#his facial features are already so............. perfect in an aesthetically pleasing way (to me)

[gorillaxyz]

i really like this angle actually omg. everything here just comes together so perfectly aghhhh i wish i could draw it. whatevs.

[vivwritesfics]

10 Things I Hate About You

Sirius Black x Evans!Reader

Lily Evans isn't allowed to date. Not until her big sister does. At least, James Potter thinks so. What better way to rectify this than to get Sirius to date her. That shouldn't be hard, right?

3.1K

Lily Evans was not allowed to date. At least that was what James believed. He believed the reason she wouldn't date him was because of her sister.

Her crazy twin sister who was a loner freak. She was pretty, sure. Just as pretty as Lily. But she was abrupt, aggressive and, quite frankly, scared most people off. She was unashamed in voicing her opinions, not giving a crap on what anybody thought.

Lily Evans wasn't allowed to date because Y/N Evans wasn't dating. It wasn't a jealousy thing, it was a protective older sister thing.

"You don't need to waste you time on the guys at this school, Lils. You should just be focusing on your studies and getting the best grades you can," she said as she sat, stretched out on the couch in the Gryffindor common room, book open in her lap.

Lily let out a huff and returned to her homework. She knew there was no point arguing with her sister. And, it wasn't even like she wanted to date anybody, it just would have been nice to have the option. Especially when James Potter ramped up the flirting.

James Potter. He stared at her across any room they were both in. Pranks had gone wrong because he was too busy staring at Lily.

He'd asked her out several times. But her answer was always the same. She always turned him down and blamed Y/N.

So, James had to come up with a solution. He liked Evans, so damn much, he just had to get her sister out of the way.

Moony would never go for it. He was already sort of friends with Y/N. Academic rivals who had found friendship. They compared homework, attempting to correct each other. Which worked out great for James, Sirius and Peter.

Peter. Y/N would never go for him. Especially not after she'd caught him peaking into the girls hanging room after quidditch practice.

That left James with one last friend: Sirius. And might have well as been perfect for the job.

Sirius accepted. If it finally got James with Evans, he'd do it. Plus, Y/N was a challenge. If he managed to date her, he'd hate dated the biggest bitch in Hogwarts.

Of course, Sirius had the impossible task of getting her to agree to go on a date with him first.

On Sirius' first attempt, he waited leaned against the wall beside the doorway into charms. It wasn't a class they shared, and Sirius only knew where she was because he'd asked Lily.

So, he'd skipped his own class and waited outside of hers.

The girls in Y/Ns year giggled and batted their eyelashes at Sirius as the walked past. He flashed that ever charming smile, but that was the only attention he was going to give them. They weren't the one he was looking for.

"Hey," Sirius said as Y/N walked past.

She spared him a single glance and kept walked, not answering him.

It was a good thing thing Sirius was a persistent person. He followed Y/N away from her classroom, towards Muggle studies. "You got muggle studies?" He asked.

Y/N snorted. "What do you think?" She mumbled. "Haven't you got any classes whatsoever?"

"I might," he replied, leaning against the wall.

Y/N finally turned to look at him. She wouldn't admit it, but she noticed it, noticed his rolled up sleeves, his loose tie, the way he wasn't wearing his robes.

Sirius Black was undeniably attractive, sure, but Y/N wasn't looking to date. And good facial features weren't the only thing that mattered to her. So far, Sirius was all aesthetically pleasing facial features.

"I might want to stay here and walk to you."

Y/N scoffed and walked into Muggle Studies, leaving Sirius where he was.

***

"I'm telling you, James, she doesn't want me. She wants nothing to do with me," Sirius said as they lounged around in the common room.

James shook his head. "Come one, Padfoot. Every girl wants you, so why doesn't she?"

Before this whole ordeal, Sirius had wanted Y/N, but it was in the same way he wanted every girl. It meant nothing and the feeling would pass as soon as something had happened between them. But the more she rejected him, the more he wanted her.

So, with the help of Remus, the boys devised a plan. They were going to throw a party in the common room. And if Y/N and Lily came, and Lily saw Y/N with Sirius, maybe James might have a chance.

They spent the afternoon preparing everything, getting records together and sneaking alcohol into the grounds. Using the tunnel that led to the shrieking shack, Sirius and Remus managed to get to Hogsmeade. From there it was easy enough to by something to drink and get it back to the castle.

By the time the Gryffindors got back from dinner, the boys had the party in full swing. All that was missing was people.

It didn't take much to convince people to join their party. First, second, third and fourth years were ushered up to bed, since the marauders didn't want to be responsible for a bunch of drunk Fourteen year olds.

It was Peters job to make sure they stayed upstairs while everybody else partied. Sirius' job was handing out the drinks and Remus' job was to keep things rolling while James flirted with Lily.

Y/N was one of the last to make it back from dinner. Her sister had gotten to the common room first, and was already sat on the couch beside Marlene McKinnon, drink in hand.

Once Y/N walked into the common room, she scoffed and went to make her way up to her bedroom.

But Sirius caught her, getting in her way and handing her a drink. "Stay for a while," he said over the music and the chatter. "Have some fun with your housemates."

"I'm busy," said Y/N as she stared at him.

Sirius insisted, pushing the drink into her hand. "One drink, that's all I ask," he said. "Just one drink."

Reluctantly, Y/N took it. But one drink turned onto two, and two drinks turned into three. Soon Y/N was dancing on the table to the Queen records Sirius had put on.

Other students gathered around, laughing and watching as she danced. But Sirius could see it, see her slipping and falling from the table. So, he strode over, pushing his way passed the other Gryffindors, who let him pass without protest, and grabbed a hold of Y/Ns hands.

"Let's get you some air," he called over the noise.

"But I'm having fun!" Y/N shouted back, throwing her head back as she swayed from side to side. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Sirius practically pulled her from the table. He wrapped his arms around her, leading her out of the common room.

Sneaking through the halls of the castle was hard enough on a full moon. But, with a drunk Y/N Evans clutching onto his arm, it was damn near impossible.

Sirius hid her in an alcove with him, holding his fingers to her lips as Slughorn came past. Y/N let out a giggle and licked Sirius's finger, but he quickly placed his hand over her mouth.

Once Slughorn was gone, it was easy enough to get Y/N outside. Sirius walked her down to the Black Lake, sitting her down against a tree. "How are you feeling?" He asked, sitting down beside her.

Y/N let her head fall against his shoulder. "My head feels fuzzy," she complained, shutting her eyes.

"That's because you've had too much to drink." Sirius pulled a carton of cigarettes from his pocket and pulled one out. He put one between his lips and lit it.

As soon as Sirius took the first puff, Y/N reached for the cancer stick. He gently batted her hand away, wrapped his arms around his shoulders. "You'll throw up if you smoke this," he said and Y/N just nodded his head.

***

She didn't want to talk about it.

Some Gryffindors laughed as they passed her in the hall, but Y/N's harsh glare was enough to shut them up.

She hid herself away in the library, in the darkest corner as she read through books. For one she wasn't studying, reading for the pleasure of it.

When somebody walked towards her, Y/N turned away.

When Sirius Black walked towards her, Y/N scoffed and shoved her nose deeper into her book. If there was one person she didn't want to talk to, it was the person that got her drunk.

He sat opposite her, drumming his black nails against the desk. "How you feeling today?" He asked, using his finger to lower Y/N's book.

She glared and lifted it back up. "Go away, Sirius."

"I'll go away," Sirius replied, "If you go to Hogsmeade with me."

Again, Y/N scoffed. But this time she stood up and walked away from him. She checked her book out of the library and strode out, all while Sirius watched her go.

Goddamn he wanted her.

He needed Remus's help.

Sirius met his friend in the Gryffindor common room. "We need to do something," he said as he paced in front of the fire place.

Remus was sat back, looking cool, calm and collected. Of course he was, he had virtually no part in this whole Lily and Y/N plan. "Do you think it's really fair that you're chasing her just so that James can date her sister?"

Stopping his pacing, Sirius stared at his friend. He wanted Y/N Evans and he wanted her bad.

Remus let out a sigh. "Have you ever noticed that she's always reading these romance novels?"

"So?"

"You'll need to do some sort of gesture, something big and romantic," Remus replied, running his hands through his hair.

Some big, romantic gesture, huh? Sirius could do that.

***

Y/N had never received a howler before. Never, not in her entire life. With her parents being Muggles, they didn't know how to send them. So, when the owl dropped the red envelope into Y/N's lap, her sister stared at her. "Who on earth sent you that?" Asked Lily as Y/N picked it up.

She shrugged her shoulders and unsealed it. Immediately, the red envelope and letter inside became a mouth. A mouth that started singing. "Oh my god," Y/N mumbled, hiding her face from everybody else in the great hall, eating their breakfasts. She'd never been this embarrassed in her life, not even when she'd gotten incredibly drunk last week.

The Howler sang Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen as Sirius came and sat opposite her, smirking with his ring covered hands clasped together. "This is from you, isn't it?" Y/N asked over the singing.

Instead of answering, Sirius climbed up onto the table. He sang along with the howler, kicking dishes of food away from the table. And, when the song was over, he held out his hands towards her. "Y/N Evans, will you go out with me?"

The embarrassment had turned into laughter. As embarrassing as it was, Y/N loved it. It was amazing. It was the most Sirius Black thing in the world.

But Y/N didn't get to answer him, not when Professor McGonagall came striding towards him and pulled him from the table. He waved at Y/N as he was dragged away to detention.

"What on earth," Lily muttered, shaking her head as Y/N stood up from the table.

"I don't know, Lils," Y/N said and ran office.

She knew exactly where to find Sirius. McGonagall had him in her office, writing line while she watched over him.

Y/N knocked on the door and waited for McGonagall to let her in. When she shouted, Y/N strode into the office. "Hey, Professor. As a Muggleborn student, I have some questions," she said and walked over to the window, pulling McGonagall's attention away from Sirius.

It took Sirius a moment to catch on. So, Y/N kept talking, kept holding McGonagall questions. "So, do how do Muggleborn students come to be?" She asked.

Sirius's eyes went wide. He stood carefully pushing his chair back while McGonagall was turned around.

But she went to turn back. "Like, do I have a magical family member from a few generations ago?" She asked as Sirius tiptoed towards the door. "And, how come Lily and I are both magic but our sister isn't?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Evans," McGonagall said, keeping her eyes on her as Sirius made it out of the door. Y/N got herself ready to run. "But I don't have time for this right now. Can't you see I'm busy?"

"You're right, Professor. I'm sorry," Y/N said and swiftly walked out of the office.

She got away quickly, before McGonagall could call her back and ask about Sirius's whereabouts. Y/N wasn't sure, anyway. Sirius was long gone by the time she got out of the office.

Suddenly, Sirius appeared out of nowhere. He strode forward and tapped Y/N on the shoulder. She turned quickly, ready to tackle her attacker, but when she saw Sirius, she relaxed. She went to say something, but he beat her to it. "Meet me on the astronomy tower later," he said and walked off again.

***

James walked towards Lily and placed his arms around her shoulders. "Word on the street is your sister is seeing Sirius," he said as they walked.

Lily didn't remove his arm, but she didn't give him the time of day, either. She just kept walking, as though James wasn't there. "So, now that your sister is dating, how about I take you on a date?"

"A date, James, really?" Lily asked, finally pushing his hand away.

James nodded his head. "If Y/N is dating, why can't you?"

Letting out a huff, Lily turned to face him. "Okay, if I go on one date with you, will you finally leave me alone?" She asked and James nodded.

One date. All he needed was one date.

***

Y/N made her way up to the astronomy tower. She was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a knitted sweater, keeping herself warm as she walked through the castle.

Sirius was already up the astronomy tower, a picnic set up in front of him. He had the blanket, the basket, a candle surrounded by food. It was simple food, sandwiches and snacks.

"Wow," Y/N whispered as she walked over to him.

Sirius grinned and spread his arms. "Surprise," he said and sat on one side of the blanket, gesturing for Y/N to sit opposite him.

She took her seat and Sirius passed her a biscuit. "So, what is the deal with James and my sister?" She asked as she leaned back, looking across the castle grounds.

Sirius shook his head. "He really likes her," he said and ran his fingers through his hair.

Y/N let out a snort. "I think the whole school knows that."

"No, I think the whole school knows that I like you," Sirius muttered with a smirk.

They spoke the whole evening long. Even once the food had been eaten and they were comfortably full, Y/N and Sirius stayed where they were, talking about their lives. Y/N learned about his home life and just how shitty it was. She told him about being Muggleborn and how spiteful her sister was.

They were sat beside each other, Y/N leaning against him as he watched the stars. "So, why don't you date?" Sirius asked her. "You're gorgeous, I know so many guys that would be so happy to be in my position right now, so why am I the lucky guy?"

Y/N shrugged her shoulders. "I've just always wanted to be more focused on my studies," she said.

Suddenly Sirius placed his finger under chin and tipped her towards him. He kissed her, slowly gently, eyes closed as his lips moved against hers. He tasted of smoke and mint, the taste intoxicating. Y/N couldn't get enough.

She ran his fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp. Sirius let out a whine and pulled away, resting his forehead against hers. He couldn't stop the smile crossing his face as they just sat there.

There were footsteps, making their way up towards them. Y/N and Sirius pulled away to look at who was approaching.

"Lily," Y/N said as she stood, moving away from Sirius. "What're you doing up here?"

And then James appeared behind her. He grinned when he saw the two of them, both of them breathless. "Thanks, mate," he said as he and Lily came up the stairs.

Y/N stared at Sirius. "What does he mean?" She asked, picking up her things. "Sirius, what does he mean by that?"

"Y/N, listen, you've got to understand-"

But that was enough for her. Y/N turned on her heel and walked away from him, running down the steps and back to the common room.

Sirius spent the next few weeks trying to speak to her. He waited outside of her classrooms and tried to corner her in the common room, but Y/N marched away from him, a furious look on her face.

She was furious. Furious that Sirius had just asked her out for James' benefit, furious that she had fallen for him.

She was hurt, incredibly hurt.

She hated the way she felt around, the way he made her heart flutter. She hated the way his gaze heated her cheeks, hated the way her hand felt in his. She hated the way he smelt like cigarettes, hated the way he tasted of smoke and mint, and hated the way she loved it. She hated that he'd taken her on her first ever date and hated the way she loved it. But, most of all, she hated the way she didn't hate him.

Y/N sat in the common room, reading her book. She was constantly looking around, making sure Sirius didn't appear in front of her.

Suddenly, a couple of books appeared on the table in front of her. They were held together by a piece of twine, held together in a neat bow. Beneath the bow was a small note, her name written on it. Y/N grabbed a hold of it and turned it around.

'Forgive me? - S'

Y/N looked across the common room, meeting his gave. She gave him a quick nod and went back to her book, a grin splitting across her face.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

This may be oddly specific but what the heck, how about a scenario with a g/n reader where they’re a fashion designer, and they’re talking with the Adeuce duo in Mostro lounge about modelling their latest designs for a magicam photoshoot, but Adeuce are too busy and can’t help, so they’re trying to figure out who can substitute on short notice, all while a certain pair of twins can’t help but overhear their conversation (delete if this is too much)

I fastforwarded past the “reader talking to Adeuce about their designs” part so I could get to the more interesting bits~

I wanted to actually write the part where the twins modelled, but I hit my 1k word limit just doing the build up to it. If you’re interested in seeing the twins model, please consider submitting a follow-up request when I’m taking new ones!

Model Jade though--

[Image used is credited to KawaiiR.]

Imagine this...

Not enough. The hit of sugar from the fruit juice you downed wasn’t enough to settle your stress. As soon as your glass was drained of liquid, you slammed it down upon the counter, head snapping to the bartender.

“Another round,” you grunted, motioning for him to make it quick as you slid your empty container over.

Jade received your cup with a sigh and passed it off to his twin, who had taken advantage of slow business to invade the counter space. Floyd was collecting glasses and stacking them into a neat pyramid. His heterochromatic eyes peered out at odd bends through the curved cups, shining with glee as he used his newly acquired cup to crown off the formation.

Jade’s gaze returned to you, paired with a fake sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid I will have to ‘cut you off’. Drowning your sorrows with drink is not a healthy means of coping.”

If they keep this pace up, we won’t have anything left for the lunch rush. And how bothersome it would be if he had to take precious time out of his break to restock on their beverages.

“Who cares, as long as I pay for it,” you muttered, slamming a hand on the counter. “Another round, Jade.”

“You are already incurring a hefty tab.” He shook his head--a polite refusal.

“Good,” you grumbled sarcastically. “That means Octavinelle gets another indentured servant when I can’t cough up the cash.”

