#but it’s in my cart and I feel pretty sure about which model will suit my needs best

[smallraindrops-blog]

I Know A Place

(just for you and me)

WMFTD: Drabbles

WMFTD!Y/N X Hypnos

Warnings: Fluff, kissing, AUs out of the wazoo, no beta.

Notes: 

More vibes that wouldn’t leave me alone. Something to hold over while I work on the poly fic that is quickly growing out of my control. Pyrrhus fic should be out soonish.

Enjoy the randomness.

Part one

Model (Sapphic AU)

The first time you saw her, it was on the cover of a glossy magazine in the grocery store. 

She didn’t look like a real person. The girl was all soft, tousled curls, so white they looked like clouds and a teasing glimpse of an elegant collarbone. Her expression was thoughtful, almost pouty with those full lips.

In a moment of pure teenage fantasy, you wondered how her mouth would feel against yours. She was far too pretty for some awkward high school jock in basketball shorts who felt far too bulky and too tall in her own body. 

But you could pretend. 

With a flush clawing up your neck, you allowed yourself to look again. She was a dream girl, one that not even your imagination could have created. 

The only obvious photoshopped part was her eyes. They looked like sun warmed honey. 

Surely, no human had eyes that golden.

Under her beautiful face, the words caught your attention.

‘Hypnos, daughter of the famous model Nyx, follows her mother’s footsteps!’ 

Without a single thought to stop yourself,you grabbed the magazine and held it close to your chest like a prize. One that you didn’t want to share. 

Carefully avoiding looking anyone in the eyes, you hurried to find your dad.

Achilles was murmuring to himself as he tried to remember which low-fat girl scout cookie that Patroclus had told him to get. You placed the magazine in the cart, trying to look completely normal.

Your dad blinked at you behind his glasses and he glanced down at the cart. There was a single beat of silence then he lifted an eyebrow at you.

“There is good skincare advice in there.” You murmured, staring far too hard at the store brand cookies. Your cheeks flushed hotly as you shoved your hands into your pockets.

“Skincare, huh?” Achilles said but didn’t tell you to put the magazine back. 

..

(Years later)

As a bodyguard for the rich and stupid, you had seen plenty of shit. 

From a drugged up housewife that tried her damndest to kill off her husband’s affairs to a washed up movie star who tried to steal his dad’s private plane as he yelled about flying it into the sun, you had gotten truly skilled with keeping a cool head and putting out fires.

Zagreus - a former pop-star client and a sort of friend- had informed you of the fact that you were the world's best babysitter as you helped him clean up the puke off his Father’s prized Tesla.

This might be too much for you however.

Hypnos was almost completely bare, saved for a single red blanket pooled over her breasts and lap, her slender legs pressed together to give a false sense of modesty. She was utterly gorgeous.

It was both the worst and best thing to ever happen to you. 

“Tilt your head up, really give me that pouty look.” The photographer ordered Hypnos, who obeyed, her infamous white curls brushing against her chin.

“I wish she didn’t cut her hair into a damn bob.” Her agent bitched at you. “I told her that we were trying to get a contract for Aphrodite’s maidens and she required her models to have a specific look.”

You ignored him, eyes locked on the photographer and Hypnos.

The blunt cut of the bob suited Hypnos’ messy curls and willowy figure far as you were concerned. Aphrodite’s models all looked like clones of Aphrodite with long, flowing hair and the exact lush build and the same plastic smile, and it kinda freaked you out a little. 

The idea of the unique beauty of Hypnos getting diluted into something boring and repetitive made your stomach hurt.

Crossing your arms, you kept a careful eye toward the door. It was a well kept secret but Hypnos had a stalker. Not an uncommon occurrence with famous people but this one had managed to break into her house before you were hired on.

If Thanatos hadn’t been there to scare them off…

It had only gotten worse since then. The stalker had managed to get every place that Hypnos ever been. Her childhood home, Thanatos’ high rise loft even into Nyx’s gated mansion in the mountains. Her agent’s office, her friends’ home or place of work.

Nowhere was safe. Hypnos always had adorable, sleepy eyes but there were deep shadows in them now.

That stalker was in for a world of hurt if you ever get your hands on him.

Later, you went through the safe house, checking each room and windows. The address was unlisted, no one would find it. The cameras were connected to your phone, ready to alert you the moment something moved outside.

“You don’t have to do this every time.” Hypnos told you, bare face and wearing an old shirt that went almost to her knees. One side slipped down as she came in, revealing a bare shoulder. Her socks were a ridiculous print of dogs riding French fries. It was adorable.

You had seen her in little black dresses, formal wear that cost more that you made in a year with perfect hair and makeup but somehow like this, she was far more lovelier now than she was all dolled up. 

It was far too easy to imagine taking her to bed and lifting that too big shirt off her delicate body. 

You killed the thought like a bug and after double checking the window’s lock, you turned to face her.

Honey warm eyes met yours. 

For the longest time, you had thought her eyes were photoshopped or that she wore contact lenses. Only you have seen how the morning rays hit it, you have seen the way her eyes lit up when she gets home to her beloved dog or how they dulled when on a phone call with her mother.

Pure and golden like the sun and undeniable real. 

“Better safe than sorry, Ms. Hypnos.” You told her, keeping your tone cool.

Hypnos tucked her hair behind her ear, blinking at you slowly. There was a moment of silence and you resisted the urge to shift on your feet like a guilty child.

Then finally, she gave you a shy smile, her slim fingers resting on her collarbone and nodded toward the living room. 

“I can’t sleep. Wanna watch a movie with me?”

You should say no. You always kept a professional wall between yourself and clients. It was easy. Hypnos had been able to slip past those walls with an unnerving ease

Just say no.

“Sure.” You replied. “Popcorn?”

~

Illness (modern au)

At first, Hypnos just thought he was exhausted from running around for all the holidays and the last days of work. By the time he got home, he had collapsed into bed, asleep before he could kiss you goodnight.

The next morning, he woke up to a stuffy nose. His whole face felt like it was burning up, the back of his throat hot and itchy. He moaned quietly, closing his somehow dry eyes. Everything hurts.

“Hypnos?” You croaked. It wasn’t the usual rough voice you woke up with, it was too reedy. Hypnos tried to respond but all that came out was a nasty cough. He covered his mouth as his fit continued.

He heard you murmuring a low swear, then your hands brushed against his too sensitive skin. You helped him sit up, rubbing his back until his fit stopped.

“I think we caught something, love.” You told him, your voice fading the more you spoke.

“Yay.” Hypnos muttered bitterly, leaning against you. He was lazy, sure but he hated being sick. It wasn’t a nice restful day but a horrible one.

At some point, you had managed to get him and you up enough to take some disgusting medicine then Hypnos collapsed into the pile of blankets on the pullout sofa. 

He listened to you moving around, somehow you also had just enough energy to make warm herbal tea for both you and him

Hypno blinked awake when you joined him, accepting the tea with a muttered ‘thanks’. 

“Gonna order some groceries and more medicine.” You told him in a faded voice. Hypnos nodded, sipping on his tea. He didn’t know if Patroclus taught you but somehow you always made tea taste just perfect. 

The day passed slowly in a haze of soup, coughing, more gross medicine - for real, do none of those people  who make the medicine have any taste buns?- trashy tv shows, balled up tissues and delicious tea.

Hypnos mocked the people and everything about the shows. his voice cracked and pathetic sounding. You would chuckle along, smiling faintly. Your large hand rested on his back, rubbing in gentle, smoothing circles as he ranted.

At some point, you dozed off, snoring quietly. Hypnos reached over, and tucked the blanket up higher to your chin. He snuggled in close, his head on your shoulder and took one of your hands in his.

With a contented sigh, Hypnos closed his tired eyes. If he had to be sick, he would want it to be with you. 

~

Kidnapped (Viking AU, dark tw for slavery)

The hearth casted a warm glow in the home, chasing away the nip of the chilly air. Snow will be arriving before the next sunrise. 

The day had been long, filled with duties that must be tended to along with plans for the future sails. Typically, you would mull over everything with a pint of ale and some dried meat before going to your bed alone, lingering awake for hours sometimes.

But that had changed. Now you lay awake for an entirely new reason.

Your thrall paused over the pot, his slender fingers tightened on the wooden ladle. 

His golden eyes locked onto your form, his mouth tight with distrust. Then as if realized his disrespectful attitude, his eyes darted away as he bowed his head. 

Then he spoke. His voice was sweet as bells even if you couldn’t understand a single word of it. He hesitated then clumsily, “Welcome home, Master.”

You winced at the title. 

It wasn’t planned. You had never taken any slaves before and never wanted to. You meant to take a wife. One that wouldn’t mind a loveless and sexless marriage. 

But in some little settlement in a place of eternal summer, you found him during a night time raid. He had been alone and terrified yet you were captivated by him.

High cheekbones and a graceful build with hair so fair it looked like fresh snow. His eyes reminded you of the rare summer days, golden and filled with life. A child of winter and summer brought to form. 

Far too lovely for a mere moral. The goddess, Glorious Freyja, must have blessed him at birth.

He was so beautiful that you broke your own code. And you felt like a worthless bastard for it.

“You are improving.” You told him, each word enunciated. His brow furrowed until you offered up a slight smile. A moment later, he returned it before he returned to stirring the stew.

Your thrall had already placed most of the dinner on the table, warm bread and cheese awaited for you.  There were even colorful berries but you didn’t touch any of the food as you sat down.

He placed a full bowl in front of you but none for himself.

“Thrall.” You waited until he looked at you. Then you pointed at another bowl then at him. “You eat as well. This winter won’t be a kind one.”

He obeyed.

You didn’t want to admit it, used to being alone in your own home but there was something peaceful about sharing a meal with him. There was the great hall but often you needed time away from everyone. And their questions. 

Once dinner was finished, your thrall cleaned up between loud yawns, moving with a slow ease. You began tending to your blades with an eye toward your bow and arrows. 

You had already hunted enough but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to make sure there was more meat available. Especially for your thrall. He wasn’t built for the harsh land like you were.

You glanced at him, watching the fine line of his back. He reminded you of wildflowers, pretty but easily crushed if not picked correctly. Before you could stop yourself, you called to him.

He blinked at you, placing the lid on the stew. 

You gestured to him to come to you as you stood up. Quietly, he did. His amber eyes narrowed at you like a distrustful cat. Truely, he must belong to Glorious Freyja. 

You grabbed his chin, making him meet your stare. He swallowed but didn’t pull away. His lips were full, stained red by the berries, like he had been kissed over and over by a lover. He was temptation itself. 

Heat pooled low in your stomach, the same dark need to conquer, to claim returned like fire in your blood before battle. It was the feeling you had the night you stole him away.  

“Will you tell me your name tonight?” You asked him, low and rough. It was the same question you asked every night. “You already know mine.”

You tapped on your chest with a free hand and repeated your name. Just like you had every night before. You knew he understood from the sharp glint in his eyes.

There was a moment of silence from him then he shook his head. With a quiet huff, you pressed your thumb on his lips. 

It would be easy. By law, he belonged to you. No one would stop you, hell most of them already thought you had already used him to warm your bed. 

He was yours to use as you pleased. 

But you weren’t a complete monster. Not yet. 

You let him go. He stumbled back, as if he was surprised you did.

“Finish your duties.” You ordered, your tone harsh. You turned your back to him, dismissing him.

You listened to his footsteps as he crossed the room to return to his work. You glanced down at your hands.

There was a slight tremble in your fingers, but you tightened it into a fist. 

Not yet.

~

Spectrum (reincarnation au)

You choose the loukomades - or at least it was close enough, it was in a ball shape but heavy with honey coated layers inside. - without hesitation. The honey shone on the fried dough in the ship’s artificial sunlight. Somehow you knew Hypnos would like it.

The corgi-like alien with five eyes nodded up at you, their gloved hands wrapping up the pastries with neat and quick movements. The other one behind them worked on the coffee orders, rushing between stations with their stubby legs.

Out of everything humans had to offer, it was coffee, alcohol, grains, cane sugar along with honey and other sweeteners that blew up in popularity among the other races. It was always in high demand and good for trading. 

It was so popular that many aliens had trained for years just to make humans’ cuisine, running their own shops with unique twists on the food.

Many humans were still unused to aliens, but you had gotten used to it. They all were another creature trying to make a living. And you never minded anyone who could make a mean cup of joe.

You bent down to accept your order, dropping a heavy tip in the jar. 

Hypnos beamed at you when you joined him at the park bench. His wings fluttered, causing his curls to bounce, when he saw the food and coffee in your hands. You hated that your heart swelled just a bit at the sight. 

“Here.” You told him gruffly, sitting down next to him. Hypnos ignored your tone, digging to the pastry bag with glee.

“My favorite!” Hypnos gasped, popping a ball into his mouth with a joyful hum. His eyes closed in bliss.

You took a sip of your coffee, heavy and smooth with extra caffeine, as Hypnos devoured the sweets. And firmly ignored the soft, pleased moans as he ate. 

Then a loukoumade appeared before your eyes, caught between Hypnos’ slender fingers. He waved it at you. 

“Here, go on and have one, it is delicious. I think those guys added something else in there.” Hypnos remarked, narrowing his eyes at the innocent looking pastry. You scoffed. 

“No.”

“Yes.” 

“Hypnos, get that thing away-“ your warning was cut short as Hypnos shoved the food in your mouth. Thick, heavenly honey and warm bread exploded in your mouth but that wasn’t caught made you stilled.

Hypnos’ fingers were pressed against your lips. The touch was light, impossibly so but you swore that it carried the weight of Venus stardust. Hypnos shifted, closer to you now. 

Gorgeous sunlit eyes watched you.

“Tell me you remember this.” It was shaped like a question but something about his tone changed it into a statement.

You swallowed. 

For a moment you were no longer an overworked captain on a spaceship built from your parents’ dreams.  

The sea and skies were everblue twins, summer was a warm breeze with cries of seagulls and there was a beautiful Greek boy with pale curls and a big smile leading you through the endless backstreets. There was a real possibility of getting mugged but as he took your hand, you knew you would follow him off a cliff. 

You didn’t even know his name.

Eventually, he stopped in front of a bakery, his fingers locked with yours as he brought you in.

Then…

Other memories came in a blur. One with golden armor and a heavy spear in your hand. The smell of the sea, a worn map in your hand. Burning cities and screams.  Another life with charcoal stained nails, a smoke dangling between your lips. Another place and time, you were hiding the mud in a green uniform and a hard helmet as warplanes flew overhead. 

Hypnos were in all of them. 

You jerked back, grabbing his wrist. Panting like you ran a marathon, you glared down at him. 

Hypnos didn’t flinch as you tightened your hold, almost bruising his delicate flesh. You were torn between pushing him off the bench or yanking him closer, to know the feel of his honeyed lips against yours.

Because everytime he touched you, it felt like coming home. And that terrified you.

“Explain yourself.” You snarled in a whisper, shaking his wrist. “I brought you the goods. I saved your life. Now explain.”

Hypnos sighed, like he was disappointed but a fond smile grew anyway. 

“Fine. Always so stubborn.” He teased, like you and him were some old married couple. “Let's start at the beginning once more.”

[the-travelling-witch]

finally! my matchup for @leonardhoee is done!! i´m sorry this took so long, my dear, but i really hope you´ll enjoy it nonetheless ♡ you asked me not to include your info but i hope tagging you is okay?

now then, i won´t beat around the bush any longer, my matchup for you is...

KAEYA ALBERICH Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius

You were swinging your polearm tirelessly, hilichurl after hilichurl biting the dust. On your way back to Mondstadt, you had come across an elderly man and his cart blocked by hilichurl camp and decided to help out. Normally, clearing out the camps fell under the work of the Knights of Favonius but they were popping up like daisies lately, so you couldn´t exactly fault them for not tracking down each and every one immediately.

“Ah, thank you, young lady. Here have some of these vegetables. Go on, go on, I won´t take no for an answer.” Reluctantly, you took his offer of gratitude before making sure he went on his way safely. Before you could continue your way home though, the slow clapping of applause made you halt in your tracks.

“My, my, the Acting Grandmaster might have to appoint another Honorary Knight. What a stellar performance.” You looked up only to be faced with an icy blue eye. The eyepatch didn´t hide the teasing smirk that seemed to be etched into his features.

“If it isn´t our beloved Cavalry Captain, Kaeya Alberich,” you said as you stood with your free hand on your hip. “Say, where did you leave your horse? If you actually brought it along, you might have been in time to do your job.”

“Aw dear, you really hit where it hurts, don´t you? But now that my work here is done-,” he blatantly ignored your You didn´t even do anything! “-allow me to walk you back to Mondstadt. After all, it is a knight´s duty to keep our precious civilians safe.”

“Are you sure you´re the one keeping me safe?”

I feel like you and Kaeya have a lot in common and I´d say this is one of your strong suits

Cool and collected on the outside but actually very caring and self-reflective on the inside

When you put your heads together and plan something, there´s a minimal chance anything goes wrong, you´re both incredible at paying attention to details (total power couple <3)

At first, it might take a while for you to open up to one another but once you let your walls down, both of you can learn from one another and work on improving

Even if you feel like you can´t depend on others, Kaeya will see right through it and make sure you know you can always rely on him, no matter what; in return, he will learn that he, too, can be vulnerable around you

Over time, you developed your own support system, so whenever one of you thinks about putting all the pressure on themselves, the other will step in to remind you, you don´t have to handle everything yourself

Kaeya loves to bring you little gifts, whether it´s a flower or a trinket he saw while at work or it´s a meticulously planned surprise, it´s definitely something that reminded him of you

Also, subtly matching clothing or accessories, if you have your ears pierced and wear the second earring of his set, he´s over the moon

Speaking of fashion: Kaeya absolutely hypes you up whenever you have a modelling gig

He knows how to dress and he´d tell you if your outfit didn´t look right, so you know the compliments are always genuine

(If you let him pick your everyday outfit, he´s ecstatic; also lets you choose his clothes on occasion)

He´s a pretty smart cookie, so if you want to play chess or poker or something along those lines, you´ve found a worthy opponent *cue the Kungfu panda meme*

Another defining quality of his is how attentive he is; it´s like he can read your mind

You´re having a rough week? Someone has already drawn you a bath which has the perfect temperature when you arrive home

Stressed and under a deadline for a project? He´ll make sure you´re still taking care of yourself (will also give you a massage, if you´ve been sitting too long)

As the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius, he´s quite skilled in a fight and doesn´t mind practising with you if you feel like polishing your martial arts skills

In conclusion, there are a lot of similarities between you two and you´re very like-minded

While lots of people say that this could cause tension in a relationship, I disagree, in your case

The two of you see eye to eye and are mostly on the same page; you understand each other even when nobody else can guess what runs through your minds

Being with Kaeya is a reminder that no matter what happens, you´re never alone; there´s always at least one person who will stick by your side, someone you can rely on

Runner-ups: Atsumu

This idiot (affectionate) is your personal hypeman, your number one fan. Atsumu is incredibly goofy and easy-going, which lifts a weight off your shoulders with little to no effort on his part. But don´t be fooled, he gets serious when the situation calls for it. As a professional athlete, he has learned to balance his work, free time and practice, while still taking care of himself and he´ll teach you how to properly relax. After all, it´s important to rest and letting someone else care for you every now and then isn´t a bad thing.

Hanma:

He thinks you´re super interesting and with you around his life isn´t so boring anymore. Your many talents are really intriguing and he loves being able to see this many sides of you. Absolutely loves when you get cocky, Hanma enjoys seeing you talk smack, doesn´t matter if it´s towards someone else or him (but preferably the former). He won´t say it out loud but he´s relieved once you prove that you can handle yourself; Hanma knows he gets into a lot of trouble and you´re important to him, he´d be pissed with himself if something ever happened to you.

The question you chose is “Thoughts on zodiac signs/ horoscopes/ astrology?”

I don´t necessarily believe in horoscopes but I do have fun reading them; I know my birth chart and stuff but I can´t actually do anything with that information but I think it´s really interesting and impressive when people do chart readings, compatibility analyses and whatever else you can read in the stars based on them (there´s so much stuff to consider, all the planets, stelliums, etc.); mad respect to everyone who knows how to do it

What I do know, however, is that I really like the zodiac/astrology symbolism and aesthetics; I think the stars and constellations and stuff are super fascinating and I wish I knew more about it

[jungshookz]

shy makeup artist y/n and her flirty client model!jk who she’s intimidated by but who is actually just as dorky and shy as she is but she’s so cute n awkward it makes him confident af she’s dabbing foundation down his neck and he unbuttons his shirt a lil more when her back is turned so she’s forced to go down his chest a lil and is tRYING to be profesh but wOWIE

➺ pairing; jeon jungkook x reader

➺ genre; model!jungkook au, mostly fluff, aLways comedy, it gets a little spicy at the end but not mind-blowingly spicy more like a tingly spicy 

➺ wordcount: 3.6k 

➺ what to expect; “if you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask.”

➺ note; after ten whole years i have finally returned with a jungkook drabble!!! i loved this request with my whole ass!!! okay i’ll shut up now - happy reading! 

(also i couldn’t find the original source of this gif but if u know who made it let me know and i can give them proper credit!!) 

                                       »»————-　♡　————-««

“why do we always have to have these shoots in the morning?” your mouth opens up in an obnoxious yawn as you arch your back slowly

you stretch until you feel a satisfying little pop in your spine before glancing over at taehyung, “in my humble opinion, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with an afternoon shoot. i’ll even take a nighttime shoot!”

