them play. The look of maximum happiness on their faces.

The last song is one that the little club seems quite familiar with, but she had never heard it before. So it must have been written in the last six months.

“Had my chances, could've been where he is standing.

That's what hurts the most, girl, I came so close

But now you'll never know. Baby, I loved you first.”

The lyrics leave her breathless. Luke, who had made contact with her practically all night, now seems to avoid her eyes like a plague. She definitely has to ask Alex about this song before getting any ideas.

The four bow and get off the stage, Luke launches immediately for Y/N, some of the girls try to get his attention and even try to grab him by the arm or waist but he remains firm until his hands meet his girl's hip.

“What do you think?” Luke's fingers shaking in the grip on her waist tell her he's nervous. The fact that her opinion of them matters so much to him that it makes him feel insecure makes her heart skip a beat.

“It was amazing as always, rockstar.” A huge smile appears on the guitarist's face, who gently takes her face with his hands and kisses her nose. After all, he has to remember that they are only pretending to date and for now he has no good reason to push his lips against hers. It doesn't matter how much he needs her.

The way home is uneventful, Y/N sleeping in Luke's arms while Alex puts the guitarist's red flannel over her.

“Will they ever stop pretending they're ridiculously in love with each other?” Bobby asks Reggie as he turns his head to see the couple.

“They are both stubborn and allergic to real feelings. Especially love. They are so terrified that they have to sabotage themselves somehow.” Alex answers for Reggie who just nods without taking his eyes off the road.

"Do you really have to talk like I'm not here?" Luke asks, resting his chin delicately on the head of the woman in his arms.

Tonight felt unreal. Felt practically like one of the many dreams he has had with the girl throughout these months. Seeing her in his clothes was enough to make the night special, but without a doubt dancing in her arms, savoring every inch of her mouth and seeing her energetically sing each of his songs to end the night with her in his arms is just perfect. Reggie parks at Y/N’s after dropping Alex and Bobby, and as Luke decides how to get her to bed without waking her she sinks deeper into his chest.

"Carry me to the door hotstuff, I like to be in your sexy arms." Luke lets out a cheeky laugh in surprise, another laugh coming from Reggie.

“She’s so asleep, I can’t. Adorable though.” Luke agrees and takes her bag before walking down with her in his arms and carrying her effortlessly to the door.

“Thank you for tonight. I didn’t think I could ever feel this happy and complete again.” She murmurs in his ear before giving him a sweet peck in the lips and enter the house.

What the two of them took from tonight is that indisputably, they are both still head over heels for each other. But it was like that the first time and it just wasn't enough.

Days go by with the couple being the school's favorite gossip. People talking in the hallways about the special way Luke looks at his girlfriend, comparisons about the dry way Y/N used to be with Diego compared to how she is with the guitarist, always touching him somehow and spending all the time with him as possible, visibly much happier. Some also talking about how good the band sounds and wondering why they hadn't heard it before. Everything going according to plan.

On Thursday afternoon, Luke arranged to pick her up for the two of them to find him something formal enough for the dance. When Y/N opened the door she met his beautiful greenish hazel eyes, and swears that for a second she forgot how to breathe.

She knows this scene. He smiles sweetly at her, takes her hand and opens the door of the car for her. Multiple interesting memories inside this car coming back to her mind. His firm hands on her legs, his tongue testing her mouth, his hot moans after biting his lower lip...

“Beautiful? Whatcha thinking?” Luke's voice brings her back to the present, his hand goes directly to her thigh as all that many midnight drives and without saying anything he plays the girl's favorite album.

That’s it. If she wants a chance with him, she needs to make this right. “I- We really need to talk.” Hearing the tone of her voice, Luke senses what is coming. He was here before. So he turns off the car that hadn't even started to move yet and turns to look at her.

"I know we've been putting it off, but we have to talk about how it all ended, I-"

Luke interrupts her before she can finish, his voice sounds broken, sad, angry. "I really don't want to talk about how you preferred an idiot for whom you don't feel the remotest thing just because he'll get a football scholarship and this perfect future.”

She spends a few seconds processing his words. Did he really say what she thinks he said? "It wasn't like that, Luke."

"I know it looks like I can't compete with him, but I would have done anything for you. And I thought you knew that.”

She doesn't know what to do or say. She was so unconscious, so selfish, so heartless, that she didn't even think about how he could have understood the situation. In how much he must have suffered these months watching her with Diego, believing he wasn’t good enough. Believing that she chose someone who wasn’t him, because he wasn’t good enough.

He stays quiet, examining the girl who seems about to cling to tears. The anger evaporates instantly and he leans into her seat to wrap his arms tightly around her. She starts sobbing, but seems determined to talk.

“R- Remember the night we met? It was the first Sunset Curve presentation. I had just entered the little club, but your voice dragged me to the front row like a magnet. And when I was finally in front of the stage, I knew it. It was you. The butterflies that everyone talks about for the first time in my stomach. I knew I could never feel again something even close to what I was feeling at that moment.

I got carried away in your voice, dancing to the rhythm of the melody and recording every sound in my head. And when I opened my eyes again, yours were staring at me. And I understood that you felt it too. It was me, and you knew it. It was so natural, powerful, magnetic, deep. I loved you since the first day, Luke. How is that not going to scare me?

When the feelings started to get so strong they burned, I knew I had to run. You always made it very clear that relationships were not your thing, I could not continue to wait for something that from the beginning you made it clear you could not give.

Then Diego arrived at the right time to give me an exit, and I took it. I knew he just wanted to have me around to raise his good boy status, and feeling nothing was safer than feeling too much. So I lied. I lied to you, to me, to everyone. And I’m sorry, but I was so scared. I was a coward who should have done things differently.”

When she finally finishes pulling out what she's been saving for months, she pulls away from Luke to see his face. His eyes look crystal clear, his cheeks red. But his beautiful white smile lights up his face.

"Next time you love me so much that you can't bear it, let me know, please? I can step on your foot or sneeze in your face. I was literally going to ask you to be my girlfriend that weekend. I even wrote you a song."

“You were? The one you sang the other night?”

“Okay, I wrote you a lot of songs. Maybe too many. But the one I'm talking about is different. Maybe I'll let you listen to it one day. If you stick around long enough this time.”

She smirks and kiss him lightly on the lips, enjoying the feeling of being able to. He knows he reacted way too chill. But he also understands her feelings. What is the point of reproaching her for something they can no longer change? A bad decision made by a love so immense that it left her blind. He is simply not willing to waste any more time. They are finally going to do things right. Neither of them is going to self-sabotage it this time, and since he doesn't trust it, he'll put Alex and Reggie in charge to make sure.

The night of the dance arrives. Y/N is wearing a beautiful black dress and her classic red lips. Luke tried his best to look fancy and he's wearing a pretty cool suit but in a sleeveless version. His still fake girlfriend couldn't stop smiling when she saw him. Just perfect.

Dancing in his arms, letting him go only once in a while to dance with the other three members of Sunset Curve made the night amazing. The rest of these two weeks they spent it talking, laughing... making out. Enjoying the most of the time they lost. Even completely forgetting why they were faking it in the first place, until they ask the candidates to take the stage.

"And your king are queen are... Y/N Y/L and Diego Hernandez!"

They all turn to see Luke in shock. Just hearing their names together is enough to make him frustrated, but there's not much he can do right now. And that's when he remembers what he asked the boys to play for the king and queen's first dance. Great, now dance they’ll dance to his song together. Just his damn luck. He sabotaged himself again without imagining it.

They are crowned and Diego offers her his hand, not without first throwing a face of superiority to the guitarist. She walks but continues straight until she is in front of her lover.

Luke looks at her strangely, she smiles at him.

“But I don't wanna dance, If I'm not dancing with you. Remember?” She sings happily in his ear, and offers her hand.

“Dance with me?” He looks at her adoringly and takes her hand.

“Always, beautiful.”

They walk to the center of the floor, Alex begins to sing the first verse. Y/N rests her head on Luke's chest, her hands around his neck, as he presses her against him by the hip, wrapping her in his arms. His head bent to sing the song in her ear.

“I swear to God, I can see... you're still the girl in the club.”

Tears of happiness begin to flow from Y/N, the words that she never had the opportunity to know, finally getting revealed. Luke's sweet, soft voice in her ear. The perfect melody and the beautiful voice of Reggie and Alex in the background.

“And I need you to know that we're fallin' so fast

We're fallin' like the stars, fallin' in love.”

The moment he sings in love, Y/N lifts her head to meet his eyes. He lifts his hands to her cheeks to wipe her tears, gently holding her face to make sure she sees him recite every word.

“And I'm not scared to say those words. With you, I'm safe.

We're fallin' like the stars, we're fallin' in love.”

The second Luke finishes singing, Y/N stands on tiptoe and pushes her lips against his. Tears of happiness continue to fall from her face, wrapped in a passionate, slow, deep kiss. He's all she wants. Her heart chose him since the very first day.

“I can’t believe one of Luke’s random ideas it's what made them find their way back to each other. Reg, we tried for 6 months and we were never even close. Two weeks ‘pretending’ and bam! they are just fine.”

Both watch the happy couple dance now that they are official.

"You know what they say, Fake it till you make it.” Reggie smirks while watching Luke happily kiss Y/N.

“Fair. At least everything was fixed before we shoved Luke into the pool to see if Y/N would rescue him with a mouth-to-mouth kiss."

“We still could try, you know... for science.”

“Cool. Monday works for me. Do you think that even though he didn't win, we still have a chance to win some more fans?”

Reggie raises his head before answering, a smile appears when he sees the bunch of girls and boys who are spying on them just a few meters away. Probably waiting for them to finish talking to get closer.

“I think Sunset Curve will be just fine too, Alex.”

Thank you for reading✨

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[niffala]

Baby Blues (Pt. 1)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes / OFC (Dani)

Summary: Bucky and his wife have been trying for a baby. Will they get their wish or will it all fall apart? Will there be too much deception, pain and anger to make it work?

Warnings: Angst, smut, fluff, infertility, heartbreak, cheating, manipulation, noncon/dubcon, harassment, pregnancy

A/N: Everyone is alive because I said so. Reader insert version found here. 18+ only due to smut and noncon/dubcon situations. No stealing, no reposts, no translations, no feeding to AIs. Comments, reblogs and likes are always welcome and appreciated.

Series Masterlist       Main Masterlist

Chapter 1

Dani met the love of her life at work, of all places. She worked as an equipment designer for the newly reestablished S.H.I.E.L.D. and was recently assigned to the Avengers division. Dani adored her new position, even though Tony could be a pain in the ass. He was her direct boss and boy did he work her to the bone. Burning the midnight oil was an understatement and coffee was a food group. Sometimes she wouldn't see her bed for days, but she loved it still. And she loved it more when he walked into her life. 

Bucky had joined the Avengers after his time in Wakanda. Apprehensive initially, it would prove to be the best decision he ever made. Steve had escorted him to the equipment lab to be fitted for his suit and weaponry. There was only one person working that morning but she didn't seem to notice them. Her head was down, diligently working on some device that kept sparking. Steve cleared his throat to alert her of their presence. When she looked up, her bright eyes locked with Bucky’s and in that moment he knew he was done for. This was the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. 

After that day, Bucky would look for any reason to stop by the lab. He'd often bring Dani her next meal, knowing the crazy hours she kept. He loved watching her work, fascinated by the technology and her intelligence. Her smile never failed to dazzle him. Bucky knew she was too good for him, he was damaged goods after all. Knowing she would never return his affections, he continued his friendly visits just to spend time with her. Until one night he got the courage to kiss her. He thought he'd never be happier than when she kissed him back….

...He was proven wrong. His happiest moment was when she said I Do.

---------------

Bucky and Dani have been married almost three years. They have a beautiful house not far from the compound. Like any couple, they had their ups and downs, but they always saw it through together. Their hardest struggle being their longest. They wanted a family. Longing to fill the empty rooms, have children running around laughing. The failure of being able to have one weighing heavily on them both.

The couple had been trying for a baby for almost the entire marriage. A few late periods getting their hopes up, only to be torn to shreds a few days later. After the first unsuccessful six months, they sought medical assistance. The doctors assured them that everything was physically fine. To just relax, work less and it would happen. 

However, after another two years without a baby, Dani was losing hope. She wanted to throw up with anxiety at the sight of a pregnancy test. After 30 negatives, she couldn’t bear to take another. She began hating the women she'd see with their babies. No, not hating them, hating herself. But she couldnt help the resentment that would bubble up when seeing them. She wanted to give her husband children. After all he'd been through, he deserved the family he dreamt of. Why couldn't she give him one? The doctors must be wrong, she must be broken. 

---------------

Lately they stopped trying, not that Dani wanted to. For the last two months when she’d get frisky, Bucky would say he's too tired. He’d also been spending less time with her. She can’t remember when they last had lunch together. Half the time she didn’t know where he was. He must be avoiding her, upset it's taking so long and not wanting to discuss it. She knows how important this was to him. Bucky wanted kids more than anything and she was failing him. 

Dani began missing her husband. It was understandable when he was away on missions, but another thing entirely to miss him when he was right in front of her. Like there was an ocean between them. Something wasn’t right even when Bucky was home. He seemed off. Acting strange, saying things that did not always make sense to her. He also smelled different, a scent on top of his normal cologne. Dani couldn’t help her rising suspicions that he'd given up on her, but she was too scared to say anything. She didn’t want to make things worse. Bucky just needed time.