Jade chuckled, bringing a hand to his chest and not making any effort to deny your grim prediction. “Rather than drag yourself further into the depths of debt... May I ask what it is that troubles you, dear customer? Perhaps we may be able to hear you out and assist with your woes.”

“I’m not sure if you can,” you retorted, fingers rubbing at your temples. “I’ve just lost my two models, and I don’t know where I’m going to find replacements on such short notice.”

“You mean Kani-chan and Saba-chan?” Floyd asked, propping his face up with curled fingers. His cheeks squished against his touch, granting him a more innocent look than usual. “They were with you earlier and left all in a hurry.”

“Yeah. Deuce had a Track and Field Club meet he forgot about, and Ace got detention with Crewel for failing the last quiz,” you groaned, “which leaves me without models for my new collection.”

“Collection?” Floyd’s face suddenly lit up with interest. “Like a fashion collection?”

“Yup, that’s right.” You fished your phone out of your pocket and unlocked it, pulling up your Magicam account. The students of NRC may have boasted magical pens, but you wove your own magic with needle and cloth. “I share the outfits I design and make.”

You tilted your mobile device to show your page. Each image cropped nicely, expertly shot and edited to perfection--very aesthetic. Floyd “ooh”ed and “aah”ed at the designs parading across the screen, but Jade’s eyes immediately honed in on your follower count.

It wasn’t celebrity status like Vil’s cool 5 million count. It wasn’t even decent-sized influencer status like Cater’six digits. But it was at least a few thousand, and numbers like that had reasonable sway.

“I could take pictures of mannequins with my clothes, but it just doesn’t feel the same as when real, breathing people are wearing them,” you explained. “It’s hard to find the right types for this sort of thing...”

The twins hovered over your phone, nearly cheek to cheek and shoulder to shoulder, as they absorbed your Magicam gallery. Spitting images, reflections with slight differences--the shape and colors of their eyes, the black tufts of hair that swung like pendulums, framing their handsome faces. Features delicate, yet sharp.

Your voice trailed off as realizations lowly set in. The longer you stared at the twins, the more pieces seemed to fall in place of the puzzle. “Tall, broad shouldered, and the facial symmetry...” You brought a hand to your chin, brows creasing in concentration.

That’s it.

“You’re exactly what I’m looking for!!” you blurted out, abruptly standing and seizing each of their hands. “Please, be my models!”

“Mmm? Sounds fun!” Floyd threw his head back and laughed, eager to be amused by something new. He turned to his brother. “Ne, ne, Jade~ Can we?”

“Hmm.” Jade cast a cursory glance around the Mostro Lounge. Not a soul in sight. Then he returned to your Magicam page, and its tempting follower count. “Well, the Mostro Lounge has been looking to increase its social media presence. What better way to achieve that than by cross promoting with a fellow content creator? And what’s more...”

He snickered into his hand. “I could not possibly allow Floyd, nor myself, to continue to wallow in boredom.”

“Then...!!” You clutched their hands tighter, hope filling your heart.

“We will lend you our aid for this endeavor.”

“Yes...!! Thank you, thank you so much!!” You clapped in excitement, your legs caught up in a little jig. “Oh, I’ll need to take your measurements, then tailor Ace and Deuce’s original outfits to your sizes. We also need to find a suitable spot for the photo shoot--a place with natural lighting would be best--and, and, and...”

“There will be plenty of time to sort those details out,” Jade calmly reassured you. “Ah, but first... there remains the matter of your drink tab.”

“... Oh.”

“Furthermore, since you are contracting us... You will need to draw up a formal agreement with Azul, and agree to his terms and conditions by signing off on the dotted line,” Jade continued, his tone even and pleasant.

You swallowed hard. A deal with Octavinelle? It may as well have been signing your soul away.

“You got it, riiight?” Floyd inquired in a lazy drawl. “Cuz you’re a fashion designer and all. You must’ve worked with contracts before.”

“You understand, yes?” Jade pressed, chiming in with his twin.

“E-Er, now wait a sec...”

“It’s just business,” the twins recited in unison--their smiles dangerously devilish.

[gojology]

Ringpops.

back to homepage pairing : gojo x gender neutral reader warnings : cursing, fluff. wordcount : 1688 a/n : i am so sorry for posting this late LOL, i’ve had a splitting headache all day and on top of that i had to make a buncha visually appealing aesthetic stuff for this so my poor brain is fried. welcome all new followers :) also this was rushed as usual... haha ████████████████  100% Complete. Enjoy your game.

    Valentines Day with Gojo was usually chaotic, but you didn’t blame him, it was apart of his personality after all.      He didn’t take you to any particular establishment, really. You were curled up in your bed, exhausted from a long day of baking goods, watching sappy love movies, and overall shenanigans. You didn’t particularly mind this though, a soft lazy breeze preventing you from overheating, you sigh in relief. It’s like the weather knew exactly what you needed for a relaxing evening.      Although, today seemed rather unusual. For the many years that you’ve dated Satoru, he never, ever dressed up. Usually he rolled out of bed, naked. A pair of grey sweatpants replaced what was usually his uniform pants. Just enough for you to see the start of his happy trail, in other words, a fruitful attempt of teasing you.      He knew that he was attractive, and you didn’t mind fueling his ego. A toned body, almost like he had been specially picked by some divine being and gifted with society’s standards. But he had actually picked out an outfit for this particular Valentines Day, which you admitted was nice, but you also didn’t mind licking your lips at such a delicious physique.       On the rare occasions that he picked out outfits, it wouldn’t be visually appealing, the guy only wore his work uniform or a casual t-shirt and a pair of shorts, or sweatpants.     Yet, today? Weirdly different.       Clad in a dark blue cashmere crewneck sweater paired with black jeans, he nervously picked at the clothing, fidgeting. You guessed he had gotten some fashion advice from one of his friends, as you also realized it was... Somewhat trendy. Chains dangling from his neck, a few from his pants as well, a designer belt... You had wondered who it was that was so gracious enough to make him hotter then he already was.     The air of his usual carefree personality was gone, which was one of your favorite parts about him, and he had insisted this morning to take you to an actual diner, which you rejected.       As soon as you turned your back to grab some more sugar, he pulled you back, hand on your shoulder. A determined look on his face that you could see even through his circular shades, clearing his throat.      “Hey- just to be sure, pumpkin... You’re not denying because you think I’m poor or some shit like that, right? I’m financially stable as all hell, and I’ll buy you anything you set your eyes on, seriously. I need to spoil you sometimes, okay?”      He spoke with a tone of nervousness, and you cocked your head to look at him, eyebrow slightly raised.      “What’s with you today, babe? You never do this sorta shit.”       Seemingly taken aback, he looked at you for a few seconds, unblinking. Wondering if it went one ear out the other, you’re about to repeat yourself before he shoves a hand on your mouth.       “I just wanna try something new, that’s all. Carry on, sweets. Need more M&M’s? I can drive to the store and get them..” kissing your exposed neck a few times, suckling at the flesh, he snickered as you gasped, and that was the end of that. ‧₊˚✩彡.     The thought never completely disappeared from your mind, instead it ran rampant. You were curious, after all. Why would perhaps the chillest and funniest guy you knew, be so scared and nerve-wrecked?      “Hey, hey~!” you hear a familiar voice ring out, and you pick up your head from his pillow that you were laying on, adjusting your eyes so you could drink in his beauty fully. He wasn’t completely in the room, his head was poking out of the door just barely.     “Finally, what were you doing? Took you a few years to come home.” casually getting up from your previous position, you hug your pillow, patiently waiting for his next sentence.      “Ah... Uh, nothing. Don’t worry about it.” he shuffled closer into the room, but he never quite came into view, the atmosphere of awkwardness was growing.      Rolling your eyes, you giggle, desperate to have the mood be carefree yet again. “You suck at hiding shit, come on, lemme see, what’d you get me?”       “It was supposed to be a surprise!” he said, exasperated, but he does it anyways.       A beautiful scent of roses wafted throughout the room, a trail of spare rose petals danced down as he strode over to the bed, a playful grin on his lips. You cover your mouth with your hands, squealing.      “Satoru! These are so pretty!” you ecstatically grab at the bouquet, the crinkling of the plastic music to your ears. You sniffed at the roses, pleasantly surprised at just how sweet they smelled. Vibrant hues of pinks and reds, small and large, a loose ribbon holding the bouquet together. Your smile is so wide, you struggle to hide it.      “Glad you like them, honey.” he grinned, taking his shades off and placing them on his nightstand. “Hold on tight, more to come, love.”      He takes a quick jog to the hallway leading to you two’s room, quickly getting out of view. Coming back just 20 seconds later, a teddybear half the size of him now limp in his hands, another ribbon around the teddybear’s neck.      “For you, my sweet.” he sings, setting the plush down onto the covers. You look at the teddybear, staring at you with beady eyes, and back up at Gojo.      “But babe, you’re my teddybear.” you cooed, hoping to get some sort of reaction out of him.      You see his facial features soften, before he immediately plants a sloppy kiss on your forehead, “Wouldn’t hurt to have another one, would it?”       You nod your head in agreement.       The chill aura seemed to vanish into thin air as soon as you nod, the silence was almost deafening. He stared at you, and you stared back, you hear your heart steadily pound in your chest. Usually he would make some sort of joke right now and then, but he seemed unusually serious, to the point where you’d be concerned.       “You’ve been acting weird all day, are you okay?-” you ask, but you’re immediately cut off. Gojo gets on one knee, and your heart races and you swear you see the light, playing with the hem of his jean pockets before pulling some sort of wrapper out.      A wrapper?      It’s a Ringpop, two flavors. Blue raspberry and watermelon, he hastily places the blue raspberry one into his pocket again, cursing as he struggled to do so, before finally repositioning.      “Will you marry me, (Y/N)?”      It takes a moment to register into your brain, for one, he was proposing with a Ringpop, but you guess that’s like him, his love of candy was absurd- but a Ringpop of all things?      You feel your face fall, and you hope he doesn’t realize. The thought was good, but it felt strangely.. Tacky, in some ways. Nonetheless, your heart is still pounding rapidly inside of you, and you’re sweating bullets now. Skin burning to the touch, you look at him, heavily breathing.      “Yes, oh my God, yes.” is all you can breathe out.       His solemn face was now beaming, eyes bright and twinkling. He seems to scoff, like he doesn’t quite believe that you said yes to such a request, but he doesn’t want to give it another thought.        Immediately diving headfirst into your face, your lips touch, and even though you had kissed him about a thousand times today, you still returned just as much passion. You felt like your whole body was about to give out, wobbling as he placed the Ringpop onto the covers.       Forgotten, it sat idly, but you didn’t care, and nor did Gojo. Hand now at the back of your neck, the other on your hip, the sound of sloppy kisses filled the otherwise calm room. They were strangely chaste, nothing sexual about them, yet they felt so fulfilling you wonder how he does it. He was unusually good at kissing, but you don’t want to tell him that- the egotistical bastard.      He pulls away from the kiss, and you whine, pulling at the collar of his sweater to come back- to please you- but he pays no mind to you. Instead, he rips open the wrapper, throwing it to the ground, pulling up your limp arm.      With a confident toothy smile on his face, he slipped the translucent pink plastic ring onto your left middle finger.      “That’s my middle.” you say, struggling to stifle your giggle. Who cared about getting a Ringpop? It was the thought that counted, right?      You still felt horrible, for whatever reason.       “I know that.” he doesn’t say it directly to your face, instead shuffling in his pockets once more, before he whips out what looks like a black cube. This time, you recognize an expensive label on it, a miniature velvety black box.       “I just.. Wanted to make sure you were committed, and that you didn’t want me for my money or some bullshit like that.” he grinned, opening the box, he doesn’t give you a moment to eye it, instead plucking it out and slipping it onto your ring finger.      Only then could you look at it, and you cover your mouth once more, tears beginning to form at the corner of your eyes. It was beautiful, truly, and you couldn’t explain it’s beauty with words. Glimmering diamonds, alongside a beautiful silvery frame- it was perfect.      “...Do you like it?” he asks, once again an air of nervousness.      Unable to speak, you hug him instead, now full on bawling. He laughs, rubbing your back, giving you another neck kiss.      “Holy shit, you’re so cute, pumpkin. Or should I say, soon to be spouse?” he cooed.     “Shut up.” you say, still sniffling, snot running down your nose.       He chuckles dryly once again, wiping your tears away with his thumb.      “If you’re not gonna eat that Ringpop, can I?”       “Zip it, can’t you see I’m crying, dummy?” you respond, still ugly crying. It was the best Valentines day you had ever experienced, and nothing could quite conquer it.          

[muwur]

snapchat headcanons

✧ hc’s ✧ for using snapchat w ur boi toi ft. the pretty setter squad

❧ gn reader

✎ 3.1k words

a/n: kinda a combo of how they use sc and the kinds of snaps they send you! along w wat u send them, and uh... dating stuf n shenanigans? texting/snapping habits? my fantasies? IDEK ANYMORE EOFHEFJ

this was born from the recesses of my mind , which desired nothing mor than snapchats from suga , us sending cute selfies , others bein dumb n chaotic , no context videos , n him snapping me photos of some mangoes on sale he said he’ll buy for me DXX it’s too late for me now

doing research on hq bois and surfing thru sc features (im just now realizing theres quite a bit?? im hoping i address most of them at some point lolol) instead of real life tings aHHhhhHAHA

requests: open! will be working on a suga one i got, dw, requester!

sugawara

✧ sends good morning and good night snaps

✧ so he’s rlly good at keeping streaks, probs has the longest ones (one of them being y’alls streak)

✧ posts tidbits of volleyball practice on his story every once in a while

✧ snaps you pics of his sleeping teammates when they’re coming back to school after a long day of matches , adding a single ‘❤️’ as a caption

✧ he will also create colorful masterpieces on all of them

✧ gives daichi a santa beard, tanaka a squiggly stache (i imagine it to look like spongebob n patrick’s seaweed ones now that were mEN), n kageyama sum angry brows,,, wait he already has them lolol u good der kags

✧ posts a picture of you when you’re hanging out, captioning it: “🥰“

✧ has conversations with you purely via snaps

✧ ranges from casual chats and checking up on u to crackwhoring ( ** indicates the photo, while the “” quotes indicate the caption, all snaps are italicized, otherwise its regular dialogue)

✧ suga: *peace sign* “hey sweetheart, how r u?”

✧ you: *pics of homework* “ahh, drowning in school ;-; i cant wait for this week to be over fghjkl”

✧ suga: *close up with :o on his face* “let’s study together tmrw!”

✧ or

✧ suga: *complete darkness* “its 3 am n i cant sleep”

✧ you: *the top half of your head, laying on a pillow* “ ;( aw babe. do u want me to send something to help u sleep?”

✧ suga: *still in darkness* “y u still up?? go sleep. n 🥺 yes pls”

✧ you: *snaps pics of feet* “that’ll be 50 bucks, pay up” 

✧ suga: *darkness remains* “can we make a trade instead? i promise to make it worth ;)”

✧ ok now u BOTH cant sleep (im sry my crackheading be acting up around 2am eeryday, i stan a mischievous suga--)

✧ video chats (in the darkness lol) instead until you both pass out (im not in luv u r 😭)

✧ super down to take filtered selfies w you

✧ does all the silly ones with you (things like ’angry face’ or the frog one)

✧ but also rlly digs lookin cute with you using some heart crowns, y’all an aesthetic (n crakhead) duo fosho

✧ def subscribes to life hacks and tries them out himself, has a 50% success rate

kageyama

✧ doesn’t rlly use snapchat too much

✧ but when he does

✧ will either send you a picture to indicate he’s at volleyball practice (wow wat a sexi lookin gym floor)

✧ or some random picture of whatever he’s doing at the moment (*drinking milk*)

✧ this is mostly in order to save streaks

✧ he’s so bad at streaks

✧ “why does it matter?? what’s the point of sending just black screens or whatever’s in front of you at the moment??”

