#edit: added ID! i only remembered right after i posted. my bad.
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excuse me?
#hermitcraft#cubfan135#what was he DOING#this is from xisuma's ep btw. he's got a lot of fun statistics from this season.#edit: added ID! i only remembered right after i posted. my bad.
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SANDERS SIDES KARAOKE: GOTHIC LITERATURE MUSICALS EDITION
Okay, so after four years of being in the Sanders Sides fandom, I’m going to attempt to write some headcanons. Here we go.
Since it’s well-known in fanon that the sides do have karaoke sessions, imagine what would happen if they sang musicals based on gothic literature.
Roman’s happy because broadway, duh, Logan is happy because it’s canon that he enjoys gothic literature since he dressed up as Frankenstein’s monster for Halloween, same reason for Virgil and Patton’s happy that his family is bonding. He made extra cookies for the occasion. He’s dangerous like that.
(I headcanon that when Thomas had to write analyses of gothic literature novels for school, Virgil, Roman and Logan would work together to come up with stuff and write the best essays in class and Patton would be so proud of them)
I’m not going to count Les Mis because I’m not too sure if that counts as gothic literature and whilst the Hunchback of Notre Dame is indeed gothic (trust me I read that in a plane once. An entire, like, ten pages is dedicated to describing the scenery) I don’t think it became a broadway show.
Now this isn’t like their usual karaoke nights, no sir. Just idly remaining in the living room won’t do. Where is the gusto? The pizazz? The accolade winning extravaganza? The-
“We get it Princey, can you just get on with it?” - Virgil
No, this type of singing can only be accompanied with an atmosphere that will do it justice. To the imagination they go and with Logan’s (who has practically memorised every single one of these books and is not geeking out at all) input on how the novels describe each setting, Roman creates very intricate landscapes for each song.
When they sing ‘Alive’ from ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ Roman thought that it would be really cool for Patton to play Mr Edward Hyde since Hyde is literally the human id and Patton, being the embodiment of morality, is literally the superego (although to be fair, Patton is also shown to be quite childish and impulsive since he’s also the base of Thomas’ emotions and Hyde is impulsive because he’s a way for Jekyll to act on his own emotions - especially since the only crime that Hyde does in the book are him over-reacting with his anger by beating a man to death. And in the novella, Jekyll writes that he and Hyde are like father and son and that Hyde is actually younger than Jekyll is, he does have that sense of childishness that Patton has only instead of that childishness being good and helpful, it’s bad and hurtful. Plus in the soundtrack of Alive, whilst Anthony Warlow does sing about how good being evil feels like, he also sounds like he is crying tears of joy of being able to be himself, the first words post-transformation being freedom and anyways these are supposed to be fun headcanons not analytical headcanons so I digress…)
Anyways Patton is happy to play the villain because “look kiddos, Roman conjured up this really swell cape” “the correct term is cloak” “and check out this top hat and cane!” and he’s just belting out the words and froliking around Victorian London without a care in the world, making his cape swoosh in the wind.
“Patton I would advise you not to take your shoes off. This is nineteenth-century London with people dying of cholera by the dozens, your feet could catch a myriad of infections.”
“Worry not, specs, the scenery is merely an illusion. I would never allow for our dear padre to succumb to the villain of illness”
“Aww, thanks kiddo (cue Patton’s sunshine smile) now where was I? IT’S THE FEELING OF BEING ALIVE! FILLED WITH EVIL AND TRULY ALIVE!”
They have Logan sing ‘I Need To Know’ because a doctor of science singing about wanting to expand his knowledge and having that thirst to do whatever it takes to get said knowledge. That is a Logan Sanders song right there. At first he’s like “why do I have to sing. I was happy enough giving directions and helping you with the scenery” but Roman creates this big scientific library that could rival the one from Beauty and the Beast/ laboratory from that’s practically the identical to Jekyll’s lab in the book and he’s like “Fine” like he isn’t enjoying himself. He is. They all know it. He’s not fooling anyone
Patton and Roman sing ‘Bring on the men’ together (yes, whilst wearing dresses) whilst Virgil and Logan drink apple juice from those big british beer glasses in the mind-scape created Red Rat (which Logan is quick to point out doesn’t exist and is vocally upset at how the musical adaptation added unnecessary romantic subplots with Lisa and Lucy when the book itself only had three background female characters who were only there for like one paragraph. He’s even more upset at the other inaccuracies with the book like how in the play Jekyll creates his formula as a cure for mental illness and Hyde was accidental whilst in the book he did it because he wanted to indulge in sin without fearing the consequences and Hyde, whilst not being exactly what he wanted, was actually created on purpose or how in the book Hyde only kills one man and in the musical he kills practically everyone except for the one person he did kill. Virgil pats him on the back with sympathy). Roman and Virgil are sniggering at the sexual euphemisms at the end of the song whilst Patton’s confused. She just seems really enthusiastic about food.
Roman sings both parts of ‘Confrontation’ by himself. He gets a standing ovation.
He also does ‘Transformation’. The problem is that he was so good at sounding like he was in complete agony and near death that they had to stop the song prematurely because Patton was getting upset. Don’t worry, Pat gets lots of cuddles by Roman afterwords.
(You know what I might do some sides reacting to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde later because 1. It’s my favourite book and 2. All four of them would have very interesting takes on it)
From the Frankenstein musical Virgil plays the criminal from ‘Say Amen’ because he wants to (seriously, the guy’s first words in the song are ‘I curse the day that I was born into a world so black with hate’) and Logan plays Victor Frankenstein but Patton refuses for his son to even pretend to be executed by the noose so they have Roman play a man wearing a british executioner outfit with a foam sword and the creative side just bonks the anxious side on the neck with it. Logan despairs about the historical inaccuracy from his place in the stands whilst Patton is cheering next to him. Patton also hands him an extra jumper to keep him warm in the Switzerland cold.
“Patton, I am grateful that you are thinking of my health but no one in eighteenth century Switzerland wore bright blue jumpers with cartoon kittens on them”
“Really, Logan, are you paw-sitive?”
“I would like to change places with Virgil. Immediately”
Roman and Logan turn ‘Birth to my creation’ into a duet because Logan enjoys the scientific aspect of it and Roman can’t resist the drama (of course). He goes all out. He makes Victor’s lab perfect to the smallest detail (and cheers when Logan’s eyes start lighting up and he does that cute clappy thing when he’s excited), he conjures a storm and makes lightning strike at the best moments of the song. He even creates a ‘wretch’ (what Victor calls the monster in the book. I’ve heard that it’s name is Adam but all I remember from the novel is Victor calling himself god and the creature his Adam) to lie on the table.
“And we didn’t even have to go grave-robbing for it. Or drop out of University.” - Roman
“No matter how many times I wanted to.” - Virgil
Roman and Virgil do most of the songs from Dracula. The creative side creates this huge, expensive-looking window-balcony thing with glass double doors and billowing silk curtains so that he could dramatically sing ‘the longer I live’ whilst the wind blows through his hair and he dramatically drapes himself on the balustrade so that the light from the full moon hits his figure just right. Patton’s close to crying.
Logan is very eager to give as many facts as he can about nineteenth-century mental institutions for ‘The Master’s Song’. He gets really into the history behind certain treatments and different cases. Roman plays Renfield and the others play doctors.
Virgil is super into Dracula’s castle during ‘Life after life’. He and Roman duet that song wearing all-black. Logan tries to help Patton’s slight fear by telling him the history behind different pieces of architecture.
Patton plays Christine during Phantom of the Opera
Roman, Virgil and Logan sing ‘A story told’ from The Count of Monte Cristo around a circular table in a dimly lit tavern. Patton takes pictures and drinks hot chocolate in the sidelines.
#sanders sides#sanders sides headcanon#logan sanders#patton sanders#virgil sanders#roman sanders#lamp#calm#lamp/calm
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I’m here to prove that Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Spider-man/peter parker in The Amazing Spider-Man is objectively the best love action adaptation of the character. In this essay I will....(yes this is really happening)
Edit: 10/20/20- i want to indulge myself in spiderman content but finding non mcu spiderman content is exhausting so imma update this instead
TL;DR
Andrew Garfield is my favorite of the 3 Spider-Man actors. TAS’s Peter is more fun and dynamic than the cookie cutter “shy introverted nerd that has a crush on a girl who’s way out of his league” Peter in Tobey Maguire’s movies. I enjoy Tom Holland’s portrayal of the character, but hate the way Disney has written the movies. I enjoy the characters, plot, and humor of The Amazing Spider-Man far more than the other 2, and i deeply wish we had gotten the third movie with the canon BIder-Man of Andrew’s (and my) dreams.
[DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NOT SEEN THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2 OR ANY MCU SPIDERMAN MOVIES OUTSIDE OF CLIPS AND REVIEWS ITS ALSO BEEN A VERY HOT MINUTE SINCE IVE SEEN A TOBEY MAGUIRE MOVIE]
Characterization
Most arguments against Andrew Garfield’s Spidey( AG’s from now on) begin and ends with “he was a good Spider-Man but a bad Peter Parker”. This references an outdated post comparing all three Spidey actors.(Id attach the image here but i dont want the post to be too long(thats a lie this is so long what am i doing with my life)) The post also claims that Tobey played a good Peter and a poor Spidey; and that Tom is good at both “roles”.(Honestly I think it seems silly that this seems obey the “third time’s the charm” rule but thats just me). Most people using this seem to be Tobey stans who have forgotten or ignored the rest of the post funnily enough, but the ones that go further into the WHY AG is a poor Peter are also incorrect. This argument also ignores the idea that there can be more than one version of Peter Parker which is blatantly incorrect. Just look at Into the Spiderverse or the PS4 game; these provide 4(5 if you count the pig) versions of Peter themselves, and that doesnt even include the comics.
Arguments that go further in depth claim that the AS Peter is too cool or well liked by his peer to be a “true” Peter Parker. The evidence for this seems to be that Peter has a skateboard.(which what? didnt realize that having a skateboard would instantly make you cool brb guys). Adding to that i dont really see where people get the idea that Peter is popular or well liked. While looking for complaints i found this qutoe from reddit(theyve since deleted it looks like but i’ll add a link in the notes) “He's angsty, pretty socially awkward, has an aptitude for science, and is kind of an outsider. He gets bullied by Flash and he gets his ass kicked after trying to stand up to Flash. He isn't a "cool" person in any way (until the ending, in which he's best buds with Flash, so I'll give you that). While Maguire is more accurate to the 60s comics where Peter in high school is just a fucking loser with basically no friends, in the ultimate comics, Peter is more of the kid who has a small amount of friends, but isn't popular.”. Honesty i fully agree with this because once again, other versions of a character are allowed to exist. You can dislike one version, but its silly to dislike something for not being exactly like another thing.
Ive also heard that Peter isnt “nerdy enough” in this movie which really doesnt make any sense considering the entire plot happens because Peter was looking into some of his parents’ research. If he wasn't interested in looking further into his father’s work what reason would he have to go to Oscorp where he’s bitten by the spider? Why would he have become Dr. Conner’s assistant? If he wasn’t intelligent how did he develop the web shooters?(something that Tobey!Peter doesn't have to do out of plot convenience might i add).
Another complaint i see is that the quips he uses in the movie(the first one specifically it seems) makes him seem like an asshole. Honestly thats a fair complaint, but i think its a good bit of characterization; espcially if he does get better about it in the second movie like the internet suggests.The Peter in this movie is a rightfully angsty teen; of course he acts a bit of an ass to criminals(also i feel like its important to mention that he’s like that to criminals? its not like hes being a dick for no reason).
Compare this with the Tobey Maguire(TM) movies. Like i said i haven’t seen these in awhile but as far as i’m aware TM’s Peter doesn't really do anything particularly nerdy in the film? I may have forgotten something( ok in the scene before he gets bitten he knows a cool spider fact) but he doesn’t have to invent the web-shooters because they came with his powers and he’s only at Oscorp in the first place because it’s a school field trip that he appears to be taking photos for. This Peter does fit the definition of outcast(friendless and bullied for it), but honestly i just dont like him. He’s weird and something about the character makes me feel like i should be a little grossed out every time he looks at MJ at the beginning of the movie.
I honestly don’t have any complaints for Tom Holland’s(TH’s)Spidey. Tom is a great actor and from what ive seen i enjoy his portrayal of the character.( He made me cry when i character i actively dislike died).
Story
I cant really say much for TAS story. It’s interesting but nothing special really. However, there is one scene that i don’t think i’ve seen anything like since( the closest would probably be the train scene in the original trilogy).
The crane scene. Early in the film Peter saves a boy from a car that has fallen off of a bridge, and at the end of the movie this becomes relevant again when it is uncertain that Peter will be able to get to the lizard to stop him in time.(as Peter is already injured and pretty far from the lizard’s location). The boy’s father is then revealed to be a construction worker who recognizes that Spider-man is going to need help to get to the lizard; he remembers how Spider-Man saved his son and organizes the rest of the construction workers to build a path out of crane arms for SM to swing from. All of them are putting themselves in danger by not evacuating, but SM’s actions in the first act of the film motivate them to do what’s right.
I love this scene primarily because it highlights something that i think is a really important part of Spider-Man’s character; his connection to the people he saves. SM is often shown interacting with and chatting with the people he has saved after the fact. One comic shows Peter accidentally scaring some bullies and then taking the time to ride the bus to school with them to continue their conversation and educate the students on bullying.( There’s definitely more but this is off the top of my head).
Another scene in TAS that i love is shortly before the crane scene when Peter is originally attempting to make his way across the city to stop the lizard, and he is shot down by the police. They manage to unmask him before Peter comes to his senses( he had just been shot and fallen pretty far out of the sky in his defense). From there Peter is able to deal with the police while keeping any of them from getting a good look at his face. The one cop he cant take out happens to be Gwen Stacey’s father who had previously had an argument with Peter about Spider-Man(Peter obviously on SM’s side and Mr. Stacey against SM). Peter turns and allows Captain(?) Stacey to see his face. I believe that this is an example of an unwilling identity reveal done right. i really enjoyed this moment because Peter had just shown that he likely could have gotten out of this encounter with his identity in tact as he had just taken down however many men. This implies that it was an active choice on Peter’s end to trust that Captain Stacey would ultimately do the right thing and allow Peter to go fight the Lizard, rather than a final desperate attempt to get away unscathed. Whether or not this interpretation of the scene is correct or not it still gives the character a bit more agency than some versions have done with their identity reveals.
In Spider-Man 2 Peter starts to lose his powers because he’s having internal conflict about wether or not he should be Spider-Man. Honestly thats kinda neat and i might want to give that a rewatch. As for the one i have seen i don’t have any complaints. I do however prefer the way that Peter was bitten in TAS because it was a result of him poking around where he shouldn’t’ve been rather than him just happening to be standing in the right place for a spider to land on him.
Onto TH’s movies; the way Disney has treated Spidey in the MCU is why TH’s is my least favorite version of the character. I feel like too much of the story revolves around Iron Man; Iron Man made Peter’s suit and equipment, Iron Man introduces Peter to the MCU(via blackmail but thats another rant for another annoyingly long post), its Iron Man that “makes” Spidey in this universe rather than Spidey being self-made. In Homecoming(which remember i havent seen outside of clips so bear with me) most of the conflict is cause directly or indirectly by Tony’s refusal or inabilty to communicate with the teenager he’s meant to be mentoring
For one the entire incident with the ferry could have very easily been avoided had Tony bothered to communicate with Peter enough to tell him that the situation was being taken care of. On top of that at the moive’s climax Peter is shown trying to get in contact with Happy(from what ive picked up isnt he a chauffeur? like idk his deal i just know he’s someone Peter got pawned off onto after Civil War). Peter even goes as far as to somehow hack into Happy’s phone(i think thats what happened it was a weird tech thing that shouldve been a red flag that the call was important though) but instead of listening; Peter is ignored. If this was a different kind of movie Peter literally could have died and itd be the fault of Happy and Tony like..... A large portion of conflict comes from characters being incompetent and not communicating and thats just poor storytelling.
Before this turns too much into an anti mcu rant id also like to say that the way they did Civil War was really dumb considering that Peter defects to Cap’s side in the comics, but whatever.
Also i loathe the way they handled the identity reveal at the end of Far From Home. With MCU movies most people know to expect an end credits scene by now, but typically that scene is not important to understand what’s happening in the films; they just aren’t important. Putting an identity reveal here makes it seem significantly less important than it is. On top of that i dislike their use of J Jonah Jameson for this scene.
JJJ is a character who has been repeatedly shown to have a genuinely good heart. All of his anger comes from a place of love for his city(he even says this hemself in the ps4 game when May writes in to tell him that he needs help). He hates Spider-Man because SM reminds him of the masked man who killed his wife; JJJ has never been able to get past that( and Peter’s antagonism of him definitely doesnt help) However, JJJ has been shown to care for people; he has a son who he often brags about, and one comic shows that JJJ is paying Peter for “amateur” quality photos because he knows that Peter is having a hard time and “just need some help”. JJJ has even learned Peter’s identity before and kept his secret for him(seriously though i cant remember the name of the comic but its defiantly worth the read), and in the original trilogy when Goblin threatens JJJ he claims that he doesn’t know who sends in the photos of Spidey because he does it via email( this is a lie). The MCU will have a very difficult time convincing me that JJJ would ever out a teenager’s identity and put him in danger like that. It goes too far against his character.(this could be hypocritical of me to say considering how i just insisted that multiple versions of a character can exist but whatever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
This is accidentally turning into an MCU rant but id also like to say that i hate the lack of a TH!Spidey origin movie because it gives you no motivaion for Peter becoming SM or explanation of his powers; most people will know these things but if youre unfamiliar with the character its bound to be confusing(and im a sucker for origin movies)
#long post#spiderman#andrew garfield#The Amazing Spider Man#mcu crit#j jonah jameson#can you tell i care a lot?#cause i do#rant#ramble#this was not proofred#like at all#see theres a typo in that tag!#i would apologize but im not sorry
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Babylon Vol. 1: Bad Behavior, A Dancer in her Own Right
[ID: a blue patterned banner with text reading “BABYLON.” End ID.]
(Two chapters today, but this one’s a bit of a shorter update anyway. Believe it or not, we’re getting towards the end of volume 1 now!! It’ll be all posted by the end of December, and then in the new year at some point we’ll start posting 2. We’re also looking into Wattpad, and maybe even making an audiobook, so keep an eye out for those updates. Enjoy the chapters!)
Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @charlottedotexe @glitterandstarshine @rainbowcoloreddays @the-starlight-chills @erased-in-stone
General: @elywritesbydarkness @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @skyfirewrites @viawrites-andacts
17. Bad Behavior
A tap on her shoulder alerted Azure to someone just behind her. She turned, smile plastered to her face. The woman was about her age, grinning conspiratorially. That was never good, in her book. Grinning usually meant there was a plan for the conversation, and conspiratorially meant she’d have to actually participate. She washed away her distaste for the idea with some champagne before speaking.
“Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Oh no, we haven’t. Samantha Whitewater, my family owns the Whitewater mining firm.” The introduction was followed by a small bow, which Azure returned. A colony family, then. Whitewater continued. “I just wanted to congratulate you.”
Congratulate her? She hadn’t done anything of note to these people. She never made deals and she talked about herself as little as possible, trying to create a black box of a history no one would question. There was nothing to congratulate, and even less for a stranger to bring up out of nowhere. She touched the comm.
Hey Hotshot, you remember anyone from the Whitewater family?
I think I got a proposal from them once, he responded. More business than pleasure, though I think they wanted a marriage too. At least they didn’t keep pushing when I denied both.
That was all she needed. At least Samantha and her family had manners. Her smile relaxed to something more genuine. She didn’t know what she was about to be congratulated for, but at least it wouldn’t be underhanded. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, things have been awful slow for me lately.”
“Oh, nothing like that. I’m just congratulating you on making such a good match. No one else here could say the same, though of course the Jericho name is something of a hot-ticket item to many of us. My own family included, I have to admit.” She laughed like it was some kind of joke between friends, and Azure’s blood pressure rose. Trinity, seeming to just take notice of the conversation as Azzy’s burgeoning anger began to make itself known through their mental link, began to turn, a crease in his brow the only sign of confusion showing through the ice-sculpture poise he wore around these events like armor.
She blinked to cover for the twitch in her eye, tucking her hands behind her back to cover the sparking. She ignored the vague warning of Azzy, no, that buzzed in the back of her head from Trinity, bulldozing on. “I wasn’t aware he was on sale in the first place.” Her words came out clipped, stilted, and poisonously sweet. Speaking of her friend as though he was an item made her stomach churn, even in retaliation. These events often weren’t terrible until something like this came up, the word choice surrounding people objectifying and economic in the worst manner. But never once had someone brazenly spoken about Trinity to her face before, like it was normal or expected. That was her friend Whitewater was talking about, the one who’d taught her about shrimp forks and helped her reach high shelves in her lab and made poorly edited images of frogs telling bad jokes for her when she was sad. She seethed. “I suppose that would explain why you caught me off guard then.”
The woman blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what it’s like where you come from--” the incredibly rude phrasing was somehow undercut by the fact that she still didn’t seem to think she was insulting anyone at all-- “but clearly you’re not used to this kind of society. We’re all a commodity here. The best he or anyone should hope for is to find someone equally as useful to him as he is to them, and maybe someone he can get along with-- though with someone as Icy as Jericho I never held out too much hope for that. That could have been me, but I guess it’s you.”
Azure opened her mouth to speak, but Trinity’s hand on her back stopped her just long enough for her to hear him out. Azure. She���s right. Drop it.
