#first time in over a year drawing a person digitally so still very experiment-y with how it looks

[lemonyinks]

PT. 1 of Drawing Legionnaires eyes: Jenni

ref/inspo (i think its a makeup add lmao)

Also inspired by @/ maxinstoresnow's jenni design, which I love very much

[johnsamericano]

𝓓𝓪𝔂 7:

тєи ℓєє

23 days of NCT masterlist.

taglist: @notbeforelong @curieouscapt @whathamelon @unknown5tar @ajhdr @silent-potato

warnings: the reader is soon-to-be engaged to someone 12 years older, virginity loss, extreme lack of experience from the reader, dirty talk, Ten’s a sweetheart 😭

“He’s here!” Your mother clapped her hands excitedly, asking the butler to answer the door.

You sat with both hands squeezed on your lap. You’d never seen a male tailor, let alone be dressed by one. Would it be uncomfortable? Just as your mind was about to drift away, a man with at least four rolls of fabric entered the room.

“Good evening, my lady.” Was he even real? He looked straight out of a painting, just like the ones hanging on your wall.

“Good evening, sir.” You bowed your head gracefully, just like you'd been taught to do.

“There’s no need to be so formal.” He smiled cheekily, his eyes disappearing just the slightest and making your heart flutter with excitement. “Let us have a seat and chat a little about what kind of dress you'd like.”

Everything went so naturally with him, from sitting down and talking about the event you'd be wearing the dress to, to his hands surrounding your waist, taking your measurements.

“I was thinking of something white, my lady. After all, the goal is to get a certain gentleman to ask for your hand, isn't it?”

“How did you...?”

“Your mother is quite a chatty lady.” You sighed. She certainly had trouble keeping things a secret, the whole town probably already knew by now.

“Then I guess you already know we've known each other since we were kids, well, since I was a kid. He's twelve years older.” You sounded so excited talking about that guy that it made him smile. “Are you married, sir?”

“God, no!” He was quick to explain. “I want to devote myself to work, that's what makes me happy.”

“But imagine yourself, waiting for your beautiful bride at the church, ready to join your lives for what is left of them. Just to think about it gives me goosebumps.” To him, what you'd just said sounded like agony. Dedicating himself to another person for the rest of his life? He’d rather jump off a cliff.

“I just don't think I'm good husband material, that's all.”

As the days passed by, you got to know him better. He’d often tell you about his job, how many dresses he'd confectioned that week, how much money he'd earned, every single little detail of it. He made it sound like a dream, he spoke so passionately about it that you wondered whether you'd ever find something that would make you feel that same way.

“Good morning, my lady.” He kissed your knuckles, a devilish grin extending through his lips as he admired your flustered face. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

He extended a big, white box with a red velvety ribbon keeping it closed.

“That was fast!” You opened it to reveal a pretty, lacy dress. It was exactly what you’d asked for, but then why did you feel so sad?

“What is it, my lady? Do you not like the dress?”

“No! I love it.” He smiled, pulling out the dress from it’s confinement to let you have a better look at it. It was, indeed, beautiful.

“Would you like to try it on?”

You soon found yourself behind a room divider, slipping the soft dress on. The texture was marvelous, like wearing a cloud. It would definitely draw Johnny’s attention, that’s for sure.

“How do I look?” You stepped out, spinning around to let his critic eyes have a look at his masterpiece. He squinted his eyes as if he wasn’t pleased. “What is it?”

“Your corset.”

“Huh?”

“Truth to be told, I knew this dress wouldn’t work with a traditional corset, so I might have made a special one for the occasion.” You walked to the full body mirror, taking a look at yourself.

“It looks fine to me.”

“You look too innocent, my lady.” You furrowed your eyebrows, eyes connecting with his through your reflections. “This dress wasn’t made to make you look innocent, but to make you look like a sophisticated, upper class woman.”

You went through your options and finally decided to listen to the expert.

“Do you happen to have that corset at the moment?”

“Yes, but the problem is, only I know the right way to adjust it. Would you be okay with me doing that?” You could feel cold sweat running down the back of your neck.

Only your mother and some servants had seen you naked, but never a man. It wasn’t supposed to happen unless the couple was married. However, you felt the urge to accept his proposition.

“A-alright.” He nodded, keeping a straight face as he started undressing you.

He slowly started undoing the ribbon that kept your corset in place. Still in front of the mirror, you could see his concentrated features, not looking at anything but your back. Your mounds were finally liberated, and for a split second, you could see the tailor’s eyes staring at them.

“Raise your arms please.” Was he really not going to do anything? This was the part when the two main characters exchanged a heated session of kisses according to the novels you'd read. But he kept the same stoic face all the time.

“Ten?” This was the very first time you'd called him by his real name, well, his nickname.

He didn't seem bothered by it, concentrated on adjusting your corset.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Am I not attractive?” His hands accidentally tightened the ribbons too much, making you wince.

“Sorry.” He apologized, loosening the piece of clothing. “But why are you asking me this?”

“Well...” You were ashamed to admit it, but your curiosity got the best of you. “Aren’t men supposed to go wild over breasts? At least that's what I heard.” Ten would've never expected such an inappropriate comment from you, though he couldn't say he didn't like that new boldness of yours.

“I guess so.”

“Then why didn't you go wild over mine?”

The room was filled with nothing but silence for a couple of seconds before he finally found an appropriate answer for your question.

“I’ll ask you something first.” you nodded. “If you knew men had a thing for breasts, then why did you let me do this?” You would've liked to say that it was because you deeply trusted him, but you both knew that deep down, it wasn't completely true.

“I don't know.”

“Did you want to seduce me or something like that?” You were about to reply, but his deep laugh interrupted you. “Well, since you answered my question, I shall answer yours.” he finally finished adjusting your corset, placing his hands above the curves of your waist and leaning down to whisper something. “You have the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen. They look round and soft, the perfect size to hold them with my hand. But I can't allow myself to go wild over you, not when you're about to get engaged to someone else.” So the things wrote in novels weren't entirely fantasy, things like that did happen in real life. “Trust me, I wish nothing but to pinch those pretty, perky nipples and have you begging for more. But we can't.”

“Yes, we can.” With a newly found courage, you guided his hands up until they reached your mounds. They did, in fact, fit perfectly between his hands.

“My lady-”

“Y/n.” You held his hands against your warm body. “Please, my name is y/n.”

“Stop playing with fire.” His voice had become lower, hands shaking the slightest under yours.

“I want you to play with me, Ten. Use me, do whatever you want with my body. Alleviate the ache I'm feeling between my legs.” That was his breaking point.

His expert fingers quickly undid the knots, allowing his hungry eyes to have a look at your naked torso.

“Touch me.” he turned you around, so you were directly facing him.

“So greedy.” His hands covered your chest once again, this time with no fabric in between. His palms felt so warm against your skin, you couldn’t help but sight. “Tell me, how does your little cunt feel?”

“I-I’m sorry?” His right hand went down, rubbing circles over your undergarments. Immediate relief washed over your body.

“Do you know what an orgasm is?” You shook your head, gasping as his fingers pinched your hard nub. “It’s the only way to relief the ache you feel here.” He tapped your entrance with his middle finger, feeling your wetness under his digits.

“How can I have one?”

“You’ll have to trust me, alright?” His dominant demeanor had changed to a softer one, kissing your jawline as hands sneaked inside the fabric, a new, pleasant feeling making your legs shake. “How does this feel?”

“Nice.” He retrieved his hand, you whined at the loss of contact. “Hey!”

“Jump.” He instructed, lifting you up with both of his hands below your thighs. He guided you all the way to the nearest wall, your back pressed against the concrete surface. “Sorry for this.” He muttered before ripping your undergarments apart.

Skillfully, he lowered his pants, his hard member springing up. The moment his tip started slipping into your whole, an immense amount of pain made you scream.

“Stop!” Ten frowned, pulling away but still holding you against the wall.

“Have you changed your mind about this?” There was a hint of pain peeking through his voice.

“It hurts a lot.” As if to back up your words, a small tear rolled down your cheek.

“I know, sweetheart. But that's the way it's supposed to be.” If it hurt so much, then why did people do it so often? “You just need to get used to it and it'll start feeling better, I promise.”

“Really?” For you, it didn't make any sense.

“We can stop whenever you want, just give it a try.” You hesitantly nodded, letting him align with your entrance once again. “Deep breaths, darling.”

It was the worst pain you'd ever felt, even worse than that time when you fell off a horse. But just like the tailor had said, that unpleasant feeling was soon replaced with something else...something that made your tummy feel warm.

“You're doing so well.” He praised as if he wasn't the one doing all the hard work while you held onto his shoulders. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I need to pee.” You gasped, letting your head rest against the wall.

“Don't hold it back, darling. It means you're close.” His large hands caressed your sides, holding you tightly.

“Ten...” You whimpered, biting his clothed shoulder to stop yourself from screaming in pleasure. Something inside you exploded, making your body shake in ecstasy.

“Y/n.” You both whispered your names, pleasure taking over your minds.

“May I kiss you?” There was no response from him, his length still pulsating inside you. “If you don't want to that's-”

“Kiss me.” Your lips came closer to each other, barely millimeters away when a loud knock abruptly interrupted the moment.

“Miss y/n, Mr. Seo is here to see you.” Johnny, you'd completely forgotten about him.

“I guess you better get dressed.” He pecked your cheek, setting a fire inside you.

“I'm sorry.” He helped you put on your dress again, smiling at the sight of you trying to stop your and his essence from dripping down your bare thighs.

“Don't be.” Ten fixed your hair, proceeding to gather his stuff before sending a wink in your direction. “I guess I'll see you in a week to help you get dressed...my lady.”

[teukyo]

One Warm Spring  — Hamada Asahi

pairing: hamada asahi x reader (gender neutral)

genre: fluff, very cheesy lol

word count: 3.2k

a/n: this had no business being so long i apologize D: i tend to overwrite whoops.. oh this is also my first fic so i hope you enjoy ! i’m still a bit rusty lol

Spring; after long nights of endless slumber, the Sun creeps up to the earth, its rays planting warm yet gentle kisses. The orb’s cheeks fill up in heat, flowers of endearment blooming, butterflies catching in the atmosphere’s stomach.

The Earth smiling back, showing a bright welcoming smile, and with open arms, tells the sun “good morning”. 

The quiet exchange of sweet nothings transferred to the buoyant citizens, as everyone would jump in joy about the newly welcomed season.

And during this time of the year, peoples hopes grew along with the blooming cherry blossoms until, they too, find a loved one

With late march rolling in, comes the blossoms fully bloomed, the arms in everyone’s hearts opening to everyone.

Yet, you often found it a mistake to open up your heart in a time full of tender love like now.

Empty confessions mimicked to be heartfelt at the spur of the moment, fleeing away just as quick as the cherry blossoms came and went. You just never understood it.

Snap!

“Y/N~~ the cherry blossoms are coming soon,” your friend, Jihoon sang into your ear, “And you’re out dozing off into dreamland, are you perhaps thinking about participating in the blossoming of love this year?”

You lightly shoved him away, giving him a glare. Jihoon was always jumping around during this time of the season because he never failed to have a crowd lining up to confess him; his ego flying as high as the newly born butterflies.

“Haha, very funny.” You deadpanned, leaving him behind to go to the cafeteria. 

“Hey, you get the drinks and i’ll get the food!” Jihoon shouted, you simply responding with an ‘okay’ symbol with your hand.

Because this was a routine everyday, you had your exact footsteps to the vending machine engraved in your head.

‘11:43—by now everyone should have already gotten their drinks’

‘1, 2, 3, 4.. don’t trip over the crack.. 5, 6, 7—’ beep!

That beep.. wasn’t part of your procedure.

You looked up, your eyes landing on an unfamiliar figure in front of your destination.

Focusing your vision on him, he was made out to be a raven haired boy, his posture slightly hunched over focusing on the number combination assigned to each drink.

His dainty fingers lightly pressing the right combo, pressing each digit carefully like his joints were made of glass

Shoving the crumpled up $5 bill into the slot, his eyebrows furrowing when the machine rejected it

5-5-6-2— banana milk?

You hadn’t realized you’ve been staring at him the entire time until he started walking away, a banana milk in his hand, accidentally brushing past you.

“Ah, sorry” he simply muttered under his breath before continuing on his path. His voice, a deep contrast to the season; hearing his hushed voice chilling you like a midwinter night. His entire presence stood out, almost like a wilted flower amongst the blossoming ones. Yet here you are, warm as ever, feeling the sun pressing warm gentle kisses on the place his fingertips brushed yours.

—

“Y/N? banana milk? you seem to be switching it up today” Jihoon said when you set your drinks down on the table.

“Ah.. i just — maybe i needed a change for the season” you simply responded because, you too, didn’t know why you had a banana milk in front of you instead of your usual chocolate milk.

Throwing your half empty banana milk carton to the trash after lunch, you heard a voice peer behind you.

“Oh! you drink banana milk too! it’s my favorite!” a student you knew the name by Jaehyuk vocalized. You snuck a peek back at the banana milk slowly spilling out of the tiny straw, smiling back at Jaehyuk looking at you with hopeful eyes.

“Ah— this is actually my first time trying it! And it’s.. good!” you returned, attention on Jaehyuk until you see a much smaller figure peer behind him, a chocolate milk in hand.

“Of course it’s good! don’t buy too much of it though— don’t need it going out of stock on me! cmon Asahi”

Asahi. Asahi is his name.

You took one last quick glance at him, watching him throw the empty chocolate milk carton in the bin.

“Yeah.. The banana milk was too sweet for me anyway.”

—

Squatting down to touch the freshly grown flowers outside the school yard, you had recalled the times of your youth as a child running so eagerly to the same flowers in your hand right now.

Gazing at the pretty pink petals in awe as you wiping the morning dew slightly so it can slide off the petals, dripping to the ground.

Running back into your home, crying for a bandaid because you accidentally poked your hand with one of the thorns on accident.

Such simple yet vivid times you remember that made you cherish life a little more.

“Y/N? what are you doing here— our last class is gonna start soon” you heard your classmate Hyunsuk call. you spotting an ever so familiar figure behind him.

Small yet vivid moments.. how does this remind you of—

“Y/N what are you doing cmon!”

—

After school, you sneakily slid into the art classroom after realizing you left your phone in there. Checking the clock, you had 15 minutes before art club would commence, assuming you had 5 minutes to find your phone before members of the club would start arriving.

You observed the colorful classroom with the array of paintings laying on the drying rack, the paint brushes laying on the counter to dry, the sink covered in copious amounts of colors with its original silver color peeking through. The room gave off the feel of an elementary school art classroom. You guess the term “art is timeless” applies to the setting art is made in too.

“Ah there it is!” you whispered to yourself, snatching it off of the teacher’s desk. The sound of the door sliding open shocked you, ducking down under the table out of instinct.

‘Crap��how do i get out of here’ you thought before hearing a tiny tap on the desk.

And during this time of the year, peoples hopes grew along with the blooming cherry blossoms until, they too, find a loved one

“Uhm.. are you okay?” you looked up, seeing him.

With late march rolling in, comes the blossoms fully bloomed, the arms in everyone’s hearts opening to everyone.

“Oh sorry! I just- I forgot my phone during class so I just came in here to grab it..” you trailed off, quickly getting out of your ducked position and brushing the dust off of you.

You just never understood it.

“I should get going since art club is starting soon” you mustered. Before you could open the door you heard him speak.

“Are you looking to join the art club by any chance?” he said. You looked back at him, unable to scramble words together.

‘Just say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes say-‘

—

You handed out the application form to the leader of the art club, Yoshinori was it?

“Thank you thank you! You can join us for today to see the gist of what goes on” he said while giving you a smile that can easily flutter the hearts of others.

You looked at the room around you seeing Asahi and Jaehyuk, and a freshman that went by Haruto.

To be honest, why did you apply? Your experiences in art were little to none and your current piece you were working on in class was a “dog”— at least that’s what you called it.

“There should be one more person arriving and then we can start” Yoshinori said whilst you and him took a seat.

You stared at Asahi across from you who was absent mindedly looking down at the table, fiddling with his fingers.

‘Cute’ you thought before getting interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

“oh! Y/N what brings you here?” you looked behind you to see Jihoon at the entrance, giving Yoshinori a polite smile.

“I think i should be asking what are YOU doing here,” you retorted, knowing very well that both you and him had the same level of art skill, “and I just joined because i’ve been interested in art.”

“Sure—“ Jihoon scoffed, “Asahi told me about this today so i decided to join—“

‘Asahi. How does he know Jihoon?’

“And you’re not even listening to me!” he exclaimed, ruffling your hair roughly, you lightly punching him in the gut in return.

After the commotion died down, everyone went in session, drawing on a piece of paper whatever went into mind. It definitely meditated your mind but it wasn’t appealing— visually.

The room was filled with small chatter, Jihoon’s voice overbearing everyone else’s.

“Your doodles are very cute” you heard him softly speak. You looked up at his paper, your eyes widening at the sheer talent that bestowed upon your eyes.

“You’re a funny jokester” you simply replied, looking at your own paper with a tight lipped smile. You heard him stifle a laugh, warmth flooding throughout your veins.

“It’s amusing to look at— i like the dog” he said, pointing at one of the drawings.

“It’s supposed to be a zebra >:(“ you looked up at him, trying to contain his laughter before calming himself down and continuing to draw on his paper.

“Well it’s fine because art club isn’t necessarily based on skill. i mean, if we have Jaehyuk in here then that says something” he responded pointing at Jaehyuk’s paper. You couldn’t quite comprehend what he was drawing— a person playing baseball??

“It’s a frog by the way”

“HUH?!”

—

You hadn’t realized how late art club ended, but when you walked out of school, you saw the once blue sky turned into an orange hue indicating the late time.

“We hope to see you again Y/N” Yoshinori said. You nodded and hummed in response before taking your leave with Jihoon.

You took one last glimpse of Asahi, sticking out amongst the orange sky. The sun was setting yet— looking at him gave you the exact warmth you would feel on a midsummer day. You watched his mouth slowly bloom into a smile when made eye contact. You think in your mind that spring has never felt so warm.

—

You looked up at the trees in the process of blooming, white buds formulating on the branches.

“The trees are gonna be really pretty in about two weeks or so” you heard a voice from behind you. Him. You clenched the chocolate milk in your hand before turning towards him.

“Yeah— oh sorry i’m blocking the vending machine” you murmured, sliding away.