✧ can’t keep a consistent streak for more than 3 days and also doesn’t care (until hinata challenges him to see who can have the longer one)

✧ when you send him videos of him playing, he really focuses on them to try to improve his technique. asks you to send those vids to him (assuming u saved them, which u did)

✧ but when you look over his shoulder when he’s watching a video and give him some compliment (“i recorded at the perfect moment! that was a really good set, kageyama!”), he gets a bit flustered

✧ gets even more flustered but pretty happy whenever you post videos on your story showing karasuno winning some points with captions like:

✧ “footage of the legendary quick >.>” or “karasuno crows flyin high!” or “these bois make my heart 😭 im so proud”

✧ you WILL catch him off guard in photos, using filters that surrounds his head w/ emojis like 🥺💖🥰💘

✧ you also put these on your story (to his dismay)

✧ ppl comment on these mor than anything else (n for those who dont rlly kno kageyama, theyre kinda surprised to him like this)

✧ hinata snickers “hey kageyama you look pretty good here--”

✧ takes some selfies with you, mostly cuz you want them

✧ saves them after u send them over (n secretly cherishes them)

✧ occasionally watches his subscriptions, they’ll usually involve sports, mostly volleyball (who woulda guessed)

✧ you use his bitmoji to test out random facial expressions you would never see him wear

✧ you: “can you smile and wink like this? act like you’re the obnoxious charming guy in a shojo.”

✧ will actually attempt, but it looks so bad that you die inside and he never wants to try again cuz of ur laughing outburst (you: “😭😭 bb im sorry i couldnt help it”)

oikawa

✧ literally sends you anything and everything

✧ morning bathroom selfie to show off how good his hair came out that day, saying:

✧ “he has risen”

✧ or “i woke up like this”

✧ and my favorite, “you’re lucky you get this content for frEE”

✧ selfies with iwa, who just looks annoyed and exasperated at the camera

✧ sends you pics of his lunch and snacks (“bet u wish u had milk bread too”)

✧ always packs extra milk bread so he could convince you to stay at his practice after school--

✧ FILTERSS

✧ I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENUF

✧ will either use the filters that make him kayooottt (cute)

✧ loves the ones named ‘hearts,’ ‘soft,’ ‘peach,’ ‘butterfly cheeks,’ vsco filters LOL, etc

✧ uses ‘big mouth’ when he feelin a bit sASSY; also loves to use this one when he rants, it channels his inner valley girl

✧ sometimes he’ll be snacking or drinking something while he does so (“hey guys today im gonna eat these milk buns from my favorite bakery and this bomb orange juice and complain about this little kid who talked smack to me earlier and almost made me cry--”)

✧ takes cute selfies with you, is an aesthetic selfie king, puts them on his story to show off he’s hangin with you

✧ but on your story you only post the ones he looks bad in LOL

✧ has separate stories for his every need, some r private (and lucky you, ur included in all of them)

✧ titles them ‘mean things iwa said to me today,’ ‘ranting hotbox + mukbangs,’ ‘a day in the life of oikawa,’ ‘volleyball 🏐,’ ‘unpopular opinions,’ etc. 

✧ fitting room photoshoots lol

✧ “y/n, what do you think of this??” “and this?” “oOH WHAT ABOUT THIS??”

✧ ends up calling you through video chat so you can live critique his choices

✧ “oikawa, please no, i can’t be seen with you in public if you wear those--”

✧ also changes his bitmoji’s outfits from time to time, hopes you’ll notice, but you don’t LOL (oikawa: ;((((((( )

kenma

✧ uses sc usually just to reply to messages ppl send him

✧ indifferent about streaks, but keeps a few with ppl he’s closer to

✧ mindlessly plays the snapchat games with you, finds some of them kinda cute

✧ you both made his bitmoji for him, dressing his up in the orange cat suit

✧ you also helped make kuroo’s and put his in the black cat suit to match--

✧ snaps you every time he gets a new game, starts playing it, and once he finishes

✧ started to post some gameplays and reviews on his sc story (might as well add them to sc since he was already on other social platforms), and ended up amassing a large following

✧ follows the tech and gaming stories on sc

✧ as well as the ones with cute animals--

✧ open to selfies with you, usually wears a calm expression and holds up a peace sign

✧ even occasionally sticks his tongue out

✧ his story is occasionally heavily bombarded with candids of him w/ pretty sc filters, all taken by you

✧ but of all the filters, you love using the clout glasses on him

✧ especially when he’s just minding his own business

✧ “kenma, in his tru habitat” when hes cocooned in a blanket

✧ “kenma, on his way to steal yo manz” while on his way to the bathroom

✧ “kenma, next iron chef. watch out gordon” as he’s cooking instant ramen

✧ “kenma” n das it

✧ but he thinks it meme-y so he lets you do whatever you want, kinda digs it

✧ you end up dedicating your snap story to memes of kenma and the nekoma volleyball team. ppl are in it for the shits n giggles n hot bois

✧ you later discover someone else did the same thing with their volleyball team filled with hot bois from shiratorizawa, and you befriend tendou and share funni internet tings

akaashi

✧ 99% of his photos include either you or bokuto or both

✧ bokuto spams akaashi’s story and contact list with selfies and videos of himself using weird filters, often gets you to join him

✧ has several streaks, but will send something with more substance than a black screen or his bedroom window

✧ will usually involve smthng that just happened to him or smthing he saw, like:

✧ “a kind older lady offered me some apples in return for helping her”

-or:

✧ “how do i break the news to bokuto that the yaikniku place he’s been wanting to go to for the past week ,,, is closed today”

✧ o n let’s not leave out:

✧ “is it possible to conjure a ghost using a wooden spatula, ketchup, and a chalk drawn hexagram? bokuto’s been paranoid ever since he tried last night and i dont know what to tell him. seriously, help”

✧ looks through stories occasionally, comments whenever bokuto makes questionable decisions

✧ also comments on whatever you’ve posted. his words range from “you’re cute” to “why,” depending on the content

✧ ppl know when y’all are hanging out cuz he’ll post smthing to indicate he’s with you, usually it’s some candid and you’re not paying attention

✧ appreciation posts for you as well! esp if you got him something, like onigiri or his fav, Nanohana no Karashiae , for lunch! (akaashi: *snaps a pic of his food* “thank you y/n for feeding me”)

✧ prefers video calling over texting/snapping whenever possible tho

✧ occasionally reminisces thru his sc memories

✧ enjoys the flashback feature and will send them to you and bokuto (cuz they’re about y’all anyway lolol)

✧ also has secretly saved a bunch of selfies of himself, consists of him trying out a lot of the filters (he feelin himself)

✧ you, one day, looking thru his phone and discovering them: “akaashi, you’re so pretty wtf”

✧ akaashi: “...”

koganegawa

✧ sends you selfies of him before practice

✧ during breaks

✧ and after practice, usually makes a comment about how it went for him that day like:

✧  “i hit a decent toss today and futakuchi actually complimented me!”

✧ that, or:

✧ “i got yelled at 17 times today 😢😩”

✧ has quite a few streaks, his longest ones being with you and hinata

✧ def uses filters

✧ tries out every funny one he finds and sends you videos

✧ “look y/n im an aaaaAALlliiEEENnnNNN oo oo hoo hhhooOOh”

✧ “now im a chicky nuggy!!” (chicken nugget)

✧ also enjoys the doodle feature

✧ but he uses the filter with the clout glasses unironically--

✧ usually when smth good happens to him and he feels happy and/or cool about it

✧ “just beat the boss in this game on my 69th try B)”

✧ “kogane, that’s--”

✧ plays sc games with you and thinks bitmojis r cool

✧ kinda sad he cant find a hair option that matches him tho lolol rip

✧ you: “you hair’s just,,, unique,,,”

✧ subscribed to anything sports and fitness, as well as pop culture so he can stay in the loop

✧ also watches everyone else’s stories, pointing out whenever he sees smthing cool and/or interesting

✧ “woahh, karasuno’s at nationals right now! i wish we could’ve won, but next year for sure!!”

✧ you encourage him at all his games, hyping him up irl and online

✧ “koganegawa: best setter 😍!!”

✧ luckily you didnt record the parts he completely messed up LOL

semi

✧ before going out with you, snaps you a pic of his casual outfit like:

✧ semi: “does this look ok”

✧ you: “babe you look great, tendou was just messing with you”

✧ will make unwanted appearances on tendou’s snap and complains to you about them

✧ “i didnt consent to being part of his meme page” and

✧ “okay, but he didn’t only have to share all the moments i messed up--”

✧ also indifferent about streaks but will do them

✧ sometimes sends snaps/streaks indicating he’s practicing his music

✧ when you see these you usually ask him to send you vids or if you can come over n watch

✧ initially is a bit shy about it but he loves what he does and you and knows you’re genuinely interested and supportive so he agrees

✧ secretly rlly enjoys having you as his personal audience

✧ lowkey into asmr, like the soap cutting shit as well as chewing crunchy things

✧ also watches food porn and clips of mukbangs, then can’t resist going on youtube and watching the whole thing

✧  “y/n, can we try this, it looks so good--”

✧ will also often watch oikawa’s stories, especially his ‘ranting hotbox + mukbangs,’ and makes comments about him being an idiot

✧  “this kid he’s talking about is a savage”

✧ but admits they’re quite entertaining

✧ just looks serious in all the selfies you take with him

✧ you: “can you look like you’re enjoying yourself?”

✧ semi: “i look cooler like this tho”

✧ sc memories filled with shenanigans from you and the volleyball team, doodles, and mirror selfies with him experimenting diff looks (you: “tendou, you got him way too concerned about this”)

✧ also enjoys showing off he’s with you, taking a short video of you when you hang out

✧ you: “semi, i look bad right now”

✧ semi: “but you can never look bad”

✧ you: “🥺 bb”

✧ viewers: “aw”

✧ shiratorizawa: “can he be this nice with us LOL”

shirabu

✧ his main mode of communication with you is mostly through the regular messaging app, so he doesn’t use sc too much

✧ also doesn’t care for streaks and is bad at keeping them

✧ will answer to you or his senpais rather soon tho

✧ but lets all his other notifications pile up a bit before finally going thru them

✧ goes through the snaps he receives really fast, spending like 2 seconds each to look at them cuz aint nobody got time for dat

✧ doesn’t even rlly open goshiki’s LOL

✧ you have fun using filters on him and taking videos while he’s just doing his own thing peacefully like studying

✧ it takes him a second to notice and when he finally looks up, he just gives you an exasperated look

✧ cue you cracking up with laughter bc the filter finally shows up on his face

✧ his eyes and mouth are now on mike wazowski

✧ that, or his face becomes so disturbingly moRPhed like an alien

✧ caption: “ken-chan, my future medical man 😍”

✧ “y/n, please, this is like the 7th time in the last 20 minutes--”

✧ finally convinced him to take a study break and hang out with you

✧ which usually consists of snacking and light banter while you lay your head on his lap

✧ and scrolling through snapchat stories and showing him what everyone else is up to and cool things you’re subscribed to

✧ “loooook, dr. miami’s doing another butt job! is this the line of work you’re studying so hard for?”

✧ “no, it’s really not”

✧ is actually very soft with you and likes having the photos and vids for memories

atsumu

✧ sends you snaps where his brother looks bad, captioning it:

✧ “this is evidence that im the hotter twin”

✧ likewise, osamu sends you snaps where atsumu looks even worse

✧ like, the mans passed out, looking rekt and open mouthed, drool seeping into his pillow

✧ osamu: “u still have time to break up with him”

✧ also lucky for you, atsumu also loves to take unflattering photos of you and send them to you randomly at like 2 am

✧ you: “nani tf when did you even take this??”

✧ usually posts a snap while he’s out somewhere like at a match, the gym, outside on a run, a party, or just hanging out with you or his frens

✧ however, makes sure you look good if you show up on his story cuz he wants to show you off

✧ doesn’t really care for streaks, but has a lott

✧ but also has a tON of unopened snaps

✧ is the type to send just a black screen n call it a day, or maybe spice it up by sending a pic of the sexi gym floor (a comeback) w his shoe in the corner

✧ will, however, consistently respond to you and kinda looks forward to ur snaps (secretly hopes you show ur face)

✧ but when you dont:

*in class*

✧ atsumu: *a smirk on his face* “your content’s kinda dry today” 

✧ you: *your sexi desk* “my nudez ain’t free, i demand compensation”

✧ atsumu: *grasped his chin in thought, but angled the cam up bc he needa hide his phone in class lolol* “what if i... take you out on a romantic excursion”

✧ you: * your face but with ‘sausage’ filter* “🥵🥵🥵🥵 yessir, what u want”

✧ rlly only wants to have pics of your face wat a closeted sOFTIE

✧ likes to have content on his flashbacks

✧ usually has other social media sources to keep up to date with things

✧ actually rlly digs using sc filters, mostly ones that’ll make him look like a queen

✧ captions a selfie of you two like: “me >>>>>>> y/n”

✧ but nearly everyone who comments on it is like: “i think you flipped the sign, bro 🤥”

✧ judges ppl who are into soap cutting asmr (you will never hear the end of it if you also like it)

a/n: sc kinda dying for me, my use went from suga to an atsumu to like nearly nonexistent LOL

also o gawd i already have ideas here n there for a pt 2 so stay tuned fjxnwfesd hope it takes me less long cuz this one took me fkin foreva LOL

idk y i made semi like mukbangs but i feel like he’d be rlly into them--

[yandearest]

May The Odds Be Ever in Your Favor (Hoseok x Reader Hunger Games AU) Chapter 1: The Reaping

Summary - Living in District 4 you never thought you would have to worry about being selected for the Hunger Games. With a training centre right near the dock of the houseboat you lived and fished from, your district was known for volunteers who trained their whole lives for a shot at glory and riches. But at age 18, your name is called and no girls volunteer to take your place. Your devastation is answered when Kim Namjoon volunteers for the males shortly after. Tall, muscular, highly intelligent and charming, the years of diligent preparation have bestowed Namjoon with the expectation of being the next District 4 champion after Finnick Odair last won 3 years ago.

Fishing for a living has granted you skills with a knife but, as your mentor Finnick is quick to describe, your beautiful face may well be your best asset.

Upon arrival in the Capitol you are quickly faced with the reality that Namjoon may not even be the biggest danger inside the Arena. Especially when you capture the obsessive attention of District 2′s own volunteer, and killing machine, Jung Hoseok. Hope soon fades from ‘survival’ to ‘the mercy of a painless death’ but Hoseok certainly has other plans.

Pairing - Hoseok x (fem)Reader 

Genre - thriller, angst, yandere

Word Count 4.6K

Warnings - [in later chapters] major character death, graphic depictions of violence, swearing, obsession, dubcon-smut (smut will be marked so reading is optional), gore, unrealistically beautiful oc because I’m a sucker for that shitty trope and want to live vicariously through my writing (sue me)

The following is a dark fic featuring a yandere character, violence, obsession, and coercion. By no means does writing about this in a fictional setting condone any of those behaviours, much like Stephen King writing horror doesn’t mean he approves of psychotic killers in reality. Please avoid reading if any of these warnings makes you uncomfortable.

Cross posted on A03 so people can subscribe for updates/notifications

What little shred of hope for survival you may have had, after hearing your name announced from the reaping, was immediately squashed minutes later by two simple words. “I volunteer”.

Volunteers from District 4 were not uncommon. There was a not-so-secret training complex the capitol turned a blind eye to, in a warehouse near the docks. During your time in school you knew of several kids who trained before and after classes. At the age of twelve some of them dropped out all together, with the sole purpose of training every waking second of the day so they could volunteer at eighteen. There was no need for an education if your only purpose in life was to compete in a death match that offered a lifetime of rewards to the winner.

After the misfortune of having your name drawn you looked around, silently begging for one of the girls to come up and replace you, only for no takers. But when Kim Namjoon eagerly announced his intentions of volunteering (the reaped twelve-year-old boy on stage immediately bursting into grateful tears and rushing back to his mother in the square) it was easy to understand why no one had stepped up this year. Back when you had attended school, before dropping out to assist your father on his fishing boat after your mother died, Namjoon had been in some of your classes –although he very rarely showed up. He was immensely popular with everyone; in part because of his handsome physique and model like dimples, partially because of his superior intelligence, but mostly because it was well known he was by far the leader from all the kids in training.

You had never attended a training session (more fool you for thinking you would never be unlucky enough to have your name drawn, and banking on one of the girls who did train to take your place if you did) but the center near the wharf was close to where your family’s boat — that functioned as both a fishing ship and your house — was docked. During the many occasions you had walked past, you sometimes stopped to peer through a crack in the doorway and watch. A majority of the times you had seen Namjoon inside amongst the group of around twenty regulars; working out with weights, sparring with an array of weapons, or climbing the rope attached to the ceiling that was surely 30 feet high with nothing but cement to drop back down to. The years of work had turned the dimpled twelve-year-old you once shared a math class with into a lethal killing machine. And now you were going to be stuck in an arena with you as one of his targets.