Azure shot back a response with a dangerous growl entering her mental voice, indignant and angry and protective. I don’t recall askin’ how anyone else here felt about it but me, so you drop it. She cleared her throat, her tone once more painted over with a thin veneer of polite but apparent disdain. “It is me, thank you very much Miss Whitewater. I wish you the very best of luck in finding someone merely useful to you.” If it wasn’t going to get her kicked out, she’d have spat at the woman’s feet like she used to when people bullied Crim in elementary school. Instead, she grinned conspiratorially with entirely too many of her teeth. “Because as we both know, that’s simply the most one can hope for in this wonderful little bubble.”
“Like you’ve done any better.” Whitewater finally seemed perturbed, angry that something was disrupting her sterile worldview. Her lip curled slightly. “That man touches you like he’d rather be doing anything else. Two inches away from anything that could be considered a little risque, even while dancing? At least someone like me would’ve known what I was getting into, with someone like him.”
Trinity saw Azzy draw in a breath, and knew whatever she was about to say would be even worse. So before it could leave her mouth. Trinity had turned fully to face the two of them, and in an instant his arm was wrapped firmly around her waist. His hand rested squarely on her hip-- right on the strip of skin her dress’ cutout bodice left exposed to the air. His fingers dug into her flesh just slightly. Not hard enough to even leave prints on the skin, but just enough to send a message. Azzy relaxed in posture only, looking for all the world like a guard dog that had just been told to sit as she looked up at him sidelong. “I’m sorry, Miss Whitewater, but my date and I have business elsewhere. Will this be all?”
“Of course. Enjoy your evening, Jericho. Garza.” Whitewater’s voice was stilted. Trinity turned Azzy around and used his arm around her to begin to shepard her away-- he wasn’t sure she was prepared to actually leave this alone, left to her own devices. They made it about ten feet before Azure looked back over her shoulder, sliding her arm around his waist as well and winking back at Whitewater, Garza’s supposed devious intention with Trinity on display. Internally, there was a small blip of take that, asshole, and then a self satisfied calm. Trinity sighed. He hated to play into whatever that was, but unfortunately a deserted hallway was likely the only place he was going to be able to talk to Azzy alone. He tugged her away into a winding passage off to the side of the main ballroom, gritting his teeth as he imagined the scandalized stare that Whitewater woman was probably still sending after them. He couldn’t deny that it was… amusing, to an extent. But he liked to avoid attention he wasn’t looking for at this kind of thing, and the last thing he needed was a jilted business-lover spreading around the fact that he’d pulled his date into a secret corner in the middle of an event. What was done was done, though, and he had to admit he hoped Whitewater felt sufficiently humiliated by the end of all that. Whatever it was.
Finally satisfied they were alone, he let go of Azzy-- careful not to let his hands linger a second longer than they had to-- and sighed, leaning against the wall with a slightly bemused smile. “What was that about? And why did it seem to have everything and nothing to do with me?”
Azure blew a stray curl from her face, absently rubbing her hip where he’d touched her with her opposite arm. The consequences of her actions appeared to be finally setting in, and her face was apologetic in that same way it was when she realized she’d started eating in massive bites at dinner instead of polite and small ones yet again. She looked almost bashful as she looked up at him. “Sorry Hotshot, I just...I don’t know, she started talkin’ about you like you were a thing instead of a person. I’m used to ‘em talkin’ about how hot you are, and that’s fine because it’s true at least, but no one’s ever said anythin’ like that about you right to my face before, it pissed me off.” She finally let her own hip go, shaking her hands to rid them of sparks and avoiding his eyes to avoid letting it be known just how honest she was about to be. “It’s rude, and it’s dehumanizin’, and I just believe real strongly that you deserve better than that.”
Trinity almost denied it, wanting to cite times he certainly had not deserved better, but the last thing he wanted was to open up that can of worms. The wound of his profiteering off that war-torn planet was still too fresh, his apology still somewhat inadequate. Instead, he just shook his head. “I know what you think, but whether that’s truly how I am or not, it’s how I’ve presented myself for years to these people. Besides, she practically called you a bumpkin to your face too, and I’m not sure you even noticed.” He felt something soften slightly inside him as he looked at his friend. She’d been defending him. God strike him down if he knew why. God would probably strike him down regardless.
She waved a hand, looking unaffected. “Who gives a shit about me? I am a bumpkin for all these people should care. But you’re…” she struggled, squinting her eyes and scrunching her freckled nose as the machinery of her mind ground its way to some kind of an end to her sentence that was eloquent. It failed. Instead, she came out with: “You’re cooler’n they are and they should admit it to themselves and act with some damn respect.”
Trinity tried and failed for several moments to hold himself together before he burst, doubling over with laughter. She’d never seen him laugh like this in person-- heard it, maybe, over a particularly good meme or something, but never like this, actual tears forming in his eyes. She grinned, wide and crooked, her job here complete. He slapped his knee, struggling to straighten back up. “Ah, Az. You’ve brought us full circle.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “I give a shit about you. I am also what she said about me. And you are also ‘cooler’n’ them. Yes?”
Now suddenly she was bashful again. No one ever called her cool. Smart, maybe, or nice or even helpful sometimes, but never cool. She blushed. “Sure. At least I know how to act normal. Sorta. In comparison, at least.” Her hand reached up to scratch behind her ear, sympathy painting her features. “It’s a sad little life she’s about to lead. Honestly, I hope it’s what she actually wants or else she’s gonna be damn lonely without an actual someone to connect with.”
“It’s a sad life most of us lead,” was his only response. His face was turned slightly from her, into the shadows of the dark hallway, leaving his expression unreadable. “Sometimes there are things more important than our own happiness. Shall we?” He held out a hand, gesturing back down the hall towards the well-lit bustle of the ballroom. It struck Azzy that things in this world seemed to hide better among glitter and blinding lights than they did in the dark. Nevertheless, she placed her own hand gently in his.
“Now remember, act like you like me or else I might actually have to throw down one of these days.”
“Right, right.” Trinity huffed out a tiny little laugh, his fingers finding the skin of her hip once more. “As long as you’re alright with it.”
“I’m a bad actor, this is easier.” She leaned her head into his shoulder, wrapping her arm around his waist and leaning into him. “Plus, this way I don’t even have to stand up straight.”
18. A Dancer In Her Own Right
Her boots made a gentle beat against the hard metal of the floor. One step then another, sure of herself even as she looked in the opposite direction to her movement. There was a rhythm to her every sway, every object she tossed over her shoulder and caught in the other hand a step in a dance she was choreographing on the spot. Something from this drawer, cross the room to another cabinet, all of it swirling around that constant central point that was the examination table and her workbench. Watching her set up for a deep maintenance test was like witnessing a ballet. Her stretch for something off a high shelf was easy, graceful. She knew exactly how far everything was, exactly how many steps to get there. She carried the objects she collected as though they weighed nothing, a spring in her step the whole way.
Trinity sat on a counter as far out of her way as he could get, but he might as well not have been there at all, for all having another person in her space slowed her down. He couldn’t help but marvel a bit at the sureness of her movements, now that she was in a place entirely her own. In society and on a ballroom floor she stumbled occasionally, one might even assume she was clumsy. That thought would be long gone the moment they saw this dance, one made by and for her, the perfect combination of grace and power. Ballroom dances were as much for the observers as the dancers themselves, but being able to observe this felt like a privilege more than a right. Being allowed to appreciate this sight as an outsider, a friend but someone who would admit freely that he couldn’t even begin to understand her, was a gift. In this moment, Trinity relaxed, and let himself appreciate the organic yet mechanical beauty of her, without letting his brain get in the way. After all, dancing was supposed to be instinct above thought.
She held out a hand, and he automatically picked up a wrench that sat at his side, placing the handle in her palm. She took it without looking, and the dance went on. She vaulted casually onto a countertop like it was the most natural thing in the world, grabbing some gray box off a shelf near the ceiling and hopping down without a hint of hesitation, no signs of exhaustion as sparks flew in her wake. She made her way back to the center to drop both things off, to pick up something else, to continue this seemingly endless waltz. Individual curls of hair freed themselves from her braid, her beanie long discarded in favor of having the goggles she typically wore around her neck situated atop her head. She stopped briefly at the edge of her stage, only to map out a new path that carved the edges of the room from the center, a small bucket in hand to hold whatever things she needed as she went along. She needed a lot of trinkets and tools, and she knew what each of them were. She paused briefly in front of him, and pointed above his head. It took him a moment to insert himself into her rhythm again, then he knew what she wanted without words. He slid off the counter and held out his hands to make a step for her, boosting her up to whatever it was she needed to reach. She stepped lightly onto his outstretched hands, opening a cabinet and pulling a bottle down in the same motion as her descent back to the ground. She flashed him a grin, crooked and pleased. He heard a snippet of something she was humming to herself, low and sweet, her own orchestra to accompany her own dance.
Now that he was no longer needed for the moment, Trinity hopped back up on the counter, content to just watch her work in perfect harmony with herself.
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okay so im just gonna my tingz and whatever since people can believe what theyd like.
whoop its more drama. 😅
so if you hadnt already seen it, great if you havent great. ahh im literally shaking oops but this is serious so i'll only what i have to say, and she blocked and deleted all my apologies and explanations.
i wasnt going to post anything because i replied and had said my words and left it at, if you dont want to like me thats fine, i'll live.
i one, would like to say that she even removed it so like rip me. uhhh i would make a video really to talk it because im bad at words and me typing it makes it worse ahahah.
essentially it was just a bunch of screenshots of me being mean so yeah that was it. er um wooph this is too much for me, the only account i can properly say was that i can say i was harsh was that christmas thing with someone who i havent spoken with in months and its that i said i hate people who celebrate it mad early. and yeah i can harsh because ive already explained that sometimes im blunt about it and when im in a bad mood i dont care.
on the other accounts let me say which i dont remember cause she had all the screenshots and i deleted all the chats because it was turning my already sour mood, even more sour.
so she said i didnt greet her properly which i even talked to you once before so idek what she was trying to get at there. 😅 ahh i asked who she was because i had been having on and off issues with a writer and that was already in the server. she suddenly added her to the discord after it being open for many months so naturally that added suspicion and i also have a great deal of knowing when something was up so yuh... call my instincts right cause it was in the messages that were sent to me. 😅
ahhh (ignore my many ah's when i get anxious it just happens ahahah) but those were taken out of context and like were set up to make me look bad. and even just in the whole post, the whole reason why they talked to me was to venge for something to bring me down LMAO.
just like before ive cooled down tremendously so im done from my mental breakdown to properly say this:
1) i didnt know it was even a slur. i just thought it meant dumb and it was only yesterday i had found out that it was bad.
now i'll say this again because people like being on this sav hate train to even read my words LMAO, im sorry for the words i said.
literally the person that i used it on doesnt even fucking like me so the fact thatd they were rude to me and then get shocked that im rude. i even said that day i had not been fine, i was not well. and if you got your secret santa friend you could also get screenshots saying that i said at the point in time i did not care what i said to people because i was planning on killing myself so i didnt care what i was going to say because you know id be dead.
2) may i say again, i had suspicions of other party friend talking about me because she even messaged me on many times and even brought up one situation that i took piss poor shit in handling. 😂
and may i mention she (christmas person) left because she didnt speak up about other issues that couldve been talked out with and decided to leave.
not only that i thought we were talking about our opinions on celebrating christmas so stop trying to feed word into me mouth m8.
AND ALSO, YOU KEEP SAYING THAT I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS LIKE THAT WASNT EVEN THE THING. 😂
and also the conversation had lack of communication so everything was jumbled up, and i didnt even know she was actually leaving the server i thought she was going "tata" for a bit and i was going to talk to her, i eventually did but we do not speak anymore.
3) the main reason why she spoke to me was to basically catch me red handed LMAO. and she got what she wanted. 👏🏽i literally had people message me, asking why she was even asking for peoples ages.
one how do you even know i was referencing you?! i... but anyways... again you want to make me out to be a bad person lmao. i have bad moments just like everybody else. but because i like to be nice and uplift people i cant make mistakes? like what flawed logic is that?
how am i supposed to grow if i dont make mistakes and learn from them. it woudve been a whole different story if i used it multiple times and didnt give a fuck. and no, its not every day that im a "dumb fucking cunt" to people.
4) you legit deleted my responses and apologies. 😂 and people are just jumping on this and dont even
know me.
ever talked to me.
not even in the server.
so now the "brought to tumblr" again i was just sharing my damn sadness dude. your call-out post makes no sense. trying to make it sound like im out here trying to ruin peoples days is not even close to the truth... i myself hate making people feel bad about themselves.
im not some sociopath, and youre mad because i was bummed i realized that someone that i thought was amazing doesnt like me??? like youre telling me that you snapping at me everytime we talked im just supposed to take it? i just...
and ive said it on my blog, im not in the best place. youre gonna get me off on my off days. i even said that me even interacting is not even a good idea but i choose to make the conscious decision to even talk to people just makes me feel even worse because someone was mean to me first.
you cant take me being my worst and saying its my fucking whole. you dont care about me wanting to "fIx My WaYs" you just want to fucking embarrass me and have people hate me.
if youre trying to show character, youre doing a terrible job at it.
i tried adding you as a friend to even talk to you but you had even BLOCKED ME on discord. you dont care. at all. stop pretending youre some knight, if all i was even trying to talk it out to you and youre response is "youre mean you suck" like what the fuck...
you and your friends and your followers my "followers" who havent asked for my side just show how much you guys really want to pUrIfY this erotica for anime community,,
and also you were a massive prick to my friend because she was sharing her own thoughts so i dont even know why youre trying to act like youre an angel. unless you can tell me that you have never been wrong, i will just crucify myself on the cross and apologize to jesus for being such a sinner.
the more i type, the more i get spiteful so i will stop myself here. have a wonderful night/day/whenever you see it dude or never see it cause you blocked me lol.
EDIT: also i never even hinted that it was you so it just confirms this was only for malicious purposes... and i now just feel like you made it because you feel like i shouldnt have feelings either.
~
apologies if its all over the place, i wrote this in a state of panic to a slow burn of being mellowing out.
#will i regret responding?#yes#do i care?#no.#because if you wanna believe something off the bat because you catch someone at their worst says a lot.#more than me having nasry disputes with people on the internet lol.#as ive said#if youre trying to @ me i cannot see the post at all so i am sorry if i am not responding.
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lacuna
pairing: natan word count: 8154 summary: for better, for worse. in sickness, in health. she had taken those vows, even if he didn’t remember it, and she would not break them. all human amnesia au. notes: this is a project that’s been three years in the making. it will be in three parts (that will come later), but i thought natan week was the perfect opportunity to finally post it. i finished this part in 2016 and haven’t edited it, so it will also follow how my writing has changed since i started this project. i hope you all enjoy, and happy @natanweek! :)
saudade
(n.) a nostalgic longing to be near
again to something or someone that
is distant, or that has been loved and
then lost; “the love that remains”
origin: portuguese
The steady tone of the heart monitor was what had eventually coaxed her to sleep every night for three days. It was the comfort, the constant reassurance that he was here and he was alive and that the fear that had nearly brought her to her knees when she’d gotten the call was unfounded.
It was only fitting that it would be the heart monitor that woke her as well — but there was something wrong. Before opening her eyes, she just listened for it, the confirmation of his life, but the timing was off. It was faster than the tone that had been ingrained in her mind, consumed every sleeping and waking moment.
She shot up, immediately alert and prepared for the worst, her eyes darting to the hospital bed that took up the middle of the room where he’d been, unmoving, since he’d come out of surgery. Except now there was a twitch to his fingers, a turn to his head, a murmur on his lips.
She realized then that the change in the heart monitor wasn’t a bad thing, but a good one. Her eyes burned but she pushed back the urge to cry, making her way out of the room as quickly as she could without tripping over all the machines and yelling for a nurse, her voice breaking tearfully.
Within moments the small room was filled, nurses rushing in and talking to each other in terms Natalie couldn’t understand. His doctor was next, side by side with another nurse mumbling something about paging the surgeon.
Unable to breathe with so many people in such a small space, and unable to see him anyways with the crowd that had gathered around him, Natalie stepped out into the hall and leaned against the wall beside the door.
She sighed shakily, looking down at her hands without really seeing them, her vision blurring. She twisted her wedding band around her finger anxiously, trying to ease the thundering of her heart and the racing of her thoughts.
Was he okay? How did he feel? Was it too soon? Could they go home and finally put this nightmare behind them?
The questions were endless, circling round and round, taunting her as much as the noise in the room behind her was, reminding her that they were there to see him wake up and she was out in the hall.
Hearing a low groan beneath several overpowering voices, Natalie squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, taking several deep breaths to keep the relieved tears at bay.
Flashes of that night, curled on the couch to wait up for him, watching some cheesy TV movie, cold pizza waiting for him on the counter. Her phone ringing and absentmindedly reaching over to answer it without glancing at the caller ID. Ipos’s voice, usually so chill and smiling, solemn in her ear, straining like it would break. Horror settling in her bones like ice, immobilizing her. Ipos’s voice vague and distant in her ear, something about having sent Zoe to pick her up and take her to the hospital already.
It had undoubtedly been the worst night of her entire life. They had already taken him in for emergency surgery when Zoe had dropped her off, and the wait had been agonizing. Hours without any updates. Hours of replaying every moment with him. Hours of being stricken with the thought that their goodbyes that morning had been goodbye in the most literal sense.
The relief when they’d told her he was stable was palpable, but there was a catch — he was unconscious, and they had little to no idea when he would wake up.
Three days had felt like an eternity, but now she was grateful that that was all the time it had taken for him to regain his consciousness. She couldn’t imagine if she had had to wait much longer — three days had made her restless enough.
She lowered her hands from her eyes, turning to peer inside the room when she heard his voice, rough with pain and misuse. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, and she could only catch glimpses of him from where she stood, but it was enough. It was a confirmation she couldn’t get from heart monitors, or the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
He was awake. He was okay. They would go home soon and he would recover the rest of the way there and everything would go back to normal.
She stared down at the floor, trying to catch bits of the conversation, but the doctor’s voice was too low. She didn’t know what the verdict was yet, she didn’t know how close he was to recovering, but he was awake, and that had to be good news.
After all, waking up had been the last obstacle they’d had to face. His recovery, slow as it may be, they would conquer together at home.
After several minutes, people started to file out of the room one by one. Natalie moved to the side as much as she could while still peering into the room, more and more of him revealed to her as the room cleared.
The doctor remained by his bedside even as the last nurse finished adjusting his IV and left. Natalie, feeling lighter than she had in days and with a bounce in her step, walked back into the room and to the doctor’s side.
He looked from the doctor to her, all sharp lines and tired brown eyes, and she couldn’t help her watery laugh.
“You scared the crap out of me, dude,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching out to take his hand.
“Uh, Mrs. Dev-”
“Who the hell are you-”
“Mr. Devante, please, a moment-”
“Did you just say missus?”
Natalie was a bit stunned by the swiftness of everything — Lucifer pulling his hand away from her as if he’d been burned, sending her a suspicious look. The overlapping voices, their exact words taking a second for her to process. She could only stare with wide eyes, unsure what was happening.
“I — What?”
“Mrs. Devante, I had meant to speak with you before you came in, because I felt this might be the case as soon as we spoke.”
Her chest constricted with the implications of his solemn tone.
“W… What might be the case?” she asked, hesitantly, afraid of the question itself just as much as the answer.
“I’m afraid I think your hus— Mr. Devante has a case of amnesia.” He looked between the two of them, to ensure Lucifer didn’t feel like he was being talked about instead of talked to.
He kept talking, something about how it was not a surprising turn of events after brain surgery, something about not being able to tell if or when his memories would return, something about hope and therapy but Natalie heard none of it, her world closing in on her.
Suddenly she found it hard to breathe. Her vision swam and her ears rang and she barely heard her own voice cut off the doctor.
“He doesn’t…” She turned to look at her husband of 5 years. Her best friend of even longer. So many years… “You don’t remember me?”
He shook his head.
... gone.
It felt like a slap in the face.
“...Are you sure?” It was a stupid question, she knew it even as it slipped past her trembling lips, she knew it even without the look on his face that told her he thought it was a stupid question. And though it was silly, though it was a little breathless and desperate, in that moment it was all she had.
“I’m sure.”
“...Oh.”
“Mrs. Devante-”
“Why do you keep calling her that?” Lucifer snapped, glowering between the two of them. The doctor looked alarmed for a second, before looking to Natalie inquiringly.
“I...I’m your wife. Natalie. Your wi-”
“Bullshit.” Natalie flinched, and floundered, unable to think of a reply in the wake of his harsh tone. He looked to the doctor. “Could you stop calling her that?”
“Um-” The greying man glanced at Natalie again, cautiously.
“...My, uh… Natalie is fine,” she said softly, eyes dropping from Lucifer’s irritated expression to the stark white sheets.
“Ah, well, yes. Perhaps it’s better if we let Mr. Devante get his rest? After all, proper rest is key to a speedy recovery.”
“Haven’t I been resting enough?” Lucifer scoffed, but settled back into the pillows anyways.
“A coma is not the same as resting. We’ll get you some food soon, to see what you’re able to keep down as well.”
Lucifer grunted, but otherwise didn’t reply.
The doctor touched Natalie’s arm, and she scrambled off the bed.
“Right. Um, I hope you uh, rest… well,” she said, stumbling over her words and avoiding his eyes, unable to keep the disbelief from her voice but doing her best to mask the hurt regardless.