“Oh no no,, it’s fine,” he said before taking your spot and getting the same drink in your hand, “Are you by any chance— planning to confess to anybody?”

Oh, right. You looked up at the blossoming trees once again. The time of the season you once never understood. The time of the season you once could say you despised. Yet here you are, having the rush of spring flowing down your veins. Is this the adrenaline that everyone feels? The unknown feeling gave you goosebumps throughout your body as he asked you that question.

“I don’t quite know yet,” you simply responded, looking back at him taking the drink out of the machine, “What about you?”

A sheepish smile wiped on his face, his dimple showing ever so slightly. He shrugged before looking at you.

“Only my heart knows the answer to that question.”

—

Over the so little time you’ve known Asahi, you’ve picked up on his mannerisms and his actions.

For one, he was more on the reserved side, and even when he talked his voice would always be on the softer side. You unknowingly started to associate him with winter because he gave off the cold feeling of a winter night. It was also your favorite season.

Most people knew him because he was friends with Jaehyuk, one who was very popular amongst the school. You had heard a couple times in the hallway about how handsome Asahi was. The feeling you felt when hearing that was unknown to you.

He enjoyed drawing a lot; him and Yoshinori were the best out of the club (though you’d be a bit biased if asked whose art you liked more), and he was always focused on his work, always scrunching in a little corner tending to his painting. But yet he always complimented your drawings no matter how bad they were, never failing to give you a warm feeling right after.

You could say you had developed an endearment towards asahi.

You stepped out your home, looking at the once bare trees flutter into pink hues, you thought the cherry blossoms were beautiful.

Today you decided not to walk out with Jihoon because well— confession season is always different with that boy. You had no intentions to get caught up in his relations.

You took timid and slow steps towards school. Taking your time looking at the petals and happy groups walking and aweing at the blossoms. Your mind was also off somewhere— of course it was, it always was.

Arriving at school, you saw Jihoon getting flooded by countless individuals, a letter in most of their hands. You could say the same to Jaehyuk on the other side who was also getting bomboarded. You took your routined steps to your locker, opening it as per usual except— it wasn’t usual.

You watched the letter flutter out, swaying to the floor imitating a loose flower petal. Picking it up with a shaked up expression, you carefully opened it up.

You saw the scribbled up lines at the top of the letter, indicating that the said person was trying to make a poem.

‘ah— who am i kidding? i’m not one with words. i never was. yet here i am trying to pour my feelings out on this letter. but i cant seem to combine the right words to express it. maybe because my feelings could not be described in the first place. maybe my feelings are best not worded out on this crumpled up piece of notebook paper. because if i’m being honest— this is my 27th time writing this and yet i still cant get it down. just.. meet me at class 104B? 4:15 pm after school today? please? -♡

Your grip on the paper tightened, the heart fluttering confession bringing a small smile to your face. You looked back at your locker seeing chocolate milk in sitting atop. You grasped it in your hand, taking it out before closing the locker and heading to class, your hands gripping tightly onto the objects. Unknown to you a figure watching your every move with focused eyes.

As time went by in school awfully slowly, your mind went off to one person only. You had foolishly deluded yourself into thinking that the letter and milk was from him. well— he did see you buy chocolate milk that one time. And well,, the handwriting did have a print of him.

‘Enough thoughts. just wait until school ends and your mind can finally-‘ ring!

You looked up at the clock in shock, realizing that it was, in fact, 4:00pm.

You purposefully gathered up your belongings slowly, trying to pass as much time as possible. Putting your care into every single step taken, from the 1st floor to the second.

Taking a deep breath, you slid open the empty classroom door. It was very convenient that it was just across the art classroom as the club did have a meeting today.

You traveled across the room to look out the window, seeing someone announce their feelings to another under the cherry blossoms. Just last spring you would stick your tongue out in disgust yet here you are somewhat in the same position, your heart aching as each second ticks by.

You watched them hug each other, their feelings being reciprocated, a petal getting caught in ones hair. You looked at the trees and how it really set the mood, almost getting lost in the alluring sight until you heard someone clear their breath.

You turned around deliberately, looking down at your shoes before looking up.

Yet, you often found it as a mistake to open up your heart in a time full of tender love like now. well— maybe not.

It’s him. The person right in front of your eyes is him.

You felt like the sun had just rose, your heart beating out of your chest almost like it was about to burst and run away. You felt the butterflies prance around in your stomach, feeling like you could cough one up right now. Does he feel the same right now?

“Ah,,, hello” he mustered shyly. You clenched the letter in your hand.

“Did you perhaps—“ though it was quite obvious, the slight nod from him gave you your answer.

You observed him, his hair slightly covering his eyes. Lightly kicking at his feet, you had figured he couldn’t compromise the right words.

“I have something for you” he spoke out after what seemed like a few minutes. He reached his hand out, silently telling you to take the initiative to grab it. You placed your hand in his, feeling like your hand was molded perfectly just to cusp his. His grip so gentle you could barely feel him grasp your hand.

Leading you to the art classroom across, your eyes spotting on the covered canvas on an easel. Using his other hand, he took off the cloth, your eyes widening in awe.

Your mouth laid agape as you looked at the drawing of a portrait of you with cherry blossoms in the background. Your heart stammering in your chest.

“Is this what you’ve been working on the entire time in art club?” you asked, eyes still on the painting. He hummed and nodded his head.

“Do you like it? Or is it a bit too—“

“No no! I like it a lot— Actually I love it. I love it so much” you cut him off, looking at him with excitement evident in your eyes. Words couldn’t describe the feeling flowing through you. Is this real?

“Well, I like you a lot too. I was trying to find a way to tell you, so I used my strong suit which is art” he proceeded to tell you, taking your other hand in his. He smiled tenderly at you, his signature dimple showing once more.

“Asahi— I like you too” you beamed, staring straight into his eyes. His smile widened more, his teeth showing. You took this as the initiative to hug him, arms wrapping around his neck, his wrapping around your waist.

You felt the sun shine on you, the warmth of spring immersing through you, your heart feeling more than alive as ever. The cherry blossoms you once thought as a mistake becoming the blessing in disguise for you. You think in the time of the moment that Spring has never felt so warm for you.

[fandom-puff]

Severus Snape smut alphabet

Requested by anon and @epaige0914 - enjoy !

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Severus is extremely loving after sex. he will heal any bruises or aches (unless you want them to remain) and clean you up. He’ll pull you close and kiss your forehead, stroking your hair as he tells you how good you are, how proud he is, how well you take him

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Severus doesn’t like much about himself. He simply isn’t conventionally attractive. What he does like, however, is his hands. He has very elegant hands, with long, slender fingers. He is an expert potioneer, and these skills translate in the bedroom- he is meticulous with his hands, and his heart swells with pride when he can bring you over the edge with just those digits.

With any partner... eyes. He loves your eyes. Looking deep into them as you fuck, the way your eyelids flutter as he pleasures you, forcing you to look at him even though you can barely keep your eyes from screwing shut...

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Severus is traditional. He doesn’t want to dirty you, so he prefers to finish inside you. It’s all about connection for him.

An exception to this is your throat. He loves when you take him in your mouth, always encouraging you with that voice to swallow and not waste a single drop

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

As a legillimens, one of his greatest desires is to penetrate both the mind and body of his partner. This comes only with the most trusted of partners, after months, maybe even years of being together

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Severus has taken a witch and wizard or two to bed before, but they were one night stands. He know what he’s doing, but he’s never had a partner to truly explore what he likes and dislikes, and has never had someone with which to nurture his growing passion

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Sitting up with you in his lap, cradled in his arms as you ride him. It allows for closeness, and intimacy, and it’s you slightly elevated so he can bury his face in your chest.

He also is quite fond of missionary, especially when you want to be rough with you

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

No. He is serious, always. If you’re playing with power dynamics or role playing, he will tease you with a condescending tone, as if he’s disciplining an unruly student, but he never fools around

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

The carpet matches the drapes. Dark, straight and thick. He keeps it neatly trimmed and is very clean. 

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Severus Snape is extremely intimate. He would rather ‘make love’ than fuck, holding you close and kissing every inch of you his mouth can reach. He’ll mark you up, but only in places that can be covered by your clothes, so only he knows they’re there. He’s big on kissing when you have sex, swallowing your moans and leaving your lips swollen from his kisses. 

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

If he has time, more often than not in the shower, he’ll indulge himself. He prides himself on his self-control, though, and would always prefer you over his hand. He does like watching you, especially if you leave the door open a crack- seriously that man barely makes any noise when he walks! You love when he catches you, as it will normally result in a short lecture in that low, rumbling voice as he shags you senseless. 

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Severus really likes being in charge. He loves being called ‘Sir’ especially when your arse is up in the air while you’re over his knee.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

His bedroom- safe and private and he can really let loose all of his passion. A close favourite is his office, with the door locked and silencing charms up, so you can be as vocal as you want. 

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Your eyes. The way you look up at him with those innocent eyes is enough to get him going. He also gets turned on when you nibble your lip or stick your tongue out in concentration, often thinking of other uses for your teeth and tongue...

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Severus will not do anything that could put you in danger. while he does sometimes have a hand at your throat, it’s never really to choke, more so to show you who’s in charge. It takes you a while to reassure him that he can squeeze a little. Severus will also refuse to do anything to do with knives with you. He has been tortured enough; crucio feels like a thousand knives stabbing him at once and he refuses to let you experience anything like that. 

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Severus is VERY good at eating out. He knows just how to use his tongue, scrubbing it flat against your pussy, pointing and prodding it at your clit, swiping it under the hood. And he uses his lips too, wrapping them around your clit and sucking gently, humming at the feeling of you tugging his hair. If he’s paying more attention to your entrance, that hooked nose of his will bump your clit irregularly, just enough for the combined sensations to tip you over the edge. 

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

It depends on the mood. After a hard day, he prefers to fuck you slowly, sliding the whole length of him in, before drawing almost all the way out, stroking every inch of your insides with his length. 

He’s not above rutting into you like a dog in heat, especially if it’s a quicky in the potions cupboard, or if you’ve been particularly cheeky. When he fucks you fast and rough, he is merciless, his lips curled up into a half smirk, half snarl as he pounds into you. 

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Severus doesn’t mind a quickie. In his potions cupboard, up against the shelves or on the stone floor, when you catch in bed him ten minutes before he has to go and supervise detention...

During cupboard quickies, he’ll stuff your knickers in you mouth to keep you quiet, and once you’re done and you go to slip them back on, he’ll shake his head, grabbing them and pocketing them, before telling you to ‘run along now,’ 

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

If he is sure you will be safe, then yes, he’ll experiment. If he senses even a hint of you really not enjoying yourself, he will stop, praising you and telling you how proud he is. He won’t insist that you carry on having sex in a way you’re more used to, unless you really want to. Again, he has excellent control. 

He finds it amusing when you have a new idea, as you’ll typically beat around the bush about iy (even if his head was between your thighs not ten minutes ago) 

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Severus can LAST. Honestly, you have no clue how he does it, but he can last a long time. You’ll be clamping around him for the second time that night, but he would still be gritting his teeth, a slight bead of sweat trickling down his temple as he is DETERMINED to make you come again before his own release. A huge part of the enjoyment for him is seeing you come undone and knowing that it was him who caused it. 

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Severus doesn’t own any himself. If he wants to tie you up, he’ll conjure ropes. You, however, have a few to choose from. He finds your little box one day while making the bed, and can’t help but have a look, intrigued by the strange looking contraptions. That night was particularly interesting, as he insisted on a demonstration for each one...  

His favourite thing to do is have you wear a vibe all day, with him being in charge of the settings, bringing you close to the edge at dinner, in the middle of conversations, but never letting you come until the evening

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He is a relentless tease, as you saw above. Because of his control, he can often hold you on edge for hours without giving into his own needs. He loves to make you beg and squirm, and smirks down at you telling you to ‘behave’

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He is rather quiet. He does make noise, of course, but he doesn’t shout. His noises are often low groans, sharp intakes of breath, and strained grunts, which flow into your ear as his kisses your neck and shoulders

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He loves the sight of you bare, with nothing on but thigh high stockings. He’ll sit at his desk in his office and make you strip slowly down to just the hosiery, before beckoning you over. 

He also likes the sight of you undoing his many buttons. The ones on his frock coat and trousers are flat canvas, with stiff button holes, and the ones on his dress shirt and cuffs are fiddly little mother of pearl ones. This combination makes it very difficult to undress him quickly, and honestly, watching his long fingers slowly ease each button out of its hole on his victorian frock coat has you dripping. 

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Severus is a big man. Long and thick, even when soft, with a purplish head which throbs when he’s aroused. he has a few veins here and there, which he loves being caressed. When aroused, he is longer, rigid and standing proud, and you often need to take the first thrust slow as he sinks into you, stimulating you deeper than ever before

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

He likes having sex. Especially with you. But again, he has excellent self-control, so doesn’t NEED to get off as soon as the thought pops into his head. 

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Severus has difficulty sleeping at the best of times. After sex, he likes to curl up with you, but often still lays awake, staring at the ceiling long after you’ve nodded off. 

Tag List: @obsessedwithrandomthings​ @haphazardhufflepuff​ @diksy1112​ @zodiyack​ @axriel​ @Theunderlier @hiddensapphic​ @samnblack​ @tinylumpiaa​ @in-slytherin-we-trust​

[holycow99]

石田お寿司 18/9/21 stream summary Part 3

This is not the full translation of the stream. I only translated the parts I could understand & interpret or parts I found interesting/important. I’m still a beginner in Japanese, so the translations may not be accurate. If you want to repost, please repost at your own risk.

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(t/n: ** = translation may not be accurate, SY= Y****, TS= S******)

83. Ishida bad mouthed the assistant guy from the last stream, not realising that person was in the stream as well. He then asked whether the guy was able to wake up.

84. Someone mentioned Bleach’s author, Kubo sensei, as the one who could draw super fast. He said that being able to draw fast didn’t only include the pace you’re drawing the picture. The panels were also included. Even if you draw fast, if there’s 120 panels, it’d still gonna take time. On the other hand, if there’s only 70 panels, it’d take less time. Then there’s the art style as well. Those who use great amount of Kakeami would take a longer time. He then praised Kubo sensei’s drawing.

(t/n: Kakeami is a method of shading using only parallel lines.)

85. Takahashi Rumiko sensei, the author of Inuyasha was also mentioned as mangaka who drew fast. Ishida mentioned that she’s full of energy. He said young Takahashi Rumiko sensei was cute. She’s still cute now.

86. SY asked what kind of vehicle he wanted to ride. He said he’s scared of trucks. He also didn’t like riding buses. In conclusion, he didn’t wanna ride anything.

87. Ishida said it’s kinda hard to be motivated with digital drawing. He did want to draw on papers, but drawing digitally is infinitely better when he wants to fix or adjust things in his works. He often uses shortcuts as well.

88. He never really felt any sense of accomplishment, so he didn’t understand people who did. He did feel relief (?) when he completed something, but he didn’t understand the feeling of wanting to experience that sense of accomplishment again. He envied those who felt that way since he never felt it.

89. SY read TG manga for the first time the previous day. Ishida was surprised by it and asked him if he thought Ishida was just a streamer. People in the chat were also shocked by it, lol. There were people who only knew about JJ too. Ishida wondered how did SY come across his streams. Sy replied that he just thought Ishida was just someone who drew beautiful illustrations the first time he watched his stream. Ishida was grateful that he’s reading it. It didn’t really matter if he read it or not. When musicians told him that they read TG, he felt like they’re just trying to be considerate, but they probably did read it. It’s okay if they didn’t read it. He always thought that every time he met new people. He wasn’t being humble, it’s just that he preferred if people could just talk to him as usual.

90. Someone said that there were people who got shocked reading TG after they played JJ.  He said it’s because JJ was a combination between his sister & him. He also already through with TG, so the vibe was different. However, he once said in an interview that it was hard for him to get rid off TG vibes inside of him when doing JJ in the early stages. He was teased about that by everyone.  

91. He went to the bathroom for the 3rd time and someone guessed the correct flower.

92. He wants to invite Mr. Kunimitsu and Ms. Towada again.

93. He said 30,000 is quite a lot for a small fry youtuber like him. He’s amazed he could come this far just by his Animal Rap videos and his game streams.

94. He’s looking at the new illustration that Ms. Towada posted on her twitter. He said the illustration must’ve taken a lot of time. That kind of illustration was tough to draw. He said Ms. Towada seemed healthy when they talked recently.

95. It’s better to just have a conversation with Ms. Towada the next time she’s in the stream since he’d get distracted.

96. Takayuki Kondo, Takashina Sarafumi’s VA was streaming at the time and a fan commented that he was praising Ishida in the stream. Ishida wanted to know what he said about him so he asked the fan to record it.** Ishida was grateful about it.

97. A fan commented that Ms. Towada seemed knowledgeable about geography or local stuffs. Ishida told them it’s because she really liked to travel. She probably had gone to most prefectures in Japan. That’s why she’s very knowledgeable in local history.

98. He jokingly said that he already went to Kumamoto trip with 300 fans. He apologised to those who didn’t get invited.

99. SY commented something and Ishida asked him shouldn’t he be doing something at the moment. He hoped SY did something while listening to his stream. He wanted to think the viewers did that since he only talked about trivial stuffs.

100. A lot of people said they weren’t invited. Ishida said that the trip was only for old men. The trip was for those aged 40 years old and above.

101. He mentioned that he’s just gonna thank the viewers for 30,000 subscribers’ celebration, though he’s really grateful for it. He wanna aim for 40,000 as well.

102. Someone mentioned that Simon’s abilities were really cool to the point they wanted to try those abilities. Ishida also stated he wanted to try them.

103. A fan suggested Ishida going on a trip with 300 gals. He said it seemed tiring, but in actuality, he’d probably enjoy it.

104. A fan asked his opinion on anti-natalism. He wasn’t familiar with the term and searched for it. He wondered if the term was brought by Schopenhauer. He said Schopenhauer was just jealous of Hegel since Hegel was really famous. His books were full of criticism on Hegel.

(t/n: Anti-natalism is a principle that’s against reproduction. Anti-natalists believe that giving birth is wrong. Both Schopenhauer & Hegel were philosophers.)

105. His opinion on the subject was that it’s okay if anti-natalists exist. There are people who agree or disagree with the concept. If you don’t wanna have a baby, you don’t need to. If you want to have a baby, then you should go for it. He said recently, he finally understood why declining birth rate is a bad thing.

