#and that is toooootally not just me projecting no way no how

[inarcad1a]

x x x . x x x . x x x

[millenniumringg]

Arggg I’m stressing! My latest chapter for my fic is technically finished but it’s got so many flaws; the over-wordyness, the lack of good flow, and also it ends abruptly with no good resolution. I can’t stand it. I want to fix it but I don’t know where to start, and although I would like to work on later chapters I can’t do them until this one is fixed. Help meeeee I need advice and also my creativity is at a slump, I’m so stuck it’s making me stressed

oh noooooooo I am so sorry to hear you are in a slump :(

The good news is: YOU'RE NOT ALONE!!!

I think this is something all of us writers experience a lot. I totally understand the desire to hurry and get the chapter finished, but it sounds like you might need to take a step back and look at it with the freshest of eyes!

I feel a little silly giving advice, as I certainly don't have all the answers in the world, but I've certainly been in this position before and can share some of what I do to try and get past it:

To begin, are you suuuuuure you need to finish the chapter to move on to other ones? Sometimes, jumping around chapters and plot events can help you to come up with more interesting resolutions/situations! Don't go into writing the chapters with the set intention of having them be THE final draft. Moving on from the place your stuck on is most important! So, I say try starting a later chapter anyway! See what you can do. Sometimes it helps you fill in the gaps of where you might be stuck :]

Second, I recommend doing some light reading of books/articles/blogs about writing! Search the web for writing exercises or read about how other authors follow through with the writing process (like now! See? You're already on the right track, anon!). There's plenty of material out there to get you writing, either for the chapter you're stuck on or for something else entirely!

Which brings me to my final suggestion: Move on to something else for a little while! Sometimes you have to set your work in progress aside and do something else that's got you motivated. I know you want to finish your current project (believe me, I toooootally understand), but your brain can only think about one thing for so long! You gotta exercise the creativity in other projects to oil up those brain gears! Then, after you've taken a break, try going back and reading through the chapter again and see what happens.

For me, taking a break and moving on to something else works the best. Honestly, and you're gonna hate me for this, I would probably not look at the chapter for at least a week..... You really need to reset your brain in order to make appropriate edits! Like, for real, sometimes I get so frustrated and I won't look at a wip for like. a month (mainly because work and class get in the way anyways lmao) but then when I FINALLY am like ok. I'm just gonna remind myself what I have (because you will FORGET hopefully) and then boom. You'll have fresh eyes, fresh thoughts, and will be more likely to be able to fix what you don't think is working :]

ah...... not sure if this was the advice you were searching for.... but truly the most important thing for creativity is to both exercise it and give it breaks! I know... confusing... but its true I swear you just gotta get reach creative homeostasis....

I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[alovesongshewrote]

If you’re taking requests, maybe something about Doux finding the reader absolutely delirious from lack of sleep? I may or may not have gotten literally any sleep last night and although I managed to get through my morning routine pretty efficiently I FEEL my body just wiping out. I will be comatose within the hour.

Sleep, Darling | Hisirdoux Casperan x Reader

Plot:  you’ve been awake for too long and it is not doing you any favours.  Thank god for punk wizards who care about your wellbeing, amirite lads?  (Also, the pure Irony that this is getting posted at like, 2:40 am where i am, rip me i guess)

Word Count: 2,292

Warnings:  A bit of blood is mentioned in passing, the reader isn’t human and probably has adhd or smthn.  Also, Friends is mentioned, like, the tv show, so that’s a thing!

A/N:   if you look closely, you can actually see me projecting onto this one.  I hope you got some sleep anon.

Tags:   @furblrwurblr @einahpetsyarcip @sorrels-scribbling @anxious-stitcher @alive-and-afraid @animedweeb333 @douxiesdamsel @saroski05

Time isn’t real.  It’s a social construct made to bring order to the general chaos that is human existence.  That was why you were up at 5 a.m for the second, maybe third, night in a row.  Was it healthy?  Probably not, but you didn’t need sleep, you needed answers.  Answers to what?  Who knows at this point, honestly.

You couldn’t say you were surprised when you finally noticed the late, or early hour.  You just shrugged it off and went “fuck it, all-nighter,” which was fine for the moment.  But time’s a bitch, and that moment was over pretty fast.  By noon, you were ready to collapse.  The three cups of coffee did not help.  Instead, they made you vibrate at a frequency that could quite possibly break glass.  As much as this sucked for you, it was worse for your lovely friend and co-worker, Hisirdoux Casperan.

Now, our boi Douxie was and is madly in love with you, but shhh, it’s a secret.  You also love him, and that’s a secret too.  Neither of these secrets are well kept, and the only reason you aren’t together is general stupidity.  Literally, anyone else who watches the two of you interacting can tell that you're in love.  Hell, half the town assumes you’re together already.  The other half keeps trying to get you together.  It is not working very well.  But that’s all a digression.  What you really need to know is that Douxie loves you and watching you suffer from a lack of sleep was Not A Pleasant Experience.  You were delirious, shaky, and constantly off-balance.  You could work well enough, but it was clear that your health was not in the same zone.

The final straw came when you cut your hand on broken glass.  You’d dropped a cup, and instead of using magic, you’d tried to fix the mess by hand.  That plan did not work, and you received a bloody slash across your palm for your troubles.

“Ah.  Fuck,” you said, thinking you were whispering but instead speaking at a normal volume.

“What’s wrong, love?”

“‘S nothing, I’ve got it,” you did not got it, especially not in this state, and Douxie had the good sense to figure that out.  The blood was a pretty good hint though.

“Oh, fuzzbuckets.”

“I told you, I’m toooootally fine, there is nothing to worry about.”

“Here, (Y/N), let me help you-”

“No, no, this is, this is-” it was then that your sleep-deprived brain decided to cut off your train of thought and replace it with another, more chaotic train.  You stopped talking and just stared at Douxie for a solid minute.  Or at least it felt like a solid minute.  Time isn’t real, remember that.

“(Y-Y/N)?  You alright there, darling?”

“You’re really cute, did you know that?  Like… really cute.  Steve was right, you could be a model.”

“I-”

“Also, just gonna put it out there, I freakin’ love it when you call me darling.  Like, I know you call most people darling, but it makes me feel special.  Don’t ask why, it just does.”