She turned and ducked out of the room as quickly as she could, the doctor on her heels. He shut the door softly behind them and turned to look at her.
“Is — is it permanent?” she asked, quietly even though Lucifer was well out of earshot now. She looked up at him with big, hopeful green eyes, and he really wished he could give her a different answer.
“There’s no way of telling,” he said slowly. “It could be permanent,” Natalie took a shuddering breath, and he hurried to continue, “but there’s also a chance he could regain them, quickly or over time. It’s a matter of circumstance. Every situation is different.”
She nodded slowly, glancing at the door and wrapping her arms around herself. He had been in this field for too long, and was good at recognizing the signs of her resolving herself now to face what laid ahead.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“I’m sorry there’s nothing more we can do,” he added sincerely. Natalie gave him a bright smile, but he’d seen a lot of those too — it broke his heart to note that hers was one of the most authentic, if a little strained, like she hadn’t had to use her perfected grin in some time.
“You’ve done so much already. Thank you. Him being okay is the most important thing.”
He nodded, his years of experience betraying him when he was unable to find a way to comfort her.
“My pleasure, Mrs. Dev—”
“Please,” she said, a shaky exhale. “Just — could you call me Natalie?”
“Of course.” Her smile this time looked a little more genuine. “I’ll leave you to it, Natalie.”
She nodded, and he left her alone in the hallway. She sighed and pursed her lips, trying to decide what she should do next.
Calling Ipos was the first thing that came to mind — he and Sheila would be happy to hear that Lucifer was awake. She reached down to grab her phone before she remembered it was in his room, charging beside the cot she’d made a home out of during her stay since she’d refused to leave his side since she’d arrived.
She bit the inside of her cheek, glancing to the door and debating whether or not it was worth it, before deciding she was being silly. She braced herself, and cracked the door open, peering inside.
He looked like he was asleep.
Creeping inside, she tried to be as quiet as possible. She made it halfway across the room before he grunted, and she froze, turning slowly to look at him. He was staring at her with none of the warmth of the brown eyes she had fallen in love with a hundred times over, brows drawn.
“I — s-sorry, I was just grabbing my…” she trailed off, gesturing instead. He rolled his head to look at the small pile of her stuff, his gaze narrowing. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
He sighed, and closed his eyes again.
“Just get it.”
She made herself quick about grabbing it, and turned to walk out, but thought twice and spun back around to grab her jacket off the top of her bag. She tugged it on as she manuevered carefully around the small room and all its machines and wires, and she tried very hard to keep her nose in the screen and not glance back at him, but her body betrayed her.
She chanced a look at him, and seeing him lying there peacefully, she was overcome with emotion. It didn’t matter that he no longer had his lush, dark hair. It didn’t matter that a scar stretched across his scalp. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the same man she married. It didn’t matter that he didn’t remember her.
She was overwhelmed with emotion, with the relief that he was alive, that he was breathing, that his eyes were closed of his own will and not the result of his head injury and the surgery that followed to save his life.
Her knees nearly gave out beneath her, and she threw caution to the wind as she rushed the last few steps from the room. She shut the door as softly as she could with trembling fingers, not noticing that he was staring at her.
Once out in the hallway, she was at a loss — bathroom, she needed the bathroom, but she had been using the one in his room and she didn’t know where the public one was. Her vision blurred and her head swam and she stumbled down a random hallway in search for it.
After she’d turned down the third hallway with no results, she leaned against the wall, breath shuddering. She slid down until she touched the floor, buried her face in her pulled-up knees, and let the dam break.
She sobbed, everything she’d been repressing for the past three days bursting forth. She felt everything she hadn’t let herself all at once — the frantic worry, the crippling fear, the indescribable pain, and most prominently the overpowering relief. She felt it all pulse through her with so much force it hurt.
She hadn’t been able to think as optimistically as she’d pretended. Several what if’s taunted her every waking moment and visions of life without him made her dreams bleed with terror and grief.
The vision of him, pale and breathing shallowly, blood matting his hair to the back of his head and curling down the sides of his face and staining the pillow crimson and his body limp and broken and vulnerable in a way she had never seen him — was one created entirely of her own imagination. She hadn’t actually seen him after that accident, he’d already been taken back for surgery by the time she’d reached the hospital, but the image her own mind conjured had haunted her every moment since.
But none of that mattered anymore. None of it. Because he was okay, she couldn’t reassure herself enough that he was fine, that besides a few lost memories the doctor had said he would likely make a full recovery. And that — that was enough for her. It had to be.
As her sobs died down, she heaved on the floor of the deserted hallway, shaking and exhausted. She was no stranger to bottling her emotions, but it had been a long time since she’d had to keep some that roiled so violently within her under lock and key.
She jumped when she heard the rustling of someone sitting beside her, and looked up into a pair of warm, familiar eyes. Ipos didn’t say anything, he just offered his silent presence. Feeling better with the company, she sniffled and wiped her face on the sleeve of her jacket.
They were silent for a minute, the only sounds in the barren hallway Natalie’s shuddered breathing and sniffles as she attempted to compose herself again.
“H-How did you find me?” she finally asked. Ipos shrugged, leaning back against the wall.
“A few nurses pointed me in the right direction.”
“I — Is Sheila…?”
“She’s in his room. Told her I’d bring you by as soon as I found you.”
“Liar.” Ipos glanced over at her, a smirk turning up his lips.
“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Natalie giggled, sitting up straighter, “We should go back, before I make a dishonest man out of you.”
Ipos laughed quietly, but it faded out when Natalie stood up.
“You sure?”
He wasn’t a man of many words, but Natalie knew what he meant — was she ready? To face him again? To endure his lost memory? To handle the loss of his love?
“Yeah,” Natalie said, sobering up.
Ipos only nodded, and stood to walk her back.
***
Natalie would be lying if she claimed the last few days hadn’t taken their toll on her. She was exhausted and trying to stay optimistic just wore her down more.
Attempting to keep smiling when he would barely so much as look at her, trying to laugh when he recounted old stories with Sheila and Ipos that she’d heard a million times over, keeping the tears at bay every waking moment — she was just about ready to collapse.
Ever since he’d woken up, she’d spent her nights at home. He didn’t like the idea of her being there when he didn’t know her. She understood, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t felt like a slap in the face.
That didn’t mean trying to sleep in their bed alone didn’t feel cold and empty.
She’d taken to sleeping on the couch instead, and she busied herself during the day trying to prepare for his homecoming. Keeping herself distracted from her own thoughts had become a struggle, so she put all her leftover energy into cleaning, blasting music and singing along just as loudly to drown out the negativity that tried to pull her under.
But he was coming home today, and she would be optimistic if it killed her. He was going through enough, and she was going to make his transition back into his life as easy as possible.
She made sure everything was where it belonged and dabbed concealer over the dark circles beneath her eyes before she set off to the hospital to pick him up, equal parts excited and nervous. She was hoping a familiar environment would trigger some of his old memories, but she was also trying not to get her hopes up.
The doctor had warned her there was a chance he would never regain them, anyways. So Natalie was resolutely devoted to keeping this whole ordeal about him — he was the one who was injured, he was the one whose life had been thrown completely off-kilter, he was the one who needed the help.
Her own problems could wait, because him recovering was the big picture and she wouldn’t lose sight of that. She would nudge him in the right direction, but she wouldn’t pressure him to remember. Not when he had bigger things to worry about.
Her stout optimism was tested the moment she stopped outside his door, though. She heard him, inside, arguing.
“Why can’t I crash at your place?” A beat of silence accompanied by the sinking of Natalie’s heart. Of course, she should have known he wouldn’t want to come home with her — after all, to him, she was a complete stranger.
“C’mon, Ipos, this— no, listen, I’ll sleep on that shit-stained couch, I — wait, what? You moved? You big fuck, when did that happen?”
She figured she’d been eavesdropping long enough, and knocked lightly on the door before pushing it open and poking her head inside.
“Hey,” she said, gently, not wanting to risk his temper. He tensed, and Natalie tried not to let her smile waver. “I brought you a change of clothes, for whenever you’re ready…”
“Yeah, okay,” he said gruffly, and jerked his chin towards the end of the bed. “You can just set them there.” She walked over, setting the bag where he’d indicated and soothing it out.
“Just… whenever you’re ready,” she repeated, sincerely, trying to catch his eyes. He refused to look at her, however. She bit back her disheartened sigh, and stepped back. “Just let me know, okay? I’ll be outside.”
He nodded once, and she clasped her hands in front of her tightly to keep them from shaking as she retreated once more, with the sinking feeling that retreating from him — her best friend, her confidant — was going to be the norm very soon.
She stopped once the door closed behind her again and after a moment of hesitation, she pressed her ear against it as he resumed his conversation with Ipos.
“I don’t know…��� she heard him say, and there was an uncertainty in his voice that she hadn’t expected given the demanding and abrasive tone he’d had before she interrupted. “I don’t know her.”
Her breath shook as she exhaled, and she turned her face to the ceiling to blink back the tears. There was a long silence on his end, and she almost turned away when he spoke again, a bit of the edge from before back.
“I don’t know if I can remember her. I don’t know if I can love her.”
Her hand flew to her mouth to muffle the pained gasp she wasn’t sure he could hear anyways but didn’t want to risk, and she spun around and fled before he could catch her, before she could hear anything else she didn’t want to.
That was her karma for eavesdropping, she supposed, as she felt her already fragile heart shatter into pieces.
This time, her search for the bathroom didn’t result in an abandoned hallway, but instead found her bowed over the sink, the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes, her head throbbing as she resisted the overwhelming desire to cry.
She needed to get it together. She couldn’t react like this every time he said something that stung — it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t remember. She had to remind herself that he wasn’t being malicious, but that he was understandably very confused and disoriented and that she would be put off, too, if she woke up with no memory of a person claiming to be married to her.
She took several steadying breaths to compose herself, then slowly peeled her hands from her face. Her eyes were a little red, so she grabbed a paper towel and dampened it with cool water. She dabbed it gently beneath her eyes in hopes of making the swelling go down a little.
Once she decided she was presentable enough to brave the waiting room again, she slipped from the bathroom and traveled the short distance to the lobby where she could wait on him to get changed and sign the release forms.
He, thankfully, didn’t keep her waiting as long as she had expected him to. He emerged from his room within half an hour, and though he didn’t seem thrilled at the idea of coming home with her, he didn’t say anything against it, either as he signed his discharge forms, dropping his bag by his feet.
His doctor was giving him some final instructions about bed rest and not over-exerting himself — “that means you’re gonna be out of commission for awhile, Lucifer, and I’ve already talked to your chief about how long you need to stay out,” he’d said, to which Lucifer scowled but nodded.
Natalie was lingering, not close enough to make Lucifer anymore uncomfortable but enough to overhear. The graying man caught her eyes a few times and she nodded subtly in response, because they both knew Lucifer was too reckless and restless to follow the strict orders unless he was watched.
“We’ll have your follow up in about a month, alright? It should be pretty routine, but if you notice anything unusual please come in immediately regardless.” Lucifer nodded absently, it was clear he wasn’t listening anymore, itching to not be cooped up anymore.
Natalie’s apologetic smile was tired and strained but she waited silently while the doctor looked over the forms Lucifer handed him back to confirm his release.
“Looks like you’re good to go,” he said, glancing at the last page. “Though I’d prefer if you used a wheelchair. You just had surgery.” He sighed at the look he was given, and conceded. “Just remember all I told you, alright?”
“Yeah, sure.” The doctor shared a look with Natalie and she lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. Even without the amnesia, Lucifer had always been impartial to hospitals, especially for long periods of time.
“All packed up?” she asked after the older man wished them a safe trip home and took his leave, a hesitant tease since all he really had was the clothes on his back and a few of his favorite books she’d brought for him.
He hummed in acknowledgment and scooped up his bag. Natalie pursed her lips, but didn’t push his lack of a reply. Instead, she folded her arms over her stomach and followed him as he made his way to the elevator.
The ride down was silent. Natalie had several things she wanted to say, but she didn’t know how to bring them up and she wasn’t prepared for more of his rejection just yet. So she kept quiet and when the elevators opened on the ground floor he strolled out ahead of her, then stopped.
His brows were furrowed, clearly frustrated as he looked down at her. She didn’t know what she could’ve possibly done wrong this time, all she’d done was walk beside him, until —
“Well?”
“Well… what?”
“Where’s the car?” he asked, an exasperated edge to his voice.
“O-Oh, right, I’ll go pull it around—”
“That’s not necessary. That’ll just take more time.”
“You shouldn’t walk too far, though, the doctor said—”
“I had surgery, I’m not crippled. I can walk to the fucking car,” he snapped, and Natalie flinched. He looked away from her, and his tensed shoulders slumped a little in what she recognized as regret for losing his temper, but he didn’t offer an apology.
“...Right,” she said after a beat, and hated how her voice wavered. “Sorry, I’ll — it’s this way.”
She took the lead and was glad for it, because if he was behind her he couldn’t see the way her expression crumbled as her smile became too exhausting to fake anymore. The parking garage wasn’t far, but it was a pain to navigate and she tried in earnest to get him to the car as quickly as possible without the short trip being too much for him.
When it came into sight, she fished her keys out and unlocked the doors, moving to get in. She paused briefly when she noticed his uncertain expression and the slight sheen on his forehead, and she wished she’d just made him stay put in the lobby so she could have brought the car to him instead.
She didn’t have time to linger on it, however. He tugged the door open and slid in, careful not to hit his head, and she got in and started the car, eager to get them home.
He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat and Natalie found herself distracted by the possibilities of what would happen once he was home as she put the car in reverse and took the wheel with both hands.
Would he hate it? Would the familiar environment rattle something within him? Would it fail and only serve as a bitter reminder of his lost memories?
She couldn’t say. She didn’t know what to expect, and while she was usually fond of surprises, this one worried her.
She shifted in the driver’s seat uncomfortably, her fingers tapping a nervous beat against the wheel. She hated driving, and preferred taking the bus or walking or leaving it to him, which was ironic considering the first time they’d met he had pulled her over for speeding.
Her accident about a year after they’d been dating had really put things in perspective for her, however, and even though she had walked away from it physically sound, she had been shaken.
The drive home lasted for what felt like forever, but when she finally pulled into the driveway she kept her eyes firmly in front of her until she'd parked. Her fingers tightened around the wheel, before she released it and chanced a look at him.
He was staring up at their house with the same familiarity he had greeted her with — or rather, lack thereof.
“This is it,” she said, trying for enthusiastic but not wanting to come off overbearingly so, and wiped her hands on her jeans. She tried not to linger too long on his unimpressed expression.
It wasn’t his fault he didn’t remember them picking this out together because it was in their budget even though it had almost nothing they’d wanted. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t remember many of their days off spent together making this house their home. It wasn’t his fault that the walls he’d so looked forward to coming into at the end of a long day were now unrecognizable to him. It wasn’t his fault and she had to keep reminding herself of that.
He made the first move to get out of the car, finally tearing his eyes away, and she scrambled out after him. She wanted to get his bag for him, but he grabbed it before she could get to it and turned away without a second glance.
She bit her tongue and followed him up the short distance to their front door, fumbling with the keys while he stood off to the side, annoyed and impatient. Once she got it open, a feat with her sweaty, nervous fingers, she gestured for him to go in first. He gave her a look but obliged and she followed after him, shutting the door softly behind them.
He stood just inside, looking around at the odd decoration and the abundance of potted plants, not sure what to make of it all. Natalie decided to give him a moment, not wanting to rush him.
She noticed his gaze fall to a small table that she’d decorated with photos of them and their friends. She couldn’t help the rush of hope she felt, especially the longer he stared at them — pictures of them when they were dating, one a friend had snapped when they had told everyone they were engaged, one of their wedding. Surely, surely they had to trigger something?
She didn’t dare breathe, digging her nails into her palms as her chest swelled when he reached for them…
...and she felt herself deflate, the air rushing out of her like a balloon and taking the hope she’d let consume her for that brief moment with it when he grabbed their wedding picture and turned it down, until it rested facedown on the table where he wouldn’t have to look at it.
Natalie’s heart twisted painfully, and her smile became more difficult to uphold. She stepped in front of him, quickly so he wouldn’t see her expression crumble. It was all she could do to keep her voice even.
“Come on, I’ll show you around,” she offered, walking deeper into their home.
“Can you just show me where I’m staying?” he said gruffly. “I don’t really feel like getting the whole grand tour right now.”
She froze midstep. She swallowed hard, but nodded, and turned for the bedrooms.
“Yeah, of course. It’s… it’s this way.”
The heavy thud of his footsteps behind her matched the painful beat of her heart in her chest as she guided him to the end of the short hallway.
She opened the door at the end to the master bedroom and moved to the side so he could step in.
“This is our—” she didn’t miss the wrinkle of his nose at her choice of words, and she looked away, “—bedroom. I… You can stay, or, you can have it. I mean, it’s already yours, but I can — I’ll stay in the guest room.”
She felt him staring, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes this time.
“The, uh, the bathroom is just through that door,” she said, gesturing lamely. And I’ll be staying in, um… in the guest bedroom. If you need anything.” She tilted her head back down the hall. “It’s the second on the left.”
He nodded in her peripheral, and she turned to leave, fingers curling around the knob.
“I’ll let you get settled in, then.”
The door clicked softly on her way out, and she crossed the short distance to her new bedroom. With one last look towards their room, she slipped inside and leaned heavily against the door. Her knees buckled and she allowed herself to slide down, until she hit the ground.
Her breath shuddered and she pulled her legs up, until she could rest her face in her knees. Exhausted, she squeezed her eyes shut and pushed past the pounding in her head, refusing the urge to cry.
They would get past this. They had always gotten past everything, together. This obstacle was inarguably their biggest one yet, but they would figure it out. She had to believe they would. She couldn’t give up so easily.
Their wedding picture, turned down, flashed in her mind and a tear slipped unbidden down her cheek. That had been the first thing she’d decorated with. That had been a constant since they had moved in. She had put it by the door in case of an argument where one of them would leave angry — when they came back in, that picture served to remind them to leave their anger and work to fix things instead.
She sucked in a breath and raised her head, swiping angrily at her face and glaring at the moisture that came away on her fingers.
Things were different now. He was different now. Years of the experiences that had changed and shaped him were gone, but the man she had fallen in love with was still in there. She just had to remind him of the woman he had fallen in love with.
She couldn’t rush him, though. She knew that much. She couldn’t imagine how strange this all must have been for him, and she wanted to make the transition as easy as possible.
It would take time, but they had all the time in the world.
But first, baby steps.
***
“What are you doing?”
Natalie jumped, turning away from the stove to face him and laying a hand over her heart. She opened her mouth, ready to crack a joke about how he still managed to sneak up on her after all these years, but she caught herself and thought better of it.
“Making breakfast,” she answered instead. They’d had takeout for lunch and dinner, she thought it would be nice for him to have something homemade instead. “Chocolate chip pancakes, your favorite!”
She could tell by the look on his face that he was skeptical about them being his ‘favorite’, but they promised chocolate and if there was one thing that would never change about her husband it was his unwavering love of chocolate.
She turned back to the stove, a smile tugging at her lips. At least she could get something right.
She slid the last one onto a plate and dropped a small square of butter on top of the stack, then carried it and the syrup over to him.
He looked down at the plate, less than impressed by the ugly pancakes with jagged edges and the burnt splotches.
“Bon appetit!” she said cheerfully, and Lucifer looked up at her, then back down to the pathetic pile of vaguely circular and questionably edible pancakes before him.
“...Thanks,” he muttered, and grabbed the syrup, deciding that if he drowned them in it then they couldn’t possibly be as bad as they looked.
He cut into the stack and lifted the bite to his mouth. He choked around the taste, and for a moment, he tried to get it down, he really did. He gave up on that effort, though, instead grabbing a napkin and spitting it out, wiping his mouth.
“That bad, huh?” Natalie asked, and he looked up at her. She didn’t look surprised or upset, just disappointed and a little sheepish. “Sorry. I’m not a great cook. It’s funny, you used to—” she stopped herself by taking his plate once she realized what she had done.
It was too late, though, and he stood up with an unreadable expression. Natalie frowned, and moved to apologize, but he cut her off.
“Don’t forget to turn the stove off,” he said, and disappeared back down the hallway towards their — his — room. She stood staring after him, and set his plate back on the table.
“Way to go,” she murmured to herself, leaning against a chair, her knuckles going white around the back of it. Every time she thought she was making progress she slipped up and ruined it.
Chewing on her lip, she spun around and flicked the stove off, hating the reminder he’d given her that he’d given her so often before, each time more teasing than the last.
Turn the stove off, Natalie.
I have nightmares about you leaving that thing on.
The guys over at the fire station will never let me live it down if they find out my wife set a fire.
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, laughing to herself. He had hated her cooking and he always told her he refused to eat anything she made, though she knew he would do anything if she asked, he just had to put up the right show of resistance first. He had always gone out to check that the stove was off before coming to bed with her, and she had always rolled her eyes and teased him about it.
I didn’t even use the stove today, Lucifer.
You attract so much bad luck it wouldn’t surprise me if it turned on just because you looked at it.
You’re such a jerk.
She grabbed his plate again and dumped the contents in the trash, along with the extras she’d made for herself. She wasn’t hungry anymore. She rinsed the dishes off and dropped them in the dishwasher and then cleaned up the mess she’d made.