106. A fan suggested a stream where viewers could also participate to increase subscribers, so he asked what should they do together. People in the chat suggested games like tetris, bomberman, and Smash Bros. He didn’t wanna play Smash Bros cus he didn’t wanna get beaten again.

107. A fan said that a lot of people would be interested in having children if they had money. He said it’s better to provide support towards people who raise children.

108. Mashima Hiro sensei, Fairy Tail’s author, did an online signing session. He wondered how he did that.

109. A fan suggested playing Mario Kart with viewers, but he scared the same thing would happen to him, just like during Smash Bros.

*Ishida reading game recommendations.

101. A fan asked what kind of game should they play so he wouldn’t get his ass beaten. He said it depended on the players. It’s better to gather weak players, so he could be the strongest.

102. A fan suggested a correction session, where Ishida would look through everyone’s own manga and correct errors. But then, everyone had to draw a manga.

103. He’s still not over his Crazy Jump’s idea. He seriously wanted to publish the magazine, lol.

104. People asking him how many pages should they draw and he said just 2 panels.

105. He bought a lot of books about human history.

106. He drank a lot of proteins.

107. He said Hitman is fun if he plays it by himself. He becomes lazy when he streams it, so it feels boring.

108. He wanted to play Detroit again, but he wanted to finish Heavy Rain first. He wanted to play Heavy Rain but the game’s heavy.

109. He wanted to end the stream, but everyone asked him not to.

110. He’s probably gonna do his work or watch movies while trying to sleep after the stream ends.

111. He wanted to end the stream, but he’s really curious about Mama’s last illustration, so he continued playing Made in Wario for a bit. He fanboyed over Mama, Mona, and Penny. He wanted to get penny’s illustration, but he didn’t have enough money to buy items to increase Penny’s level.

112. He wanted to try go to a cabaret club. He wanted to try spending all his money on a cabaret girl. He wanted to go to a host club as well, but he thought he’d probably wasting the hosts’ time since they’d have to serve him.

113. In the end, he’s gonna take a look at Mama’s final illustration by himself. He fanboyed over her one last time.  

Part 1

[marshmallow-phd]

Catching Rain

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Wolf!AU

Pairing: Minseok x Reader

Summary: You were more than satisfied with your life. You attended a nice college, had nice friends, a nice boyfriend. That’s what your life was: nice. You weren’t looking for anything more, so what were you to do when this seemingly harmless boy walked into your life and turned your nice little world into one much more dangerous?

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I Epilogue

**

The beams of sunlight fell down from the wide open sky, placing warm yet gentle kisses on your cheeks and nose. It was rare for the weather to be so nice this time of year. Usually, the bitterness of winter was still holding on. But today, spring was reminding you that it was just around the corner. The heavy, feather-stuffed coat could be kept in the closet, at least for today. The striped flannel was more than enough protection from the slight breeze though you barely noticed its touch. Above you, the sky was a dazzling pastel blue with only a few puffs of white here and there.

You fingers itched down by your side where they kept you steady on the stone table where you sat. It was truly a beautiful day, too beautiful for late February. The lighting was too perfect to be ignored. With enough coverage so the shot wouldn’t be overwhelmed….

“What are you plotting?”

Your eyes snap open and you look down at your best friend. The thought had only just popped into your head. How she could read you so easily was truly terrifying at times. “Nothing,” you lied coolly. “I’m not plotting anything.”

Willa rolled her eyes. “Please. You had that smirk on your face and your fingers were practically dancing on the table. You’re easier to read than you think.”

“(y/n), please tell me you’re not going to go out into the woods again?” Erik looked up from his tablet with pleading eyes. His wire-rimmed glasses were perched on the tip of his nose, giving him a childlike quality. The wind ruffled his sandy hair. He squinted up at you with concern. You were a bit surprised that he’d caught the conversation, given how concentrated he was on his drawing. “You remember what happened last time.”

Of course you did. You were there, weren’t you? Sure, to say that it wasn’t a slightly scary experience would be a lie. But it was something you’d expected to happen eventually considering your outside activities.

A branch knocked loose by the storm from the night before had fallen from its perch, hitting you in the head. While you remained conscious, you were disoriented and had trouble finding your way back to the city. It was nearly dark by the time you made it to your car, but you had no issues driving yourself to the emergency room. The doctor declare you fine beyond the small gash atop your head, however he still preferred someone else to drive you home. Poor Erik nearly had a heart attack when he found you sitting in a hospital bed with dried blood on your face.

“It was a freak accident,” you reassured him. “Not likely to happen again.”

“But the odds still exist,” he argued. You “hmphed” at him. Why was he suddenly spouting statistics at you?

“Not to mention, there have been more wolf sightings,” Willa added, earning a glare from you. Wasn’t she supposed to be on your side?

But you couldn’t stay mad at them for long. Your brain was too logical, too in tune with being able to understand people to ignore their side of the argument. Hopping down from the table, you gave in. “Alright, I get it! You guys are saying no ventures into the trees where I get the most beautiful photographs I’ve ever taken. Noted.”

“You are such a city girl,” Willa said teasingly. It was true, though.

Throughout your childhood, your exposure to nature was the local park with its scarily overweight squirrels and hordes of annoying ants. It was a shock to your family when you chose to go to college outside of the city you knew and loved, electing to attend a smaller campus surrounded by woods and a good two hours from the nearest airport. They didn’t think you would be happy so far away. But you needed the change. You wanted to challenge yourself. Besides, if you hadn’t come out here, you wouldn’t have met Willa or Erik. And they made you very happy indeed.

Swiping up your bag from the bench, you gave Erik a quick kiss goodbye and waved to Willa. “I’ll see you guys after class.”

Willa grimaced. “Actually, I have to work.”

Erik looked equally as guilty. “And I’m meeting with Don to help out the theatre department.”

Perfect. “Don’t worry about it,” you said with feigned of disappointment. “I’ll survive. Maybe take some pictures of downtown. I’ll see you guys later.” With both of them occupied, there was no one check in on you. And you hadn’t exactly promised either of them….

Your light steps from the free evening grew heavier as you came closer to the building that the math-related classes called home.

Truly, this was your own fault. No one should have allowed you to pick your own schedule. The first two and a half years of college were spent taking all the fun, digital art major-related classes you could. The idea that you would eventually have to take the general studies classes was a problem for future you to handle. And that’s what brought you here: almost to the end of the finish line and now you were stuck taking all the subjects that you weren’t good at in order to actually graduate on time next year with your bachelors and qualify to move on to the masters. You hadn’t pinned down exactly what you would focus on when that time came, but it meant staying here, with Erik. And you loathed the idea of being left behind while your friends moved on with their lives.

The main hall inside was buzzing with voices as dozens of students hung about, arguing over answers and whining about what they would do once the weekend had finally arrived. Words mixed in with the clacking of keyboards and the faint scribbling of hurried pencils that didn’t do the homework the night before. It always amazed you how loud this place could be. Your earlier assumptions had made you think that this hall would be a second library, with stressed out students shushing each other so they could concentrate. But really, it felt more like the cafeteria; a social hangout before life interrupted again.

The classroom was mostly full by the time you arrived. Rows of crooked desks filled up two-thirds of the room with just enough space for the GTA to stand at the whiteboard and not be uncomfortable or crowded. Taking your normal seat near the front – which was unsurprisingly empty for the most part - you took out your notebook and pencil, ready jot down the main points of the day’s lesson. Until then, you scroll through the endless stream of social media on your phone.

While you were normally a friendly person, you’d elected at the beginning of the winter semester to stay serious and not give in to any distractions during this period. Because you knew yourself and you knew that you would give in to any temptation to not pay attention during this hour and a half, including talking to the shy freshman girl behind you who looked desperate for some form of friendship.

Two minutes before the class was scheduled to begin, the GTA walked in, a binder tucked under his arm and a messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. None of the conversations slowed down as he unpacked his laptop on the old desk situated in the front. Even as he opened it up and cleared his throat, the whispered chatting went on. It didn’t help that he wasn’t the most authoritative-looking person. He was on the shorter side with a friendly face that made him feel more like a peer than a teacher. Or maybe it was just because he was closer to your age that made you feel that way. It certainly didn’t help that he asked to be called by his first name rather than the typical formal address that you’d been raised with.

Sungkyu smiled brightly as he stood up. The marker made a pop when he uncapped it. “We’ll start on page ninety-nine, chapter four part two.”

That was how he started each class. No hello or good afternoons with mumbled replies. Straight to the lesson without forcing everyone to pretend like they were excited to be there or demanding a more energetic reply. Perhaps that was the one advantage of having a GTA. They knew what nonsense to skip.

An hour and a half later, you were free. Sure, your brain felt a bit like mush from concentrating so hard on the algebra equations, but now you could relax. Since that was your last class of the day, you were back to that lightness, with that spring in your step. The sun had somehow become brighter, even more inviting in the small amount of time you’d spent indoors. How could you ignore the call now?

Back in your dorm, you unloaded your backpack of the unneeded supplies for your venture. Out came the textbooks and binders that were neatly organized. In their place came a water bottle from the mini fridge you and Willa kept between your beds, a couple of granola bars you stashed away for emergencies, and the leather bound sketchpad Erik had given you for your birthday last year that housed all the photo ideas that randomly popped into your head throughout the day. Checking your watch, you assumed that you had a good three or four hours before your absence was discovered. A slight sense of adventure tingled in your chest as you slung your bag over your shoulder and scooped up your camera case from the foot of your bed.

You didn’t look back as you left the dorm and headed for your car. When – because it was a matter of time, not if – Erik and Willa found out, they’d be sure to lecture you until the end of time. But you had a feeling that it would be worth it. What was that famous saying again? Better to ask forgiveness than permission?

As much as you appreciated their concern and understood where they were coming from, the trees were calling out to you, begging to be captured within the lens of your camera. The photographer that lived inside urged you on. If they were really that upset, you’d make them dinner to make up for it.

**

Minseok wasn’t hiding per se. He simply needed a quiet place to grade these papers and with eight other rowdy wolves coming in and out of the house, “quiet” was not exactly an easy thing to find. So… yes, he was sort of hiding in his car in the detached garage. It wouldn’t be for much longer; he only had two or three more assignments to look over and, at this point, he had the answers memorized, meaning he didn’t have to stop and look at the key every five seconds.

Blowing out air, Minseok ran a hand through his black hair as he leaned back. Sometimes he wondered why he took up this position. He didn’t need to. It wasn’t required for him like it was in other masters degrees. But the offer was given and he took it. Maybe he liked the excuse that he was busy so he couldn’t go out with the younger wolves all the time. Unlike the extroverts who knew every restaurant and bar in town like the back of their hands, he preferred it out here, in the woods. Homebody felt like an understatement.

Finally through with grading, he neatly packed the papers away into his bag (divided by clear plastic folders labeled by class) and got out of the car. He left the garage with a smile on his face. Before his feet could hit the first porch step, his name rang out in the field. 

“Minseok!”

He half-laughed, half-sighed as he shook his head. He shouldn’t be surprised that he was discovered the moment he left the safety of the garage.

Running towards him as he turned around were the three goofballs of the pack: Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Jongdae. Their faces and clothes were covered in mud, making Minseok take a step back.

“Where have you been?” Chanyeol asked when they came to a stop in front of him. Thankfully, they kept their distance. Now Minseok just needed to keep them from going in the house.

“Grading papers,” Minseok replied. He wasn’t going to reveal where he was grading them.

“That sounds boring,” Baekhyun said with an expression that made it seem like he’d smelled something bad. Although, given his current state, that was quiet possible.

Jongdae whipped his hair, sending tiny droplets of muddy water everywhere. Minseok jumped back in an effort to dodge them, which sent the former into a laughing fit.

“Come on, Minseok,” Jongdae waved his hand through the air, still trying to catch his breath from laughing so hard. “You know, wolves aren’t supposed to mind getting dirty.”

“Wolves, no. Humans, yes.” The eldest wolf eyed the three of them. “Well, most humans, anyway.”

Smiling broadly and unbothered, Chanyeol made a move towards the porch.

“No,” Minseok said firmly, blocking the giant’s path. Putting his bag down on the porch he pointed to the side. “Go around and use the hose. You’ll get mud everywhere.”

“We’ll clean it up,” Jongdae whined.

“Not to his standards,” Baekhyun chuckled. Completely unbothered, he followed orders and ran to the back of the house. At first, Chanyeol pouted as well, but then he must have found the fun in the idea because only a few seconds later he was ripping his shirt over his head and running after his best friend.

Jongdae gave one last look of pleading. “Can I please go inside and take a shower?”

Minseok nodded. “After you use the hose.”

“But it’s cold.”

But wolves don’t get cold. Minseok went to pat the poor guy on the back, but then stopped, remembering why he wasn’t letting him inside in the first place. “Rinse off and then we’ll go for a real run to dry you off.”

Jongdae mulled over the offer. Grinning, he said, “Deal!” He was back behind the house in the blink of an eye.

Looking over at his bag, Minseok contemplated his options. He could leave it there and risk one of the guys forgetting the “hands-off” rule or he could take it upstairs to his room, leaving those three alone with the water hose for five minutes. It might not sound like a terrible option, but Minseok had known them long enough to understand that they could find trouble without even looking for it.

He decided to go with the second option anyway, knowing his students’ papers would at least be safe.

Just inside the living room, Sehun was glued to the TV screen, controller in hand. He was pressing down on the buttons with more force than necessary. The maknae would never admit it, but he was too competitive when it came to video games. One time, Minseok walked in on Baekhyun whacking Sehun on the head with the plastic controller because he was getting beat so badly. Thankfully, this time Sehun was alone. If he remembered correctly, Jongin and Yixing were in class while Junmyeon was conducting his office hours. At least the four of them took school seriously.

Minseok didn’t bother greeting Sehun as he made his way through the living room and up the stairs.

His bedroom, pristine and magazine-worthy – was at the end of the hall, near Junmyeon’s master. It was a good thing that Junmyeon’s great-to-however-many-degrees-grandfather thought to build a large farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. The alpha didn’t think that it had ever been quite this full since it had mostly been just his family that occupied the walls in the past, but the foresight to think of a larger pack down the line had been there. Each of the wolves were able to have their own rooms, their own space. Given how sloppy some of the others could be, Minseok was thankful. It hadn’t always been that way, but those days were long gone.

Near the beginning when Minseok first officially joined the pack, he’d tried living alone in his parents’ old place in town. The call to be together, with his brothers, was too great. It was an uncomfortable feeling. To this day he wasn’t sure if it was the wolf’s nature that caused it or simply the fact that, as the eldest, he worried about the younger wolves and preferred to be around where he could keep an eye on them. That meant that the peace and quiet was over, but sacrifices could be made and he was much happier here, anyway.

Placing his bag on the desk, Minseok sighed to himself before heading back downstairs where trouble waited.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Chanyeol, Bakehyun, and Jongdae had turned rinsing off into a full on water war. Pretty much all the mud had been washed away, but that didn’t stop them from stealing the hose from each other and creating new mud in the backyard. They were all without their shirts, showing they were in this for the long hall.

At one point, Jongdae had snuck behind Chanyeol, who currently had possession of the garden hose, and twisted the rubber tube to stop the flow of water. Confused, Chanyeol looked directly in the mouth to discover the reason why. Which meant he fell right into Jongdae’s trap. The troll let go of the hose and the water came rushing back, spraying like a geyser in Chanyeol’s face.

Jongdae fell backwards onto his butt with how hard he was laughing. Chanyeol whipped around to get him back, catching Minseok in the crossfire.

Chanyeol cringed guilty. “Oops. Sorry.”

Minseok chuckled it off. It was just a shirt. “It’s alright. I promised Jongdae a run anyway. It’ll be dry by the time we get back.”

Baekhyun perked up. “A run?”

Minseok nodded. “Yes, you can come, too.” He was already undoing the buttons, folding the shirt and placing it on the ground once it was off. Maybe this run was what he needed. He wasn’t sure what difference it could possibly make. He’d been on hundreds of runs in the past. But something told him to go now. So, once he was ready, he shifted onto all fours and ran after the other wolves who’d already almost reached the tree line.

[myother2thirds]

academic purposes | part 1

description: the one where tae convinces y/n to let him draw her naked. for academic purposes, of course.

pairing: taehyung x reader ft. jungkook

genre: fluff, humour, smut | m | art student!kth, college au

word count: 1129

warnings: swearing, awkward virgin!tae, mentions of breasts, nude art

author’s note: here’s part one. enjoy! -e

description, part 1, part 2

masterlist

“You want to what?” You blink slowly at the boy sitting across from you in confusion.

“I want to draw you. In nude.” Taehyung responds with a little nod as if it’s the most natural thing to ask.

Three years of college with Taehyung should have been enough for you to anticipate this kind of thing. You’ve had your fair share of unusual experiences because of him, like the time he marched into your Digital Film & Photography lecture in first year to return the camera charm you’d dropped. Or like when you found him in his boxers watering your plants because he missed them (the likes of which drove you to enforce a ‘no visiting the plants when y/n isn’t home’ rule).

You’ve grown so accustomed to his habits that you don’t even blink twice anymore when he starts talking with his hands, when he messages you in all-caps in the middle of the night, or when he loses his train of thought mid-sentence, distracted by whatever else is on his mind in that particular moment. He’s even developed a little code for expressing his love when words don’t quite seem effective enough for him.

You’ve grown to love his little quirks because he’s your best friend and at the end of the day, it’s the little purple heart post-its he leaves on your door before going to class that make him so special.

Yet here you are, as shocked as ever. Because, who just asks something like that? Over coffee. In public.

You look up from your cup, eyes wide in shock, glancing sideways to make sure no one else can hear the very awkward, very private, conversation he has sparked up.

He looks you straight in the eyes to gage your reaction, waiting for a response. He knows he’s sprung this onto you way too soon, and way too early in the morning, but he’s been thinking about it for at least a week. Holding back only because he knew you’d react like this. 

“What the fuck.” You whisper harshly, leaning closer into the table to avoid any prying ears. “You can’t just go around asking that.”

“I don’t go around asking…” he starts with a pout, but trails off because, although he hadn’t asked anyone, he really really wanted to. For one, he was going to ask the paid model in class but the professor made it very clear that they were not to have any contact with her off hours. He knows asking you is taboo and weird, but he doesn’t personally see why it’s a problem. The human body is breathtaking and people should learn to appreciate it.

“Is that why you kept staring at Suzy’s breasts last Tuesday?” You hastily slip out and slap your hand over your mouth because you didn’t even want to acknowledge it let alone find out if it’s true, but Taehyung looks up at you in complete horror, confirming all your doubts. 