You stood frozen as Namjoon strode up on stage, a grin on his face, waving to the camera before shaking the hand of the capitol’s representative — a pastel blue haired woman by the name of Periwinkle Eveweather. You could tell Periwinkle much preferred Namjoon to you from the twinkle in her eye at how well he was playing up to the camera. There would be no need for her to have to force him to act like being slaughtered like an animal was an honor, like she would for you. The next moments passed far too quickly in a blur, being lead off stage to bid farewell to your families. As you sobbed in your father’s arms, an only child saying your last goodbye, Namjoon was getting a pat on the back from his older sister, a previous volunteer and victor. Shortly after you were ushered on board to the train where you now sat, Namjoon at your side and your mentor sitting across the table.

A small part of your brain found it difficult to take Finnick Odair as a mentor seriously given he was younger than you. But your rational side was quick to silence that judgment with a reminder that exact dismissal of his age was a major contributing factor to his win three years ago. The feeling of despair ate away at your insides as Finnick took an immediate liking to Namjoon. You couldn’t blame him for it, Namjoon was by far the more likely of the two of you to survive, so it only made sense for him to put more attention on the candidate with the best chance, but it still made you feel awful none the less.

“And what about you YN?”

You jumped feeling Namjoon’s hand tapping your leg softly under the table, his head wordlessly nodding in Finnick’s direction without making any eye contact to you. You had become so distracted by the mug of tea in a decorative porcelain cup in your hands, you failed to recognize your mentor’s piercing sea green eyes were now focused on you.

“Sorry, what about my what?” you mumbled dumbly, feeling incredibly insecure at Finnick’s sigh.

“Your skills, what do you bring to the games?”

Well that explained why you had tuned out, there was no need for you to listen to Namjoon describing all the potential ways he was going to kill you within a week or so. And there were a hell of a lot of ways.

“I don’t know really, I’m not someone who’s trained like Namjoon,” you paused to think, pretending not to notice Namjoon’s smug smirk in the corner of your peripheral vision as Finnick frowned slightly.

“Neither was I, and that caused a lot of the careers to underestimate me,” Finnick replied, shooting Namjoon a pointed look which caused his smirk to disappear. You tried not to smile at that, settling instead for relaxing slightly into your seat.

“I can fish, so depending on the arena I can potentially find food, but more importantly I know my way around with a knife,” you declared, feeling a little more confident. The hopeless despair was still overwhelming but the least you could do for yourself, and your father, was to go out with honor.

“Very good,” Finnick nodded “don’t underestimate your face either.”

“My face?” You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “How am I supposed to kill anyone with that?”

Finnick sighed, leaning further back into the lounge he was occupying on his own, pinching the bridge of his nose on his handsome face in exasperation.

“Both of you listen, this is potentially more important than all of those little training sessions or fishing catches the both of you have ever made combined. You’re clearly genetically blessed to continue District 4’s reputation of having the most beautiful tributes, you in particular” He paused to lazily point in your direction. “If you actually want to win the games, you want the people of the capitol to adore you. And they’re a city of shallow cunts,” another pause to shoot a charming smile in Periwinkle’s direction “no offense”.

“Offense taken!” Periwinkle gasped indignantly but Finnick was already speaking over her without a care.

“And as shallow cunts what these people love, more than anything in their pathetic little vapid lives, is beauty. You,” a point to Namjoon, “have been training your whole life for this and will have a body to represent that. Show it off. They love flair, they love confidence, they love a show. Flex those biceps for them, they’ll go mad. Flash your abs and they’ll fall in love. And work those dimples, cause these suckers sure worked for me, got me a trident,” Finnick grinned to show off his smile and twin indents on each corner of his mouth, Namjoon mirrored the gesture and you felt your heart clench at how easily he seemed to turn on his charm. Tall, well built and handsome, he was just as gorgeous as Finnick. Too bad he was very likely about to be the literal death of you.

“And you,” Finnick turned his attention to your direction and you felt Namjoon’s eyes burning into you from the side “you’ll be the prettiest thing they’ve seen in years, possibly in the history of the games”

Your face flushed at the comment, even though you knew it wasn’t intended as a compliment. There was no point in sweet little lies to butter you up and the fact of the matter was you knew you had an aesthetically pleasing face. Your facial features were in perfect balance, skin clear, thick hair that fell to the middle of your back and eyes that you had been told sparkled like stars in the night.

“They’ll love that shit,” his finger lazily circled around pointing to your cheeks that were flushed in embarrassment at his candid assessment of your appearance.

“These people are so used to artificial, that something so beautiful and pure will be coveted like the fattest diamond they could possibly hang from their necks. You ever fucked a guy, sweetheart?”

“Excuse me?” you balked at the invasive question, earning a sharp laugh out of Namjoon, a scandalized shriek from Periwinkle, and an eye roll from Finnick.

“I’ll take that for a yes and don’t worry I’m not interested. The capitol thrives on corruption, greed, and a need to claim rare treasures for their own. Put an innocent little dove like you, with a face like yours, in front of them and they’ll go insane. Act right at the parade and in your interviews and you’ll have sponsors gifting you everything you could ever need in that arena”.

You sat wide eyed not even knowing how to respond. You didn’t bother with arguing over the status of your supposed virginity because whether it was true or not didn’t actually matter, it was all about the perception. If getting dolled up and fluttering your eyelashes could potentially result in a knife being dropped from the sky in the arena, you could suck it up and give these disgusting people what they wanted.

X

The train ride to the capitol took just under three days in total. During that time Finnick and Namjoon spent a lot of time together, which you weren’t surprised with in the least. It was only natural to favor the tribute with the better odds, as much as Finnick’s little speech on the first day tried to make you think you could have a chance. Finnick still made some time for you though, which was mostly spent on guiding you how to attract sponsors. You spent a majority of the time in your room, a lot of it crying, most of it sleeping, and some of it playing around with technologies you had never had access to before in your life. The only time you really saw Namjoon was during breakfast and dinner where you ate together with Finnick to discuss district strategy. You weren’t surprised at all by Namjoon’s plan to join the career pack, but you were slightly surprised when he spoke of you as a part of that plan. You were a little annoyed he didn’t even think to ask your opinion, but logically speaking it’s not like you had any option. It was either join them or make yourself an easy target. Plus, any alliance with Namjoon reduced your need to have kill any other tributes personally. The only thing now was to hope districts 1 and 2 were as receptive to the idea as you were.

When you arrived at the capitol you were immediately ushered into a clinic that was like a fusion between a spa and a hospital. You were stripped, examined, and assessed by a doctor before being dressed in a paper thin hospital gown. After a painful injection (“that’s your tracker dear, so the capitol can monitor you in the arena”) you were passed over to the beauty department who scrubbed, exfoliated, waxed, showered, moisturized, treated, conditioned and polished your entire body from head to toe. But at the end when you were standing before a mirror, you could see the results were worth it.

As Finnick had stated, you were already beautiful to start with, but it was like taking an uncut gem and polishing the stone to make it shine. Your hair was a couple of inches shorter with all the damage from years of saltwater being trimmed off. A treatment of conditioners you couldn’t care to remember had tamed your thick locks into smooth waves that had been layered to frame your face and flow prettily down your back. Whatever impurities that existed on your skin before had been entirely lasered away, and your whole complexion was now soft and glowing. Your eyebrows had been plucked into identical manicured arches and some sort of needled gun had permanently filled them in. A gel had been applied to your lips to boost their plumpness, without overly inflating them or drastically changing their shape, giving your mouth a cherubic quality. Staring at your reflection you raised a perfectly manicured finger to poke at your cheek, feeling the new silky smoothness beneath your fingertip, watching as your mirror image copied the action. It was surreal. You recognized the person in front of you as yourself, all of your features were still the same, but just somehow perfected?

You mostly ignored the gushing of your newly assigned stylist team — a set of triplets named Ruby, Garnet and Quartz — as they picked out garments, stretched measuring tape across and around your body and argued over what colors would bring out your eyes the best. They were sweet and well meaning with their compliments, but the growing nerves over being prepped for the chariot parade in a few hours made you unreceptive.

The concept they eventually decided on for your fishing district was ‘Rulers of the Sea’ and you were dressed in a Grecian inspired gown. The iridescent blue and green material, that sparkled like the sun reflecting off the ocean, was clasped at the top of your left shoulder with a silver broach in the shape of a starfish. Intricate embroidery was patterned around around the waist where the fabric was cinched tightly to create an overly enhanced hourglass silhouette. The bottom half flowed to your sandal clad feet and seemed to sway with the slightest of moments, a split on the right ran to the middle part of your thigh. Your eyes were a smoky combination of the colors from your dress, lashes coated in extensions and a layer of mascara to give you a seductive yet doe eyed appearance. There was a strange dichotomy in your styling where they were attempting to preserve your ‘natural’ and ‘innocent’ traits whilst simultaneously taking full advantage of the fact you were eighteen in order to market sex appeal.

Your favorite part (that you hated to admit even liking given the circumstance you were even in) was your hair. A section from each side had been pulled away and pinned at the back in a princess style, with numerous tiny clips of glowing sea shells and starfish holding it in place. Glittery extensions had been clipped in tastefully creating an appearance as if your hair was literally shining. This was then finished off by an ornate tiara placed on the top of your head.

By the time you were finished your stylists were practically in tears, fawning over you and calling you’re their greatest masterpiece. They mistook your eyes watering as pride in their work and not disgust at their pride in dressing a cow off before sending it to the slaughterhouse.

“No dear, you can’t cry and ruin all that make up we just spent so much time perfecting” Ruby chided, dabbing at your eyes with a tissue as Quartz and Garnet guided you out the door and into the small vehicle which was about to take you from the clinic to the parade. You didn’t dignify her with a response, merely grabbing the tissue from her hand as you were forced into the car. As soon as you were inside the car sped off, arriving at the destination very shortly after. From behind your tinted windows you could see horses being lead to empty chariots and your first sight of the other tributes, the people you were either going to have to kill or be killed by.

When the car stopped, Finnick was the one to open your door and offer you a hand to get out, which you accepted. As you stood up he appraisingly ran his eyes over all the details of your make-over, before nodding his approval.

“They did well,” he stated and you nodded your head in passive agreement as he dropped your hand to press his to the small of your back and guide you towards your chariot. Namjoon was already there, dressed in his own Grecian toga of the same fabric with a crown on the top of his newly styled hair. Sensing your arrival, he turned to look at you. Namjoon’s eyes widened comically before quickly composing his features almost as instantly as he had reacted. “Very well,” Finnick whispered, and you allowed an amused puff of air out.

“Your chariot awaits my dear,” Finnick said with a mock bow as he nudged you towards Namjoon, who extended his arm for you to hold on to. Not sure what else to do, you placed your hand delicately on his forearm, his other hand then coming to rest over the top. For a brief moment as Namjoon guided you both into the chariot, you could almost imagine you were a princess being taken to a ball by a handsome prince, but any such delusions were ruined by what Namjoon whispered next.

“It’s such a shame there can only be one winner, you really look good by my side.”

Your jaw clenched and you moved to rip your hand off his arm but his grip over yours instantly tightened with a laugh, as if expecting that exact reaction.

“Calm down princess, I don’t plan on killing your pretty little face for a while yet.”

You looked up at him like he was insane as the chariot began to move forward. He thought your reaction was from fear he was going to kill you now? And not that he perceived your life as only having value from being pretty enough for him? You were furious and about to rip into him before you heard the approaching roar of the crowd ahead at the end of the tunnel. Namjoon was oblivious to your rage, a perfectly poised smile, flexing his dimples that Finnick would be proud of, already painted on his face. You paused, for all you knew that could be an attempt to psych you out before facing the crowds, potentially losing you sponsor opportunities. Turning away from Namjoon, you took a deep breath to try and compose yourself. You plastered the docile soft-smiled wide eyed expression on your face that you had practiced with Finnick on the train, as your carriage emerged form the tunnel and onto the road lined with screaming spectators.

The entire parade was a blur of flashing lights, fireworks, thunderous cheering and echoes from the microphone that distorted whatever message the president greeted you with. By the time your chariot returned to the tunnel your mind was entirely blank but with the satisfied nod from Finnick as he waited to welcome you both back, you knew you had done well.

“If District 2 is anything to go by then you’ve won yourself a lot of admirers tonight” Finnick practically sang as he helped you down. Confused by his words you turned around looking for the other district to see the duo from two, the carriage over from yours. Dressed in gladiator styled garments, that was common from them every year, the girl was fiddling with a ruby dagger (you hoped was just a prop) whilst the boy was staring straight at you. ‘Boy’ was the wrong word to describe him, as he definitely had to have been the same age as you, if anything he looked slightly more mature than the legal age to even be here. He was tall, though not as tall as Namjoon, and lithe. Beneath a decorative breastplate you could see his sun kissed golden skin adorned with the toned definition of his pectoral and abdominal muscles. His face was incredibly handsome, by far the most handsome of any of the male tributes. Rich copper hair had been styled to frame his aristocratic features; a high bridged pointed nose, high cheekbones, sharp jawline and rich dark chocolate brown eyes that were intently focused on you.

“Speaking to other tributes before training is technically not allowed, but it’s enforced the same way as your training centers are, so not at all. You’ve got five minutes until those cars arrive to take you to the living quarters, go talk to the careers and work out an alliance,” You broke the eye contact to look at Finnick as he spoke, clearly having witnessed your little interaction.

Namjoon took the lead, confidently stepping off the carriage with a winning smile and striding towards the pair from two. With a sigh you hitched up the long material of your dress and followed behind him. You could still feel the male’s eyes burning into your skull as you looked across to notice the pair from District 1 also making their way over — their own mentor likely having given them the same advice as your own.

“I’m Namjoon and this is YN,” you weren’t particularly pleased by Namjoon deciding to speak on your behalf, but chose to roll your eyes behind him rather than interrupting. “We’re interested in continuing a long standing tradition of successful career pack alliances. I assume from you joining us over here, that you are as well.”

“I would typically say that to assume only makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’, but in this instance you are correct,” the other male from District 1 spoke. You tried to stifle a laugh, but the warning glare Namjoon shot you from the corner of his eye told you that it wasn’t successful. You merely smiled back and blinked innocently with a shrug.

“My name’s Yoongi, and an alliance would be in all of our best interests.” He was shorter than Namjoon and District 2, only an inch or two taller than yourself, but somehow still just as intimidating. His pale skin was contrasted by pitch black hair and sharp coal like eyes that were openly assessing the group of you.

“Krystal,” his district mate offered by means of introduction, and you wondered if the two were siblings. She shared his light complexion, dark eyes and her sleek midnight hair was dead straight down past her waist. Both were dressed in black, their outfits embodying the luxury their district was known for; Yoongi in a tailored suit with subtle embroidery detail, Krystal in an elegant fitted gown made of the same fabric, both topped off with luxurious fur capes draped over their shoulders.

“I’m Athena and he’s Hoseok,” the girl from two spoke. She appeared to be the same height as Yoongi but you noticed a heel on her sandals giving her an extra few inches. You couldn’t bring yourself to look across to Hoseok, knowing his gaze still hadn’t broken since staring at you from the carriage.

“Is that real?” you asked, gesturing towards the dagger Athena had been playing with before that was now held limply in her right hand.

“Why don’t we find out,” she replied with a smirk, instantly flipping the dagger in her hands to point the tip between your eyes.

“Athena!” Hoseok hissed dangerously, slapping the dagger from her hands and cause it to fall onto the ground below. The lack of metallic ‘clang’ revealing it as fake.

“Calm down, it was a joke!” Athena snapped back, reaching down to pick it back up, whilst shaking her head in annoyance. Before you could assure her it was fine, Hoseok stepped forward to present you with his own version of the prop. Reaching out he grabbed your wrist to place the ‘dagger’ in your hand.

“See, the material is just a type of fiber that gives the illusion of metal, but is really not hard at all.” Gently he ran the blade along your palm, and true to his word there was no edge at all. But the image still looked real and seeing a blade dancing across your skin, knowing someone was going to try to kill you with a real one very soon, made you feel ill. Sensing your discomfort from the trembling hand, Hoseok immediately pocketed the knife, but still maintained his hold on your wrist.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you, angel,” he spoke softly and you frantically looked to the others to see if they could hear him. Namjoon who was the closest merely looked amused, Athena was showing Yoongi the fake dagger, whilst Krystal had her eyebrow raised in your direction.

“I hope not,” you awkwardly tried to joke, pulling your wrist slightly to subtly try and break the hold, but he only tightened his grip forcing you to look up and back into his eyes again. His gaze from a distance had already been intense but up close it was heart stopping. There was a passion in his eyes you had never seen before in your life and it was solely focused entirely on you. It was frightening, you couldn’t imagine what you had possibly done to warrant being on the receiving end of something so intense. You tilted your head down and away from the others, humiliated over being so easily intimidated. If an attractive man holding your wrist and making eye contact with you was all it took to fluster you, you may as well just sign your own death certificate now.