---------------

Bucky breathed a sigh of relief walking into his home. The majority of his day had been training a bunch of whiny recruits that couldn’t throw a proper punch. The break for dinner was nice though, but now he just wanted to sleep. 

He smiled when he spotted Dani in the kitchen. Bucky walked up to her, watching as she finished cooking some chicken breast. “I’m surprised you're eating again, honey.” She turned to look at him and he smiled. How’d he get so lucky to have her.

“Ya well we gotta eat, right?” She furrowed her brows, wondering once again what he was talking about.

Bucky couldn’t help his eager reply. “I’m fine, but I’m starting to think you may be pregnant if you're this hungry. Or maybe you worked up an appetite after today's activities,” he chuckled. 

Kissing his wife, Bucky tells her he's going to shower and go to bed early. Dani stood there very confused. Activities? All she did was her basic lab work. Equipment repairs mostly. Not even working on anything new or interesting. When he kissed her, she got a whiff of that smell on him again. What was that? She ate dinner alone, lost in her thoughts.

Dani crawled in bed later in the evening. Bucky was fast asleep, but something was stopping her from cuddling up to him. He was only a foot away but it felt so much farther. She put her back to him, accepting the distance. 

Feeling the bed dip as Dani got in, Bucky sleepily scooted over and pulled her close. “What ya doing way over there?” He nuzzled her and kissed her hair.

Dani felt all the tension leave her body as she relaxed against her husband. She was worried about nothing. The divide between them was only in her head. He must just be too busy with missions and training, that was all. “I love you, Bucky.”

“I love you too, honey. Goodnight.”

---------------

Dani was upset. She was swamped at work and couldn't make it to see Bucky off before his mission. They always liked to have a “good sendoff” when they knew he would be gone for more than a day. He was understanding, but equally disappointed to be leaving for so long without a proper goodbye. 

Tony couldn’t help but notice how distracted and miserable his employee looked. As much as he did not care for her choice in a husband, he took pity on her. “Okay, stop moping. Take a long lunch. Go home and have your good luck quickie. I’ll hold the fort.”

“You sure you’ll be ok til I get back?”

 He scoffed “Absolutely. I have my lunch,” holding up his coffee cup, he realized it was empty. “No, I don't. Bring me another on your way back, would ya.” 

Dani shook her head, “When is it enough coffee for you?” 

“When I start twitching, then add 5 more cups.” 

Grabbing her purse, she called out to Tony, “Don’t have a heart attack while I’m gone.” 

“No promises.”

---------------

Dani is pretty sure she broke some laws in her rush to get home. There was plenty of time before he had to go, but she was excited. She couldn’t wait to surprise Bucky. The house was quiet when she walked in. It was too early for him to leave, maybe he's still packing. She walked further into the home, “Babe?”

She started to pick up on some noise as she neared her bedroom. She felt a prickling on the back of her neck, warning her to turn back. Her hands began to shake, but her feet kept moving forward, like she was in a trance. The bedroom door was wide open, the sounds of grunts and moans flowing out. Dani stopped when she reached the doorway, froze to the spot when she saw them. 

It was like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. There was her beloved husband, holding some woman’s legs on his shoulders as he railed into her. Dani felt her paralyzed heart tumble out of her body. Feeling sick, she closed her eyes. This can't be real. Her Bucky wouldn’t do that to her. It’s a bad dream, that’s all. 

“Fuck, you feel so good. I could pound this pussy all day.” Her eyes flew back open as she heard her husband's praises. The woman responded in kind, “Yes, yes. Fuck me harder, Bucky.” 

Dani had no clue how long she watched them, feeling as if she was glued to the floor, silent tears rolling down her face. She was too afraid to move, still praying it was a horrible nightmare. Her mind refused to process what she was seeing.

Bucky didn’t notice her standing there, too busy having his fun. He closed his eyes, his head rolling back. He started panting harder, fucking her faster. “I'm gonna come honey, gonna fill you up.” 

“I’m ready, baby.” The woman turned her head toward the door. It was Tanya, Bucky's trainee. She gave Dani a big smile and waved. 

Dani turned and ran as fast as she could. The sounds of her husband moaning through his climax, and Tanya’s scornful laughter following her.

Chapter 2

[adurowrites]

A Percy Weasley Snippet

The lecture hall was quiet, but not perfectly silent. Percy could hear the scratching of quill on parchment, the creak of wooden chairs, and every now and again, a hard exhale as someone met a question they weren’t prepared to answer. 

There were twenty test-takers in the room, Percy included. One proctor sat at the front of the room, the other took slow laps about the room, sometimes muttering revealing charms to ensure no one was cheating. The soft footfalls paused somewhere in the back of the room. To the left, a witch coughed, hoarse and rough and momentarily distracting. Some of the test-takers had put silencing bubbles around their desks, wanting absolute quiet to focus on the exam. Percy preferred the ambient noise of the room. It made him think of Hogwarts, of taking his NEWTs in the Great Hall with the rest of his year. 

For as much as he hadn’t been particularly popular, or even well-liked, Percy had enjoyed his time at Hogwarts. He’d gotten along well-enough with his housemates, but he had found true camaraderie in the Ravenclaws of his year. He’d often wondered why the Hat hadn’t put him in Ravenclaw. He’d asked for it at his Sorting, even though he’d be breaking a family tradition and the thought of disappointing his parents terrified him. But it was the logical choice, and so he’d politely asked to be sorted into Ravenclaw. Apparently it was that request, and his bravery to buck tradition, that had the Hat put him into Gryffindor instead. 

But he was too studious for most of his house, and he’d spent most of his time studying with the Ravenclaws. There wasn’t much conversation, just quiet focus and the sense of belonging. Percy had missed that comfortable atmosphere as he’d been studying for the barrister’s exam. His flat, as cozy as it was, had the tendency to make him feel lonely. He enjoyed peace and quiet, but he also enjoyed company. Rather than sit alone, he’d done most of his studying in the Ministry library, keeping company with the various interns, undersecretaries, and paralegals.

He came to the end of the exam and glanced at the clock. There were four hours allowed for completion, and he’d hoped to save an hour and a half for review. He was behind by fifteen minutes. He grimaced and turned back to the start of the test. 

Just before the three-hour mark, a wizard got up and strode towards the proctor at the front. He handed his parchment over and left with a self-satisfied smile. A witch followed a few minutes later, looking a bit disgruntled. Percy figured she had wanted to be the first to complete the exam. He used play such games with his classmates at Hogwarts. Who was the first to finish? Who could write a paper the fastest? He used to think that finishing first was a sign of intelligence. But as he’d gotten older, he’d realized that taking his time with his work was a sign of maturity and wisdom. After all, the quality of the work was far more important than winning a silly race. 

So Percy stayed in his seat and reviewed his answers with the time remaining. There were only a few others that stayed to the end with him, although they appeared to have lingered out of necessity rather than patience. One witch looked disheveled, her hands twisting at her hair, and another wizard appeared damp with sweat. Or tears, Percy couldn’t tell. They filtered out into the hall where the other test-takers were waiting. The two who had finished first were arguing over a couple of questions, and they’d created quite a debate. 

Percy didn’t join. Instead he grabbed his portfolio from the locker and checked it for any messages. The Ministry knew he was taking his test today, but there were still a couple of work-related messages that had appeared inside - questions about the Minister’s meeting with the court, a few requests for paperwork, and a couple of messages wishing him luck, including one from Minister Fudge himself. 

Percy felt a flush of pleasure at the notice. (Yes, his name was spelled wrong, but Fudge was notoriously bad at names.) The personal note meant that Fudge was indeed considering him for position of Assistant. Now, all Percy needed, was just to have passed the bar. 

He took a seat on the benches along the wall and responded to what questions he could while he waited for the proctors to tally the scores. it only took half-an-hour, and then the door to the lecture hall opened. There was a rush and a minor traffic jam as the other test-takers raced inside. The results would be posted on the blackboard, and Percy felt a wave of nervousness. What if he hadn’t passed? What if the Minister had wished him well, only for Percy to have to re-take it? There was no harm in retaking the exam, of course. Plenty of barristers and government officials did. But Percy had never failed a test in his life.

....Divination didn’t count. 

He got up, hands clutching his portfolio to his chest and slowly walked into the room. He logically understood that he hadn’t failed. He logically knew he’d done well, very well in fact. But what if he’d somehow mixed up his answers? What if he’d forgotten to put his name on the test? What if - ?

The other wizards and witches were crowded around the parchment posted on the board. Some of them were celebrating. Some of them were swearing. All of them turned as he approached, and he saw a myriad of emotions cross their faces as they looked at him. Some were openly envious. Others looked impressed. Some gave him congratulatory smiles. 

“There he is!” the proctor said, stepping forward, his hand outstretched. “It’s not every year we have someone achieve a perfect score. Congratulations, Mr. Weasley.”

Percy automatically shook his hand, his eyes going to the parchment, and there it was. His name at the top, and beside it, a 500, a perfect score. He felt a relieved, incredulous, proud smile spread over his face. 

“With that score, you’ll have your pick of law firms,” the proctor said. “Might you consider Bolgers and Fawcett?” A card was slipped into his hand.

“He’s not going into law,” one of the test-takers said. “He’s in government. Senior Assistant to the Secretary.”

“I know,” said the proctor. He gave Percy a sly sort of smile. “Just in case you’re looking for something more lucrative.”

Bolgers and Fawcett was one of the wealthiest, most powerful law firms in the Wizarding UK. Percy knew the starting salary was easily triple what he was making now. 

He shook his head. “I’m quite satisfied with my current position, thank you.”

“Not if you’re taking the bar,” the proctor said. “You’ve got your sights set a bit higher. Well, when you tire of life as a public servant, let us know.”

“Thank you.”

The proctor left and Percy accepted more congratulations from the test-takers, some given more graciously than others. He responded with his own, and then once he was able, he slipped away, back to the Ministry. He still had work to do. 

He did divert by the Ministry’s owlry to jot down a quick message. I passed the barrister’s. A perfect score!

At another time he might have written more. He might have written about how rare a perfect score was, and that less than a hundred people had ever achieved a perfect 500 in the history of the exam. He might have written about the proctor trying to poach him for Bolgers and Fawcett, or about the test-takers recognizing him. But he knew by now that such additions would only be taken as arrogance. It seemed unfair to him, that only his boastings were considered prideful. In truth, Percy may have been boastful as a child, but he’d been forced to speak out about his achievements because no one else seemed to recognize them, or understand how significant they were. He’d grown up insisting on his own merit, celebrating his own accomplishments, and because of it, he’d been labeled prideful. He’d tried to be quieter about it lately, but it seemed even small comments on his success was enough to considered bragging. 

“Where shall I send it, sir?” the postmaster asked.

“The Bur -,” Percy cut himself off. He remembered the last time he shared such news with his parents. They ignored the message. They were unimpressed. No, worse than unimpressed. They were disapproving. 

His siblings had been happy for him though - they’d gotten him a gift for his office. And his parents had seemed apologetic over Christmas. He could try to reach out again, see if the fences had been mended. 

But if they hadn’t... Percy swallowed hard. It had hurt, when no one knew about his promotion, when his mother and father had kept it secret, like they were ashamed of him. It had felt like he’d done something wrong. It had felt like he didn’t belong. If it happened again... Percy didn’t think he could bear it. 

“Charles Weasley,” Percy said instead. “The Dragon’s Repast, Romania.”

“Very good, sir.”

Percy left, feeling slightly easier at his decision. Charlie wouldn’t ignore the missive. Charlie wouldn’t disapprove. Percy could imagine him, getting the owl and reading the message, and letting out a big whoop of joy for him. Charlie might even tell his friends about it - how his younger brother had gotten a perfect score on the bar exam. And the next time he came to visit, he’d insist on taking Percy out to celebrate. 

Percy nodded. That was enough. As long as he had Charlie, it would be enough. 

-----

(So, I have more head-canon about Percy, but it doesn’t really fit into my fic. I thought I’d plot a bit here on tumblr because I didn’t think it was hefty enough for Ao3, and it was just meant to be a little drabble, a tidbit, a snippet. But it doubled in length and then turned a little angsty at the end. So I may have to put it up on Ao3. 

For those folks confused, this is my interpretation of Percy Weasley from my fanfic series The Code, found on Ao3 and FFN. It’s not really about Percy, but Draco Malfoy and Bill Weasley.)

[magemelondew]

I know I don't normally post stuff like this, but I just hate it so much when people call Wheatley derogatory names like "idiot" and "moron" as if it's affectionate and funny because like.. it's straight up bullying. How do I know that? Oh, well, it's probably because people did it to me as a child.

Sure, he's a fictional character, but my point still stands; calling him those things is bullying. He wasn't made to be stupid. GLaDOS tells you that. You can't exactly take everything she says at face value, as she can often mislead. It's like a rumor going around at school, you hear something about someone and it spreads and nobody stops to think if it's true. By just blindly believing things about people, you're causing harm to the person in question, and especially so when you're promoting it.

If you dig around in the game's files, an unused line has Wheatley telling a story in the turret factory where he explains that rumor got around about an accident he had caused.