Glancing behind, you make sure Suzi hasn’t magically spawned in the coffee shop you’re currently seated at because nothing good would come from having her—or anyone, for that matter—hear that she’s been Taehyung’s eye-candy for the past week. 

“It was for academic purposes!” He manages to whine out before looking down at his lap in embarrassment. 

You gulp down another sip of your coffee, glaring at him across the table. After a long minute of silence, Taehyung gets fidgety under your stare. When he can’t stand the silence any longer, he speaks up. 

“I swear it wasn’t done consciously.” He says this softly but you can tell from the blush emerging on his cheeks that he’s lying out of his ass.

“Perv.” You say distastefully, wrinkling your nose and this makes him laugh but he quickly stops himself when he sees you’re being serious. “That’s not okay, Tae.” You continue. Taehyung smiles at the pet name which lets him know you don’t hate him for asking. And if you don’t hate him for asking, then maybe you don’t hate the idea either?

 “I love you, but this is crossing a line.” You finish off sternly, almost like you’re reading his mind, letting him know that there’s no way in hell you’re agreeing to this.

“Please y/n-ah!” He leans across the table, head low, hands crossed in a begging position. “I know I’m asking for a lot but this isn’t just for some random class. I’m an artist. I think this could really be my passion.” 

“Tae, I like naked men just as much as the next person but it hardly qualifies as a passion.” You say matter-of-factly, eyes shut tight, hands rubbing your temples to relieve the headache which is starting to set in. “And in any case, I’m a photographer. Do you see me asking anyone for their nude pictures?”

“You should!”

“No, Tae!” You barely give him a chance to open his mouth before continuing in an exasperated voice. “Because It’s not okay.” 

“I don’t agree. If it can improve your art then I think it’s a very reasonable request. Plus, you aren’t just anyone to me.” He explains.

You know he won’t take no for an answer so your best bet is to shift his attention away from you. “Well, can’t it be anyone else? You have a model that comes in every week.” 

“No. It has to be you.”

“Why?”

“Because, it does.”

“She literally gets paid to be in your drawings. How is that not enough?

“It just isn’t.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” 

This exchange happens in a mere instant, his swift stubbornness causing you to raise your voice with each passing second. A few people sitting nearby turn their heads, glancing questioningly at your table.

“Why does it have to be me, Tae?” You whine, trying to lower your voice.

“Because…” Taehyung begins, his voice is muffled by the collar of his jacket which he’s pulled halfway up his face to hide himself, no doubt. “Just looking might not be enough, okay?” 

You stare at him dumbfounded before finally getting up to leave. You have no idea what that means but you aren’t about to find out. 

Collecting your things you grab for your bag but Taehyung takes a hold of your wrist, his grip soft but firm, fixing you in place. His pleading eyes stare up intensely into yours and if you look close enough, you can almost see the eagerness in his irises materialize, imploring you to cave in. But you don’t. 

You grab your bag from the floor and in an instant, you’re out the door. And when you pass Taehyung’s still figure behind the coffee house window, you don’t even spare him a glance. You love him, but this is going too far.

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary - Chapter 32

Warnings: some smut

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @thorsbathroomchicken, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @valkyrie-of-the-light

His eyes flicker open as she returns to bed; lifting the comforter ever so slightly -even the smallest of movements or the faintest of noises often enough to snap him awake- as she slides in next to him.  Tucking her back snuggly into his front before pulling the heavy blanket up to her chin. She’s unsettled ; unable to get comfortable, readjusting her pillow several times; repeatedly sticking one foot out of the covers before drawing it back in,  continuously rubbing her ass against him in a vain attempt to find just the perfect spot in the mattress.  He presses a kiss to the back of her head, then loops his arm around her waist and drapes a heavy, muscular leg over hers.  Effectively stilling her movements and providing that weight and pressure that she often craves when having a rough a night. They’ve been few and far behind over the past three years; the Dhaka nightmares rarely making an appearance, and relatively tame when they did. Nothing like she used to experience. That first year following had been rough; there had been more restless nights than there had been good ones, and he’d gotten used to having to calm her down after the nightmares.

 “What time is it?” she asks, and he lifts his head just long enough to cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the digital clock on the nightstand.

 “Almost five thirty,” he replies, and then tightens the hold on her body and buries his face in her hair. Eyes closing as he takes in her soft, familiar scent. Body soft and warm against his. “Go back to sleep. Lots of time left before we have to get up.”

 “I can’t,” she laments.

 “Just try,” his hand moves in slow, smooth circles against her stomach. “Just close your eyes and try.”

 “I honestly can’t. I’m too busy worrying about when and if I’m going to puke again.”

 “That’s like the fourth time this week alone. Maybe…” his hand slides down a bit further.

 “That’s wishful thinking on your part. There is nothing…or should I say no one…in there yet. We just started trying two weeks ago. There hasn’t been enough time for things to develop. There’s no way I’d be feeling anything this soon.”

“Just because we weren’t trying before that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. You don’t have to actually be trying for it to happen. We never tried with the other ones. None of them were planned. And it’s not like we just started having sex in the past two weeks. We’ve always had it. A lot.”

 She can’t deny that. It has always been a huge component in their relationship. Right from the very beginning in Dhaka; two relative strangers that couldn’t seem to keep their hands off of each other, both igniting something in the other that had been missing for a hell of a long time.  And it is the one thing that they’re good at. No…scratch that.  The one thing they’re amazing at.  Even when things were rocky between them, sex had been the one constant. All the harsh words and the brutal arguments forgotten the second they were behind closed doors and they were able to take their anger and aggression out on one another.

 “I am definitely not pregnant,” she says. “I’d know. I think I’m used to it by now.”

 “You’ve been throwing up all hours of the day for four days. You’ve been complaining about headaches. Dizziness. That you can’t sleep. That sounds exactly like everything you’ve ever experienced.”

 “It’s not the same. I know my own body. I know what it feels like when there’s a baby inside of me. This is not it.  This is stress and worry and the fact I miss my kids and I want nothing more than to get home to them. That I’m thousands of miles away from them. From my babies. When there could be some sick fuck just out there watching them and waiting to hurt them….”

 “That’s not going to happen,” he pulls her even tighter against him. “There is no one after them. There’s no one waiting to hurt them. And even if there was someone out there, they’re safe. They’ve got Nik  and her guys there keeping an eye on things.  No one would even be able to get close to them.”

 “And they were okay? When you called today?”

 “They’re fine. They’re being spoiled rotten and enjoying bossing your mom around and driving her insane. Maybe this will be what she needed to snap that last thread of sanity. Mine snapped a long time ago. The second I had to read fucking Goodnight Moon six times in one night.”

 “I thought it was Paw Patrol that did that. That stupid theme song over and over again. Remember how Tanner was obsessed with it and he’d make you put it on repeat on your phone? I think you aged about ten years in those six months.  And let’s not even talk about the great potty training fiasco.”

 “No. Let’s not talk about that. I may have a nervous breakdown if I have to relive that. You think I have PTSD from the job? No. It’s from having those two.  Especially Tyler. What the fuck is up with that kid? Some kind of imbalance from your side of things? “

 “Please. He’s just like you. He’s wild and uninhibited and fears nothing or no one. Good thing he was the one that came out first. Because it totally makes sense that he’s a junior. He’s the one that you’re really going to have to keep an eye on when he’s older. He wanted to be just like you  before he found out that fight bad guys and safe good people.   How he think you’re some kind of super hero and wants to be one when he grows up.”

 Tyler gives a derisive snort. “I’m no hero.”

 “To him you are. To all your kids you are. To me you are.”

 Lifting his head from his pillow, he presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I just do what I’m paid to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.  And it’ll be a cold day in hell when I sit back and watch any of my kids follow in my footsteps. They’re better than that. They’re better than this life. And they deserve better. No way am I letting any of them do what I do.”

 “You know…” she rolls over to face him, chest pressed against his.  “…you’re not the horrible person you think you are, Tyler.  You’ve helped a lot of people. You’ve gone into some dangerous and scary situations to get peoples’ loved ones back. And that’s pretty damn selfless when you think about it. That you’re willing to put your life on the line to save someone else’s.”

 “It’s not selfless when you’re doing it for money.”

 “What about Dhaka?” she challenges.  “When you found out that Mahajan fucked us over? When you knew there wasn’t going to be the pay out that you expected? You still did everything you had to do to keep Ovi alive. Even when Nik wanted you to just leave him in the street. Even when Gaspar was going to split ten million  dollars with you.  You still didn’t abandon or betray that kid. And that is selfless. You were willing to die for him. You were willing to die for me.”

 “I still am. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I had to. No questions asked.”

 “You’re a big man with an even bigger heart. I’m blessed because I get to see that side of you. I get to live with it every single day. You’re not a terrible person, Tyler. You’re a great person that’s been forced to do terrible things.”

 He thinks of his loss of control the previous afternoon.  When something inside of him snapped as soon as McMann put his hands on him. How easy it would have been just to kill him. With his bare hands. He’d known what he was doing; it wasn’t one of those ‘black out’ moments when he lost his shit and didn’t realize what was happening.  He’d been fully aware of what was going inside his own mind; of the power and strength that his body possessed. And yet still he hadn’t been able to stop.

 He’d wanted to kill him.

 “And they were terrible things…if you want to call them that…that you had to do to stay alive,” Esme continues. “So you could make it back home. To me and the kids.”

 “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do so I could make it home.”

 “You don’t kill because you want to. Or because you enjoy it. You kill because you have to. And believe me, I’d rather you take someone else’s life than have them take yours.”

 He smiles at that, then presses a soft, tender kiss to her lips.  He wants to tell her.  About how the plan to intimidate McMann into giving him information hadn’t gone exactly as planned. That he’d come so close to making things a hundred times more complicated by killing the man.  That he’d felt a rush at what he was able to do; seeing the colour drain out of McMann’s face, hearing him gag and choke and struggle to breathe,  the sheer terror in his eyes.   But it would scare her. He would scare her. And that’s the last thing he wants.

 “You have to promise me that if it comes down to saving yourself or saving the, that you’ll choose yourself,” she pleads. “I know that sounds horrible.  It know it makes me sound like a terrible person that I’d even think that, let alone say it.  Especially because they’re children and I’m a mother myself. But Tyler, if you have to make the decision, if it comes down to only being able to get yourself out, you have to promise me you’ll do it. That you’ll get the hell out of there. Because I need you. And your own kids need you.”

 Sighing, he smooths her hair away from the sides of her face and away from her forehead. “That’s not the job.”

 “Fuck the job. Fuck the money. I don’t care about that. All I care about is you.  And believe me, I don’t want it coming down to having to leave the kids behind. But if it does, you have to promise me that you’ll worry about yourself first.  Because I’m not ready to lose you yet. It’s only been five and a half years. That’s nowhere near enough time.”

 Pressing his lips against her temple, he lays a hand on the small of her back and draws her even tighter against him. Chin resting on the top of her head, eyes closed. “I’ll get myself out of there. I promise.”

 He feels her smile against him, and she nestles her face into his neck, lips against his throat. The hand that had been on his back sliding up to the space between his shoulders, fingertips tracing the outline of the large Nordic tattoo that graces his skin.

 “Now it’s my turn,” he says. “To tell you something.”

 “Something bad or….?”

 “It got me thinking. About when you said you were worried about me going to meet McMann alone. Because we didn’t know for sure if he was on the up and up. He can’t be trusted. He’s shown that time and time again.  So I called someone. For help. That would have my  back.”

 “I thought Nik said there wasn’t anyone that could help? That the three of us were pretty much on our own. And if Yaz was with me…”

 “I called Mark,” he admits, and she draws back to look at him.  “Which I’d never thought I’d ever do a million years.  But you were worried and it got my brain fucking with me and I didn’t want to take the chance that it was all a set up.  He’s the only one there was. Trust me, I would have called someone else if I had the choice.”

 “And he actually showed up?”

 “He’s not my favourite person and I know I’m definitely not his.  But he did what he said he would do. He’d said he’d show up and he did.”

 “Well, one thing he always was a good solider.  When it came down to protecting other people, he was loyal to a fault. I wasn’t one of those people, mind you. “

 “Which is exactly I didn’t want to call him. Because of everything between you too. And I still want to kick the shit out of him, just so you know. But I needed someone to keep an eye out. Half my back if I needed it. And he did. He showed up and he kept an eye on things. He keeps his word, that’s for sure.”

 “Until you’re married to him. And then his word means shit.”

 “Well it’s a good thing I’m not into guys and I’m already married,” he teases, and kisses her softly. “I almost killed him.”

 “Who? Mark?”

 “McMann. I went into just wanting to scare the hell out of him. Put enough fear into him that he’d crack and give me the information I needed. But things went south. Quickly. And if Mark hadn’t have been there, this entire thing would have been well and truly fucked. I would have screwed everything up. It would have fucked things up even worse and made things even harder.”

  “Tyler…”  her eyes narrow, brow furrows. “…what did you do?”

  “It’s what I almost did.   Everything went fine. At first. I got him off guard and scared the ever loving shit out of him.”

 “Physically?”

 “Well, yeah.  That’s how I do things. I’m not a psychological warfare master like you are.  I go in and fuck shit up and I leave.  So I went there to scare the shit out of him and it worked. It was the last thing he expected and he almost pissed his pants.”

 “But…”

 “But I fucking snapped. When he started to retaliate. I lost my shit.  Completely lost it. I almost killed him.  I almost choked him to death. And you know what? I wanted to do it. I knew exactly what I was doing and I didn’t want to stop.  I wanted him dead. And part of me still does.”

 She falls silent. Slightly unnerved by his confession.  He’s not usually the type of person that revels in the chaos and violence he finds himself embroiled in. He doesn’t take pride in having to take the life of another a burden that has always weighed heavily upon him.  Killing for him is…and has always been…about survival. Self preservation.  No matter how much he hated someone, how badly they’d betrayed him, no matter how perilous the danger was they brought upon him, he ever revelled in the fact that he’d had to resort to such drastic acts.

 “I knew exactly what I was doing. I didn’t black out. My brain didn’t zone out. You know how it goes completely blank and I don’t realize what I did or said until later? When it all starts coming together?”

 She nods.  They’ve had many fights just like that. Where something inside of him has snapped and he’s been fully unaware of the things he is doing or saying.

 “That didn’t happen. I was in total control.  I knew what I was saying. What I was doing. I had my hand around his throat and I watched him struggle to breathe. And you know what, I liked it. I like that I had that power over him.  I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to kill him.”

 Her eyes are sad as she reaches up to clear his hair away from his forehead.  

 “Don’t like at me like that.”

 “Like what? I’m just…”

 “Like it makes you sick to look at me.”

 “Tyler…” she pecks his lips. “…I could never look at you that way. Your brain is telling you that I’m looking at you that way.  Trust me, I’m not.  I understand where you’re coming from. He lied to you. He’s been lying right from the start. He brought you into a crazy messed up situation. Which in turn brought me and the kids into it. Of course you’re going to be upset. Anyone would be.”

 “But like that? To lose control that bad? That’s not me.  When I snap, I don’t remember the things I said or the things I’ve done.  I’m not aware of it at the time. I just lose it. I don’t think about it. This was different. I knew exactly what I was doing and I knew I didn’t want to stop.  I wanted him dead.”

 “Is he still walking around and breathing? Is he still on this side of the ground? If you can answer yes to any of those questions, you were able to control things.  A lot of people wouldn’t have been able to.”

 “Mark stopped me. He’s the one that stepped in. If he hadn’t have been there….”

 “But he was.  He was there to protect you. To stop you from making things worse. I know he’s not your favourite person. And trust me, he’s not mine either.  But he at least showed up. He could have just said ‘fuck you’ and not bothered. But he was there and he stopped you. That’s the important thing. He stepped in and McMann lives to see another day. Which means those kids live to see another day.”

 “Do you realize how worse I could have made things? Or how bad things might get? What if he decides to try and take me out…or have someone else try and take me out…because of it?”

 “He won’t. He needs you. He knows he won’t get his kids back without you.”

 “He could come after you. Or send someone after you.”

 “He’s not that stupid. He’s a liar and a sexual deviant, but he’s not stupid. If he did something like that, you’d know it was him and he realizes that. Which only puts an even bigger target on him.  He’s crazy, but he’s not that crazy.   And lets look at this from your side of things. He lied to you. Right from the beginning.  He brought you here because he wanted you to blow things up and cause all kinds of shit and then take the fall for it.  And then he brings your family into it.  Especially your kids. Anyone would snap over that.”

 “I’m not anyone,” he argues.

 “You’re a goddamn human being.  You’re not a machine.  You have feelings, you know.  You have moments of weakness and anger and everything in between.  You have to let yourself feel things, Tyler. No matter how much it unnerves you. It doesn’t make you weak because you have weak moments. That’s all in your head. That’s your father’s doing; putting it in your head that any emotionally based reaction makes you less of a man.”

 “Are you sure you weren’t a shrink in your previous life?” he grins. “Because that sounds like something a shrink would say.”

 “I don’t need to be a shrink to know that your dad is quite possibly the most toxic person I’ve ever met and he had no right trying to raise you to be just like him.  And I meant what I said. You’re nothing like him. You never will be.  So you need to let go off all the shit that he’s put on in the last forty years.  Get all that crap out of your head. Because you’re a far bigger and better man than he could have ever hoped to be.”

 “You really do have a lot of faith in me.”

 “I do,” she admits. “And trust. And love. I happen to love you, you insufferable pain in  my ass.”

  “I bet right about now you’re thinking that’s the worst decision your brain ever made.”

 “Actually, it’s the first time I ever let my heart overrule my brain.  And I think things worked out okay.”

 “I do too,” he says, and the kisses her. Much longer this time yet still as tender; closed mouth upon closed mouth, her nails lightly scraping down his back.  And he pushes his hand through her hair; gently gripping the silky strands between his fingers as he feels her tongue pushing against his teeth.  He grants her access. The kiss deepening, one of her legs coming up to wrap around his waist, heel of her foot pushing into his ass. Allowing himself to pulled on top of her. Letting her take the full burden of his weight for several seconds, until he plants a palm on the mattress and lifts himself off of her.

 “Are you okay?” she asks. “I mean are you really are okay? Not just with what’s going on. Not with just this job. With everything. With life. Are you okay?”

 “I don’t know,” he admits.

 “Well, what do you know? What is your brain telling you?”

 “That I’m fucked up and I need professional help.”