It didn’t take long, even as she tried to devote more time and attention to it than necessary just to keep her hands busy, to do something because she felt so useless. She had taken the week off for work, to help him get settled again, but she wasn’t so sure if she’d need the whole week if he didn’t even want to talk to her. She dried her hands and cast the towel onto the counter, sighing.
She turned to look around the small space for something to do, and her eyes fell on the photo of them pinned to the fridge. She walked over, slipping her fingers beneath it to get a better look, thumbing the edges tenderly. She’d surprised him that day at work. She’d snuck up on him, kissed his cheek, and snapped a picture to catch his reaction.
Her teeth worried her lip for a moment while she hesitated, and then she yanked it off. She went in search of a box, and once she found one a decent enough size, she dropped the photo in there. Then, she made her way to the living room, where she swiped all the photos of them into it. She made her way through every room except their bedroom, taking all evidence of their memories together down to shut them away.
She would show him later, she would revisit them with him, she promised herself. But she would take them down for now. She wouldn’t make him look at them every day.
She wouldn’t make him regret coming home.
The box and all their pictures found a new home beneath her bed. All except their wedding picture. She set that one up carefully on the nightstand, so at least she could look at it. She dusted her hands off, but once she stepped out of the room she immediately felt like she wasn’t even in her own home anymore.
It felt empty, impersonal, cold without their lives playing out over the walls. She looked over her shoulder, at his shut door, then at the clock. It was almost time for him to take his medicine, and she knew he needed to eat in order to do that.
Maybe she could make up for breakfast.
She started for the bedroom, going to tell him she was leaving, but her fingers hovered over the knob. She blinked at it, then looked up when she heard his voice coming from inside.
“—tried to kill me with those fucking pancakes, I swear,” she heard, and she covered her mouth with her hand, torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to cry. “It’s not funny, Ipos, I—”
His voice faded and she decided that was enough eavesdropping, backing away from the door. She’d leave a note instead for him to find, if he even noticed she was gone. She’d be back in less than ten minutes anyways, if traffic wasn’t horrible.
She found an old bill and scribbled “Be right back” on the back of the envelope, leaving it on the table just inside the door. She snatched the keys up and slipped outside.
Traffic wasn’t bad, just as she’d hoped, and she was at the small bakery in no time. The bell jingled welcomingly when she walked through the door, immediately consumed in the warmth and pleasant smells.
Rosenfeld Bakery. It was his favorite place. The interior was a play on the name, decorated with roses Natalie’s shop supplied now and small, old frames of rose fields. They’d found it years ago and nothing else they tried ever compared to the little shop, tucked into a corner.
“Good morning, Mrs. Devante!” the owner, Anthea, greeted from behind the counter.
“Good morning,” she smiled, relieved at the friendly face, and walked over.
“The usual? Where’s Lucifer?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” she said, and dropped her eyes to the display. “He’s, ahh… He’s at home. Could you add one of those eclairs, too?”
“An eclair? You making up for something?” Anthea teased. It was rare she saw one without the other. Natalie laughed, but it sounded breathless, forced.
“Something like that.”
Anthea frowned, setting the bag on the counter between them. Natalie fished out a bill and pushed it across, pulling the bag more towards her instead.
“Is everything alright?”
It took Natalie a long moment to answer as Anthea rung her up, waiting for her answer with a concerned crease in her brows. Was everything alright? Not really.
But…
“It will be,” she finally said, raising her eyes to meet Anthea’s. She smiled at her and gathered up the bag of Lucifer’s favorite breakfast, turning to leave. “Keep the change!” she called over her shoulder, and walked out before Anthea could even get a word in.
Her return home was even quicker. She was excited, because her cooking was a longshot, she’d known that from the beginning, but she was sure this was something he could appreciate.
She hurried inside, the warm bag tucked against her side, and travelled back into the kitchen. She pulled down another plate and arranged the chocolate-cinnamon rolls he ate religiously in one half, and put the double chocolate eclair on the other half. Smiling to herself, she made her way back towards their — his — room.
She knocked lightly on the door, and waited for a few excruciating moments.
“Lucifer?” she finally asked, and there was another beat of silence before she heard shuffling and finally the door opened up.
His eyes dropped down to the plate almost immediately, and then back up to her. She saw the skeptical arch of his brow, even as his eyes kept dropping back to the plate. It looked a lot better than what she’d presented to him earlier, she knew.
“A peace offering,” she offered as an explanation. “I know this is hard for you and I’m probably not making it any easier, but I figured I couldn’t go wrong here. I didn’t make it,” she added quickly when she saw his lip twitch as he undoubtedly remembered the disaster pancakes.
He stared at her for a minute longer, before taking the plate.
“Where did you get it?”
“Rosenfeld’s. It’s a bakery on the corner of 5th.” He was halfway to lifting one of the rolls to his mouth when he paused.
“Never heard of it.”
“We uh… we found it a few years ago,” she said slowly, cautiously, not wanting to upset him. She watched his expression carefully as she added, “It’s a bit of a hole in a wall, but it’s really good.”
Something in his eyes darkened, and he nodded and set the roll back down.
“Thanks,” he said, but there was an undefinable edge to his voice and he was unable to meet her eyes now. She felt a piece of her break away, screaming, wondering what she could say if everything about his likes or interests when she knew him was apparently off the table. She was trying to help.
Didn’t he want to remember?
“...Yeah, of-of course. You, um, you have to take your medicine at 11:30.”
“I know.”
“I just thought I’d remind you, just in case.” She shifted uncomfortably, not sure whether she should try to catch his eyes or avoid them altogether. “I know you need something to eat with it, but if you… if you don’t want that there’s cereal and stuff in the kitchen. You’re more the welcome to help yourself.”
“I don’t need you to fucking babysit me, Natalie,” he said, and even he seemed surprised at how harsh his voice had been, but he didn’t make a move to apologize. Despite herself, it was the first time she’d heard him say her name since he’d woken up, and it sent a shiver down her spine. “I’m a grown man, I know how to take care of myself.”
The words felt like a slap in the face. She felt her stomach drop. Her fingers curled into white-knuckled fists in an attempt to keep him from seeing her shaking hands. Her heart beat a thunderous beat against her ribcage and the blood rushing through her ears was deafening.
She looked up at him, and he was looking at her now. There was harsh dip between his brows, his light brown eyes angry, tensed against the doorframe. Her eyes fell on the bandage covering his stitches and her breath shuddered.
“Yeah,” she said, calmer than she felt. She met his eyes again, now that she’d made her point with her gaze. “Sure looks like it.”
She turned on her heel and marched back to her room. She shut the door with a little more force than necessary, and went to go sit on the bed. She let her fingers uncurl, and pressed them against her thighs in an attempt to quell how violently they shook.
She stared at the floor for what felt like an eternity, trying to even out her breathing again, trying to get the resonance in her ears to go away, trying to see something other than the angry curl of his lip and the annoyed set of his jaw.
Finally, she raised her head. She was never one to let the day pass without living it to its fullest, but there was nothing more she wanted than to crawl into bed and sleep it away right then. She hesitated, because what if he needed her, but—
He didn’t need her. He’d made that perfectly clear.
She caught the shimmering frame of their wedding picture on the nightstand. She stared at it, her chest tight with the memory and all the implications it held, all the vows it upheld and all the arguments it had resolved.
She reached over, and with every part of her crying out in protest, she pushed it face down.
Then she kicked her shoes off and crawled under the sheets, pulling the covers above her head and trying to ignore how sharply she felt her heart break.
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ishin-denshin
(I found that picture in @seoulicons . Thank you for posting that)
Genre: Fluff, Angst
Warnings: I mentioned Expensive Girl and sex, so yeah, nothing here is pure. Also, there are mentions of self-harm, so please, if it’s triggering tell me and I’ll change it :) Your mental health should always come first :)
Pairing: Min Yoongi x @emerson-moonchild, Min Yoongi x Reader
Word Counting: 6.2k
Synopsis: Min Yoongi and Emerson had a profound connection, so deep and supernatural that not even themselves understood it. However, nothing is pure bliss and flowers, when everything seems wrong and the connecting fades with time, then their love shall be proven with no otherwise.
A/N: Hey Em!! It’s finally here! I finished your oneshot + poem. Yes!! I mentioned The Chaos Club and paired them with BTS, but tried not to focus on them. Even though it finished with over SIX THOUSAND WORDS, I had to stop myself and not include random and unnecessary stuff, like interactions between characters without the starring roles presence (Yoongi and Emerson). Oh, before I continue, I changed the band’s name, it’s shitty, but I even wrote one verse of ‘Clarividencia’ (the BTL song mentioned). Hope it’s good! You deserve the best Em, or should I begin calling you ‘cutie pie’? Lol Sorry for my bad grammar and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing :)
- x - x - x -
Min Yoongi took a long sip on his coffee, dark and, ironically, sugar-free. He enjoyed small ironies and always drank from them, maybe it worked as fuel to his personality. Despite from the cute face and artistic name, Yoongi enjoyed how people were amazed about the personality flashed: rebel, serious, sarcastic, a human with a stone cold heart pumping blood and rage to his organs.
Well, that's how outsiders saw him, reality was insanely different. Emerson knew it, she dig down so deep in Yoongi's emotions, finding a butter heart with so much love stored. Whilst drinking tea from a ridiculously adorned cup, she analyzed his soft expressions and occasional wrinkling nose whenever the bitterness hit his taste buds.
– Tea is just leaf juice, you know, right? - Yoongi asked, not glaring straight at Emerson.
– So what? It's delicious. - Emerson answered, taking a long and loud sip from the salmon and cream coloured cup, raising her pinky. - Coffee is just juice from beans. Water is juice from ice cubes.
– You are so british sometimes. - The man said and turned to look at Emerson, grinning slightly at her cuteness and rosy cheeks.
– Well, my identity backs you up on that. I'm british, living in London, drinking tea in a british coffee shop, listening to british news on television, presented by a british journalist, graduated in a british university, working for a british television broadcast channel. You are the foreigner here, love. - She said serious, but smiling, fingers stuck around the cup, steam warming her face.
– I know. Everything is so british. Even our songs are getting british. - Yoongi said and finished his cup of coffee with a short sip. - Yesterday Taehyung sang with british accent, even the verses in korean. We were surprised and Namjoon almost collapsed cuz one of the words sounded like 'yadong', which is porn in korean.
– I'm surprised one of your songs never mentioned 'yadong', since it's a rock band with pretty explicit musics. - She giggled remembering the first time Yoongi allowed her to listen 'Expensive Girl', their first song that exploded in SoundCloud, and as soon as Bangtan Lads made a career outside Korea, the track was deleted, only officially existing in personal files from every member.
– Don't you throw 'Expensive Girl' at me, it was Jin and Namjoon's idea to release it. - Yoongi said and raised one of his eyebrows slightly.
They were sitting on a table close to the window, sun shining bright outside, breaking through the typical whitish smoke accumulated all over London's atmosphere. The cafè was one of those overrated places, charging abusive prices for a cup of plain coffee, walls painted in a very dirty shade of cream, matching the fancy cups (the owner would never admit it, but Emerson knew they were bought in Walmart, part of a special edition paying homage to Duke William and Duchess Kate wedding), wooden floor well polished, and secondhand machines.
– Why do we insist in coming here anyways? There is nothing special or marvelously tasty, and the prices are salty, even for my rich ass. - Yoongi said, listening the annoying creek sound from the old, and possibly thriftshopped, brown chair.
– Because it's small, quiet and mainly because your fans won't flash boobs outside the window, since they would never imagine rockstar Min Yoongi having a coffee with his girlfriend in a place like that. - Emerson said, staring the street along with Yoongi.
– Yeah, that day we went to Starbucks was insane. Who would imagine someone is actually willing to lift the blouse and get arrested in exchange of an autograph? - Yoongi said and chuckled.
– That day was intense and weird. Her boobs were beautiful, though. Round and symmetrical. Your face tattooed on the nipples also looked good. - Emerson said and smirked in a dorky way, leading Yoongi to chuckle even louder. - Who would ever guess that your nose has the exact shape of a nipple? The fan was a genius, we got to admit.
Yoongi left all the weight from his upper body heavy on the chair back, staring at the ceiling and inhaling deeply, exhaling and repeating. He swallowed a puddle of spit pooling on his tongue and looked back at Emerson, finishing her tea with a short sip and folding back the napkin.
– Fame is so good sometimes. Don't take me wrong, I love making music, being rich and travelling around the globe, but the occasional harassment bothers a lot. - Yoongi said tapping his fingers on the table.
Emerson reached his arm and caressed lightly the skin covered with a sweatshirt. Yoongi inclined to the side, laying his head on table, feeling his girlfriend's fingers petting his black hair. Sometimes words weren't required, silence had a lot to say, loud, actions could hold even more significance.
– I love you, cutie pie. - Yoongi mumbled, cheeks squeezed against the wood, but words still bright and clear.
– I love you too, Yoongles. - Emerson replied, still feeling his smooth wires against her skin. Soft touches coming from both sides.
Whoever saw Min Yoongi up spitting on a microphone, saying raw words about political struggles, sex, mental health, life and a few songs based on stories, possibly thought of him as a rough person. No one would ever imagine his soft side, everyone always glanced over and focused on Suga, not Yoongi. The opposition between personality shown and stage name enchanted and intrigued.
Yoongi only allowed a few people to witness his actual personality.
Opening up and letting someone unknown in his personal space, oh it always represented a problem to Yoongi. A lonely soul that hardly had friends, only close to a few people. Bangtan Lads represented friendship and family.
Namjoon, Hoseok, Jungkook, Seokjin, Jimin and Taehyung flew from Korea to England with him after achieving worldwide success, for the sake of their fame moving to a place rather connected to alternative rock sounded as a clever change. Seven korean boys, carrying a bag with worn-out clothes, instruments and golden discs. Simplicity and luxe. Millions of fans, artists and new faces, yet Yoongi only felt truly comfortable around his bandmates.
After a few months living in England, conceding daily interviews and working like horses in new musics, Yoongi decided to try and join a dating app. Hoseok met a few women through Tinder, but happily found Taylor, friends with benefits at first, but a few months later his girlfriend. Witnessing one of the lads glad in a relationship inspired Yoongi, he even paid for Tinder Gold, regretting immensely after two dates and realizing sex could be good, but lacked connections. He needed to connect with that person, deeply to a point where her heartbeat felt like music.
Lonely and slowly giving up, Yoongi felt his heart flutter when Emerson appeared like a butterfly on his eventful yet boring life. Emerson emerged from a calm life working as music critic for Rolling Stones, to the love of Yoongi’s life and his main inspiration.
Everything began when Emerson went to work and received the task of interviewing a korean band. Apparently someone was sick and everyone else had more important stuff to do. She accepted and decided to use the original agenda, adding a few questions and studying every member.
Those who believe would say it was love at first sight, a connection between souls. Not even a word flew across the room, but Yoongi felt butterflies on his stomach and heart beating faster. For a single moment, he even considered the idea of end having a heart attack, because in years no one ever made him feel like that. Emerson lost words and suddenly, there were only Emerson and Yoongi in a room, not the whole Bangtan Lads.
That same day they had dinner together. Chatted, danced and traded cellphone numbers. Instead of going back to his place, Emerson took him to her home and they watched a movie.
For the first time in a almost a whole year living in England, Min Yoongi felt a connection.
- x - x - x -
– I swear that Zeus’s nutsack is the best position ever. - Namjoon said and threw the notebook in Jungkook’s direction, watching him grab it and read all lyrics written down.
– And why should we sing about that? - Seokjin asked raising one eyebrow, expression deadly serious, grabbing his can of Coca-Cola and sipping from the white straw. - I love doggy style, but would never write a whole goddamn song about it.
– I agree with Jin, the world doesn’t need to know what you and Bárbara are up to. I never wanted to know. - Taehyung said and nodded in Jin’s direction, whilst curling a lock of brown hair on his fingertip. - Honestly, I think you need vacations, your ideas are getting cornier, hornier and grossier.
– Let the man live, you guys! - Hoseok said and took the notebook off Jungkook’s hand, being punched in return. - I don’t even know how the fuck is Zeus’s Nutsack, but if our smartpants wants to write about his experience, allow him to do so. - He gazed down at the lyrics on his hands and chuckled. - Sorry Joon, but this time I’m with Tae and Jin, I won’t sing it.
– Please guys! We are an alternative rock band who has three songs about sex, we need something to bring sexy back during the concerts or fans will feel bored. It’s been two tours since Jimin showed his abs during ‘Clarividencia’ for the last time. People are commenting on Twitter. - Namjoon said and pouted.
– Let’s vote. It’s a democracy, isn’t it? - Yoongi asked, emerging from his big and fluff chair and bending down, his upper body supported by the elbows firmly planted on his skinny thighs. - I vote to burn that shit and never mention it again.
Everyone in the studio laughed, except for Namjoon, he shrunk on his spot and turned the page, sketching and randomly drawing circles, looking for inspiration in something other than intercourse. Yoongi watched everyone leave the studio and sat beside him.
– Remember when we first recorded a full-length album and korean managers wanted us to become a pop? They saw potential in every single one of us, but wanted a profitable artist. - Yoongi laid his head on Namjoon's shoulder. - Thankfully we took our content and moved to an indie recording studio. Can you possibly imagine us as Bangtan Sonyeondan? BTS not BTL? We discussed the idea, and the first sketch of success wasn't the right one. Maybe that song is like BTS, a bit more of thought and time may turn it into BTL.
– Are you saying that I should focus less on the movements itself? The song is pretty explicit, so should I use better metaphors? - Namjoon asked, still not looking at Yoongi, but the older man saw a sparkle run through his eyes, like a lightbulb shining with new ideas flowing through his synapses.
– We can work on it later, right now I want to prepare a surprise to Emerson. Can you believe we've been together for 5 years already?
– Yeah, half a decade. - Namjoon said, sighing deeply. - What do you have in mind?
– I'm gonna propose. - Yoongi smiled, a gummy grin with feelings running off the edge. - I've been planning it for two years now. When we completed our third anniversary, Emerson wrote a post on her personal Tumblr about our relationship, mentioning a few situations and funny moments from day to day. That same day I wanted to make a song, but it's easy, within hours I could finish a masterpiece and the effort would be almost none, so I decided to step up my game a little and began writing a book. Poems about her, our partnership, my feelings, everything.
– It's really thoughtful of you, Yoongs. - Namjoon wrote a few random lines on his notebook and turned to look at his friend. - And some folks still dare to claim you are not a romantic guy.
In fact, not even Yoongi saw himself as someone surfing on romance, usually writing about politics and books. Focusing in feelings and matters related to relationship never appealed. He became responsible for most tracks talking about issues of immigrating from Korea to England, emphasizing that fame changed how they saw him, but xenephobia still existed. Bangtan Lads received a Grammy Nomination for ‘Golden Borders’, a whole album shoving in people’s ears how shittily they treated immigrants, but still wished from heart to live in USA.
Using ‘Golden Borders’ as the soundtrack, Emerson made researches and released a documentary about immigrants, showing the ridiculous racism and highlighting double-standards in how right-wing parties treated foreigners victims of war and those just running from economic crisis, but still wealthy. She also reported how politicians like Donald Trump vertiginously changed the meaning of “immigrants”, not differing someone legal from the illegals.
Yoongi was possibly the proudest boyfriend ever accompaining his significant other during the premiere of ‘Invisible: The Truth on Immigrating’. Emerson invited a few famous people who immigrated from their home-countries, along with “common” folks.
Maybe he wasn’t the most romantic boyfriend ever, but still knew how to encourage Emerson. During their relationship, Yoongi convinced her of writing two books, one script for a movie, produce two documentaries and demand her own column on Rolling Stones site. Whilst she inspired and gave ideas to two albums which earned them four Grammy Awards, abetted him into trying something solo, and produce for different artists aside from BTL.
Even though both of them worked massively with media, Emerson and Yoongi never thought about conceding interviews as a couple. Daily invitations for appearances in shows together popped up on their e-mails, but without discussing it they already knew the answer: No.
When asked the reason, Emerson and Yoongi agreed to keep their personal life, well, private. They already shared a few cute moments on Instagram and Tumblr. Why would someone want to dig more into the relationship? Snooping isn't good.
- x - x - x -
– In conclusion. Communism wasn't planned for over populated countries, or planets. - Jade said and chopped in two the turkey sandwich she was holding, taking a bite from one half of it.
Emerson shrugged her shoulders and nodded, agreeing with Jade. Accompanied by Shmailah and Zariah, they were waiting for the reunion with some other journalists from Rolling Stones. The weekly meeting for coming up with ideas to articles, reportages and new ideas for photoshoots to use in scheduled interviews, was about to happen, but only a few professionals were already there.
Usually, the boss bought some goodies to complement and cheer every meeting, but that day in question had food and sandwiches provided by a new diner across the street. They were lolling on burgers, sandwiches and chips, also milkshakes and cherry fizzy drinks.
– My article about nigerian culinary is going smooth. - Zariah said and took a sip from the vanilla milkshake in front of her. - That restaurant I contacted to ask for primary informations, the old lady sent me fried yams. I’m totally sending her a Christmas card and gift, and candy canes for her grandchildren.
– Great! It's so nice when someone values our work and spoils us with small, yet adorable gifts. - Emerson said and dipped one chip in the ketchup sauce. She was sitting curled up, knees touching her chest, not very excited. - By the way, mine about Bollywood is almost done, but I need some new informations. Can you help me, Shims?
– It's not right to assume I know a lot about Bollywood, only based on my bangladeshi heritage… But yes I’m a fucking Bollywood nerd and would love to help. - Shmailah grinned perversely, caressing Emerson's cheek with love, noticing that she seemed a little down lately. - What's up, Em? You don't seem very happy, not even surrounded by your best friends and a whole lot of free junk food.