Douxie wasn’t planning on asking why.  He wasn’t really planning on anything.  Your sleep-deprived half-confession had turned him from a capable individual into a blushing mess in less than a second.  You always had that effect on him, but it looked like your exhausted state was giving you a bit of an edge.

“Oh, sorry, I made it weird.  Anyway, do you think if I brewed my next coffee with Monster instead of water it would wake me up?   Because I’m still tired, and it isn’t fun.”

“I- you- I’m-”

“I think I might try it, honestly.”

“Ok, how about you don’t do that,”  Archie said, swooping in, literally and figuratively, to save the day, “Douxie, can you please get (Y/N)’s hand patched up?  It looks quite painful and they’re dripping blood onto the carpet.”

You were, in fact, dripping blood onto the carpet.  That wasn’t good, “Oh, that’s- I’m sorry.”

“Don’t fret, just go do something about that hand,” with that, Archie smacked Douxie upside the head in an attempt to snap him out of his flustered state.  It was super effective!

“Ahh, yeah.   C’mon, (Y/N), let’s,,, go,,, fix,,, that.”

“Ok,”  you stood, too tired to protest, and followed Douxie into the back of the bookstore, which was literally just his apartment.  

It was a nice place.  Very cozy, very him.  It made you want to curl up and take a nap, but to be fair, literally everything made you want to curl up and take a nap at the moment.  Regardless, his home made you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside and you never wanted to leave it.  Maybe it was the interior decorating, but you knew it was because your favourite person lived there.  What you didn’t know, or didn’t realize, was that you’d just spoken your entire thought process out loud and Douxie heard every word of it.  Once again, the boy was a blushing mess.  If you were awake enough to process things, you would have found it cute.  Or you’d be dead from embarrassment, that one is a bit of a toss-up.

Fighting through his flustered state, Douxie pulled you into the bathroom and collected a first aid kit from under the counter.  While he focused on getting things done, you curled into a ball in his bathtub.  For some reason, your exhausted brain decided that sitting on the edge of the bathtub simply did not Vibe™ but sitting inside the tub was better than nothing, and so you just,,, curled up there.  Douxie was only a little surprised to see you there.

“(Y/N)?”

“D’you remember that time on Friends when Winona Ryder played a closeted lesbian?  That was a fuckin’ trip, man.”

“(Y/N), darling-”

“That whole episode is just- it’s just strange.”

“(Y/N)-”

“Hehe, Stranger Things.”

“(Y/N), love, I need to see your hand.”

“Oh, fuck, yeah, I forgot.  Here,” you sat up, extending your hand out to the wizard.  He took it, sitting on the edge of the bathtub which was fine for him to do, I guess.  Not you though, you were stuck in bathtub jail for sleep deprivation crimes.

You squinted up at his face as he tended to the nasty scratch you’d given yourself.  You didn’t have the capacity to focus on what he was doing, so instead you focused on him.  He was pretty, as you’d said before, but that was always true.  At that exact moment, his brows were furrowed in concentration, his eyes concerned and his jaw set.  His hands were steadier than yours could ever hope to be, especially since you hadn’t been sleeping.  Overall, he looked kind of mad, so you sunk down into your bath-prison, silent and waiting for him to finish so you could get back to work.

Douxie was not mad at you.  He was upset that you hadn’t been sleeping, but he wasn’t mad.  He was just worried for your health.  Your wizard did not appreciate seeing you shaking and sleep-deprived.  He didn’t appreciate it when your current state led you to injure yourself, either.

He wrapped up your hand and gave it a small pat, “Done.  Now, come on, you’re taking a nap.”

His voice surprised you.  It was gentle, calm, not at all angry like you’d suspected.  You found yourself so lost in it that you didn’t realize what he’d said until he said your name, trying to snap you out of whatever haze you were in.

“Oh, wait, what?  No, shit, I have to get back to work-”

“No, you need sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak, I need to go-” you stood and almost fell over.  You probably would have broken something if Douxie didn’t catch you.  You hadn’t exactly expected to end up in his arms today, and despite the heat rising in your face and neck, you were not complaining.

“(Y/N)-”

“I’m sorry, Douxie, I-”

“You need to sleep.  Please, (Y/N), don’t make me use a spell on you.”

You froze for a second before a smirk crept onto your face, “You wouldn’t.”

“I-”

“You wouldn’t use a spell on meeeeee-” the smirk grew into a full smile as you let yourself go limp, forcing him to move his hands to support you better and pull you closer to him.  Was that your plan?  Maybe.  Was it part of a second, bigger plan?  Also yes.

“You wanna bet?”

“Sure.”

“I-” and then he went silent.  There was a moment of tension where you just stared into each other’s eyes, holding your breath to see what the other person would do.  Your gaze fell to his lips as his fell to yours.  For that moment, your thoughts began to wander far out of your control.  Douxie’s mind was also running rampant but in a different direction.  You were right, he thought.  He couldn't use magic on you.  As far as he knew, you were a human.  Just a mortal being who crawled their way into his life and stayed there, improving the quality of it greatly.  If there was even the slightest chance that a spell may have negative side effects, which most sleep spells did, he wouldn’t dare risk it, especially not on you.  He sighed, tightening his grip on your waist, “You’re right.”

“What?”  Oop, plan going sideways, PLAN GOING SIDEWAYS!

“I’m- not going to use magic on you,” he helped you to stand, and moved to take a step back before you grabbed his hoodie and pulled him back to you, ignoring the sharp sting in your hand.

“Ok, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on there wizard boy-” you took a moment to pull yourself out of the bathtub entirely, “You can’t give up that easily.”

“Wha-”

“Come onnnnnn, make it fun, make it exciting.  Put a spell on me or whatever, just-” you went quiet for a second, but for once you weren’t distracted.  Just quiet.  You had to face facts.  Your plan had failed, and now you had nothing but the truth.

“(Y/N)?”

“Just make my brain stop.  For just two seconds.”

“What?”

“Please.  I’m running on a motor and I can’t stop myself.  I haven’t slept and I have no choice in the matter.”

“(Y/N)-”

“Look, just, take away my free-will if you have to.  Knock me out, magic or otherwise, I just want five seconds where I’m not on hyperdrive,” you were standing on your own now, though Douxie’s arms were still wrapped around you and you hadn’t let go of his hoodie, “Please.”

The bathroom was silent for a minute.  It took that long for Douxie to process what you’d just said.  You feared, for that moment, that you’d said too much.  You hadn't.  Not to him, anyway.

“Come on.”