"Over there is where they used to keep the old neurotoxin release button… BIG responsibility, the guy in charge of the neurotoxin release button… And guess who he WAS? …Wasn’t me. But I was his assistant, and I did a lot of his admin. You know, in the end, yes… they let me go… It’s all politics, to be honest. It’s a big popularity contest. It’s all about who you know and whose back you’re willing to scratch and who doesn’t touch – y’know, or in my case who did accidentally touch – the neurotoxin button… But y’know, not entirely my fault! You shoulda seen the SIZE of it! It was huge! I mean I should have got a raise for all the times that I DIDN’T… accidentally bump into it…"

The foreman was going to hire him, until he heard about what Wheatley had done. So they sent him to the lowest job available– the relaxation center. He doesn't have a job, really, he's not in charge of anything. The entire facility there is automatic, He was just there as a safeguard for whenever it failed. They didn't trust them because of those rumors.

"Here's an interesting story. You might like this. I almost got a job down here in Manufacturing. But, uh, guess who the foreman went with? Only an exact duplicate of himself. Nepotism. Ended up giving me the WORST possible job, tending to all the smelly humans."

It's possible that these things were intentionally made up to give him social anxiety and self-esteem issues, thinking that would slow GLaDOS down. He's all emotion, literally, so affecting him in that fashion would absolutely stunt her ability to think clearly. I don't think there's much proof to back this up, that's simply my own thoughts on it.

To the scientists and GLaDOS, emotions only get in the way of rational thinking. Wheatley listens more to his heart than his head, well, in a figurative sense. The scientists see that as irrational and moronic, hence him being called the intelligence dampening core. He's the perfect way to interrupt rational thinking in GLaDOS, as he fills her head with fear or anxiety. People who feel emotions a lot deeply tend to place their own feelings over logic. And later in the story, Wheatley valued the euphoric response that the chassis gave him.

Many people have hurt Wheatley in the past. His anxiety, self doubt, and his inability to trust others much all are effects of people talking about him being his back and having nobody to cling to. He liked Chell because she knew nothing about him. She didn't say anything mean to him, and it was like a fresh pallette. Not to mention that she was the only person he had probably seen for long time.

For someone who had been hurt by people all his life, wouldn't he absolutely hate humans altogether? They smell bad, talk bad things about him behind his back, and call him names. They made him dislike himself since the start of his life, but he still holds out hope to be cared for by someone. Someone who doesn't know him at all, or knows about the things people have said about him.

And when he's placed into the chassis, GLaDOS just blurts out the one thing he's extremely insecure about.

"YES YOU ARE! YOU'RE THE MORON THEY BUILT TO MAKE ME AN IDIOT!"

When wheatley gets the chassis, it's a form of drug use, as said by GLaDOS.

"The body he's squatting in - MY body - has a built-in euphoric response to testing. Eventually you build up a resistance to it, and it can get a little... unbearable. Unless you have the mental capacity to push past it."

His bottled up emotions just released and he exploded the moment he got reminded of his own past. The way he was mentally lead him to substance abuse, as shown by his immediate addiction to the chassis. He was highly focused on the pleasure response from testing rather of the facility. Well, not like he even knew how to take care of the facility in the first place.

He's a core who's been told off because of how clumsy and impulsive he is, and those are things he can't really control. They didn't know what to do with him, so they were probably always scolding him for his mistakes and never praising him for doing something right, therefore, he's always doubting himself. How is he supposed to know when he's doing something right? That's probably why he makes those mistakes, he's never been able to properly learn how.

GLaDOS tries to defeat Wheatley out of sheer anger, and when she insults him, he becomes furious. He doesn't want to be reminded of how he's been treated his entire life. And for once in his life, he has the power to retaliate. So he does. He gets legitimately angry and tries to kill them both.

He thinks that now that Chell believes it too, that she thinks he's an idiot as well, since he's never had anyone stand up for him or have his back. He spends a lot of his time in the chassis trying to prove otherwise. He just hates being thought of that way so much when he knows he's not.

"You're in this together, aren't you? You've been playing me the whole time! Both of you! First you make me think you're brain damaged! Then you convince me you're sworn enemies with your best friend over here!"

A lot of people might bring up the paradox that she tried to use against him as proof as he's unintelligent, but really, he's simply choosing not to listen to GLaDOS.

"Hey, Moron!"

"Oh. Hello."

"Alright. Paradox time. This. Sentence. Is. FALSE don't think about it don't think about it..."

"Um, true. I'll go with true."

"I'll be honest, I might have heard that one before, though. Sort of cheating."

He's not thinking about it because he didn't care what she had to say. He saw her as just another asshole in his life and acted ignorant towards her comments.

He's also the only character in the game who apologizes. Nobody else does except him.

Yes, he's just a fictional character and whatever, I know, he's not real. But.. let me tell you why this is so important to me.

When I was a child, I had a lot of issues with other people. They would call me a crybaby, they would spread rumors about me doing disgusting things and other horrible things. Even my teacher didn't like me. I was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age, and that made me very emotional and sensitive, making me stand out from everyone else.

Nobody wanted to spend time with me, nobody wanted to sit with me, and I spent most of my time alone in the library playing computer games since the kids outside wouldn't even let me play with them. Kids were scared of even touching me because of Diary of A Wimpy kid books spreading the idea of the cheese touch, and everything there called it the Sarah touch. It was horrible. Bullying made me introverted and now, I spend all my time alone because I didn't have friends. I'm sensitive and insecure, and I have issues communicating with people, as well as taking things people say a bit too personally sometimes. By the end of elementary school, I only really had 2 friends.

Although my experience isn't the same, I know that a lot of these things are similar; being singled out because of things you don't understand or have control of, and people constantly spreading rumors and lies about you to make people hate you and avoid you. You learn to not trust people around you and that you're the only person you can really rely on.

Sure, you can keep thinking Wheatley is a moron, I can't help that. All I want is people to stop spreading it everywhere and look into it for themselves. To develop their own opinions based on his actions rather than what GLaDOS says about him. I just want people to know that they're doing the same exact thing the kids at school did to them as a child to Wheatley, and it's not right.

Thank you for reading. Sorry if this was a bit all over the place, I just want people entering the fandom or have been in it for a while to see this and take some kind of action to improve upon themselves and their views of others around them. I used to think the same thing. I thought he was a power hungry idiot, but.. he's not. And I think that should be more widespread knowledge.

[vegan-and-sara]

Full article:

By Drew Harwell and Eva Dou

Dec. 8, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. PST

The Chinese tech giant Huawei has tested facial recognition software that could send automated “Uighur alarms” to government authorities when its camera systems identify members of the oppressed minority group, according to an internal document that provides further details about China’s artificial-intelligence surveillance regime.

A document signed by Huawei representatives — discovered by the research organization IPVM and shared exclusively with The Washington Post — shows that the telecommunications firm worked in 2018 with the facial recognition start-up Megvii to test an artificial-intelligence camera system that could scan faces in a crowd and estimate each person’s age, sex and ethnicity.

If the system detected the face of a member of the mostly Muslim minority group, the test report said, it could trigger a “Uighur alarm” — potentially flagging them for police in China, where members of the group have been detained en masse as part of a brutal government crackdown. The document, which was found on Huawei’s website, was removed shortly after The Post and IPVM asked the companies for comment.

Such technology has in recent years gained an expanding role among police departments in China, human rights activists say. But the document sheds new light on how Huawei, the world’s biggest maker of telecommunications equipment, has also contributed to its development, providing the servers, cameras, cloud-computing infrastructure and other tools undergirding the systems’ technological might.

John Honovich, the founder of IPVM, a Pennsylvania-based company that reviews and investigates video-surveillance equipment, said the document showed how “terrifying” and “totally normalized” such discriminatory technology has become.

“This is not one isolated company. This is systematic,” Honovich said. “A lot of thought went into making sure this ‘Uighur alarm’ works.”

Huawei and Megvii have announced three surveillance systems using both companies’ technology in the past couple years. The Post could not immediately confirm if the system with the “Uighur alarm” tested in 2018 was one of the three currently for sale.

Both companies have acknowledged the document is real. Shortly after this story published Tuesday morning, Huawei spokesman Glenn Schloss said the report “is simply a test and it has not seen real-world application. Huawei only supplies general-purpose products for this kind of testing. We do not provide custom algorithms or applications.”

Also after publication, a Megvii spokesman said the company’s systems are not designed to target or label ethnic groups.

Chinese officials have said such systems reflect the country’s technological advancement, and that their expanded use can help government responders and keep people safe. But to international rights advocates, they are a sign of China’s dream of social control — a way to identify unfavorable members of society and squash public dissent. China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

First she survived a Uighur internment camp. Then she made it out of China.      

Artificial-intelligence researchers and human rights advocates said they worry the technology’s development and normalization could lead to its spread around the world, as government authorities elsewhere push for a fast and automated way to detect members of ethnic groups they’ve deemed undesirable or a danger to their political control.

Maya Wang, a China senior researcher at the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said the country has increasingly used AI-assisted surveillance to monitor the general public and oppress minorities, protesters and others deemed threats to the state.

“China’s surveillance ambition goes way, way, way beyond minority persecution,” Wang said, but “the persecution of minorities is obviously not exclusive to China. … And these systems would lend themselves quite well to countries that want to criminalize minorities.”

Trained on immense numbers of facial photos, the systems can begin to detect certain patterns that might differentiate, for instance, the faces of Uighur minorities from those of the Han majority in China. In one 2018 paper, “Facial feature discovery for ethnicity recognition,” AI researchers in China designed algorithms that could distinguish between the “facial landmarks” of Uighur, Korean and Tibetan faces.

But the software has sparked major ethical debates among AI researchers who say it could assist in discrimination, profiling or punishment. They argue also that the system is bound to return inaccurate results, because its performance would vary widely based on lighting, image quality and other factors — and because the diversity of people’s ethnicities and backgrounds is not so cleanly broken down into simple groupings.

Such ethnicity-detection software is not available in the United States. But algorithms that can analyze a person’s facial features or eye movements are increasingly popular in job-interview software and anti-cheating monitoring systems.

Clare Garvie, a senior associate at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology who has studied facial recognition software, said the “Uighur alarm” software represents a dangerous step toward automating ethnic discrimination at a devastating scale.

“There are certain tools that quite simply have no positive application and plenty of negative applications, and an ethnic-classification tool is one of those,” Garvie said. “Name a human rights norm, and this is probably violative of that.”

Huawei and Megvii are two of China’s most prominent tech trailblazers, and officials have cast them as leaders of a national drive to reach the cutting edge of AI development. But the multibillion-dollar companies have also faced blowback from U.S. authorities, who argue they represent a security threat to the United States or have contributed to China’s brutal regime of ethnic oppression.

Eight Chinese companies, including Megvii, were hit with sanctions by the U.S. Commerce Department last year for their involvement in “human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance” against Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups.

The U.S. government has also issued sanctions against Huawei, banning the export of U.S. technology to the company and lobbying other countries to exclude its systems from their telecommunications networks.

Huawei, a hardware behemoth with equipment and services used in more than 170 countries, has surpassed Apple to become the world’s second-biggest maker of smartphones and is pushing to lead an international rollout of new 5G mobile networks that could reshape the Internet.

And Megvii, the Beijing-based developer of the Face Plus Plus system and one of the world’s most highly valued facial recognition start-ups, said in a public-offering prospectus last year that its “city [Internet of Things] solutions,” which include camera systems, sensors and software that government agencies can use to monitor the public, covered 112 cities across China as of last June.

The “Uighur alarm” document obtained by the researchers, called an “interoperability test report,” offers technical information on how authorities can align the Huawei-Megvii systems with other software tools for seamless public surveillance.

The system tested how a mix of Megvii’s facial recognition software and Huawei’s cameras, servers, networking equipment, cloud-computing platform and other hardware and software worked on dozens of “basic functions,” including its support of “recognition based on age, sex, ethnicity and angle of facial images,” the report states. It passed those tests, as well as another in which it was tested for its ability to support offline “Uighur alarms.”

The test report also said the system was able to take real-time snapshots of pedestrians, analyze video files and replay the 10 seconds of footage before and after any Uighur face is detected.

The document did not provide information on where or how often the system is used. But similar systems are used by police departments across China, according to official documents reviewed last year by the New York Times, which found one city system that had scanned for Uighur faces half a million times in a single month.

Jonathan Frankle, a deep-learning researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, said such systems are clearly becoming a priority among developers willing to capitalize on the technical ability to classify people by ethnicity or race. The flood of facial-image data from public crowds, he added, could be used to further develop the systems’ precision and processing power.

“People don't go to the trouble of building expensive systems like this for nothing,” Frankle said. “These aren't people burning money for fun. If they did this, they did it for a very specific reason in mind. And that reason is very clear.”

It’s less certain whether ethnicity-detecting software could ever take off outside the borders of a surveillance state. In the United States and other Western-style democracies, the systems could run up against long-established laws limiting government searches and mandating equal protection under the law.

Police and federal authorities in the United States have shown increasing interest in facial recognition software as an investigative tool, but the systems have sparked a fierce public backlash over their potential bias and inaccuracies, and some cities and police forces have opted to ban the technology outright.

Such technologies could, however, find a market among international regimes somewhere in the balance between Chinese and American influence. In Uganda, Huawei facial recognition cameras have already been used by police and government officials to surveil protesters and political opponents.

“If you’re willing to model your government and run your country in that way,” Frankle said, “why wouldn’t you use the best technology available to exert control over your citizens?”

Discrimination against Uighurs has long been prevalent in the majority-Han Chinese population. In the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, authorities have cited sporadic acts of terrorism as justification for a harsh crackdown starting in 2015 that has drawn condemnation from the United States and other Western nations. Scholars estimate more than 1 million Uighurs have been detained in reeducation camps, with some claims of torture.