“That’s something we can work on. When we get home. I think it might be good for both of us.”

 “It’s telling me that things are getting worse. I’m getting worse. The memory problems, my temper, all the pain.”

 “And that scares you,” she states.

 He nods. “I’m worried one day I’m going to snap like I did on McMann. That you’ll say something totally innocent and that my brain will take it the entirely wrong way and I’ll just lose it. And I don’t want that happening. I don’t want to be reacting towards you the way I did with him.”

 “You won’t.”

 “How can you be so sure? How can you have that much trust in me?”

 “Because you know I’d kill you,” she’s only half joking.  “You know I would beat the ever loving crap out of you. And I know you’d take it because you’d hate yourself for hurting me and you’d know you deserved a shit kicking.”

 “I’d kill myself. If I ever hurt you or the kids.  I’m not joking. I’ll end it if I ever get to that point.”

 “You won’t,” she assures him. “You won’t let yourself get to that point.  I know you won’t.  It’s not that I have an extra ordinary level of faith and trust in you. It’s because I know who you really are. The kind of person you are when you’re not on the job. I’m the only that gets to see that. Experience it.  You’re not a bad person, Tyler Rake. No matter what your brain tells you.”

 He kisses her again. Longer. Most intense.  His free hand tangled in her hair, tongues in each other’s mouth. Her hands beginning that slow, methodically exploring of his shoulders and back.  And she giggles against his lips when he presses his already rock hard cock against her.

 “Can you tell what my brain is telling me right now?” he asks with a grin.

 “That’s not your brain talking, Tyler. Unless your brain packed up and moved south.”

 “What do you think is sending the messages down there?”

 “No. No. I think it pretty much things on its own when it gets to this point,” she says, and then laughs and wriggles underneath him when he sucks a little too hard on the side of her neck.  “I swear to God if that leaves a mark….”

 “What are you going to do about? You weigh a buck fifteen soaking wet.”

 “Asshole,” she grumbles, and then grabs a hold of his hair and yanks painfully hard, using his initially startled reaction to get her knee into his stomach and push him over onto his back. “You were saying…” her grin is wicked as she straddles him.

 “That doesn’t count. I let you do that.”

 “Mm…hmm….” She leans over to press a series of kisses along both sides of his throat, over his Adam’s apple and across his collarbone.  “What’s your brain telling you now?” she asks with a grin, his hands on her thighs, fingers biting into the fresh.

 “My brain’s clocked out. I’m only listening to my dick now.”

 “Yeah? And what’s that telling you?”

 “That it wants to put a baby in you.”

 She grins.   “Very good answer.”

 ****

“You guys are good to go,” Yaz says, over the two way radios they each wear in their ear, the transmitters clipped to the hip  pockets on their jeans.   They’d been expecting his call; parked half a block away from McMann’s house, engine idling as they waited to be given the all clear.  “He left ten minutes ago. Satellite isn’t showing any other cars or warm bodies within a half a kilometre radius on either side.  There’s no one watching the house.”

 The ruse had worked; Mark calling McMann and arranging to meet him half an hour away to ask him more questions in regards to the wife’s background and her possible hand in snatching the kids.   Depending on how the ex Marine could stall for, it gave them at least ninety minutes to search the property without worrying about McMann showing up unexpectedly. The radios would make communication a lot easier; Yaz could use remote satellite links and neighbourhood security cameras he’d hacked into to keep and eye one the outside and alert them if any possible trouble was on the way.

 “Make sure you guys keep in contact with me.  And each other if you get separated for whatever reason.  I’ll keep an eye on the outside. You guys do what you have to do inside. Good luck. Hopefully you find something.”

 Tyler kills the engine and shoves his keys into his pocket.  It’s safer to walk; less chance of anyone spotting the unfamiliar vehicle in McMann’s driveway and alerting either him or the cops.  They paused at the back of the car and he pops open the truck; a handful of weapons and other paraphernalia hidden under the false floor. Including a smaller sized Kevlar vest that he removes, tearing open the Velcro fasteners and then holding it over her head.

 “Arms.”

 “This is going a little overboard don’t you think?”  

 She’s nervous enough without thinking about what the bullet proof vest represents. While going into the house the first time had been anxiety inducing, the second time has her feeling nauseous.  Her nerves are on edge and have been since his confession that he’d wanted to kill McMann the day before.  It was something she’d never thought she’d hear; that he could actually get joy out of taking another human being’s life. It was acceptable when he had to do it; killing a means to an end, ensuring his own safety and survival. But to hear that he could have easily done it and have no lingering remorse.  He didn’t scare her; he’d never given her a reason to be afraid of him.  But she was scared of the lingering effects of years on the job and PTSD were doing to him.

 “Arms,” Tyler repeats, and she obeys the requests.  “It’s just better to be safe than sorry,” he reasons, and then pulls the straps tight around her sides and across the chest.

 “In that case, you should be wearing one too,” she points out, as he removes the transmitter from her pocket and then clips it to her left shoulder.

 He sighs.  “Don’t start.”

 “I wouldn’t be the only one they shoot at if someone shows up,” she says, as he clips his holster -Glock already securely inside- to his waistband. “How come I don’t get one? How come you get all the cool toys?”

 “I’m the muscle, remember? You’re the brains. It’s always been that way. It’s why it works as well as it does,” taking her face in both his hands, he presses a kiss to her forehead before adding, “Why we work so well.”

 “Holy shit, you’re actually admitting it for once.  That we make a good team.”

 “When have I ever denied that? We make an amazing team.  Even way back when in Dhaka.”

 “You mean when you thought you were my boss and completely order me around.”

 “Well, technically, I do have more experience so I was…in a way…in charge.”

 “Still delusion. Even five and a half years later. That’s okay, baby. I’ll let you think you’re the boss. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

 “Let’s compromise. You can be the boss at home, I’ll be the boss when we do things like this, yeah?”

 “Okay,” she relents. “I’ll give you that.  But only because of your fragile masculinity.”

 He snorts.

 “So who’s the boss in the bedroom then?” she inquires, as they fall in step alongside of each other.

 “You have to ask that? It’s me. It’s always been me. Because that’s the way you like it.  Don’t tell me you’re going to pretend that it isn’t. That you don’t like when I get all mean and shit and boss you around and pull your hair.”

   It’s the farthest they’ve taken it; aside from extremely rough sex.  Her penchant for ‘fuck me like you hate me’ sex has been an ongoing and much enjoyed them for five a half years now.  He draws the line at anything more intense; refusing to call her degrading names or using any other kind of physical force.  He’s much bigger. Far more powerful. And often didn’t have a grasp on just how strong he actually is.  And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

 “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this right now,” she laments.

 “Yaz can’t hear us unless we press the button. So…”

 “No I mean talking about this like there’s nothing majorly serious going on here.  We’re talking like it’s just another day and we’re talking just a normal walk somewhere. It’s kind of….weird.”

 “What are we supposed to talk about?”

 “I don’t know. Something job related.”

 “We can talk about that shit when we actually get to where we’re going.”

 “Do you think he can pull it off? Mark? Do you think he can actually spew enough bullshit to stall McMann long enough for us to get a good look around and get the hell out of there?”

 Tyler shrugs. “I don’t know. He spewed enough bullshit to me when he came to our house. If he puts even half the effort into McMann that he put into me, he could be holding him off for hours. He really think’s highly himself, yeah? Mighty big chip he has on his shoulder.”

 “He’s actually pretty tame now. He was worse when I first met him and married him. Shit! Dog walker.”

 An elderly woman crosses the road and makes her way towards them; a yapping and feisty toy poodle on the end of a retractable leash.

 “She’s going to see the vest. She’s going…”

 “Just relax,” Tyler says, and then pulls her into a long, deep kiss, both arms wrapped around her slender body, drawing her tight against him and effectively hiding any sign of the Kevlar from the other woman. Who merely calls them ‘kids’ and grumbles about the inappropriateness of their very public display of affection.   And he keep as a hold on his wife as he watches the elderly woman and dog continue on their walk. Never given them a second glance over her shoulder and then disappearing around the corner.

 “I’m impressed,” Esme grins, as they continue on their way. “Very effective. Nice thinking on your feet. You kiss everyone you work with like that?”

 “Only the cute, tiny brunettes,” he says, and gives her a playful nudge with his elbow.

 “Go through here,” Yaz’ voice comes through their ear pieces. “There’s an alley way between the back of this house and the back of McMann’s.  There’s a gate to his place.  Can’t tell if it’s locked or not. Someone may have to hop the fence.”

 Tyler looks at his wife, eyebrow arched, amused smirk tugging at his lips.  

 “Why are you looking at me like that? Why would have to be my job.”

 “Because you’re smaller and can probably climb it a lot faster than I do. Come on. Take one for the team. You climbed the fence when we were at Mahajan’s place.”

 “Only because Ovi was too scared to do it.   You’ve got longer legs. It would take you less time to get over it.”

 “What’s the saying? Good things come in small packages? You might taste better to the guard dogs and keep them occupied while I get in, get what we need, and get out.”

 “You’re such a dick,” she grumbles, and he playfully tousles her hair and then takes her by the wrist, pulling her backwards and tucking her behind him.  If there was anyone watching them and waiting to ambush them from the alleyway or McMann’s backyard, at the least the bigger and stronger one would the first person they’d encounter. He stood a better chance at fighting someone off than she would.

 They make it through the backyard of the first house; bypassing an inground pool and an elaborate guest house, then stepping through an unlocked wrought iron gate. The squeak accompanying it seeming a hundred times later than what it should normally.   Trash and gravel crunch and pop under their feet; the alleyway in such a high class and influential area at look more disgusting that they’d thought it would be.

 “No lock,” Tyler says, as he tests the latch in McMann’s gate.  “Looks like you don’t have to work too hard today. Sorry. You don’t get the chance to commit B and E again.”

 “You’re just full of smart ass comments today,” she mutters, as he holds the gate open for her and allows her to pass through before once again stepping in front of her.  And she takes the opportunity to smack his ass. Painfully hard. Both hands. “Nice bum where ya from?”  

 “What are you? Like twelve?” he’s grinning at he says it.

 “Not my fault you have a crazy hot ass.  This was place is insane…” she takes in their surroundings; an enormous kidney shaped inground pool with a twelve person hot tub and smaller pool solely for swimming laps alongside of it.  Immaculately landscaped grass and garden areas, outdoor showers, a guest house, a three tiered wooden deck, even an area that boasts an outdoor kitchen and living room space.  Immaculately landscaped grass and garden areas.  “What kind of jobs is he taking that he can afford to live like this?”

 “All this is not from the job,” Tyler says. “There’s no way. You know what kind of payouts you’d have to be pulling in to not only afford all this but keep it up? There’s no way you’d be able to do all of this and take care of it just being on the job.”

 “Maybe it’s her money,” Esme suggests.  “Old family money.  The Buckmans were into some pretty shady shit. They have been for decades. Just what are we looking for?”

 “An entrance. Something that leads into a bunker or a cold cellar or a storm shelter.”

 They split up; each taking a side of the house and working from the very back of the yard and moving slowly towards the deck.  Shoving furniture aside, kicking away piles of loose grass and debris that could possibly be covering up a doorway.  The possibility become more and more remote the closer they get to the rear of the house; turning their attention to the sides.

 “Tyler!” Esme whispers, sticking her head around the corner of the house. “I think I found it.”

 He keeps an eye on the surroundings as he joins her; eyes surveying the windows, not just of McMann’s house but his surrounding neighbours.  Making sure that someone hadn’t heard them moving around the backyard and were now peeking out from behind curtains and through the slats of mini blinds.

 “This?” Esme asks hopefully, and nods down at wooden double doors that sit flat against the grass. “Is this what we want?”

 “Exactly what we want,” he replies. “Good job, babe.”

 The smile says it all. The way she happily gives a little bounce on her heels.

 “Shit.  Locked. Go and find a rock. About this big…” he makes a circle with his hands, roughly the size of a baseball. “…or anything else I can use to break it open.”

 “Shoot it,” she suggests. “You have a gun.”

 “You don’t think someone will hear a gunshot and call the police?”

 She frowns. “Very good point.”

 “Make sure you keep an eye out. For anything. For anyone. We don’t know for sure that there’s no one watching. Just be careful.”

 She nods, and then hurries off around the corner and into the main area of the backyard.  He stands; hands on his hips, ��eyes sweeping back and forth between the windows of adjacent houses, the back alleyway, and down the narrow path between this home and the next.

 “Here,” she says as she returns, with one of the bricks that she’d pried out of the dirt; being used an ornamental border around one of the gardens.   “I didn’t see or hear anything weird. You?”

 “Nothing,” he takes the brick from her, then crouches down in front of the doors. “Give me the sweater.”

 She shrugs out of her hoodie…his hoodie…and passes it over.  Whether it’s nerves or the slight breeze in the air, she crosses her arms over her chest and rubs at her bare arms in an attempt to warm them.

 “Here,” he slips his gun from his holster and holds it out to hear. “You see anyone come down this path or come in from the alley, you shoot them. Don’t ask questions. Just shoot. Got it?”

 She nods.

 Tyler lays the sweater over the lock, muffling the sound as he smashes the brick down on top of it. The first one breaks the dial, while the second causes not only the entire lock to shatter several into several pieces, but tears off one of the door handles.

 “Please tell me you brought a flashlight,” Esme laments, as he opens the doors. “Because this has shades of disgusting Dhaka sewer written all over it. It’s been five and a half years and that smell is still stuck in my nostrils.”

 “Wait here, keep an eye on things, and I’ll tell you when it’s okay to come down.”

 “What if someone is down there?” she frets.

 “I have a gun,” he motions for her to hand the Glock over. “They probably don’t. So it’ll be okay. Just wait here. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t go around snooping or whatever you want to call it. Just stay here and don’t move. Anyone comes in the yard, just yell. I’m not going far. I’m just looking to see if there’s electricity down there.”

 She stands at the top of the stairs, chewing nervously on her bottom lip, once more folding her arms across her chest as she watches him journey down the stairs and then disappear into the darkness. She can hear the faint drip of water,  the rustle of the soles of his boots as he passes over dirty and whatever debris may be down there. Then furtively glances around the yard and down the path towards the road, then to the back alley and up into surrounding windows.  Breathing a sigh of relief when a light flickers on below.

 “Be careful,” Tyler says, as he stands on the second bottom step and offers a hand. “The stairs are steep as shit.”

 “What’s it smell like?” she asks, as she curls her fingers around his hand.  “Because the last time you made me go into a place like this, I threw up in my mouth. A lot.”

 “It smells damp. Like a basement. Doesn’t smell like shit. And there’s no rats. So….”

 The cellar is impossibly narrow; he has to turn slightly to the side, shoulders too broad to fit in the space, and a protective hand falls on the small of her back, guiding her in front of him.  The walls are brick; cracked and faded in some spots, weeds and mould growing in some of the crevices. Floors are a mix of dirt and concrete; cracked and worn in a number of places.  Above them, bare light bulbs hang from a single strand of wire.

 “It goes pretty far back,” he nods down the hallway.  “There’s a couple of rooms off of it. Might be more.”

 “It’s like some kind of bunker,” she observes. “What the hell have we walked into?”

 “I don’t know,” he says. “But lets get to work.”

[ilguna]

Tacenda - Chapter Fourteen (f.o)

Summary: you’ll never truly be free from the Capitol.

Word Count; 3.5k

Warnings; swearing

NOTES: i give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

You sit on the edge of Finnick’s bed, watching as he plays around with a rope. He’ll untie it and retie it into knots to keep himself entertained. Here, in District Thirteen, it feels like almost nothing happens. Especially when you’ve been sitting in a bed for a while.

You had thrown a whole bitching fit when they tried to take Finnick away from you. Put you in a different room away from where he was. You told them that they couldn’t do that, and made sure that the message was very thorough. You respect, and you’re very thankful for them saving you from the arena, but Finnick is all you have right now.

You don’t have your two brothers, you don’t have your sister. Finnick is your only lifeline right now, as you think about the endless possibilities that could be going on with your family. Because Snow had taken one nice stop in District Four and with one foul scoop, took your siblings and Annie right the fuck out of there.

You have no clue what’s happening to them right now.

You told the doctors that you wouldn’t be difficult if they at least accepted your plans. That you want to be put in the same room as Finnick, and you don’t want to be hooked up to any machines if it’s possible. It’s not like you’re dying, and there’s nothing inside of you right now that would hinder your abilities to do anything.

You have a few cuts here and there on your body from running through the jungle, and from tripping and accidentally cutting yourself and so on. But those aren’t important. You understand that they want to double check on your body because of the poisonous white fog you had encountered.

As far as you’re concerned, though. If it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it. You’re running just fine. You can breathe, your heart still pumps, and you’re taking down food like a champ. So far, you body hasn’t even shown a hint of trying to end itself, and that’s why you think the doctors shouldn’t try and experiment, unless they know that they’re doing.

Because all it would take is one damn screw up. A little experiment of seeing if they can draw it out of your bodies and all they do is end up making it worse. Your liver can handle it, if it’s handled all the other shit that you’ve put in your body, then you’ll be fine. And it’s not like you guys hadn’t gone ahead and washed it off when you could.

Regardless, you promised to try your best and be cooperative as long as you got what you wanted, in a sense. So you took the cream that they wanted you to spread on the areas that had been affected by the fog, and moved right along. They had decided to bring you to him, since he wasn’t resisting treatment.

You twist your wedding ring, trying to keep your hands from shaking.

“Finnick.”

You look over to where the voice had come, and there stands Katniss. She had to have just woken up, because you haven’t heard a word come from her room, which is literally next door. She looks angry, and she alternates between glaring at you, and Finnick.

It’s quiet between you three for a moment, before Finnick answers, “I wanted to go back for Peeta, and Johanna. But I–I couldn’t move.”

You keep quiet, staring at the floor slightly. There wasn’t much you could do in that situation either. You were just barely able to drag yourself onto Finnick. Then again, she could always be mad about what came after. When she had woken up inside of the hovercraft and tried to stab Haymitch with a needle.

She has all the right to be angry. You guys more or less directly defied what she had wanted, knowingly. She wanted Peeta to be saved, she wanted him to be the one that came out of the arena alive. Not her. Haymitch had told you all of this, which is also a  good reason why you couldn’t let her in on the plan. Because it involved getting her out first.

“They have (Y/n)’s family too,” Finnick says, as if that helps. As if it’s supposed to make her feel better about her situation. So the both of you can suffer together, “They took them, along with Annie. They’re uh–they’re in the Capitol.”