The parallel conversation between Zariah and Jade quit, suddenly all three pairs of eyes were gazing at Emerson, who felt her cheeks getting warmer. She took another chip and started talking, whilst shaking the potato around, like a wand, before taking a bite and continuing.
– I don't think Yoongi loves me anymore. - She sniffed, swallowing the growing knot in her throat with chips. - We've been together for five years now, but in the last few months he's been a little distant. I know, I know, Yoongi sometimes loses himself inside his own brain, but not distant like that. Far, you know? We used to be so connected, now that connection seems a little faded.
– Oh Emerson. I don't see that happening, ever. - Jade said, bending over the table to grab her fries-less hand. - Yoongi seems so passionate about you. Whenever we go out in group, he only has eyes for you. Like, when Yoongi notices you barely had the opportunity to speak, he always tries to bring you into the conversation. Jimin already witnessed your boyfriend getting distracted and spend several minutes staring at his lockscreen, which is you.
– Totally agree with Jade. Not even dead Yoongi would stop loving you, he would probably find his way back into our spiritual plan only to make sure you are aware of his love. - Shmailah said, watching a shy tear run down Emerson's rosy cheek
– It's so complicated. In the past two months he spent days without showing up at our place, and not caring to tell where he is. Whenever he is around though, the office's chair receives most attention, since Yoongi locks himself there and if I try to get in, he scouts me outside saying it's something related to work. - Emerson tried to swallow the knot again, but now not even milkshake worked, and she sobbed. - Why couldn't I see if it is about work? When he was recording and producing his solo mixtape, I slept on the studio's couch for four days straight, trying to support him. I'd never do anything to ruin whatever he has been working on. We had coffee today at a cafè, but the experience felt so shallow. Small, verging insignificant, talk.
– I’m so sorry to hear that, baby. What if he’s been working in something for you? Like a gift and doesn’t want you to see and spoil the surprise? - Jade asked, raising one eyebrow. - You shouldn’t conclude always the worse, sometimes it is just something you can’t put immediately put together. Consider it and give time to time.
The conversation silenced in the moment everyone else invited to the meeting showed up. Seven other journalists gathered, including the boss, whose appeared holding another tray full of cookies and cupcakes.
– For what it seems like, that diner also has bakery goodies. - Jackie, also know as The Boss, said pushing the tray up on table. - I love so fucking much my job. Whoever don’t can totally stand up and leave, more cupcakes and chips for me, há!
- x - x - x -
Emerson had no time to think about her situation with Yoongi during the afternoon. Work consumed every disposable piece of brain cell, fulfulling a whole week of articles for her column and completing one reportage about self-made millionaires.
However, after leaving the building and heading home, the empty apartment made her shatter out and cry, sobbing and feeling a sudden urge to destroy something. Not only a random object like a glass cup, but something stiffier and harder to fix, like herself. In years working, dating Yoongi and being friends with so many great people, she never felt that need again, honestly, considering the idea of hurting her own body sounded weirdly appealing, after so much improvement, going back felt like a failure.
Maybe the past years left her brain so occupied with every new information, that negative thoughts had no actual space, a little tab in the corner that was muted by Yoongi’s voice. Now, without his presence and strong connection, Emerson silenced all other tabs, only listening to the one where haters were loud, depression and self-harm spoke freely.
Years of self-improvement faded within a pinch, a thin drop of blood coming from her thigh stained the beige pants, and Emerson left the small, yet painful, piece of skin go from between her long nails.
Weak and sobbing, she reunited all forces and stood up from the front door, walking slowly in bedroom’s direction, wishing only to lay down, curl up inbetween the duvets and sleep, ignoring any bad temptations, observing them disappear along with conscience.
Old monsters, some she saw as teenage ghosts, showed up. Emerson felt stupid for harming herself over such a small reason. Independent woman, smart, successful, amazing close friends, and yet the major breakdown in years was happening because of a man. What kind of mean joke could that be?
She wished so hard to pull herself together again, living happily and not getting to precipitated conclusions over small situations. That's it, maybe she was only overreacting. What if she is not? What if the connection between them is, indeed, fading? What if? What? What?
What was their mistake?
What was her mistake?
Was there a mistake?
Cruel trick her own brain was playing. Blackjack with sanity. Poker with happiness. What did she had to bet? Of course, Emerson conquered a lot in years, how much of that could she lose? Golden Globe? Literature prizes? All had her name embedded in wood. Friendships? Weekly night-outs proved that their bond didn't change within years. Why then only Yoongi seemed to slip through her fingers? The only thing she would miss the most, fading like smoke on the water.
Sometimes, the smartest, strongest, toughest people can go through menaces with delight and peace. Though, their inner monsters exist, and can seem small for whoever witnesses from outside, but a spider is a huge matter to a fly. Struggles and fears, perspective changes them.
Judging someone's feelings and fright isn't up to us.
- x - x - x -
That night Yoongi meant to crash down at the studio, but Namjoon showed up close to midnight, accompanied by his girlfriend, a small and chubby woman with wild brown hair, and also followed by Jimin and Jade, Jin and DiLayla. Their Instagram revealed that everyone had dinner, sponsored by a fancy restaurant trading food for audience.
– Why is everyone here grating me with the grace of your presence? Is there a party happening in my studio and I'm not invited? - Yoongi asked sarcastically, saving the new poem written before anyone could ruin it.
– Cut it out, Yoongi. - Jade said taking her thick beige coat off, leaving it on the black couch. - Don't you think you've been spending way too much time working? Stuck in your office or studio?
Her tone seemed mysterious, as if she meant something more than what was actually voiced. Yoongi felt intrigued watching everyone getting comfortable. Were they intervening?
– What is that? An intervention? I don't do drugs. - Yoongi joked, only him laughing, everyone else seemed morosed.
– See Yoongs, we were having dinner and suddenly Emerson became a subject of discussion. - Jin spoke trying to look chill, but very tense. - Jade mentioned that Emerson has been feeling a bit… Ignored lately. Bárbara and DiLayla agreed...
– Let me speak, love. - DiLayla touched Jin's shoulder and stood up. - Emerson mentioned to us that you’ve been working way too much, even at home, and she thinks you don't love her anymore. Basically, she feels like your connection is slowly vanishing.
– Namjoon told us what you've been planning for proposing to her, and honestly, I will take note and use a few of your ideas someday. - Jimin gave a side grin to Jade, watching how she blushed and continued. - But maybe, just maybe, you focused so much on something to her, that kind of forgot her? Not literally, we know you love Emerson with every beat of your heart, your maeum [마음, something like feelings], but you know, you can't starve a man before feeding him…
– What? Emerson is feeling neglected? - Yoongi asked, chocked and feeling his heart breaking.
Yoongi turned the chair around when tears verged to fall, not wanting to face his friends whilst crying. Jin, Jimin and Namjoon only saw him emotionally shattered in two situations. Feeling raw and vulnerable always made him uncomfortable, mainly being stared by people he had no intimacy, like his friends’s girlfriends, they were cool, but not close enough to watch him with guards down.
The young man hated this aspect of him. He despised how inadvertently his mind let things pass without noticing, facts around that could vastly affect his life, personal or professional. Having Emerson always picking up on him about unhealthy habits made it easier to don't die after spending three days living off hard liquor and olives, and overworking.
He wasn't someone mindless, or easily distracted, but Emerson helped him to focus in more than one thing at once, like working, but still resting enough, or channeling the best from every situation. Hiding something from her, avoided the warnings. Without realizing, Yoongi evicted his girlfriend from working aspects of him.
Maybe Jimin was right. He focused so much in doing something for Emerson, that he forgot to live with Emerson.
Goddamn it, Yoongi!
Namjoon looked around and politely asked everyone to leave the studio for a moment. He pulled a chair and sat beside Yoongi, caressing his trembling shoulder.
– I don't think I ever saw you crying over something so simple to solve. - Namjoon whispered, still petting his friend's shoulder. - You know nothing is lost and what to do is actually easy. The solution may ruin a huge surprise, but it is going to soothe a small injure caused by itself.
– What if Emerson has been considering to break up? Oh fuck, Joon! What if I ruined it all? - Yoongi used his sleeves to dry off his tears. - What if everything is so lost that not even all poems I wrote could fix it?
– See, a few weeks ago me and Barbs were talking about couples that gathered together along the past years. - Namjoon said and stopped caressing Yoongi's shoulder. - First, Hoseok and Taylor, then you and Emerson, Jade and Jimin, Di and Jin, me and her, Zariah and Jungkook, and Shims with Tae. I think we created an equilibrium in universe. Everyone is such a great and right match that if at some point one these couples break up, a new Big Bang would happen, cuz the mutual decision could ruin the universal balance.
“I'm not being far-fetched, I swear in the name of Stephen Hawking. - Namjoon spoke and made a cross in his chest. - Sometimes a long-term relationship can go through challenges. Two different people sharing a life of experience cannot live without occasional fights, bickering or arguing. We are human, even the most rational ones can be stubborn. All you have to do is insist. Although, it seems like Emerson loves you as much as you love her, so the only struggle here is distance.”
– You are right, but I’m still feeling like a sucker. - Yoongi snuffled, cleaning the coryza from his runny nose. - But as Emerson already told me, I should learn from my mistakes, then use it on an inspirational song, making my fans wander on what actually gave me the idea to it. - He grinned passionately and turned his cellphone screen on, staring at the lockscreen: a stunning picture of Emerson in Japan, smiling, using a flower crown and surrounded by cherry blossoms. - I love her so much.
Next thing processed by cameras around the building was a very hurry Yoongi grabbing his stuff, leaving a group of friends behind. A determined face, quick steps and then driving fast through the parking lot, tyres screaming like Robert Plant in the beginning of ‘Immigration Song’.
- x - x - x -
Emerson woke up in a startle after hearing the front door banging loudly. Still sleepy, she had no energy to stand up and check what was happening. Sleep whilst crying is exhausting, you wake up psychologically weary. After a few minutes and heavy steps, she heard someone calling her name, more specifically, Yoongi calling chanting her name.
She stood up, bringing one of the duvets along, and walked to the room, where Yoongi was crouched down, sitting on his calfs, typing something on the laptop he settled on the coffee table. When the man side glanced Emerson, he got up on his feet and hugged her, feeling his heart shatter with the small, yet present, dot of blood staining her beige pants.
– I’m so sorry. Forgive me, please… - Yoongi whispered, trying not to cry again, not before actually accomplishing his new goal for the night. Also, his mind was worried about the blood on her leg. - Did you hurt yourself, baby? Oh fuck, did you?
– Why? What did you do? - Emerson questioned feeling his arms around her, resisting before letting the duvet down and hugging him back. - I pinched myself a little too hard, but I swear it wasn't serious. Sorry...
– I was distant and absent from your life, and now you are convinced I don’t love you anymore. - He swallowed the knot on his throat, still trying not to cry. - It’s so dumb, because the only thing I love more than you is my music, but you are the inspiration for my work, so you are my music… And I made you hurt yourself.
– No, please Yoongles, it was a small relapse. Not worth of a fuzz. It won't happen again. - She felt his uneven heart beat against her ear, touching his chest. - Who told you that? Who told you how I was feeling? - Her arms quit hugging him, a tension running through both bodies.
– I don’t know, today I was finishing a project for you in my studio and Namjoon, Jin and Jimin showed up, they were accompained by their girlfriends. They told me how you were feeling and made me realize how far I’ve been, and how cold I acted earlier. - He seemed uncomfortable revealing his sources of information, but the truth would end up appearing anyways.
– Wait a second… - Emerson dried the single tear left running down her cheek and stared Yoongi. - Have you been working in something for me? Like, a surprise? A gift?
Yoongi shrugged his shoulders and nodded. His mind was hazy and the urge to just kneel and propose to Emerson without previous background was slowly taking over his guts. He couldn’t predict her reaction, since every brain cell were occupied on finding the right words. Fortunately, the woman grinned shyly and blushed, gazing down on the laptop.
They sat down in front of the open laptop, his arms around her shoulders. Yoongi sighed and pressed the ‘enter’ key, watching Power Point opening and a clear book cover appeared, mint coloured like his hair.
The book Yoongi worked for two years was almost ready. Whilst looking for good names and aesthetics a japanese word loomed from his pre-teenage memories: ishin-denshin (以心伝心) and his book title fitted like a glove. A compilation of poems and the last one, in Yoongi’s humble oppinion, the most majestic one was named after the piece itself. He planned on proposing whilst reading to Emerson.
– You asked me nothing, but I feel the need to explain what’s in front of you. - Yoongi cleared his throat, watching Emerson’s eyes scanning the screen. - My gift for our fifth anniversary was a book. I’ve been planning it for two years now, and in the last two or three months I reached the final details, which were cover and last poem. I never allowed you to see it, because I wanted it to be a surprise. I guess old habits never die, because during the time spent working on that book, I isolated myself from you and gave a wrong impression. Sorry.
– It's so beautiful, even though I don't even know what the title means. - Emerson said and sobbed, smiling through tears. - If the whole book is in japanese, then it would be good if you taught me how to read.
– Oh, cutie pie. I love you so much. - Yoongi snorted and kissed the top of Emerson's head, whose felt so loved, more than she felt in months. - It's, indeed, in japanese. Ishin-denshin, it's a kind of interpersonal communication, unspoken, but the understanding is still mutual. Something like, heart transmits what mind thinks. That word was a trend back in my pre-teenage years, never thought I would use it.
Emerson turned to look Yoongi. His eyes were watering, but no tears falling. She smiled, happily and kissed him. In months, they kissed plenty of times, but none of them had the same meaning as this one. It wasn't sexy or teasingly, if we are going to be honest, the kiss was salty with tears and, well, coryza. Emerson and Yoongi were slowly reconnecting.
The kiss stopped when their lungs claimed for air. After a few smooches, they got back to stare the screen.
– I love you so much, Yoongles. - Emerson felt a magnetic force making her back look for support on his chest, diminishing the space between them. - I know it's dumb, but I firmly believe we are soulmates, there is a supernatural connection between us, and considering the idea of losing you… it made me so desperate and sad. I know I would keep living, but my soul would never feel completed again.
– I know baby, I feel the same way, but instead of voicing my feelings, why don't you read a few poems I wrote? -Yoongi leaned and wrapped one of his arms around her shoulders again, smiling passionately whilst seeing skinny knees touching the chest, covered by a fluff light pink sweatshirt with ‘Treat People With Kindness’ written in a plain white font. He remembered the day they bought the piece of clothing after a Harry Styles concert in London. What a fun night, hanging around with him after the event. As Yoongi said earlier, being famous has its perks.
Emerson felt immersed in deep feelings, some of them not even voiced during their relationship. Yoongi wrote small poems about every aspect of her: from her cute moles, to how he loved petting her hair before sleeping, or how her voice was sweet like honey and face cute as a mochi. Everything, he wrote inspired by moments they shared, like the trip to Japan during spring, or New Year’s Eve in China. The first time Emerson tried kim chi and how her nose puckered when the spicy taste finally hit her taste buds. When she first attended to Bangtan Lads concert and fanchanted along with ARMYs, taking a few of them to backstage. Travelling to Brazil and messaging Bárbara instead of using Google Translator.
They lived so many precious moments together. Yoongi made sure over 100 of them became art through emotional poems.
The last one, named ‘Ishin-denshin’. She took a deep breathe, still sobbing with happy tears running down her face. The silence only broken by occasional snorts and chuckles. However, Yoongi was getting more tense, staring at her eyes.
Ishin-denshin
Once upon a time in the far land of England
A woman gave birth to love impersonated in flesh, blood and gold
No one knew how important she was and how lucky they were
Until chaos from Korea arrived and trapped her in maeum.
Connections can cross the border of space and time
Voices and signs
Touches and sights
You and me, hands holding tight.
Love is a matter of ishi-denshin
Ability to communicate from mind to heart
Open up on a gaze
Not a sound to be heard from mouth.
Thankfully chaos and peace mingle and complete each other
Yin and Yang united by their differences
Perfecting what was already sculpted with dust and water
Remodeling and always improving, resulting in brand new peculiarities.
Love and connections are the result of fighting
Nothing good comes easy
Nothing easy is good
Once you find balance, universe rewards you with love.
Continents separated us for most part of our days on earth
Wandering uneven, looking for the half that best fit our soul
Happily odds were and allowed what resulted in balance
Only imagining myself without you, even my brain in plain conscience feels afoul.
Don’t you dare saying you are not good enough
Cutie pie, you are unique like flakes of snow
Every drop has its own shape
Unique, you never see two looking the same.
My heartbeat is in sync with yours
Slow like when we sleep
Or when we kiss after a long period apart, tumbling in ribcage, rhythm vigorous
I thank everyday for finding my soulmate in a sweetheart like you.
Stay for as long as you want
I feel lucky only by having in my life as a constant
Luckily it won’t change much
When I finally make you a Min like me, everything mine will be ours.
When Emerson finished reading ‘Ishin-denshin’, Yoongi didn’t quite gave her time to think broader and stood up, pulling the woman together. Standing side by side, he kneeled in front of Emerson and proclaimed, among tears and sobs, holding one hand whilst looking for something in his back pocket.
– Emerson, after all those words you’ve read, would you give me the honour of becoming my Mrs.Min?
– The only possible answer is yes.
- x - x - x -
P:S I purple you <3
#bts#bts oneshot#bts imagine#bts fluff#bts angst#bts fanfic#bangtan sonyeondan#bangtan lads#btl#Min Yoongi au#Min Yoongi oneshot#Min Yoongi fluff#Min Yoongi imagine#Min Yoongi angst#Min Yoongi#mint hair#Kim Namjoon#RM#Suga#Rap Monster#Kim Seokjin#Jin#Kim Taehyung#V#Park Jimin#Jeon Jungkook#Jung Hoseok#The Chaos Club#oneshot#imagine
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(R)Evolution 01: What You Know Is Right
A city. A mood. An atmosphere. She wished that there was at least some uncertainty that it was good or bad, instead of the knowing dread that it was bad - not all bad, but mostly. None of these people had good intentions. She could tell. She always just knew. As her dark brown fingers fiddled with the spade symbol pendant on her necklace, she bundled up, wondering what in the world was wrong with this weather? Honestly, she should go back home, right now, as the dread was growing, almost exponentially, like a seen danger impending, but she didn’t see anything. Her breathing became heavy and she shut her eyes long enough to try to either calm herself or accept whatever this fate she feared was.
“Ouch!” she hissed. Her eyes flew open and she held her neck. Was that a mosquito? That stung a bit much for one of their bites and wasn’t it too cold for mosquitoes to be out, anyway? She continued to walk, nervously, and now light headed. “What the fuuu…?”
She collapsed and fell onto someone and heard a man’s voice say, “There, there, princess. You’ll be alright.” How did he know that I’m called a princess? She wondered, as she fell unconscious, not too far away, if she could have seen - from a community bulletin board with numerous missing persons attached to it.
♡
Six years in prison hadn’t been the terror that she would have imagined. Embezzlement, fraud, and robbery - for the things that she needed in order to survive in a world, in a country that felt like it was constantly trying to destroy her. Okay, so perhaps she was melodramatic about her plight, but she robbed the rich. It wasn’t like she kept babies from their mom’s breast. Her targets were richer than anybody should even be allowed to be, hence the reason why she wound up getting in trouble when she got caught.
As she was prepped for her release, the president was on the tv in the background, “America has evolved and is constantly evolving. We will only continue to flourish, because we are a nation of survivors. We are a nation of the fittest. We’re resilient. We’re resourceful. We continue to rise…”
“Evolving,” she repeated and rolled her eyes as she was handed her belongings. Her ride was waiting for her outside and she immediately went to sleep in the jeep.
♡
Folami had a job waiting for her as an analyst in a laboratory, and was under strict supervision with no access to anything connected to the funds. It had been a generous set up for her, and she was grateful to be able to easily return to some degree of normalcy. Of course, in a lot of ways, she would never be normal again, but at least she had a good job that made her great money. “I don’t understand what my exact purpose is here,” she admitted to her supervisor. “My credentials say “analyst,” but I’ve mostly been taking notes and watching interviews. Is that what I should be doing, or…?”
“If you go into the company’s intranet system and view the job description for analyst, you should understand better. If you can’t, then we can have a discussion about your future here.”
Whenever he left the room, a girl in the room asked, “Do you have a criminal record?” She turned around suddenly to give her a look for the gall. “I’m just throwing it out there, that if you do, they hire you because they know that a lot of people won’t. They pay you well to do trivial things, and if need be ever arises,” she whispered, “To be an alibi or witness.” The girl was cleaning up as she said, in her regular voice, “It’s a shady place, but to wipe a few counters, throw out some trash and dust mop… I probably get paid what you get paid to grab coffee and read unimportant emails.” Folami couldn’t be insulted. But, she was curious.
“Analyst!” Somebody called and she reflexively turned around. They handed her a box and said, “Document these items, bag separately and store the box.”
“Done,” she said.
She put on her gloves, reached into the box and began to record herself bagging the items, as the computer typed up her report. “One pair of black cashmere gloves, one black fur shawl, one pair of thigh high black boots, one… necklace… with a card symbol on it.” She paused the recording to look up the symbol, then resumed, “A spade.” She boxed put the items into a new box, one of the ones that they used for filing away the test subjects things, as they were in testing, printed out a label for the post it note that had been put onto the former box Princess of Spades, and put it on the shelf for P’s.