U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien called the repressive treatment of minority groups in Xinjiang “something close to” genocide, in an online event hosted by the Aspen Institute in October.

Under international pressure, Xinjiang authorities announced last December that all reeducation “students” had graduated, though some Uighurs have since reported that they were forced to agree to work in factories or risk a return to detention. Xinjiang authorities say all residents work of their own free will.

The U.S. government has banned the import of certain products from China on the basis that they could have been made by forced labor in Xinjiang.

One of the Huawei-Megvii systems offered for sale after the “Uighur alarm” test, in June 2019, is advertised as saving local governments digital storage space by saving images in a single place.

Two other systems, said to use Megvii’s surveillance software and Huawei’s Atlas AI computing platform, were announced for sale in September. Both were described as “localization” of the products using Huawei chips and listed for sale “only by invitation.” Marketing materials for one of those systems say it was used by authorities in China’s southern Guizhou province to catch a criminal.

Some things people outside of China can do to help:

Folks in the US: contact your house representative and your state senators. Demand that they support the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019 (H.R. 649), and that they take further action against the genocide in Xinjiang. You can even link this article or copy and paste paragraphs (with citation) in your email if writing is intimidating for you.

Folks from most countries can write to your ambassador in China.

Avoid buying from companies that use Uighur slave labor.

Read the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s analysis of slave labor and re-education camps in Xinjiang.

Boycott the Beijing 2022 Olympics.

[monstaxdesires]

The Counterplan (Chapter Three)

(Chapter One) (Chapter Two)

The restaurant was dimly lit, quiet, and reclusive in seating arrangements. You were both tucked away in a corner away from prying eyes was your guess. He gazed at you from across the table. He had not said much yet instead he let you order your meal, then ordered his, and finally picked out a bottle of wine for you both.

“Did you enjoy your meal?” He asked after you had discarded your utensils and allowed the server to remove your dishes.

“I did, thank you. Did you?”

He flashes an easy smile. “Of course.”

You nod, glancing at your hands that were folded in your lap. The awkwardness beginning to set in now that you no longer had food to occupy your attention.

“Would you like to join me on a walk?” He asks. “I prefer the open air more and could use a walk.”

You lift your gaze to him, reading him. He watches you, letting the facade slip momentarily and you catch a glimpse of the real him. It fascinated you. The composure he had maintained so far, but in that little glimpse, you saw hurt and emptiness.

“Yes.”

He stands, already having paid, before he takes your hand and leads you out of the restaurant. Once you are outside he releases your hand and shrugs off his coat jacket and puts it over your shoulders. Winter was drawing closer and you could feel it with the temperature now that the sun had set.

“Tell me about you,” he says gently while taking your hand again once you begin to walk alongside the crammed streets.

You bite your lip, thinking about it. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

You look at him and he grins again, gently squeezing your hand. You blush, looking back at the path ahead of you.

“I grew up here in Seoul. I was raised in a nice neighborhood.” You pause for a moment before clearing your throat. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Why?” He asks, shifting your path towards a little park.

You frown and pull your hand from his. You hold his jacket closer to you, inhaling his cologne as it clung to the designer coat. “I was engaged and he cheated.”

He frowns, sticking his hands in his pockets. You stare at him, waiting for him to comment back, but he doesn’t.

“He is a doctor, a well-known doctor, wealthy from generations for family businesses. I was procured by his mother when I was in high school. Our parents knew one another and my mother began grooming me to be his wife when I was sixteen. I was not permitted to go to college, instead, I learned to be a proper lady. I had to learn how to take care of myself the right way, make myself perfect for him, become the ultimate housewife, and become ready to be a mother one day to his children.”

He stops walking and you do the same turning to him. “Did you end the engagement or did he?”

“I did. He confessed after I told him I knew. He didn’t expect anything to change, but I refuse to give up my freedom and not be respected in the same way.”

H nods before tugging you to look at him. “You seem intelligent, strong, and well versed in life. Why choose this as your future?”

“I do not have any money. My mother died and my father remarried and left Korea. My sister also moved away. I am alone and I lack money and the education needed to obtain a decent job. So I am going to earn the money to go to college the only way I see how.”

He smiles at you, his eyes sparkling a little at your determination. “Very well.”

“What about you? Why are you a benefactor?”

He laughs before you resume walking, his hand falling to yours again. You let him hold your hand.

“It began in college with a group of my close friends, there are seven of us, and slowly it became our lifestyle. We aren’t the only ones, but we keep our circle pretty tight.”

You smile weakly. “Like a family?”

“Like a family,” he agrees, squeezing your hand. He enjoyed that you understood that.

“Will I be your only companion? Aera says some of you have multiples.”

“Typically I have multiples. Two or three at a time. Unfortunately, the two I had moved on. One became engaged so we ended our arrangement and the other moved to the states with her family. I had someone potential, but she chose someone else in the circle.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Rarely.”

“Mmm,” you muse turning away from him to admire the little lights wrapped around the trees lighting your path as you entered the wooded area. He watches you, smiling at you finding interest in the simplest thing. “So I will be the only one if you decide to help me?”

“Yes,” he admits before quickly explaining further. “But I can’t promise it will stay that way long term. I tend to prefer more than one.”

You nod before he guides you to a little bench to sit. You sit next to each other and he presses you to his side keeping you warm.

“What are your favors?”

He smirks. “Aera already explained that part?”

“Very briefly. I was confused and thought it was pretty much being a sugar baby, which I don’t agree with personally, so she clarified to help me come to the decision I have.”

“Ah,” he laughs running his hand down his face. “No, it’s much different.”

“I’m learning.”

He smiles at you before licking his bottom lip. “You will be a girlfriend without. The formality of titles or any of that nonsense. We will have dates, you will accompany to any events I want you to, and we will have sex… often. I tend to buy my companions' gifts on top of the financial sponsor. I like to see you happy and well maintained.”

You blush a little and he notices.

“Are you timid about sex?”

“No,” you reply. “Not exactly. Though my ex-fiancé is the only one I’ve ever shared myself with.”

“What?” He asks, looking at you in surprise.

“I was meant to be his wife,” you shrug, looking at your hands in your lap. “His mother was very strict with what I did with me.”

“I see,” he mutters, a little bit of disbelief in his tone. He shakes his head, clearing most of all the questions away for now before turning to look at you. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” you reply, staring back at him. “My friend, Olivia, says the best way to get over someone is to get under another. I’m not opposed to sex.”

He chuckles. “And you agree with her theory?”

You shrug. “It doesn’t hurt to try. He’s already ruined my views of the world and men.”

He frowns then before touching your face. Leaning in his lips brush against yours and you feel slight tingles. It was a test. You don’t pull away and he leans in again. Your lips press for more and he lets you. His arms folding around you pulling you into his body as he deepens the kiss.

You end the kiss after a few moments. His nose brushes yours. You inhale before slipping from him to put space between you. He lets you, reading you over. You would be okay, you were strong. Much stronger than you thought you were.

“Come back to my place?”

Your gaze snaps back to his. The message of what he wanted clear on his face. You nod, not able to speak. He stands holding his hand out for you. You take it and he pulls you to your feet.

You clear your throat, gripping his hand. “Wonho?”

“Hmm?”

“Does this mean we have an arrangement?”

“Yes.”

(Chapter Four)

[wordlessbabbling]

Gun Metal and Daisies (Thomas Shelby)- Chapter 21

“Maybe one day I’ll get hit by a train.”

Masterlist

Of all the sad things I've heard, "I used to be so happy" is the most heartbreaking of all.

And so their routines continued.

Every Monday through to Friday, Thomas would visit Dorothy at the bakery for her lunch break. They'd get a meal and share it, all the while exchanging opinions on topics that meant nothing and everything.

Thomas remembered one specific time where the two exchanged an incredibly vulnerable chat. Thomas begged the question-.

——

"What do you fear the most?"

Dorothy put down her fork and was silent for a moment.

"Y'know what, Bubs. I don't think I'm afraid of death. I think one day I just decided it wasn't a burden to me. I suppose after smelling death in the air for as long as I have, you learn that it always just tends to sit there. On your shoulder. On your back.

Death is not a burden, more just a train to a location that we never really know the destination to.

"I think maybe my biggest fear at the moment might be losing you." She smiled sheepishly at the ground, "you're the only friend I've had that I desperately want to stick around. I'm not afraid of you dying. No. You seem like you've been able to cheat death like a game of charades your whole life.

"My biggest fear is you'll see me one day in the market on a Tuesday morning or whatever and instead of coming over with a hug and greeting, you'll look at me and see all my flaws. My nose, my chapped lips, the way my hair never sits straight. You'll think about my random spouts of rambles and how I can't sit still. You'll think about how obnoxious I am with my stupid camera.

You wake up one day and decide that for no reason in particular, that you just don't like me anymore.

"I'm terrified that I'll stop living again. Loneliness is not a fear of mine, but not living is. I'm terrified that one day I'll go to work, you'll be gone, and I won't be living anymore. I'd hate to have been given a life by whatever deity is up there, and not live it."

Dorothy settled her hands in her lap, forgetting about the tray of food in front of her. Midway through her speech, Thomas froze and dropped his fork, neither of the two seemed to realise.

Thomas, unsure what to say, nodded and with another pause said, "I really hope nothing like that happens. I suppose I fear that as well. That one day you'll see me the way I see myself."

His words were not a declaration of his feelings, but in that moment alone, Thomas was more vulnerable than he had been his whole life. Even before the mud and picks.

Dorothy moved the tray of food out of the way, she climbed across the crate and kneeled next to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a comfortable side hug. Thomas reached to the side and wrapped his arms around her torso, leaning into her ribs and just shutting his eyes.

They stayed like that for another moment, before she pulled back and dug herself into his side, she then placed the tray on her lap and got back to eating.

Thomas picked up his fork and copied the action.

Without much thought to his words, Thomas stared abruptly, "you're incredibly straightforward, Bonny."

Dorothy smiled and chuckled a bit to herself

"I love being horribly straightforward. I love making reckless actions and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolute magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love saying 'hug me harder' and 'you're a good person' and 'you brighten up my day'. I live my life as straightforward as possible.

"Because one day I might get hit by a train." Thomas raised a brow at her words.

"That's right. Maybe it's weird. Maybe it's scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be- to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them whether it's your feet on their thighs on the sofa or your arms around their waist or your heart in their hands.

"But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate. And there is nothing more risky than pretending to not care.

We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.

We never know when the train is coming."

Dorothy was now staring off a bit into the distance, her gaze transfixed on nothing in particular.

"That's uh-." Thomas started.

"-intense? a lot? I know. Before you came along, I had far too much time to think."

——

Their escapades of personal conversations ended for that day, but Thomas found himself thinking back to all the things she'd said. He liked her train analogy it sat well with him and he supposed in that moment he registered he fact that this girls mind goes far deeper than he imagined. She was insanely intelligent, not in a necessarily academic way, but more people smart. She understood people, maybe it was from the fact that she spent a long time just observing people.

But she kept saying those words, or they kept repeating in his head, "until you came along."

He thought about all the things that had changed for him since she'd come along.

He drank less. He frowned less. He started to smile more. He found his shoulders no longer held the tense knots that wove their way into his bone. He could finally stand himself!

It seemed that a lot had changed for her. He wasn't sure maybe what had changed, but he hoped it was good. He hoped that she was better. That she was happy. That maybe she too, could finally stand herself.

——

Dorothy and Thomas both found that they finally had something to look forward to. They woke up and stared at the clock waiting to be able to get a glimpse of each other.

But what Dorothy loved the most was Saturday nights. While most girls would probably go out to the town for a drink and dance, she probably would too except she lacked the former.

But now, she had something better than drinks and dancing. Saturday was the day where her patience was truly tested. On Saturdays, Thomas didn't visit on her lunch break, instead, he appeared in the evening and sat with her while she baked for the week. He just sat and sometimes they talked, and sometimes they sat in silence for hours; only the sound of Dorothy's quiet humming filling the air.

On the fifth week of their evening meetings, Thomas danced with her. Dorothy rifled through her collection and put on a slightly paced piece that Thomas remembered before the war.

Thomas, without much warning stood up with a slight joking groan as if his limbs ached from the sheer effort.

"C'mon Bonny, you can't put on a song like this and not expect me to ask you to dance." Thomas declared with a wide gesture which made Dorothy giggle slightly.

"Oh very well then. But I warn you, I'll show you up." She grinned cockily.

Thomas merely raised an eyebrow to challenge her, something he did quite often. Not because he doubted her, quite the contrary, but rather that he wanted to see just how far she could go.

Thomas took her hands and brought them closer to him. She put one hand on his shoulder and held his hand with hers. He rested a hand on her waist as he clutched her other hand. The two danced around the kitchen, as Thomas dipped her in the small glow of the furnace light.

She giggled each time he leant forward to support her as she leant back, he allowed the bow to go further and further until she was almost sure her back would break if she went any further, "Bubs, back up! My spine's gonna snap if you don't lift me back up!" She patted his shoulder desperately and held his hand tighter.

Thomas only tightened the hook he had around her waist and smiled with mischief in his eyes.

Finally relenting and pulling her back up to end the song.

The two parted ways when Dorothy had to take the last of the sweets out of the ovens. She had also made a habit of making extra Billion dollar  Bubs because she knew they were his favourite.

Once the night had ended and they'd eaten the extra food, a final song came on. A slow song. Thomas caught her eye with a lopsided grin and made a wild and dramatic gesture with a bow as he held his hand out for her to take.