“you know these shoots are arranged around the model’s schedule, right? not ours?” taehyung hums as he busies himself with his camera, “i told you before you started working with me that you’d have to get used to waking up early so i don’t know why you still complain about it after all this time…”

“it’s seven AM, tae-“ you groan quietly as you reach up to rub your eyes, “on a sunday! seven AM… on a sunday! i’m pretty sure it’s illegal to be up this early on a sunday-”

“mm, i hear ya… could you get me my air blower? i don’t know how my lens got so dusty…”

you look over at the cart stocked fuLL of tae’s tools before reaching over to rummage through the top for the little tiny turkey baster looking thingy

…

ah!

here it is

“also, i’m aware that i should probably know this crucial piece of information, but… who’s coming in this morning again?” you hand tae the air blower and shoot him a sheepish smile when he raises an eyebrow at you

sometimes he feels like he should’ve hired someone else and noT his little dummy of a friend

but you’re a decent assistant AND you do wonders with a makeup brush (two birds one stone!!) and you’ve never asked for a raise or a christmas bonus and the two of you have never gotten into an argument so there’s that too

“jungkook’s coming in this morning, remember? we were literally talking about this a week ago. he’s going to be modelling some button-ups… slacks…” taehyung shrugs, “i think some suits, too? i’m going to have to read jin’s email again.”

your eyes immediately widen

oh!

right!!

jungkook is coming in this morning!

…

jungkook is coming in this morning?!?!?!

“…why do you look like you’re about to piss your pants?” taehyung nudges your side before holding the air blower out for you to take

you take it back gingerly before letting out a nervous chuckle, “no reason. i, uh… it’s just that i… jungkook’s coming in and i’m… not wearing my contacts today.” you reach up to tap your finger against the lens of your glasses, “i don’t wear these out that often because they’re a little geeky looking-”

“yeah, and the gaudy cardigan you’ve chosen to wear today isn’t helping either.” tae mutters under his breath and you let out a scoff of offence

hey!!!

this is a gREAT cardigan

it’s baby purple and there are daisies embroidered all over it!!!

“also, how do you simultaneously look like a toddler and a senior citizen at the same time?” tae reaches over to pinch at one of the space buns at the bottom of your head and you immediately whack his hand away, “it’s very impressive.”

“what time is he coming in??” you ignore his jab and check the time on your phone, “maybe i can pop back home really quickly and-“

“good morning, early birds!” you jump three feet into the air when the studio door suddenly swinGs open and tae reaches out to keep you steady

he treasures you dearly but good goD

you’re always so jumpy!!!

��y/n, my love, looking as cute as ever!” jin grins widely as he approaches you and you can’t help but grin right back

the two of you lean in to give each other quick kisses on both cheeks

(you learned from the very beginning that jin was a very affectionate person)

“how have you been? it’s been a while…” you hum as you pull away

“it has been a while! maybe it’s been too long… who allowed you to buy this?” jin reaches over to pluck at one of the green buttons on your cardigan and the smile immediately drops from your face

why does everyone hATE your cardigan???

“you’re certainly very energetic this morning!” taehyung laughs lightly before leaning over to peek over jin’s shoulder, “where’s our superstar?”

“he’ll be here in a minute or two, he just had to use the restroom. what’s the plan for today, mr. photographer?”

“pardon me- i’m just going to head over to the vanity to clean up my station a little bit.” you excuse yourself from jin and tae before quickly jogging over to your work station

okay

deep breaths

everything’s going to be fine!

but… maybe you should’ve wore your contacts today and maybe you should’ve rethought this cardigan and maybe you should’ve done something else with your hair

but other than those three things, everything is perfectly fine!

you look down at your neatly arranged brushes with your hands on your hips before letting out a breath

the last time you saw jungkook was like a month ago which really isn’t thAt long ago but still

every time you see him, you turn into this fumbling, slightly sweaTY mess!!!

and you have no idea why!!!

well, that’s not true

you have somewhat of an idea as to why you’re so intimidated by him

it’s literally just because he’s cute

and on top of that he’s very naturally charming and flirty and you just don’t have enough skills to reciprocate the charm or the flirtatious comments so your immediate instinct is to just shut up and stay quiet and keep smiling!!!!!

one time, you asked taehyung for some flirting advice and his little nugget of knowledge was literally just ‘i don’t know. just tell him he looks hot.’ and you were like ??? whA-

“those are a lot of brushes!” you spin around immediately and the brushes rattle on the counter when you bump up against it, “good morning, y/n.”

oh greAT

you didn’t even have time to give yourself a pep talk!

jungkook smiles sweetly at you and you feel your heart hiccup in your chest

oh boy

“jung- hi! good- hi.” you clear your throat as you quickly step away from the counter so that he can sit down, “good morning to you. as well, also.”

…what?

what are you even saYING

this is already going downhill

“you ready to make me pretty?” he takes a seat before reaching up to push some of his hair back

“well, i don’t need to do much, you’re already so pretty-“ you snort before immediately clamming up

hey, check it out!

a piece of your soul just left your body and is now leaving the building

yep

there it goes

right out the door

“okay, now turn your body to the left- yeah, there we go!” taehyung groans encouragingly as he continues to snap away at the camera, “look off to the side a little for me…”

you know

you would’ve thought that by now you’d be used to the constant flashing lights but to be honest you’re starting to feel a little queasy and you’re afraid you’re actually going to go blind somehow

like second-hand smoking but instead of inhaling someone else’s fumes it’s your eyeballs absorbing someone else’s light

you blink hard before reaching up to wipe away at a little smudge on your glasses lens

“hey-” jin pops up next to you and you let out a gasp of surprise

why does he always do that?!??

“what’s the matter with you, huh?”

“what? nothing.” you scoff before pulling a face and crossing your arms, “nothing’s- you’re the matter with you- nothing’s the matter with me-“

“good morning to you. as well, also.” jin mocks quietly and you immediately feel the tips of your ears beginning to burn, “oh, jungkook, you don’t need any makeup, you’re already so sexy-“

“i said he was preTTY-“

“you get so nervous for no reason it’s actually hilarious-“ jin hides a smile behind his coffee cup when you let out a squawK

“i don’t- it’s not that bad!!!!”

“just a little more to the side… yep, there we go…”

jungkook turns to the side before tilting his head upwards, keeping his gaze towards tae

“-so annOYING-!”

his eyes flicker over taehyung’s shoulder to you and jin for a brief second

a light chuckle leaves his mouth when he notices jin take your arm before waving it back and forth frantically at him

he resists the urge to wave back at you and instinctively takes his bottom lip in between his teeth when he notices you quickly averting your gaze from him

“no, no lip-biting. too cheesy!” taehyung waves his hand and jungkook immediately snaps back into it

whoops

his eyes flicker back over to you

all you’re doing is polishing your glasses with the sleeve of your cardigan but heck!!!!!

you’re so unbelievably cuTE

and he’s obsessed with your look today

the low space buns

the bright, fuzzy cardigan

everything’s just so cute!!!

you’re always cute whenever he sees you but today you’re just extra extra cute

he’s liked you for a while (and he’s been wanting to do something about that for a while) but the only issue is the fact that you seem to be terrified of him

and he doesn’t know how to make you noT completely petrified of him!!

the two of you met over a year ago and every time he comes to do a shoot you act like it’s your first time meeting him!!

you’re always so nervous around him and he feels awful that he’s the one making you drop your brushes and burn yourself on curling irons

and it doesn’t help that he knows about your crush on him (one would have to be blind to noT notice your crush on him) because it’s not like he can just corner you and be like you like me and i like you too!!!!! can we kiss?????

that sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen now that he thinks about it

anyways he tries his best to be friendly and sweet and charming and funny in an effort to make you open up to him but the most he’s ever gotten out of you was a giggle and a soft ‘you’re being silly’ (he ripped a slit into one of your old beauty blenders and stuck it onto his nose) ((honk honk))

with that being said

he certainly takes pride in the fact that he has the ability to make your knees wobbly and your cheeks go bright pink

one time he was doing an underwear shoot and when taehyung told him to look over his shoulder and not into the camera, he made direct eye contact with you instead and the whole time you looked like you were about to burst into flames

and he always makes the effort to give you a compliment whenever he can because he likes watching the tips of your ears go pink when you thank him quietly

you’ve actually gotten better at taking compliments!

you used to immediately clam up and try to change the subject but now you actually thank him befoRe changing the subject

he likes that he’s played a part in boosting your confidence :-)

it’s what you deserve!!!!

and he can’t forget about that one time you accidentally pulled his hair a little toO hard when trying to get a knot out of his strands and he said to at least take me out to dinner before pulling my hair like that, baby and your eyes widened to the size of saucers and you looked like you were about to pass out

the good thing is that you’re not aS nervous as you were the first time the two of you worked together

you actually respond to his flirty remarks sometimes and instead of greeting him with a respectful little nod, you always say good morning/afternoon/evening to him even though they’re still a little clumsy at times (“good morning to you. as well, also.”) and sometimes you even tell him about what you’ve been up to since he last saw you!!

jungkook’s happy that you’re obviously more comfortable around him but.,.,

he doesn’t know if this is going to make him sound like a jerk or not.,.,

it’s just that.,.,

can you PLEASE hurry up and just tell him that you like him?????

at first he thought that maybe he should make the first move, but then he decided that he wanted you to comfortable and that he wanted you to decide when you wanted to do something about the cartoon hearts floating around your head whenever he smiles at you

but for the love of god

you’re killing him here!!!!!

you’re basically dangling yourself over him and he’s always just out of reach

“…starting to cake up around your nose…” you mumble absentmindedly as you pat jungkook’s nose gently with a powder puff

he can’t help but stare at you as you continue to tap at the sides of his nose

you’re standing in between his spread legs (another indicator of you becoming more comfortable with him) and he resists the urge to reach up and pull you down onto his lap

you straddling him would probably be more comfortable for you!!

you wouldn’t have to bend down like this and have your poor back ache for the rest of the day

…what???

your posture is his number one priority!

there are no ulterior motives whatsoever

the two of you lock gazes for a millisecond and a smirk twitches at the corner of his lips when he notices the panic in your eyes before you’re standing up straight and turning to look down at the things on the counter

“so, um, i’m just going to apply a little foundation on your neck now.” you clear your throat as you pump some foundation out on the back of your hand

“sounds good.”

“tilt your head back for me, please?���

“mm.” jungkook places his hands on his lap as he looks up at the ceiling

he feels your fingers brush against his neck as you attempt to move the collar to the side a little bit and a little tingle rushes down his spine

“can i…” jungkook looks back at you and notices the apples of your cheeks growing pink, “can i undo one button on your shirt? both jin and taehyung would kill me if i accidentally stained the collar with foundation.”

“go ahead.” jungkook clears his throat, “…i could just take my shirt off, you know.”

“you-“ your voice cracks and jungkook bites back a cheeky grin, “you, um, you know, that is a very… creative solution! i think i’m just going to- just one button for now.” you let out a nervous chuckle as you bend down again and reach for his shirt

your fingers tremble slightly as you struggle to undo it and you feel your face growing hotter by the second (seriously??? it’s ONE button y/l/n pull it together)

“need some help?”

“yes, please…” jungkook reaches up and places his hand over yours and you feel his eyes on you as he undoes the button

yep

there goes another piece of your soul packing up and promptly exiting the building

toodle-loo!

“so, are your glasses new? i’ve never seen you wear them before…” jungkook trails off as you begin to smeaR some foundation on his neck with a brush

you smile lightly before shaking your head, “i, um, i was too lazy to put in my contacts this morning, so i had to come today wearing these bad boys.”

you reach up to push your frames up but they slide back down

“you should wear ‘em more often.” jungkook looks at you for a brief second before tilting his head back up towards the ceiling, “i like them.”

he does?????

hehe

your heart skips a beat for the trillionth time today and you let out a hum before chewing on the inside of your cheek anxiously

jungkook is fully aware of the effect that he has on you and you haven’t decided yet if you like it or hATE it  

you stand up straight and lean back a little to see how the foundation looks

hm

taehyung wanted dewy and this is looking a little matte

a droplet of liquid highlighter mixed into the foundation can fix this problem!

as soon as you spin around to look for the little bottle of liquid highlighter (it’s from coverfx and it’s one of your favourite makeup products ever!!!!) jungkook quickly reaches up to undo three more buttons to open his shirt up a bit more before quickly putting his hands back down on his lap

heh

>:-)

he clears his throat and puffs his chest out a little when you turn back around to face him

you pause and your sneakers squeak against the floor when you realise that you’re looking at a lot more than just his neck

what on god’s good green earth is th-

he really wants to kill you, doesn’t he??

you swallow thickly as your eyes trail down slowly from his neck to his chest, taking in every little divot and-

“something the matter?” jungkook asks innocently and you quickly shake your head before letting out a chuckle

“nope! i was just… nothing.”

wow

i was just… nothing

very smooth!

nice save!

you’re a professional

so be professional!!

you feel your heart working twice as hard to pump blood around your body as you continue tapping lightly at jungkook’s broad chest

wowiE

he definitely works out every day

“you can tilt your head back down if you’d like.” you say softly as you press the sponge into his beautifully sun kissed skin

you feel your heart practically fall out of your aSS when jungkook tilts his head back down only for him to be at eye-level with you

“oh-!” his nose bumps against yours and your hand jerks in surprise

the beauty blender bounces to the floor but that’s the least of your concerns at the moment because heLLO

you feel like you’re completely frozen in this position but you manage to pull your head back just a teensy bit, “i-“

“you know, y/n…” jungkook grins cheekily and you feel a little lightheaded when he leans forward to nudge his nose against yours on purpose, “if you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask.”

!!!!!!!!!

…

okay, yeah, you want to kiss him

oh goD you want to kiss him so badly

and it seems like he wants the exact same thing because his eyes just flickered down to your parted lips

should you do it???

should you just go for it???

frick

you’re VERy bad at being impulsive

would it be weird if you asked him if you could put on some chapstick fi-

“you wanna kiss me, baby?” jungkook teases and you feel a little flutter in your tummy, “because i definitely want to kiss you.”

you feel like you’re under some kind of a trance as you nod eagerly

yes!!!

yes yes!!!!!!!

(and jungkook would be lying to himself if he said that seeing how eager you are to kiss him didn’t make his own tummy flutter)

you find yourself leaning forward and placing a hand on his knee to stay balanced

what’s happening to you?!?

whO ARE YOU

jungkook reaches up to where your hand is placed on his chest and wraps his fingers around your wrist as his other hand begins reaching for your waist

your eyelids flutter shut as y-

“you don’t get paid to make out with our clients-!” you immediately spriNG backwards when taehyung suddenly barks at you and you let out a little yelp when you end up stumbling right into jin’s chest

jin wraps an arm around your waist from behind before pulling you a couple steps farther away from jungkook

“and you don’t get paid to make out with the stylists-!” he scolds jungkook before pointing to you and wagging his finger, “off-limits!”

you wouldn’t mind if a black hole suddenly emerged to swallow you up whole because this is definitely one of the top five most EMBARRASSING things to have ever happened to yoU

“we weren’t making out!!” you snort before letting out a sound of disbelief, “we weren’t making out.”

“that’s not what it looked like to us…” jin lets go of you and you stumble back towards jungkook

“yeah, y/n’s right!” jungkook chimes in, “…we were just going to kiss a little-“

you slap a hand over his mouth and smile sheepishly when jin and taehyung share knowing glances

“can you two lovebirds at least control yourselves until after the shoot is over?” taehyung smiles sweetly and bats his lashes at you and you can already tell he’s going to tease you forever about this

it’s finE

just act normal!

act like you weren’t just caught about to kiss jungkook

“no problem at all!” you swoop down to pick up the abandoned beauty blender on the floor, “he’s all yours-“

“yeah, we’re going to need a minute or five because we’ve got a decently-sized problem down here.” jin whistles lowly and jungkook raises a brow in confusion

what problem?

he’s ready to dive back into the shoot-

jungkook glances down and his eyes widen in panic

he scraMBLES to grab the suit jacket off the back of his chair before tossing it over his lap

oopsies

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

requested drabbles masterlist

[mrsgiovanna]

Buon Compleanno (Don Giorno x Fem! Reader)

It's as the name says... This fic is close to my heart and I really enjoyed writing it for our Golden king's birthday. Mostly fluff, it does contain mentions of alcohol consumption though. I hope you all enjoy. ❤️🎊🎉😘🐞💭

P. S. Let the fluff ensue 💐

Word count: 2.5k

“So Mista... Fugo, are things ready on your end? I’ve got confirmation from North Island that everything is ready for us on their end. We have to stagger our arrivals so that Giorno doesn’t actually see you guys there until the party. All our villas are ready for our arrival and his presents are being safe guarded there until we arrive,” you beamed as you secretly went over the final checklist for Giorno’s birthday get away with the team and Trish.

Your friends had ever so thoughtfully come over to see you and Giorno off… well more so to iron out the last details of your master plan, but your boyfriend didn’t need to know that. Attempting to keep your plans for his birthday hidden from him was a near impossible feat. Trying to get him to take some time off and just live for himself was an even bigger task, but being who you are, you managed to plan everything down to the finest detail.

Trying to get the entire island to yourselves and plan the party of a century for your closest allies was a mammoth task, but it was what you felt Giorno deserved. In the years that he’s spent running Passione, he had always placed his own needs secondary to the needs of the organization, which is why you resolved to give him the best experience imaginable for his 21st birthday.

“Hi Giorno! We were just talking about you,” piped up Trish in a voice loud enough to alert everyone to the young don’s looming presence. Eyes widening for a split second, you manage to compose yourself without him catching on and flashed him a pleasant smile. You were taken aback by how handsome he looked dressed down in an azure linen Armani suit, hair braided loosely and cascading down his shoulder. He took his place at your side, casually circling his arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to your temple.

“Morning everyone, what’s this about me?”

“Oh, we’re just discussing what we’re going to be doing when you’re away… you know, cats and mice and the like,” joked Fugo, earning him a worried look from Giorno.

“Gosh, relax my love… come on, we have to go, it’s a pretty long flight,”

“Alright, alright, let’s go bella. Well, I’ll see you all in a few days’ time,” leaving to the collective goodbye wishes of your friends you set off to catch the private jet which would take you to the little piece of heaven in the Seychelles.

Upon landing at the airport, you were just one short helicopter flight away from your destination. Giorno’s demeanor was akin to that of a child on Christmas eve, taking in his beautiful surroundings on the helicopter. Stepping onto the helipad, you were greeted by the wonderful fresh scents of the salty sea air, clear blue seas and white sandy beaches for as far as the eye could see. After the welcome, you were lead to the main villa, given your golf cart and allowed yourselves to get settled in for the rest of the night, choosing to spend a quiet night lounging on the balcony overlooking the ocean.

Giorno couldn’t help but stare at your beautiful form. The way the moonlight bounced off the ocean behind you and illuminated your skin mesmerized him. He had known you ever since he had taken over Passione. You served as a valuable ally when it came to weeding out the members who were still unwilling to adopt his ideals. As the years marched on, he started seeking out your company more and more, until it became apparent that he was at his happiest when he was around you… and once the realization had dawned on him, he wasted no time in making you his. You fell hard, and fast, and it was so easy fall into step with each other’s lives, as if you had been created just for each other.

“Bella, this is incredible, I know I put up a bit of a fight but I’m so glad you did this…” he uttered with a dreamy look on his face.

“I’m glad you think so my love, you’re going to love the day I have planned for us tomorrow… Ah! Actually, later on today," you say, glancing at your watch, "it’s just past midnight! Happy birthday my love! I hope you know how much I love you, and I’m incredibly proud of you and all you have managed to accomplish at such a young age… you’re… you’re pretty amazing you know,” the emotions swirled around in Giorno’s eyes while listening to your heartfelt speech.

“(y/n) … I… you’re… I just love you so much tesoro, you’re everything I could ever want,”

“I love you too Gio… come on, it’s late, let’s get some rest,” you say while leading him to bed.

You rose early, just as the sun made its glorious appearance over the ocean. As early as you had woken up though, Giorno was already awake, nursing a cup of coffee as he stared pensively at the brilliant blue water.

“Good morning handsome, penny for your thoughts?” you greeted your lover, wrapping your arms lovingly around his shoulders and nuzzling into his soft hair.

“Good morning principessa… I’m just thinking about how much I love you…”

“Oh? Is that so, Mr. Giovanna? Well prepare to love me even more, go get ready, we have lots to do today,” you say, a lovely light, lilt coloring your voice.

“Any hints?”

“Wear something comfortable, something that we can walk around in,”

With that, your day had started with a guided hike through the island. Between Giorno’s life-imbuing ability and your affinity for adventure, you were both mesmerized by the flora and fauna you encountered on the hike. Once that was over you looked forward to coming back to a special couple’s massage which eased your sore muscles and relaxed you both into a dreamlike state. Finally, after your last treatments, you could get ready for your “dinner” at the piazza. Feeling a sense of pride as you put on the last of your accessories, you smiled at your reflection in the mirror while inspecting your stunning outfit, and grew even happier when you saw Giorno walking out in a casual charcoal grey Dior suit which matched your dress, but not his expression unfortunately.

“What’s the matter my love? You look great by the way…”

“Thank you tesoro… you’re quite the vision yourself,” standing behind you, sharing the mirror, he raked his fingers through his uncooperative hair, sighing in annoyance.

“Gio, stop- here, sit down, I’ll help you,” you say as you gently brush out the tangles and scrunch the wave back into his lovely golden hair. You carefully braid the length of his mane but leave his signature triad of ringlets out, admiring how beautifully the shorter sections of his hair framed his face.

“There…” you leaned back to admire your efforts, acknowledging the fact that you had a particularly exquisite model as well.

“Are you sure this is fine my love?” there was a hint of doubt in Giorno’s voice, but you made sure to banish any such thoughts.

“Of course, I love your hair like this,”

“Well, that’s good enough for me. Shall we leave my princess?”

“Yes… but can I drive the golf cart?” you ask, extending your arm to him, gesturing for the keys.

Speeding past the rest of the villas, you just wanted to make sure that everyone was already at the piazza ready to surprise the young don.

“Are you sure we’re at the right place my love? Or should we be at a different entrance, this looks like it’s closed,”

“Yes caro, come on, I’m sure the staff are inside… I’ve picked up on your habit of wanting to dine in solitude,” you explain as you walk towards the entrance hand in hand. Stepping into the restaurant, the lights dipped and instantly got brighter revealing your closest friends jumping out of their hiding spots with a collective, rambunctious yell of “surprise”, startling your unsuspecting boyfriend.

“Happy birthday my love,” you softly say once again, as the lively music started to play in the background.