“What?”

“Come on,” he said, picking you up, effortlessly sweeping you off your feet.

“Wait, what!?” your voice was slightly more frantic, surprise lacing through your words.

“There’s more than one way to get a person to sleep.”

“Oh-?”

He didn’t respond to your question, instead, he carried you out the door and into what you could only assume was his room.  You had no choice but to wrap your arms around his neck and cling to him for dear life until he set you down on the bed.

“Stay here, okay?  I’m going to make you some tea-”

“Wait!” you stopped him, grabbing his wrist as he turned to leave, “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry, my darling,” he sat in front of you on the bed, “You just need to get some sleep, okay?”

“But what about-”

“I’ll cover your shift, you don’t need to worry.”

“I-”

“Just rest, for now, love.  Please.”

“Ok,” your words were a whisper, something that Douxie could only just hear.  The next thing though, he didn’t have to strain to hear at all, “Yeah.  I meant what I said earlier, by the way.  You’re so pretty, it isn’t fair.”

He laughed at this, at you, finally seeing some humour in your shenanigans.  He relaxed now knowing that you may actually get some much-needed rest.  He stood, kissing your forehead and tracing the side of your face with a hand, rough from guitar strings and 900 years of sweeping.

“Worry not, love, you’re pretty too.”

“Hey, wait-”

“Don’t ‘hey, wait,’ me.  You are.  Now lie down, I’ll be back in a second.”

A smile crept onto your face as you followed orders.  Your emo wizard man thought you were pretty.  And he cared enough about you to let you sleep during work hours, in his home, no less.  You let yourself relax into the bed, grinning once again.  It smelled like him, like thyme and peppermint, lemongrass and sleep.  It was nice, comforting.  You could only vaguely think of Douxie as your brain finally took a fuckin breather.  It was everything you needed, honestly.

By the time Douxie came back, you were long gone, lost to your dreams and finally asleep.  He sighed a smile that matched yours on his face.  He placed the cup of tea on the bedside table before grabbing a blanket out of his closet and draping it over you.  You looked so peaceful.  Good.  You deserved some peace every now and then.

He took the cup and left you, brushing a strand of hair out of your eyes as he did.  After making his exit, he placed the still-hot tea on the counter, disregarding it for now before returning to the bookshop.

“How are they?”  his familiar asked, tail twisting in concern.

He gave a final fond look at the door before returning to business, “They’re just resting.”  And for once, you were.

[mappinglasirena]

Bothersome Beams in Sirena’s Sickbay

You know how I’ve drawn a clean layout of the Captain’s Quarters to make it reflect the room as seen on screen by e.g. erasing the false door, adding in furniture and marks for the windows, etc? I've been doing that for a bunch of other places as well (toooootally not because I’m procrastinating the two Deep Dives I should be working on....), and a few days ago I started on sickbay. And now I'm stuck.

I've been staring at this so long my brain is turning to mush, so now you all get to suffer with me!

(Fair warning: there be loads of extremely pedantic observations ahead. I hope you like staring at deck plans :D)

This is the outline of sickbay on the deck plans from the blu-ray Set Me Up featurette:

(For orientation and because it will become important later: The front of the ship is on the right-hand side, the back is on the left.)

A quick reminder of the relevant main features: the round part of sickbay has walls that slope outward towards the top, a counter running along the wall around 2/5 of the way up, and three support beams cutting through the wall and the counter.

(Note that in reality, the beams are all straight across the top; they just appear curved here due to lense distortion.)

Looking at the concentric circles in the outline above, let’s try to figure out what’s what. Easiest: the broken grey lines, i.e. the largest two circles, surely must be where the wall meets the ceiling at its widest extension. (Here marked in blue.)

Next, when we look at the transition between the rectangular alcove at the back of the room (marked “med bay” in the plan) and the round “lab area”, we see that it’s smooth and there is no step in between.

(Again: the walls are straight, not curved, it looks that way because of lense effects.)

Given that and the thickness of the line, I think it’s safe to assume this is the outline of the wall, most likely at floor level:

These, as far as I can tell, are the windows at the front of the room, next to the door.

As you can see, they extend almost to the top of the wall and stop short of the unidentified outer circle. Looking at a screenshot...

...the windows sit right above the counter, so it makes sense that the remaining lines would be the outline of said counter (here in green):

So far so good.

Here’s the rub. I was trying to figure out what the vertical lines dividing the counter next to the support beams might be, when I noticed these four bits:

Those look like the places where the support beams cut through the counter.

That makes sense, right?

As you’ve probably noticed before, these beams run throughout the entire ship. We see them everywhere on the upper and lower deck, they are clearly the skeleton that holds Sirena together. You can tell how important they are to the structural integrity because all the deck plans have these vertical, broken grey lines to indicate where the beams are located.

Now, take another look at the markings where the beam towards the back of the room cuts through the counter (I magnified the one on the bottom left):

As you can see pretty clearly, the marking in the counter doesn’t line up with the normal position of the beams, indicated by the broken grey lines. It isn’t off by much. My rough estimate so far is that the beams are about a foot wide with seven feet between them, so this is a difference of maybe 15cm (~6″, apparently). But something is clearly strange here.

You can tell there’s something different at the back of the room, because where the beams in the middle and front are marked by long rectangles, the one in the back is only a small square. It looks almost as if there was only a single column on either side. If that was the case, it would probably mean that the beam at the back of the room was a fake, not technically connected to the beams at the rest of the ship like the middle and front ones.

But does that mean it was also moved a few centimetres further to the front? This has been driving me nuts.

There are a few possible explanations for what might be happening here.

1. I am wrong about those being the markers for where the beams cut through the counter. That is entirely possible.

2. Some changes were made to the set that aren’t yet reflected in this version of the layout. As I said elsewhere, these plans aren’t quite accurate to the final set in all details (e.g. the two steps between the mess hall and sickbay aren’t marked), so it’s possible that this is some intermediate version where the counter design varies a little from its final configuration.

3. The support beams at the back of sickbay do not line up with the beams in the rest of the ship. The production designers decided that they wanted sickbay to be the exact size we see in the plans, but for some logistical or aesthetic reason, having the beams at the back of the room in the logical position (i.e. parallel to the ones on the upper deck) didn’t work, so they moved them forward a little bit.

I cannot tell you how long I spent over the weekend trying to make heads or tails of this. 