You look up to Katniss now, to see how much her face has changed. There’s tears in her eyes, and you laugh, turning to look away from her. You’ve cried your tears already, you just want it to all be fake by now. One big dream and at any moment, someone is going to rock you awake.

Just like at the beach. Just like how Finnick had shook you awake. You want it to be exactly like that.

You wonder if you are stuck in a dream right now. Or maybe you’re dead, and this is your own personal hell. Knowing that your family is stuck in the captivity of the Capitol, with the full knowledge of the fact that Snow will go great lengths to make sure that you’re in pain. He’s going to do what he wants to your family, and he’ll do it because he has no repercussions.

Snow got Finnick’s family ten years ago. You suppose it’s your turn to suffer in the same way. After speaking out against Snow like that during your interview. After actively participating in the rebellion. This is going to be his way of getting you back.

You reach up, wiping your eyes with the heel of your hand. A laugh bubbles out of you, as you look at the ceiling.

“(Y/n)?” Finnick asks.

You laugh a little harder, shaking your head as you look to Katniss, and then Finnick.

“I thought I was untouchable.” you press your lips together, and then look down at your wedding ring, “I thought I couldn’t be affected, because it wasn’t me who was going to be the leader of the rebellion. I should have known.” you look at Katniss, “I’m really sorry, Katniss.”

A nurse comes down the hall, catching Katniss standing there. They move her back to her room, and it’s just you and Finnick in the room, back in silence.

“They’re not going to hurt them, (Y/n).” Finnick says quietly, “And you don’t need to be thinking like that.”

“Finnick, Snow went out of his way to go to District Four and get Annie and my family,” you shake your head, looking at him, “You’re being absolutely ridiculous if you think for one single second that he’s not going to do something.”

“Come here.” he says, his tone means it’s not up for debate. He sets down his rope, and holds out his hands for yours. You sit down, facing him and placing your hands in his, “Look at me.”

You’ve seen Finnick serious before, it’s not an outrageous thing. You’ve seen him determined, and angry, and fearless, and war-driven. You’ve seen him worried, and caring, and loving, and free. Throughout these years, you’ve seen everything you can come from him.

You look at Finnick, and you’re already getting emotional, because it hurts. And he sees this.

“Remember during the first games, and you kept telling yourself that you need to look up and not down?” he asks, “Because if you look down for too long, you’re going to think down? You’re going to think that none of it matters if you end up dying, anyway?”

You nod.

“This is the same thing.” Finnick says, “You thinking that they’re not going to make it out, is going to make something bad happen. You’re going to force those bad things to happen, instead of thinking up.”

Finnick’s right, as he normally is.

You laugh, looking down at the bed for a moment, “Thank you, Finnick.”

He yanks you towards him, letting go of your hands just in time so you face plant straight into his chest. He laughs at his antics, and wraps his arms around you for a hug. You do your best to hug him back.

“Tell me one of your favorite stories about them.” he demands.

You readjust yourself so you’re a little more comfortable. Even then, it doesn’t help, “Finn, you know all our stories.”

“Not all of them!” he says, “I didn’t know the one about the tree!”

“It was a useless story.” you giggle.

Finnick shrugs, “Then tell me the useless ones.”

You think for a moment, because all the stories to you, are just memories. None of them seem to stick out like a sore thumb. They all blend together, and you can’t even seem to find a funny one at first.

“Oh!” you say, “Let me sit up.”

“Got a good one?” he asks, letting you go.

You laugh, “Kinda. Did I ever tell you the first time I went to the square?”

Finnick begins giggling too, “No, but I have a feeling it’s a good one.”

You move Finnick’s left arm up, as you lay right next to him on the bed. He scoots over a little bit, and readjusts the pillow so you can be comfortable. His arm is wrapped around your shoulder, and he looks down at you, since you’re laying and he’s sitting up.

“It was before my mom had died.” you begin, “I was roughly twelve when Alyssum had been born, so I must have been ten or so. Reed was fifteen, Mox was fourteen, and I was the runt at the time. Obviously, that meant I would have to endure a ton of torment, no matter what.

“Don’t get me wrong, okay? I love my brothers as much as the next person, but what they did one day was cruel. The day I had first gone to the square, we had run out of the essentials. Like shampoo and soap and all of that. Of course, we could go to one of the local stores and try to buy what they have but–you know how the old lady was.”

Finnick laughs, “Cranky, and everything in there was overpriced.”

“Exactly!” You laugh, “And the soaps were specially scented, and that’s why she made them overpriced in the first place. The only times we would buy from her, was either for weddings or funerals. Which are the two most important times for a person. Not birth!

“Anyway, Reed and Mox knew full well that I had never been to the square before, and since I hit double-digits they thought that sending me by myself to get soaps was the perfect way to do it. Even if I had no idea on how to navigate, or bargain, or know what I was after specifically.

“Mom and dad didn’t even think to stop them, because they didn’t know!” you laugh, “Reed and Mox left the house with me to make it look like they were going to do it, because it was their job to do. But they handed me the money, told me the basics of what I was looking for, and left me on my own.

“And when I mean left–” you giggle, and Finnick is laughing too, “I mean, they fucking left. They somehow knew that the wrath of our mom was going to bite them in the ass so fucking hard, that they fled halfway across the district to be out of reach. And they didn’t come home until it was late at night. But that’s for later.

“My brothers were so fucking cruel, they had sent me there at one of the busiest times of the day, because there’s three. One, really early in the morning for the people that want to get the good stuff. The afternoon to two o’clock for those who have nothing better to do during those times of the day. And right after work for everyone has ended. Can you guess which one they chose?”

“After work?” Finnick is still laughing.

“The place was a shit show, Finnick!” you motion with your hands, “Mostly fishermen that stunk of rotting fish that had sat in the sun all day. My dad had plenty of friends back then, his buddies that he would go on the water with during the day, so a few of the guys had obviously recognized me. They didn’t say a word, though. Because they thought I was on a mission.

“I was clutching twenty dollars like it was the last thing I had to my name, wandering around the stalls. I nearly got stepped on almost a hundred times. Do you know how many times I heard ‘oops, didn’t see you there, sweetheart!’? Too many! And yet none of them had thought to ask me what I was looking for.

“I ended up finding the stall that I was looking for, and I waited in line patiently. There was constantly people weaving in and out and occasionally stepping in front of me because I was too timid to tell them otherwise. I’m sure had I told them that I had been standing there, waiting, for almost an hour, they would have moved, but I didn’t have the guts.

“We both know how big and burly the fishermen in District Four get.” you settle down again, “Somehow, by some fucking miracle, I had gotten to the front of the line with the twenty dollars. And with the little knowledge that I had, I told the lady that I needed shampoo and body soap enough for five people with the twenty dollars that I had.

“At first, she tried to treat me like a regular person, because she’s seen the faces. They come in and out, and it’s hard to keep track of people in four, because we replicate like bunnies.” Finnick is in stitches at that comment, “But then, after I had answered one of her questions, she ever so slowly looked at me.”

You do the same, looking at Finnick as slowly as you can, “She looked me up and down, and then said, ‘honey, you don’t belong here’. As if I didn’t fucking know!”

Finnick shushes you, but he’s laughing too hard.

“I told her my brothers sent me in, and she asked me where they were. I told her that they left, and if she wanted to find them for me, that she could be my fucking guest because I knew that they would be ‘out of sight, out of mind’ far. We went back and forth for a while.

“She asked me if I had gone to any other stalls, and I told her that I was only allowed to get shower stuff. She told me I was smart for not falling for any of the candy displays, but to be honest I was so fucking scared of getting stepped on for the thousandth time, that I hadn’t even realized that there were any.

“She gives almost double the amount that I should have been given, and leaves enough money for me to go and get candy from one of the stalls. She gave me a bag, and right on top, wrote a nice note for my mom and dad and she told me not to read it. I got to the candy table, told them that the lady had sent me and she said that she would pay for it.

“The guy gave it to me on the house, of course, and then I was on my way home. I enjoyed my chocolate, but still semi-oblivious to what had just happened, I tucked some of the sweets away for my brothers when I would see them at home.” you grab onto Finnick’s arm, shaking him, “Because it had been almost three fucking hours since I left the house, and I figured that they would be there already. But guess what?”

“They weren’t there.” Finnick answers.

“They weren’t there.” you repeat, “I gave my mom the note that the lady wrote, and I’ve never seen my mom so caring before. She made me, her and our dad, my favorite dinner, and made basically bones for my brothers for when they would come home. My mom told me she was proud of me, and that I did a very good job inside of the square, but not to do it for a very long time.

“She found the chocolate that I had been saving for my brothers, and cut up some even pieces that were absolutely way too small to enjoy and placed that with their dinners. I allowed them to have the rest, and then after that, it was a waiting game.

“I stayed up hours past my bedtime with them, as they waited in the living room with me. Dad was reading a book, I was coloring, and mom was coloring right alongside me. The thing is, about our old house, is that it was two stories. My bedroom, and their bedroom was upstairs, but my brothers slept downstairs. Making it more than easy to come in through the window for them.

“They must have waited a while, because when they did come out of the room–” You’re laughing now, shaking your head, “–they were dressed in pajamas, and clearly ready with a flashlight to come and raid the fridge. Did I mention that we were sitting in the dark, though?”

Finnick is chuckling again, “No you didn’t, I have a feeling where this is going, though.”

“They shone the flashlight right on us.” you tell him, “Forget deer caught in headlights, they were light a couple of truckers that had caught the fucking deer! Mom jumped up and off the floor in two seconds and she tackled the both of them to the floor before they could escape to their room.

“Dad lit a few candles, and just like that, they were in giant ass trouble. They got yelled at for nearly an hour for doing that to me. And to make all the matters worse, they had shoved the chocolate in their face. Not in a way of ‘she got it and you didn’t’ but more of ‘even after you did this to her, she wanted to give you something nice’.”

You snort, “I think that’s when Mox became so sensitive, it’s because of me. Because I was the runt of the group, and they teased me relentlessly, and treated me like ass and even though they did, I still would do stuff like that. Get them their favorite treats, buy expensive toys with my own allowance and all that.”

You sigh, placing your hands on your stomach as you stare at the ceiling, “Unfortunately, two years later I would be taking trips to the square more often. Dad had gotten busy, trying to take care of Alyssum and providing for us. The days that Reed and Mox didn’t have school, they would be on the boat trying to help.

“And then it would get so much worse when dad had died, and I was suddenly put in charge of the square and Alyssum at the same time, since they would be busy with the boat and all that. It’s how the people of the square learned me more, and learned to respect who I was and all of that.

“I was twelve or thirteen, still getting used to it all. And then two years later would come the games,” you look over to Finnick, “I think you remember how that goes.” he nods, “I didn’t really have a reason to go back to the square after that. Too much money to know what to do with, I could have bought everyone out every single day, but it just wasn’t fun, y’know?

“I could have bought anything I wanted. The expensive bread, and meat, and the fancy perfumed soaps and shampoos. There was no need for the cheap stuff in the square, but I ended up going there anyway. I would basically shower people with money and tell them to keep the change.”

It’s quiet in the room, “You’ve always been adaptive.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” you tell him, “It’s luck that I hadn’t been taken in the square that day. Or have had my money gouged off me.”

“Do you have any more worthless stories?” he asks, sinking down on the bed with you.

They’re not worthless to him, you realize. He thinks that they’re fun and interesting, and he wants you to keep going. You look over to Finnick with tears in your eyes, and a frog in your throat, “Hundreds.”

[dontgotothenetherworld]

ap psychology

anonymous asked:  Can I request readers putting all her studying off till the week before AP exams and she starts studying an unhealthy amount, like sometimes forgetting to eat all day because of it and even made herself sick from stress over it but reader refuses to complain because she did it to herself and Lydia's just there helping her review and making sure she takes time to care for herself ect? Bonus if Reader thinks she did bad and Lydia assuring her she did fine and has an 'i told you don't moment? 

anonymous asked: Totally didn't request that bc that's my situation-

for some reason when i tried to queue this w/ the original ask, tumblr wanted to put the cut in the ask and i couldn’t delete it

this is out of date now, but i was uninspired to write for a hella long time sorry. also! i’m going to draw from my experiences w/ ap this year, and the only ap exam i had to take was psych, so that’s also going to be the case for reader :)

also, i feel like my lydia is a bit out of character? idk it’ll probably take a while to get back to the way i used to write her.

1303 words

cw: femreader. food

you cursed under your breath. months ago, months! you told yourself you would start studying for your ap exam. you only had the one exam to study for, so you told yourself that if you just did a little bit everyday, you would be fine.

but here you were, about three days until your ap psychology exam, and you hadn’t studied any of it. you had hardly even watched the videos your teacher had posted as the digital learning content. but to be fair, the stuff he was talking about in them were the last unit or two of psych, and you wouldn’t have to worry about them, because you weren’t going to be tested on them.

you groaned and dragged your feet downstairs, to where you hid your backpack. the friday weeks ago, when your school told everyone that classes would go digital for a few weeks because of the coronavirus, your teacher had come prepared. he gave everyone that showed up to class, which, granted, wasn’t that many but still- a huge packet covering everything that you had studied this year. it was some forty pages long.

okay, it was, like, thirty five because you crossed out the pages about personality and disorders. which was a shame, because those are the units that everyone takes psychology to learn about. no one goes, “oh boy, i can’t wait to learn about how to test if a baby has depth perception!” or “i can’t wait to learn about all the different types of visual illusions!” but whatever.

you flipped to page thirty five, to see how many questions you were in for. just over 250, except that’s counting all the charts as individual questions. yeah, that makes sense. one and a half pages of listing what researchers discovered what is equivalent to answering which cortex of the brain processes visual stimuli.

wait a minute. lydia was also taking psych. studying sucks, but if you could do it with your girlfriend, that’d be so much less painful.

you texted her, “hey lyds, have u finished the psych packet yet?”

”yea i finished it yesterday, why?” she texted back almost immediately.

shit. looks like you’ll have to suffer through this alone. “nvm”

you looked at the time, 1:46. damn, already? it felt like you had only just woken up. you made yourself a coffee, and set up shop on the desk you have never used in your bedroom, with laptop open beside you. you planned on googling everything, rather than going through your notes, mostly because you forgot where you put them, but this would still take ages.

an hour passed, and you felt like you were dying on the inside. if you had to answer one more question about behavioral psych, you were going to scream. behavioral psych is by far the worst part of psychology! watson and skinner be damned! people are people not some computer code! people have feelings! you can’t just ignore them! and the feeling you were feeling right now was not a good one!

you wanted to stop, but you weren’t sure if you stopped now if you’d be able to finish the packet. so you kept on going.

you went another five hours, taking five minute tik tok breaks every hour to keep you sane. you looked at the clock, and realized you hadn’t eaten anything today. you grabbed a box of cheez-its and made your way back upstairs, and went back to work. this time, you ate a cheez-it every time you finished a question, or you filled out a row in a chart.

you didn’t know when you fell asleep, but you woke up in the morning with about half the packet filled out. considering the exam was in one day, and four-ish hours, you thought that was good.

as you made your morning coffee, you checked the messages lydia had sent you. “are you doing okay? normally we talk a lot but…” “wait, are you working on the study guide?” “y/n! please take breaks! remember! you need food!” “and water!”

you sent back, “if i eat my cheez-its, and i drink my coffee while i study, then i don’t have to take breaks.”

you went back to your desk, and plugged your phone in across the room so you wouldn’t be distracted. but also because you forgot to charge it before you passed out, so it was at three percent, because apparently you had kept it open to tik tok all night, and the video just kept looping. oops.

for a while, the studying seemed easier. you felt like you had less to do, and you didn’t need to worry about getting it done in time, because you had more than enough of it. but because you didn’t need to rush, you became more productive.

you finished the second half of the packet by six that evening. you do admit, you got a bit lazy in the last few pages, but it was done!

shit. studying isn’t just writing stuff down, you have to read it over, right? you don’t really study that much.

but you decided to take an hour or two’s break for… breakfast? dinner? maybe even lunch? whatever, leftover pizza, because you had just only now just realized the intense rumbling in your stomach.

you checked your phone for the first time in hours. you were actually kind of proud of yourself. you usually were on your phone every waking hour, which was probably a problem, but you had shown enormous restraint… by spending every waking hour staring at your laptop. it’s all about choosing your battles.

you quickly dismissed some twitter notifications before tapping on a new message from lydia. “babe, i’m getting really worried about you, please call me when you see this.” you furrowed your brows. worried? about you? why?

you called lydia, and she picked up nearly immediately.

”y/n!” she gasped with relief, “don’t do that to me again!”

you felt stupid for wondering what she was talking about, but you kind of needed to know, “what do you mean?”

”you’ve been offline for hours, and i couldn’t get to you! and then when i heard what you were eating, that got me worried. have you eaten today?”

”three slices of pizza right now.” you swallowed a bite.

”is that your first meal today?”

”unless you count coffee, yeah. i’ll do better tomorrow, i promise. speaking of tomorrow, we’ve got the psych exam, and i need to keep studying. i’ll call after the exam, so like three?”

”y/n.”

”yeah?”

”you do realize this exam is online, right? and at home?”

”uh, yeah.” you swallowed.

”and you have both a laptop and a phone?”

”lydia, what are you saying?” cheating. she was definitely talking about cheating.

”i’m saying, that you don’t really need to know the definitions, because our dear old pal google can be there to help you out with those. and you’re smart, so i assume you know the concepts.”

”you think very highly, of me, my dear.” you took another bite of pizza. “so, what you’re saying is, i wasted two days studying?”

”yes, that is exactly what i’m saying.”

”shit. wait, why were you studying?”

”ugh, because i am nowhere near as good as you at being able to understand things.”

”you know, definitions explain the concept too.”

”what are you saying?” asked lydia.

”i think we’ve both wasted a lot of time studying when we didn’t need to.”

”fuck.” lydia breathed.

”yeah, we’re both idiots. do you wanna watch something on netflix? you haven’t finished parks and rec yet, right?”

”no, i just finished an episode before you called me.”

”which one?”

”season four, episode seven.”

”wait, is the next episode smallest park? we need to watch that, like, now.”

@meangirlsx @meangirlmurphy @eliza-is-confused @boredomimi @book--butterfly

[chibinoyume]

Feb 15th - International fanworks day

So today I found out via this post that today is international fanworks day. As such, I thought I’d reminisce about how fandom & fanworks have changed my life, little by little. While I’ve been a fan of many things, to me, a level of love/obsession (and most likely, a ship) must be present in order for me to engage more in a fandom, read fic, make fanart, try to write, etc. Still, I’ll only mention the 4 most significant here, with drawings to match.