“Hey, look at me,” he whispered, dropping your wrist to place his finger on your chin and raise your head back upwards, though you kept your eyes lowered, staring at his jawline to avoid direct eye contact again.

“I’m promise I won’t hurt you, love. Not now, not ever.”

You were about to ask him how he could possibly say something like that given you were about to become direct competitors in a battle to the death, when a sharp whistle stole your attention. Snapping your head to the side you saw Finnick jerk his head, indicating for you and Namjoon to return. You exhaled in relief, grateful for the reprieve.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Namjoon said to the group, moving next to you and causing Hoseok to pull his hand away. You nodded to show your agreement with Namjoon whilst making eye contact with the other three you barely had a chance to speak to. You hoped they didn’t think that you were somehow forming something just with Hoseok based on his actions. You were going to need all the help you possibly could get if you wanted a chance to survive.

“Tomorrow,” Krystal agreed, making proper eye contact with you for the first time. She was smaller in height than you, thinner too, but somehow carried a cold and intimidating aura. You offered her a polite smile in return and a nod, relieved when she nodded back, before you returned to Finnick with Namjoon.

“How did it go? Looked pretty good” Finnick asked just as the capitol vehicle pulled up to take you to the tribute quarters.

“It seems our little dove here won’t just have the capitol for an admirer,” Namjoon smirked, getting into the car.

“So I saw,” Finnick muttered as a reply to Namjoon’s back, then turned to face you.

“Don’t let him psych you out,” he said, stepping aside so you could follow Namjoon into the vehicle.

You glanced at Namjoon before turning back to see Hoseok standing by his car but staring directly at you again. His eyes were still radiating the same intense passion from moments ago, you had no idea what to make of it.

“Who?” you whispered back to Finnick, ducking your head as you stepped inside. Finnick moved to shut the door.

“Both of them”

This is basically an introductory chapter to gauge reception. Future updates should be longer. I have the whole fic plotted and the outline itself is 5.9K words and this chapter was only based on the first paragraph. The next update will focus on the training sessions/interview with Caesar and the update after should be the one where they actually enter the arena.

Feedback is much loved, but please avoid asking for updates. I don’t have a schedule but I do have crippling depression so I write when the motivation hits lol

[a-lil-perspective]

Remember Me/Holding On (For Dear Life)

A/N: The Bad Batch X Reader. Playing around with a scenario where the Bad Batch removed their inhibitor chips with Echo, thus forfeiting executing Order: 66, and they go incognito in faking their deaths thereafter. Reader doesn’t know so it’s full of angst? All-around switching up my writing a bit with this one. Feedback is always appreciated. Technically is a Reader insert but I also switched up the pronouns a bit. [Warnings: Mourning over death of loved ones, subliminal implication of suicidal thought] @shadow-hyder @starflyer-104 @thegoodbatch @kriffingunlucky @karpasia @obiorbenkenobi @everyonehasanindividuality (Tag List is open.:))

{~***~}

Clone Force 99. The Bad Batch.

A Clone Force To Be Reckoned With.

A whirlwind of gray plastoid and flashing crimson accents. A brewing swirl of personalities and a tempest of skill, bleeding together seamlessly. Much like their bond. Brothers by blood, and brothers in arms. A camaraderie unprecedented, a stellar example of unorthodoxy. Their story begging, no—demanding to be told.

I’m not the right person to do so. You’d do well hearing it from the four warriors themselves.

But they aren’t here. They’re gone.

Not gone... I must correct. Merely marching far away.

No, marching is too straightforward and monotonous for them, too regulated and predictable; a disgrace and offense to their overall prowess—those insufferable, lovable di’kuts.

Not marching: Clone Force 99 is ‘charging-headfirst-into-no-doubt-a-suicidal-battle-comprised-of-an-equally-crazy-strategy’ far away.

Yeah. That’s more like it.

Accelerated aging. The untrained eye would’ve been none the wiser. The span of a decade accompanying, yet their demeanors depicted a thousand lifetimes. Fine lines etched into coarse and defined features, each one a new resolve for each man to fight for more than just existing.

They constantly challenged me to find a new angle. Something I couldn’t find solely through the scope of Crosshair’s rifle. They cut through and canceled stereotypes, combatant through even the thick resistance of daunt and demoralization: a resilience stronger than even the sharpest cut of Sergeant Hunter’s knife. Their oddities and wonderfully endearing peculiarities: fully embraced and secured in a grip stronger than even Wrecker’s large endow of muscle. The four men: definitively and unknowingly hacking into and through even the most incredulous beings by way of their efficiency and bond—an impressive capability that gave even the ingenious Tech a run for his credits.

Their aura of commandeering and confidence incited fear, evoked jealousy, or channeled respect. I’d like to point out from personal experience that it was absolutely possible to acknowledge the manifestation of all three reactions simultaneously. The Bad Batch had a peculiar way of affecting people; almost comical, when I think about it. Enough to nearly bring a smile to my face.

They say a person never leaves you. Maker, I’m hoping that might be true. What started so perfect was over too fast.

They boasted a ferocity, but a tenderness. Each member carried their armor a little differently, a little heavier than the other. When you unlatched and peeled away the protective encasing, therein was a raw vulnerability: humanity. A vulnerability, not a weakness. A strength. One of many the unique quartet possessed.

At their core: living, breathing, feeling, humans; ideal candidates concerning the way war tried to brutally strip them of that very individuality. But they protected as fiercely as they fought. They loved as passionately as they clung to their varieties of honed adeptness. Their loyalty and liberty was as explosive as the colorful destruction left incessantly imprinted throughout battlefields.

It’s borderline treasonous to say, that the Republic could’ve majorly benefitted from some propaganda courtesy of those four. Oh, how many times I tried to convince their stubborn and surprisingly bashful selves of the prospect—seriously, wouldn’t four handsome Commandos inspire you?

They seemed to think otherwise. Kriff. From the outside looking in, I would’ve enlisted in the militia the minute I saw those dark clad figures, shrouded in enigma and purpose, handsomely poised just above the text of some patriotic slogan that would’ve captivated me in a state of naivety and infatuation. Yes please. Sign me the hell up.

Not exactly how our first encounter went, but, not that far off, actually. The Sergeant of Clone Force 99 can could recall the story in great detail.

It hurts. I want to lift the pen and stop. But I press on.

On a more lighthearted notation: what you probably also didn’t know is that the boys kept a running bet. Gotta keep things lively when awaiting their next set of intel, right? Though more often than not, the four men each managed to singlehandedly work up the energy of a wild Loth-Cat, and of their own accord, impatiently and prematurely sprung into action; innately preferring to take charge whenever opportunities present. The indefinite cardholders, if you will: you play on their terms, or not at all—a subtle implication towards their fastidious and absolutely brilliant battle plans. Part of their aesthetic and reputation, you could say. I say with all affection: pure mischief, that bunch.

To their enemies: may you experience reverence and/or embarrassment in the 250+ fluent ways the Bad Batch could (or did) utterly kick your ass. In which case: may you rest in peace thereafter. Take that, shabuir.

Anyway, I digress; though not before the brief accredit of my improved fluency in the Mando’a dialect directed to the tutelage of Clone Force 99. Their methods define as unparalleled and most certainly, never present with redundancy.

Betting was limitless to the four, especially along the seemingly most insignificant points of interest: Who can find the best hiding spot for Hunter’s thieved bandana? Toss some credits in. How long will Tech go without sleep this time? Credits in the betting pool. How soon will Crosshair run out of his next batch of toothpicks? Bet.

As for me? I would’ve bet on us. We were untouchable. I always told them it’d take a whole damn army to drag me away.

Ironically, it took a half-dozen Clone Troopers to drag me away from the gravely man bearing news of their tragic fate.

I lost a part of me I’ll never find. But as sure as it is my obligation and desire to consistently—always— remember those men in everyday passing, it is more my duty to make certain their legacy is not lost. It’s my priority, the dedication of time and breath, to depict the breadth of their influence.

You should remember the skilled men donning a palette of gray and red. The men adorning variants of a skull insignia and two matching digits: 99. Distinct characteristics, delineate biographies demanding to not be cast aside nor torn from the pages of history.

Ramikadyc—a Commando state of mind. An adjective of the Bad Batch. An inherence that extended beyond their overt classification, one that outreached towards others, an absolute; an honorable invitation bridging the gap and instilling unification between fellow Clone brethren.

A minuscule sampling scratched within this piece as a broken illustration, of the life of the greatest Commando unit to ever exist, and of incredible men.

This is not the end. It’s just the beginning.

Be’Bes’Bavar Ashnar Olaror.

The Cavalry Has Arrived.

{~***~}

Her swollen wrists flexed to knot the crimson accessory around the piece of flimsiplast at last; a seal. It never got any easier to re-read her hastily scribbled Aurebesh requiem. It folds in on itself, the material crinkles, informing the woman that her hands are trembling as she performs the simple task involving dexterity. A dark splotch newly materialized on the worn fabric of bandana vaguely registers to her, of the salty tears now welling in her eyes. She inhales sharply and awkwardly bends to lay the rolled note to rest in the garden of stone and corpses. And with it, the remnants of her already fragmented composure.

Her throat was tight again. She struggled in swallowing deep anguish amidst the sharp winds that chapped at her soft facial features and stung against the dry sclera of her red-rimmed eyes. The buzz of the cold did little to counteract the hot flush rising in her cheeks. Time hung in stasis, yet the throb of her ankles indicated a semblance of how long she’d actually stood motionless at the foot of the weathering graves.

Or maybe the ache was from the extra weight carried purposefully around her newly swollen abdomen; she could no longer tell which. The deep pang in her chest robbed her of a breath, and she felt as empty as the four corpses now six feet under the stars. The thud of a heartbeat—now two—felt cruel and indignant within the graveyard and for a millisecond, a sickly enticing one, the DC series cinched at her hip was, obscurely, the most alluring décor amid the melancholy earth.

She startled at the fleeting thought; gone as quick as it began, giving way to the flood of despair. Agony was quickly sinking it’s teeth, despondency was bearing it’s full weight on her shoulders, and respite has abandoned her. A strangled cry scraped from her dry throat, a familiar sound she’s produced a dozen times in the wake of his disappearance. Six months.

It felt like a lifetime.

She remembers in total recollection the last night she saw him. It replays like a broken holorecord every time her eyelids shut. A moment that robbed her of more time; a cruelty.

His dark eyes harbored solemnity. She gazed up in anticipation at him, a nauseating knot twisting deep in her belly. At the time, she didn’t register the feeling of dread. He told her not to worry, that everything will be alright. She should’ve been more intuitive, should’ve known those words were accursed in their own right; a distinct diction almost always bestowing a finality or goodbye.

But he was gentle and soothing with his words, albeit deliberate in presentation. In the quietude, she associates him with serenity. The man’s adoration for her transcended. His fingers curled around her own in emphasis as he pushed the newly gifted DC blaster pistol to her chest.

“From me to you.” A raised hand quickly cuts off her stubborn reiteration of her full capability and independence without the weapon in tow. “It’ll make me feel better for you to have this. Never know when you’ll need it.”

Times are changing. He desperately wanted to tell her, about everything.

“I just need you.” Her declaration is faint. The spindly man briefly clamps his tongue in quelling his own dire reciprocation threatening to spew. The faint ticking of a chronometer in the corner warns him not to break down and unravel here, it’s not the time. Not right now. Not yet.

Only when he departs.

“What you need is to be strong. For me. Okay?”

For the baby. She quickly extinguishes her pained cries. Her hand splays reflexively across her midsection in stoked remembrance, and the calloused pads of her fingers rub soothing circles in the stirring, where there was now pressure from the child‘s restlessness. Mando’a serenaded habitually from between her lips, along with a promise.

“Ner cyare ad’ika... I promise that you will know all about your family. Your Buir. Your wild Bavodu’e.” A strained chuckle unbridles, leaving a bitter taste, short and succinct before disappearing. A forlornly glance to the headstones. Her voice cadences. “They would’ve loved you. Someday, you’ll be able to feel them.”

“Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.”

Not gone, merely marching far away.

Something hopeful and inspiriting flits deep in her soul. Her lashes flutter upward and the stars are in a particular array of brilliance. It zips across the expanse of sky, like a ship jumping to hyperspace nearby.

“Ret’urcye mhi, ner cyare.”

Somewhere not so far beyond, she can feel his warmth; the tangibility of his deft fingertips resting assuringly at her shoulders, the wind now encasing her in a mimicry of his lanky but sturdy arms. She holds tight in his absence, and the wind resonates vivid echoes of his sultry voice just past the shell of her ear and bristles the stray strands matted to her tear streaked face.

He’s not here.

The sun remains persistent in rising and combating the dark, so she wills herself to stand amidst the devastation. An abrupt halt to her story—their story—left without a full narrative or plot to flesh out, now leaves her dubious over the already shrouded future.

A fond realization, no longer destined to be a memory—for memories are manifested from events already taken place—nevertheless flickers to the surface. The fondness remains just as palpable.

A memory never allowed to transpire, aggrievedly reminding her, a memory simply not meant to be. But she wills the strength to dream, anyway. She decidedly reaches for an alternate cover to write a new story in. It starts as a rough draft, but the growing bump of her abdomen is living proof of new beginnings, of continuing legacies and a beautiful piece that wholesomely envelops and accounts for the aching, missing one.

Not a memory; no. An assurance, a promising devotion to his origins inscribed on the delicate surface of her heart, and one day, sewed and etched into her child’s. Their child.

“Little Ram’ser: a sniper, just like your Buir.”

[heythrrdelilah]

Pie Lady (Dean x Reader, Holiday)

Request: anonymous asked: For the holiday prompts, I'd like "-You’re a local baker that your love interest comes to every day just to see you. You wonder why this random person eats so many sweets so quickly." with Dean please and thank you! Maybe the reader specializes in pies that would fit better 😁

A/N: of course! I honestly was thinking pie with Dean on that one too. Great minds think alike!  Also,  a reminder to everyone,  you can request an already requested prompt with a different lead because it changes for each person. This is a perfect example of that,  thank you. 💕 Dean can really put down some pie. Meanwhile, I make brownies for everyone but get sugar sickness just looking at them haha. I hope you enjoy! How are you liking the aesthetic gifs? Personally i’m obsessed with aesthetics and food aesthetics at that (i have a whole insta based on short stories based on aesthetics and a weheartit haha ) 

Word Count:  1,418

Warnings/tags: Fluff, hallmark level cheese (a reoccurring theme this season), flirtatiousness, annoyed Sam, possibly a sugar overdose

Pairing: Dean x Reader,  Sam is mentioned. 

The smell of pumpkin-filled your nostrils the minute you walked into your bakery. You and your best friend had owned this tiny shop downtown for almost a year now and you were thriving. The Millenials loved your take on different sweets. Your best friend, Miley,  had no specialty,  however you specialized in pies. Sure,  you could bake other treats just as well,  but you enjoyed experimenting with pie most. 

You placed your bag on the desk in the back,  walked into the kitchen and threw on your apron. Miley, had her hair tossed in a blonde bun, was mixing a sauce intensely on the stove with her whisk. Her sleeves were pulled halfway up her arm. It was no shock to you that she had arrived earlier than you, as this happens more often than not. You enjoyed getting at least seven hours of sleep every night, while Miley barely slept. “Finally making those pumpkin pie rolls, huh?” You asked, walking up behind her. It was six in the morning, which meant that the people on their way to their jobs were soon to come in for their morning baked goods. This meant you had 50 salted-caramel muffins to make. They have been a big hit from the beginning of the season. “Listen, I know there are already pumpkin spice, cinnamon rolls, but there is a difference between pumpkin spice and pumpkin pie rolls. Believe me. I’m making 15 before we open to test them out. Only 13 people will get them and see how they do. The last two are for us,” She beamed, putting the whisk down. She pulled the oven open and precisely placed the glaze on top of the delicious smelling pumpkin rolls before closing the doors again. You began making your muffins and moved on to a batch of pecan-caramel pies. 