At first I thought: Well, obviously the beams must have been moved to the front. The grey line marking where they should be goes right across the front of the rectangular bit of the room. They’d block the way if they were in the “correct” place, right?

Except I realized my spatial reasoning is woefully inadequate when trying to visualize a round room with sloped walls, so I did the only reasonable thing: I taught myself how to use SketchUp (again) to make a very, very crude 3D sketch of the relevant sections of this room.

Turns out: when you put the beam exactly where it’s supposed to go, it does actually work out okay. I know it’s a little too small here compared to what it should be...

...but that’s probably more due to my estimates for the thickness of the beams and especially the height of the room being off.

I did another version where I moved the beam forward so it sits where the counter is marked on the deck plan, and the difference is pretty negligible:

It looks a little closer to what we see on screen, but again, that’s probably more a miscalculation issue than an honest-to-god result.

As a last-ditch effort I had another look through my screenshot collection. My thinking was that if the beam was moved forward slightly from where it was “supposed” to be, that would mean we’d see more of it.

(On the left, the beam lines up with the grey lines. The area where it intersects with the counter (solid red) is smaller than in the right-hand example, where the beam was moved to align with the marking in the counter.)

Likewise, the distance the beams extend under the counter would be different, if not by much.

(The beam on the right is moved slightly towards the middle of the room. You can see that it dips lower than the beam on the left, which is in the “correct” position.)

If this was the case we should be able to see it in the screenshots, right? Except...

This is the view towards the front of the room. It’s difficult to tell with the perspective, but I don’t think there is much of a difference in how far the beam towards the front of the room (far right) and the one at the back of the room (far left) extend below the counter?

Maaayyybe there’s a difference there? But then again, if you compare how far they dip below the tops of the chests of drawers, that seems pretty similar...

And this is the point where I decided this insanity had gone on long enough and I should probably stop before my brain got entirely scrambled (since, sadly, I don’t have an EMH to unscramble it for me).

So, what’s the takeaway here?

1.: Short of somebody from the production team giving confirmation either way, we won’t know what happened here. I might have misread the set plan, the plan might have changed, or the beams might have been moved. It will have to remain a mystery until we get more shots with incontrovertible evidence, or somebody takes a measuring tape to the set and reports back ;9

2.: For the purposes of drawing a layout of sickbay, I’m going to assume the beams are in the correct position, since that makes more sense in-universe. I’ll move the counter markings accordingly. If I have to make a correction to that at some point, at least I have done the legwork and can refer back to this post instead of having to explain the whole issue again.

3.: Yes, I did just spend half the weekend obsessing over 15 centimetres, to the point where I taught myself SketchUp (again) and wrote a way too long blog post (I did warn you ;9 ), only to come to the conclusion that, as we say over here: “Nichts Genaues weiß man nicht.” - I guess we’ll never know. I have absolutely no regrets!

And finally 4.: staring at images of sickbay for hours on end really makes you appreciate just how beautiful that space is. Scroll up again and have a look at the screenshots. The way the circle repeats in the lights and the table and the concentric markings on the floor. The intricate holograms projected by the ceiling lights. The plants and tools all along the counters that give the room so much texture and make it seem like a real, lived-in place. The way the crisp black and white paint on the beams and the gleaming floor contrast with the cared-for but scuffed up plating and worn-off red paint all over the rest of Sirena... I just really love this ship, okay?

Anyway. If you have any thoughts on this, or you’ve noticed something I missed, I’d love to hear about it!

I was about to say “I promise the next post will be shorter”, but who are we kidding? My brain doesn’t do brief. And what is this blog for if not extremely rambly analyses that give us all an excuse to ogle screenshots of La Sirena for a few minutes?

[stevesnailbat]

hi!! if you’re not too busy could you maybe write something with steve and the reader where they’ve recently started dating and he wants to, y’know, take things further. but she’s really insecure about her body and doesn’t want him to see and she tells him and he just reassures her that he thinks she’s beautiful and?? i’m toooootally not projecting here...

warnings: insecurities, smut, but it’s sweet and fluffy smut

word count: 1.6K

Steve Harrington was anything and everything that a girl could want in a boyfriend and more. He’s caring, romantic, funny, everything that Y/N wanted. Honestly, she never really understood what someone like him saw in her, because she thought he was way out of her league. Of course, he seemed to adore her constantly, but she could never see what he saw. She couldn’t accept when he’d shower her with compliments and love, simply because she didn’t believe it. There was a wall between her and his love, and it showed.

It was obvious to anyone who knew the couple that he was madly in love with her, but was too afraid to admit it yet. He had tunnel vision around her, like she was the only person in the room at all times. It seemed so obvious to everyone except the one person who mattered, Y/N.

When Steve asked her to stay the night for the first time, she was downright terrified. She wasn’t afraid of what her parents would say or do, she was eighteen for god’s sake. It was mainly a fear of what he’d think of her, the real her. Sure, they’d been dating for a few months at this point, but she knew that he had never seen her like that. She had never let him see her without being well put together and proper, she thought that was the reason he had fallen for her. She was fully convinced that he’d be turned off as soon as he saw who she really was, not what she’d shown him all this time.

Nonetheless, there she was, sitting on the edge of Steve’s bed, chewing on her lip nervously as she waited for him to come out of the bathroom. When he came back into the room, she put a fake smile on her face to mask the fear boiling in her gut. The smile on his face was genuine and welcoming as he approached her, reaching down to cup her cheek when he stood in front of her.

Butterflies replaced the fear in her gut as he leaned over to kiss her and for a fleeting moment, she felt alright. His tongue danced across her bottom lip gently, waiting for her permission to deepen the kiss. She hesitantly did so, intertwining her fingers with his hair as he slung his arm around her waist to pull her to the top of the bed. They continued to let their tongues do the work for a while, no words spoken as the room grew hotter.

She could feel a heat rising within her as Steve started to explore her body with his hands, fear mixed with doubt. There wasn’t anything that she knew to say in the moment, but she knew that she didn’t want him to see her body. She wasn’t for sure about his intentions, but she didn’t want to risk losing him over what was beneath her clothes. Everything about the moment was alright until she felt his fingers graze the bare skin of her stomach. A gasp escaped her lips as she pulled away from the kiss, shying away from his touch. Steve still hovered above her with a furrowed brow, removing his hand from where it laid.

“You alright?” he asked, concern lacing his question.