Dorothy only shook her head as she took his hand and squealed a bit when he tugged her very close quite abruptly. Dorothy latched her arms around his neck and nestled her cheek to his chest as he attached his arms to her waist again.

She listened to his heartbeat and found it slow and relaxed. She hummed to the music feeling the tune reverberate through her ears. Thomas leaned his head forward and rested his chin on the top of her head. He sighed in content.

The two were an odd and unusual pair, but it was quickly established that the two might as well have been made for each other. She was a perfect source of warmth to his ice-like stares. He was a perfect sedative to the chaos in her mind.

The two could barely contain their anticipation for the next week or the next time they could see each other. Craving the others touch or scent or presence.

Watch carefully, the magic that occurs, when you give a person, just enough comfort, to be themselves.

——

SO MUCH FLUFF!

Thanks for the love.

Feedback and comments are wanted.

See ya next time!

[flipthescreen]

I figured I’d write down the full story of Galactis properly so here is it (part 1)

Born towards the end of the first great galactic war, Ja’ Ko was Born to a Notorious sith lord known as Darth Mayhem, who was renound among her peers for her powerbase and power, and an unnamed sith lord. Naturally it wouldn’t take long for the childs affinity with the force to take shape, thanks to his mother he was able to stay out of the sith Academy on korriban until she deemed him ready. During his childhood Darth Mayhem wouldn’t let her son out of her sight, thought he will never admit he has any memory of it as the 2 didn’t actually speak much, being left to his own devices he would try to copy what his mother and her apprentices did with the force, eventually being able to throw soldiers long distances by the time he was 12. Entering into his teen years Darth Mayhem moved him back to her estate on ziost in a bid to stop her main rival, Darth Malgus, from finding out about him and trying to use him as some kind of bargaining chip against her forces and herself. During this time he would find himself messing with the guard droids around the estate whenever he wasn’t trying to copy the various apprentices and loyal sith that also lived at the estate, and due to his aggressive, distant and child like nature a lot of people considered him a nuisance, one of which tried to rat out his existence to Malgus before imperial intelligence stopped him. Eventually at the sith academy overseer tremel was under pressure and threat to find someone to outmatch Vemrin, who was becoming a threat to his continued existence, eventually hearing about Darth Mayhem’s son from one of her apprentices. Running out of options Tremel approached the dark lord about the prospect of her son going through the trials the become sith, now Darth Mayhem had always planned to send him to the academy before he became an adult in order to make sure he excelled when he became sith. After the situation at the Academy with Vemrin being explained to her she begrudgingly allowed her son to be put through to trials, but not before warning Tremel that if Ja’ Ko died she would do much worse than whatever  Vemrin would do to him. Ja’ Ko, now taking on the name of Galactis to represent his desire to be known across the galaxy, soon arrived on Korriban going through the trials, and it didn’t take long for Darth Baras to know of his presence, he may have been unaware for a little longer regardless of Galactis’ actions due to his massive ego and Vemrin’s sudden distaste for basically everyone now. Baras sent Galactis on very unorthodox tasks around Korriban, in order to test his skill against the other powerful acolytes, over the next few days. Galactis eventually became very popular among acolytes who had been pushed around by Vemrin, which was nearly everyone. around this time Vemrin’s girlfriend was finally getting fed up with his shit and decided she wanted to spite him, and approached Galactis and after explaining her own issues with Vemrin and Galactis egar to always get one over on him, and eventually Vemrins Girlfriend cheated on him with Galactis, and Vemrin found out quickly enough and was pissed, only fueling Galactis’ ego with the ability to get under his rivals skin. soon enough Galactis and Vemrin were sent on their final trial, to enter the tomb of Naga sadow and claim a lightsaber in order to become Baras’ apprentice, at this time Galactis had been given the option to have a twi’lek prisoner, vette, help him find where the lightsaber was hidden, whilst in the tombs Galactis’ forcibly removed the shock collar on his companion, his reason being that his own mother didn’t like the idea of owning slaves, as in her words “A slaves loyalty is never guaranteed, a free being serves far more loyally than one that isn’t” and Galactis was just raised in that way. Eventually making their way into the tomb of where the lightsaber Galactis sought was kept they found Vemrin to be tailing them, who Galactis quickly disposed of because Vemrin would not shut up even when he was outmatched. Returning to Baras succesful Galactis was apointed his apprentice and given ownership of Vette, which he quickly renounced, this caught his master’s curiosity. (Baras knew Darth Mayhem had a child due to his close ties with the Dark council but was never aware of their identity) However despite not owning her, on Carrick station Galactis asked her to join him too Dromund kaas, his motivation at the time being an attempt to start up his own power base at the time, vette agreed to the offer as despite not really wanting to hang around a sith, Galactis was her only way of staying safe among the empire’s anti-alien policies. Upon arriving on Dromund kaas Galactis decided to take advantage of his mothers name and introduced himself as “Galactis Mayhem” at Kaas city in order to get passed certain restrictions and get some armour tailored for himself and Vette. Once meeting up with Baras in his office he was sent on a variety of tasks, dealing with a slave revlolt, orchestating an attack against the rogue sith lord Gratham, going as far as to kill him and eventually ventured into the dark temple to help Baras get infomation out of a republic agent. The agent revealed infomation regarding Baras’ personal enemy, Jedi Master Nomen karr, and his new padawan who posed a threat to baras’ agents spread across the republic and galaxy. Without a name or anymore infomation on Nomen Karr and his padawan, Baras sent Galactis and vette to choke out his agents at risk of being exposed, first sending them to balmora to meet up with one of his most loyal servants, Malivai Quinn. With Quinn’s help the 2 dispossed of the first of Baras’ agents with ease and took care of a jedi spy who was on her way to inform Nomen Karr that his padawan was at risk, Baras deemed that his apprentice would need more than quick thinking and power to deal with Nomen Karr, and his own plans to expose Baras, and thus reassigned Quinn to Galactis’ crew. The next stop was Nar Shaddaa to stop an agent under the protection of a sith lord called Rathari, with the help of another one of Baras’ loyal servants, Halidrell Setsyn, Galactis located a quarry with repblic soldiers, right before he took his strike at the soldiers, Quinn stopped him advising to spare the soldiers in order to receive help in a fight against Rathari, to Galactis’ surprise, Quinn’s idea worked, this began giving him some power hungry ideas about his confrontation with Rathari. After besting Rathari in combat, Rathari struck down the agent Galactis was sent to kill, at first he was upset Galactis didn’t take the agent’s life, but the idea to have a reputable sith Lord in his arsenal quickly changed his mood, in exchange for his loyalty, Galactis spared Rathari’s life, Rathari, respecting his power and in no position to try anything, agreed to his terms, warning Galactis of Baras’ history with his apprentices before departing. After taking a moment to breath Baras contacted Galactis and his crew informing them to head to tatooine and seek out a jedi master who could reveal important infomation on the padawan that was causing such a threat to his plans, Galactis suggested the idea of trying to turn the padawan to the dark side instead of destroying them, this caused Baras to point out that Vette and Quinn were growing on Galactis too much and he should bite his tongue when making a suggestion like that before hanging up, this comment pissed Galactis off a lot and he headed out to tatooine feeling very angry. At one point on Tatooine Galactis was forced to view his light side reflection, and struck it down, denouncing the light side of the force, claiming sith or not that the galaxy would fear his power. Upon finding the Jedi master he sought out, he was able to get a name before striking them, and the jedi knight with them down, Jaesa willsaam. After informing Baras of the name, he tracked down her parents to Alderaan, but before Galactis could make it there he had to deal with a republic ship that had been evesdropping on him for Nomen Karr, who had been made aware they were closing in on reaching his padawan, however to his disappointment, Galactis could not confront Karr face to face and left the ship with it’s crew massacred, feeling even more angry than he had been on tatooine. On Alderaan Galactis hunted down Jaesa Willsaam’s parents and killed them off, with no further leads he returned to his ship to relax for once.

And for about 5 minutes he came up with the idea of learning how to cook for himself and right before he was about to try making a pizza the ships holocom began beeping, letting the pizza stay in the oven to answer it, and to his surprise he wasn’t about to be speaking with his master, but rather, Jaesa Willsaam offered a meeting between the 2 in an attempt to stop his rampage across the galaxy, however he left quinn and vette to organize a location because he set his pizza on fire. At the meeting Galactis found out that his luck was not turning out to be very good, as instead of finding Jaesa Willsaam was 2 jedi knights, stationed there after Nomen Karr found out about Jaesa’s plan to meet Galactis, which he promptly murdered. Back on his ship Baras called informing that Nomen Karr had challenged him to a duel to the death on Hutta, Baras took a “cowardly move” as Galactis put it, by sending him instead of going himself. However in yet another idea to expand his power base he could go against Baras’ wishes and turn Jaesa to the dark side. Upon meeting Nomen Karr things went down less than plesant, Nomen Karr became infuriated that Baras didn’t show up himself and with the experience to outmatch Galactis’ raw power, beat the apprentice to a bloody pulp, prepared to kill him in order to force Baras’ hand, however Karr made a mistake and began to monologue about what would happen to the empire once Baras’ network was exposed, and gave Galactis the chance to get back up and knock Nomen Karr out, some soldiers sent by Baras soon showed up to tie up Karr and heal Galactis in preparation for Jaesa’s arrival. After about an hour she did and felt saw Nomen karr’s true self, and began begging Galactis to explain what had happened, which he did, explaining Karr didn’t uphold his jedi code and nearly killed him (to this day Jaesa is the only person who knows this happened) and convinced her the only way to stop jedi from lying through their teeth to the galaxy was to join him, ultimately turning her to the dark side, however he realised he may have made a mistake the second she beheaded Nomen Karr the second he tried to convince Jaesa not to join Galactis. Baras finally took note of his apprentices skill and power despite his oddities and behaviour and made him a sith lord allowing Jaesa to become his apprentice, however Galactis was not prepared by any means to train Jaesa, who, without the restrictions of the jedi code turned out to be a handful, however Galactis saw a lot of himself in her so he let her behaviour slide. One day on Carrick station he was approached by a droid, claiming it had an important transmission for him, Galactis agreed to hear things out and was greeted by a holo of Darth Malgus, who luckily didn’t know who Galactis was outside of being the sith who defeated Nomen Karr, inviting Galactis to help find someone known as the emperors jedi prisoner and to meet with a moff, the champion of the great hunt, Lord Kallig and his Dashade, Khem Val and an agent from imperial intelligence to infiltrate a republic capital ship and take control of it, which they did. Afterwards they were sent to a place called the foundry to take care of the escaped prisoner, finding droids commanded by a unique droid that called itself HK-47, the 5 made quick work, of it, the agent from intelligence, Cipher 9, began going through files to find out who this prisoner was, the only name he could find was Revan, this peaking the attention of the 2 other sith Lords who said they had heard that name from a cult on dromund kaas, The bounty hunter and Galactis had no clue what they were on about of course, eventually the 5 became face to face with Revan himself, Galactis, not a fan of monologues made a pre-emptive strike and was sent flying backwards, and Revan continued his monologue, and the 5 engaged the mad jedi master in combat eventually however they weren’t sure if he died or not as he disappeared in a blinding light. Revan had certainly left a bad taste in Galactis’ mouth, returning to his ship he explained what had happened to his crew members, which prompted Quinn to start lecturing everyone about imperial history (end of part 1)

[steves-on-a-plane]

Don’t Get Attached (P11)

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten Words: 1724 Connor x Daughter!Reader w/ Dad!Hank Anderson A/N: Okay so couple of things with this chapter. It’s longer than most, (like double the length!) because a lot of the dialogue is straight from the Meet Kamski Chapter in the game, but don’t worry there is definite enough of my personal flair in it too. Also this is the 2nd version of this chapter that I wrote. Originally I was going to take this in a whole other direction, but then I got an idea from @dragonempress123′s comment on one of the older Parts. (I’m not saying which one.) And honestly I’m really happy with the direction that this version takes instead. I can post what I’ll call the “Non-Canon” Part 11, if there’s enough interest, but going forward the story will be built based on this version. 

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“Jeez, I’m glad Connor gave me this jacket.” You shivered in the back seat of your father’s beat up old car. “It’s freezing up here.”

“Don’t you have plenty of your own coats?” Your father hissed.

“Sure, but this one’s better.” You zipped up the jacket a little bit more to further drive home your point. “You could just get a car with functional heat you know.”  

“Connor doesn’t mind that there’s no heat. Do you?” He cast a brief glance in the andriod’s direction before looking back at the road. The car was almost at the end of Kamski’s snow-covered driveway.

“While I am not affected by temperature changes in my environment, I can certainly understand how the lack of a functional heating system would be uncomfortable for [Y/N].” Connor replied.

“I should have known it was only a matter of time before you two started to gang up on me.” Hank sighed. “We’re here. Leave the coat in the car will ya?”

“Absolutely not!” You argued immediately. “What if this guy is as cheap as you and doesn’t have his heat on?”

“Will you just get out of the car then?” He snapped in frustration.

You and Connor followed your father up to Kamski’s front door. Hank rang the doorbell and a blonde android answered. Introductions were made to the android did not question why you, a civilian, was along with two police personnel. Instead she greeted everyone warmly and ushered you all inside. After a brief wait, you were escorted into the next room. Kamski was swimming in a lap pool, joined by two more identical blonde androids.

“Guess androids haven’t been a bad thing for everybody.” Your father said, only loud enough for you and Connor to hear.