“You… did all of this? For me?”

“Of course bello mio, well, I did have help though” you gestured behind Giorno, pointing out Mista, Trish and Fugo walking towards you both.

“Oi, happy birthday Giogio, haha, you look like you need a drink, I’ll be right back,” said Fugo as he went to order the first round of drinks for your little group. Between flitting amongst your guests, dancing with your handsome beau, and stealing moments away to be alone him, you almost forgot to give him his gifts, which were safely stored in the wine cellar of the establishment.

“Well, what do you think my love?” Giorno’s eyes widened when he saw the glass-encased, white Fender Stratocaster signed by just about every rock star, most importantly, his favorite guitarist, Jeff Beck.

“I’ve been looking for this for the longest time… how did you find it tesoro?”

“I also know some people… that’s not all, look next to it…” you motioned towards 5 Morocco solander boxes that housed a rare first edition of the complete 10 volumes of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

“I thought that might look quite beautiful in your study… adding something especially meaningful to your collection,”

“I’m speechless (y/n) … you’ve gone to such great lengths…” you hush him with a passionate kiss preventing him from gushing about your efforts as you were determined to make this night about him.

“I’m sure we’ve been gone for too long, lets rejoin our guests my love,” you started to walk towards the staircase exiting the wine cellar, but you were pulled back against Giorno’s broad chest, grasping your face in his hand, he kissed you with so much fervor this time, leaving you flustered and battling to calm your racing heart. Noticing the effect, he managed to have on you, he gently coaxed you back upstairs with a wicked smirk.

“Hey, you’re back, we’ve been looking all over for you two. We have one more person who wants to say hello,” with a soft smile, Trish reaches behind her to pull out coco jumbo, which meant only one thing…

“Signore Polnareff! Even you…”

“You know I’ve always had a soft spot for pretty girls Giorno… Joyeux anniversaire! You’re a brave young man with a good head on your shoulders and integrity in your heart, always hold on to that,”

“Thank you signore Polnareff, it means a lot coming from you, considering…” cutting him off before Giorno could complete his sentence, Polnareff attempted to lighten the mood.

“Non non non, no sad thoughts tonight, get this man a drink someone, you’re all slacking here,” he said looking at you as you mouthed a small thank you in his direction.

“(y/n), you’ve really outdone yourself. Giogio, you’re a lucky man,” said Mista as he brought a special bottle of champagne for you all to raise a toast with. “Alright, while we’re all here in the same place, I just want to say that you’re all important to me…”

“Mista’s drunk guys, prepare yourselves,” Trish says with an eye roll resulting in hushed giggles as the gunslinger tried to (unsuccessfully) arrange his sentimental thoughts.

Unable to stand it any longer, Trish takes over and pays homage to Giorno, as well as the special people who had given everything in order for them to live, enabling them to carry on their will.

As the party raged on, you took a small break in a dim corner of the piazza, and took a moment to marvel at the fruits of your labor. Everybody was having the best time, including Giorno. After being called away by one of his associates, it filled your heart with fluttery sensations watching the man you loved finally able to act his age for once.

“May I sit with you, carina?” startled out of your musings, you find an old friend standing over you.

“Lorenzo, of course, please, have a seat,” you offer emphatically.

“So, how is one half of Passione’s power couple doing?” his question earning a loud giggle from you. You continued to make conversation with Lorenzo, until Trish came to inform you that one of the service providers needed to confirm a few details with you, so you politely excused yourself and followed Trish. You were confused as she lead you to a secluded part of the beach, where you find Giorno standing alone, staring broodingly at the ocean for the second time that day. You realized that she just made an excuse draw you away to check on Giorno, being slightly concerned yourself after seeing the expression on his face.

“Gio? My love, what’s the matter? Did you just need some fresh air?” he turned to faced you with the softest smile.

“You know bella, I’ve loved you so deeply for years now… you always know what I need… even before I do. I never really feel complete anymore unless you’re with me… which is strange because I’ve always been content on my own. And then it hit me, you will always hold a part of me, and I’ll always seek you out because of it… You’ve given me probably the best experience of my life tonight, but, there’s just one more thing I would like from you to make the day perfect…” you felt light-headed when you saw Giorno moving to kneel down on one knee, pulling out a little trinket box, opening it to reveal the most beautiful ring.

“(y/n), would you give me the greatest gift and agree to spend the rest of your life with me as my wife?”

Emotions tugged at your pretty features, as you whispered a breathy affirmation, while nodding excitedly. Exhaling sharply with a stunning smile, Giorno got back to his feet and placed the elegant ring on your finger, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss thereafter. You threw your arms around his neck, and held him tightly, before the realization dawned on you.

“Wait! How long have you been planning this, Gio? Your question was met with his soft, exasperated laugh.

“Oh! For the longest time amore, I’ll admit though, your plans had forced me to adapt my own, but I had some help in achieving all of this… Trish is a lifesaver,” explained your new fiancé with a hint of pride in his voice.

“I love you Gio, but you managed to hijack your own celebration… I don’t know what to do with you!” the mock exasperation dripping from your voice drew a small laugh from Giorno.

“That’s your problem now tesoro, you already agreed to marry me, no take backs,” with that, you both decide to return to the festivities. Intertwining your fingers with his as you slowly walked back, you both stole loving glances at each other, communicating your intense affections for each other through your eyes alone… perhaps it was as he said, you mused… that a part of your soul resided with him also, and so you always sought him out to feel complete too, just as he did with you.

[snacc-noir]

Unseal and Reveal pt2

Ao3

Part 1

Adapted from this post

Summary:

Adrien asks Marinette to fake date him after his father finds a pink ‘love note’ containing just her name on it

— but it was really the emergency note Ladybug gave him in case he needed to know her identity

Adrien has screwed up. 

But before anything begins, he’d like to make it very clear that he’s only ever had good intentions, believable smiles, and incredible lying ability – no matter what his friends say (“You once told Alya you had a great dentist so Marinette wouldn’t be suspicious”), because he’s kept the fact he’s Chat Noir under wraps and no one has been the wiser. 

Then again, Chat Noir is stylish, handsome, incredibly dressed, insanely hilarious, im(pecc)ably ripped, totally— 

Yeah, so Adrien just can’t live up to that (If it came down to it, he’d totally fall in love with himself if circumstances allowed.), and thus his identity is pretty secure , unlike his self-esteem on a good day. 

Specifically, today. 

Because he has screwed up.  

So yes, he’s somehow the best and worst liar ever, which probably likens to how it isn’t his secret identity that he Accidentally (three underlines for ‘accidentally’) reveals, but, uh, someone else’s. 

Ladybug’s. 

He knows Ladybug’s identity.  

But hey! Hey— remember, her idea. It was never him who suggested the ‘let’s write our names on letters in case we need to know in an emergency’, as that was definitely her. 

He’s screwed everything up, but it was definitely her. 

“Did you know? ” 

“Duh,” his kwami’s gravel voice says, “I know everything.” 

Adrien’s hands are rousing his hair so much at this point he might expose himself as Chat Noir if anyone went by his lean windows. “You knew this whole time!? That Ladybug is– That she’s– That—”  

All air escapes him in a corrupt elongated syllable. He flops on his Extra King size bed with silk sheets and fluffed pillows, almost knocking his model agency’s branded hydro-flask onto the desk adjacent with three exorbitant monitor screens. Oh, how difficult his life is.  

“You’re so pathetic.” 

He is.  

“This is hilarious.” 

It is not.  

‘“What am I supposed to do, Plagg?! Call her? ‘Hey love of my life, it’s me Adrien, but you also know me as Chat Noir. I accidentally found out your identity and long story short, my household thinks we’re dating and wants you over for dinner. Are you up for fake-dating and not killing me, please?” 

His kwami skulls a camembert roll. “I’m down for that idea.” 

Adrien pegs a sock. 

“How are you so calm?” 

“I shrugged in the face of dinosaur extinction. Your damsel in distress crisis – you’re the damsel, by the way – and ‘oohhh no, I’m so in love’ hullabaloo is nothing.” 

Adrien’s frown deepens. “I don’t sound like that.” 

“You do. Your voice goes like eee .” 

“What? No it doesn’t” 

“You’re right, it’s more like ahhh . ” 

The heat in Adrien’s acid eyes smarten. He crosses his arms, huffing in a way he hasn’t since early childhood, and glares at his ceiling. “I’m done talking to you.” 

He isn’t, of course, as there’s only one person in his life he can complain to about his array of #RelatableTeenBoy issues, like ditching your favourite topic of Physics one class to cater to a Giant Baby akuma (again) and being late due to lack of places to change into your skin-tight cat suit (you know; just those little things). And by Hawk Moth’s insufferable menacing he isn’t letting that outlet fall from under him. He needs to clear his thoughts, because believe him, there is a lot to sift, and it doesn’t help when part of this whole catastrophe has left him with the knowledge that— 

“Marinette is Ladybug!” 

Plagg has moved to Adrien’s three-panelled computer desk and is clicking through something. “I’m so glad you’ve caught up.” 

“And if she’s Ladybug, that means,” he goes on, white overshirt sleeves now uneven as he animates his words with a pillow, “she was just saying to me – to Chat – she was in love with him to save her identity! And there’s another boy she’s in love with! And–! And I might know who it is!” 

“Who?” Plagg asks, the volume juxtaposing his welder’s. 

“I said 'might’.” 

The keys click louder. “You mean because you know Ladybug in real life you could have met him before? Or you actually know him?” 

“I don’t know! I just know that Marinette’s… She’s in love with another guy.” The earlier exhilaration drains and his chest feels hollow and soul-sucking. “Wait– I can’t ask her to be my fake-girlfriend!” 

The destructive god scrolls through the itemised shopping cart to double-check his fromage orders without any fear of his owner noticing. Well you obviously don’t have a choice. Your dad wants her over for dinner. Besides, it’s Ladybug, remember? She’ll do anything to help a friend out.” 

Ladybug. 

Marinette. 

Of course.  

There are still many things that don’t add up (Multimouse: just how?) but of course. 

He can’t risk his own identity and hers to his father. He must keep the façade up. And if that mean s falling on his knees in front of who unarguably should be the most glorified woman in the world, crying to her to please just be his fake – very much, but unfortunately fake – girlfriend.  

He will. 

He’ll do it right now. 

- 

“I can’t believe you chickened out.” 

Walks to school, even with the cost of waking up earlier, are always more refreshing than drives in cold silence. The freedom here is less pale, and he can hiss at Plagg all he wants with only the dignity loss of onlookers noticing him crankily talking to himself. 

“Oh wait, yes I can. Because you’re a coward~. ” 

“I did not ‘chicken out’,” Adrien snaps. “And I’m no coward. I just— I need to speak to her in person instead. This way, she didn’t have to receive an unwanted call so late.” 

 “You mean six?” 

He huffs. “Marinette needs all the sleep she can get.” He pokes the creature back into his overshirt. “She’s always so busy. Even you’ve seen her collapse in class. Wait—!” 

The only one that waits is himself, columned with the line of trees ahead, locked in the interval of his soap opera as his audience darts for a shiny rock near a fire hydrant. 

“Because she’s Ladybug too! Of course! Of course! This makes so much sense! She’s so tired and overworked! It’s no wonder she’s all over the place – in the best of ways, I mean, she’s literally adorable when she’s frantic. Wait, have I always thought that? Have I always seen Marinette as the cutest thing ever? Her spluttering is so endearing. And if she’s already so tired, I can’t make her fake date me, too! She’s already so stressed! I’d literally be the scum of the earth if I even dare—” 

Plagg is staring at him with flat interest. Humbly aware of his judgement, Adrien swallows, letting the air untense and clams his hands – eager to narrate his animated allegory – in his pockets in strife to get a grip.  

He sighs. 

“What if I mess it up, Plagg?” 

He inventories his new rock in Adrien’s satchel. A hymn of silence roots in the place of what should be a snide remark. But there is no fed-up comment, just a kwami wriggling under his overshirt out of sight and a solemn voice that issues from it,  

“Kid, you’re partners. You work together. You forgive each other. You trust each other. And if Ladybug trusts you,” he sticks his head out a little more, “find it in you to trust yourself. You won’t mess this up if you put her and her identity’s safety first, which I know you will, because you love her and you’re a great hero.” 

Adrenaline dampening, Adrien smiles.  

“Thanks, Plagg.” 

- 

Marinette has never believed in bad luck until she met Chat Noir (fifty Mr Pigeon akumatisations this year with a feather allergy? The next lucky charm is going to be an Epi-pen) and for a while, she didn’t believe in good luck, even with being Ladybug. 

But that was then. Back then, meaning like, ten minutes ago before she was invited to stay back after PE by Adrien. 

Right now, though? Right now, she’s decided she’s going to hand-sew a bedazzled shirt embossed with, “Goddess of Luck” to wear while Ladybug on patrol (and on the back, a quote she woke up to on Instagram this morning: ‘“can also kick ass” – Adrien Agreste’ (she took ten screenshots when he posted that)), because Marinette has good luck.   

“You’ll be doing me a huge favour,” the ass-kicking quoter says on an afternoon she has not planned to receive the most exciting request of her life. 

And you know what she says? 

You know what the stuttering girl who may as well trademark the word ‘GAH’ she falls that much, says? 

You’ll never guess. 

No really, you won’t. 

Because turns out, Marinette Dupain-Cheng is more than just accomplished. 

So what if she thrones the winning title of a Gabriel fashion comp? What even matters of being class president and an all-around likable person? Who takes notice of another fashion mogul inviting you to live in New York because of your talent? ––An invitation you had to decline because, you know, being Paris’ zero-pay superheroine has a sprinkle more of importance. And oh, did she mention she’s Ladybug? Because she’s Ladybug. A superhero.  

But none of that matters right now. 

“I’d be happy to help.” 

Because she’s said yes.  

She—Marinette McStutter Dupain-Cheng—has said yes with her mouth (not vague hand animations over blubbering nonsense) to Adrien, and although her muscles are locked with their key over the Eiffel tower (and the tiny detail that her thoughts are screaming so much she can’t hear a thing of his relief and numerous ‘thank you’s), she’s still said yes!  

Screw every other accomplishment. She’s said yes to being Adrien’s fake girlfriend. 

Ladybug? Nah, that’s Mrs. Fake Agreste to you.  

Good luck is real.  

Okay but sure, ‘Fake girlfriend’ doesn’t exactly live up to ‘Very real girlfriend’, but being a fake isn’t that bad! She’s seen Lila do it every day for months – oh, hang on, no actually the term ‘fake’ has very negative and huge implications, then. However, in Marinette’s heavenly-blessed case, ‘fake’ means she’s doing a very big favour for a friend and is going to get more time with Adrien – just to name a few positives.  

“Seriously Marinette, you have no idea how much this means to me. I can’t believe I’m so lucky to have a friend like you.” 

‘Oh honey, I’m the lucky one. ’ 

“It’s– It’s no problem! Yeah! Really, I’ll come to dinner, no problem! It can’t be too hard. I can be your girlfriend! Eugh– Pretend girlfriend. It’s not hard being in love with you! I mean– Ugh!” 

The monstrosity that is the never-shutting-up hole in her face is blocked off by frantic hands, stifling the last of her eloquent groan. But peering up, she realises she really has underestimated how much this means to Adrien, because he looks like he’s poised on a cliff of ecstasy ready to fall – eyes verdant, big, and lushed over with a hue of moisture that twinkles, and a smile so bright and toothy the sunlight hollowing out the remaining shade of the PE stadium glints off it.  

In fact, her mess of a speech is such a compliment to Adrien that her locked-limbed body is suddenly engulfed by his. Startled in delightful senses of the word, she squeaks, and he quickly pulls away, face a few rose tones darker than before as his hands twitch at his side unsurely. 

“Uhh, I guess we have to get planning.” 

She watches in transfixed attraction as Adrien picks both their schoolbags up, finally blurting (without any squeak, she may add), 

“Y–Yes. We do.” 

(she didn’t say any stutter, so shut up.) 

“Would your father let you come over right now since school’s almost finished?” 

He casts a look to the exit thoughtfully. His flawless side-profile in high resolution before her, she sees the corner of his mouth quirk up in an unsettling familiar way, as if his whole charisma shifts to someone else’s.  

They do need to plan; to run away together, where only they share this odd secret - a place alone together where they'll look each other eye-to-eye and practice their sonnets of love to construct a believable facade for his father-

“It’s more fun sneaking to my girlfriend’s house, isn’t it?” 

That time, she squeaks.

And comes to the daunting realisation:

Marinette is screwed. 

[tomboyneedshercoffee]

Met Gala || Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: Y/N and Peter go on a mission to capture Harry Osborn at one of the most heavily guarded places; the Met Gala. 

Word Count: 2k

Author’s note: I watched Ocean’s 8 and Hoco back to back and thus, this fic was born. 

Warning: Fighting?? Creepy dude??? IDK man a busted lip?

-----

When you were recruited for SHIELD, you knew you would be needed to fight alongside the avengers or workaround in the advanced lab in the Helicarier but never in a million years did you think Fury would send you and Peter Parker on a mission to infiltrate the Met Gala. Celebrities you stalked all day on twitter were now inches from you, wearing gorgeous ensembles from famous designers you could never pronounce and you were hardcore fangirling.

You tried to keep in your excitement as you looked across the room, seeing your favorite actors and influencers all mingling together without a care in the world. You were breathing the same air as Beyonce and Harry Styles, dear god, life felt great. Little did they know, this event had been hijacked by New York’s charming new villain, Harry Osbourn. Your mission with Peter was simple; find Harry and take him back to SHIELD’s headquarters for questioning without causing a mass distraction.

As you reached for a crystalized champagne glass off of one of the server’s silver platter, you hear a tsk sound off in your hidden earpiece inside your earrings.

“ Drinking on the job,” Peter clicked his tongue as he looked behind his shoulder, scouting you from across the ballroom,” your mother would be so disappointed.”

You smiled and took a small sip, taking in the room,” I’m blending in Parker. You should do the same.  As for my mom, I’m in the same room as Idris Elba so I think she’ll be more jealous than upset.”

You took a quick glance towards Peter, who was sitting at a vacant table. He wore a black suit with a thin gold and blush material lined thinly along either side of the opening of his suit jacket. The inside of the suit was a simple white button-up that had no buttons at the top, revealing a bit of his chest.

While it was the Met Gala and you were excited to see what kind of flashy SHIELD had managed to get, they went the opposite. They gave you a black, long sleeve gown with a delicate lace pattern towards the bottom of your dress.  Even though it was already out of your comfort zone from how fitting it was, the dress had a deep V cut on your chest that gave little to the imagination. While the dress was flattering, you knew you could’ve settled for your old prom dress when you heard that the gown you were wearing was two times the price of your apartment.

“ My little Peter Parker looks like he’s going to a Las Vegas communion,” you teased as you gave him a distant longing look,” but you look nice. You should wear suits more often, maybe then you could get a girlfriend.”

“ Ouch, Y/N,” Peter laughed, even though his heart stung a bit,” just because you look like that doesn’t mean you can go around breaking my heart.”

Even though Peter couldn’t see you from where you were, you still felt your cheeks to see if it was noticeable that you were blushing hard. Ever since sophomore year in high school, you had always hopelessly flirted with Peter but his attention was always Spiderman this and Spiderman that. It wasn’t until your senior year that you both would flirt with each other shamelessly yet that made things even harder for you. Now you weren’t sure if he was just joking or actually flirting with you and you could only blame yourself.

“ Keep your eyes open for Harry, not me,” You said as you finished your champagne glass and set it down at a table,” but I like the attention so you may continue flirting with me after we’re done with our mission.”

You heard Peter gasp loudly followed by silence which made your heart stop. 

“ Peter? Peter do you have eyes on Harry?”

“ No! I think Blake Lively is about to come up and talk to me, bye!”

You craned your neck and sure enough, you picked Peter out of the crowd and saw the goddess herself sitting next to him smiling. Lucky bastard. You kept your eyes glued to Peter as you collided with someone.

“ Woah watch yourself there,” You heard as you felt your anxiety raise through the roof. Please don’t let it be Pedro Pascal, please. I would die from embarrassment if I just bumped into the Mandalorian, Pedro Pascal, himself.

You apologized but when you hesitantly looked up, hoping it wasn’t a famous celebrity you had obsessed over, your heart dropped. Harry Osborn.  

“I’m sorry but do I know you?” Harry asked as you thought quickly of what to do,” I swear you look familiar.”

You weren’t prepared to see him so soon, your plan of attack was to find him not for him to find you. You snapped yourself out of it and focused on what you knew best, flirting.

“ No, you don’t. Trust me, you would remember a face like mine,” you said smoothly, feeling your confidence boost from the energy of the night and most likely the dress.

Harry smirked,” I like you already. I’m Harry, Harry Osborn.”

Oh you knew. You knew everything about him from the countless files that SHIELD had provided you. His estranged father was Norman Osborn and is the president of Oscorp, one of the leading multinational corporations in the US. Harry was around the same height as Peter, standing at 5' 10, weighing 170 pounds, and had dark blue eyes that held more than just a charming sparkle. You knew how he liked his coffee, why he hated Halloween, where he vacationed when he was in grade school, and when he lost his virginity. Knowing how much intel SHIELD had on Harry was not only scary for him, but for you since who knows about dirt Fury had one you aswell.

“ Michelle Jones,” you said on the spot, not wanting him to know your real name. He reached for you hand to shake but instead, placed a soft kiss on your knuckles.

You smiled politely even though you mentally rolled your eyes. You just needed to get him somewhere private so you could take him out with the tranquilizer that Peter had in his pocket.

“ So Harry, what brings you to the Met? You must be pretty influential to get an invite,” you said as you started walking away from your spot, knowing that there was an exit behind the staircase and that Harry would follow you.

“ I would call myself an entrepreneur,  I dabble in some tech companies here and there. Just changing the world one robot at a time,” Harry shrugged as he followed next to you, taking the bait,” I bet you’re probably into something along the lines of modeling.”

You couldn’t help yourself but to let out a lousy laugh as he held a set of double doors open for you, leaving an empty hallway,” That’s cute but no,  I’m one of the leading programmers at Stark Industries. But sure, I guess I’m just a pretty face too.”