“Yeah, yeah! I’m fine, your hand is just cold. I wasn’t expecting it.” she lied, smiling up at him momentarily before looking away again.

“Are you sure?” he implored, getting a shy nod in return as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I think you’re just saying that to make me stop asking questions.”

“I’m just tired, that’s all.” she said with a casual shrug, lying once again.

“I don’t believe that for a second.” he stated, sitting up with a seriously concerned look on his face.

“I hate how well you know me.” she huffed, propping herself up on her elbows as a blush spread across her cheeks.

“You love me.” he teased, brushing some of her hair behind her ear. “Now, what’s wrong?”

“I just—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I’m stupid.” she sighed while chewing on her lip, becoming very aware of his hand running along her arm.

“No, don’t say that, Y/N. You’re not stupid and whatever you’re feeling isn’t stupid.” Steve coaxed, smiling down at her reassuringly.

“It’s just that I’m not—not like other girls you’ve been with. I’m not like Nancy or any of those pretty, popular girls.” she started, sinking into herself as she curled her legs against her chest. “I don’t think you’ll like what you see.”

“Y’know, you’re right about one thing. You aren’t like Nancy or any of those stupid, popular girls.” he said, his gaze filled with all the love in the world as he stared at her. “You’re better than all of them combined. You’re beautiful, Y/N. And I don’t want to hear you say any different from now on, okay?”

“O—Okay.” she said, giving him a meek smile as she pulled him into a kiss.

“If you’ll let me, I want to make you understand how beautiful you are.” he said, cupping her cheek gently.

She nodded shyly, feeling a heat creep up on her cheeks at the thought of what they were about to do. He stared down at her for another moment without moving, making her furrow her brow in confusion.

“What?” she implored, cupping his cheek like he had done just a moment ago.

“I need to hear you say that you’re okay with this, baby.” he whispered, kissing her cheek and along her neck. “Need to hear you tell me what you want me to do.”

“I—Okay.” she sighed out nervously, almost unable to form a full sentence in the heat of the moment. “I want you to take me, Steve. F—Fuck me, please.”

“As you wish, baby.” he chuckled, his hand kneading her breast through her shirt.

He smashed his lips against hers in a passionate kiss after he spoke, getting to work on tugging their clothes off. She did the same, successfully tugging Steve’s shirt off in one fell swoop. It wasn’t long before their clothes were all hastily thrown into a pile on the floor, their kisses never breaking on the way.

“Fuck—Y/N. I love you.” Steve breathed out while pulling her bra off her shoulders, taking her all in. “So beautiful, baby.”

“I love you, Steve.” she said, tugging him in by the neck for another desperate kiss.

Steve’s hand roamed towards the lace of her underwear, making her breath hitch in her throat when his fingers trailed towards her heat. The moan that followed stopped Steve’s hesitancy, urging him to continue his actions. She hooked her thumbs under the waistband of his boxers, struggling to pull them down in their current position. He chuckled into the kiss and pulled them down himself, while continuing to rub he core, but from underneath her underwear now.

Another moan escaped her lips as his thumb met her clit, unable to deal with the tension anymore. She tugged her own underwear down, sparing no time in pulling him back in for another kiss. A surprised groan came from Steve’s throat as he felt her hand stroke his cock gently. She couldn’t take it anymore, the desire that had built up inside of her was too much.

“Steve, baby.” she panted, tugging at his hair to get his attention. “Just—Just, please. I don’t care about foreplay right now.”

“Alright baby, I’ll stop teasing you.” he chuckled, kissing her quickly before leaning over to his bedside table for a condom.

He ripped the wrapper open hastily and rolled the condom up his length, eyes on her the whole time. She smiled up at him once she noticed the longing look on his face. Steve’s gaze raked her whole body, making her blush deeply. He lowered himself to her, lining up with her entrance before stopping himself.

“You are so beautiful, Y/N. And I love you so much.” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers.

“I love you, Steve.” she said softly before a gasp escaped her lips, feeling him slowly slide into her.

Steve watched her closely as pleasure courses through her, feeling the same as he bottomed out inside of her. He cursed under his breath as he did, giving them both a second to adjust. After a moment, he picked his pace up and began to plant kisses along her neck and collarbone. She was a whimpering mess beneath him, trying to move her hips in rhythm with his.

Her fingers raked along his back and sent shivers down his spine, urging him to continue what he was doing. He whispered into her ear as his thrusts sped up, reminding her how amazing she was with every step of the way.

It had been a while since either of them had done anything, so the coil tightening in their stomachs came quicker than expected. Steve’s fingers snaked between them once he neared his own orgasm, trying to bring her to the edge as well while working his fingers on her clit.

“C’mon, baby. I want you to cum with me.” he coaxed, leaning down to kiss her sweetly as she whined softly.

She pulled his lip between her teeth to hold back a moan, feeling herself nearing the orgasm she’d been chasing. Her hips ground against his for a moment, sending him into a spiral of pleasure as they came. Steve’s thrusts slowed as he pulled away from the kiss, the always loving look still present in his eyes as he stared down at her.

“Shit, Steve.” she remarked, giggling as he rolled off of her. “That was—“

“Amazing?” he interjected and she nodded with a smile. “Well, I’d like to say that I did a great job at showing you what you’re worth then, right?”

“Of course you did, Steve.” she said, pulling him for one last lazy yet loving kiss.

tags: @sourapplebaby @harringtown @queenofthehairharrington @heart-eye-harrington @lemonypink @a-magey @daddystevee @charmed-asylum

[pilferingapples]

Tell me more about Marius and Montparnasse being mirror images of each other :3c

Since you ask, Nonny! But this will be a Long Post:

they really do get the same physical description: 

Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, well-opened and passionate nostrils...As his mouth was charming, his lips the reddest, and his teeth the whitest in the world, his smile corrected the severity of his face, as a whole. At certain moments, that pure brow and that voluptuous smile presented a singular contrast. ( 3.6.1, Hapgood translation)

A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child; less than twenty years of age, with a handsome face, lips like cherries, charming black hair, the brilliant light of springtime in his eyes; he had all vices and aspired to all crimes. 3.7.3

--both got that Snow White thing going on:P   Hugo doesn’t bring in physical descriptions a lot in Les Mis; when he does, it’s for reasons beyond just painting a visual--generally to evoke a Type and/or some hefty Symbolism (always Some Symbolism, tbh, it’s Hugo).