♡
Walking to the subway, Folami passed by the missing persons bulletin every night. It wasn’t too far from the lab and almost right at the stairwell. She reflexively looked at it, all the time. Just, because she felt bad for all of those people. So many were missing, and the number seemed to grow everyday. Her view automatically zoomed in on the missing black faces that she saw, the women in particular. She shivered, shook her head and fought back tears. Nobody even seemed to be looking for those people. In fact, most people seemed to try to avoid even looking at the board, much less for the people posted on it. Damn, she hated this world.
♡
“Analyst!” She sighed, but forced a smile and went to the counter. “New admission. Key in the information.”
“Please,” she added for the admissions technician.
He gave her a look and corrected her, “Now.” Folami snatched the clipboard and the admissions tech left the woman at the counter to go gather some materials.
“Well, somebody was having a bad day, huh?” she asked.
Folami shook her head and commented, “Girl, they’re always like this. I get that they work really hard on, I don’t even know diseases or cures or something, but I leave my house black everyday, so they can calm down.” She checked the paperwork, “Dahlia. Oh, that’s pretty.”
“Girl, it’s a flower. My mama didn’t even know when she named me that. She’d just heard the word and thought it sounded pretty.”
“She was right,” Folami said and continued typing in the information. After she printed out an ID for her, she smiled, handed it over and said, “Good luck, Dahlia.”
“Thank you. Hopefully, they’ll figure out what to do about my condition.” She smiled gratefully and returned to the seat to wait for the team to come retrieve her. Folami went back to her shredding party of blacked out pages, with the TV on in the background. “Lord, I hope that they find that sista,” Dahlia commented. Folami looked up and saw the face of a woman, probably around her own age, with similar markers - dark skinned (though a few shades darker), dark eyes, long hair, thin, but with fuller lips, smiling from a photograph. Who is she? She turned it up.
“Daughter of political activist, Tejumola Uchechukwu, the recent college graduate was scheduled to meet with her father and some business partners about a possible future assignment, but never showed…”
Tejumola Uchechukwu, a man who Folami could tell was of Nigerian descent, like her dad, was very emotional as he expressed that he had many enemies, but his daughter was the kindest, most moral person that he knew and he would stop at nothing to have her returned to her loved ones.
“It’s so sad. She do charity and stuff. Her life was just bout to start. I hate to say it, but she been missing for days. They probably not gonna find her…” She didn’t want to say alive, but if they found her, it would likely be dead. But, something caused Folami to march closer to the TV and stare up at it, centering in on it as admissions came to retrieve Dahlia. She didn’t even hear her say, “It was good to meet you!” Because she was focused on the necklace in Niyilolawa Uchechukwu’s photo. One spade necklace…
“Analyst.” The voice was softer than usual and almost quiet. She turned, more shocked by that than when it was barked at her. “Make sure that you do your job and don’t get…” he searched for the right words, “Buried in the details, too much.” That was a threat. But, she simply nodded her head and turned off the TV. Someone else came and handed him a box, which he passed to her. “What do you do with this?” He asked.
“Document these items, bag separately and store the box,” she repeated her job description.
“Thank you,” he said, for a change, then left.
She did her job, documented and put the box labeled “Bloom” in the B’s… But, ashe couldn’t help but to go check that other box. She remembered it was in the P’s, but couldn’t remember the label. Pendant spade? Prime spade? She searched for several minutes, before seeing “Princess of Spades!” She grabbed the box, looked inside of it and couldn’t find the necklace, but she knew that this was the box and that she had put it in there. She went into the records and her recording had been edited. There was no record of her placing the necklace into the box. She frowned and sighed. This was super shady. Did they have somebody here, against her will, or did this person enter a crazy program and failed to tell her parents?
♡
Whenever she came into work the next day, after virtually no sleep, she entered to the face of her work bestie, the secretary/front counter receptionist. “Hey… They want you to meet them upstairs as soon as you clock in.”
“Shoot, what’d I do?” she asked.
“Probably just paranoid. I guess you accessed some file without permission, or something. I mean, you’re still new so they shouldn’t trip too much. Probably just will remind you of the protocol.”
But, her heart leaped into her throat and she nodded her head, “Okay. Thanks.”
“Have lunch with me today. I gotta show you this commercial that I saw last night. It is a riot. I was gon’ text it to you, but I wanted to see your face.” Folami went to her workstation, clocked in, put her things away and headed upstairs. Her immediate thought when she came in was that she was in deep trouble. She saw the admissions tech from yesterday, her supervisor and one of the scientists. This couldn’t bode well, but whenever she got all the way into the room, she saw her.
“Hi…” She said, confused. Niyilolawa Uchechukwu nodded once, with a soft smile and fiddled with her necklace pendant.
“Have a seat for us, Analyst Adebowale,” Her supervisor said. So, today, they know my name. She did so. “We just wanted to bring you in, because admissions was concerned about your interest in a very sensitive case that we’re currently working on. We wanted to make sure that you could sleep tonight, by knowing just enough to smooth over your concerns.” How they know I couldn’t sleep last night? “This is Niyilolawa Uchechukwu. You may have seen her face on the news, as her parents issued a missing persons alert for her. However, she has entered herself into the program, and for the safety of others, as well as herself did not wish to publicize her decision.” Folami looked at the woman. She forced a smile, but Folami knew that in distress look anyway and her conscious ached for something to do to help this person. “When it was noticed that you accessed her file, and searched her possessions box, we brought her in to speak to you, personally.”
Niyilolawa said, “I turned over my necklace at admissions, but was allowed to have it back, later.”
“We remove possessions from record whenever we give them to the guest, so that we’re clear that it isn’t in our care,” the scientist said. “However, protocol dictates that you not access the files without instructions from a scientist, supervisor, or technician, so why were you in her files?”
“Because, I recognized the necklace, in the news. I double checked to make sure that I had made a mistake, and thought until just now that I must have.”
Niyilolawa could sense Folami’s fear and her struggle, so she reached for her hand, “Thank you for your concern. I’m sure that you will do what is right with what you know.” You know that I do not wish to be here. You know that I am missing. You know that these men are evil. Please help me… Her eyes said.
“Well, if you in the future have any concerns, see your supervisor. Stay behind for a moment.” The others left the office and it was just Folami and the scientist. “How has the job been treating you?” he asked.
“Good. It’s treated me well,” she answered, her soul shaken up by the encounter with that woman.
“And it’s been enough for you to get back on your feet, so that you no longer have to live with your four sisters?” he asked.
She felt like this was yet another threat, but answered calmly, “We want to live together. Life is hard and the world is dangerous. There’s safety in numbers.”
“That there is. You all look identical. How does anyone tell you apart?” he wondered, looking at her social media profile photo of five women with the exact same face.
“They don’t, but we know,” she said.
“Hopefully, nobody ever has a grudge with any of you. I can’t imagine how it might feel to get on someone’s bad side, then have someone else suffer for it.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time, so, we’d manage.” She clasped her hands together and wondered, “Is there anything else?”
“Yes. Do your job and mind your business. There are various levels in this facility, and you are at the very bottom. I won’t feel the need to explain myself in the future.”
“Of course. I will do what I am paid to do,” she told him and nodded her head…
“I can’t just do what I’m paid to do! Something is happening there. Something bad. I can feel it. That girl’s voice is burned into my head and I don’t know… When she touched me, it was like I could read her cry for help, right there in her eyes. I could hear her voice begging me to do what I know is right.” She looked at her four identicals and said, “We… have to do something, right? We gotta try to help her, or am I on my own?”
“Now, when have you ever in life been on your own?” the other four asked in unison.
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ASKS 04
wow I let this build up didn’t I.... updates on the ViVi inspired hair, Sim download info, some sweet people, some K-Pop, and other stuff below
@agentwashsims said: I️ knew you wouldn’t disappoint on the curly hairs!
Thank youu! lmao it is a pretty basic edit but I’m glad you like it ;-;
Anonymous said: Could you convert the solid colored EA Cruella DeVille style for girls or tots?
Actually it has already been converted HERE (warning: she uses an ad thing :( )
@pierce-the-rachel said: Okay hello I just love your cc so much!!! Like you're amazing I what you do. Much love<3
Thank you so much omgg I am not nearly close to being amazing but I appreciate it <3
Anonymous said: Hi! Is there any chance your sim that modeled the Braxton hair will be up for download? Along with his cc?
Yes! In the next week he 100% will be. Taylor will be posted tomorrow :)
Anonymous said: What skin do you use on your male models? It looks the same as the female one but I can’t find it in CAS.
Check my resource page for my default. I don’t have the overlay labeled on there but in the next few days when I have my male model for download it will be listed there.
Anonymous said: I love your whistle skinny jeans alot, I was wondering if you were ever thinking about making one without the jacket around the waist? Sorry for wasting your time :P
That is sadly out of my ability :( but I am glad u like my whistle skinny jeans!! Not a waste of time to give someone a compliment
Anonymous said: Not exactly an ask but. I love your cc, you create beautiful content, and no matter what others say someone is gonna like it :)
Thank you soooo much omfg I really fucking appreciate stuff like this.
Anonymous said: Your creations are so awesome! I always love coming to your page and seeing all of your amazing creations!!
Thank you!!!!!! omg I feel bad that I never respond to these until I do these things, you guys that send these prob think I ignore them ;-; but for the people who read these and who send them: I really appreciate it like so much ;-; it has been a meh couple of weeks which is why CC has been slow but I love you all so much <3
@raivynmoon said: Omg why do you always get so much hate from anons? I’ll tell you why, because you’re doing things right and toxic people get jealous. Don’t mind the haters, you’re amazing! Happy new year ❤️
I actually don’t get that much hate! I never really pay them any mind bc I know as long as it is something I like that I will release it. People do def prob get jealous they can’t mesh stuff that well, not saying I am the god at it, but I do have some talent in that area from doing it for a while. Happy new year to you too!!! and thank you for the ask <3
Anonymous said: hey i just want to say that all of your cc is amazing, you put so much time and effort into it. of course everyone can give you feedback and opinions about what you make, but you are the creator so you can do whatever you want with it. that anon below was just rude, inconsiderate, and isn’t really helping anyone. that person obviously doesn’t make cc hair, because im sure then they would understand and not be a total jerk about it. maybe they should just stick to makeup, instead of hating.
<-- what she said (thank youuu)
Anonymous said: well I think that all of the hair you make is really great, even if not everyone likes it. You spend so much time making these amazing hairs and shout-out to the person below: why would you waste your time hating on somebody else’s hard work when you could be creating makeup cc? You don’t put your effort and time into creating this kind of stuff, of course I know you were also giving feedback.
Thank you <3
Anonymous said: THE HAIR IS CUTE AF
Anonymous said: Wcif the hair in your "In The Time Spent With You" post? Thank you!♡
Deleted :( I never got it to look how I wanted so I never finished it
Anonymous said: I'd just like to say that the hair looks pretty, honestly your hairs are always high quality and never fail to dissapoint, I'd just say that it could be a little puffier on the sides, and over all ignore the haters, they probably couldn't make anything close to what you're making! Luvs.
Thank you!! I tried puffing the sides up some, here is a comparison pic:
(brown is now) (blonde is before)
@twirlyb said: I love the idea of the hair and I think it looks good so far but so you think that there's anyway to add for volume? I love the hair that it's based on and I really want to have it in game. I Completely understand if it's not an option but I though I would ask anyway. Btw I think your hairs are amazing. I went mostly cc free for a while (not anymore could handle not having cc but) and the only things I kept were my defaults and some of your hairs that I absolutely can not live without.
Refer above lmao
@cutesimmer23 said: Hi , anonimus , I have a message for you. If you think Austin's cc is trashy , it's just your opinion. His ccs are one of my top favourites , and I support him in all that he does , even if that's not too good. He tries to do something and , even it's not perfect at the first time , he tries to perfect it. I really love his cc . And I have something more to say. If you are that good at cc give Austin a message (not anonimously) and then we will see who's the best. We love you, Austin!
Thank you <3 You're lovely for sending me this
Anonymous said: heyy love your blog and all of your creations. wcif ALL of your sims? do you ever upload them to the gallery?
Macie is already posted, link on my resource page. Taylor will be posted tomorrow, and my male model will be posted next week. The rest idk
Anonymous said: um can that damn anon piss off. your content is absolutely amazing and some things aren't for everyone but someone out there will love and appreciate it. also the hair in your profile picture looks gorgeous. is it released yet? and the wip you posted is cute af. ignore those haters <3
Thank you <3 Hair in my profile pic is my HyunA hair :)
Anonymous said: Hi, so sorry if anyone has already asked this, but I was wondering hat your origin ID was, since your sims are super cute!? Ps. I'm totally in love with your blog!!!
My origin is Spotharris but it does not have much on it right now, Ps. thank you
Anonymous said: Do you have any K-Pop albums? Which ones?
Oh my! I have a few! I have Red Velvet’s Perfect Velvet, and 6 LOONA albums (Kim Lip, Jinsoul, Choerry, Yves, Mix & Match, and Max & Match)
Anonymous said: I miss you having Macie as your icon :(
Me too jush she needs to make a comeback
Anonymous said: Hey I was wondering if you could do a tutorial on how to make a middle parted hair side parted ?? please
I might do a livestream sometime in the future that is me remaking a hair like Joy or something where I did that. I am really bad at video stuff though so like... someone help?
Anonymous said: Can I just say how much I absolutely love all of your hairs? Like your so talented in making cc. Please keep up the great work!
Thank you!
Anonymous said: Can you convert the cupid eyes you posted for dogs/cats? It's fine if you can't, jw!
rip I can but I really don’t want to ;-;
Anonymous said: I just want to say I love you so much! All your creations are so beautiful and I use them ALL the time. Happy Holidays! ~ V
Happy late holidays!
Anonymous said: Do you have all of your own CC in your game?
Nooooo lmao
Anonymous said: does ur hyuna hair work with the ombres?
She does not :(
Anonymous said: make more diverse sims
gotcha
Anonymous said: yo i remember when you first started out and you were just starting. now you've improved a HELL of a lot. like WOAH (i love your cc)
we don’t speak of those times in my life ok
Anonymous said: I don't know if you are open to cc requests, so if you are, would you ever consider separating them utility jacket from cats and dogs? I've seen so many people recolor it but I can't find it as an accessory, and I've looked everywhere.
A friend of mine tried it but it was really glitchy :( Maybe in the future I could give it a go?
Anonymous said: LIPS, HIPS LIPS, HIPS (ahh, ahh) L-LIPS, HIPS (ahh, ahh) Hi-hi-hi-hi-hip (POP!)
yes i agree with everything
Anonymous said: I have the same b-day as you
only legends were born on that day. and December 2nd.
Anonymous said: Your birthday is the day before mine and the day after my sister's
So close to being legends.... sad
Anonymous said: I thought, you're female😅😅🔫
rip ur mind after i blew it up by being a male
Anonymous said: damn didnt know u were homophobic lol
oh
Anonymous said: fmk: danny devito, shrek, and jim carrey's the grinch
fuck danny bc idk who it is and i know a hot danny. marry the grinch bc he i like mayor of whoville after the movie. kill shrek and take the donkey.
Anonymous said: ahHHHhhHh idk why but i love you so much(not in a weird way u pervery xddd)
thanks babessss
Anonymous said: You should start a gameplay
I dont have the computer or the time for that I am sorry to say
#asks#well let's hope that cuts the inbox down some thdbv#i let them build for too long#it is my own fault
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There was a title, then the title was gone, now, there is this other title...
It's very difficult use this now.
Look at the zoom percentage at the top address bar. Only at 130% zoom does the text box becom available for writing, at 140% or 120% or any other zoom factor, the text box vanishes. If I zoom in or out after doing some writing, the text box vanishes, that other graphic shows up, and I am not able to continue to write. If I zoom back to 130%, then everthing I wrote, and any photos I include, are all gone, vanished, have to start over.
===================================
This is an edited addition, to that part above the line. Is all experimental now. Have to figure out how the Easter Bunny fucked up the Tumblr. Again.
The controls usually are grey, like that photo above. Been that way for almost as long as this account has been in existence. There was a short time period when the Tumblr worked OK, not ideal, difficult and clumsy, with a lot quirks, but did actually allow someone to write something down, and arrange it all such that others could read it... but, like I said, that was a long time ago, is no longer the case, here at Tumblr.
To find the “edit post” button, so that I could add something to that other original post above, is nearly impossible. The “edit post” is randomly placed, maybe you can find it, maybe not... have to keep looking hither and yon for the darn link that makes the “edit post” button available for adding content of doing a spelling or contextual correction, grammar adjustment, add link or photo, etc, and so on.
Tumblr is all fucked up now.
More fucked up than it was yesterday, last week, or last year.
The original title was: 1-3-2021 and a time... I forget what time.
=================
2:48 pm: 1-3-2021:
The Tumblr controls are whack.
I have to go to “StoneMan Front Main Page”, then choose: “Archive”, then select a Post from about 810 entries there where I keep begging for some help to stop mass murdering that has been going for more than 20 years in Oregon and more than 50 years in California, many millions of US Citizens all killed by Canadians who assume the ID of those victims... and vote.
Once I choose which of the entries I want to read, or edit, then, there is a little pencil shaped icon that happens to become available way up at the top right corner of the screen next to the place where I could read mail if someone would have ever sent me some. That Pencil, if I click it, refreshes the page and then I can make then additions or edits I want to do, it re-opens the selected post entry that I want to add something to, such as this one I am writing in now to enplane how difficult and non-intuitive this Tumblr place has become over night.
==============
Also, I remember what happened last night now. I know why I have the glass dust in my eyes again. After I posted that photo of my Flying V guitar, someone came in and was looking for it after I went out to check the mail, there was someone inside the house when I returned, I went into the bathroom, and there was a sword laying on the toilet seat, I almost sat down on it. The sword was held by a female who was wearing one of those “Pixel Suit Invisible Camouflage” and was standing next to the bathroom door, blended in with, and became part of the door, resultant of the characteristics of the “Pixel Suit”.
She demanded I give to her the guitar.
I had my pants down already. It was a really bad time to encounter an invisible sword wielding terror soldier. There are times that are better, and worse, for such an encounter, it turns out. So I was able to take the sword by putting the toilet paper roll around the end of the blade, worked good, and turned the sword around, and ran the terrorist bitch through with it. I went back to my writing, and forgot that there was a dyeing terrorist bitch in my bathroom. After I took another walk outside, she was gone, and that is when I felt the glass that she tossed into my eyes while demanding the Flying V Guitar.
End terror report: 3:11 pm.
please send help.
==============
3:24 pm:
Important consideration for helpful people who simply refuse to send help, is that the Josephine County Sheriff obtained my house keys, car keys, all of my keys, and had them overnight and long enough to make copies of them on June 15 and June 16 2020 when I was arrested for stuff that never happened, was all bullshit. Four famous musicians died there as a result that day, along with one of the Sparacino family terror cell.
Last night, as always, I locked the door when I took that walk to the mailbox.
The intruder came into the house with keys provided by The Sheriff.
Also, even more bizarre, is that the injured and dying terrorist bitch in the bathroom was gone when I returned from another walk outside, but the door was locked when I returned, as I left it. That means whoever it was who came to evac the injured terrorist bitch actually took the time necessary to lock the door after the evac of the terrorist bitch. Two locks... you cannot lock a dead bolt from the outside without a key, and both locks were locked, as I left them when I took the short walk outside. The asshole at Clyde Baum’s at 333 is suspected of being the one who did the evac, and has copies of my house and car keys, and other keys, all of my entire key ring of keys
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Gutenberging
It's been over a year since the big WordPress launch of Gutenberg, the new editor. It seems to me most of the controversy around it has died down. There has been enough time that the UX and accessibility of it have improved, and people are seeing the potential a lot more clearly. There ain't no turning back.
I'm running across articles like Haris Zulfiqar saying he's betting on it and Nick Hamze saying that blocks are for the next generation.
While I think there are still rough edges (like why can't I put a list in a blockquote? Why can't I add a class to a link? Why can't I arrow-key through the block chooser?), I'm a big fan overall. And not just conceptually anymore. I made it one of my 2020 goals to get CSS-Tricks onto Gutenberg, and so I hopped to that right away in January.
We already had one foot in the door
We had a smidge of experience Gutenberging since we had already converted the newsletter authoring experience over to the new editor. Our newsletters are a Custom Post Type here on CSS-Tricks, which are published here at public URLs, have a custom RSS feed, and sent out by MailChimp which fetches and reads that RSS feed.
We were able to just turn on Gutenberg for newsletters by way of the Gutenberg Ramp plugin. That works great for Custom Post Types and posts with individual IDs, but I wanted to turn on Gutenberg only for new content. I wound up monkey-patching the plugin. Here's a pull request in case anyone over there thinks it's a good idea.
This was important to me, as we have tens of thousands of old posts created with the old editor, and even though Gutenberg doesn't mangle them if we open them up for editing, the editor experience it provides for them isn't as good as the "classic" editor (e.g. we have special buttons for our special code blocks and stuff like that).
Dealing with older content
What would really be great is if Gutenberg would convert old posts into proper blocks upon opening, but that feels like a dream at this point. Like, it would have to parse the HTML, identify what chunks look like blocks, identify which block makes the most sense, including our custom blocks which are the most important, and be really correct about it in a non-fragile way.
For now, old content just uses the old editor. There isn't even an easy way to flip on Gutenberg for an individual post from the editor. (I could hard-code values into the Gutenberg Ramp usage, but that's a bit tedious.)