“Who gets blood red pool tiles?” You added  just as quietly. Kamski padded his way over to a ladder and climbed out of the pool.

“What can I do for you and your partners, Lieutenant?” He asked while one of the blonde androids offered him a robe. Now it was clear to you why no one had questioned your presence. They all assumed that you were an android just like Connor. Your father had been right after all. All it took to be mistaken for an android was something as insignificant as a jacket.

“Sir, we’re investigating deviants.” Your father played into the ruse because it seemed easier than explaining himself. “I know you left Cyberlife years ago, but I was hoping you’d be able to tell us something we don’t know.”

“Deviants.” Kamski repeated. “Fascinating, aren’t they? Perfect beings with infinite intelligence and now they have free will.  Machines are so superior to us, confrontation was inevitable. Humanity’s greatest achievement threatens to be its downfall. Isn’t it Ironic?”

“We need to understand how the androids become deviants.” Connor clarified. You could tell from his expression that he was not amused by Kamski’s reveling. “Do you know anything that could help us?”

“All ideas are virus that spread like epidemics. Is the desire to be free a contagious disease?” Kamski asked.

“Listen, I didn’t come here to talk philosophy.” Hank interjected impatiently. “The machines you created may be planning a revolution. Either you can tell us something that’ll be helpful, or we will be on our way.” Kamski scanned all three of your faces before setting his attention on Connor.

“What about you, Connor?” He pried, stepping towards him. “Who’s side are you on?”

“It’s not about me, Mr. Kamski.” Connor replied defensively. “All I want is to solve this case.”

“Well, that’s what you’re programed to say.” Kamski chuckled. “But you. What do you really want?” You exchanged a glance with your father. As much as Kamski’s badgering was making you uncomfortable, you were still curious how Connor would respond.

“What I want is not important.” Connor explained.

“I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Turning test. Mere formality.” Kamski said now addressing all three of you. “Simple question of algorithms and computing capacity. What interests me is whether machines are capable of empathy. I call it the ‘Kamski test’ it’s very simple you’ll see…” He was now looking at you. Studying your face. Surveying you as if you were a prized antique up for auction. His attention made you uncomfortable. Connor made a subtle side step so that he was partially shielding you.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Kamski continued, still looking right at you. “Perfect and beautiful forever. A flower that will never wither. But what is it really?” He looked away from you to ask your father. “A Piece of plastic imitating a human? Or a living being with a soul?”

Kamski turned his back to everyone to reach for something. He opened a drawer and removed an object. When he was facing you again, you realized the object was a gun. You stiffened at the sight of firearm. You weren’t afraid of guns necessarily. Your dad had been a cop your whole life after all, but there was something about Kamski’s demeaner that made him seem unpredictable. Connor took a very calculated half step in front of you for protection. Again, you and your father shared a concerned sideways glance.

“It’s up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor.” Kamski handed Connor the gun. Connor looked down at the weapon, perplexed. “Destroy this machine and I’ll tell you everything I know.” Kamski stepped forward and pivoted Connor’s body. He raised the android’s arm so that the gun was pointed directly at you.

“[Y/N]!” Your father called out for you, but Kamski was standing directly in his way, his hand still over Connor’s with the gun. If he moved, Kamski might shoot him instead.

“It is alright, Lieutenant.” You said in your best impression of an android. It was a shaky impression, but enough to do the trick. There was no doubt in your mind that Connor wouldn’t shoot you. You trusted him implicitly. However, there was still that illogical part of you somewhere panicking because a gun was pointed right at your head.

. “Or spare it, if you think it’s alive but you’ll leave here without having learnt anything from me.” Kamski told Connor. The billionaire released his hold on the gun and took a step back.

“Okay, we’re done here.” Your father interrupted. He’d had enough if this entire situation. “Put the gun down, Connor.”

“No interference from the peanut gallery!” Kamski snarled at you. “For the test to be conclusive, Connor has to make the choice on his own. Decide who you are. An obedient machine, or a living being endowed with free will. What’s more important to you Connor? Your investigation or the life of his android?”

“This is ridiculous. She’s not an android! That’s my daughter!” Your father snapped. “[Y/N], I told you to take that fucking coat off.”

“Even better.” Kamski seemed unfazed. “If she’s human, that makes for an even more thrilling test of empathy. A true machine will accomplish it’s mission at all cost, Connor. Regardless of your relationship with your human partner or his daughter. But a living being? Well how could you look into her eyes and decide that learning more about deviants is more valuable than [Y/N] Anderson’s life?”

“Connor, you put that fucking gun down now!” Hank ordered. His hand hovered slightly over his own gun, but he knew better than to draw it too early. He’d been in enough stand offs to know that introducing more weapons to the situation on decreased you, the hostage’s, chance of survival.  

Connor hadn’t spoke since Kamski had handed him the gun and neither had you. He kept his arm pointed at you exactly how Kamski had angled it, but still you knew that you had nothing to fear. For a brief second the thought did cross your mind that maybe Connor might actually do it. That he could pull the trigger and you’d be gone, but you knew Connor better than that.

Connor had been displaying signs of empathy for several days now. Whether android were supposed to or not, Connor actually cared about you and your father both. You guessed that he was just waiting for the right moment to lower the gun. Kamski was obviously an unstable individual and even if Connor didn’t shoot you, it was reasonable to assume that Kamski might himself if he felt cheated out of his “Kamski Test.”

“Pull the trigger.” The billionaire bated.

“Connor don’t you dare.” Hank took a step forward, obviously not in on the secret revelation between you and Connor.

“From ancient grudge break to new mutiny. Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” Connor recited just in case you hadn’t already figured out that he had no intention on shooting you. He lowered the gun without hesitation.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Your father asked. He jumped between the two of you immediately, just in case Connor changed his mind.  

“Romeo and Juliet, Lieutenant.” Kamski answered taking back his gun. He shook his head. “Cyberlife’s last chance to save humanity is itself a deviant.”

“I’m…” Connor opened his mouth to argue but his processor must have been overloaded. It took him several seconds to manage; “I’m not a deviant.”

“You preferred to spare [Y/N]’s life rather than accomplish your mission.” Kamski disagreed. “You saw her fear and you showed her empathy. A war is coming you’ll have to choose your side. Will you betray your own people or stand up against your creators?” Connor did not respond. “What could be worse than having to choose between two evils?”

“Connor, C’mon.” You slipped your hand inside of his, lacing your fingers together just like you would on one of your walks with Sumo. Now holding hands the android let you tug him away. You walked towards the door while your father gladly brought up the rear. Hank had a protective hand on each of you so that neither of you could turn around or more likely in your case, head back into the room once the shock wore off and go off on Kamski for what he’d just done.

“By the way,” Kamski called out, unmoving from his position. “I always leave and emergency exit in my programs. You never know.”

“Just keep walkn’.” Your father mumbled in warning. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

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*If you would like to be tagged in the Don’t Get Attached series, simply reply to this post or submit an ask.*

[gdiblake]

Harry Potter and the Post Voldemort Life

I am looking to start a new Harry Potter Universe set of stories. While I am planning on writing both I am trying to decide if to start down the darker or lighter path first. Below is a universe setup description and some details about where each path would go. If you want vote in the comments for which path to work on first.

The Universe: After the fall of Voldemort life for Harry, Hermione, and Ron changed overnight. Celebrities overnight, they were given credit for their final year of classes and acceptance into the Ministries intern program. Hermione, of course, went back to take her tests in person and attend the last month of school, while the boys did not. With Ron and Harry set to join the Auror's program and Hermione joining the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the all headed to the Burrow for a summer off.

Without the weight of school and the constant worry of Voldemort everyone was finally able to cut loose in ways they had never been able to. Try as Mrs. Weasely might that summer was a summer of sexual exploration for both Ron and Hermione as well as Harry and Ginny. Much to Ron's delight, Hermione was as kinky as she was intelligent. Meanwhile, as much as he loved Ginny's submissive side, Harry slowly opened her up more and more until they we experiment just as much as the Ron and Hermione.

At the end of the Summer, Harry spent a sizeable amount of his remaining gold on a massive two-story flat in London. The place had stacked bedrooms on bathrooms on each side, with a small spiral staircase up to each second floor bedroom. Between the two sets of bedrooms were the entrance (foyer) next to the kitchen, then the living and dining rooms side by side, followed by massive windows and a large balcony, all in on giant open space. There was space for all of them, even Ginny eventually, though everyone probably knew Ginny and Hermione's rooms were really just for show. They moved in a few weeks before Ginny had to leave for Hogwarts and spend the time "breaking in the place" before Ginny had to go and it was time to start their new jobs.

The Two Paths:

The Lighter Path: A unexpected visit from Ginny leads to Ron and Hermione, seeing and enjoying an unexpected show. The starts the group down a path of free love and swapping where everyone ends up satisfied. Tentative Title: Harry Potter and Flat of Fornication

The Darker Path: With Ginny back to school and Ron and Hermione still fucking like rabbits, Harry's urges quickly start to rise. He is just starting to settle into that reality when his training turns to Polyjuice potions and more specifically, their use, without permissions, at brothels. When Harry returns home that day to the sounds of sex coming from Ron's room again, he retreats to his bathroom, only to spy a hairbrush Ginny had left. It's not cheating if it looks like her, he wonders. Tentative title: Harry Potter and the Polyjuice Prostitutes

submitted by /u/twisted_tales_ [link] [comments] from Sex Stories https://ift.tt/3r6vPJX

[imagine-loki]

The Baseborn Princess and the Aesir Prince

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 2 AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you’re a bastard daughter of a king of a far off realm, the product of his drunken loneliness at battle. His guilt of cheating on his wife drove him to send you to live on Midgard, but due to the fact that his other children (and his wife) adore you, you’re often invited to visit. RATING: Teen and Up

Clodagh already hated the women she was surrounded by, they were so scathing and toxic, she wanted nothing to do with them, she was relieved when finally she got to Amelia and the half-sisters stayed together.

Asgard was like nothing they had ever seen, big, gold and bold were the best words for it in Clodagh’s opinion. She looked around the city as their carriages made their way into it. She watched as a little girl who dropped her toy without noticing as they passed, immediately she had the carriage stopped so that she could get out. ‘Here you go.’ She smiled, giving the girl back her toy. ‘I had one of these when I was your age too, they are so much fun.’

‘Yes, she sings.’

‘Well, my one didn’t do that, I am so jealous.’ She smiled.

The girl beamed at her. ‘Are you a princess?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Are you going to marry Prince Thor or Prince Loki?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you should.’

‘Well, thank you.’ She smiled. ‘What is your name?’

‘Mia.’

‘Mia is such a beautiful name. I wish my name was that pretty.’

‘What’s yours?’

‘Clodagh.’

‘That’s….different,’ Clodagh erupted in laughter, as did most anyone listening to them.

‘It is very different. It is the name of a river in Alfheim.’

‘Why are you named after a river?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did your daddy lose a bet, my daddy did once and that is why he had to do something silly.’

‘I am so sorry.’ The girl’s mother pulled her back. ‘Please excuse her lack of manners.’

‘Please, she is a child, she is alright.’ Clodagh smiled. ‘And regarding her words, children are so pure and honest, it is so lovely to see one so at ease with herself, she is a credit to you.’ The woman stared in shock at her kind words. ‘Mia, I hope you have a lovely day and take care of your toy.’

‘I will, bye Princess.’

Clodagh did not correct the child, instead, she just smiled and waved. Amelia smiled at her sister, knowing her love for children, often offering to hold her nephews or nieces for her brothers when she visited. The other women in the carriage, however, gave dirty looks at her for delaying them. Finally, the carriage made its way to the palace again.

Frigga, who was in a carriage to the front of the convoy looked in interest at the scene she had just witnessed, smiling as she continued to the palace. When she got there she waited for all the carriages of women to arrive. The last of which, holding Clodagh and Amelia as well as two others, was over three minutes delayed, leaving the other women to whisper among themselves and make comments about the odd girl stopping the carriage.

Finally, the carriage arrived and the two women that were there with Amelia and Clodagh seemed almost distraught at the delay. ‘Now, you will all be settled into a guest corridor, there you will all have to share quarters with another girl, and you will be expected to have your staff liaise with staff of the palace here, so do not hesitate to ask for anything, but remember that this palace is not like any you were reared in, it is also the centre of business for Asgard and many other realms.

At being told that they were having to share quarters, the most of the girls baulked, wanting to tantrum and strop, but they knew the Allmother was watching. As soon as she said it, Amelia and Clodagh looked at one another and nodded, the sisters standing beside one another, there was no one else Clodagh could consider. There were other sisters present, but they seemed to be willing to slit one another’s throats in order to get ahead, Amelia was not interested in being in competition with her sister, and Clodagh did not think herself as being part of the group in general, she thought herself there to make up the numbers, a formality, she would not think herself to have a chance.

They made their way through the palace to their rooms, Amelia and Clodagh speaking in one another's confidence as they did. They were left to settle and prepare for the evening.

‘It’s all so much bigger here.’ Amelia commented. ‘If you find they are not agreeable, what will you do?’

‘Go home as soon as I am allowed. I should not be here to begin with.’ Clodagh responded. ‘I am not like you.’

‘You better not be lobbing me in with that lot.’ Amelia stated indignantly.

‘No, you’re nothing like them, but I am not like any of you.’ Clodagh explained, toying with her fingers.