More importantly, though, Hugo sets up Marius and Montparnasse as being different sides of the same virtue/vice.  Marius gets chapters talking about Heroic he is and how his poverty actually improves his nature because Marius overcomes it by working . Montparnasse, by contrast, is led into a life of violent crime because he wants to be idle.

There is like... a World of Concepts to delve into there, but in contrast with Montparnasse , it’s clear what specific fate Marius is being saved from by his time of poverty. He is, by choosing to refuse either debt or the safety of his family wealth, essentially refusing to become the kind of wealthy asshole that Bamatabois and Tholomyes are. It’s a life that would be very easy for Marius to have-- a life that Gillenormand is even sort of pushing him towards, though Gillenormand would doubtless find Tholomyes sorts to be impossibly dull and classless. It’s a life Montparnasse is willing to kill for , literally. And it’s a nice damn life! --If you don’t mind being the absolute worst sort of person, a person who cares for nothing but image, and who lives at a self-imposed distance from everyone else; someone who helps no one and wouldn’t know where to start if they wanted to, but hurts a lot of people and never cares, because caring is ever so uncouth.

Hugo really does see idleness as massively dangerous, at best--a soul-destroying thing. It’s portrayed as an injustice that Valjean can’t get work , not just that he just can’t have food because Humans Need Food. Part of the wrong Tholomyes commits against Fantine is taking her away from the habit of work ; it’s an important part of her Hope Spot in M-sur-M that she gets to enjoy Honest Work again, and earning her living by labor. To force Idleness on to another, or lead them into a Lack Of Work, is treated in  Les Mis as a moral wrong. For working people to not have work available is a condemnation of the system!  Again, it’s not about money (though Hugo definitely thinks work should pay enough to live on), the work itself is treated as something essential. For someone to choose idleness for themselves by that logic is...what, practically moral self-harming?,and a kind of deep depravity.

(Hugo does not like this ideal of the dandy. He does like flâneurs, though! That’s definitely something I want to get into more later, given how often the two are conflated....)

Anyway, Montparnasse is damned by the exact vice that Marius saves himself by avoiding--a vice that is, in Hugo’s moral universe, a very  big deal (as I try and fail to reckon with here).  This makes Montparnasse the crucial Example A for Hugo’s insistence on the valorization of Marius’  decision to work through his poverty! Work redeems Marius from the dangers of Idleness--and for Hugo, those are real and desperate dangers, that really do lead to crime.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Even before the Gorbeau raid, Marius is always vulnerable to the damnation of Idleness. He’s prone to slip from thinking into daydreaming; he veers away from work when he thinks it might cut into his independence and Reverie Time. The narrative is not entirely negative about this with Marius, but it is  treated as a potential weakness-- something fine while, and only while, it’s kept in check by his habits of work and thought.

Because, post-Gorbeau mansion, Marius  really does  start to fall to the Demon of Idleness!  He stops working altogether; he goes into debt,  Gasp!; he loses the habit of work , he loses focus, he spirals into depressions and goes into pointless, directionless obsession with Cosette and starts spending all his time in The Field of The Lark, a field famous, though Marius doesn’t know it, for being the site of a murder .  Murder most Romantic, yet, committed over a passion. Marius is, at this point, symbolically mixing the role of lover and killer; as Montparnasse also does, rather less symbolically. 

And hey, why is Marius spiraling into The Hell of Idleness? 

Because of A Girl. Or rather, because of the Ideal Future he’s projecting off his interactions with that girl.  What was the Start of Darkness for Montparnasse, again? 

The first grisette who had said to him: “You are handsome!” had cast the stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. (3.7.3, Hapgood)

Now obviously the grisette who complimented Montparnasse isn’t responsible for his murders, any more than Cosette is responsible for Marius pining his life away in The Field of Dramatic Murder Symbolism. I don’t think Hugo means to genuinely blame the women for the men’s behavior at all-- but both Marius and Montparnasse do  start their downward slide in pursuit of the elaborate head-canons about their own futures that a woman’s attention inadvertently sparked.

BUT WAIT !! THERE’S MORE! 

Marius and Montparnasse are both romantic interests for Eponine (and both are dead ends, with Marius representing a healthy future that she can’t have and Montparnasse representing the doomed future she doesn’t want). Both of them try (ineffectually) to act as guides and friends to Gavroche. Both of them do feel a certain duty to Thenardier, not so much for his own sake--neither of them owe him squat-- as because of an existing sense of duty to others. Both of them do  have a sense of loyalty to their friends, -- just as they share a potentially damning vice in Idleness, they both share a real virtue in their sense of loyalty and duty to comrades.  Note that this is a real  sense of duty and loyalty for Montparnasse as well as for Marius--he really does take a risk to free the rest of the Patron Minette!  But Montparnasse has given that loyalty to horrible people for a horrible cause. 

Also-- while they do  both have a  real sense of loyalty to their groups (groups where they are the junior members), they are also both prone to getting distracted from those friends and their goals by romantic interests-- Marius may be far more serious in his love for Cosette than Montparnasse in his flirting with Eponine, but they do both have this tendency to romantic distraction! That Marius, at the barricade, overcomes his to take his post again , while Montparnasse toooootally flubs his role in P-M’s Gorbeau scheme because it’s Flirting Time, is another manifestation of the Curse of Idleness, really. 

So yeah: Two dark-haired fresh-faced young Romantic beauty types, sharing in common a (potentially) Fatal Flaw and a (potentially) saving Core Virtue, sharing similar relationships to their relative social groups and  to specific characters. Both Very Good At Violence; both set into a new course of life by the sudden awareness of their potential future, prompted by a woman’s attention. --And I didn’t even get into the importance they both put on presentation (though in very different ways, again reflecting their crucial divergence)!   

Montparnasse is who Marius might easily have become if he’d been willing to Coast on his money and status-- oh, Marius would have been a murderer in the way Tholomyes and Bamatabois are murderers, then, not likely the hands-on style Montparnasse has (though then again, Marius is  prone to passionate overreaction...) .  But, as the narrative links between Montparnasse and those two emphasize, it’s really not such a great difference.  Montparnasse is the shadow haunting Marius, a reminder of why his dedication to work and independence is so crucial. And the ways Montparnasse and Marius diverge from each other are a constant, complicated combo of choices and circumstances changing very similar people into two utterly different lives. 