“ Brains, beauty, and an attitude? Well today’s my lucky day then,” he flirted as he placed his hand on your lower back, leaning in close to your ear,” let’s get out of here yeah?”

You almost showed your visibly disgusted expression on your face but you hide it well underneath a sweet smile,“ I admire your boldness and while I am very flattered, I have a boyfriend. I think he would actually love to meet you, let me just go find him.”

“ Y/N, there you are,” Peter’s voice piped behind you as you watched his face fall for a second and then recover,” who’s your friend?”

Your smile faltered,“ R-Right, this is Harry Osborn, Harry, this is my boyfriend...Ned.”

Peter shook Harry’s hand as Peter tried to hide a grin from the fake name,” Nice to meet you, Harry.”

Harry nodded and looked between you two as Peter placed his arm around your hip, bringing you closer,” Well Ned, you’re a lucky man. She’s very smart and might I say very beautiful.”

Peter clenched his jaw as Harry looked you up and down longingly as if he could see straight through your gown. You felt Peter’s grip on your waist tighten but he knew that he had to stay calm so he didn’t compromise the mission.

“ Yes, Y/N is the whole package,” Peter said a bit more confidently as he gave you a small kiss on the cheek,” aren’t you baby?”

Before you could open your mouth, Harry interrupted and took a step forward,” That’s funny, she told me her name was Michelle.”

Peter looked back at your face and while you were now panicking on the inside, you only nodded in response,” Michelle Y/N Jones. Only my close friends call me Y/N.”

“ Really?  You know, now that I’m really thinking about it,” Harry looked between you two and pointed at Peter,” you look like a...Peter Parker. And you, Look like a Y/N L/N. Which is funny because I know two people who work for SHIELD who are allegedly after me. Funny huh?”

Your breath hitched and without thinking, Peter lunged at Harry and the two wrestled to the floor.  You watched as the two struggled on top of one another before Harry got the upper hand, giving him a few good punches before he started to choke him.

You looked at the cart next to you and grabbed a bottle of Champagne before slamming it over Harry’s head. In an instant, Harry slumped over on top of Peter who breathed a sigh of relief.

“ D-Did I kill him?” You asked as you dropped whatever was still intact of the bottle.

Peter shook his head, taking in your appearance. While you didn’t have any physical marks on you, your hair that was neatly tucked into a bun was now loose and all over the place.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Peter asked as he moved your hair out of your face, his lip was definitely busted,”Y/N I am so sorry about blowing your cover and I’m sorry that you-”

You leaned over towards Peter and planted a light kiss to his cheek, which made him instantly turn red. You didn’t know what came over you but the damage was done, now you just had to get out of here.

“ Less talking and more lifting,” you said softly as you both looked down at Harry who was very much unconscious,” The car is waiting downstairs for us so I’ll grab his legs and you grab his arms?”

“ I can carry him myself,” Peter said and you knew he could because of his ‘super strength’ but you shook your head and insisted over a hundred times that you were a strong, capable woman.

Peter took one last longing look at you since his face couldn’t get any redder and nodded as the two of you both lifted Harry down the private staircase. The two of you said nothing, only sharing an occasional groan as you used most of your strength.

“ So what, are we dating now?” Peter asked as he accidentally bumped Henry’s head against the railing.

You huffed and stepped carefully, not wanting to trip over your dress,” I know I drank like three glasses of champagne but I would definitely remember if I asked you out, Parker.”

“ Well you introduced me to  Harry as your boyfriend.”

You stopped moving and placed Harry down on the stairs, your muscles that you hardly ever worked on were already aching. You placed your hands on your hips and shook your head,” Okay well, I technically said you were Ned so that means Ned is my boyfriend.”

You swallowed and looked up at Peter,” But if this is your attempt at trying to ask me out then yes, I will go out with you...only if you carry Harry the rest of the way.”

Peter hid his huge grin and only shrugged plainly, even though he wanted to jump out of excitement,” Fine by me.”

You watched as Peter lifted Harry with ease as if he weighed absolutely nothing.

“Show off,” you said as Peter smirked, knowing that he could get used to this. 

[anonniemousefics]

My Dearest Inej | Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Masterlist

Originally posted on AO3

Rating: Teen And Up

Synopsis: A series of letters kept among the personal belongings of Captain Inej Ghafa.

Chapter Sixteen: My Dearest Jailbird

Good morning, Sunshine!

If you are reading this, you are probably waking up alone and wondering where you are and how you got there. And your assumptions are correct – Wylan and I are indeed criminal masterminds who’ve drugged you and kidnapped you and sold you to the Shu. Now all of your suits are mine!

Yes, I’m joking. Don’t kill me. In all of this mess, the one thing I’ve found amusing is thinking of how this must all be playing out from your perspective. You take a dog for a walk, you fall asleep on my couch, you wake up surrounded by Shu. Sorry about that. The real truth is you were poisoned, pretty badly. Inej says the Shu have the best hospitals and mediks – you’re in Bhez Ju. And before you start complaining, we paid a lot of money to convince them to take you, so keep the whining to a minimum.  

I know your Shu’s a little rusty, but Wylan is with you. His Shu is also rusty, but between the two of you, hopefully you’ll manage all right. As soon as you’ve got a clean bill of health (just physically speaking – no one’s assessing your laundry list of mental problems, don’t worry), Specht is prepared to bring you home.  

That’s the where of it all with a bit of the why. I imagine you have a lot more questions. Why were you poisoned, for example? Great question, Kaz. I think it’s because you stabbed a twelve-year-old. Can you not do that again, please? It really pissed him off, and some old enemies happened to catch wind of it and then we had to fight them. Which enemies, you ask? Yes, with you, this statement does require some clarification; there are so many. The Haskells, Kaz. I know, your favorites.

They tried to seize control of the Dregs, but they had kind of banked on you dying. Thank the Saints you’re stubborn in that department. Inej came back and handled it. Oh, you want to know how? I’ll tell you how, but if you’re going to be gross about how amazing she was, do it in private, all right?

Right. Let me set the scene. It was early morning in the warehouse district, sun coming up over the harbor. We hadn’t slept in days. We’d whisked you to the coast to meet Specht just the morning prior, before sunrise. We’d pressured Wylan to go, too – it was unpleasant. There may have been tears. (Not mine, let’s get that on the record right now.) And then Inej was orchestrating a massive takedown. Anika was delivering missives while pretending to look loyal to Haskell. (Whatever you’re paying her, it’s not enough.) The crew of the Wraith was assembling. Pistols, knives, explosives. We were all ready for the showdown of the decade.  

(For you, Brekker. I hope you’re picking up on this. You may be a bastard, but you’re our bastard. No one else is allowed to poison you but us.)

Inej had brokered terms with Haskell, and they had agreed to meet in the warehouse district. Haskell wanted a gentlemen’s duel – pistols at dawn -- which was downright laughable given the cheating tactics he’d already shown willing to employ. But Inej was eager to make a show of his humiliation for any remaining holdouts.  

I was nervous, I’ll admit. Guns and bullets are my thing. I was not happy that she was acquiescing to Haskell’s wishes – she’s meant for knives. I’m learning, though, as I’m sure you are, that second-guessing Inej is a waste of energy.  

And she assured me it wouldn’t matter whether she won or lost, not with the attack she was strategizing with her crew. She and Anika were working out how to use them to take out every one of Haskell’s snipers without word getting back to him. You know, the sneaky things Inej does best.

So, the morning of the duel arrives. Haskell and five of his associates stride in to the warehouse district, armed to the teeth in pistols and grenades. It feels very much my last morning in the world, and if Inej feels the same way, she doesn’t look it. She’s sharpened all of her knives all night until they’re practically mirrors, hidden away in all of her limbs, and I loaned her one of my pistols (I think I cried over that).  

Rhett Haskell made some bloviating demands about how we were to hand you over when we lost, because of course he was unaware that you were already halfway to Shu Han, but that’s beside the point. Inej told him to shut up and name his second. They met in the middle of the street, back to back, and began their paces. I began counting them down.

This is when shit started to hit the proverbial fan.

Haskell had no intention of abiding by the rules and turned at the count of eight.  

Inej anticipated, but Haskell had already drawn.  

Anika was watching it all and gave the command. Inej leapt left, Haskell’s bullet singing past her face. She springs the quick release on the bone-handled knife you gave her.  

And then the rest of the Dregs start pouring in at Anika’s orders just as Inej’s knife handle is sticking out of Rhett Haskell’s throat. They’re moving in to take out the rest of Haskell’s men.  

Then in that same goddamn minute – The Stadwatch roll in. Rifles, batons, handcuffs, smoke grenades. They’re coming in with wagons and shields, rounding up anyone they can get their hands on, carting them off. It was Haskell’s last trick. He’d tipped them off. If he couldn’t have the Dregs, no one would.  

Where was I in all of this? That’s a good question. Inej had named me her second. For a moment, I thought she’d been shot when I saw her go down to dodge the bullet, and I ran at her. I was aiming at anyone who’d get too close, and then, when she pulled herself up and I saw she was all right, we were back-to-back to fight our way out, pistols and knives at the ready.

But then, the Stadwatch. Kaz, you’ve got to believe that I was prepared to do whatever it took to get her out of there. If she wasn’t so heavily armed, I’d have even thrown her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but she most definitely would have stabbed me if I’d tried. When the Stadwatch rolled in, she told me to run. It happened so fast, Kaz. She said I was the one who could arrange to have you cared for, arrange for the payments and such. She said I had to go. She fucking hit me in the face, Kaz, like really hard. So, I did what I was told.

So, that is both the good news and the bad news. And the infinitely worse bad news. The good news is the Haskells no longer maintain hold over the Dregs. The bad news, of course, is that the majority of the Dregs are in the custody of the Stadwatch. And the worst of it is that that number includes Inej. She will stand before a judge next month, who will almost definitely sentence her to Hellgate.

But don’t panic! We have time. You can write her; I visit her regularly with the solicitor I’ve procured for her case. And it’s just Stadhall right now. If you’re reading this, you’re awake, and you can help me figure out how to break her out. That’s a cake walk for you. Don’t panic. We have been in worse scrapes than this.  

Do try to keep things light when you write her, though, all right? What happened to you hit her pretty hard. It’s been difficult to watch.

And, for Saint’s sake, thank Wylan for me. Daily. He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s furious.  

Best wishes,

J. Fahey

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

My dearest Inej, most cherished jailbird in all of Ketterdam,

First things first, I’m all right. Probably infinitely better than you, actually. I can move all ten fingers and toes and speak in complete sentences, and I’ve never been so patronized in my life for such menial accomplishments. At least I think that’s what these Shu mediks are doing when I do something they want. It sounds very patronizing, anyway.

I won’t bore you with too many details, which could easily be done, because it’s very boring here. The food is bizarre and horrible. I’m forced to walk laps around the ward at least three times a day, no matter how badly my leg hurts, but I’m proud to report I’ve not strangled a single nurse, even though I’ve really wanted to. Wylan has even said I can tell you that I’m a “model patient” – although I did glare at him rather heavily to get him to agree to do so. You can let Jesper know we're getting on all right. He enjoys my card tricks the most out of any of you, so if I can't be stuck with you, at least it's him.

All of this is, of course, thanks to you. I’m caught up on the letters, and I can hardly believe it all. I owe you far more than a debt of gratitude. I owe you my life. I owe you an entire city. I owe you everything.

Which, of course, brings me to your predicament. I’m working on it. I have said I would come for you, and I have always meant it. I will, love, just as soon as I can manage it. I am spending every waking second until then scheming what needs to be schemed to get you out of this.

In the meantime, have you tried not getting caught? That usually works for me.

With love and with gratitude and with every bit of strength I have,

I’m yours,

K. Brekker

P.S. – And, for gods’ sake, tell Jesper to stop telling me not to panic. It’s literally the most panic-inducing thing a person can say, and the nurses keep saying it's bad for my constitution.

P.P.S. - What happened to Artie Galligan in all of this? Or is the answer to that question bad for my constitution as well?

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

Zenik,

I had to call in some favors to get this to you. Don't ask, but you are allowed to be impressed. I need your help.

-Brekker

[girls-scenarios]

To Feel Human (Part 1)

Idol: Irene (Red Velvet)

Prompt:  Could you make android au with Irene and fem!reader? The reader created Irene and wanted Irene to learn about human feelings. Although, sometimes Irene feels like she’s a burden to the reader and leaves temporary. At the end, she comes back they love each other ❤️

Writer: Admin Lee

A/N: Ok this is gonna be a pretty long one, which is why I separated it! I already have most of the second part finished, I’m just working on the ending. Anyways, I took some liberties with this one, but I hope you like it! This one has been super enjoyable for me to write, and I was very inspired by one of my favorite fics: Zeitgeist by leeyoobin on AO3!

Part 2

It started as just an off-the-wall idea, in the living room of one of your friend’s house, Yeonjung’s, to be specific. Along with the rest of your closely knit group, including Yoojung, Yuha, Eunwoo, and Jihyo, you had talked of AI’s, their advancement, etcetera. This was shortly after college, when you had finally earned your Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering, and a Master’s in mechanical engineering. With an adoration for movies like Ghost in the Shell, and an affinity for problem solving, this was able to motivate you enough to begin a new project: making the first android for personal use. Unfortunately, you weren’t the first with the idea and skills needed to create true artificial life. However, so far the androids on the market have been widely restricted, kept only to be used by large-scale companies with supervision, the military, and other government operations. So, you felt the compulsion to take the risk of creating one more suited for use by the average person. And after a few days of thinking it through on your own, you ended up pitching the idea to Jihyo over lunch.

“You want to...What?”

“Well, I didn’t think it’d be a bad idea, you know? Someone to keep the average person company, help around the house, take care of pets... Stuff like that.” You explained, trying your best to sound reasonable about the idea.

“That sounds great and all, but what about the parts? And the facility we’d have to use to build it in? Half of the things we would need would most likely be illegal for regular people to get..”

You paused, thinking for a moment. “How about Eunwoo’s girlfriend, Kyulkyung? She has some corporate connection, I’m sure.. She’s not an heiress for nothing.”

“I- Ok, we could ask, but it’d probably be a stretch, even for her,” Jihyo replied, always the realistic one. “And I’m assuming you won’t be able to do this alone, so I’m texting the rest of the group, just to see if they’re interested.”

-

A week or so later, Kyulkyung was able to text you, voicing her enthusiasm for the project, as well as her ability to obtain what your group needed. She was more than happy to help, and coupled with Eunwoo’s impatience, they were able to discreetly transfer some packages of parts and tech to a borderline-abandoned company warehouse near the small town you lived in.

Everything was now sitting in boxes in the now less-empty warehouse. With the help of your friends you took the time to meticulously go through and somewhat organize the amalgamation of parts you had received. There was also a rather large one that you had yet to open. Weird, because Kyulkyung had never really said anything about a package that big. Nonetheless, your curiosity got the best of you and you opened it up.  

A discarded android was what you found. Telltale light on its temple blank, lifeless. You had never been this close to one, really, and found it fascinating that something could look so human. You turned in Jihyo’s general direction and got her attention.

“Hey, Jihyo!” You called, and she turned away from what she was doing, walking over to where you stood. “I didn’t know this would be a repair-job, did you?”

“Oh, yeah. When Kyulkyung suggested the idea of fixing up a deactivated droid, she said it’d be easier on all of us. No one would really look into it if something irreparable were to go missing, so she just took this,” She gestured at the inactive android. “and said it’d be more efficient to just fix it up. A lot more inconspicuous for the company, too. Sorry, maybe I should’ve mentioned it.”

“No, it’s fine! You’re right about it seeming easier, I was just surprised,” You explained, eyes still locked onto the body in front of you. “Since we only have to fix it up,we should finish a lot faster, don’t you think?” You could see her nod out of the corner of your eye, and she walked off to resume her work.

Taking note of it’s features, you saw it was a female model, not too hard to tell. Its skin looked soft and pale, and this surprised you, but made sense after thinking about it. Maybe the people that worked with them often wanted to feel more at ease, so the appearance was made to look lifelike. It’s hair was relatively long, and dark in color. You knelt down in front of the container, reaching out to touch the body lying in front of you, but stopped yourself mid-reach, now realizing the gashes and dents in the model (most likely one of the reasons why it was in the scrap pile). Deciding it was a better decision to take care of everything else before dealing with the android, you shut the box gently and went to ask your friends what they needed help with.

-

The week had finally ended, and you and your friends worked day and night to get the warehouse up to par. There was a platform set up with wires and tubes to hold the android while it was being worked on and programmed, a couple of shelves stocked with spare parts in the corner, some computers and generators, and the android itself - still in the dark, hard plastic container it had arrived in. Not ready to unpack it quite yet, your group took the weekend to relax and prepare for the hard work to come.

Upon meeting again Monday evening, a matter needed to be taken care of before you all could begin: would the android stay here in the warehouse, or would one of you take it home with you once it was completed? Lottery was as good a method as any, and you all put your names in a small box that Yoojung had picked up. After a bit of shuffling the names within the box, Yuha grabbed a slip of paper. She then read aloud:

“(Y/N).”

Looking up from paper, she smiled and jokingly commented, “Have fun getting the robot used to that beast of yours.”

You laughed, imagining how your dog - a Newfoundland named Walter - would act around someone new in the house.

With that now taken care of, you began work once again. This time, finally ready to start working on the android. Eunwoo opened up the box attempted to pick up the body inside.

“Damn, this thing is heavy.. Yoojung, could you bring a rolling cart or something?”

“Sure,” She replied with a chuckle, then within a minute, brought back something the android could be moved more easily on. “Here you go.”

They both managed to get the droid on the cart, and in half an hour, hooked up all the wires from the android to the computers nearby. Then came the more difficult part: repairing the android itself. Not an impossible task, however, it was quite daunting. From what was on the container it arrived in, the model seemed to be a CX100, which didn’t necessarily matter to you outside of which parts were correct. So after finding the model type, you worked on getting familiar with the software Kyulkyung sent with the rest of the tech, hoping to figure it out in enough time to get a diagnostics test run soon. It was getting later in the day though, and your friends had obligations outside of this, so they were gradually saying their goodbyes until it was just you. However, you didn’t mind this, and understood they had lives of their own. Unlike you, who had a flexible schedule working from home (you wrote articles and edited for a science-related magazine). This was one of the few exciting things happening in your life right now, and you didn’t want to waste the time you had.

4 hours had passed since you were left alone. You were still messing around with the computers and getting a handle on the general anatomy of the android in front of you and were now feeling comfortable enough to begin tinkering with the programs necessary to work on the robot. Getting the diagnostics software package up and running, you look at the data now popping up on the screen in a list based on importance of the issue. There were several biocomponents that you found were damaged, as well as a critically low amount of Thirium 310 (a type of liquid that circulates energy and electronic info throughout the android). The software showed which of the synthetic organs were damaged in a 3D model of the robot, so it was a lot easier for you to search the boxes and containers for the parts that it required. You left them out to be cleaned, along with a sticky note listing what they were and how to properly clean them, as you had read over the procedures in a document that had also accompanied the software. It would make more sense to do it tomorrow anyways (when you weren’t running on two Red Bulls). Not exactly known for being a night owl, the work was going starting to go a little slower, even with the help of energy drinks. So you decided on calling it a night for now, figuring that you had accomplished enough for one evening.

-

The next two weeks went by surprisingly fast, and there was an impressive amount of productiveness despite everyone’s schedules getting busier as the year was drawing to a close. It was nearly the end of September, and as the temperatures dropped, your spirits certainly didn’t. The android was nearly in full repair, with the parts being cleaned and replaced, Thirium replenished, gashes and dents mended. You all felt more than accomplished at your progress, considering that all was left was putting some final touches on the programming. Collectively, you had all decided that an android with a capability to be gentle, courteous, reliable, and helpful would be one of the best options for a robot with the intent of personal use. Therefore, the appropriate behavioral abilities were added into the matrix. However, with parts of the company’s system still being there, you discovered the android had already been embedded with a neural net - thus giving it a way of thinking, of being, similar to humans.

-

Now, for the moment you had all worked so hard for. With the programming complete, the android was ready to be activated. The small group that had put an insane amount time into this project was now all gathered around the small platform where the android was kept while being repaired. Kyulkyung had taken a day off to join the ensemble, just as excited to see the finished product in action.

“So, it’s really going to act like a normal person?” She spoke up, inspecting the multiple tabs still on the computer screens that surrounded the platform.

“I mean, that’s what we’re hoping for, for the most part. I think what we were working towards was an ability to act like someone you’d see every day - or a friend even.” Yuha explained, typing some things into the computer before shutting down a few tabs. “Those were just some diagrams of what needed to be fixed.” She stated, turning back to face the group in the rolling chair she was lounging in.

“Are we ready to start it up, then?” Yeonjung inquired. “I want to see how it acts when it wakes up!”

“Yeah, I think so. Eunwoo, would you do the honors?” Jihyo asked, gesturing to the button on the laptop that would start the android up.

“Sure can!” She exclaimed with a thumbs up, jumping over to the monitor. “Everyone ready?”

You all nodded your heads, eager to get the android running. The anticipation was killing you for sure because you knew it would be staying with you tonight. Eunwoo pressed the key, causing the computers to whirr with activity. The temple light on the android lit up a bright blue, and its eyes opened.

“I am model CX100, how can I help you?”

-

You spent the next hour or so going over all the basics: making sure the programming was compatible with its neural net functions, checking to see that the body was moving correctly, and testing things like vision and other sense modifications that you had improved upon. The android complied with every request you made of it without a hitch, and soon, you were finished. By this time it was already dark, but the group couldn’t help but be enamored with the artificial intelligence. They spent at least an extra hour asking it a plethora of questions, to which the robot answered all of them to the best of its ability. However, before it was time to take it home for the night, you held a quick meeting.

“(Y/N) just be careful, okay? Try to keep its presence on the down-low, we don’t need anyone getting suspicious, especially since it’d be Kyulkyung’s job - and potentially our careers as well - on the line.” Jihyo stated seriously. You understood, of course, getting caught would only end badly for you all. So you nodded, promising to keep it out of sight as much as possible.