All of the projects were finished just in time for opening. Just as expected, when you unlocked the glass door, there were a good amount of people waiting in the cold air. You held the door open for them, kindly welcoming them in, before running to the counter to take orders.You took orders quickly, feeling a bit relieved on the last person currently in line. Usually, the store went through rushes but was slow the majority of the day. The man stood before you, a green jacket, grey shirt underneath, with blue jeans and workers boots. The t-shirt was tight against his pecks, leaving you a little flustered that you even noticed. His facial features were chiseled and made your heart skip a beat for a slight second.  He smiled warmly at you before looking around the glass displays. “Pecan Carmel? I’ll have one,” He smiled up at you, pulling out a wallet. “One slice, anything else?” He scrunched his thin brows at you, tilting his head in confusion before shaking it, “No… one pie. Maybe a coffee too. That's all.” He smiled, wiping his card after you rang the order up. You moved behind the display and pulled out the pie, placing it in a catering tin. You poured the coffee and motioned to the tables, “Here is your pie, darlin’, along with your coffee. The forks and coffee necessities are on the tables as well.” Where had the southern accent come from? Sure, you were around southern accents all day, but it wasn’t like you. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed. “Actually, One more thing, if you don’t mind. What’s your name?” His eyes twinkled in the sunlight coming from the side of the building. “(Y/N). Yours?” He introduced himself as Dean before sitting at the table with his food. 

That would be the last time you saw Dean for that day. 

The next morning was like any other, you came in, got to work, and stood at the register, rotating with Miley. Her pumpkin rolls were a hit yesterday and people were begging for more. So this morning, you helped her bake those, and then your blueberry-ginger-lemon pie before handling the morning rush. Dean showed up today, he must have been new in town. “Dean? Right?” You asked, smiling up at him. He nodded, “(Y/N), nice to see you again. I noticed Caramelized-pecan was not a menu item today, what kind of pie do you have for me?” He smirked over the counter. You nod once, smiling then walking over to the display. “I have blueberry lemon ginger,” You motioned. His brows raised, “you come up with these recipes?” He asked, watching you place a whole pie into the box. He was basically drooling, which was a compliment for you. “Yup. Lemon Ginger Blueberry pie was already a flavor but I add a glaze and my own measurements and recipe to the flavor. I hope you enjoy it,” You smiled as he dropped a 20 dollar bill into the tip jar after paying. It was an extremely expensive tip for the 15 dollar pie. You reached your hand in to return it, when you saw a rolled-up paper there. Dean was sitting at the same table he had yesterday before you could have a chance to return the tip. You opened the paper. “Keep it. Call me, (y/n)?” Miley’s voice laughed from behind your shoulder. You slightly kicked your foot at her as if telling her to shut up. “The tall glass of hot over there?” She nudged her head slightly to Dean. You nodded, blushing before going back to the kitchen. You began baking a chocolate cranberry pie for the dinner rush. 

The next day, you decided to make an extra pie just in case Dean showed up again, so you wouldn’t be a pie short. Who eats that much pie in the morning and still looks like… well… that? You weren’t complaining though. It just meant every day you could see Dean. You decided eggnog pie was the best option for today. Something unique. You walked up to the counter, taking everyone's orders and sure enough, Dean was standing there in line, with someone today. The other man he was with was tall and had his face stuck in a newspaper. Maybe this extra pie would still manage to make the count off with a new guy. “Hello gorgeous,” Dean placed an elbow on the counter in a smooth, flirtatious manner. The taller man rolled his eyes, “I’m sorry about my brother.” So the mystery was solved. Brothers. You shook your head at the tall guy, “I’m not. I figured you would be coming so I made an extra pie just for you. On the house. Well, not technically because you paid for it with your tip yesterday. Way too generous by the way.” Dean smirked at you and the taller brother walked away, sitting at a table. “Well, you might just be my dream woman,” He smirks as you place a pie into the usual cardboard. You blush and push the box towards him. “Is that why you have come in here every day?” You were only joking, but his slight change in posture seemed to say you hit the truth. “Yes, actually. Also, my love for pie, which yours are the best i’ve ever had. I mean, did you see the number?” He tilted the empty tip jar slightly, smirking at the sight of its emptiness. “Looks like you have. Well, look, I’m in town for a short time. I travel for work. We will probably be here a while so… i want to get to know you,” He smiled a dorky but cute smile. You looked up to the ceiling as if you even had to think about getting to know someone This good looking and charming. “Well, we close the bakery on Sundays, so tomorrow i’m free,” You finally responded cheekily. You searched his expression for any clue on what he was about to say. 

“Sounds great. If you bring pie i might just have to marry you,” He laughed. You spent a while talking to him out front, finding out he is a detective, travels with his brother/partner. He sounded like a dream. You two seemed to get along well, a great way to spend a winter. This is the loneliest time of the year for you. Seeing all of the couples walking in, talking about whose house they'll go to for Christmas, where they put that favorite ornament, or what gifts they’ll get their significant others, you knew that you just met this guy,  but at least you won't feel as lonely.

Return to Dean Winchester Works

Return to Masterlist

[ryukoishida]

QZGS Rarepair Week 2018 | Day 4: Cooking | In which HST and ZZK are popular food vloggers.

QZGS Rarepair Week 2018 | Day 4: cooking / thunderstorm / battlefield

@qzgsrarepairweek

Title: Of Dumplings and Secret Admirers Fandom: The King’s Avatar / Quan Zhi Gao Shou Character(s)/Pairing(s): Zhou Zekai/Huang Shaotian (featuring Jiang Botao) Summary: In which the two food vloggers bond over their love of dumplings. Rating: PG A/N: Just a quick note – because there are so many types of “dumplings” in China, I will be using the Chinese names/pinyin to differentiate them! I’m craving xiao long bao now, btw. Damn.

Writing Commission | Editing & Translation Services

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“Speaking of dumplings, does anyone know the origin of this tasty, tasty food? No? Well, let me tell you this heart-warming story!” the young man in the video was talking with such enthusiasm that it was emanating from the brightness of his eyes and his excited hand gestures.

The video then shifted to a short animation of stilled drawings as he continued with the story.

“According to legend, during the end of Eastern Han dynasty, many people were sick and dying of epidemics, but there was a brilliant doctor named Zhang Zhongjing, who not only had excellent medical skills but also treated both the poor and the rich. So anyway, after he retired and returned to his hometown, he saw that many of the townsfolks were suffering from starvation and the cold, even their ears had become frozen and infected. That sounds absolutely nasty, doesn’t it? In order to treat them, he had his assistants cook a big pot of soup made with lamb meat, chili peppers, and medicinal herbs that helped deter cold. The cooked ingredients were then chopped up, wrapped with dough shaping them like ears, called “jiao er” — or “delicate ear”, and were cooked once more. After people ate them, their bodies quickly heated up, their blood circulation became more efficient, and their ears instantly felt warmer. And after eating these “jiao er” for a while, their infected ears were healed! Isn’t that amazing?”

The camera focused on the young man again, who now had a plate of what seemed to be boiled jiao zi in one of his hands. He carefully used a pair of chopsticks to pick up a dumpling, cooked to perfection with its delicate, ivory outer layer, and dipped it into red vinegar before taking a bite.

Some of the juices ran down the corner of his mouth, which he quickly wiped clean with the pad of his thumb while trying not to laugh.

“Mmn, that is a damn good dumpling,” he nodded appreciatively after eating the rest of that dumpling and continued with a sunny smile, “so for the next… hmm… few weeks, I’ll be making a series of videos completely focused on the best variations of dumplings that are popular in different parts of China, including several recipes and restaurant recommendations! I hope you’ll all be able to join me on this soulful dumpling-searching adventure! And remember: The Q&A live stream will take place tomorrow at 8 p.m., so have your questions all ready to go, and I’ll try to answer them as best as I can. Bye for now!”  

Just as he did every time he finished watching Troubling Rain’s videos, Zhou Zekai clicked the ‘Like’ button at the bottom of the screen the moment the video ended and leaned back against his chair with a soft sigh.

“Xiao Zhou, you’re watching Troubling Rain’s channel again?” Jiang Botao asked from behind and leaned in a little to see the content of Zhou Zekai’s screen.

“Mn,” Zhou Zekai nodded once, probably not realizing that there was a hint of a smile hidden in the curved corner of his lips on his usually impassive face.

Though Jiang Botao saw the subtle expression, he knew better than to bring it up. After all, he and Zhou Zekai had been childhood friends since elementary school; now they attended the same university — though in different faculties — and rented an apartment complex together.

The smile, however, quickly disappeared as Zhou Zekai suddenly remembered something, and he turned his panic-stricken gaze towards his friend to speak with a soft but urgent tone, “Jiang, his Q&A tomorrow.”

“Ah, you said you have a group project tomorrow evening, right? Is the Q&A session happening around the same time?” Jiang Botao immediately comprehended Zhou Zekai’s concern despite the minimal number of words the dark-haired young man had spoken.

Ever since they were young, the adults had called Jiang Botao’s ability to understand Zhou Zekai’s intentions when others around him could barely grasp what the quiet-spoken boy meant “mindreading” when really, Jiang Botao just happened to be a person who paid special attention to other’s facial expressions and body language.

And perhaps there was something to be said for growing up together, but Jiang Botao never had any issues getting along with Zhou Zekai, who, to someone who’d never interacted with the boy, might appeared to be unfriendly, stuck-up, or even downright hostile just because of his placid nature and sparse explicit display of emotions.

When Zhou Zekai nodded in the affirmative, Jiang Botao basically knew what his friend wanted to ask of him, and so he continued with a knowing smile, “want me to record it for you?”

“Please,” Zhou Zekai’s gaze could only be described as grateful.

“As long as I get to keep the leftovers of whatever you’re making for your next video. It’s matcha green tea cookies, right?”

Zhou Zekai nodded again.

“Do you still need help with filming your next video, then? I have some time now, but I need to head out in two hours and won’t be back ‘til late tonight.” Other than best friend, schoolmate, and roommate, Jiang Botao was also Zhou Zekai’s voluntary cameraman for his vlogs.

Speaking of his vlogs and channel, one might think it strange that a quiet man like Zhou Zekai — though having been voted the handsomest male student in their university’s campus for three years straight — would want to be in front of the camera and be the focus of attention. It all started with Jiang Botao’s casual request that one time: one of his female friends wanted to learn how to make the strawberry cupcakes that Jiang Botao brought to school, so he asked his friend to make a video tutorial. What Zhou Zekai didn’t realize was that Jiang Botao had uploaded the tutorial onto the school’s online forum, and from there, the popularity of the “cute college boy baking cupcakes” video just spread like an uncontrollable wildfire.

There were tons of cooking videos on the Internet, but what made Zhou Zekai’s stood out, at least according to Jiang Botao, was the fact that he never spoke in his video — not even once; instead, he filled the silence with grainy, lighthearted jazz music in the background, which made the entire mood of the tutorial somewhat more… aesthetically-pleasing and intimate.

Zhou Zekai wasn’t sure what his best friend meant by that when he tried to explain to him the amazing reactions he was starting since the video was posted; he was just glad to help out. Baking and making sweets had always been Zhou Zekai’s favorite way to relax, and since he started learning by watching and helping his mother in the kitchen at a young age, his interest in the culinary arts had been carried on to his adulthood. Making professional-quality videos, however, was mostly Jiang Botao’s idea; Zhou Zekai just sort of followed along.

Besides, having Jiang Botao, one of the top students in their school’s multimedia design department, filming and editing his videos was the icing on the already very appetizing cake.

Zhou Zekai nodded again in response to Jiang Botao’s question, and the two men started to get to work. Soon, their shared apartment was filled with the gentle sweet scent of baked sweets.

-

It’d been about fifteen minutes into the Q&A live stream, and Huang Shaotian was having the time of his life answering his viewers’ questions, which ranged from actual queries about culinary skills and methods (“Best way to make the silkiest steamed egg custard? Oh man let me tell you how Mama Huang make hers. Usually you’d just mix water or broth with eggs and beat them and then pour the mixture directly into the utensil, right? Wrong! The most important step to achieving that silky smoothness of the custard is to use a fine mesh strainer while you’re pouring the mixture through — the smaller the holes are, the better! And then! Let it settle for a few minutes so any bubbles will rise to the surface, and then you can skim them off with a spoon. Voila — egg custard as smooth as a baby’s butt!”) to inquiries about his personal life and interests (“Do I have a girlfriend? Come on! I expect more creative questions from you guys! Anyway, I could have a boyfriend, couldn’t I? By asking that question, you have offended all the potential boys who could have been interested in me. Shame on you!” he said, and laughed at all the exclamation marks and colorful emoticons that followed his answer.).

One of the questions flashed by in the lively chat and Huang Shaotian caught it right away, his eyes flashing in excitement for a moment. “Oooh! Someone just asked whether or not I’d be interested in working with other vloggers again. Yes, I would as long as that person is not goddamn Lord Grim, who — if you missed the video that bastard had posted on his channel a while ago — almost murdered my taste buds. Just because I’m from Guangzhou doesn’t mean that he should take advantage of my intolerance of spice! So rude, so rude! Never again, nuh-uh!”

The viewers on the chat who knew what Huang Shaotian was referring to expressed their amusement of the hilarious aforementioned video, in which Lord Grim — real name Ye Xiu –who was a good friend of Huang Shaotian’s in real life, challenged the popular (both for the variety of his content and the cheerful chattiness of the vlogger himself) foodie to the notorious Fire Noodle Challenge.

Huang Shaotian had initially ignored him because he knew his stomach was sensitive to spicy foods in general, but him being him, he could never backdown from a challenge, especially when Ye Xiu was practically verbally rousing him up in all the right ways. In the end, Huang Shaotian realized belatedly that this — eating this insanely hot and spicy Korean ramen that had numbed his entire mouth and lips, the spiciness having exploded exponentially after Ye Xiu “helpfully” gave him a glass of water — was a mistake. Needless to say, he’d completely embarrassed himself in front of his audience in that video. At least most of them found it hysterical, and the rating and number of viewings had only increased.

“Other than that asshole friend of mine, who else would you like to see me collaborate with?”

The chat flooded with usernames; some he didn’t recognized while others he knew and were mutual followers of each other’s’ channels. One name did stand out amongst others: Cloud Piercer. Unbeknownst to his followers, Huang Shaotian was a bit of a fanboy of Cloud Piercer and his calming cooking videos and had started following his channel with his personal account some time ago. The vlogger rarely showed his face on his videos, and even when he did, it was mostly blurry so all that could be seen was his dark hair and the vague shape of his face, but just watching those elegant hands meticulously measuring ingredients and kneading dough was enough to make Huang Shaotian’s imagination wander at times.

“You guys want me to collaborate with Cloud Piercer?”

Lots of ‘!!!’s and variations of ‘yes’s’ flurried past the chat, which made Huang Shaotian grin because he’d finally found the perfect opportunity to approach the vlogger he’d been admiring from afar for far too long.

“I’ll try to contact them and go from there!”

-

And this was how two weeks later, Huang Shaotian travelled over 1,100 miles on the high-speed train and ended up in the city of Shanghai.

Their first meeting, which took place at the busy Hongqiao Railway Station, was an awkward one. Through the exchange of their emails in order to arrange this meet-up, Huang Shaotian would have never guessed that Cloud Piercer — or Zhou Zekai, as he soon found out the vlogger’s real name — was such a reserved individual. After a quick introduction, which involved a brief greeting and exchanging their real names, Zhou Zekai decidedly started walking in the front to let Jiang Botao do all the necessary talking. What Huang Shaotian missed — and Jiang Botao definitely caught from the corner of his eye — was the hint of blush that tainted Zhou Zekai’s cheeks right after they’d shaken hands.

Still, after that initial greeting, Zhou Zekai didn’t say anything more as they winded and dodged their way in between locals and tourists. Not that he was rude or cold or anything like that, Huang Shaotian observed while he allowed Zhou Zekai and Jiang Botao to lead him out of the station to get on the public transit, but when he tried to initiate a conversation, all he received from the dark-haired man was prolonged “……”, nodding, or shaking of his head, with the occasional nervous smiles that vanished whenever Huang Shaotian looked at him with genuine curiosity.

He glanced over to Jiang Botao, who was comparatively easier to communicate with and seemed like an amiable person overall, with silent plead in his eyes, as if he was asking, “what am I doing wrong? Why is your friend ignoring me? Why is this happening??? How do I talk to him???”

To that, Jiang Botao only chuckled in response and patted Huang Shaotian’s shoulder in consolation, “Xiao Zhou takes a longer time to get used to people he’s not familiar with. Don’t take it too personally. In fact…”

He paused and quickly checked to see if Zhou Zekai was looking at their direction before he leaned closer to Huang Shaotian and whispered covertly, “…he’s a huge fan of yours, actually.”

“No way! He is?” Huang Shaotian frowned in confusion, once more fixing his attention onto the man walking a few steps ahead of them. His frame was lean and tapered from the well-fitting jeans and black leather jacket he was donning, and at his full height, he was at least a few centimeters taller than him, which made the man slightly intimidating, even if he had the most dazzling ash-grey eyes and cheekbones sharp enough to shred paper-thin slices of prosciutto, but that had never stopped Huang Shaotian before.