The oldest - Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X)

My first fandom, Rurouni Kenshin, made me interested in trying to draw (by copying what I saw), especially as it was an anime/manga, I had (and still have) the comics and so the source material was right there. Here is my favorite character from that series, and possibly one of the oldest scans I have from any fanart. Fandom was hard to navigate because I was limited by the glitchy websites that were the norm back then and I was barely starting to learn really basic english at age 12 (my first language is spanish).

The one that kept me sane - InuYasha

As I fell more and more in love with a different show, InuYasha, I still felt most comfortable copying what I saw (above is one of my favorites from that time, copied from a page of the manga), and sometimes, with a ton of detail. It was a hard time in my life because personal things, family problems, depression, school problems... focusing on something I loved deeply at 13 -and weirdly for a fantasy story, identified with- was really helpful. I felt limited because the difference in results when I copied an image vs when I made it up was staggering, but I still tried.

I joined a forum, made friends online (some of which I’m still very close to today -some of them I’d definitely credit with helping me not... take drastic measures back then), ventured to write fic in spanish and, something I’ll always thank my obsessive brain for, I forced myself to learn english so I could keep up with the new releases (it was either english or japanese, easy choice which one was easier). 

It was literally trying to figure out via context what the english subtitles meant, sometimes pausing every 5-10 seconds in a 20 minute episode because sometimes I didn’t understand a single word and had to look it up on the dictionary (google translate was kinda trash back then). My english wasn’t great but I tried. I couldn’t read fic in english yet, though.

This era lasted for a long while, I don’t know how many years. While I never stopped being more comfortable copying stuff, I did venture into doing my own little drawings and comics from my own head, based mostly on things I liked, stuff that happened in real life and my love for chibis has never stopped.

The “taking a leap of faith” fandom - The Mentalist

There were quite a few years where I went fandom-less (at least to a significant degree), I don’t know why. I found The Mentalist relatively early on, but since it clearly involves real people and actors, I couldn’t quite copy anything since realistic portraits have never been a huge interest or my strong suit. I started using pictures as references instead. I joined a forum once again, they had a lot of activities and I got to interact with people I admired, especially fic writers (by this point, I could read if in english, which was great because the ratio between spanish fics and english fics is... like 1:100. Also the source material in this case is in english, so...).

I didn’t know if my very anime-y style would be well received in the fandom, especially as I was probably one of the youngest people there and one of the only ones that came from the anime world. I tried regardless, I felt accepted, and eventually ventured into making my mostly pencil-only drawings snazzier with some digital editing. 

I dipped my toe in writing fic, in spanish and (gasp) in english, even if I was slightly terrified even with a beta reader. I also became very active in my deviantart profile (an art sharing website) since I hada lot of material to show and the fandom was also active there and probably joined Tumblr around this time.

I stayed in that fandom for years, through universities, made a lot of fandom friends over the years (from my late teens to my early twenties), mostly from the forum and ffnet, and because of tl;dr reasons, I had the opportunity to travel eventually and I had the good fortune of meeting a bunch of them in person. A couple of them we’ve met irl more than once even if we’re from different countries, and we talk online very often ♥ 

Also I started experimenting with watercolor, just a little bit, encouraged also by university. I did a ton of fanart comics, mostly humor. All the constant interactions with my fellow fangirls helped me improve my english a great deal, especially when it came to slang, and ever since then, most of my online life is in english now. 

There was this blog that did episode recaps of the show, I was somewhat popular in this fandom by then because I did a lot of fanart, and the person in charge of the blog commissioned me to make a drawing or comic per episode. I had deadlines and this was the first time I considered making drawings to supplement income, the opportunity meant a lot to me because I had free reign to let my fanart ideas run wild. I mostly used colored pencils. I think it was the most creative period of my life, I had so many ideas I never did, some because I didn’t feel good enough, lack of time/energy, etc. Still, some of them I’m still pretty fond of.

The current one - Blindspot

Again, it was a few years between fandom/a show I deeply connected with/a ship I fell in love with. But I stumbled into Blindspot (and Jeller) around July 2019, and you all know I love it here ♥ I wish I had found it earlier on, but eh, I’ll take what I can get!

I now run my own tiny business where I make stationery and apparel goods with my own original illustrations (and making commissions sometimes), mostly working in watercolor, and while it’s not yet at the point where I can fully support myself with just my income, it’s been a very long ride to get here. Of course it took a lot more than just fandom love, but I can’t say it wasn’t a big part of it.

Blindspot will end in 2020 but I still hope I can keep it and the friendships I’ve already made from it close to my heart, and that the fandom lives on. I certainly have lots of ideas pending, and as opposed to my previous fandom, I don’t want to leave any just as a scribbled down idea on a notebook.

[dandequill]

novel prep tag: blackbird

i was tagged for this by @magicalwriting! thank you so much!

in this tag, there are a lot of questions going in-depth about the wip in question (i’m choosing blackbird) and because of the detail i must warn that it’s rather long! also, because i’m still rather new here, i don’t really know many people to tag, so I’m just going to pick a few at random from my followers:

@three-seas-writes @the-moving-finger-writes @rewrit @anika-writes @spirit-of-helimire

and so we begin!

first look

describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

maria quintana (vain, moody, and a loser) and ingrid piuma (owner of one outfit, carefree, and also a loser) clash paths when on the run from a stuck-up aunt and stuck-up sister, respectively. they hit it off and have a lot in common, or so it seems; maria is yet to learn of the complex web of holy curses, familial trauma, and quest to halt an impending magical catastrophe which sets ingrid apart from her.

how long do you plan for your novel to be?

i don’t have much in the way of a length-goal for the novel in particular, but more generally i think the story could work well as a duology, with one story focused on maria and the other on ingrid.

what’s your novel’s aesthetic?

ooo, that’s a fun one. i have a pinterest board which does a decent job of encapsulating it, but think along the lines of gritty detective drama meets urban fantasy meets sweet sapphic romance.

what other stories inspired your novel?

the very earliest, basic idea of kids hunting a sleeping magical figure came from the raven cycle, but the story has spiralled drastically beyond that since then so the link has become very, very tenuous. other influences include fairy tales such as fitcher’s bird (+ a variety of other ‘rescued by the sister’ types).

share 3+ images that give a feel for the novel

as mentioned prior, there is a pinterest board with more images, but here are a few favourites i have selected:

main characters

who is your protagonist?

i consider maria and ingrid to be joint-protagonists, so here is a brief run down of both-

maria quintana:

- naive + sheltered; not much experience with the world beyond her hometown, so being forced to spend her summer in a big city in a foreign country isn’t exactly her idea of a good time

- daughter of two artists who rebelled against their families to be together; they want her to be better, she wants to be the same, and her cold-hearted aunt wants to warp her into something else entirely

- tall hipster lesbian gf

ingrid merlero piuma:

- laid-back + ‘eccentric’; changed entirely by the death of her mother a year before the events of the novel to become more aloof and self-focused, motivated by spite for her father

- middle of three sisters, all of whom have an agenda against their tyrannical father and rebel in different ways; she uses laziness as a weapon to diminish his control over her

- short punk bisexual gf

who is their closest ally?

maria and ingrid act as each other’s allies, plus a small gaggle of strange boys maria ends up living across the hall from (matei, evan, sal + dajuan) and ingrid’s sisters, sirena (elder) and jordana (younger)

who is their main enemy?

maria’s personal enemy is her aunt arabella, who drags her away to a highly academic summer school in a distant city in the hopes to mould maria in her own image (what maria actually gains from this trip is a quirky girlfriend and intimate experience with the darker strains of magic); ingrid’s primary enemy is her father, whom she suspects of being involved in dubious criminal activity as well as more generally being a control-obsessed patriarch; the sleeping sorcerer at the heart of said dubious criminal activity is the eventual enemy for both.

what do they want more than anything?

maria wishes to follow her own heart and desires unhindered, living a romanticised version of life in which she avoids all pitfalls and suffering; ingrid wishes to move into her own place and not have to worry about generational curses any more.

why can’t they have it?

maria, as one might guess, is more entrenched in fantasy than reality, and has yet to understand that reality is more complex than what she desires and therefore she can never live entirely free of hurt; ingrid’s father is into some dodgy stuff and she and her sisters feel an obligation to stop him from hurting anyone else before they get on with their own lives

what do they wrongly believe about themselves?

maria believes she is infallible and untouchable, beyond the touch of the harsh realities of life which affect everyone around her; ingrid feels obliged to act as a saviour and impede every one of her father’s schemes, as well as having a myriad of self-esteem and confidence issues stemming from the trauma of her father’s emotional abuse and manipulation

draw your protagonist! (or share a description)

whoops i may do digital art but i am yet to draw either of these babes-

maria: lanky lady (5”11), hispanic-coded (story set in a fantasy world, not real world), the fluffiest hair imaginable on a human being, eyes that she considers dull and pebble-y but which ingrid cornily compares to the pristine cuorren sea, freckles everywhere, makes and patchily mends her own clothes to imitate her parents’ messy artfulness

ingrid: short queen (5”4-5), hispanic-coded with a slightly darker complexion than maria, shoulder-length black hair (often twisted back into the smallest ponytail on the face of the earth), lighter green eyes, also peppered with freckles, wears the same plain jeans and shirt everywhere, every day, much to the chagrin of maria

plot points

what is the internal conflict?

maria must come to terms with the harsh realities of life and the flawed way in which she sees the world; ingrid must overcome family-related trauma and not project her pain onto maria

what is the external conflict?

maria’s family conflict with her aunt; ingrid’s struggle against her father; the eventual conflict with the (no longer) sleeping sorcerer

what is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?

maria could have her romanticised illusions of life shattered suddenly and horrifically as opposed to broken down gradually (ie a sudden tragedy befalling herself, ingrid, her parents); ingrid could be forever trapped by something or someone even after she escapes her father, cursed to never have her own personal freedom

what secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

i haven’t settled on the specifics yet, but it will be ingrid revealing one of her many personal secrets to maria in a way that completely changes maria’s view of her and, subsequently, their relationship; this could be the death of ingrid’s mother, the abuse from her father, her father’s madness and obsession with the sleeping sorcerer, or another, slightly smaller secret

do you know how it ends?

i have revised a few potential endings, but am yet to pick on the specifics; so far it is still a vague idea

what is the theme?

found family, fantasy vs reality, personal freedom vs duty to community, different types of love and relationship, death and mortality

what is a recurring symbol?

imagery of birds may be stereotypical, but it’s my favourite, and features heavily in a novel called ‘blackbird’ (this... should not be surprising) - different birds are associated with different characters and relationships, and are used to signal/foreshadow events attached to their respective characters. blackbirds themselves are attached to ingrid.

where is the story set? (share a description!)

the name of the city where it’s set is cuorren, which i once described to a friend as ‘seaside rome with a gang problem’ - here are a few images i assembled on the pinterest board which have inspired the setting:

do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

i know the opening scenes more or less off by heart; i also have maria + ingrid’s first kiss, the first time maria visits ingrid’s troubled house, and a few other cutesy scenes of them together (i... should probably write more off this story beyond romantic escapades...)

what excites you about this story?

the themes are very important to me personally and i love that i get to express them through the medium of sapphic romance and dark fantasy, two of my greatest joys in life!

tell us about your usual writing method!

it doesn’t exist

uhhh... i have a planning document on the go and the first few scenes set out, but honestly every time i try to write beyond them, i panic and feel like i don’t know what i’m doing and go back to the plan. so i guess that makes me a planner over a pantser. which, believe me, has not always been true!

if you have made it this far into the post, thank you so much for reading! i hope this has been a good insight into my favourite of my three projects.

- m.b.

[mysticsparklewings]

2019 Art Summary!

It's that time again when we all look back on the year we've had and reflect, and then look forward to what's to come in the New Year. This only my second year doing a yearly Art Summary piece (I didn't miss February like I did last year!) but I'm grateful for the tradition now. Looking back, 2019 had a lot going on for me and my art; I started out not that different from how I've been handling my art and myself online for the past couple of years, but as the year went on, I feel like I've done a lot of growing, finding myself, and even though I didn't start off in a terrible place, I think I'm in a much better one now. This really was a year of tremendous personal growth for me, both in art and just in life, and I can only hope that continues through the New Year and beyond. (As sappy as that is to say, I really mean it.) That said, let's look back on 2019 in a little more detail, shall we? January: Birthday Wishes I actually didn't have a ton of options to choose from for this month, as I think I was a little burnt out from the last couple of months in 2018 and giving myself some breathing room.  Still, this Shopkin colored to match my actual birthday cake actually remains one of my favorite mixed media pieces I've done. I don't know why, there's just something I really enjoy about how it turned out, for as simple as it is.  And for the record, I think I will be doing another custom Shopkin drawing for my birthday again this year, but I haven't decided anything beyond that yet. February: Floating Away (+ Time Lapse!) So as I mentioned earlier, on last year's Art Summary I discovered I didn't have any submissions dated in February and I hadn't yet gotten in the habit of documenting completion dates for my artwork, and so I didn't have an artwork to put there that I could definitively say was done in February. This year, however, February was actually one of my busiest months and I had a pretty wide variety to choose from. I ended up going with my little hot air balloon, as while it's a bit different from my normal work, I still think it's really cute and it also represents one of my attempts to start making videos of my artwork...Which I've been too lazy to do since the few attempts I did during this month... But who knows? I have a better camera and slightly larger workspace at my disposal, so perhaps I'll try again and be a little less lazy about that in 2020. March: Once a Killjoy, Always a Killjoy Oh boy, if past-me had only known what was to come later this year! March saw a lot of pieces from me practicing with watercolor and new supplies, but I think my favorite to come out of the month was my annual artwork to honor March 22nd, the anniversary of when My Chemical Romance, my favorite band, broke up. Only this time instead of doing pure fanart, I made myself into a Killjoy for the occasion.  (The design of which needs to be revamped a little because my hair is purple now, but that just means I already have one option for the anniversary this coming year!) And once again, this is a mixed media piece that I look back on very fondly. The concept is fun and the end result looks pretty cool. April: Doodle Moon I leaned pretty heavily into honing my watercolor craft in April, and among those efforts, this one is definitely my favorite. (Even if it doesn't fit on this template very nicely ) This one was a bit of an experiment in branching my traditional and digital art together in a different way, and I still really love how it turned out. Although unfortunately, I've yet to return to this technique, simply because I feel weird a lot of the time about "half finishing" a traditional piece and then making a lot of modifications to it digitally. It feels like cheating or being fake in a way to me. But I think I get that hangover from the concept of editing photos online and then passing them off as real & unedited...in which case it's a personal problem that I just need to deal with on my own. May: Butterfly Babe I didn't have a ton of artwork in May, but what I did have were usually bigger/more involved pieces, and this one is no different. I think 2019 is the year when I really came into owning my love for mixed media (which comes in large part from "I'm not good at x thing with y supply, but I can do x effect with z supply really well!") and this piece is a really great example of that. Once again, still one of my favorites and the scan really doesn't do it just with all the sparkle/metallic accents I incorporated. And I think I want to do more involved almost crafty projects like this more often, but that usually comes down to having the right inspiration to make it happen. June: Bug Girl Funnily enough, June 2019 is now my busiest month of all-time (in the almost 9 years I've been here on dA), and yet I only had one "real" piece of art for the Summary.  This was the month when I really got heavy into making my own Swatch Charts/Swatching Resources, and while some did carry over into July, the bulk of it was posted in June. I have to say, I don't think a ton of other people are using the charts, but I've certainly been getting good use out of them! And if I'm being honest I mostly wanted them for my own personal use anyway.  But for the artwork that you see here, this is another mixed media piece, this time commemorating one of my favorite books I've read this year, How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow. The artwork itself had some annoying problems in development, but the result is really beautiful to me, and so I think it was worth it in the end. July: Homemade Mini Sketchbooks! This month is more of a craft project than artwork, but I couldn't help myself as these little sketchbooks I made myself are probably one of my most favorite projects I did in 2019, and these first two spawned many more afterward.  It's funny to me because I've always wanted a way to combine my loves of books and art beyond just illustrating my writing (which isn't always something I feel like doing) and this, while maybe not a perfect solution, is definitely a unique way to do that. Plus, while making each book does take a little while, it is usually a pretty fun process now that I've gotten the better hang of it. These first two books aren't perfect, but they kicked off something I think I'll be sporadically doing for a good while to come. August: Mon Cher It feels like a lot happening this month, despite not having quite as much art as other months this past year. The month started off with the end of our family vacation, and I posted a journal when I got back where you can see that part of the reason this month felt so busy is that this is probably when I had the most new art supplies available to me to test out/play with during the year, including some items that I got at the tail end of July.  Out of the options I had though, this artwork seemed like the best choice to represent this month, as just like in April I leaned pretty heavily into using and practicing with watercolors and painting in general (as I dipped my toes into seriously painting with Acrylics this month too) and this is one of my more ambitious watercolor pieces. As I said when I first posted it, it has its mistakes and growing pains, but I still think it's really lovely. September: Fly By the Moon I was actually surprised, looking back, at how busy September was. My second acrylic painting (this one more in-depth than the first), an array of cute kitty drawings which have sort of become a series now, some personal pieces, and two contest entries. (One of which actually won!) I went with the acrylic painting since I'm still very proud of how it turned out, given that I don't use acrylics terribly often and hardly ever I go for realism (even semi-realism like this painting) either. Plus, this one is a nice memory of the two real luna moths that visited us, and I had to admit that it is just really nice to have a full painting on a canvas to hang up too.  I haven't done much more with acrylic painting yet, but I definitely want to. My main issue is that for me it's hard deciding on a good subject for the way I like to paint that I don't feel like would look equally as good if not better with a different medium. But hopefully, I'll find more excuses to break out the acrylics in 2020. October: Ink Dance Oh boy, what a month this was!  Inktober, new mini-magnets, trying gouache for the first time, and on the very last day the news of the decade (at least for me) that My Chemical Romance is back!  I followed my same principle as the art summary last year where it just doesn't feel fair to pick a favorite Inktober or use the wrap-up picture, so that left me with my gouache pieces or this one that looks more like a normal person's Inktober artwork, and out of my options, this is the one I like best. The gouache paintings aren't bad, I just need more practice and this one has more charm to me. And it's also funny to me that I was so concerned about ending up hating this one for the stippling and yet it turned out to be one of my favorites from this year. November: I will be with You The artwork for this month was pretty much a no-contest. I made this piece as a love letter to My Chemical Romance after the news of their Return, and likewise, I poured my heart and soul into it. It just might be one of my most favorite artworks to date; perhaps even worthy of being a "portfolio piece" on my website. Even more so after the fact now that I've seen the Return concert (albeit over a Livestream and not in person because California is like 2-3,000 miles away from me ). I was pretty busy throughout the month trying to keep up with a prompt challenge from Art Philosophy, but even so, I pushed myself to get this piece done and I'm so glad I did. December: Daises on Strawberry Hill Ah, and here we are at the very last. It's funny, the first half of this month seemed to drag by pretty slowly, but then after the second week things picked up pretty quickly (what with the Return concert and all) and I have to agree with my mom that Christmas went by so fast we almost missed that it happened at all. I don't have as much to show for this month, but that's in large part because I've been taking time off for my mental health and to spend time with and enjoy my family. I'm pretty happy with everything I produced this month, but my Looking for Alaska inspired art is definitely my favorite of the bunch. It's very graphic-design-ish and despite at the time having been done rather quickly and not super precisely, looking at it now it reads very cleanly. It's a little outside my normal art realm, but if anything I think that makes it stronger on its own.  I'm still chipping away at my longer review of the Hulu series I originally made it to talk about (like I said when I posted it, I have a lot of thoughts I want to talk about and not rush through), so I am indeed still planning on finishing and posting those...I just don't know when that'll be, considering I've already got a bit of a content schedule for myself going into the New Year, but eventually! Eventually, it'll be done! Overall, I'm honestly very happy with what I've managed to accomplish this year. Just like last year, I did a lot of experimenting with new supplies and new mediums--this time some I thought I'd never touch--and I hit even more milestones, including my first Daily Deviation in November. I feel like I've grown significantly more as an artist and a person this year though than I did last year. And in many ways, I feel like this year has renewed my confidence in my own skills and work. I'm not much of a "New Years' Resolution" type person, as I think the concept as tied to that particular phrase has been...I'll be generous and say overinflated and mistreated...but some of my Art Goals for 2020 are: Post more consistently/regularly (which I worked on a lot in 2019 too) Be more active & engaged on social media (I've already started working on this a little, but for some reason, this is honestly kind of hard for me as I always debate what's worth sharing online and what isn't ) Promote me and my work/art outlets more (Also something I find hard to do) Keep experimenting (Not really a goal so much as my artistic state of existence but whatever ) This past year has been one heck of a wild ready, but I'm more than ready to see what 2020 has in store for me. Cheers for the New Year ahead! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings Art Summary Template: 2019 Summary of Art Template (Blank) ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[trulymightypotato]