With that out of the way though, everyone soon broke off from the ensemble to head home, leaving the android in your hands.

“Ok, CX100, we’re going to go to my house where you’ll stay for the time being. I have an extra room where you can stay, so that won’t be an issue.. And maybe tomorrow we can get you some more clothes.” You explain, now aware that the only thing it was wearing was a hospital gown. Functional for setting up, yes, but maybe not for everyday wearing. Figuring it’d fit in some spare clothes lying around at home, you didn’t think it would be much of an issue for the ride there.

“Thank you.” Short and to the point.

Maybe you’d just need to warm up to it.

-

You arrived at your house without a hitch and opened the door for CX100. The two of you then walk up the small pathway to the large wooden door of your two-story abode. Maybe you didn’t need all the space, but you got it for a deal, and though it was a little rustic, you enjoyed the tranquil atmosphere it had.

“Wait here a second, I have a dog.” You stated, not wanting the android to become too surprised at your rather large pet. “He’s a Newfoundland, so he’s kind of big, but he’s really sweet so don’t worry too much.”

You then opened the door, inviting the android in first before following soon after, closing the door behind you.

“Walter!” You called.

Within a few seconds, your Newfoundland was bounding down the stairs, and jumping right into your arms. He covered your face in kisses before looking up at the new house guest. Walter slowly stepped over to where CX100 was, sniffing and wagging his tail as he got closer. The android seemed to dislike him, a sour expression on its face as it backed up into your coat rack near the door. Sensing the robot’s discomfort, you called your dog back over to you before telling him to go lay on the couch in the living room adjacent to the entry. He understood and trotted away.

“He’s a bit much, I know.. But I’m guessing dogs aren’t your favorite now, huh?”

“I can’t say they are. He’s very large and… eccentric. Though I will become accustomed to his presence, as I assume he is your pet.” It answered monotonously.

You nodded and beckoned CX100 to follow you to its room, one of the spares you had in the house. It was the closest to yours, so you’d be able to easily check up on it overnight if needed.

“Feel free to move some things around, change it if you want. It’s your room now, so please make yourself at home,” You mentioned softly. “I’ll be downstairs for a minute to feed Walter, if you need anything, let me know.” And with that, you left the android to get settled.

-

The night carried on as usual, save for the addition of your guest. The droid acclimated quickly, and you watched it find its way around the house like it had been living there forever. Its modified features were definitely making themselves known now: the photographic memory, use of its senses, etcetera. This was promising news, and you would definitely have to keep your colleagues posted.

Once it finally came time to go to sleep, you contemplated asking CX100 to spend the night in your room, if for nothing more than to keep an eye on it for its first night outside of the makeshift lab. You came to the conclusion that, yes, it would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on it overnight just to make sure its sleep sequence went smoothly. Although it doesn’t need as much sleep as a human does, you concluded that the android would need more time tonight to process the day’s activities.

Walking to its room, you knocked once before opening the door. CX100 was sitting quietly on the bed, seemingly staring off into space. You cleared your throat to get its attention, which snapped the android out of its thoughts; this prompted it to look up at you.

“Would you mind if you stayed in my room? It’d just be tonight, I wanted to keep an eye on you to make sure everything is running normally.”

“Yes, it will not be a problem,” The android answered. “Would you like me to relocate myself now?”

“Sure, thank you.” You were completely ready for bed so, you followed the android out into the hall, turning off the few lights that were still on as you went.

Soon, you were able to watch as the android went into its dormant state with Walter cuddled up next to you as the blue light on its temple went from a constant glow to a dim flash of color about every 10 seconds.

You now felt relaxed knowing that everything had gone smoothly for the night, and that there had been no problem whatsoever with CX100, albeit its slightly reserved personality. This wasn’t really a problem per se, however, the delay in showing the emotion you hoped it was capable of would most likely take some time.

-

Upon waking up in the morning, you noticed two things; One: CX100 wasn’t in your room any longer, and two: Walter wasn’t there either. You promptly got up and went downstairs, only to find your dog lazily napping on the floor underneath the kitchen table, and CX100 cooking breakfast.

It noticed your presence, and looked at you from over its shoulder. “Walter has been fed, I assumed two cups of food was adequate for a dog of his size,” It stated, looking back down at the bacon that was sizzling away in the pan on the stove. “and I’m in the process of preparing breakfast, is that alright?”

“Y-yeah, definitely. Thank you.” You replied, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. It was still relatively early, 7:26 to be exact. Going to the fridge, you grabbed some juice, along with a cup from the cabinet nearby, and went to sit down at the kitchen table. After a few minutes, you spoke up.

“Don’t you think getting called CX100 all the time is boring?”

“I have not. It is the name of my model, should I not address myself as such?” It inquired, setting the now cooked bacon on a plate, along with some eggs and a biscuit.

“That’s true, it is. I just thought, maybe for something a little less suspicious in case we were to go out of the house, would an actual name be nice?”

“If you think it is a choice that would benefit me, then please do.”

“Do you want to decide? On both whether you want one or not, and what your name would be?” You questioned, genuinely out of curiosity, but also partly for the purpose of testing its mental abilities.

The android seemingly went into deep thought for a moment and looked down at the wooden floor. It hadn’t necessarily had to make a decision of its own before now, but now given the chance, it hesitated. It was built to be more human, had the capabilities to suggest, decide, request - the list goes on. The LED flashed yellow, just for a moment, before assuming its normal, blue glow.

“Irene.” The android stated, now making eye contact with you. “I would like to be called Irene.”

[salmonthestoryteller]

Intimidation Game

Animal Kingdom Fanfic

(Set Post s3, pre s4 - right after Adrian's scene at the airport.)

At first Adrian was glad when they left him alone. After being brought to the office, and searched. After being made to sit and watch as the surfboard was brought in, and opened right in front of him. He wondered if he could play dumb - claim to have been unaware the drugs were inside. The board was too heavy, though - just like he'd told Jack - and he doubted they'd buy the excuse. His history would make it obvious it wouldn't have flown under his radar. Competitive Surfing; surfboard repair. No, no one would believe he didn't know.

He'd heard dozens of sayings about ticking clocks, but he'd never actually paid attention to one before. After a while, though, it felt like the sound of the clock on the wall was all he could hear.

Deran was going to be furious with him for this. He'd known he wouldn't be happy he agreed to work for Jack - but getting caught? He wasn't even certain what the charge would be. Somehow the length of sentence getting caught would bring had never come up in Jack and his conversations. Fuck Jack, anyway. Easy money his ass.

Tick tock. Tick tock. It wasn't actually a tock, he decided. It was just Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Like an annoying little insect that never shut up. Despite the clock on the wall, he realized he had no idea how long it had been. Ten minutes? Thirty? What were they waiting for?

A part of him wanted to stand. Pace. Just move, but he wasn't certain he was allowed to move from the chair. He didn't need to get himself into more trouble. He stayed seated, as the minutes continued to pass.

He wasn't certain what came next - would they just cart him off to the nearest police station to process him? When would he be allowed to make a phonecall - that was how it worked, right? He got a phonecall? Who would he call? Deran? He winced at the notion. That would be humiliating, and what could he do for him, anyhow?  Would he even know? Deran didn't get caught. He had, though, once. But that had been auto theft - not drug trafficking. He could call Jess, which was only slightly less horrifying to consider, but who he knew would help him figure out the next step.

The chair hadn't been comfortable from the start, but it only grew worse as time passed and the desire to move worsened. He was starting to get thirsty, though he suspected the tightness in his throat was also from nerves.

He jumped when the door opened, allowing in a suited man he didn't recognize from earlier.  He had a cup of water and a set of folders with him. He took his place on the other side of the long table, taking a sip of his water before opening the top folder.

Adrian couldn't help but moisten his own lips in response as the man glanced through the papers without even looking at him.

"Adrian Dolan." He finally spoke.

"Yea-" He began, but was quickly cut off.

"Born and schooled in Oceanside. Competitive surfer, former employee at a surfboard repair shop. Your file is a pretty dry read. There is a couple speeding tickets, but they're actually all paid. On time even. No major outstanding debts." The man looked up at him. "Tell me, how does someone with such an empty history end up in a drug trafficking ring?"

He wasn't even sure what to respond to that.

"You don't seem like an addict. Are you?"

"Who are you?" He finally managed to ask.

The suited man gave him a smile that didn't feel the least bit pleasant. "Sorry. Maybe I jumped ahead a bit. You seem a little lost, so I'm guessing you're pretty new at this. My name is Detective Livengood. I work for the DEA - that's the Drug Enforcement Administration. I've been trying to track down a ring based here in Oceanside that's been smuggling to other countries. You are the best break I've had in months." He took a sip from his water cup again, and Adrian couldn't help but track the motion, his own mouth feeling dry. Livengood seemed to note it, and smiled again. "So, how long have you been part of this trafficking ring?"

"I'm not." Adrian told him.

"You're not? You have five kilos of an illegal substance in one of your surfboards, which you were planning to take over international lines, but you aren't trafficking?"

"... I think I should talk to a lawyer."

"Oh, I'm sure you should." Livengood agreed, but didn't move or say anything more.

"I mean, now. I want to talk to a lawyer now." It didn't seem like something he should need to explain, but Livengood still wasn't moving.

"I feel we should finish our little chat first." Was the reply.

Adrian stared at him. "If I'm under arrest don't I get-"

"Adrian - do you mind if I call you Adrian? - you're not under arrest."

"I'm not?"

"No, at least not yet. Right now you've just been detained for questioning. What happens next is up to you."

"Meaning what?"

"Well, you are in possession of an illegal substance, and you tried to cross a border with it. I can have you booked, placed in jail to await trial. Trafficking is a federal offense. You'll get a pretty hefty sentence for that. But I'm a reasonable guy, and your file suggests this isn't something normal for you. So I want to give you a chance."

"A chance for what?"

"To go free. I don't want you. I want the people who gave you that surfboard. You give me them, and you walk."

"Look, I don't know anything. I can't help you."

"Now, I'm sure that's not true." Livengood rose slowly from his seat, picking up the water cup and coming to stand beside him. "I'm sure you can help me a lot. After all, these guys trusted you once. As long as you actually make your delivery, I'm sure they'd trust you again. The more they trust you, the more you can help me."

"You want me to spy on them." Adrian translated. "I can't do that."

Livengood drank the rest of the water, crumpling the paper cup and dropping it in the trash can by the door. "Why don't I let you think about it?"

The door closed behind him, leaving Adrian alone again. The clock on the wall continued to keep time.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Fini

I wasn't planning on writing this, but…

There's one thing I feel AK does very well, starting in season 1 with the treatment of Alexa and J and continuing through Smurf's arrest, is show abuse of authority. It consistently shows how easily people's rights are violated by people who have power over them.

To me, that's what I see in Adrian's situation as well. Livengood especially is abusing his power over him. I don't believe for one moment Adrian was allowed to see a lawyer, make a phone call, or leave that room before he agreed to Livengood's terms.

There's a scene in WarGames, which is a 1980s movie for those who don't know it, which I took some inspiration from. Now, for those who don't know the movie, David is a teenage boy whose been placed under arrest. He's basically being questioned by McKittrick, who is a government official.

After awhile David basically says: I don't think I should say anything more until I speak to a lawyer.

To which McKittrick basically replies: And I think you should forget about a lawyer until I get some answers.

I didn't think a lot about it when I was young, watching the movie. As an adult, that scene is far more chilling. McKittrick isn't even that bad of a guy, yet he abuses his authority without even blinking. He basically wipes away any notion that David has rights in this situation. He is allowed only what those who have authority over him say he is allowed. Nothing else - including rights many of us assume are untouchable.

That sort of abuse of power and authority is something I feel AK sets as precedence from the start. AK is cops vs robbers and the cops are distinctly not the good guys. The Codys are no angels, but they're practically model citizens vs people like Livengood, Pearce, and Yates.

[iamartemisday]

Why of course I have to ask for Lokane 💍

where they get married

Outdoors most definitely. Possibly on the roof of a skyscraper so they can be extra close to the sky. Loki would add extra stars to the sky and work some magic to make the moon look bigger. (He’d do it for real but there are tides and silly things like that.)

when they get married ( ie what time of day, what month and season etc. )

At night during the full moon. Probably early summer or late spring when it’s warm but not too warm.

what traditions they include ( do they get married under a chuppah and crush a glass, garter toss, ‘something borrowed, something blue,’ etc. )

I feel like they’d mix traditions. Jane would wear white, but she’d probably have some green somewhere because it’s Loki’s color. Maybe he’d make her a necklace with green stones or something. He’d wear ceremonial armor and they’d exchange rings, which Loki probably made himself because Jane deserves it and because anyone else would just go to the store like a plebe. Real men forge their own jewelry out of fire!

what their wedding cake looks like

….who smashes cake into whose face

‘Are we supposed to do this?’‘Some couples like it, but I’d rather not.’‘Very well.’Suddenly all their guests have cake smashed in their face.‘Loki!’‘You put the idea in my head, dearest, and you expected me to do nothing?’

who proposed to who first

Loki proposed. He wanted to make a big gesture, but he knew Jane would prefer a more intimate affair. He compromised by taking her to the top of a mountain and spelling his proposal out in the stars.

It was headline news for weeks.

who walks down the aisle and who waits at the altar ( or neither )

Jane walks, Loki waits.

what their wedding dresses / suits / other look like

Loki would probably wear something like the coronation scene in Thor 1. Maybe without the helmet, though. That thing can get snagged on flowers and stuff. Jane would probably favor a simpler dress. No big fluffy princess gowns. Maybe something like this: 

what their wedding colour scheme is and what sort of decor they have

Blues and purples for sure. Anything space or magic themed. Their wedding cake has constellations on it so their decor should, too.

what flowers are in the bouquet ( if applicable. bonus: what do the flowers mean? )

Lily of the Valley. Loki gets a good deal from his buddy Ēostre.

what their vows are ( eg poetry, traditional, improvised etc. )

I feel like they wouldn’t have long vows or anything overly creative. Jane’s not much of a writer and she doesn’t want to give Loki the chance to be like ‘I would move the Earth for you’ and then disrupt the planet’s gravitational pull to prove his point.

if anyone’s late to the wedding

I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be on time. Maybe Tony if wants to grab a last minute wedding gift for them. (‘I’m sorry, Rudolph, I just saw this Viking helmet at the discount costume store and it just spoke to me. Really brings out your eyes.’)

who’s in the bridal parties / groomsmen / other

Darcy would probably be Jane’s maid of honor, and Thor would be Loki’s best man. I don’t think they’d have a huge wedding party otherwise.

what their bridal party / groomsmen / other are wearing

Thor wears his armor, and Jane gives Darcy carte blanche to pick her own dress since Jane’s not the most fashion savvy person. I feel like Darcy would look good in something like this:

who gives speeches at the reception ( bonus: what do they say? recount a sweet memory or two between them? tell an embarrassing story? )

Thor starts giving a speech about the time Loki almost fell into a volcano in Muselphiem and Thor had to save him, but then he mysteriously develops severe laryngitis and can’t talk for the rest of the night. Weird how that happens sometimes.

who catches the bouquet( s )

Jane intentionally throws it Sif’s way. (‘Confess to Thor already, geez!’) Unfortunately, Sif has her back turned, assumes whatever is whizzing at her head to be an attack and impales the flowers on a blade. Petals and broken stems are everywhere.‘Eostre will kill you.’‘Shut up, Silvertongue…’

what their wedding photos are like ( are they sweet, with the couple holding hands or kissing or ~gazing into each others eyes~? are they silly, with a snapshot of the ‘cake-smash’ moment? or are they artistic, with one of them facing the sunset or holding their bouquets? )

Some of them are perfectly normal and beautiful (the ones with just Jane and Loki). Some were boring, so Loki added a few alterations before they were developed.‘Why does Thor have a horse tail and rabbit ears?’‘You don’t think they suit him?’

what sort of food they have at the reception

I feel like they’d have a pretty eclectic setup. Jane’s partial to Mexican from her time in Puente Antiguo, but Loki needs some of Asgard’s traditional dishes as well. The full roasted goat was a bit much, but Jane can’t deny it tasted amazing.

who cries first during the ceremony

Tony, because he always obnoxiously cries at weddings. And because Loki gave Morgan a pony for her birthday and now she totally likes him best out of everyone??? Not fucking way, Reindeer Games!

how wild their reception gets ( who dances the best, who gets drunk first, etc. )

It’s a half Asgard wedding. You tell me.

what their rings are like

Gold bands with shift between different phrases and images. Also they have sensors to let one know when the other is in danger. Loki adds lots of little features like that because again, real man!

what sort of favours they have ( heart shaped sparklers, mini champagne bottles, personalised candy etc. )

Loki makes tiny model constellations to place on all the tables. They hand out extremely tiny bottles of Asgardian ale. Like barely one swallow. It’s enough to get an average human completely trashed, but probably not kill them.

where they go for their honeymoon

Loki takes her on a lengthy tour of the galaxy, showing her more stars than she ever knew possible. It turns out to be kind of a bad idea because she keeps interrupting their (cough) alone time because look at that star right there. I’ve never seen that star before. Look, Loki, look!!!

something memorable that happens during the party / ceremony ( do they run out of ice and someone goes to get it in full formal wear on foot, does anyone fall asleep in the middle of the party, etc. )

A random terrorist attack happens halfway through the reception. All Avengers and allies are needed. This is extremely bad timing as they haven’t even cut the cake yet. Loki rolls his eyes at all the whining and ‘this is important we’ll come back when we can’ blah blah blah.

Loki then disappears, only to return a minute later, wiping his knife clean like ‘okay taken care of.’

The party continues and nobody says anything about the blood on his armor.

who officiates the ceremony

Heimdall. Tony offers (he can perform legally binding marriages because of this thing from grad school when he got drunk in Atlantic City and… well it’s a long story), but since he’s still pissed about the pony thing, Jane politely declines. Tony agrees this is probably for the best as he might not be able to resist coming in on a horse since Loki obviously loves horses so damn much…

what song their first dance is to

I like Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls for them.Shockingly enough, Loki doesn’t change the song to something stupid like Jizz in My Pants as a joke. That would be too obvious (and he already filled the rest of the wedding playlist with Weird Al songs anyway).

who gives who away as they walk down the aisle

I think Jane would give herself away. It’s their moment, even if a lot of people are watching, and Jane wants it to be personal. Just him and her, the way it was meant to be.

[whirlybirbs]

                          PREVIOUSLY ON #BITTERCOFFEE | THE MASTERLIST

summary: #bittercoffee. in which the reader is ghosted after the date with bucky and tony stark is to blame. but, an internship opportunity at the tower has her ready to bite back. rating: mild swearing and a brainiac reader. fight me. word count: 1.6k a/n: my bittercoffee!reader is about to fuck shit up. sorry for the lack of buck-o in this one. he’s coming up next part. enjoy!

Bucky doesn’t come in for coffee the next morning.

And when you text him, wondering sweetly if maybe he had “avenging to do”, your text is met with silence. Nothing. You don’t text him again until late that night when you’ve hiked back from the shop in the rain. You ride the subway in silence. You have your earbuds in. No music. Your body rocks with the train. Your fingers move quick across your phone screen.

I hope everything’s okay?

You make it to your apartment, sad and somber and angry. You’re soaked to the bone and weighed down. The growing anxiety that Bucky had decided you weren’t worth his time, or maybe he didn’t like you enough was eating away at you, and though it feels childish, you cry. It’s muffled into the sleeve of your NYU sweatshirt.

Marissa comes in, having heard the quieted sobs, and offers you some microwaved pizza. You decline, to sick on sadness to think about eating.

“Sometimes boys just don’t work out,” she said, “No matter how much we like them.”

You look like hell, and the next morning? Still nothing. No texts, no Bucky. The coffee shop is slow and empty thanks to the rain. You feel the same way. You try not to let Matt into the inner turmoil, but he knows something’s not right.

You push the feelings down and away and pretend you’re fine.

You do for the whole week.

And then you begin to think you’re never going to see Bucky Barnes again.

Until, one night, on your walk back from campus, you notice you’re being followed. It’s a taxi - or at least you’d thought - until it follows you to the subway stop and a man in a suit steps out. He’s bigger, no older than his mid-forties, looking less than pleased with the rain. He sits in the same subway cart as you, gets off at the same stop. He walks past your apartment, though, and from your dining room window you watch him climb into another car. A black Lincoln.

The license plate reads ‘HAPPY’.

The back window has a Stark Industries decal on it.

You begin to notice more of strange little things like this - the same man comes in and gets coffee one morning. You pretend you have no idea who he is, but your heart rate is pounding and you’re half-convinced he’s going to gun you down at register one.

He doesn't though. He sits, he watches, he sips his coffee. You think maybe this is some kind of intimidation play.

You stand your ground though; you even bus his table, smiling and asking him how his day is.

When he’s leaving, you snap a picture of him, pretending to snapchat, and you save it.

Sniped.

You reverse image search him when you get home that night and land a positive ID. You’re hunched over coffee and the notes surrounding your midterm thesis paper around integrated militarized biotech. The blue light of your laptop illuminates the room, and you cheer, mouth full of popcorn, when you nail his name down.

You think maybe Bucky would be proud of you. You’re a good sidekick. But, well, that ship has sailed. Your heart hurts a little bit thinking about him.

The guy from the shop is Harold Hogan. Personal bodyguard and trainer to the one and only Tony Stark.

You begin to note more Stark property along your walk to work. The building across from you has been bought out. Apparently some housing project Stark is working on. You learn to look at the license plates. The Avengers Tower decal for parking is minuscule but apparent if you know where to look. It includes security clearance.

You’re clearly being watched.

And then your wifi starts to act up, too. Through some more backwards engineering, you delve into the internal system codes of the apartment router and find that a external proxy has been set up. Your cookies, data, history and any and all saved files are being copied and routed to an apartment in Queens. You get the IP address. You track it to a May Parker.

No doubt a relation to Peter Parker.

No doubt you were being watched thanks to that Stark Internship.