[kokichi-and-co-imagine-blog]

!!!!!! V3 LIS AU !!!!! KAEDE AS PROTAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Now you’re speaking my language! 

Granted, I haven’t gotten to play any of the most recent game because my computer is kinda crappy, but I can definitely do some sweet original LIS content for you! If you haven’t played LiS for some reason yet and you want to get into it,

I highly recommend waiting on reading this. (If you want me to do other parts and other episodes, let me know. I probably won’t write for this again unless people really REALLY like this.)

I’m also going to make it a talent swap just for Kaede- instead of being the ultimate pianist, she’s going to be the ultimate photographer.

Day 7: Kaede’s Life is Hella Strange: Chrysalis

Kaede was trying to listen to her lecture, but just couldn’t bring herself to do so. After such a weird vision that felt so real, she couldn’t just ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure if she had just dreamed that up, or if she was getting some serious premonitions, but it wasn’t sitting with her well.

Koizumi was a great teacher. Probably the crowning jewel of Kibougamine Academy, and she was excited to have such a skilled photographer teaching her class. You wouldn’t expect it from the students sitting in her class though- some were hassling poor Shuichi, the most timid person in the room for something that had happened to him over the weekend, while Kokichi played on a little device, yet somehow paid attention to every word out of Koizumi’s mouth.

“…Shh, keep that to yourself. Seriously though, I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation. And any one of you could do that to me. Isn’t that too…” Koizumi continued on, leaning on a table and playing with her tie. 

Kaede glanced over at her camera, picking it up gingerly. The weight in her hands had become comforting to her, and she couldn’t help but sigh happily. She loved her polaroid camera, finding it silly how she could love such an old camera despite there being so many new models out there, but she couldn’t help it. She got it right before she had moved away from Arcadia Bay, and she wondered if that camera was what brought her back. Feeling a great urge to use it, she took a selfie that she hoped would be underneath everyone’s radar.

It most certainly wasn’t.

“Shh, I believe Kaede has taken what you kids call a ‘selfie’…” Koizumi said, shifting her weight as she stood up. it wasn’t every day that Miss Koizumi would get such a stern look on her face, and Kaede couldn’t help but gulp at the consequences. “A dumb word for a wonderful photographic tradition. And Kaede… has a gift.”

She knew where this was going. She knew that Miss Koizumi was just moments a way from asking some question that was bound to be in the reading. Probably something having to do with her selfie? The process? She knew what it was called, but she wasn’t ready to be put on the spot for her actions.

“…  and clearly want to join the conversation, can you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits?” Koizumi asked, calmly waiting for an answer to stumble out of Kaede’s mouth.

“I… I…” She started. The Daguerreian Process. just say it, she thought.

“You either know this, or not, Kaede!” Koizumi slammed her hand on the desk, a sigh following the action. “Is there anyone in here who actually knows this stuff?”

“Louis Daguerre was a French painter who created “daguerreotypes”, a process that gave portraits a sharp reflective style, like a mirror,” Kokichi piped up, turning to Kaede’s table she was sitting alone at. “Now you’re toooootally stuck in the retro zone! Sad face.” He leaned back contentedly when he heard a few people laugh at his comment.

“Jeez, was it that hard to read the book for the information? The Daguerreian Process brought lots of detail to people’s faces. You guys would know if you had actually read about it or looked it up online, but we can thank Robert Cornelius for the first American self-portrait.” The bell rang before she could continue her lecture, and people started trying to file out of the room. She was calling to them about the Everyday Heroes contest, which was a big deal for them- the winner got to fly out to San Francisco with Miss Koizumi, and be featured in an art gallery of other winners across the country.

Kaede got up slowly, stretching a bit as she did. She would’ve normally just immediately left the room so she could have a bit of alone time, but her eyes landed on Shuichi, who was still sitting alone at his desk, scribbling something illegible onto the paper. With a tap on his shoulder, he jumped a bit only to let himself calm down when he saw Kaede’s patient face smiling at him.

“Oh, hey Kaede. Did you need something from me?” He asked, turning his body to face her. She stopped, and looked over at the concerning doodles that were surrounding his notes. She made a mental note to keep an eye on him.

“I was just thinking that maybe we should grab tea or something? You can tell me all about the dazzling life of Shuichi Saihara, and we can maybe play games or something!”

“Oh, uh,” He started, taking his hat in his hands, “I’m gonna be a bit busy for the next couple of days, so I don’t believe that I could find the time. Maybe on Friday, though?” He bit his lip, eyes falling to the floor as he waited for a response. Kaede gave him a small nod and patted his shoulder gently.

“Yeah. that would be fun.”

With that, Shuichi went back to writing whatever he was before, and she was a step away from the door when Koizumi called her over to the desk where Kokichi was leaning over, giving his usual smile.

“Ohhhh, she totally called you out! I wonder what you did!” He nudged Kaede playfully, waiting for her to shrug off the contact. She didn’t seem to pay much mind about what he was doing, so he simply crossed his arms and waited for her conversation with Miss Koizumi to be done.

“I hate to pull a future star photography’s attention away from whatever she was off to do, but we need to talk about the contest. You haven’t submitted a photo yet,” she explained, motioning to a pile of pictures that the students who’ve already turned in sat upon. Kaede gave a nervous smile, shrugging a little bit.

“i just want to make sure I have the right shot for it. I can’t send in a piece I’m not proud of, right?”

“While that’s true, time is ticking, Kaede. You have a fever to take pictures, but the world won’t stop for that perfect shot, okay? Keep that in mind. I’ll see you in class tomorrow, hopefully with a picture.” With that, she turned back to Kokichi, talking about some big project he was working on. Kaede left the class, looking at all her classmates going about their daily lives. With some classical music to accompany her on the way to the bathroom, she walked through the hallway.

The bathroom was empty when she went in, and it was almost eerie how quiet it was. Sure, she was just trying to go to the bathroom to splash her face with water, but life wasn’t going to let things go by that easy for her.

Looking at her original photo she took for the contest, she tore it in half, letting it lay on the ground pitifully. She was about to walk out of the bathroom and call it at that, but a blue butterfly flew in, landing gracefully on the edge of a bucket behind the stall doors. She walked over to it, getting as close as she thought would be ok for the butterfly before snapping a picture. She took the picture as it came out of her polaroid, letting it dry for a moment before storing it safely. 

The door suddenly opened, and angry footsteps echoed in the room. Peeking from behind the stalls, Kaede recognized it as Miu.