On the Comparative Value of Labor

A few people have told me recently that I should pick up x or y thing and make money with it on the side: knitting, cross-stitching, so on and so forth. “You can sell little embroidered key chains for five bucks some weekend and make some pocket change!” they say, completely unaware that that’s nowhere near the right amount of money to even break even with the cost of material and time that I put into it.

Especially considering that I’m slower at these tasks than most people.

This is, largely, because knitting and cross-stitch are tasks with extremely fine motor control--tasks I struggle with on a daily basis due to both the strain it puts on my joints and my general lack of fine motor control in the first place.

I’m familiar with the basics of both trades. I’ve knitted (though the most complicated thing I’ve ever managed is a scarf, because uneven yarn tension doesn’t matter so much there) and I’ve done a wide variety of embroidery (my current project is a set of throw pillows for a cousin’s wedding gift--a project, that despite the low surface area of the pillows that’s being covered, has taken me six months and I’m still not done).

One of my roommates can pick up crochet and make a scarf in a matter of days.

And yet the scarf that I spent four weeks knitting non-stop to get done in time for Christmas and the scarf my roommate made in a week would be valued the same--if not hers as a higher worth, because she’s able to control the yarn and make for a smoother finished project.

Despite the fact that a keychain-sized cross-stitch item would cost me materials and about four hours of time, it would be valued at five dollars.

My work, at a detail that causes me pain, is valued at $1.25 an hour.

You might be able to see the problem here.

This applies to more than the physical crafts.

It applies to "The market price is crap and also based on people who work faster than you do because they’re not in pain.”

I do digital art. I do it when I have the time and a subject in mind, which means it happens less often than I’d like. I’ve done commissions before, too, and contracted work.

The thing is, even though my commissions are “too expensive,” they’re honestly not costly enough. Not only is someone paying for a digital product, but they’re also paying for my time, for the experience I have in digital work, my style, and the physical effort it takes for me to actually complete a piece with intensive feedback. A total of three (3) people have ever commissioned me, and while I’m glad one of them has repeatedly come back for more, it’s disheartening to see the vast majority of people aren’t interested in paying a still-too-low wage.

As for that contract work I did--legally speaking, I’m not allowed to divulge details, but know that because “it’s a lot of work you’ll get paid plenty by the time it’s all over” I did intensive pieces and got paid under half of what I should have been. By the time I found out how much work there really was, and the changes the other party demanded months after getting a final piece sent to them, I was locked into a contract that didn’t give me any hope for improvement. (Also, they wouldn’t pay me for months at a time and got upset when I refused to hand over the final products until I got paid.)

By the time everything was said and done, I was getting paid about $3 an hour.

Somehow, because some people can draw faster than I can for the same product, that means I get paid less than a fair wage.

It’s one of the reasons commissions haven’t been open in a while. I can’t handle that again--both the mental strain and the physical damage caused by both working a regular job and drawing for another 4-6 hours a day to get stuff done.

It applies to “Other people have more time to do things than you do, and yet you’re held to the same standard.”

I record videos and put them on YouTube for fun. There was a period of time, about two years ago, when I was able to put out a video nearly every day. It was expected of me, so why wouldn’t I? And then, very suddenly, videos stopped for several months. Why?

Well, because I was taking 15 credits of college classes and working.

I would get all my homework done on my commute on public transport to and from college and in the breaks between classes. On particularly rough days I’d do a few more hours of it when I got home.

Then I’d have an irregularly-scheduled job where I’d work two 8 hour shifts back to back (either on sequential days or, on a few notable occasions, on the same day--you read that right, 16 hour days) and then a single 4 hour shift and then I wouldn’t be allowed to work more because then they’d have to start paying me benefits.

Because of this, money was so tight that some months I could barely pay rent, much less afford to eat.

I’d have chores I needed to do, ranging from the basic “clean room” and “dishes” and “laundry” (a task that takes several hours, assuming all the washers and dryers at the laundromat are working properly) to the more technically complicated “grocery shopping” (since I didn’t and still don’t have a car and had to rely on public transportation) and “scheduled appointments”.

I didn’t have time to put out videos, and yet I still felt I had to. My mental health was suffering to the point where my physical health was suffering (something I’m still dealing with the ramifications of to this day), and the only thing I could cut was videos.

So I did.

I stumbled through my last semesters of college (and I graduated with a GPA lower than I’d wanted but above a 3.0 so really that was nice) and got a new job--one that works me regular hours, even if those hours start at 4:30 in the morning.

And for several months into 2018, that was all I could do.

Sure, I managed to get out a few videos in that time, but I wasn’t really happy with them, and judging by the analytics on my channel, neither was anyone else.

It applies to “There’s a lot of invisible work that goes into this.”

I know I write fanfic for free. I’m planning on keeping it that way. It’s a good way for me to clear my mind and get creative, without the pressure of having a “final product” to show off at the end. I mean, I will have a final product, hypothetically, but I’m not really expected to show it to anyone in a professional context.

But then there are those comments--comments at the ends of chapters and in articles written by “professionals” and “experts.” The ones that say “Anyone can write. You’re just making things up for the fun of it, of course it’s not difficult” and “It’s been so long, when’s the next chapter going to be out?”

Except that it’s not so easy as that.

Yes, absolutely, I do it for fun. I do it for fun all the time. I do it for the satisfaction, and for the enjoyment of writing.

But the final product you see? Is not just something I tipped out onto the page.

In Royal Flush, for example, each and every chapter is started with a specific purpose in mind. A thing, a very specific thing, needs to happen. Maybe someone needs to learn information, or an aspect of 1920s culture needs to be showcased to better explain someone’s motives and actions.

All of this requires research. Research into clothing customs, and into social greetings and actions out in public and the customary ways to do such and such. Research into the vehicles of the time. Research into the medicine of the time (which is a particularly tricky one). Research into politics and public opinions and real-life historical figures.

The average chapter of Royal Flush takes me a week to a month to write.

This is a call to remember that just because a job looks easy, it’s probably not. If you think you can do it better, feel free. If you’re going to be That Person, then I don’t want to work for or with you. If you approach me on social media, I will block you.

Remember: for the vast majority of the “easy work for easy money” I perform, the work begins as soon as negotiations open--not as soon as I actually sit down and start working on the art, or the chapter, or the cross-stitch.

By engaging in someone’s work, you are agreeing to THEIR terms, to THEIR labor, to pay THEM a fair wage for the time and work THEY put into it--not your neighbor, not yourself, not a robot in a factory. 

You are hiring a person. Rates may vary.

[was-once-just-a-hopper]

Trust Issues | Darkiplier x Reader

Requested by Anonymous

~~~

The thing that intrigued him most about you was how much you kept to yourself, but when someone managed to wiggle their way past your shell, they were introduced to a whole other side of your personality. Dark himself had only seen it a few times when you were hanging out with Mark, one of your close friends. Something burned inside of him; he wanted to be that close to you, to get past your shell. To experience that other side of you for himself. So, that’s what he set out to do.

For a few months, all you knew was that Dark was being overly-friendly. He would ask you how your day was, actively talk, even play video games with you. At first, you automatically tried to block him out. Tried to shy away, hoping he’d lose interest. He was persistent, though, and you soon found yourself slowly starting to trust him.

Trust was a scary thing for you. You had major trust issues. Normally, it took you a long time to trust someone, but Dark acted like he cared so much, you just couldn’t help it... He’d actually listen intently when you talked, and the more he listened, the more you started opening your mouth and opening up. He seemed to hang on to your every word as if they were his lifeline, as if it was a precious moment to get you to speak. Which, granted, it kind of was. There were two sides to you; either you were completely closed off and incredibly awkward, or silly and eccentric and all over the place. Some people said you fit the Gemini zodiac very well.

Dark put most of his time and effort into hanging out with you, carefully building your trust bit by bit. One day, you were talking about something you were passionate about, and your eyes lit up as if they had galaxies swirling around inside them, and your voice rose and became confident and each word dripped your passion, and Dark found himself struck with how into it he got. This awkward girl who rarely said anything had managed to grab his attention and force him to the edge of his seat by just talking about something she loved. And as Dark sat there, gazing up at you as you stood there with those sparkling eyes, gushing about your favourite thing, Dark felt something in his chest. Something he couldn’t quite... explain. It was this really warm feeling that got stronger the longer he watched you. It was comforting and safe, and filled his chest and shone through his entire being. Dark didn’t know what you were doing to him, but it was taking his breath away, and he liked it.

~~~

“Dark! Dark, look!” You said, bouncing up and down in excitement. You nearly tripped over a chair and Dark saw, stifling a chuckle. He found your clumsiness amusing. Curiously, he never noticed it until you started opening up to him. That, and how disorganized you were. The first time he walked into your room, he found you looking everywhere for your phone and the whole place was a wreck, only to find that it was right there on your desk. He still remembered how you blushed in embarrassment and smiled.

“What is it, [Y/n]?” He just loved how you acted when you were excited. The way your whole face would transform from that large grin, how jittery you were, the glow that radiated off of you, spreading contagious smiles.

“Look!” You held up a poster. On it, was a printed digital drawing of the thing you were most passionate about. “My friend drew it and we had it professionally printed!! Isn’t it amazing?” You turned it back around so you could look at it. Dark saw how ecstatic you were and couldn’t help but think, Not as amazing as you.

“Yes, it’s impressive.” He said. “Would you like my help pinning it up?” You nodded eagerly.

“I want it right above my desk!” You took off towards your room, and Dark followed, smiling at your antics. He couldn’t believe you were the same introverted, awkward girl he’d met nearly a year ago. Back in your room, you were about to climb up on your chair when Dark stopped you. He didn’t want to risk you falling off, so instead, he reached up and taped your poster up for you. The two of you took a step back and admired it.

“I love it!” You suddenly hugged Dark, causing him to freeze. Then, he hugged you back. The two of you got caught up in the moment and ended up hugging for a while before you let go in embarrassment, your ears turning pink. You started to stammer an apology when suddenly Dark leaned down and shut you up with a kiss.

Surprised, it took you a second before you kissed back. Dark smiled into the kiss and so did you, and you pulled away, grinning goofily. Dark chuckled at your expression and you stuck your tongue out at him, making him laugh loudly. You laughed too and pulled him into another kiss.

Looks like Dark managed to gain your trust.

[financiallymint]

How to Write a CV that Actually Gets you a Job

Robots, not people, are reviewing CVs now.

It’s tough out there – how do you get a company to notice you? How do you get them to read your CV and go – damn, I gotta meet this one? Your first impression to the employer counts, and your chance is through a piece of paper.

As a recent college graduate or even if you’re still in school, standing out from the crowd can be hard; you still haven’t had time to gain cool work experience and your achievements may have nothing to do with the job you’re looking for (thanks education system).

Here are some nice tips to get it right and get that interview:

Add the right keywords

As I said, robots are probably going to be the first ones to review your CV. That means they scan the words in your CV and only let it go through if certain words are used.

Do a quick Google search of the industry or company you’re applying for; what kind of keywords would they be looking for? Would be it something like ‘digital marketing’? Or more action verbs such as ‘transformed’, ‘established’?

Make a list of the keywords and have them by your side when writing the CV. Try to pepper them in without it making it too obvious – the robots probably can detect that too (next thing they’ll be interviewing us).

Add your accomplishments

This may seem obvious, but I’ve made this mistake in the past. Instead of simply describing what you’re doing and what activities you’re involved in, actually describe what you accomplished with those activities. So instead of saying ‘helped students get higher grades’ it could be something like ‘increased 8th grade students’ average grades from 65% to 75%’.

If you feel you don’t have many accomplishments to show for, don’t worry – there are other parts of the CV that you can work on to stand out. Inventing an accomplishment may be a little risky… you never know what your interviewer might know or not know, and it could get a little bit awkward (oh I didn’t know your daughter also took part in the competition!).

Get real specific

When listing your accomplishments, activities and experiences, get very specific. Use numbers, names, data, geographic locations, things…

An example I stole from the internet: Directed 25 events per year, including events in location x and y with more than 20,000 attendees, each organised within budget and a profit margin of 10%.

Don’t be afraid to be specific even if the results weren’t that amazing. As we’ll see below, honesty can work in your favour.

Be brutally honest

What if you read this on a CV:

‘Failed to meet target sales by 10% in a junior team competition’

At first you may think ‘Ok that’s not good’, but then you’d be intrigued. As you read on, it says:

‘Due to this failure, we completely redid our strategy and finished 2nd place in the next round’

So include your failures and mistakes, as long as there’s an upside to it: you learnt something new, you gained a new skill, you then went on to achieve something greater, etc.

Failures happen, and companies know this. But it never appears in CVs because we want to seem like the perfect candidate for the company. We’re human, perfect is impossible. So show them that you’re human and they’ll appreciate the honesty.

And once you find the right combination between the buzzwords and the honesty, those keywords will have double the impact;

‘After failing to meet goals for the third time, our team established a new digital marketing strategy which completely transformed the system and increased sales by 25%’.

Don’t you see how the ‘establish’ and ‘transform’ are more believable now that you based them on something you learnt from a failure? This is big points in the eyes of the recruiter.

Simple but snazzy

Simple does it best.

Clear font, no over-the-top words and easy to understand. That’s what does it best. To personalise it even more, you can add some other cool stuff. Just make sure you have the content right first.

This could be adding a video, a portfolio, an good cover letter and interesting references or testimonials. This is your opportunity to really personalise your CV, to show that you’re the one applying and not the robot that’s scanning the CV. No need to go all out and send them the CV on a pink and scented paper – remember that simple does it best.

If you can’t be asked to do a video or a portfolio, the cover letter is your opportunity to shine even more. Some people say write the letter as a story, some say keep it simple and short. Really, the most important is that the letter is personalised to the job; meaning you know where you’re applying and what for. Do some research about the company and refer to some aspects of it throughout the letter: more big points.

Once again: buzzwords, honesty and simplicity always do the trick. You don’t have to write a story or draw them a comic, seriously.

Some other cool ways to stand out:

A resume website

An amazing way to stand out and personalise your CV even more: have your own resume website.

This means basically an online version of your CV – but you get to be way more creative and interesting. Add images, videos, articles and show your accomplishments and experiences first hand. Here’s a guide to create one.

A network

Show the company that you can hustle, that you’re willing to take it a step further.

This means networking (here’s a nice guide on how to be a networking BOSS). Meeting people, listening to interesting talks and seeking those valuable opportunities. An employer that knows a candidate goes to networking events will be 10 times more intrigued to meet them. It shows that the candidate actively seeks opportunities and works on improvement; an amazing skill and mentality to have in a company.

How can you tell them you network? Add something in your cover letter or CV along the lines of:

‘Attended several events on x which prompted me to meet x – a great mentor on x-ing. This has then lead me to achieve x,y and z.

Even if they don’t sound like achievements to you, add it in. Networking is a valuable skill.

Social media

Add your social media to the CV: Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook would be the ones I include. This can give them a little more insight into what you do and what you’re like (make sure you don’t have weird stuff on the accounts though hehe).

No, you don’t have to start tweeting every 5 minutes, you can simply be present, not active. It shows them that you’re a real person and that you’re out in the internet. And if they’re linked to your resume website, even better!

So there you go, some good tips to make that CV of yours stand out and get the interview.

My number one tip in the whole job application process would be: don’t be afraid to aim high. Send in your CV to companies you think have no chance of taking you – you might get a nice surprise. And keep doing it. The more you edit, write and prepare your CV, the better you get at it. Ask around, show it to your friends and family and use their feedback to improve the application.

Your CV is your first chance to grab the company’s attention. And if you’re going to be working there for several years, you want to get it right. Take the CV seriously, and the company will take you seriously.

Enjoyed this? The next step: interview and internship. Click to find out the tricks to get you through that!