You call Bucky that night, curse him out on his voicemail - it’s long winded and angry and maybe you had a little bit too much wine - and tell him to tell Stark to fuck off. You don’t hear anything back, but you’re sure someone got the message -- if anything, Stark probably tapped into your cell long ago.

Things are starting to stack up against Iron Man.

You’re starting to think maybe there’s a reason why you haven’t seen Bucky Barnes. That reason has got to be Tony Stark.

You’re not sure why, but you can’t let it go. You know deep down it’s because you like Bucky far too much for it to just slip your mind. You didn’t date often -- and Bucky was pretty. Handsome and funny and shy and… Sad. You find yourself worrying about him, wondering if he’s walking around Brooklyn late at night, trying to find himself. You hope he’s okay. You regret telling him he ‘fucking sucks’ on his voicemail the other night.

So, you start to formulate a plan. You think about sauntering right into the Tower downtown, strolling up the reception and asking for Tony Stark -- but no doubt the man was busy, and there was no guarantee security wouldn’t drag you out kicking and screaming when they explained he wasn’t there and no, you couldn’t speak to him.

Email was a no-go. He’d probably just ignore it. Phone, too.

You could knock on Peter Parker’s door and interrogate the high schooler for information on why you’re being watched. But, you knew why you were being watched -- it was because you knew too much about Bucky Barnes.

Then, when you think you’re shit bum out of luck, an opportunity falls into your lap. Trips and lands. You catch it by the throat.

Your last class of this particular Thursday is a lab; normally running about four hours, it leaves you hungry and tired and wanting nothing more than to bolt home and kick start your homework. Though working on your actual conceptualized thesis is fun, time seems to drag on.

But, today, you were talking internships.

“You know,” your professor’s name is Sarah -- she insists you call her Sarah -- and she’s sweet. The class is dominated by men mostly, so she excitedly chatters with you when she can. You like it. Sarah leans against your lab bench after the small lecture. You’re soldering some wires together on the mechanisms functions panel, “I have a certain internship in mind for you.”

“Oh?” you say, a smile tugging at your face, “Please, enlighten me.”

Sarah laughs. “I got an email earlier this week… NYU typically isn’t one of the Universities gets these type of offers, but… Stark Industries is looking to hire.”

You feel the color drain from your face. “Stark Industries, huh?”

“They’re looking for medical students, actually,” she murmurs, “But, I want you to apply. You’re biomedical and you’re great, so if anything, they’ll be even more interested.”

“Have you… put my name down on anything yet?”

Please say no, please say no.

“No,” she says and you nearly cheer, “But, the interviews are next Monday -- are you interested? I can always email them back --”

“No!”

Sarah nearly jumps back.

“I mean -- yes, I’m interested,” you reassure her, gloved hand touching the sleeve of her lab coat, “I’m just thinking maybe don’t let them know who I am or my major or...? They might discriminate because of the medical thing…”

Totally not because of other reasons.

“Right!” Sarah hums, “You’re so right. And the best part? You’ll be surprising Tony Stark.”

You nearly laugh in her face. “Are you saying…”

“He’s doing the interviews -- some special involvement campaign, I guess. He wants to get to know our grads, get to know who he’s hiring. After the whole H.Y.D.R.A. infiltration thing, it makes sense. A lot of grads have turned it down, but I can dig up some recommendations for you. You can bring them with you --”

“Please do,” you grin, hands clasped in a tight ball, “You’re the best.”

Sarah grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she claps you on the shoulders. “I’m so excited!”

Me too, Sarah. Me too.

It’s 8:30 am, Monday morning.

Marissa is looking at you like you have three heads.

You’re tugging on your patent leather heels, sweeping your hair into a professional looking bun. The romper you have on is black with a dipping neckline -- your blazer is bright red. You feel like you could kill a man with a single look. It’s a confidence boost. You need all the help you’re going to get.

“So... you’re meeting with Tony Stark. For the internship.”

“Well,” you mumble, bobby pin between your teeth as you fix your bun, “Not really.”

Marissa blinks down at your resume. In fine print, along the top, under your name, it reads:

‘Please, ask me about my slideshow!’

“You… You have a slideshow.”

You swivel your laptop across the kitchen counter. The screen glows alive with the slideshow in question.

Marissa’s jaw drops. She reads from the title slide.

“Why I’d Like Tony Stark to Fuck Off?”

You shoot her an award winning smile, sweeping your resume and faux cover letter into a protective cover. It slips neatly into your handbag and you yank the memory drive from your laptop as well.

“Is this some activism stuff?” she mumbles, “Anti-Avengers propaganda?”

You pause.

“Sure.”

And with that, you’re out the door. Behind you, Marissa shouts.

“Let me know if I have to bail you out of jail!”

TAG LIST:

@cutiefrankie @luxieluu @justalittlebitofhisheart @oh-glory @dutchnorkat @buckyb4rnacle @chuckennuggets1213 @pandalandalopalis @valiantlymysticfestival @soggysouls @buckywhitewolf @radrouda @moony-you-fold-your-socks @kitty-and-bats-0 @rulesbyproblematique @allltheships @im-not-insane-im-a-fangirl @louieisbae42 @itshinothey @simplystarsinthesky @model-howell @marveltotheendoftheline @moroiboy @ghost-with-spaghetti-arms @swimmeranxiety @sigynwrites @shadowhunters-warlock @magic-from-the-ordinary @josiehosiedaninja @smarvills @rollcalls @simplyonehellofapilot @marassberry @shrekssunflowers @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameronstars @avengedhearts @commanderrpoe @roadtripsonspaceships @whyisbuckyso @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian @bulletproofseb @boyzines @nataliarxmanxva @alexblrus @henrietteoaks @omg-imagines-for-days @iamgabby22 @silence--in--the--library @sebashtiansatan @fangeekkk @llianniall

[dipulb3]

2021 Nissan Kicks makes value a virtue

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/2021-nissan-kicks-makes-value-a-virtue/

2021 Nissan Kicks makes value a virtue

The 2021 Kicks looks sharper than its predecessor.

Steven Ewing/Roadshow

As far as affordable small cars go, you could definitely do worse than the Nissan Kicks. It’s an efficient, feature-rich little thing, and for new car shoppers on a budget, the Kicks is one of the best overall values available today.

Like

Excellent fuel economy

Lots of driver-assistance features

Excellent overall value

Don’t Like

All trims need LED headlights

Interior could use more personality

No all-wheel drive option

The Kicks gets a much-needed glow-up for 2021, with styling that’s way less frumpy than before. It’s a good look, and while I personally prefer the more extroverted designs of competitors like the Kia Soul or Hyundai Venue, I think the Kicks is altogether more refined than the wacky Hyundai Kona or Toyota C-HR. You get 16-inch wheels on the base Kicks S, but SV and SR trims upgrade to larger 17s. My SV test car has the optional black-painted alloys, which cost $495 and would probably look better alongside one of the available two-tone paint schemes — one with a black roof, for example.

The Kicks’ interior plays it down the middle with a no-nonsense design. The controls are exactly where you expect them to be and none of the buttons or stalks feel flimsy. Sure, the doors are lined with hard plastic and the piano black trim around the gear shifter will never, ever look clean, but the stuff you’ll touch most often — the steering wheel, window switches, infotainment controls, etc. — are all nice. I do wish the cup holders weren’t one big rectangle with a partition in the middle, though. Smaller drinks like, oh, I don’t know, a grande vanilla nonfat latte from Starbucks can easily tip over while making a turn. Ask me how I know.

2021 Nissan Kicks packs a lot of features in a small footprint

See all photos

Nissan’s awesome Zero Gravity seats aren’t available in the Kicks, but the cloth chairs in my SV tester are nevertheless comfortable, and they even have an interesting diamond pattern for a little visual flair. You sit high up in the Kicks, too, and the seating position is nice and comfortable for a 5-foot, 8-inch average dude like myself. Plus, this higher seat height gives you a nice, commanding view out the front and side windows — and it’s better for your posture, too.

The back seats are serviceable, but better suited to smaller adults or children, and there’s enough room behind them to schlep a couple of carry-on bags or a shopping cart’s worth of groceries. The Kicks offers 25.3 cubic feet of space with the rear seats upright, which bests the Ford EcoSport, Hyundai Kona and Kia Soul. However, fold the bench flat and you only get 32.3 cubic feet, which is almost half the max capacity of the Soul and worse than the aforementioned Ford and Hyundai. If you need to haul on the regular, the Kicks might not be for you. But since most people will use the hatch without folding the back bench, I’m glad Nissan chose to err on the side of seat-up spaciousness.

The interior looks plain, but it’s quiet and the seats are comfortable.

Steven Ewing/Roadshow

Every Kicks uses the NissanConnect multimedia system, with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto standard. The base Kicks S has a 7-inch touchscreen but the SV and SR use a slightly larger, 8-inch head unit; these upper trims get an additional 7-inch display inside the gauge cluster, too. NissanConnect’s graphics are dated and the menu structure is kind of weird, but it’s easy enough to plug your phone into one of the USB ports and let the Apple or Android software do the heavy lifting. SV and SR trims come with both USB-A and USB-C outlets, by the way.

A huge selling point for the 2021 Kicks is the sheer amount of standard driver-assistance tech. Automatic emergency braking (front and rear), blind-spot monitoring, lane-departure warning, parking sensors and rear cross-traffic alert are standard across the board, even on the base, $20,000 model, and SV and SR trims add adaptive cruise control. No, you can’t get Nissan’s cool ProPilot Assist highway driving assistant, but that’s not a total deal-breaker. You can, however, get a 360-degree camera on this little guy, though it’s only available on the top-level SR.

There isn’t much to get excited about under the hood, but the Kicks’ powertrain is nevertheless adequate and efficient. The 1.6-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine produces 122 horsepower and 114 pound-feet of torque, which sound pretty dismal on paper, but on the road, it’s totally fine. Remember, the Kicks only weighs 2,744 pounds in its heaviest spec, so that engine doesn’t have a ton of car to lug around. The Kicks only comes with front-wheel drive, however, so if you’re looking for a tiny CUV with AWD capabilities, try the Honda HR-V or Mazda CX-3.

SV and SR models get an 8-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Steven Ewing/Roadshow

You can only get the Kicks with a continuously variable transmission. And before you balk at the idea of CVT, don’t forget that Nissan’s been offering this transmission type for years, meaning the company’s had a lot of time to fine-tune its so-called Xtronic setup. Seriously, the Kicks has one of the best CVTs around, quietly operating in the background without the high-revving drone that people tend to associate with these transmissions.

Plus, that CVT helps the Kicks return bangin’ fuel economy. Official EPA ratings aren’t available just yet, but Nissan estimates you’ll see 31 miles per gallon in the city, 36 mpg highway and 33 mpg combined — numbers right in line with what I saw in the real world. That makes the Kicks more efficient than a lot of other small crossovers, beating the Ford EcoSport, Hyundai Venue, Kia Soul and more.

The Kicks handles daily driving duties admirably, and it’s actually pretty fun to drive. The suspension is nicely tuned for both city and highway driving and the brakes are strong with solid pedal feel. The steering is light, just like every other small crossover, but it quickly responds to inputs, and more importantly, the Kicks is easy to maneuver and park. No one is expecting the Kicks to be a thrill, but it’s a perfectly pleasant little runabout. Yeah, it’s pokey, but it might surprise you on a winding road.

These black-painted 17-inch wheels are a $495 option.

Steven Ewing/Roadshow

You can get into a Kicks for as little as $20,595, including $1,095 for destination. The midgrade SV adds a lot of the niceties you’ll actually want, and it starts at a still-affordable $22,395. The loaded SR comes in at $23,035, and its only big-ticket option is the $1,200 Premium Package, which brings the price to $24,235 delivered.

The SV grade should make up the bulk of Kicks sales, but I actually think a loaded SR is the best value. The SR gets you all the best driver-assistance tech and it also comes standard with LED headlights (and foglights). That last bit is especially important — the halogen lamps on my SV test car are so dull that, at one point, I actually pulled over to make sure I had the low-beams on and wasn’t just relying on the running lights (like so many other oblivious Los Angeles drivers). LED headlights are brighter and therefore safer. Why they aren’t standard on every car at this point is kind of beyond me.

It’s hard to beat the Kicks’ overall value.

Steven Ewing/Roadshow

But the loaded SR’s virtues extend beyond illumination. Add the Premium Package and you get heated seats, a heated steering wheel and that premium Bose audio system you’ve probably heard — you know, the one with speakers in the driver’s headrest. Nothing makes an inexpensive car feel premium quite like heated seats and a kickin’ (get it?) stereo. All that and more for less than $25K? I know it’s not always easy to swing a couple thousand extra when you’re on a tight budget, but you’ll also be hard pressed to find this many amenities for this little cash.

The Kicks plays in a super-crowded class, alongside everything from the dumpy Chevrolet Trax to the dumpier Ford EcoSport to attractive and compelling hatchbacks from Korea like the Hyundai Kona, Venue and Kia Soul. Personally, I’d probably go with the Soul if it were my money; the Kia has a better interior and it’s nicer to drive, as well. Even so, the Nissan still offers more features, and it’s more efficient than anything else in its segment. Any way you slice it, the Kicks offers great value and it’s hard to argue with that.

[clifford-telegenic]

What You Do

Kera Tolan reached out with her senses, past the landspeeder she rode across the barren Xorrnian sands, and felt through the Force the wrapping up of the battle ahead of them. The carnage that she couldn’t yet see, at least physically, was ebbing, replaced with a growing feeling of tension from Imperials and relief from the soldiers of the Rebel Alliance and the denizens of Foundry Four. Reopening her eyes, though, Kera saw that her brother’s expression had hardened. It had been joyous a minute prior as the CR90s and Hammerhead corvettes had burst through the cloud. Anden had been whooping and cheering wholeheartedly for thirty seconds as the Rebel relief force descended over the battlefield and brought the conflict to a halt, but now he was back to a tense, grim expression as he stared out through the windscreen, weaving their landspeeder between rocks and debris as they approached Foundry Four.

Kera reached out again with her senses, trying to feel what was troubling Anden, but his eyes darted over to her accusingly. “Sorry,” she blurted. She played with strand of her red hair that had escaped her headband and attempted to look innocent. “I’m just wondering what’s troubling you is all,” she said, a genuine look of concern on her face. “The Alliance is here, the Imperials on the ground are surrendering, and I haven’t seen a single crashed X-Wing here yet.”

“There’s still bodies,” Anden muttered. “There might be more in orbit. That’s where I’m heading as soon as we find the others,” he added, sighing. His own red hair was flailing back wildly behind his head, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind blowing it out of his eyes the way she did. Outside the speeder, fresh debris took its place in her view alongside the rusted Clone Wars wreckage and scattering of rocks in the orange dust. An AT-AT loomed ahead of the Tolans’ speeder, but stood motionless; Rebel troopers were escorting the Imperial crew away. To their left, a pair of wounded Mandalorians, mercenaries that Kera’s allies had secured, were solemnly chanting in something other than Basic over the body of one of their own, while a staff nurse from Foundry Four waited awkwardly behind them to do his portion of the cleanup. Anden angled the speeder in a lazy curve between the broken walker and the broken soldier toward the chasm that led down to Foundry Four itself.

“I’m staying with you,” Kera concluded. Anden didn’t respond. She didn’t have to probe at his mind to feel the icy tension emanating from him, and decided it warranted further supervision.

Anden’s gloom seemed set in stone by the time they were riding the turbolift from the hangar to the medical bay on the Liberator. His arms were folded, hands clutching at the straps of his flight suit and its life support systems. He burst from the lift the second the doors slid open, and Kera struggled to keep up with him despite his legs being a dozen centimeters shorter than hers. She didn’t know whether it was something with the Force or merely the look on her brother’s face that made the others in the hallway part to either side rather neatly for the pair of them. They turned a corner into a side corridor, and Kera paused, staring at the odd sight before her. Anden stomped ahead, taking the next right. On the left, though, there was an astromech droid in the doorway of a closet.

Though Anden ignored it, Kera watched the droid slowly reverse on its legs, perpendicular to how it would pass through the door, then wheel forward and bump its dome against the door jamb with a loud clunk. It reversed, then did so again. Kera settled in for a moment, perplexed by the droid, but then felt a sudden flare of anger and pain from the next room right before she heard a clatter and crash of something metallic. She left the droid and bolted forward.

Turning the corner, she came across a hectic sight. To her right was a Dug, torso wrapped in white bandages, that seemed to have paused mid-step to look at something. Thankfully, the nurse attending the treadmill he was walking on had possessed the presence of mind to shut the machine down before he tumbled off the back of it. Directly ahead of her was an operating table, something humanoid atop it draped beneath a sheet. Three surgeons, flecked in alien-seeming blood, stood around the body, frozen and staring at something to her left. To her left was her brother, pacing in circles next to a cart that lay on its side, wheels still spinning, and a tray of surgical equipment that had somehow scattered itself across the floor. One of the scalpels on the ground glimmered red, and there was a matching line across Anden’s right cheek beneath his bloodshot eyes. Anden stomped in another circle, then another for good measure, then stopped to face his sister. Watered-down blood ran down his cheek, and he stared at her for a moment, his face at the meeting point between terror and rage. Kera slowly crept forward, reaching for his hand. He didn’t pull his away, and he followed her meekly as she stepped back toward the corridor. After pulling him out of the operating room, she leaned back into the doorway to face the others there, none of which had moved.

“My apologies, everyone, a slight malfunction from some of Ataru Squadron’s assets,” she said, gesturing toward her brother in the hallway as the medical crew stared at her. “As chief mechanic, I apologize and take full responsibility. I assure you that I will handle all necessary action in making sure this unexpected behavior does not repeat,” she added sternly, trying to summon her mother’s scolding face from her memories. She made eye contact with each of the surgeons before darting back out into the corridor.

Anden was slumped against the far wall, adjacent to the door jamb that the droid was still running into repeatedly. The clunking had picked up a slow, predictable rhythm, and Anden’s forehead now knocked against the wall in time with it. “That was Kalei Bespor,” he said quietly. Clunk, went the droid. Thud, went Anden’s head. “Ataru Three. Brilliant, even for a Cerean. Kept her in my group because she was smarter than me, more tactical than me, more reasonable than me.” Clunk. Thud. “She should have been a squadron leader. Probably next in line when the next batch of X-Wings from command opened up. Then an Imp turbolaser salvo comes in, I dodge, she doesn’t. Boom.” Clunk.Thud.

“You can’t blame yourself, Anden,” Kera said softly. She reached up toward where the blood and tears were still working down his cheek, then paused before she reached his face, realizing he probably wanted to wear that badge of anger and grief right now. She lowered her hand.

“Yeah, well, watch me,” he said quietly. Clunk. The droid continued, but Anden had stopped. After this impact, however, he swayed away from the wall, turning and walking away, shedding the extra harnesses and straps from his flight suit onto the corridor floor as he went. The good thing about Anden being squadron commander was that someone else would pick up after his tantrums, Kera thought. The bad thing was that he was the one in the position to get to blame himself for things.

The droid clunked against the door jamb again. “Stop that,” Kera muttered to it, and heard a soft, mournful beep. She turned to look at the droid, and saw its primary optical lens pointed right at her. Some kind of weapons fire had left a carbon-scored slash across the front of its dome, as well as burned off most of the red paint it had previously sported. It was an R2 model, she noted, but then the chief mechanic in her saw more. She noticed the scuff and suction marks from the hangar equipment that would have removed the droid from its starfighter. Further down the chassis, parts of the droid were missing. Some of the plates that covered its interfacing components were simply gone, and its scomp link, the computer interface it would have extended to connect with an X-wing’s onboard computers, had been sheared completely off.

The droid chirped something gentle and inquisitive at Kera. It was a request for a task, but in the meekest Binary possible.

“Did you... did you know her?” Kera asked the droid softly.

The astromech backed slowly away from Kera and the doorway into the closet, swaying gently on its two legs, its third wheel for locomotion not extended - or perhaps not functioning. Kera couldn’t tell. Suddenly it lurched forward, its dome spinning wildly, a cacophony of chirps and beeps in Binary assaulting her ears. The droid halted a few centimeters short of Kera, its inertia carrying the top of it forward, and she caught it, the droid shaking as its two active wheels tried to stabilize it while its dome continued spinning. Kera could only make out snippets of its answer -- R2-L6 = ineffective. // life support “Ataru Three” failure // R2-L6 repair efforts: catastrophic error // attempted reconnect, 2448 out of 2448 attempts failed -- and after a few more seconds Kera gently shook the droid. “Hey, hey, hey,” she said. “You broke your scomp link when they pulled you out of the X-Wing after you wouldn’t leave on your own, didn’t they?”

The droid kept shaking and chirping. Kera held it for a moment, but eventually stood up, letting the droid find its balance. Its primary visual sensor swiveled up toward her.

“What’s your name?” Kera asked.

Designation = R2-L6.

“No, your name,” Kera specified. “What Kalei called you.”

Designation = R2-L6, the droid repeated. Ataru Three belief = attachment causes undue decision second guessing.

Kera rolled her eyes. “Well, my belief is that everyone should have a name. So you should pick yours,” she said to the droid, smiling.

Designation = R2-L6, the droid repeated in Binary. Property of Ataru Three Kalei Cespor. Ataru Three Kalei Cespor status = killed in action. R2-L6 status = designated “Memory reset program” + reassignment to Liberator logistics.

“Well, I’m the chief of engineering on the Liberator, so I’m pretty sure I’m Liberator logistics, which means I’m un-designating you. No memory wipes for valorous droids that fought so valiantly to save their pilots.”

R2-L6 didn’t move, its primary visual lens still on Kera.

“And as one of those valorous droids, you get to pick your name. So go ahead,” Kera concluded.

R2-L6 didn’t move for a few moments. Eventually, its dome swiveled away from Kera, toward the doorway to the room holding its deceased pilot. Then it swiveled back slowly, seeming to take Kera in once more. She was smiling with the intense but passive stare of an overeager daycare attendant. R2-L6’s locomotors kicked in, and the droid backed away, wobbling again on only two wheels as it began to chirp haltingly, then quickly whizzed back into its door jamb, familiar and safe. It zoomed a few centimeters forward into the jamb once more. Clunk. Clunk.