“Sure is. So, imagine how surprised he was when he saw your email,” Jiang Botao continued, returning to walk beside his new acquaintance, “he could barely talk — he was that excited.”

“Huh,” Huang Shaotian made a non-committal sound and stared at the back of Zhou Zekai’s head. He wanted to say something like “you mean the guy’s capable of talking even less than this?” but he didn’t because that would be incredibly rude and he wanted to be on his best behavior during this short trip in Shanghai. It wasn’t as if he was trying to impress a certain someone… Oh, who the fuck was he trying to fool?

“Anyway, we were thinking that we’d let you rest during the afternoon, get something to eat together, and then start filming the first section tonight. We already have all the ingredients that you’ve requested prepared at our place. What do you think?”

“Sounds good!” Huang Shaotian’s grin returned, vibrant and infectious, and Jiang Botao could understand a bit what his best friend saw in Huang Shaotian despite his chattiness and almost too-cheerful persona that he presented in front of his audience in his vlogs.

-

“Hello everyone, this is Troubling Rain of the Blue Rain Eatery channel! Guess where I’m currently at? This is Cloud Piercer’s apartment! Can you believe it? Yeah, me neither. But as promised, the two of us are collaborating for the next two videos. This first one will be posted on my channel, where, with the assistance of the wonderful and beautiful Cloud Piercer, I’ll be making a Cantonese style-fried dumpling — gok jai. In the second video, Cloud Piercer, who’s born and raised in Shanghai, will take me to his favourite restaurant to try one of the city’s most well-known delicacies: xiao long bao. So, without further ado, let’s welcome our special guest: Cloud Piercer!”

Huang Shaotian clapped with as much enthusiasm as a child being told that he could run free within a candy store.  

The camera panned out to reveal Zhou Zekai, wearing a simple black long-sleeved t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a light grey, yellow-trimmed apron, standing adjacent to Huang Shaotian. He gave a slight wave and a small but sweet smile, and introduced himself with a soft voice, “Hello, I’m Cloud Piercer.”

“You Cloud Piercer fans should thank me,” Huang Shaotian faced the camera and said with mock seriousness, “apparently this is the first time the man is willing to show his face properly in front of the camera. Oh my, I think I could hear your fangirls and fanboys screaming in the distance, Cloud Piercer.” He grinned slyly, aiming the teasing expression at the dark-haired man who only scratched his cheek bashfully, grey eyes darting to the side with a helpless but adorable smile.

“That’s…not nice,” Zhou Zekai managed three words — an actual complete sentence, even if it was a rather short one — but it was more than Huang Shaotian could ever hope for.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It was meant to be a compliment, I swear!” Huang Shaotian burst out laughing when he saw Zhou Zekai’s expression.

“All right! Let’s get started! Since Cloud Piercer here is too shy to speak, he’ll be doing all the hard work while I do the talking. First, let me just say that we’ll be making the sweet version of this tasty dumpling, which, granted, is usually only served during the New Year, but what the heck, I heard this man likes his desserts so that’s what we’ll be making. Also, the original recipe calls for deep-frying, but I know all you ladies out there are probably weeping about the oil and cholesterol. Don’t worry! We’ll be baking ours instead! So, have as many of these as you want!”

“But too much…” Zhou Zekai, to Huang Shaotian’s pleasant surprise, spoke up again, and if he weren’t wearing a lapel microphone on his apron, his voice would definitely have been lost, “…unhealthy.”

“True,” Huang Shaotian nodded in agreement, and began to list out the ingredients and the required amounts of each. While he talked about each step with a flurry of hand gestures and animated, rising and falling tenor, Zhou Zekai followed along silently in graceful and efficient movements beside him, adding dry and wet ingredients into a glass mixing bowl, combining them thoroughly with a wooden spoon, and then kneading the dough — already a nice, golden shade from the egg yolks — until it transformed into a smooth, glistening sphere.

All this time, Huang Shaotian made sure that he wasn’t talking too fast, as he sometimes had the tendency to do when he got too excited, but he realized that he’d been worrying over nothing because as little as Zhou Zekai seemed to speak in words, the man carried himself in the kitchen as if he owned the place, and the ingredients and pieces of equipment were under his perfect control and manipulation.  

It wasn’t the first time Huang Shaotian watch Zhou Zekai cook (let’s face it, he’d watched some of the videos more than once… fine, more than five times) but seeing him on screen and being there with him were two entirely different experiences. While Zhou Zekai’s videos were mostly peaceful, calming, and almost therapeutic, standing beside him while he was preparing the ingredients and gradually assembling them was strangely intense and entrancing; in fact, Jiang Botao had to wave at him vigorously to get Huang Shaotian’s attention because the blond had been staring at Zhou Zekai rolling a small piece of dough into an almost-perfect circle without the use of a cookie-cutter, quickly placing a spoonful of peanut and coconut filling in the middle, and folding the edges together into an elegant border of flourished twists.

Zhou Zekai’s fingers, slender and pale with nails trimmed neatly, were precise in measuring out ingredients and kneading the dough for only as long as necessary, like a gunner flawlessly hitting his intended targets, yet laced within that precision was a kind of grace found only in an artist’s bones.

“Uh, yes, um, so keep repeating these steps,” Huang Shaotian blinked and forced himself to turn away from those attractive hands before continuing in a more steady tone, “don’t worry too much if your first few don’t look as perfect as the ones Cloud Piercer’s making right now because hell, I don’t think I can make them that pretty myself, and put them in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees Celsius, for 18 to 20 minutes or until the surface looks golden-yellow.”

By the time the baked gok jai had been cooled down enough, Huang Shaotian picked up one of the golden dumplings, baked to a crisp and warm to the touch, with his thumb and index finger, and offered it to Zhou Zekai.

“Taste test time! Go on then, Cloud Piercer, take a bite!”

Zhou Zekai’s gaze strayed from the dumpling dangled between Huang Shaotian’s fingers to Huang Shaotian himself, who was giving him an encouraging smile almost too bright for Zhou Zekai to handle; his gaze landed back onto the dumpling, which was held only an inch away from his mouth that had sudden gone very, very dry.

“……”

“Come on, man, don’t be shy now,” Huang Shaotian misinterpreted Zhou Zekai’s hesitation, though he wasn’t really that far off.

“…you first,” Zhou Zekai finally spoke, his voice so small even his microphone was having a hard time capturing what he’d said.

“Oh nonono, I insist you should take the first bite,” Huang Shaotian shook his head vigorously, his fluffy blond hair flying every which way so that it reminded Zhou Zekai of a golden retriever shaking himself dry. The image almost pulled a smile from his lips, but he somehow managed to control himself. “You did all the hard work, so you deserve to have the first one. Now be a good boy and open your mouth — say ‘ah’.”

His face remained impeccably neutral, as if he wasn’t about to be hand-fed by someone whom he might consider to be his online crush, but the red tinted at the tip of his ears, thankfully concealed by his dark hair, betrayed his troubled thoughts. All too aware of the camera’s lens focusing on him, Zhou Zekai just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible; he swiftly lowered his head and bit a small mouthful before pulling himself straight, one hand politely covering his mouth while he chewed.

The crispy texture was utterly mesmerizing, but when combined with the chewiness of the wrapping and the crunchy sweetness of the filling, Zhou Zekai’s taste buds were very blissful indeed.

“How is it? How is it?”

Since Zhou Zekai was still chewing, and he honestly didn’t trust his voice at this point, the best he could do was to give a thumbs-up at the camera to show how much he enjoyed the taste.

Without even thinking about it, Huang Shaotian popped the remaining of the gok jai into his own mouth, and Zhou Zekai could only stare at him as the blond mumbled with his mouth full of the dumpling. Meanwhile, Zhou Zekai’s brain was running wild with the colourful comments from the viewers, especially those very zealous fangirls, this video was about to be consumed by.

-

“It’s too bad Xiao Jiang can’t join us for dinner,” Huang Shaotian commented as he placed his phone down on the table after watching the video they’d filmed and edited two days ago. He grabbed the menu to inspect it even though they’d already placed their order about fifteen minutes ago, but he couldn’t let Zhou Zekai see the blush spreading on his cheeks.

What the hell had he been thinking? Huang Shaotian’s mind was running a marathon — a marathon of a never-ending circle. Hand-feeding Zhou Zekai like that as if… as if they were anything more than acquaintances! He hadn’t been thinking — that was the problem. He’d been so distracted by Zhou Zekai’s presence that he thought nothing of the gesture until after Jiang Botao shouted “cut!” to end their filming session and the man sent him an amused but knowing grin.

He tried to redirect his attention to elsewhere: the reaction had been even better than both vloggers had expected, and that gave them the motivation to film the next video as soon as possible, which was how they ended up in a hole-in-the-wall diner in one of the back alleys in the city near Zhou Zekai’s apartment.

“God I haven’t had xiao long bao in ages. You have no idea how long it’s been! Like, you’d think Guangzhou would have some good restaurants that serve half-way decent xiao long bao, but they’re either way too expensive or way too overrated,” Huang Shaotian rambled on until he felt like he was about to be suffocated by the way Zhou Zekai was staring at him with those ash-grey eyes and slight curve of his lips. “So, anyway, uh, I just wanted to thank you again for accepting my invitation to do this collaboration! It’s been really fun, and I can’t wait to try the food here. Here’s to another successful video from us both!”

Huang Shaotian raised his tall glass filled with beer and clinked it against Zhou Zekai’s, the foam overflowing the rim and sliding down the glass in rivulets of white.

“Mn.”

Zhou Zekai sipped his liquor in a slow and steady pace but Huang Shaotian seemed either very thirsty or very nervous, for he gulped down three-quarters of his beer in one breath.

Since they’d settled into their seats, Zhou Zekai hadn’t really spoken other than placing their orders. It wasn’t like he was ignoring Huang Shaotian though, because the blond could tell that the other man was listening to him attentively and gave the appropriate responses like nodding in agreement, or tilting his head to the side in puzzlement, or even occasionally giving one-syllable replies.

Before he allowed the silence to get any more insufferable, however, Huang Shaotian began to fiddle with his camera and tripod. Since their voluntary cameraman was not available today, Huang Shaotian had taken on the responsibility to record their session tonight.

When the dishes they ordered finally arrived, Huang Shaotian released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. With another one of his signature sunny smiles, he turned to Zhou Zekai and asked him if he was ready to start.

Sitting inside the bamboo steaming basket was the star of the video, the piping hot xiao long bao — the soup dumplings with their pale-yellow skin, glistening with moisture, the crown cascading with spiraled ripples, and their bodies plump with meat and stock inside just waiting to be bitten into. Huang Shaotian positioned the basket between himself and Zhou Zekai while moving the other dishes out of the way; they’d have to enjoy those a bit later, unfortunately.

“Welcome to the second installment of Cloud Piercer and myself Troubling Rain’s collaborative video about one of China’s most delectable and versatile food — dumplings! Today, Shanghai local Cloud Piercer takes me to his favourite restaurant in town that serves excellent xiao long bao, ta-dah!” Huang Shaotian tilted the basket to display the jewels towards the camera and continued, “And of course, when we’re eating these delicious little things, there are some courtesies that must be followed so that you can enjoy the dumplings with maximum level of scrumptiousness and minimum level of danger, i.e. accidentally letting that hot soup burn your tongue!”

As they’d discussed beforehand, Zhou Zekai took the cue and carefully picked up a xiao long bao with his chopsticks, placing the dainty dumpling into his soup spoon, which had already been filled with a dash of black vinegar.

“First, if you don’t dip your xiao long bao in some black vinegar, that should be a food crime and you should be put into food jail! Shame on you! The sourness of the vinegar and — yeah, don’t skip out on those ginger either!” Huang Shaotian added as Zhou Zekai delicately topped the dumpling with some finely-chopped ginger slivers, “the sourness of the vinegar and the mildness of the ginger will balance the slight saltiness and oiliness of the pork filling, so remember—”

What they hadn’t discussed, but what Zhou Zekai was currently doing, was the dark-haired man holding the dumpling a few inches away from Huang Shaotian’s lips, his eyes expectant and the corner of his lips slightly tilted upwards in what seemed to be a teasing smile. Maybe.

The scene was all too familiar.

“Uh, hmm? Cloud Piercer, what’s up?” Huang Shaotian didn’t dare back away but he was raising one of his brows in bewilderment.

“…”

The spoon with the plump xiao long bao sitting snugly in it was moving a degree closer, Zhou Zekai’s intention clear as day.

“F-for me?” Huang Shaotian wanted to be sure anyway, because what if he misinterpreted the whole thing and made a fool of himself in front of this gorgeous man? …Again?

Zhou Zekai nodded with a faint smile, and Huang Shaotian gulped noisily.  

And since, as previously mentioned and demonstrated, Huang Shaotian was an infatuated fool who was too easily distracted, all his attention was focused on how pretty Zhou Zekai looked with a smile on his face, how sincere he seemed in offering him the first dumpling, and how insanely long his eyelashes were, a perfect frame for his ash-grey eyes that were also smiling warmly at him. His attention was so askew that he forgot about the one taboo any experienced xiao long bao-consumer would never commit: he took the entire freshly-steamed dumpling into his mouth and sank his teeth into it.

He regretted it instantly.

“Huang Shao!” Zhou Zekai yelped in forewarning, the loudest Huang Shaotian had ever heard from him. His eyes were widened almost comically, but it was too late.

Scalding, fragrant soup filled Huang Shaotian’s mouth, the heat of the stock burning its way around the tender flesh of his oral cavity and the back of his throat as he tried to swallow as quickly as he could without choking himself in the process. He coughed in the most unbecoming manner, soup dripping down his chin messily, his eyes turning red and watering from the heat, “Fuaaaah! Shit, shit, owwwww…”  

Armed with several napkins, Zhou Zekai leaned in to dab Huang Shaotian’s chin and cheeks dry, his movements nothing but gentle, all the while his brows frowning with obvious worry, “…hurt? Need ice water?”

His face was only a few centimeters away from Huang Shaotian’s, and he was too preoccupied by his task of cleaning the blond up to realize that said blond was staring unabashedly at him.

‘Too close,’ Huang Shaotian thought to himself, blinking slowly and appreciating the flawless cheekbones and rosy pink of the other man’s lips in such close proximity. ‘Oh god.’ He had a feeling he was about to do something he was going to regret again.

“Water would be nice, but…” Huang Shaotian finally located his voice, slightly raw and hoarse from hot soup sliding down his throat just minutes before, and he glanced up to maintain steady eye contact with Zhou Zekai, his topaz irises blazing with a sudden burst of daring, before the words rolled out of his mouth, “a kiss from you might be better though.”

“…….”

At Zhou Zekai’s pause, though his hand remained on Huang Shaotian’s chin with a clean napkin, Huang Shaotian’s cheeks began to grow warm and he wished the ground would swallow him up already because hadn’t he embarrass himself enough in front of this guy today?!

“I-I mean— mmf?!”

His lips were warm, was Zhou Zekai’s first thought as his eyes fluttered close when their lips touched tenderly for the first time, warmer than expected, and so, so soft, like the fluffy chiffon cakes he liked to bake. On the other end, Huang Shaotian’s lips felt oversensitive due to the burning soup from the xiao long bao, but the slight tingling verging on numbing sensation was addictive, and he found himself leaning in closer, his arms hanging loosely on Zhou Zekai’s shoulders to keep him in place, their breaths gradually becoming more and more unsteady until Zhou Zekai pulled himself away and opened his eyes.

They were dark but glimmering with the kind of desire not unlike wanting to swallow his favourite dessert whole.

Huang Shaotian’s breath stuttered at the sight, but he still managed to grumble convincingly with an accusative tone, “Zhou Zekai, you realize we’ll have to film this from the beginning again, right?”

“Worth it.”

[sleepyskunk]

Deconstructing the 2017 Movie Trailer Mashup

Why deconstructing a mashup? Because these videos are often perceived as a random mess of pretty images from movie trailers. While that’s absolutely true, there’s an opportunity to explore themes and also pay a few obscure tributes to elements that don’t belong in the video itself but that are generally widespread within pop culture. These montages have been going on for a few years now, and it’s hard to edit the footage in a way that won’t feel reminiscent of one of the many great retrospectives put out by other talented editors in years past. I have to say that trying to build a narrative with all that footage has now become more enticing to me than to highlight the moments that made the year in cinema within their proper context. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Someone on Reddit commented: “starting off with GEOSTORM, that’s a bold move!” and it didn’t even cross my mind. The shot was exactly where I wanted to go right off the bat - a blend of childlike wonder and eerie caution reminiscent of earlier Tim Burton films. The track was composed for a television spot called “A Wonderful Day” from IT and it showcases major Danny Elfman influences. Thus, this was my small tribute to the Burton/Elfman collabs happening under snowfalls like EDWARD SCISSORHANDS or BATMAN RETURNS. I loved the contrast in dialogue from PERSONAL SHOPPER which was such an under-appreciated indie film this year. Every mashup has its horror section, but I am gently sneaking you in by the supernatural door this time around. It’s just innocent enough to deceive those who hate horror.