‘Clods, seriously, you are of better bloodlines than most people here, you need to stop this self-deprivation of yours, you are royal by blood, and you look exactly like Grandmother, it is scary. I often wonder what your mother looked like to say you are so identical to Lily.’

Clodagh looked at her sadly. ‘I have no idea, I don’t know anything about her.’

‘Nothing?’ Clodagh shook her head. Amelia pulled her close.

‘Lydia has been so kind to me, you all have, but I know nothing of the woman I should call mother.’ Clodagh looked around. ‘I have no idea what I am doing here ‘Meils.’

‘Okay, I am going to help you learn some things that will help, don’t worry.’

*

‘I thought you said there was twenty-seven, I counted twenty-eight young women.’ Odin commented as his wife joined him on the balcony of their rooms that overlooked the city.

‘Yes, twenty-eight.’

‘Where did we accumulate the extra one, Midgard? Can you believe the number of Royal families that place has?’

‘Alfheim.’ Odin frowned and looked at his wife. ‘Did you know that Sika has an illegitimate daughter?’

‘I heard rumours there was one more than Lydia gave him, but details I was not sure, no one seems to know particulars.’

‘He sired her during the Elven War, she was born to the camp Healer, she is in the Late Queen Lily’s image and by far the kindest creature I have ever lay eyes on.’

‘Is she the one to stop the carriage?’

‘That was her.’ Frigga nodded.

‘What are they like?’

‘Every sort, scheming, intelligent, dense, boring, dull, bright, attentive, everything really.’

‘Any potentials?’

‘About five possibles between them both.’

‘We just need two.’ Odin commented.

‘Do you know what Sika’s daughter refers to herself as?’

‘Well, you have said she is kind, so I doubt it is some form of delusions of grandeur.’ Frigga did not respond. ‘What does she call herself?’

‘That word.’

‘Which?’ Odin demanded before his wife’s face told him. ‘You cannot be serious?’

‘She calls herself it, and feels she deserves to be called it.’ Frigga stated sadly.

‘Frigga, do not get attached, there are so many girls, you cannot…’

‘If she is not suited to either of our boys, I am asking her to stay as my Lady in waiting.’ Frigga stated.

‘Of course you are.’ Odin growled, knowing better than to argue.

*

The wing the girls were being kept in was large and though there were extra rooms, they were told to remain only their own. Already people were stating they were going to break the request, or had done so immediately and took a room to themselves. Amelia and Clodagh just watched in shock at such audacity.

‘She could be testing us.’ Amelia stated to Clodagh as they left their rooms for dinner.

‘Could, she is, wait and see, there will be issues with this.’ Clodagh stated. ‘You don’t just go into someone else’s house and decide yourself what you are doing.’

‘A true princess would never accept such demands and the Allmother knows it,’ One princess that overheard them declared. ‘A princess has to take command of the situation, show that she is able to do what she needs to.’

‘We are here five minutes, we have no right.’ Clodagh stated.

‘That is the difference between a Vanir and an Elf, we are confident.’ The girl scoffed before walking off.

‘That and her father is also her mother’s brother.’ Amelia whispered into Clodagh’s ear.

‘Do not stoop to their level.’ Clodagh warned, ‘You’re better than them.’

They spoke to a few of the other girls, trying to ascertain who was someone they would actually talk to and who would be best to avoid. The princess Clodagh found herself speaking to the most was a Niflheim one, Regina, she was intelligent and completely disinterested with the whole situation. She had no interest in the Aesir royals, they were “too soft” for her liking. She was very much interested in Helblindi, the son of Laufey of Jotunheim, but she wanted to use the opportunity to reach out to the Aesir princes, help broker trade and friendship with Asgard, meaning she was not interested in the politics of bratty women trying to one-up others either, and in turn, it made her a good conversational partner for the Elven sisters.

[kopfkinoes]

I’ve been a Naruto fan for like 13 years now but after the manga ended I pretty much left the fandom because I anticipated the vitriol that was going to follow after the ending. Every once in a while I stumbled upon a Naruto post that made me realize I had been right and I didn’t interact. But at the end of 2017 I came back and…nothing has changed. I honestly think this is one of the worst, most immature fandoms out there. I feel like so many of the people in the fandom are perpetual twelve year olds. And it kind of bothers me that Sasuke and Sakura, my absolute favourites since day one, are still disrespected as fuck. Now, mind you, I’m not talking about the ship, I’m talking about them as individual characters although I do ship them. I’ve multishipped for a long, long time but not anymore.

They are the first ones I shipped because I had a feeling stuff was bound to happen between them but then I discovered the wonders of the web and instantly moved to ship Naruto and Sasuke. I never once hated Sakura and Hinata though and even in the later years when “feminist” rhetoric moved into fandoms, I took the “these women are strong and powerful and I love them, they don’t need no man” thing to be good. But after the ending, and now seeing how many of the people who ship Naruto and Sasuke are downright anti-Sakura and insult and disrespect her in so many ways I realized “Wow! I had been an idiot all along. These people never gave a shit about Sakura, they were saying all of that stuff to get her out of the way.” I don’t see people talking about how Naruto and Sasuke’s bond diminishes their battle abilities, I see none of the shippers implying that their development would be flushed down the drain if they ended up in a relationship. Yet, that is apparently true for the women. Right.

Sasuke is a character with a lot of potential. But he was never able to evolve. And do you know why? Because of Naruto. Sasuke was created in order to be the opposite of Naruto and, for the most part, that is all remains to be. I’ve been staning Sasuke forever but this is the truth. He exists in order to be Naruto’s rival and in order to be pissed that he, a guy coming from a clan of prodigies, keeps falling behind the class clown and loser (who is anything but that when you think of it, Minato was anything but a weak guy and Kushina, while we don’t get a good look at her abilities, has loads of stamina and healing powers and her abilities were considered exceptional even among the Uzumaki, not to mention how easily Naruto masters everything new he tries). In the end, he is subdued by Naruto and the Will of Fire.

Even after all of this, he is still not allowed to be around his family. Why? Simply because he needs to be the opposite of Naruto. He needed to point a sword at his own daughter and it was Naruto who had to comfort and reassure her. Sasuke will never be an overly affectionate person, I don’t think he will ever realistically go back to his pre-massacre personality (he wasn’t exactly super bubbly as a child either, he was reserved around other people but very happy around his family) and frankly, he doesn’t need to. He wouldn’t ever be a husband who does grand romantic gestures or a super cuddly father but he’s loyal and devoted and these things shouldn’t be brushed away for some mission or for creating angst just to prove that Naruto is a better, more understanding person that he’ll ever be, even when it comes to Sarada. Like, for fuck’s sake, does everything Sasuke does need to happen right before Naruto waltzes in and puts him in his place by being a better person? Can Sasuke not be a person in his own right without the constant comparisons to Naruto?

What I also find interesting is how often I see Sasuke becoming completely OOC when paired with Naruto. Of course everybody says Sasuke is OOC when paired with Sakura but frankly I’ve rarely seen Sasuke presented as lovey dovey around Sakura, people usually want him to be proud of her but he stays his usual tepid self. Because that’s Sasuke’s personality, he’s not a conventionally affectionate person and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why it bothers me when I see Sasuke made to be a soft, sensitive, pastel boy aesthetic. He’s not that and he wouldn’t be that even if he were gay. I mean, I understand headcanons but don’t root them in the “seme and uke” dynamics, please.

Moving on, I have a particular kind of contempt for people suggesting Sasuke cheated on Sakura with Karin. It makes absolutely no sense character-wise and it just shits all over Sasuke by assuming he’s a disgusting fucker who would cheat. Are you telling me that the dude who didn’t even consider taking advantage of even a single one of the girls who were fawning over him would have a face-heel turn and cheat? Yeah, right. I don’t understand how you can call yourself a Sasuke fan and genuinely support cheating. Why would Sasuke wait to be with Sakura in order to have sex with Karin when he and Karin had so many opportunities to bang prior to this while they were travelling together as a team? Why would he have a child with Karin and just dump the child on Sakura’s head? I don’t even want to hear superiority arguments that go along the lines of “Karin is an Uzumaki so she has superior genes compared to Sakura who doesn’t come from a clan” because…arguments like these are disgusting. I don’t think it was ever even slightly implied that Sasuke (or the Uchiha for that matter) held beliefs like this. If anything, these guys didn’t like being othered and set apart from the rest of the village. I don’t think Sasuke ever implied that he believes some vaginas are not genetically pure enough for him to get into so please don’t put these shitty beliefs on him. Sasuke was described as “pure”. It’s simply the way he is. I really don’t care that you think he’s not a “True Hetero Guy” unless he cheats and/or has sex with loads of women.

I always see people saying fans who ship Sasuke and Sakura are “disgusted” by the thought of Sasuke having sex with someone else. But do you know how many people I’ve seen saying how grossed out Sasuke must be by being around pussy (specifically Sakura’s) and how he probably cries and is traumatized by the experience? I’ve yet to see people talking about how Sasuke must be super disgusted by dick.

Moving on to Sakura, pretty much 100% of the vitriol I’ve seen thrown at her comes from misogyny. People always like to say it’s not misogyny and yet it always is. It comes from Kishimoto himself and his ideas of women. He constantly described Sakura as “not cute” and “a hard woman”. And it’s true, Sakura’s not demure or submissive and doesn’t appear to be very suited for domesticity.  I don’t believe that just because she is loud and outspoken she would make a dreadful wife and mother. She was very shy as a child (mostly because she was insecure) but she grew into herself. About her not being cute, I’d say that’s debatable. Kishimoto said she’s not cute in the beginning and I see a lot of haters talking about “that ugly bitch Sakura” but let me tell you this, Naruto and Rock Lee had pretty intense crushes on her and Jiraiya compared her appearance to Tsunade’s (although the man’s trash when it comes to women but you get my point). What do people base their opinions on when they say she’s ugly? On her exaggerated anger expressions? Because Sakura is not drawn as prettier or uglier than any of the other female characters. Is it based on the fact that people love to bring up time and time again, that she doesn’t have big breasts? Yeah, she doesn’t have breasts as big as Tsunade’s or Hinata’s or even Ino’s but what does that have to do with anything? Nope, this is rooted in misogyny because, just like in real life, when you don’t like a woman you insult her based on her body and appearance because you believe that’s where all the worth of a woman is. Besides, don’t you think there something wrong with focusing so much on the body type of a girl aged 12 to 17? Because I think there is.

I always feel like laughing at people who call her stupid because Sakura is a nerd. This is why she was paired with the more battle prone Naruto and Sasuke because she was too much brains and not enough brawn. I know that it was Ino, Shino and Sasuke that graduated top of the class but, according to the Databooks, none of them beat Sakura in intelligence, she is equal to Shino and higher than Ino and Sasuke. People love to say that her being able to do the written part of the Chunin Exam all by herself doesn’t prove that she’s actually smart, buddy, it does. The fact that she’s smart doesn’t make the rest of the students who cheated idiots. That was the point of the test, the questions were too difficult for 12 year old genin to answer. The fact that Sakura could, however, isn’t bullshit. You wouldn’t call an exceptionally gifted kid who can answer really advanced academic questions “not that smart really, it doesn’t prove anything”. Freaking Sasuke commented on her analytical abilities, she’s an extremely skilled med-nin, she is able to put pieces of information she’s previously learnt together in order to form a present opinion, her hobbies are trivia games and memorizing medical ninjutsu material for God’s sake.

I definitely don’t think comparing her to Hinata achieves anything. Hinata does represent the ideas Kishimoto seems to have about women. She is soft-spoken, she is never confrontational, she never wants to offend anybody. Sure, Hinata also has her insecurities and doesn’t place much value on herself (we have her father to thank for that) but even after getting out of that shell and discovering she has some iron at her core, she is still mostly soft. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s simply who she is as a person and it doesn’t make her better or worse than Sakura. I know that Sakura fans have always been bullied online, from forums to YouTube to tumblr to any other comment section of blogs and stuff, people have always thrown shit at Sakura, saying she’s useless, a whore, an idiot. The amount of times I’ve seen people wish violent, horrible deaths on Sakura (for the sole reason that she didn’t spread her legs for Naruto being the catalyst in pretty much 100% of the cases) is immense. The amount of times I’ve seen people wishing Hinata would kill Sakura “for what she did to Naruto” is huge. So based on this, I understand why Sakura fans feel the need to get defensive. I don’t agree with putting Hinata down but I understand why some people might do it. I’ll never put down someone’s fav (especially when the fav is as unproblematic as Hinata who honestly did nothing wrong) but I definitely understand why some people will do it.

Naruto is a shonen, battle manga. We will never get 100% healthy relationships in this because the manga is not focused on romance. It is why the relationships between Sasuke and Sakura and Naruto and Hinata were not greatly developed and why there was an overemphasis on Naruto and Sasuke’s bond which is basically “we’re forever competing to see who’s better”. Kishimoto based it on his relationship with his brother but I’m pretty sure he took it up to eleven in the manga. Because Naruto is a manga for whom the target audience is boys, female characters will never be 100% appreciated. Most of the boys watching identify with the downtrodden outcast, guys such as Lee or Naruto. It’s a thing, associated with the stereotype of the Western man who watches anime, a stereotype that is proved to be correct in most cases, sadly. How many of these guys think they’re gems, that they’re precious souls to have around and girls just don’t see them for what they are? Both Naruto and Lee are very loved among male fans and they are both rejected by Sakura. (I could also say something about the stereotypes Western anime watching men place on Japanese women, namely “the pliant, submissive wife, who would do house chores all day, would never say no to sex and worship them as the much better versions of Japanese men that they are” but I’m not going there.) Never cruelly though, she remains friendly with both of them. Her bond with Naruto is very strong and they’re actually a pretty rare example of a good male and female friendship (the violence that is played for laughs doesn’t really mean much to me).