“Clunk,” Kera said.

The droid paused.

“That works. Come with me, Clunk,” Kera said. “You’re being reassigned by the chief of engineering.”

The droid swiveled out of the door jamb and swung out at top speed toward Kera, who turned to walk away. It followed swiftly at her heels, beeping an acknowledgement of orders received. It was only after a minute or so of progress toward the ship’s engineering bays that it made another sound: an onomatopoeic striking noise in Binary, vaguely reminiscent of the impact of steel on steel, and a victorious titter.  

The door to Kera’s quarters opened, and she stepped in, pressing the button on the control panel near the door to activate the lights, which fluttered and pulsed for a moment due to the fact that she’d rigged the room’s circuits to power up the mechanical helper arms on the workbench that took up a quarter of her room. The two arms on the bench slowly came to life, swaying before springing up eagerly, like animals ready to play, but Kera shut them down. She needed time to think.

A questioning beep came from the hallway, and an astromech dome peeked around the corner of the doorway. Kera waved at the droid, gesturing him in, and Clunk wheeled in, letting out a beep of some kind - she couldn’t tell if he was impressed or shocked by the state of her quarters - before settling near the bench, looking up curiously at the arms there. Kera left the droid to his curiosity, stepping past some piles of spare parts and garments, hopping up to her bed, where she sat, cross-legged, and steadied her breathing.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Be aware of your body’s natural cycles, but also beyond them. Your mind must understand them, yet let go of them, reaching out beyond the physical self. It was easier to explain than to do, but most of the time, for Kera, the Force was a wave at her back, and once her mind trusted her body to continue existing without it, the Force ushered her along into its visions. She had no destination in mind today - no specific wish to see the future, or the present, or the past, but she had questions that desperately needed answering.

It was two weeks since the victory at Xorrn, and the crew of the Wayward Spirit was falling apart. No, not falling apart. They were growing apart. It was not a failure, it was a symptom of success. Their commander had succeeded in his mission to contain and direct the passion of the Tolan siblings; bigger and better things may await him than babysitting. IG-99, their longest-time companion, had discovered the honor (though Kera might not call it that) of the Mandalorians, which fit him better than the thankless job of Rebel trooper. Their medic was too noble, too willing to help all - Kera doubted she wanted to follow two siblings around to patch them up after their mistakes when she could be saving dozens or hundreds of lives of Rebel fighters that needed looking after. She and Anden should have been able to look after themselves by now, Kera thought. Their slicer had left, his cryptic role in their events completed, and given how he’d helped protect Kera and Anden’s identities, she hoped he didn’t consider her in his debt.

That just left she and Anden, her brother, her charge. She’d joined the Rebellion to protect him, when the awkward comm message full of obvious metaphors and heavy implication of where he was going had arrived. He’d sent an unencrypted holocom message about the “angels of Yavin” as if an eight-year-old assigned to Imperial Intelligence couldn’t pick up on that. The siblings hadn’t spent a day apart since, and their adventures had taken them across the galaxy a half-dozen times in service to the Rebellion.

Slowly, Kera tried to focus her mind’s eye, and let the echoes of their future adventures reach her. She’d done it before, to point the way, and she knew that chasing her future this way made self-fulfilling prophecies and tore normal causality to shreds, but it also hadn’t steered her wrong yet.

An Imperial holding a lightsaber crystal. A chase through an alleyway, a set of feet echoing behind hers. A red lightsaber blade, the core of the blade flickering as she plunged into darkness. She felt the last vision envelop her, begin to swallow her - and she blinked, pulling back. This was new - she’d seen terror before in these divinations, and she’d handled it. But the way the last image plunged into nothing... Kera took a breath, steadying herself. She leaned into the space outside reality once more, this time with the sensations of her brother on her mind. A Star Destroyer’s hull venting. Pilots and astromechs running down a hallway. A funeral. The flash of a proton torpedo leaving an X-Wing. Kera brought herself back to sanity again. His visions...

Anden was alone. There was no Wayward Spirit, their Corellian freighter, the one Anden had won by basically daring his commanding officer, the ship he’d treated as his child ever since. There was no banter during sabacc games with friends outside Ataru Squadron, his dozen comrades in space-based arms. The only emotion was righteous revenge, Anden’s indignation at the Empire for its crimes. It was more intense than usual - his anger toward the Empire always threaded the needle between justice and punishment, but this felt stronger than it had in the past. More personal. But where was she? Kera grasped onto the last image, the torpedo launch, and tried to sidestep in the frame of the vision - where was her future at this time? The point of view turned, from the torpedo to the starfield around it, and then further, the stars fading and twinkling out, and Kera turned further still and saw it again. The red lightsaber blade, like a gash in the sky, pulsating, flickering, pulling her in, sucking her in toward annihilation--

Kera opened her eyes, panting. She was covered in sweat. Clunk was staring at her from across her bedroom, and beeped a quiet question.

Kera flopped back to lie on her bed, arms spread. That red light still seared in her mind, like a ghost in one’s vision from staring at the sun. The obvious meaning of it wormed its way into her mind, insidiously, a soft whisper that she strained to hear even as she dreaded its message:

Kera had foreseen her death.

The sweat on Kera’s face felt cold. She sat up, leaning, reaching for the holocron sitting on the nightstand at the foot of her bed, but stopped herself. It, too, was an image of someone from beyond the grave, a family heirloom that had been squirreled away by Kera’s grandmother, who’d never stopped believing in the Jedi. It was a memory of her grandfather, not her grandfather himself. The programming in the holocron had not died, it could offer no context. She let her arm drop. She knew who she had to talk to, she just didn’t know how to break the news.

Kera found her brother in the seat of his X-Wing, a box of tools teetering on the edge of the cockpit while he swore heavily at something he was wrangling within. His elbow came back, catching the toolbox, and a heinous Huttese expletive escaped him from the pain, then another, still fouler curse as he watched the toolbox sway and fall from its perch. He popped his head out to survey the mess, but found Kera, arm extended, her will holding the toolbox in midair, the tools swaying gently in the Force’s grip.

“Figured that you got there just in the nick of time with those Inquisitors on Xorrn, so now we’re even,” she said with a grin.

Anden smiled, pointing at the tools and down before hoisting himself up to the lip of his fighter and letting himself drop to the deck below. He dusted his hands off. “Well, now that the chief mechanic is here, she can fix the starboard engine readouts instead of me having to do it.”

Kera snorted. “Unfortunately, I’m not here for that. Have to talk to you about the future.”

Anden planted his hands on his hips. “Is that a ‘the Force’ future or just general stuff about the future?”

Kera smiled, wincing. “...both?” she guessed.

Anden tossed the spanner he was holding at the toolbox and looked back up at his sister. “Well, I have something to tell you first that might affect such things. So can I go first?”

“Um, I have to say that I really doubt yours is more important than mine,” Kera responded, a bit indignant.

Anden waved it off. “Fine, fine. On three, we both say what we have, and see who wins. One, two, three. I’m staying.”

“I’m dying.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘you’re staying?’” Kera asked, genuinely confused.

“I meant that I wasn’t leaving Ataru Squadron to go have more adventures, what do you mean that you’re dying?!”

Kera sighed, describing the vision she’d had to him. “I saw you alone, angry at the Empire,” she continued. “I’ve been consumed by an Inquisitor, or Darth Vader, or something,” Kera said. Tears were in her eyes already at the thought. “And I saw the vision, and I don’t know how to prevent it, and I think trying to prevent it will just guarantee it, and, and...”

“Hang on. When did you see this?” Anden asked. His normal cocky demeanor was gone, replaced with the kind of genuine concern she only saw when his family, or maybe his squadron, was threatened.

Kera wiped at her face and sniffled. “An hour ago. I’ve been... I’ve been trying to get the courage up to tell you.”

Anden suddenly reeled, like thirty ounces of whiskey had hit him all at once. He swayed from side to side and then began to laugh. Tears were in his eyes now, too. “Kera, I decided I was staying something like ninety minutes ago. You didn’t see you in the vision because you weren’t there. Physically there.”

Anden started cackling loudly and doubled over. Kera stood, horrified. “How do you know?! The blade pulsed, there was white light within. It was consuming my life.”

“I don’t know!” Anden yelled back, still tittering. “Maybe you get wounded! Maybe the lightsaber blade is the Empire, and you go undercover inside it. Maybe you get sucked inside a lightsaber and collect 120 kyber crystal shards across fifteen expansive 3D environments. Point is, nothing you saw has to mean death. Certainly not enough to panic.”

Kera was sweating and breathing heavily again. Anden finally stopped doubling over in laughter and stood back up. “Hey,” he said. “I know how to make this better.”

The hangar was the same, but Anden had shut the door so they couldn’t see out into the terrifying nothingness of space beyond and cranked the lights to maximum. He’d also procured a bottle of surprisingly good wine for a Rebellion ship, and Kera wasn’t sure she wanted to know how. The two sat now, leaning against each other’s backs, the wine next to the two of them.

“Y’remember when we went back to Corellia, and you talked to Gran-Gran about stuff while I talked to Dad about how I was apparently Force-sensitive?” Anden asked.

Kera nodded in an exaggerated manner. She hadn’t drank since she’d joined the Alliance, and despite her size and mass, she’d become a lightweight in the duration.

“He said that the way his life had gone, the way everything pointed at our ancestors, the way everything with the Jedi and the book had, had gone, and...” Here Anden paused his slurred speech. “Lost my train of thought. Oh. The way everything had gone, he said there’s no such thing as chance, Anden, not with us Tolans. There’s too many coincidences and lucky breaks. This stuff happens for a reason. He said Anden, I don’t know what will happen to you, or me, or Kera, or Mom, or Mom -- his mom, Gran-Gran -- but there has been too much non-random stuff to think that it’s not on purpose. And, and he didn’t know what the Force was, or how it worked, and he didn’t think there was some big Force-god-wizard-guy-gal that pulled all these strings, but he could tell there were strings.

“So he said Anden, believe in yourself, because you’re real. You’re here. Maybe not here for a purpose, but here on purpose, and therefore, you being you is what you have to do. Maybe you weren’t made to do it, because no one intentionally made you, maybe, maybe not, but you still have to do it, because being you is what you do.” Anden gestured violently with his cup of wine. A bit sloshed out onto the deck, and Anden swore quietly. “S’too expensive to spill. So, so you don’t have to be scared of the future, because you’re going to do exactly what you’re going to do anyway, so what is there to be afraid of?”

Kera nodded. “Makesh shense.”

“And if anything bad happens, it was going to happen, and maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it was happening anyway and if it happened to you, it was going to happen to you, so it’s a good thing you were there for it to happen to, dammit!”

The siblings laughed. Anden nodded. “Sorry for rambling. I think you see where I’m going with this.”

Kera smiled and nodded. “Heard and understood, Ataru Leader.”

Anden turned to peek at her over his shoulder. “What’d Gran-Gran tell you that day?”

Kera shrugged. “The same thing, just not through a Dad or Anden filter. It’s was kinda nice to hear it through an Anden filter, though, y’know? Like, if you and Dad can comprep... conree... get something, I sure as Hells better be able to com-pre-prend it!”

Anden elbowed his sister at that remark, and both of them laughed.

“Why are you staying, though?” Kera asked after a moment. “Like, I’m not gonna try to talk you out of it or whatever. But I just wanna know.”

Anden sighed. “So, on Xorrn, the whole time, I’m thinking ‘why is the Empire sending all these forces against just this little dinky foundry? If they don’t know we’re here, one cruiser and a few walkers would be enough to flatten this place. And then we found the Inquisitors, and we knew why. Those Inquisitors weren’t just there because the planetarium-thing was, they were there because we were, too. The Liberator had to fight all those Imps because we are apparently a big deal, enough to get two Inquisitors after us. And in the battle, I helped in space, but I didn’t really get to help. I wasn’t there flying cover for the ground battle, I wasn’t shooting stormies with IG, which is where I wanna be. You weren’t there throwing droids the size of public transport into bad guys. Instead, we’re off dealing with Inquisitors and the Rebels and Mandos and foundry people are taking all of this wrath. That wrath was because of us, and I feel like I should have been there helping.

“Us being there ups the stakes. And if the Empire’s panicking because the Tolans are on the loose... maybe one of the Tolans needs to stick around to protect the regular fighters from that. And I never wanted to be a big bad Tolan. I just wanted to be a pilot. Paint some kill silhouettes on my fighter, be dashing and bold.”

Kera sighed next. “Yeah, I see what you mean. I’m just... I’m upset because I can’t do it with you. Knowing what we know, I can’t just be another trooper. There are mysteries to solve, relics to find, people to save, the Jedi to rebuild. I can’t turn my back on that. I mean, I see how you can, but I can’t.” She paused. “Crap, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that like that.”

Anden chuckled. “No, I know. Like, I think I know what you mean by that. I promise I’ll only elbow you again if you mean to be mean.”

Kera refilled her disposable cup with more wine. “Just never thought I’d have to say ‘So this is it, you’re breaking up with me?’ to my own brother.”

Anden snorted. “I don’t break up with people, I just blast off to the next planet.”

Kera elbowed him this time. “Swine. But how you gonna do that with that ensign from the bridge? She’s following you from planet to planet.”

Anden’s eyes went wide. “You knew about that?! I figured you’d be meddling more if you knew about that. And crap, I dunno how to ditch her then.”

“Poor little Anden, picking up things he doesn’t want.”

“Ooh, that reminds me,” Anden suddenly said. He pulled his cast-aside toolbox back over, loudly rifling through it. “You’re gonna be doing Jedi stuff, you need this more than me.”

From within the fusion cutters, hydrospanners, and other equipment in the toolbox, Anden pulled a lightsaber. It was cold, unadorned with anything decorative - the one he’d pulled from the collapsing spire on Xorrn as it buried its owner, an Inquisitor.

“You kept that in a toolbox? You’re lucky someone didn’t find it looking for a welding torch and kill themselves,” Kera spat.

“You’re the Jedi, Pop-Pop’s ghost said so,” Anden said. “You get to keep this. Use it to scare the next Inquisitor you find.”

“He’s not a ghost, he’s a projection!” Kera retorted, laughing. “And you’re a Jedi too, you know. You can ask the ‘ghost’ to confirm if you really want to. That’ll really bring the ensigns from the bridge running.” She took the lightsaber, examining it. Something about it seemed familiar, foreboding. The wine helped her put it out of mind for now.

Anden shook his head. “I’ll pass. Maybe I’ll be a Jedi later. Right now I’m happy being Ataru Leader.”

Kera sighed once more, this time happily. She leaned her head back on her brother’s shoulder and shut her eyes. Part of the pounding at her temples was her pulse, but she felt something more supernatural there as well. The image of the proton torpedo, the red blade, the pure white flashing within it came to her once again. She tried to steel what resolve the wine hadn’t stolen, to grab onto the image, to unravel its secrets. She pulled her point of view back, and suddenly realized why she’d had to turn, and turn, all the way around, from the torpedo to see the fiery red blade.

Anden was firing the torpedo at it.

He’d thought the red might symbolize the Empire. Maybe he was right. Something deep inside Kera began to relax.

The pounding at her temples resumed when Kera awoke. She started to sit up in her bed, then immediately thought better of it and let her head hit the pillow once more. She heard a chirp from across the room. Clunk. She opened one eye and saw the droid staring at her.

“Have you been watching me all night?” she asked.

The droid rocked back and forth on its legs, barking excuses as to why.

Kera sighed. She tried sitting up again, much more slowly, and succeeded. She looked over at the droid. “Well, if you’re sticking with me, go find a fellow astromech droid named Tripod. Tell him Kera said to get the launch codes for the Wayward Spirit. Anden stole my old astromech, and turnabout is fair play. Get the ship prepped, we’re going to have work to do.”

Clunk wheeled out of the room, chirping happily. The Inquisitor’s lightsaber stared at Kera from where she’d set it, atop her nightstand with her grandfather’s holocron. She reached for it slowly, eyes on the ignition switch, getting a solid grip on the hilt and carefully thumbing the button. The red blade blazed to life, and Kera gasped. Glowing and pulsing before her was the horrid red blade of death from her vision. Something told her it must be this one, that no other lightsaber would match it so perfectly. She stared at it, now a real presence in the room, and felt the anger, the hate that the weapon had absorbed from its creator. This time, though, she wasn’t afraid of it. It was here because it was here, and it if it was always going to be here with her, it was a good thing she was here for it.

She switched the blade off, and watched it fade, before reaching out through the Force to her grandfather’s holocron. A little push, a little test, and suddenly the image of Avinn Krelz flickered to life. “Good day, Kera,” the projection said. “How may I be of service?”

Kera held up the hilt of the lightsaber. “What do I do with this?” she asked.

The image studied the weapon. “A lightsaber from a servant of darkness has a red blade from where the kyber crystal has been warped and forced to serve their will. However, it can be cleansed,” he added hopefully.

Kera smiled. “That sounds like a plan,” she said.

The image of her grandfather nodded. “Wonderful. As your harmony with the Force reaches into the blade, bleeds it clean, you’ll notice a change, from the core of the blade and working outward: cleansed Sith blades glow white,” the image said.

The programming of the holocron was profoundly confused when Kera began hysterically laughing.

[moonstew16-blog]

The Best Tools Under $50 for Prep, Cooking, and Baking

Upgrading your kitchen can be expensive and overwhelming. There's so much out there that you could buy, but more importantly, there's so much out there that you don't need. With our equipment reviews and recommendations, we do our best to sort through the clutter, so you can outfit your kitchen with cookware you can rely on. Our job isn't just to identify the right tools that'll help you cook better, but also to identify the best of those tools.

I've put together a pretty sizable list of cookware—all of it under $50 and all of it vetted by the culinary team—with the goal of helping you outfit your kitchen so it's primed for successful culinary adventures. Grab 'em all or start slow. In good time, your kitchen may start to look just like ours. (The office test kitchen...not my personal one, which admittedly still needs some work).

And if some of the items on this list are a bit above your budget, be sure to check out our posts on essential tools under $20 and under $10.

For Better, Faster Prep

Say goodbye to sad, watery salad with a salad spinner, like this one by Zyliss, which took home the gold in our review. Sure, some may consider it to be a hulking unitasker, but we disagree. Not only is a salad spinner the only way to efficiently fling water off your leafy greens and herbs (using centrifugal force!), it can also be a great stand-in colander. Rinse your greens right in there and then take them on a spin. Once they're all clean and dry, they'll be ready for any salad dressing recipe in your arsenal.

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If you look in your spice cabinet right now, I bet there are quite a few expired spice bottles in there. And when they're that old, spices just don't work as they should. Instead of a bright, pungent garam masala, you've got a mouthful of lifeless dust. This is why we recommend using a spice grinder. Grinding whole spices when you need them ensures you get the best flavor. It's what you do with your pepper, right? So why not grind up the rest of 'em? We reviewed a wide range of spice grinders out there and picked two that are easy to use and easy to clean. Pick one up, and then do yourself a favor and toss out any spices in your cabinet that you can't remember buying.

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The other day I tried to open a bag of frozen peas with a bread knife and cut myself. This is why everyone should own kitchen shears. (To be fair, I do own a pair of shears. I just didn't use them, and I deserve what happened to me.) But kitchen shears don't just open bags of peas; they can also cut parchment paper, spatchcock a chicken—for which you could also use poultry shears—snip herbs, and even break down all those boxes in your kitchen. (Like the box your new shears will come in.)

We reviewed the best shears on the market and, sadly, our top pick has been discontinued. The good news is our runner-up works just as well, just with fewer bells and whistles (like a nutcracker or bottle opener). And should you want to pick up a pair of poultry shears, too, we love these super-sharp affordable ones from OXO. And repeat after me: Don't use a bread knife to open anything...ever.

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[Video by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

We've written a lot about why honing your knives is important. The main takeaway is this: Honing your knife is like adding a fresh coat of gel to a floppy mohawk. (Thank you, Daniel, for the mohawk imagery. It's perfect.) A few swipes on the honing steel and the edge of your blade will be straighter and thinner, ready to powerfully slice through anything.

There are several different types of honing steels, but if you find yourself feeling lazy about sharpening your knives, go for a ceramic honing steel, which can have a slight sharpening effect while also straightening out that microscopic knife mohawk.

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There's no point in getting a nice honing steel if you don't have any knives. Finding the right knives can be extremely difficult. The good news is that, with enough trial and error, we've settled on a few favorite chef's knives (both Western- and Japanese-style) in a range of prices to suit any budding or experienced cook. The one that lands squarely in this under-$50 category is Mercer Culinary Genesis Chef's Knife. This guy comes nice and sharp out of the box, its price is just right, and it has a rubber and plastic grippy handle that's easy to wield.

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While Japanese knives can be on the more expensive side, we've found a santoku (a classic Japanese workhorse knife) that is also pretty affordable. This one is also by Mercer Culinary. It's sharp, versatile, and affordable enough that you can lend it to someone who you wouldn't trust with a fancier knife.

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There are a lot of reasons to pick up a wooden cutting board. Aside from the fact that they're pretty lovely to behold, the material is gentle on your knives and difficult for bacteria penetrate (unlike glass or marble ones). Unfortunately, a lot of wooden cutting boards are expensive, though Kenji doesn't mind this one, which comes in at under $50. Just make sure you take the time to season and maintain it.

For a little less maintenance, you can always pick up a plastic cutting board, which won't damage your blade too much. Just don't expect it to last forever; they can get dinged up from heavy cutting or butchering jobs. I use our recommended one from OXO—and I relish being able to toss it into the dishwasher without a second thought.

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When you're looking to cook or bake with real precision, we generally recommend a scale, but that doesn't mean you should shun dry measuring cups forever. They can be useful if you need a cup here or there of diced onions or half a cup of rice—especially when precision isn't absolutely necessary. There are also plenty of recipes out there—not from us, of course—that only have cup measurements, so having a good set on hand is still important. The winning set in our review of the best measuring cups is by NorPro. They're shovel-shaped, ideal for scraping flour and sugar out of a canister. They also have easy-to-grip rubber handles for maneuvering quickly.