I worry a smidge that the old editor will really deteriorate. For example, one of the big reasons I got started with this is because, on this site, the old editor would just randomly scroll to the bottom of the page. I can't for the life of me figure out why, but it makes authoring obnoxious for me. Just a little papercut bug that made me want to get on the editor experience that is being actively developed.
But even if the old editor really gets bad, just flipping on Gutenberg for everything isn't that bad. All the old content will just be in a big "classic" block and will be fine.
So anyway — it's working!
Turning on Gutenberg for new posts was its own little challenge, but it's turned on for us and we're creating all new content in it. I'm just speaking for myself here but OMG I love it so much. It's such a massive upgrade for writing content that I'm a little obsessed with it. The team is happy as well.
Creating custom blocks
Check out this fancy text block we have:
A "callout" block on CSS-Tricks
You might think, oh cool, an opportunity for a custom block. Heck, we even covered learning and making Gutenberg blocks in a whole big series. But this brings up a pretty relevant situation: when not to build a block. The only thing unique about this block is that is has a special class name that our CSS uses to style that block. That's it. Adding a class name is a built-in feature of every block, so a custom block here really isn't necessary.
In fact, we can go a step further, and make a text block with this exact class a "reusable block" so we don't even have to remember or type in that class name. After I've created a text block with this class, I select "Convert to Reusable Block" from the kebab menu and now it's forever saved as a reusable block.
We're already using it for a few other things now, like our "Article Series" block (an <h4> and <ol> with a special <div>-with-a-class wrapper) and footnote blocks and such.
But we do actually need some custom blocks as well, and for that I used create-guten-block to craft a special plugin¹ to create them. I see One that is mega important for us is code blocks. There is already a native block for code blocks. It essentially puts the code in a <pre> tag and the content from Gutenberg is already escaped by default.
Our fancy code block allows us to pick which language it is, highlight certain lines, and provide custom labels. This was all possible in our old editor via HTML attributes, so this block is just nice UI on top of all that.
That block is so specific to CSS-Tricks it doesn't make much sense to open source it. But there is another block I created that is open source, and that's the CodePen Embed Block. I wrote about it over on the CodePen blog.
It allows you to paste in a CodePen URL and it transforms into a CodePen Embed. oEmbed already does that by default, but with this plugin, you can control everything like the height, theme, and default tabs.
It's pretty awesome to actually see the embedded Pens while authoring!
Unfaced challenges
The biggest challenge right now is handling images. In the old editor, we have integrated a very very fancy setup with Cloudinary. The images are automatically uploaded to Cloudinary, breakpoints are programmatically decided on, multiple sizes are created, a responsive images syntax is created, and what ends up in the HTML is a perfect responsive images syntax with the images hosted by Cloudinary. This has the provided us with the benefit of being on a CDN and serving the images in the best possible format as well.
None of that is happening on posts created with Gutenberg. 😭
I need to find or develop a new system that does a great job with images everywhere on the site and ideally with a less bespoke system that is easier to maintain. It's possible I figure that out with Cloudinary, I might try some other service, I might let WordPress deal with it directly backed by the Jetpack Site Accelerator. Not sure yet. Always something to do.
I see WordPress themselves is getting in on the block scaffolding game. Their "create-wordpress-block" concept has made its way into the Gutenberg repo itself, which you kick off with npm init @wordpress/block [options] [slug]
The post Gutenberging appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
Gutenberging published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/
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Diner
Hi! Would you ever write something for Dick Winters. Maybe she’s an old friend of Nixon’s? - anon
A/N- Sorry I’ve been way for so long, I’m not sure how often I can actually post because my laptop still won’t work so I’m having to type this on my tablet which is much slower and harder to type on. Excuses aside I wanted to post a little something to keep you going!
A/N2- Sorry, I coudnt get the gifs to work on the app xx EDIT: gif added
—
“Nix, I don’t know about this,” Dick tugged anxiously at his cuffs. Lewis stood behind him with a know it all grin, already started on his ‘pre-party drinks’.
“They’ll love you,” he shrugged casually, “Major Richard Winters, owns land in rural Pennsylvania - you’ll fit right in.”
“My parents own that land, it’s hardly land, it’s an average sized farm.”
Lewis rolled his eyes, “What my parents friends don’t know won’t hurt them. It’s a small lie, if that, more like an exaggeration; which they’re all guilty of anyway.”
Dick frowned, trying and failing to make his face relax as he gazed at his appearance in the mirror. He almost didn’t recognise himself. Before he had been a young farm boy, then a battle hardened soldier, now…he didn’t know what he was now. A manager at Nixon Nitration, working with/for his best friend. It didn’t fit, something was lacking in his life. “Let’s get this done with.”
—
The party was in full swing by the time the two arrived, nobody seemed to take note of their entrance for which Dick was eternally thankful. Though, he did catch on to Stanhope Nixon’s disapproving look as he glanced at his son, not that he ever looked at him with any other expression. Dick began to follow Nix around like a lost puppy, he spoke when spoken to and introduced himself politely but other than that he hung back behind Lew’s shoulder and listened.
It reminded him of the meeting for Operation Pegasus, watching Lew chat and get on with the guys from HQ while he stood awkwardly in the corner waiting to be acknowledged.
“Lewis Nixon,” a disbelieving voice sounded from behind him making him and Nix turn around to see who had spoken, “Here you are! In the flesh! Didn’t think I’d see you at one of these things again.”
Nix’s face broke out into a wide smile, “Same goes for yourself,” he replied brightly, sounding more genuine than he had the entire night thus far. He stepped past Dick and pulled the woman in for a short hug.
“Ah, well, Madaline dragged me along, couldn’t get out of it. Why are you here?”
“Perks of the job,” he replied wryly, “Apparently it’s my responsibility to show my face and network,” Nix’s face screwed up in distaste. “But I brought company,” he turned around and slapped a hand on Dick’s shoulder.
The woman’s eyes shifted to Dick and widened, “I’m sorry, how rude of me, I didn’t even notice you there. Please forgive me,” she stuck her hand out, “I’m Y/N Y/L/N, and you are?”
Dick shook her hand and gave her a soft smile, “Dick Winters.”
Lew looked between the two with a large grin on his face, “Y’know I never realised I wanted you two to meet until just now. Dick, Y/N is my childhood best friend and one of the only reasons I lasted as long as I did. Y/N, Dick’s a war buddy and now he works for me, he’s no fun but I think you’ll get along,” he said good naturedly and Dick rolled his eyes.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she nodded at him.
“Pleasure’s all mine.”
Someone called Nix away and he looked disappointed that he’d have to leave the conversation. “I’ll be back soon, why don’t you get to know each other a little better.”
—
You watched Lewis walk away and focused your attention back on Dick. “So you’ve known Nix a while?” he asked.
“Since we were five,” you nodded, “He’s always getting in trouble so I kept an eye on him. I assume you did the same?”
Dick nodded, “Yes, he can be quite the handful. He used to hide his VAT 69 in my footlocker.”
You snorted, “Sounds like him. I kind of got him hooked on that stuff. When we were 16 I snuck some out of my father’s liquor cabinet, Lewis swore it was the best whiskey he’d ever had and couldn’t go back to the crappy stuff the corner shop vendor was willing to sell us.”
Dick chuckled, “That sounds about right. So where are you from?” You told him where you grew up and asked him the same. “On a farm in Pennsylvania,” he told you, remembering Nix’s earlier words to exaggerate on how much he owned.
“Was it a lot of land?”
He shrugged, unsure of how exactly to lie, he hated having to lie. Instead he made a vague unsure noise as a response. Your eyes lit up in amusement, “A farm sounds a lot nicer than some kind of estate like these lot,” you reassured him.
Dick nodded, a light blush coloured his cheeks, “It’s actually my parents farm. I would have gone back after the war but Nix dragged me up here to work for him, it’s not really my thing.”
“It’s not mine either. I never worked for Stanhope but Lewis complained enough for me to feel like I did. I grew up round these people and got out as fast as I could, I’m surprised Lew wasn’t begging you to take him with you - he always said he wanted out.”
He shrugged, “I don’t think he had a farm in mind.”
“A farm sounds better than this place. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you stay. No offence, but you don’t exactly look like you fit in here.”
Dick could tell you didn’t mean it in any kind of offensive way, just an observation. “The moneys good,” he answered, though it didn’t sound like he believed it. “Truth is, what else have I got. I’m lucky to get a manager job without any experience.”
“I think you’re plenty experienced, Major.”
“In the battlefield. Not the office. I’ve always hated paperwork.“
You bit your lip and scanned the crowd, you spotted Lewis drinking with some girl at the bar. “I do believe our mutual friend will be indisposed for the remainder of the evening,” you smirked with a roll of your eyes. “There’s a great diner a few blocks away that serves actual sized portions of food that we can pronounce. Want to ditch this place? I feel like I’m suffocating in satin and pearls.” Dick nodded eagerly, glad for any excuse to leave. “Lets go, its just a short walk.”
Together you left the building, each letting out a small sigh of relief at being able to leave. “Won’t we be a little over dressed?”
You glanced at your fancy dress and his suit and shrugged, “Maybe a little. Who cares, who says we can’t dress up to go to a back street diner,” you grinned up at him and he smiled back.
At the diner you directed him to the booth at the back next to the window, a small smile on your face as you watched the cars go by and the people make their way through town. You didn’t notice Dick looking at you, a shy smile on his own face, as he realised his heart beat had yet to slow down since he met you.
“Hi, what can I getcha?” a waitress came over.
“Um, I’ll have the strawberry milkshake and double bacon cheeseburger,” you requested without looking at the menu, you came her often enough.
“And you?” the waitress turned to Dick and he realised he hadn't even looked at the menu. His eyes quickly scanned the menu which was printed onto the table top but he couldn't focus on any, embarrassed that he had been too busy looking at you to choose what he waned. “I–um–the same. Please.” He gave an awkward smile as the waitress walked off and you tried to hide your smile.
“Smooth,” you teased and his face went even redder.
“You come here a lot I take it?” he tried changing the subject.
You grinned, letting him drop the topic. “Yup, I always came here when I got dragged to one of those parties. Sometimes Id drag Lewis if he wasn't too drunk yet, this is always the first place I come to when I get back to town. I've been coming here for years and it never changes, Eddie, the chef, has been running this place for god knows how long and he doesn't change the recipes.”
“Well, thank you for bringing me here.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
The waitress came back with your food and Dick had to admit it was the best burger he had had jn a long time, maybe even ever. “Like it?” you asked eagerly.
“Yeah, I love it.” He smiled, the two of you ate and talked for the rest of the night until it was closing time. “Can I walk you back to your car, or hotel?”
You nodded, “I’m staying at a place about ten minutes away.”
“Lead the way.”
You began walking down the street and you boldly decided to link your arm with his as you walked. The streets were mainly quiet and deserted now and it seemed almost too soon that you were standing in front of your hotel, “I had a great time tonight, Dick.”
“Me too,” he ducked his head slightly with a small blush.
You bit your lip and before you lost your nerve you leaned up and kissed him softly. It took a second for him to kiss back but his eyes fluttered closed and he placed his hands on your waist to hold you in place. The sound of a car beeping at another car on the way past broke you apart and you both blushed deeply. “I’m in town for another two weeks, if you ever wanted to-”
“Yes!” Dick nodded, blushing again. “Yes,” he said quieter, “When are you next free?”
“Wednesday evening?”
He nodded, “I’ll pick you up here.”
You smiled, “Great. Goodnight, Dick,” you kissed his cheek before you ducked into the building. An excited grin on you face the rest of the night as you though about Wednesday. You realised that when Lewis got word of this that you’d never hear the end of it but you got the feeling that it was worth it, that Dick was worth it.
***
A/N- Wow, sorry I suck. This has taken forever to get out and I feel bad about it but hopefully you wont hate me too much! Thank you for reading, requests are closed xx
#fic:diner#dick winters#richard winters#dick winters imagine#band of brothers#band of brothers imagine#dick winters x reader#richard winters x reader#richard winters imagine#justthinkingofwaystoavoidbusses#request#lewis nixon#nixon
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Me and some friends came up with a Really Awful (GREAT) au, where things hurt and Gon turns dark side. I’m posting the partially edited chat log instead of summarizing ‘cause I’m lazy af, but this will be added to my Verse’s list. I just have to think of a tag
If you’re interested in RPing something from this sorta AU, please hit me up, I’d absolutely love to.
gabriel the gondad - gon is the PERFECT example of someone who could have ended up REally, REAALLLY dark but didnt, out of sheer luck of his upbringing
can - yeah, and if he went to hisoka for training oh my gosh
Café con Leche - ^^ OMG i'd love to read that
can - the poor boy would do a 180
gabriel the gondad - c h r i s t please? ? ? henckin??? ohhh man fucknign please i LOVE hisoka corrupting gons morals i love gons morals being corrupted but i love hisoka doing it even more chefs kiss and Poor Killua watching his light turn black and ugly
Café con Leche - omg yes it would corrupt him so much cain what if he tries to kill Hisoka
can - and that would make killua go back to his family
gabriel the gondad - O h h h h
can - omg
gabriel the gondad - oh this is good
can - WHAT IF HE CORRUPTS GON SO MUCH THAT
Café con Leche - OH MY GOS
can - GON STANDS IN BETWEEN THEM TO PROTECT HISOKA
gabriel the gondad - DFDF
Café con Leche - WHAT IF
gabriel the gondad - GUCK
Café con Leche - YES BUT ALSO lISTEN what if Hisoka completely fucks killua up And Gon walks in and just looks at him
gabriel the gondad - and doesnt care
Café con Leche - all bloody on the ground YES
can - YESSS
gabriel the gondad - "You did this to yourself, Killua."
Café con Leche - And Killua weeps and reaches out for him
gabriel the gondad - and gon Leaves
can - And then cue illumi like "see this is why i said assassins dont have friends"
Café con Leche - Illumi saves him
gabriel the gondad - C H RI ST
Café con Leche - and Killua goes back home clad in darkness AND OMG WHAT IF FUCKING ALLUKA TRIES TO PERSUADE GON
gabriel the gondad - C H R I S T ALLUKA NO oh o h n o what if killua makes a wish
Café con Leche - OOOH oh my god what if his wish brings Gon back but gon realizes what he's done
gabriel the gondad - gon still REmembers and he wont forgive himself
Café con Leche - and he can bear to live with himself BUT he has to save killua
gabriel the gondad - ooooooooo c hrist c h r i s t the Drama the Pain I Love It
Café con Leche - and hisoka and illu just keeps trying to keep tem corrupted them* and gon sees killua again and killua is just ice cold, dead in the eyes
gabriel the gondad - WHAT IF.... KILLUA.. yes Y E S
Café con Leche - and gon knows its all his fault it's like kite all over again f uck
can - and hisoka is like, "this is why you shouldn't put your faith in other people~ only live for yourself and your own pleasures"
Café con Leche - Hisoka whispering in Gon's ear how it's all his fault and he should just accept it
gabriel the gondad - this is,, So Good im eating my own fist OK BUT LISTEN CONSIDER hisoka telling gon "this is your fault. this is why you should live for only yourself" and gon turns around and punches hisoka in the face with as much nen as he can muster and says "if i live for myself, I'm killing you first." bc hisokas the one. that did this to him
can - hisoka would be LIVID And all hisoka has to say once Gon is dead is "Pity~ He wasn't nearly as ripe as I'd hoped. Such a waste."
Café con Leche - Imagine if killua just watches Gon and Hisoka slowly but surely once he sees Gon near death he's returning to some of his consciousness and he cant live without his light and Illumi fucking loses it
gabriel the gondad - c h r i s t ohhh my god
Café con Leche - illumi tries to kill hisoka gabriel the gondad - im Suffering ok but illumi would win b/c hisoka would already be injured from his fight w gon
can - Hisoka would retreat after that he aint dumb
Café con Leche - illumi would chase after him
gabriel the gondad - illumi wouldnt fuckn Let Him
Café con Leche - make it his life mission to kill him jesus this got dark
gabriel the gondad - YOU DONT SAY
Café con Leche - imagine Ging seeing his son so messed up
gabriel the gondad - o h IMAGINE MITO
Café con Leche - mito would blame ging it's his fault he wanted to be a hunter his fault he wasnt there for him
gabriel the gondad - ffffffffuuuuuck ok but, where gon doesnt die he beats hisoka in his fight
can - "Kill me, and you'll be just like me~"
gabriel the gondad - and he takes killua with him, and they leave, and they go to ging, and gon says "please help me, i dont know what to do any more" gon doesnt kill him hes Very Particuar about that breaks both his legs, rips an arm off, whatever it takes but doesnt Kill him illumi can have that right, if he wants it
Boopi - oh
gabriel the gondad - HI BOOPI WEVE BEEN. PLOTTING
Boopi - plotting about wut- e.e
gabriel the gondad - plotting about corruption
Boopi - corruption- i- see- exiTS
gabriel the gondad - BOOPI NO COME B A C K
Boopi - corruption and alluka can not be within the same conversatioN-
gabriel the gondad - listen alluka is the one who fixes everything shes still pure and wholesome
Boopi - okay so what i understand is gon is all dark and moody and killua is suffering more gon x hisoka new evil double duo illumi and killua bonding and alluka flies down from the heavens as an angel to fix everything and re-create killugon
gabriel the gondad - she tries to recreate killugon but you cant erase the past so its still all fucked up and moody
Boopi - does trying make it w orse cause what a twist
gabriel the gondad - i meannnn,,,, define worse
Boopi - dang is this au that dark
gabriel the gondad - :^)
Boopi - if everyone is gonna be dark/angst/whatever this is i am perfectly okey with this sad/wise alluka ftw
gabriel the gondad - if by worse you mean it hurts, because one of the possibilies is gon and killua die but also the possibilty they win the fight against hisoka and have to deal with the fallout of all their decisions and wrongdoings or would worse be they never speak again, and both continue along their paths of killing and being perfect imitations of hisoka and illumi
Boopi - omg allu's stuck in-between
gabriel the gondad - :^) i, personally, think that killua would make a wish to fix everything but nanikas power isnt omnipotent all she can do is get gon to realize where he fucked up and from there, its up to him to try and fix it (whether or not he can is a completely different story.)
Boopi - okay so how would alluka act with everything's different? shouldn't she be affected by it too
gabriel the gondad - THATS. ALSO SOMETHIN I WAS WORRIED ABOUT
can - i mean
Boopi - maybe not nanika, but allu
can - she probably will lose her brother and get locked up again
Café con Leche - AND KILLUA DOESNT CARE AAAAAAAAAAAAH
gabriel the gondad - yeah, unless she escapes she'll prob get locked up again
Boopi - if killua doesn't care then illumi is free to do whatever
gabriel the gondad - id say its possible that,, killua does what he can to free her so he can still have one light in the world like, before he goes back to the family, he hides alluka away
can - if killua calls her something bad like
Boopi - "it"
can - "that thing isnt apart of the family"
Café con Leche - Illumi: So Killua, what do we do with "it"? Killua: .. Do whatever u want jesus but yes i hear u gabe¨
Boopi - can you even imagine a dark alluka
gabriel the gondad - n o
Café con Leche - ALLUKA
gabriel the gondad - not my gentle sweet sunshine
can - y es
gabriel the gondad - n o N O
Café con Leche - gets corrupted cuz she loses HER light
can - she will giggle when she kills ppl
Boopi - just an alluka that's lost hope and enjoys the killing
Café con Leche - omg omg boopi what if Alluka get's corrupted and starts killing because she wants to be useful to Killua
Boopi - alluka or nanika? or both
Café con Leche - both
Boopi - bOTH
Café con Leche - Alluka tells Nanika to kill people and then asks Killua to pat her head aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
Boopi - just imagine Alluka's holding [insert character name]'s head here "Killua... Pat my head and tell me I'm a good girl..." and she just creepily smiles while walking towards him with the head casually omg i srry
Café con Leche - omg what if one day she's like "Killua... Want Gon to die?"
gabriel the gondad - O H
Boopi - cHILL wi dark alluka refers to herself like she's an object t h o
can - O H M Y GOD
Café con Leche - ......... oh my go d
can - "I'm an object that you can use, big brother~"
gabriel the gondad - this got a w f u l l y dark
Boopi - "Do not worry over my feelings, big brother. I feel nothing. It feels nothing." geebus christ
Café con Leche - imagine kurapika's roll in this
gabriel the gondad - O H pika watching gon turn into the exact type of person he despises just like the troupe trained by an ex-troupe member killing for sport, just to get stronger, just to prove he can kill them
Café con Leche - oMG
gabriel the gondad - OH WHAT IF.... HISOKA..... TELLS.... GON.... TO... kill his old friends
Café con Leche - kp is a maffia boss right.... What if Killua get's a mission to assassinate him..