“Chill out, Miu, you’ve got this. Just- fuckin’- count to three or whatever– don’t be such a pussy, you could have all the pigs in the school grovel at your feet, you’re the boss,” She babbled mercilessly as she gripped the sink she stood at tightly, her feet wide apart as she leaned forward. It wasn’t long before Kaede heard the door to the bathroom open up once again, calm footsteps following.

“Wow, didn’t know that the globetrotter would actually show up. What a surprise!” Miu challenged, moving towards who it was. Soft green hair was prevalent in the mirror, along with a blue striped shirt that went to about the elbows. The creaking of the bathroom doors had Kaede gulp as quietly as she could muster.

“I don’t suppose you checked the perimeter, as my father would say.” The voice was slightly gruff and low, surprising Kaede. In the girls’ bathroom? Really? “Time to talk about the problem between us, yeah?” The male turned away at the last stall. He moved up to where Miu was still gripping the sink like a lifeline and leaned over, peering at her coldly.

“Get fucked, I got nothing for you, you damn jiggalo!”

“Really? I could’ve sworn that you had money for me.” the voice pried a bit more, the guy leaning closer.

“I-I don’t have shit like that, you’re thinking of my family, dumbass!”

“Aw, is the poor little rich kid going to cry? I know quite well how you work, selling the shady crap you do to the vortex club. I wonder what it’d be like if I went to your oh-so respectable family and told them about how their prized daughter was-”

“Leave them out of this, dick!” Miu spat.

“Oh, that hurt, huh? Then imagine when I tell your prized Vortex Club that you were in here whining and throwing a fit like a pig in heat.” The guy seemed to have more to say, but he was cut off at the sight of a sleek revolver that Miu had pulled out of nowhere. Pushing the guy up to the wall, he seemed helpless as he looked down at her with worried green eyes. He slowly lifted his hands to show he wouldn’t harm her, only to have the gun jammed into his gut.

“You messed with the wrong gorgeous girl genius, pencil-dick!” She hissed, poison lacing her voice.

“Where did you… why did you bring a gun to school? Look, I don’t think you get it, I don’t want to ha-” The man was cut off by a hand to the throat, his breath hitching.

“Don’t ever fuck with me, jackass! I’m absolutely FUCK-ALL pissed that people think they can control me!”

“You’re gonna ge-t in more trouble f… for this than dumb drugs-” The man strained, a hand wavering away from its position to get her hand off his neck.

“No one would even MISS your punk ass, would they, Guac?”

“Put the fucking gun down, psycho!” Rantaro ripped her hand off, and was about to kick her off when she let the trigger go. A loud bang rang throughout the bathroom, and Kaede watched as his body slowly fell to the ground, the life draining from his eyes. She stepped out from behind the stalls, reaching out to him.

“NO!!” Kaede screeched, seeing Miu’s head slowly snap to her. She didn’t get a chance to before everything started reversing so quickly, and all of a sudden-

Kaede lifted her head from the desk, her eyes quickly darting around the room. She was back in Miss Koizumi’s classroom.

“… Shh, keep that to yourself. Seriously though, I could frame any one of you in a dark corner-” Kaede didn’t need to hear anymore to realize this was the same lecture from before. Looking at Shuichi who looked as though he was being hassled again she bit her lip and turned to Kokichi. He was playing with some Tamagatchi that was making an absurd amount of noise. A particular beep caught her off guard, and her camera fell to the ground, shattering. Kaede cursed to herself, but decided she should test something out.

 Wanting to see if what happened was just a dream, she looked at her right hand curiously before extending it out. Slowly, the words Miss Koizumi had said earlier reversed, and the beeps of Kokichi’s device were playing back. The camera eventually pieced back together and found its way back onto her desk. When she pulled her arm back, it was as though nothing had happened. Shuichi was being messed with once again, and Kokichi was playing with the little device. Kaede reached a shaky hand out to her camera, needing to do the final test to see if whatever she had was real.

The click of her camera and the shushing of Miss Koizumi came back, causing a chill to run down Kaede’s back. She started to panic, wondering if she could stop the poor guy from dying in the bathroom. All she had to do was answer Miss Koizumi’s question right, and wait for a few more seconds, and things would be okay. She took a deep breath, waiting for the actual question to come up.

“…  and clearly want to join the conversation, can you please tell us the name of the process that-”

“The Daguerreian Process,” Kaede said quickly, not letting the teacher finish her statement. She looked just as shocked as Kaede did at her outburst, and Kokichi snickered.

Well, um, that’s right. Good job, Kaede. The Daguerreian Process made portraiture hugely popular, mainly because it gave the subjects clear defined features. You can learn more when you actually finish reading the assigned chapters. Kaede is so far, way ahead of everybody.” Miss Koizumi looked a little relieved that someone had been paying attention to her lectures and reading along with them.

The bell rang, and Kaede quickly made sure Shuichi knew that tea was on the table before darting out of the class, ignoring Miss Koizumi’s calls. She shoved some people, apologizing as she did so. She opened up the door to the girls bathroom dramatically, remembering that Miu didn’t show up until she took the picture of that butterfly. To prep for it, Kaede quickly went over to where the fire alarm was, breaking the glass. She returned to the sink where she splashed water on her face. 

Tearing the picture she had originally took seemed to cause the butterfly fluttering in, landing on the bucket. She hesitantly walked up, snapping the picture. Just as it had happened before, Miu came in, clutching the sink. The guy came in. They bickered, and Kaede got anxious listening to it all over again. Miu unveiled the gun once again, pinning the guy to the wall while choking him.

“No one would even MISS your punk ass, would they, Guac?”

Kaede couldn’t let time happen the way it did before. With her hand that wasn’t shaking quite as much, she hit the fire alarm as hard as possible. It rang out through the building, making Miu lose her grip on the guy. Thinking quickly, he kneed her, causing her to sputter and clutch her stomach.

“Don’t you ever touch me again!” the guy barked before booking it out of the bathroom. Miu quickly looked at the ground as she was wincing, her eyes lingering on something on the tiles. Her eyes went dark as she hid the gun, scrambling to the door herself.

“Another fuckin’ shitty day,” She mumbled, closing the door behind her. Kaede was left in the bathroom, facing the crazy reality that was confronting her at that very moment. She knew she shouldn’t be staying in because that would look suspicious, but she couldn’t help it.

I just saved someone’s life.