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For measuring liquid ingredients, dry measuring cups can be pretty inaccurate, since you'll need to fill them to the very brim. This is why we prefer liquid measuring cups. The most precise liquid measuring cups (and the easiest to read) are these glass ones from Anchor Hocking. But if you're worried about breaking them, the plastic measuring cups from OXO are our runner-up pick and a lot more durable. No one ever really cries over spilled milk, but spilled milk from a shattered measuring cup is pretty miserable.

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A scale! This is probably the one tool that changed the way I cook and bake the most. Since receiving one in culinary school, I rarely go for volume measurements anymore. It's definitely an essential for any new kitchen. I've been using the OXO kitchen pull-out scale since long before we produced an actual equipment review for it. But I was happy to find that my chosen scale is also a Serious Eats favorite, with consistent accuracy and a long battery life.

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You don't need to spend a ton of money on fancy glass or ceramic mixing bowls. (You could and they're so pretty!) But aesthetics aside, a good set of stainless steel mixing bowls will do wonders for your kitchen, whether you need to set up your mise en place, throw together a big bowl of brownies, mix dough for trapizzino, or make a DIY double-boiler. This set has six bowls—all of which are easy to clean (throw them in the dishwasher!) and easy to store (they nest!).

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In my first (and only) professional kitchen job, I had to spend hours slicing potatoes, carrots, and parsnips to make this elaborate gratin in the shape of a rose. I thanked my stars every day that I was given a mandoline to complete the project. It created perfectly thin, uniform slices, no matter how oddly shaped those veggies and tubers got. If I had to do the same with a knife, I definitely would've had a meltdown, cut myself, or gotten fired.

But mandolines aren't just for professional kitchens. They make creating uniform slices at home, whether you're frying potato chips or roasting a gorgeous hasselback potato gratin, simple. We reviewed the best inexpensive mandolines and this V-blade slicer from OXO beat out the competition, with four thickness settings and a fold-down stand for slicing over a cutting board or a bowl. One thing they won't tell you in a professional kitchen is to use the safety guard. But you should because a sliced finger is not cute, no matter how uniform the cut.

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Whether you plan on cooking with wine or just drinking it, your first task is always to open the bottle successfully. Little bits of cork floating around in there don't make it taste any better. This is why you need a reliable corkscrew. We reviewed a whole mix of wine-openers and found this lever model to be easy to use and handsome enough to live right on your bar cart. Of all the types of corkscrews we tested, it opened bottles the quickest, which is useful because when I want a glass of wine, I want it as soon as humanly possible.

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For Cooking and Baking

Maybe a wok isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you think of essential cookware, but woks are surprisingly versatile. You can deep-fry, steam, and stir-fry in them. Sure, they take a little maintenance, but so does your cast iron pan. And you love that thing, right? There are many woks out there made from a variety of materials, but we prefer this heavy-gauge carbon steel model from Joyce Chen. At just under $35, it's a steal for such a useful piece of cookware.

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Stock pots are useful for everything from making stock (obviously) to serving a crowd at a lobster boil. Unfortunately, these big pots can get really expensive, and for something you may not use too often, that price tag just doesn't seem worth it. Luckily, our favorite budget pick from our review of the best stock pots is just under $34. It has rubber handles that'll keep you from burning your hands and it boils water just as quickly as some of its far more expensive competitors. Insert joke on stocking up on this stock pot here.

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Instant-read thermometers are crucial for cooking confidently. We wrote a whole post about why you need a thermometer. For me, it's all about reliability. When I take the temperature of a roast chicken, I can know firmly that it won't poison me or my boyfriend. (I assume poisoning a loved one is a paranoia that many people have.) While we recommend the Thermapen quite often, the ThermoPop offers similar reliability and accuracy with a much better price tag (as does the Lavatools Javelin).

Both of these were winners in our review of the most affordable digital thermometers. I think they make great wedding gifts for budding cooks and are wonderful stocking stuffers.

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You should own an immersion blender. The other day I was making chocolate pudding, and it was coming out pretty lumpy. The lumps were my fault, of course. Instead of panicking, I asked Daniel what to do. "Use an immersion blender," he said. And I did. As soon as I did a few blitzes, all those corn starch clumps disappeared, leaving a super-creamy, luscious pudding behind. The moral of this story is an immersion blender can save you in a clumpy pinch. It can also whirl together a pretty good homemade mayo, blend an excellent smoothie, and purée creamy broccoli-cheddar soup.

We did test quite a few immersion blenders, and while the All-Clad version reigned supreme, the Hamilton Beach one—at just $31 (a third of the price of the All-Clad)—did a helluva job. Should you run into my same pudding fiasco, it will definitely serve you well.

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Keeping a cast iron pan in your kitchen can require a little maintenance, but it's well worth it. A 12-inch skillet is useful for all manner of sweet and savory recipes, whether you're looking to sear the perfect steak, throw together a comforting pasta dish, or bake a rich, chocolaty cake. I have made said cake several times for dinner and birthday parties, and it's always a hit. Plus, carrying the skillet to the party location is a good little workout.

Ten-inch cast iron skillets are pretty great for a small apartment kitchen, but the 12-inch skillet is ideal if you're cooking for a crowd or want leftovers.

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We have quite a few angel food cake recipes on the site, like this one with maple sugar and this gluten-free one. If you want to make them (and make them well), use this aluminum tube pan. While you might be tempted to buy a nonstick pan for this bake, don't! It won't offer enough traction for your batter to climb and rise properly.

Along with being affordable, this aluminum pan has a removable bottom, so you can simply remove the cake when it's cool. It makes baking cakes like this one even more effortless.

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Stella raves about this brownie pan in her essential baking tools post. Why? Well, it's anodized aluminum (meaning it's nonreactive), so when you're making something acidic like lemon bars, you won't need to worry about them picking up a gross metallic flavor. It also has a removable bottom, so you can easily extract all sorts of delicate desserts, whether you're doing for glossy fudge brownies or hot cross buns.

You may recognize this brand as the one that also makes Stella's favorite cake pans. In Fat Daddio's we trust for our baking needs.

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It's common knowledge at Serious Eats that inexpensive skillets can often work as well as fancy ones, and this one by Cooks Standard is no exception. With a wide cooking surface, it offers plenty of space to sauté vegetables or sear a piece of meat. While it doesn't have a warranty, like many other more expensive pans, at under $35 it's a pretty safe bet.

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In our review of the best baking dishes (or casserole dishes), we found the glass model by Anchor Hocking to be a reliable and affordable purchase. The large handles make it simple to transport the pan from the oven to the table; the tall sides are ideal for thicker bars or a many-layered lasagna; and it's nice and lightweight. Just know you can't use it under the broiler because it may crack or shatter.

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There are many uses for fine-mesh strainers, from dusting powdered sugar over a cake to poaching eggs and sifting flour. You can use it to steam vegetables; even to make your own cheese. This set of three will serve you well in all sorts of cooking and baking projects.

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One thing I learned in culinary school is that there is absolutely no comparison between pre-cracked pepper in that little metal container and freshly cracked pepper from a pepper mill. I guess if I had to describe each of them, respectively, I'd go with something like "sawdust" versus "rich, vibrant, floral, warm seasoning." Which one would you want to use?

We reviewed the best pepper mills on the market and Fletcher's pepper mill took home top marks. It not only made the finest powder of all the mills, but it also was the most efficient mill we tested (meaning fewer grinds produced a higher yield). The fact that it also looks great on a table was not lost on any of us.

And while this model is certainly more expensive than that tin of pepper from the supermarket, it'll pull its weight, helping you to make flavorful and balanced pasta alla gricia, cacio e pepe, and anything else that requires a few good cracks of pepper.

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Daniel wrote at length about why every kitchen needs a salt pig. In short, you need an easy-to-access container with a nice large opening so that you can get a nice pinch of salt whenever you need it.

Sure, this one from Emile Henry is a bit on the expensive side. You can always store your salt in a pint container or ninth pan. But for a little extra money, this salt pig looks great on the counter—and serves as a reminder that you should be seasoning everything you make throughout the cooking process. Pro tip: It also makes a great gift for someone who is already fully stocked on knives and fancy cookware.

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This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

Source: https://www.seriouseats.com/roundups/the-best-tools-under-50-for-prep-cooking-and-baking

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Four Free Or Open Source Shopping Carts Compared In 2010

Your preference of an e-Commerce Shopping Cart may be very vital. The software program will either be proper or unwell-suited on your sort of commercial enterprise and your talents. A Wrong desire can make things greater of a burden. This article talks about my adventure to find a free Open Source Shopping Cart that I may want to use on my Shared Hosting accounts. Some carts had masses of features but lacked crucial ones like SEO modules. Some were widely recognized but seemed antique like Web 1.2. One had masses going for it but took up a ton of PHP reminiscence. After this discovery journey I present my top 2 selections.

The Journey Begins

When I began my search for a shopping cart I first looked at Zen Cart in view that I had had a little revel in with it earlier than. I locate that Zen Cart seems a touch bit stale with the aid of modern-day standards. It is mentioned as a very respectable and strong PHP purchasing cart. However, there are few unfastened templates available in the Zen Cart community. Most of what I've seen did not seem to meet the fashion needs that I became searching out. Granted, I ought to regulate templates and CSS so that you can make it look better. I became no longer inside the temper for that type of paintings on the time. Zen Cart has quite a few pleasant functions however the back end and catalog gadget seems overly complex. In my opinion, it is able to take the novice pretty a piece of time to get used to the capabilities of the Zen Cart lower back stop. I determined now not to head any in addition with Zen Cart.

Heavy Duty Stuff - Too Much To Cope With

I started out to do a little research and I came throughout a more modern supplying known as Magneto. Magneto is starting to get a number of acclaim. It is a totally full featured Shopping Cart, in truth some insisted that it is a full business device rather than just a cart. At first appearance I idea that I had discovered what I became seeking out. I downloaded Magneto (you have to check in to down load it) and began to set it up. Magneto has a free Community Edition that can be used. The fuller Professional Edition is to be had which comes with a paid assist package deal. The Professional Edition comes with a charge tag of $2,995 in line with yr. That might avoid the participation of many small enterprise individuals. Magneto Community has a variety of topics and extensions (in any other case known as modules). The Magento script has an onboard add function which connects to Magento Connect, the web page wherein extensions and themes are made to be had. Some loose things are available at Magneto Connect but lots of them are presented with a charge and a few with a hefty rate tag. I had pretty some hassle with putting in a unfastened module from Magento Connect. I'm now not sure just what the problem was but the set up of that extension prompted the full destruction of my site. I entertained the idea that I might have uploaded the incorrect version of the extension however I had come to the notion that Magento Connect became going to shield me from that. At any price, the web page could need restored through a database backup or a total re-installation. I opted to do neither.

Another trouble sprung up in advance which helped me to give up at the notion of using Magento. Shortly once I hooked up the software and commenced to configure it I acquired a blank white display screen and a PHP memory mistakes. I set up a php.Ini report and extended the php reminiscence. The hassle did now not leave. I did a bit studies and located out that Magento normally takes a whopping 128 MB of personal home page reminiscence. The greater the load of the php script the higher the amount of memory this is required. Magento is a little hefty. This would create a actual hassle. I used to run a few Drupal sites on GoDaddy. Drupal with a large number of modules can require from 60 to 90 MB of memory. When I ran into that scenario Godaddy said no, I couldn't have an boom like that. I discovered that some other web hosting organizations will permit this on shared hosting accounts. I think it's miles doubtful that many website hosting organizations are going to want people to run php scripts at 128 MB. This should necessitate humans obtaining Virtual Private Hosting or a Dedicated Server. This does now not imply that Magento is horrific, but it approach that it is not what I am seeking out. Magento is rich and function complete but it's miles for the web service provider who has need of a larger and extra powerful web site. I deleted the Magento installation and emptied the tables of the database to make geared up for my subsequent trial.

Does Not Have Features I Want

 Zeuscart is a business Open Source purchasing cart. With a unfastened model. It isn't Open Source within the manner that Drupal or Joomla are. You are allowed to regulate the supply code however there isn't always a large community of builders for guide and what community exists isn't at once obligation for the route and upgrades of Zeuscart. The company AJ Square Inc., is apparently, chargeable for keeping the software program. You might also use the unfastened version but ought to pay for the greater advanced model with aid.

Zeuscart appears to be a pleasing buying cart. It has a contemporary look and feel and could be very presentable. It did not have the greater Search Engine Optimization gear that I desired and that brought about me to need to hold on looking. Someone on a discussion board had raised the objection that Zeuscart had had a security problem that can lead to Cross Site Scripting. Hints of this can be found throughout the internet with This Site being one example. People generally tend to think that software program owned with the aid of a company rather than a volunteer based totally community may not, and I pressure might not, get rapid interest to protection issues. I cherished the manner that Zeuscart appeared however I moved on ordinarily due to the SEO and safety troubles. Another quirk changed into their registration technique. When you receive your validation electronic mail you continue to the website and are told that you may now change your password. Try as I may also on more than one activities, I in no way determined a member location and discovered no vicinity to feature or modify any records. That became sort of an ominous sign to me.

A Cute, Fast, Usable Cart

After some studies I decided to attempt Cube Cart. Cube Cart is a nice little cart which is easy to put in and is light weight. I found that there quite a number of actually great subject matters and modules available for Cube Cart. There is a tendency for web sites which give topics and modules to require registration and to then have them domain limited. The theme which you sign in need to have a key applied and then will simplest paintings on that genuine domain. I obtained a completely exceptional unfastened subject matter called "Orange Crush" at  I needed to jump through some hoops to get a registration key and get it registered. It will paintings at that area only and it has their link inside the footer which can't be eliminated without paying a licensing fee. These boundaries failed to appear too intrusive so I saved Cube Cart for one in all my two sited. I locate that Cube Cart is very person friendly and dependable. It became very smooth to installation. The classes are clean to establish and the pricing, price and other modules had been very clean to address. For promoting virtual downloads there may be no upload feature. To set up virtual downloads one need to use FTP to upload them to a folder for your server. This means that you should make certain to listing the precise report name, to a tee, or the download will not be to be had. You can use Google AdSense easily with Cube Cart. In truth I locate Cube Cart to be very appealing with an smooth interface and it seems sweet. My save is located here and I adore it. The cart does have some boundaries inside the place of search engine marketing, no longer providing a entire set of tools to aid Search Engine Optimization. I accept as true with that if I had eight to ten solid hours I could have my cart set up and equipped to go surfing.

Presta Shop - A Great New Cart

I wanted to put in one more shop and I appeared further for an awesome cart with proper search engine marketing gear and alternatives. I located that PrestaShop turned into an up and coming Shopping Cart which changed into getting some very favorable attention. PrestaShop is a very light weight purchasing cart which has quality modern looks and a excellent feature set. I determined PrestaShop to be very clean to install. There is a massive number of modules in the stock installation of PrestaShop. There are modules for meta key phrases and meta description, Google Sitemap, site visitors analysis, Google Analytics, publication, customer notifications, specials, canonical url and many greater. The features of PrestaShop provide a lot of methods to accumulate and analyze the site visitors and site visitors in your web site. Several of the price gateways are with foreign businesses, in view that PrestaShop originates in France. It does provide the option of PayPal and additionally Google Checkout also. The shop is rapid to load although it is loaded with a massive wide variety of modules.

It was clean to installation categories and to start to set up merchandise. Setting up your show of products is very easy and there's a color selector function for products which are available in some of colours. Upload of Cover snap shots may be very clean as https://golfuniversityau.com/product-category/carts/ well as the upload of digital products. Digital merchandise are very clean to deal with and they're uploaded to a comfortable area at the server with out the need to use FTP. Prices can be set at $zero on virtual products in case you want to provide a few free gadgets. The choice of a unfastened object will make it available instantly as a unfastened download. Pricing of merchandise may be set with a reduction to be able to expire after a set time period. Registration is required for purchase of merchandise with PrestaShop however modules are to be had for a rate, to be able to enable a one web page checkout for people who do now not need to register to shop for. Some loose templates are to be had for PrestaShop and customization is possible via templates and CSS.

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How to Make a Tool Storage Rack Using Parametric CAD | WW265

hi folks let's walk through how we put together our Dell Tronics parametric pin rack I think this project is awesome because it really highlights just how powerful and amazing parametric CAD it can be and I think this sort of a storage device can be really helpful for any machine shop the one you see here came out of a need to organize these Dell Tronics pin engages we care a lot about the diameter of the bores on our Sanders machine works fixture plates we machine them with a digital boring head and we want to hold a really accurate tolerance so we use a combination of metrology tools to check those diameters we have two different style of war gauges we have our mid to toy-u LH 000 height gauge but our go-to is the dell tronic gage pin sets these are amazing because they're actually relatively inexpensive somewhere between 00 and 00 dollars per pin we have them in increments of one ten thousandth of an inch and the go/no-go nature of them gives them much more consistent reading compared to some of the other metrology tools which are operator dependent the way in which you hold a bore gauge of the way in which you sweep it across can actually give you a slightly different reading as we collected more of these gauge pins though I realize we need a way to organize these and so Edie came up with this rack and the reason I think this project is awesome and we're sharing the file on the NYC CNC site is under modify change parameters this whole rack is built with user adjustable parametric values so it literally takes seconds to update the number of Bin's the width the rack height the angle the depth the dimension the thickness which makes this an awesome tool and if you have a co0 laser in your shop you can make one of these for incredibly cheap if you don't you can either sub it out send it out to a shop that has a laser checkout a makerspace that has a laser or you could also make one with a 0d printer or CNC machine especially a router style but really it's best suited for a laser so if you've never seen this change parameters or user parameters before let me walk you through a really good example if you head into your fusion 000 data panel scroll all the way down to cam samples workholding yours truly Saunders machine works we created this parametric mighty byte fixture it's a relatively simple fixture that you can build it can be mounted directly to a fixture plate or held in a vise but it's a good example of the value of using user parameters because we designed this so that it's much more intuitive for you to go in and make modification so having everything named with an intelligent name a name that means something makes it much easier to make edits to this file so in this case I have a stock Y of three inches so that's what's the piece of raw material that we're putting in here let's say it's actually four inches update that everything moves let's say we're only going to use three pit bulls and not five hit three it adjusts hit two it adjusts hit five it goes back so it'll adjust how far in is the first Talon grip let's change that from one inch to two inches moves them in let's say you're a knife maker and you're building a knife and you're thinking oh I don't need parametric values because we're not going to be updating these over time let's say the pivot pin diameter is always going to be 0.000 well I would argue think about still using that because can really help as you're building out your CAD file or working in a team environment let's create a user parameter called pivot dia and we'll say it's inches you're about 000 and we'll say the comment pivot in diameter now when we go to save model up our knife handle and let's say we've got our handle and we create the pivot pin circle instead of using an inch value just start typing P and it Auto populates a list of your user parameters come down here to pivot diameter hit enter and now it lists it as FX 0.000 but if you double click it you can see it's listed as pivot diameter when you're then designing another component or another sketch that references this you can use that pivot dia or you can even take it to the next level by doing something like change parameters new parameter pivot clearance and we'll say zero point zero zero zero five five tenths click OK and when we're designing its mate component we could say pivot dia whoops pivot dia plus pivot coherence and then when you're working with your drawings or your manufacturer or within the team and you realize you know what that's just too tight we need to change that you don't have to find this sketch you don't have to go hunting just come into your list scroll down to pivot clearance and change that to seven tenths or in this case let's make it extreme so you can see the difference mm ooh like so but it's the patterns that are really tricky so cus a while to figure these out and get them to a relatively stable and consistent behavior where you've got each little notch correctly spaced correct intervals matching the other patterns of the other dividers or components so I would encourage you to download this file poke through it there's some pretty clever and pretty creative formulas and again I don't want you guys have to reinvent the wheel so download this run with it modify it make it what you want the next thing I want to do is build a duplicate one of these but for our tools so for us on the tormach I have about 00 core tools I like to have the tools set up in good condition and know that they're tools that I can use especially when I'm using our sort of preset templates or tool libraries that way I can program offline get to the shop make a part and not feel like I've got to find a tool set up a tool etc but what's nice sometimes is if the tool is already in a holder I might want to leave a extra packet inserts or the actual endmill box or a duplicate of that tool set up assigned to sort of that tool number per se so my plan is to make a smaller rack like this in fact I really only need it to be 00 so let's make that edit right now by 0 I think I like the shape a little better because it takes up less footprint we can adjust the angle might actually mount it on the machine itself rather than have it on a cart and now I've got a little cubbyhole and I always know that this will be spot number 0 right here for that tour if I have to take a tool out to steal a holder for a new tool I can put that tool back there and I know that's always my tool number 0 and if you're wondering why this one's a little bit taller we had a divider to separate out our metric gauge pins which is I think another great example of it helps you see the design intent behind how a part was built and helps you more easily work on it or edit it for example on that section divider if I click on it once it underlines the little marching ants so I see that that's the component for it I could activate it edit that sketch it looks like it's just a number but again if I double click on the FX you can see okay section divider offset is a dimension off a projective dimension so that's clearly adding an offset to make that section divider slightly taller which helps me understand okay that's how that was programmed that's how that works go into modify change parameters scroll down save point two-five still too tall so 0.00 slightly taller if we go take it all the way to zero I think it gives me a fill-in error when I do this nope actually gives me a filter error if I go directly to zero I'm not sure why oh there it is just lost the reference edge that's okay so comment below I'm curious if this is helpful to people I find it's a great example of when you have the right tool at your disposal you make better decisions as a machinist or as a manufacturing entrepreneur if I have a spot to put that end mill that I want to say hey I was using this I'm gonna use it later I don't know where to put it I have a spot to put it makes me so much happier it makes me feel like I can run a clean shop and organize shop without extra effort without sacrificing time and efficiency hope you folks learned something hope you enjoyed take care

How to Make a Tool Storage Rack Using Parametric CAD | WW265 nyc cnc via www.99istifada.com