Boopi - nO not the friends pls
gabriel the gondad - LSTIEN GON KILLING LEORIO
Boopi - NU
can - AAAAAAAA
Café con Leche - yas
Boopi - NOT THE OREO
gabriel the gondad - walks Right Up to leorio, nen out and boiling like it was with pitou and oreo, poor oreo, laughing, trying to understand whats wrong
Café con Leche - Gabe gabe gabe even worse he crushes his hands, makes him unable to ever become a doctor
gabriel the gondad - hmmm good angst, but also, i feel like, gons goal would be to Remove leorio as a tie
Café con Leche - Sasuke style
gabriel the gondad - i never watched shippuden :0
Boopi - sasuke tried to sever all his old bonds i think
gabriel the gondad - yeah basically that kill everyone who was important to you, so they cant be used against you gon, punching a hole through leorios ribcage, becase he doesnt have killuas technique of ripping the heart out so he just obliterates it instead leorio dying and looking up at gon and saying "i forgive you”
Boopi - stop you're hurting me
gabriel the gondad - leorio WOULD forgive him tho this got really out of hand, really fast
#[[ HO MY GOD. IM DONE ??? IM. DONE ]]#[[ tHIS TOOK F O R E V E R TO EDIT ]]#[[ I DRAFTED THIS A WEEK AGO ANT IM FINALLY FUCKNI DONE ASDSFS ]]#[[ this was a Solid Wall of unformatted text and i want everyone to appreicate how hardi worked to make it readable ]]#OOC; Out Of Context#[[ suggest verse names in the replies if u have an idea bc im fuckn l o s t ]]#Verse; Bloodstained knuckles show no regret#[[ i miiiight change it but thatll be the verse name for now ]]
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Tutorial on connecting an Oracle utilities
Hello and welcome to this tutorial on connecting an Oracle utilities, enterprise SAS environment, to the object, storage that you're, using in order for the application environment to be able to write and read files from object storage. So this applies to customer cloud service. Meter solution, cloud service, work and asset cloud service, we'll start with an overview of quick overview of the instructions, and this scenario it will be demo and it will assume that you are fairly familiar with the concepts of object, storage and familiar with [ Music ], navigating Through customer clouds bad service or that any oh, you AF based application, Oracle utilities application framework.
So if we take a look at the steps, essentially, what we do here is gather some information from your Oracle cloud infrastructure or your object, storage, part of the system, and that includes getting some OC, IDs and namespace values and we'll copy those in I'll show you How you get those we create one new object there. The scenario here is that we have a new application environment and we'll call it a CCS dev, o2 environment. So we're gon na create an application user in for object, storage that map's to that new environment and will capture the OC ID. For that, then we'll do a couple things in the application environment itself, including creating a keyring and grabbing the public key from that keyring and then finally, using the information that we grabbed in steps.
One and two to complete extendible look at look EPS that are the mapping in the application back to object, storage to particular compartments; okay. So, let's start out by gathering information from the Oracle cloud infrastructure, starting with the tenancy information. So I'm going to switch over to my Firefox and just have gone into the OCI object storage area. To get the data we need we're gon na have to go down first to administration, tendancy details; okay, here's the tenancy details; this happens to be an internal environment, but yours will look very similar, but at the top ocid we're gon na copy the tenancy information from That ocid and it will look something like that. Long unreadable string and that's part first thing we need second thing is: we need the object, storage, namespace so grab that and I'll slap it into that document. Okay, then we need for the appropriate compartments.
We need the OCAD of those compartments, so I'm gon na go back in and now I'm gon na switch over to the identity section for compartments. Remember that we create the shared compartment for use by all the environments, and then we separated out by production and non production in our basic set up. You may have a different. You may have split these in a different way and that's fine. The concept remains the same that you'll want to grab go into the compartment. You want to map to the high-level compartment and grab an OC ID from it. So I went into the in this case. Ccs shared I'm going to copy the OSI ID from that shared compartment. I am back to my doc and slap in the shared, Miss Eid and then, in this case it's a demo to scenario so we're going to get the non production compartment go back to that area.
I'M gon na go back to compartments. I want non production this time, I'm gon na copy the ocid from that and put that into my document. Okay - and that completes the first step that we need to do, then we're gon na create this application user correspond to devote to environment. So CCS demo to when I go back in I'm gon na go, do that from identity, create users we already have in this case dev and prod and test application users I'm going to create one for dev o2. So it looked very similar to this dev user. Just no actually copy this, so I have it handy when I say create user. That user will be CCS. Deb o2 description would be that we won't use an email because of never be a direct login. This will be through an API key and no tags are necessary, so let's say create that creates our dev o2. Now, let's grab the ID post Eid from dev, o2 or new user record, we'll copy that and put it in our file, and we need to link that user to the appropriate group. So it has access to some compartments. Okay, and so we do that by going to groups, we find the group that is the appropriate one for this user.
It'S an application user and it's non prod access. So it's this group, I'm going to click on that group and I'm going to say, add user to group and I'm gon na add debo to dev and test are already there and add a vote. Okay and that for now completes what we need to do on the object storage side. Now I'm going to go into an application environment, we'll say that this is our dev o2 environment and we need to do a couple things here. First, off and I'll go back to my instructions briefly, we're now in step 3 in the SAS environment, create a keyring called OS, OS API keys and then we'll generate a key. So I'm going to go and back into that environment navigate to keyring. We can check first, if there's anything there in a new environment that we will not find any records here. So, I'm going to say, add the keyring.
You brings up a ad dialog and it's the OS API keys. I'Ll just call give it the same description and say saved: it creates a keyring next we need to on a while. On this same record, we need to generate a key that creates a private key and will be able to also then you get a public key for it, so I'm going to generate key that creates this record down below that. We see here notice that it's shown as today's date last day of 2019, it's inactive right now we're going to activate it you and get a warning on that singing. It then we're gon na view the public key that gives us a pop up and what we want to do is copy that entire public key and you know, cancel what we're gon na do with that. Public key is put it back into object, storage for our user, so I'm going to click on that user and notice for a and a pyro. This is our dev o2 user that we just created, I'm gon na add a public key and that's a public key. We just got for that in that environment, let's say, add Meg and that stores the public key, so they're now linked together and we now get our last step. So we we copy the Pope key and we say we did step 4 and then in step 5. We create and update some extendable lookups under the file storage description, so I'm gon na go back to our environment and do a navigation over to extendable. Look up there.
I'M gon na search for file - and I will find this is the one I'm after is F. 1 file, storage and click on that. What you'll find in a new environment is that we've proceeded one extendable, lookup value for the shared compartment, because we assume that every environment will need to be able to kind of connect to the shared compartment in object storage. But if you broadcast on that value, we'll see that a number of the fields are not filled in and in order to fill them in. We had to do with earlier steps in this demo, but now we're in a position where we can fill these in. For the shared compartment, so I will edit this record and now I can fill in some of these values. So now it's looking for a user - and these are OC IDs, that it's looking for so first the user and I'm going to copy these back from the from the document we used. So this is our user CCS DeVoe we'll put that in the first box.
Next, we need the tenancy ocid and we'll get that from the top one. Here, it's a tendency, then we need the shared compartment ocid for shared. That'S this one copy that then it's looking for the namespace, which we also got it's this value here when the last two are dropped, dance and we should find our OS API keys of it created. That'S a reference to the keyring, and then your region is dependent on where your object storage is located in the US that would be in Ashburn in other parts of the world. It might be a different region, pick the appropriate region for your object, storage and you hit save okay. Now, that's all filled in the final step that you would do is that gives us a mapping to our shared compartment in object, storage. What we need to do, then, is add one more record which, by default, we call the OS app a storage lookup, and so it's where the application rights in general writes its files that are not to be shared and [ Music ]. It'S an object, storage file, adapter, that's going to use and notice. It has the same fields that we just filled in, so everything would be the same in filling this out, except for the only difference would be that you'd pick up your non prod here.
As your compartment mapping you'd pick up that value instead and fill it in on the compartment, all the rest would be the same values that we filled in on the other another one, and that would give you a mapping to OS for your application. So you have. Oh s, app and OS shared and of course you use those that I won't save that one, but because I didn't fill it all in, but once you have those two values you can use our shared analyst app in things like your batch parameters to indicate where A batch job should write a file or read a file, for example. So that concludes the steps of setting up connectivity between an environment in the you, gbu enterprise, SAS world local utilities, application framework based customer cloud service. In this case - and I and your object - storage and you can modify that as needed if you have a different compartment, setup and so forth, but this step should be all all similar. So, thank you for your attention and this one and good luck on setting up your environments. Thanks
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How Did That Hold Up? (Vol. 6)
Hi friends! It’s time for an updated “How did that hold up?”. We do these posts every couple of years to share what held up amazing and also anything we regret! One of the tough things about DIY is that you don’t REALLY know how long it will last until years later. So that’s what I am going to get into today!
Note: All these photos are NEW from this summer (so there are years of wear on most of these projects, besides the gold closet rods, since they are more recent).
My Color Washed Floors <— view the full post here. I asked for requests on IG and far and away this was the most requested update from my home. We did these floors three summers ago before we moved in. And I am happy to report that they have held up FLAWLESSLY. There is no damage whatsoever. They are just as strong as the other wood floors in our home.
I do feel like I have to note, though, these are NOT just painted floors. It it NOT a good idea to paint your floors with wall paint … that will not hold up! Make sure you read the whole post before trying it. The key factors are that I had a professional flooring guy do them AND they are sealed exactly like all the other floors in our home.
The photo above doesn’t do them justice so I will show more on stories. But they look awesome!
As far as do I still LOVE the color … I do. But I will admit that I go back and forth. Sometimes, I wish they were the same as the rest of the house. But a lot of the time, I love the bold pop in this one room. So I do not plan to change it as long as we live here.
That said, I not sure what I will do when it’s time to sell our home someday—my sister says to leave it because the next owners may love it. I am afraid it could scare people off (and it’s not very expensive to change back so I don’t want that!). What do you think? Would that scare you off if you were house shopping?
Anyway, it doesn’t matter right now because we LOVE it. And this project TOTALLY held up. I am so happy! It could be done in any color … the possibilities are endless!
Our DIY Dining Room Table This table has been going strong for SO LONG … since 2012! Not bad for a $350 table that seats eight! I still love this table and for the style of our decor and the function of our home, I cannot imagine anything better!
We do paint it about once a year because it gets scratched. But I don’t think that is a big deal for a piece of furniture that is so heavily used.
I still love it SO much and have had zero desire to shop for a new table, and for the past six years we have been using this one.
Gold Closet Rods I will be honest … I was NERVOUS about this! It worked so well in Nova’s room but then in my room it was a disaster. So we redid it with this paint and now, after a few months, it has ZERO scratches (the last time it scratched up immediately). The difference is the better product, but I truly believe it is also the one week cure time (before any clothes were hung on it). If you do this project (or any other spray paint project that is going to be handled a lot), you need to let it cure.
Very, very happy about this so far, but in a year I will know for SURE whether it is a winner. But it’s looking VERY promising after about two months.
Our Recolored Appliances These are holding up. I am confident they will last until we move (and beyond). We paid $400 for the vinyl, which was custom printed with the color we chose and that also included installation.
I am happy with the colors. There are small flaws in the installation that bother me a little. The company that did it for me were definitely used to doing, like, band posters on the side of tour buses and jobs like that, so I am not surprised that they weren’t up to my level of perfectionism. Honestly, they were a hassle to communicate with, but the end result was worth it!
The vinyl is easy to clean and has aged really well (there aren’t any issues really). And when we sell our home, if the next owner doesn’t want the mint color, they can be peeled off super easily.
So, all in all, I would recommend the project because we saved thousands compared to the specialty appliance brands that offer colors AND we still have the option of going back to neutral if we wanted to.
Hopefully, for anyone else who takes on this project, you’ll get lucky and find a local vendor who is a little easier to work with. But honestly, even just having the photos of our appliances to show them will help!
Also, I will say that it’s totally possible to do the install yourself. But you would just want to make sure you use vinyl that is made for cars because it can safely go up to a very high heat and you need that for the oven.
Pink Bunk Beds The pink bunk beds were a good decision. We bought these affordable bunk beds from Amazon, painted them with pink oil-based paint and then added these felt succulent window boxes. We’ve used these beds A LOT and now that I’ve tried it I highly recommend bunk beds like these for a guest room.
Closet Organization I still love and appreciate this simple closet organization we installed every day. It basically took a blank wall and made it useful for storing hats, necklaces, scarves and bags.
I have to say, organization DIYs are SO WORTH IT. My closet and also pantry renovation are two of the best things we did to make better use of the space we have.
Cactus Stenciled Wallpaper This project was a good amount of work—one of the most time consuming DIYs in our home. But I still love it and there have been no issues with it whatsoever. It still looks just as good as the day we completed it. I would totally do this project again in the future. The gold paint pen makes it look really cool.
A few other projects people asked about …
Stick on Subway Tile (in our laundry room) I’m not sure when it happened, but we recently noticed that ONE block of tile from the peel & stick tile had turned yellow. Just one. And it was pretty noticeable. I have no idea why or how just one piece of the tile changed colors, but I was pretty disappointed! I probably would not do it again now just because I would be afraid of that happening again. It did save money to do the stick-on tile (on install), but it didn’t really save supply money. So it wasn’t one of those DIYs that could save you a huge chunk of money. I will go back and update that post with this new info about the color change.
I’m not saying that all peel & stick tile is problematic, because I am sure it isn’t. But I would no longer recommend what we used.
Luckily, we were already considering a more thorough renovation (we had never renovated this room, just changed a few finished when we first moved in). So it was pretty good timing for us. And what is kind of crazy is that I ended up choosing shiplap and it was less than half the price of the peel & stick tile.
Live and learn!
Chalk Paint Rainbow Wall A few people asked why we painted over this wall. It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with it. In fact, I really miss it and kind of regret painting over it.
But the reason I made that choice was because when I was designing the playroom I really wanted to use this leftover juju wallpaper I had on just one wall and it seemed crazy to have two statement walls in one room. So the wallpaper won.
The problem with the rainbow was that I did it before I knew what I was doing with the rest of the room … so it didn’t fit.
It’s still an awesome DIY and I hope some of you do it for your homes!
Faux Tile in Jeremy’s Entryway This still looks perfect! I don’t have a photo on my phone, but I’ll show it on IG stories. It is a very tedious project, but Collin did an amazing job! Since the space is covered and low-traffic, it hasn’t to be touched up yet. It’s lasting really well and really makes the space a lot more special and thought out.
White Walls and Light Floors I had a few questions on whether I ever regret having mainly white walls and floors and whether they are difficult to clean. I love them and I do think they hide mess a lot better than dark floors—especially since we have a lot of white-based rugs (that shed furballs) and a light colored dog.
ZERO regrets on the floor and I would totally do it again.
As for the walls, we do mainly use matte paint, so they do get smudged and scratched easier than semi-gloss. But I don’t mind a once yearly touch up and magic eraser (or just a wet washcloth) gets most of it.
I love living in an mainly white home! The only things I honestly EVER think about changing are the colored accents. Like our pink bathroom vanity or yellow guest room. I love them and they are some of the most “shared” photos from our home, but I do get an itch to change bold accents so so so much sooner than neutrals.
In our next home (which is years off, but I am still a psycho who loves to plan five years in advance…), I may consider a more high contrast look. Mainly because I had so much fun using those colors in our bnb home.
To answer the question though, white walls + light floors forever & always!
Thanks for reading!!! I am happy to talk about any other project you are curious about in the comments. Every design project is a learning experience for me and I don’t believe there is ANY shame in regretting a project once in a while or wanting to do it differently the next time. I know this post was mostly positive experiences, but that is also because the projects I remember to recap years later are the ones I use for years so they stay at the top of my mind!
These projects can be so intimidating so I hope these recaps of how things have held up are helpful. xx – Elsie
Credits/Author: Elsie Larson. Photography: Amber Ulmer. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.
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okay. well today was okay. I woke up to my alarm bright and early at 6:30. checked the bus tracker app right away and saw one that should arrive at 7:03, perfect amount of time for me to get ready, grab breakfast, and walk to the bus stop. I made one of the microwave muffins but couldn’t finish before I had to head out and I couldn’t bring a spoon with me into the room and we didn’t have any plastic cutlery so I used my fingers for the rest of it 😂 oh well. So I left my apartment, leaving my phone and pretty much everything else behind me, just my wallet and some pencils. I got on the bus and headed north, a route I’ve taken before but I usually take it south, I have done it north before but never this far up. there were too many stops for me to copy down all of them, so I was paying apt attention to the names of the stops to make sure I didn’t miss it. Fortunately since it was a train station it was a fairly prominent stop. So we got there, it’s like 7:13 at this point, so making good time. I knew we would because everything’s deserted this early in the morning but I wanted to make sure to allot for extra time in case something went wrong and I’m essentially helpless to fix it. so I got on the purple line which goes into Evanston and continued heading north, got off six stops later and from there walked like .4 miles down a street to the Northwestern campus. The neighborhood was super cute, of course it was virtually empty save some cyclists and a few random people, so it appeared very tranquil, definitely different than the constant hustle and bustle of Chicago. I sometimes wish I taken advantage of my excellent grades more and gone to a college and/or law school that was more prominently ranked, but at the same time I know I probably only want that for bragging rights, which is a dumb reason to pick a school. but like, looking at the Northwestern campus and the prestige that came with it I’m just like....I kinda want that. and like, it’s not like I’m going into “big law” and need their name on my resume, I’m doing public interest where most of the lawyers working in this area are alums from my school. but I like the perception of being seen as the smartest of the smartest, really. and like, I don’t doubt that if I had really tried I could’ve done it. I almost got into Emory which is a top 20 school, I got waitlisted, but like if I was seriously pursuing a highly ranked school I know I could’ve been a lot more effort into studying for the LSAT and I bet I could improve my score by a solid 10 points which would put me in range for at least the schools ranked #5 and up (that would put me at 169, the top 4 want more like 173, our of 180) so I could’ve gotten into Northwestern. my undergrad GPA would still leave something to be desired due to the disaster that was my junior year but there’s really not much I can do about that. oh well. anyway. I got to the campus and easily found the building we were supposed to be in. There were a few students standing/sitting around outside, it was only about 7:40 at this point and the “report no later than” time wasn’t until 8:30, so we had time. I waited outside for a bit before going inside and waiting in there until we were told to start lining up. Once we were lined up, we got led through a very complicated path between like 3 other buildings to get to the place where we were actually taking the test (it was very weird) and I was like how am I gonna remember to get out of here?? lol. so we got to the classroom and they had one person doing the check ins verifying our ID with our admission ticket and giving us a seat, so that took quite a while. I may have a bit of a conundrum when to came to signing the admission ticket. we were specifically instructed to bring an ID with a signature on it, and I was supposed to sign the admission ticket while holding the ID next to it, presumably to see if the signatures matched. well, the signature on my driver’s license is from when I was 16, literally 10 years ago, and needless to say it’s kind of evolved from there so my current signature looks nothing like that, but I needed them to match so I did my best to copy the old one and did a decent job I think. the issue then came when we were seated and had our scantrons, and they wanted us to sign the academic integrity pledge or whatever about not cheating and I’m like fuck, my signature on this is gonna need to match my signature on the bar, so I used my normal one, and I didn’t think it would be an issue until they were like “okay we’re collecting the admission tickets now” at which point I was like WELL FUCK but there’s not much I can do about it now. sigh. It took them a while to get everything set up but we kicked off around 9:40, two hour test, 60 multiple choice questions. It wasn’t too bad, there were a handful of questions I was just straight up like “huh” on but I’m betting a good number of them were the experimental questions and they won’t count towards our final score, so that makes me feel better. I finished around 11:15 and was allowed to leave, once they get to the last 15 minutes if you finish you have to wait till the end to leave, so I wanted to get out of there before that. Getting back to the main road was a bit of a challenge, I met up with a few other people I kinda knew and found our way there. I found the bus stop, where all I could do was wait, with no indication of when/if a bus was coming (the buses are really notoriously unreliable) so that was making me kind of anxious but a bus did come in about 10 minutes or so. the ride back was nice, halfway through I switched back to the first bus I was on in the morning and took that the rest of the way home. my stomach had been killing me for pretty much the entirety of the test, cause unknown, so I just kinda flopped on my bed and laid there for a little bit. When I got up I decided to make a grilled cheese for lunch since I had supplies for it, and I made a very delicious grilled cheese. I sat for a while and did some editing of blog posts for my dad’s lawyer website, and took a look at the first chapter of the book my mother is apparently writing, she wanted me to read it and edit it, and also give my thoughts, so I did that for a bit. I had been meaning to bake something now that I have some free time, and when I made macarons a few weeks back I had halved the recipe but when I was prepping the dry ingredients, combining them all and then running them through a food processor, I didn't realize till afterwards that I didn’t halve the ingredients so I had twice as much as I needed, so I had enough for another half batch, so I figured I’d use that up. Prepping and such went pretty smoothly, the killer ended up being me apparently running out of parchment paper (since when does that happen???) so I had to just grease the pan which like I know isn’t what you’re supposed to do for macarons, so they didn’t really do the whole thing where they rise and have the different texture on the bottom, just kinda cooked into flat disks. but I mean, they still tasted good, so that’s *really* what matters. I let them cool down before using the last of my homemade vanilla buttercream to fill them and put them together. So despite a few minor issues I was fairly satisfied with them. Somewhere around after that I switched from the kitchen table to the couch and watched some tv. I started finishing the last episode of orange in the black I’m gonna watch for now, I may go back to it at some point, we’ll see. From there I finally got around to watching the first 3 episodes of season 3 of Wynonna Earp and, MAN, do I have FEELINGS. I of course was spoiled about Dolls dying, but I honestly think I would’ve been more upset if I didn’t know it was coming. I’m still pissed though because he was such a great character that added so much to their group dynamic, and I always preferred Wynonna/Dolls to Wynonna/Doc, so now that she's basically just with Doc by default kinda sucks. but I watched those few and then a few episodes of 30 Rock before heading to bed. It’s not that late yet but I’ve been up since 6:30 and my body is saying SLEEP NOW so I’m gonna listen to it and end this here. Goodnight my dears. Hope you had a banging Saturday.
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