However, for the male fans that is never enough. How many times did I see stuff like “She chose Sasuke although Naruto never left the village” or “Naruto did so many things for her yet she still chose Sasuke”. Dude, there was never a competition. Sakura loves Sasuke, plain and simple. You can disagree with that if you want, you can disagree with how she expresses her love for him but there was never competition. Sakura has always loved Sasuke, what she feels for him is true love. Many people don’t believe it exists but it is what it is. I find it funny (and by funny I mean idiotic to the heavens) that people always say her development was crushed because she didn’t give up on Sasuke but Naruto’s was improved by not giving up on Sasuke. This is bias and misogyny at its finest. Sasuke is not just a crush to Sakura. People always want to say Sakura was a fangirl to Sasuke and nothing more and that she simply needed to get over her obsessive crush. She wouldn’t have said all she wanted was for him to acknowledge her if he were just a crush, she wouldn’t have suffered so badly over him. Many of the village girls had a thing for Sasuke and I doubt all of them cried over Sasuke at night after he left. Only Sakura anticipated when he was going to leave. People always say that Sakura maturing would have meant her understanding that her and Sasuke are just not meant to be a thing. The thing is, she wasn’t holding on to the idea that her and Sasuke would be “a thing”. Kakashi made it pretty clear (to Sasuke and to all fans who just can’t get it in their heads) that Sakura only wanted to help him, not to get into his pants.

People are also super quick to judge the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura as abusive. Why though? All the times they were violent towards each other (and there weren’t even that many times) they weren’t dating, they were combatants on opposite sides of battle. There is nobody in this series that Sasuke is more violent towards than Naruto and yet I never see this relationship classified as abusive, instead it is considered romantic and heartfelt that he wanted to sever his bonds with Naruto in order to make a martyr out of himself and be consumed by darkness. Like, yeah, that’s super healthy. I see the same thing being said with Karin, that Sasuke impaled her simply because he wanted to cut all of his bonds, not because he actually wanted to kill her. Which is…stupid to say the least. Like, cool story, still murder. He knew that impaling her would result in killing her but damn, was he willing to make that sacrifice. The reasons why Sasuke wanted to murder the people in his life are not important. In truth, all the murder he wanted to commit was because people were getting in the way of killing Itachi and, after killing Itachi, people were getting in the way of his goal to be completely alone in order to destroy/reform Konoha. Sasuke is not a psychopath who murders for fun but that doesn’t mean he was in a good place.

I shipped Sasuke with Karin but I never saw their bond as overly emotional or true love. I’m not saying Karin doesn’t care about him but I do think her feelings for him are more in the realm of sexual than the romantic. She does care for his well-being, she wants him to be happy, she is impressed by him and wants to be around him but it’s not romantic. Does she suffer when she thinks he’s dead? Naturally. Because she cares about him and she does love him but, again, not romantically. Karin’s sexual feelings for Sasuke are not bad, they don’t make her a whore or whatever. But it’s quite silly in my opinion to mistake them for some sort of pure, true love. They’re not that and it’s fine that they’re not. We see Sakura wanting to be alone with Sasuke but she never thinks of how she’s so excited she can barely stand it and how she wants to “ravage Sasuke like crazy”. We don’t see Sakura’s reaction, upon seeing Sasuke arrive on the battlefield to be “I want to lick Sasuke all over right now”.

People always like to remind everyone that Sakura ended her friendship with Ino over Sasuke. However, we never see Sakura and Ino be hostile to each other. Compare their rivalry to the one between Sasuke and Naruto to understand what I’m saying. They had a mild dislike going on but we see them quickly overcome it in the Chunin Exams. Sakura and Ino never really gave up on their friendship, their rivalry was mostly played for laughs, I never took it seriously because I don’t think it was presented in a way that was saying “you need to take this seriously, this is the real deal”. Mostly because it dealt with who has prettier hair and who can get the seat next to Sasuke first. Nope, not serious.

Back to Hinata, this is the reason why so many of the fanboys prefer her. Look at the opinions Shikamaru, another character the fanboys adore, has about women. He is downright misogynistic but that gets overlooked in fandom time after time because of his 200 IQ. Instead, I see people saying it is Sasuke who hates women when there is no indication of that, except, you know, people who think he’s gay and because he’s gay he MUST hate all women and consider them absolutely gross (except for the, sometimes OC, self-insert in fanfiction). Just like his father, Shikamaru has this thing that women should be sweet, soft and tender not headstrong, demanding and even harsh (women like his mother, Yoshino, Ino, Temari, Tayuya). He hates receiving help from women, he is frustrated when he has to fight women. He sums up his views of women himself by saying “C'mon. You know what they’re like. You can never figure them out. You never know where you could stand with them. The smallest things could put you in their bad side. Always playing little mind games with you. Trying to make you do what they want. They’re just a big pain basically.”

For the most part, many fans linked Sakura to Kushina because of her fiery personality. Minato kinda sealed this comparison when saying Sakura reminded him of Kushina. So a lot of people, while calling Sakura an ugly bitch and a whore who needs to be raped and die, still wanted her for Naruto and believed she will ultimately change her mind and go for Naruto. Personally, I don’t care about that because so many characters in Naruto are carbon copies of people who came before them, enough similarities are enough. This idea that a guy should marry a woman just like his mother is weird for many reasons to me. It’s only men that have unhealthy relationships with their mothers that want a woman exactly like their mothers. Then the ending came so Hinata, being the embodiment of what a woman “should be” became more appropriate for Naruto in the eyes of so many fans. The fact that she fits these patterns doesn’t take away or add to Hinata’s character in any way. It just is. However, fanboys will use it in a sexist way. I definitely don’t agree with the criticism for Hinata that it’s wrong her motivation for becoming strong is Naruto. The motivation of pretty much all characters in becoming stronger is in order to protect others and there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself because you feel that would put you on more equal grounds with the one you love. This manga places great value on the power of unity and community and people who seek power for power’s sake, for revenge or for evil don’t do well. They are either defeated or they change their minds. Great emphasis is placed on the “you only become strong when you have someone you need to protect” mentality. And women are allowed to make connections in this life, they don’t have to live “lone wolf�� lives in order to be “truly strong”. Loneliness is an enemy in and of itself in Naruto.

Kishimoto’s views on women are not necessarily progressive but they’re not exactly bad in my opinion. It all has to do with how fanboys twist his ideas and make them bad. Because I don’t think he ever blamed Sakura for not hooking up with Naruto. I know there are people who believe that he’s holding onto the belief that people (and women especially) must forever be with their first love. I think it just so happens that Naruto and Sasuke were Hinata’s and Sakura’s first loves but, more important, they are their true loves. Ino moved on and I see people saying she shouldn’t have. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess. To sum up, I’ve yet to see dislike for Sakura that’s not misogynistic. I’m not even talking about people who think she’s weak. She is the only one who’s not from a clan and yet she managed to surpass Tsunade, a Sannin. She was impaled by Madara and shook it off immediately, she saved Naruto’s, Kankuro’s, Hinata’s and Karin’s lives, she saved Sasuke from an infinte desert, she saved Obito from a sea of acid, she punched an alien all-powerful goddess in the face.

People saying shipping Sakura and Hinata with the guys they’re canonically in love with proves their fans are selfish because they just want them to look cute next to Sasuke and Naruto amuse me. That if you really cared about them you’d ship them with guys who “actually” care about them like Lee or Kiba or whatever. Dude, people love who they love. And a woman has no obligation to be with a man who was friendly and nice to her, not even a man who has a crush on her if she’s not attracted to him or doesn’t love him.

[onebriefshiningmoment17]

A letter to the song “The Man” by Taylor Swift

When the song “The Man” by Taylor Swift came out it did something to me. It stirred up old feelings of hurt that were a direct result of misogynistic men. I had never been the super feminist type but as I got older, I noticed more and more the double standards. Currently I work in a male dominated organization that thrives on a toxic environment. Most of the men that I work with are intimidated by women in leadership positions. When a woman speaks up, they say that they are too emotional, or they don’t have enough experience to have a say-so. I have been on the receiving end of comments like “you are too young, you are just a pretty face, don’t speak out on something you don’t know anything about, you are immature, all you want to do is fight and argue, you need more time, let me show you how its done.” All these comments shot at me for standing up for myself, for having a voice, and for backing up something I believe in.

I have had to work more than twice as hard to get to where I am, only for that to be questioned too. The men can make crude jokes, they can have heated yelling matches, blatantly and rudely say they do not agree to their bosses and suffer no consequences. I suffered one of the biggest injustices at the hands of a “Man” at work when I was unjustly stripped and removed from my position of leadership. A rank I earned, not given to me. In a second it was taken away based on the opinions of a man who had a personal vendetta against me because of the woman I am. I have been at times the woman to defend the men, to say the women might be taking it too far, but as I get deeper into my career, as I digested Taylor Swifts “The Man” lyrics I knew deep in my heart that women are always fighting to share a place in the world with men. I have been called every name in the book; profanity has been attached to my name for more than eight years in my place of employment. The bitch, the slut, the whore, and that is just the PG rated degrading insults. The deeper more disgusting insults are not internet appropriate. Although that is a platform I have been slammed on too, a “professional” blog my organization uses to bash others on.

When getting upset over this treatment they label you the troublemaker, the non-conformist, the girl who is playing the victim again. They don’t consider you a woman, they just call us girls. Comments like “Well she brought it upon herself, she shouldn’t have been such a bitch, who cares she’s just a slut, who’s her next victim, she slept her way up to the top.” and the list goes on. The sad realization is there has been so many instances of mistreatment at the hands of a man that my words fail to describe. If you are too nice you are a push over, if you are standoffish you are a bitch. If you are too friendly you are a slut.

On February 27th, 2020 Taylor Swifts “The Man” music video premiered. I walked into my office and overheard a co-worker of mine talking about the video. He spoke on how it was a well put together video and that he liked it. I played it for the rest of the men in the office. I pointed out the titles of her records that were displayed on the wall that belong to Taylor. The man who mentioned the video earlier stated that she is the one who let them sell her records, that if she’s a millionaire and has money why does she want more money. He said that I only believed her because I am a woman and that I didn’t do my research to learn that she had the opportunity to buy it herself. I yelled back at him that she was never given the opportunity and it was sold to someone who she’s had negative history with out of spite for leaving the record. They did it to spite her for the mere fact of her wanting and being deserving to own her own music. The music that she created, that she wrote, that she did all on her own merit. His defense was to yell louder to drown me out. I couldn’t even have a logical, intelligent conversation with this man because my opinion in his eyes didn’t matter. He was arguing with one of the biggest Taylor Swift fans, someone who has cried to her music, someone who used her music for healing, for therapy, for laughter, for happiness. This man was arguing with me on a topic I am very informed on, a topic I spent hours educating myself on. His comments were “She just needs to shut up and sing.” My comment to him was that he needed to shut up and read. Why do they push you to this level? To stoop down to their level in order to get a point across. I don’t want to yell or insult, but it seems like it’s the only method of communication they understand. While approaching thirty, I get told that I look like I am eighteen. Then the unwanted stories of “When I was your age.” The advice's of wisdom I didn’t ask for. The you need to grow into your position. The disrespect and misconception that because of my age and gender I am weaker. It is exhausting to be constantly in survival mode protecting yourself from the men.

The management labeling you as the one who isn’t a team player only because you don’t want to surround yourself with the rest of your co-workers. Not knowing that I’ve had to sit with them to hear them talk about women in sexual manners. I have had to listen to the homophobic bashing of gay men, the conquests they have “scored”, their next “victim”. Listening to the stories on how they cheat on their wives, the bets they make on who can find the sexiest girl. All in front of me. The times I have had to hear through rumors and gossip on how I must be a freak in bed, or how sexy I am, who is with me now, what man will I ruin next? Yet for a man it is ok to have multiple partners, even while being married. For a twenty-eight-year-old it is not ok to date to find the one to settle down with. Management telling you that you need to learn how to be a leader when they give the men the chance without ever proving themselves. Putting the “big strong” men who just got into the leadership roles in special units and passing the young-looking woman who had been doing it twice as long at a sharper and more intelligent level. Saying you need experience yet not giving you an opportunity to gain that experience.

The worst part of it all is the feeling of not being able to fix the problem. There is not enough unity between the women within our organization for this to change in such a male dominated workplace. I won’t quit or conform. I wont back down and let them win. If I never get that “chance” if I never get picked for that position, I know that there is one thing they can’t take from me. My own self-worth, my fire, my drive and my fight. I will move to my next testing opportunity and I will come out high on that list again. If I never get anything after that. Any appointed positions then so be it, but I will continue to push them and make them uncomfortable because I will not stop. They will continue to come after me, they will continue to test me, they will try to break me down so that I could quit but their tactics will only make me stronger. There is the word man in woman, and I will show them that I can stand my own in a room full of “men” because I am the man.

 Thank you, Taylor Swift for this empowering anthem, one that I will continue to use to celebrate my worth. A song I will use to push myself, a reminder that women are capable of greatness too. Your song is unapologetic, and it is valid in all the points it tackles on. Whenever I feel that I need a little push this song will be right there to strengthen my purpose.