Childlike wonder flawlessly captured in one shot, from the lens of Matt Reeves. I can’t say I connect emotionally with his APES movies, but the quality control on every frame, CGI or otherwise, it pretty much above and beyond all industry standards. That facial expression is exactly what I needed, you can tell she’s not too sure whether she’s safe or not but without feeling properly scared either. This is like the part in the original POLTERGEIST where kitchen chairs are moving on their own and the family still thinks it’s kind of fun. Kind of.

KING ARTHUR is the best type of release when it comes to trailer mashups because 1) it had a fantasy undertone 2) it was tracking poorly and 3) it went way over budget. Big studios know months in advance if they have a major bomb on their hands, and they have two choices at that point: either stop spending a penny on it and dump it for a quick theatre run and VOD release (more common if the movie didn’t cost that much) or, like in this case, spend extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad. Those extra millions go towards CGI money shots like the one above, which is really meant to make the marketing more attractive and oh dear lord, did KING ARTHUR have some last minute money shots to offer or what? It was a joy to pick and choose from its nine trailers.

This is where I put my cards on the table, whimsy never happened and I am taking you all to creepytown. That shot from ANNABELLE: CREATION is one of the many that upstages the featured evil doll in that wonderful movie and the film’s cinematographer Maxime Alexandre reached out because he was happy so much of his work was featured. You never know in front of who your videos can end up and industry people are keen on celebrating the year in film, especially if their own works are included. This is just a top notch unsettling shot clearly inspired by THE SHINING (the girl’s dress and the way her arms look lifeless.) On a side note, I always manually add all sounds including that floor cracking. If anyone reading this is starting off editing mashups, I promise you one thing: using professional, isolated, studio-recorded sound effect packages such as BOOM library is much superior to the original trailer track (unless you get a clean sound within the trailer.)

Another random insight (if you’re interested in making your own movie mashups) is to try as much as possible to avoid that one marketing shot everyone recognizes. You can revisit a memorable moment but going straight to the most oversold shot of a film hurts you. While you’re eager to make everyone relive the most epic imagery of the year, some value gets lost when a studio bombarded the same shot over and over and you go for it. Two quick examples: Giant hologram JOI pointing at Ryan Gosling in BLADE RUNNER 2049. I wanted that moment, but the original side-scroller shot was so overused that I went with her from a closer angle (see video thumbnail). Another example is that uncomfortable sniffle from Daniel Kaluuya in GET OUT which I favored over the super overplayed mouth open crying paralyzed shot from every marketing piece. In both cases, I assume you know which shots I am referring to without having to show them. Trying the alternative makes us relive the moment without its obviousness. It gives that other shot they didn’t choose its moment to shine (and more often than not, it’s just as effective.)

Someone’s not getting much sleep. A CURE FOR WELLNESS is a gorgeous-looking film no matter what you think of its bizarre plot points. I spend much of the first segment flirting with the creative key points from IT. One I tried to play around with is the idea of Pennywise as a half-real/half-fiction monster, and how similar to Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET his realm of terror extends. A few winning concepts in both films: 1) He isn’t real but he can really hurt you so you have to stay on your guard at all times and 2) Only a select few have been cursed with having to deal with him, adding a psychological layer to an already spooky premise. Dane Dehaan looks like a kid from Derry, or Elm street if you prefer, whose mental focus seems affected by the fact that he saw something, and his friend saw him too. Meanwhile, I throw in a completely out of context quote from Vanessa Redgrave which ties in that mysterious “sickness” from Verbinski’s film.

A shot from PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN from a trailer edited by Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr. for Annapurna Pictures where he works as an in-house editor now. In 2015, I talked about Gen Ip’s storytelling approach and last year I praised Matt Shapiro’s famously epic crescendos, so this year, let’s talk about Kees a little bit because I find all their influences fascinating. My first observation is how far his much-adored Cinema series has taken him, and that one of the top production houses in the business (if not the top, sorry A24 and Fox Searchlight) hired him so he could bring his own distinct style onto their major features. The whole trailer mashup craze started off only a few years back and so many editors were recruited right off YouTube to turn their passion into a livelihood down in Los Angeles. I can think of at least six editors whose names you’d recognize and who are now living the dream, and I consider this to be really inspiring because none of them initially got into it thinking something like that was ever possible. (side note: I also moved to L.A. and was poached by a trailer house but prefer to keep things on the low-end until it’s been long enough. I wouldn’t want to jinx it.)

The second observation about Kees is how much influence he’s had on every mashup that gets uploaded on a daily basis every December (me included) - I will link his Cinema series below. Instead of pairing clips into a horror bit, an action bit, a laughing and dancing bit, a kissing and crying bit, Kees was always out to create new feelings and nothing ever seemed more important than proper flow. Many shots would pop-up that you would never expect thematically, images of moving objects like a breaking glass transitioned with a girl’s hair waving through the wind (also see the lie detector in the previous shot.) He would connect nature documentaries right along with major superhero blockbusters and the movements flowed so perfectly that nothing ever felt out of place, quite the contrary. He was the best shot curator we’ve ever seen, and the order in which he put them together was beyond logic and predictability. Imagine “One Perfect Shot” but with 275 perfect shots back-to-back. If you want a prime example of what I’m referring to (random objects and flow), check out 2:49 - 2:52 from his Cinema 2011 (links below). Kees set the bar so high that attempting an end-of-year mashup certainly felt foolish at times, but hoping to improve made the editing process all the more inspiring.

CINEMA 2008 | CINEMA 2009 | CINEMA 2010 | CINEMA 2011 | CINEMA 2012 

So apparently, they have the internet and flat-screen TV’s in RINGS but landline phones are still a thing. Quite frankly, I haven’t seen RINGS and I bet it’s aggressively ordinary, but how retro horror is that shot? Paired up with the voice of THE SNOWMAN saying “Mister Policeman” it’s a throwback to Nancy being terrorized by Freddy in the original Nightmare of Elm Street (minus the tongue.) I was also pleased with the aesthetic of HAPPY DEATH DAY, clearly the product of horror fans who grew up during the low-budget slasher craze of the early ‘80s. It’s got MY BLOODY VALENTINE written all over it (meanwhile their poster was paying homage to APRIL FOOL’S DAY.) Retro horror, in all its disturbing practical gore glory! Rick Baker, Tom Savini, how much we missed you in our modern times where only a few major productions have enough VFX money to escape the uncanny valley (and even then... *cough* JUSTICE LEAGUE.)

I always tend to edit right on tempo, which means switching shots at the exact moment the music beat tells you to. But over here, I thought this elevator drop from FLATLINERS looked so frenetic and out of control that I started it half a second before as if the beat couldn’t keep up! Like in cartoons when the car accelerates so fast that it takes off but their eyeballs are standing still for a little fraction. This whole mashup sequence is meant to be a little cartoony and tongue-in-cheek. To anyone who found this to be disturbing (and yes, I heard from a few viewers who said it was too much) I must admit that it wasn’t my intention. I won’t apologize for my work, people choose to watch if they want to or not. But if I really tried my best to scare the crap out of you, I can assure you THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE wouldn’t have made the cut.

Now channeling a CHILD’S PLAY vibe thanks to this retro television shot from the highly underrated BRIGSBY BEAR. A kids program works well as an element of fear because it’s supposed to be a safely protected zone of positivity and care, just like a doll or a clown for that matter. Once that turns on its head and begins to attack, you basically have nowhere else to hide. It also makes for great contrast, and Andy Muschietti must have had an absolute blast this year incorporating this component into his remake of IT. The bear costume was one of the many shots that wasn’t from a horror movie and yet I used to great effect in this section. I know there was a new CHILD’S PLAY movie this year but sadly, it didn’t hold a candle to the Hitchcockian original.

“At the end of the day, people are out for themselves.” That’s not true, and only people who are out for themselves could believe that. Because if you’re weighing low on the morality scale at some point in life, you still wanna go to bed thinking you’re a good person. So if you can’t justify what you did, the best logical next step is to convince yourself that human nature is to blame, that everyone else would have done the same as you. Ask people who were charged with insider trading on the stock market, they’ll always say “everybody was doing it.” I could refer to a certain World War to keep hammering that point but instead, I’d like to point out the interesting contrast between this and Part 3. I try to disprove that very statement by showing in the finale that everything we do that matters is for others, and others are the only thing that matters once everything else has come and gone.

The KING ARTHUR studio spending extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad money shot festival continues. EPIC! In fact, that shot is so gorgeous, you could place it anywhere in any mashup ever and it would probably work.

Having a bit of fun giving a more literal visual cue to IT’s “We all float down here” with Guillermo Del Toro’s hypnotically beautiful THE SHAPE OF WATER. However, it’s not the tudum tssshh, get it? movie connection that works here. It’s the underwater sound effect and the incredible sound mixing by trailer house Buddha Jones so that Georgie’s voice seems to come from the bottom of the ocean. This is likely the best sound work you’ll hear in the entire mashup, and I didn’t mix it, the editors behind that teaser trailer did. In fact, their work was so effective at scaring people that it earned twice the amount of views on YouTube than what Avengers: Infinity War received. A fact Kevin Feige will likely never admit.

That moment when you realize your manic pixie dream girl wears white socks! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've used vulgarity in the past but not every year, depends whether it brings value. Some of you may remember “Game on, c***suckers” from KICK-ASS 2 in 2013 or “Nap time, motherf***ers” from COOTIES in 2015. Perhaps there’s another guilty pleasure at play here, however, which is that feeling of pure creative freedom. As mentioned earlier, not everyone digged the horror undertone of this year’s Part 1 and that’s okay because it went exactly where I wanted to go and no compromise was made. No client notes. No studio revisions. No censor beeper (which makes it worse because we seek to find out what the word was.) If you get into professional careers that are creative in nature, you’ll find that teamwork, compromise, and not taking anything personally are all essential components for success. But when the movie trailer mashup comes around, I report to no one. And that moment from THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI is one I wanted included as soon as the red band trailer came out.

This shot comes from a small movie you should seek out called MY NAME IS EMILY starring Evanna Lynch (aka Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies.) The film was directed by Simon Fitzmaurice who was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS) a few years ago, the debilitating disease for which the viral ice-bucket challenge was based on. He wrote the screenplay for this movie while his body was entirely paralyzed, and the only way he could communicate with the cast and crew while shooting the film was through eye gaze technology. There was a documentary following his brave journey that played Sundance called IT’S NOT YET DARK. Check it out if you need some real work ethic motivation and want to feel truly inspired about overcoming challenges. Much better than THE DISASTER ARTIST which is a spoof about a millionaire with no talent who mistreated the people who worked on his film. Okay, it’s still very entertaining and James Franco is hilarious but I don’t get a ‘never give up’ vibe from it, more like ‘maybe this isn’t for you.’

With the second segment, I was going for a British Gangster film vibe, hence the music cue Main Offender by The Hives. No movie captured that feeling better than Ben Wheatley’s FREE FIRE this year. I find the criminals in British movies are equally as clever in their quips as they are dangerous and often have the appearance of fair, well-behaved citizens until they have a reason to go mad. Jon Hamm’s performance in BABY DRIVER was also a textbook definition of that archetype, because all the build-up scenes where he acts friendly and discusses music with the titular character only bring an element of surprise at the end of his arc (spoilers: he’s not that nice in the end) I am aware that BABY DRIVER takes place in America but it’s directed by a Brit so it counts!

If Kubrick only knew his famous jump cut from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY that connects a flying bone to a space shuttle would lead to this fifty years later. What a shit show jump cuts have become! But they’re fun, and let’s be honest here: 7 minutes of serious quotes about life would get a little heavy. The way you edit jump cuts is the same way to solve a puzzle with over a thousand pieces. Extract dozens of short action clips onto your timeline and try to make them fit with one another over and over until you’re entertained. I mean, the music stays the same in the background, all I am doing here is deciding which projectile this pair of underpants from CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS will become. The answer was a tranquilizer from the underground mall chase sequence in Bong Joon-ho’s excellent OKJA. Maybe we should try one really long domino of jump cuts one day. Should take forever to edit, but how much fun would it be?

Did you know that Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander was a professional ballet dancer before she started acting? Work ethic applies in everything you do. When you hear about successful actors, you often discover people who are world-class at delivering under pressure and dedicating themselves to their craft with an insane amount of work. Acting is hard and yet so many people think they can do it, which makes it even harder. At least ballet puts constraints right off the bat, you need flexibility and a specific body frame. Part 3 is about finding your passion AND putting in the work. Just finding your passion is hard! It’s not always the bottomless pit one could hope for, especially when it becomes a real job with hours upon hours of work. Many people don’t even know what their passion is, they know what they’re good at but don’t love it. “Without your passion, it’s very hard to find our place in the world.” I don’t think you need your income to come from your passion in order to find said place, but I wish everyone that many of the limited hours they have each day goes towards their passion, and not towards something that feels like a waste of time. Wanting to wake up has everything to do with what happens after your first cup of coffee. Put your time towards something meaningful to you, even if it’s only on evenings and week-ends and you’ll never make a penny from it. If you love animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you love to travel, just GO!

But what happens when your family conflicts with your passion? Would you leave them behind to pursue your dreams? We all remember the tragic scene from DEAD POETS SOCIETY where a young scholar gets forced by his father to become a doctor instead of his passion and commits suicide. And then we have this year’s COCO, Pixar’s big comeback, where music is prohibited in Miguel’s family but it’s all he dreams about. But that conundrum doesn’t even have to be confrontational in nature. What if you wanted to work in a low-paying field like online journalism because it’s what you love but your single parent (who always took care of you) became sick and needed you to take care of their treatment. What happens then? What comes first? I humbly try to answer that later in the segment, of course.

We always told you Daniel Radcliffe... you’re special. That’s why you have a scar on your forehead that looks like a bolt... Just kidding, poor guy. I look at Mark Hamill in THE LAST JEDI and keep thinking that if studios are still a private enterprise in 40 years, some new Harry Potter movie will come out in which an old bearded Radcliffe will be teaching at Hogwarts. (PS: he keeps making bold choices, so much so that I am willing to watch anything he’s in.)

A man’s reach... (or woman, btw) should exceed his/her grasp. Words from a poem by Robert Browning, suggesting that, to achieve anything worthwhile, a person should attempt even those things that may turn out to be impossible. The downside with attempting the impossible is two-fold, however. 1) You may spend your life trying and never succeed. 2) If you do get there after so much sacrifice and effort, the world will expect you to do it again, or to keep doing it at the same level or better. If you won a Gold medal at the last Olympics, what are the expectations for the upcoming Olympics? That’s where passions and dreams enter a darker road, one many people choose to avoid altogether. But whatever happens, it’s worth the risk as long as you have the one thing along the way that’s a hundred times more important. And that thing is...

...people who love each other! Look at this guy, he just figured it out!

Kate Mara in MEGAN LEAVEY really seems to be the one thinking out loud in this shot while we hear a quote from THEIR FINEST. I had a blast with the Freddy Krueger references earlier but this is my favorite part. Audiomachine make the best tracks to bring that crescendo to its proper peak. You can say this part of the mashup is more in my comfort zone. And the influences from Kees that I discussed earlier can be felt here. Some shots of objects and landscapes that aren’t thematically connected but keep a nice flow. I also handpicked the best cinematography of the year all at once here. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was a damn pretty movie, then SHAPE OF WATER, then THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS, then OKJA. Every shot looks like a million bucks. Notice the use of paper, letters and ink. I want to see you again, a character from EVERYTHING EVERYTHING writes on a sheet.

Family comes first is nice, but along with family comes conflict and distance at times. Things we said that we regret. Times we let each other down, or weren’t there when we needed to. All the papers dropping from the bridge, all the shots that refer to letter writing, that’s where I was going with that. Not always obvious because it moves so damn fast which is why I do this deconstruction blog post every year!

The final big lift from Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! Also, the first frame I added onto my AVID timeline. This is how I organize my work basically. I pick the right songs, then I identify the exact moments in that song where a big moment should happen - if you use trailer music, it will be crystal clear what those are. And then I try money shots in each of these spots over and over until one really, really fits. Then, I ask myself how did we get here, how can I get to that point? And build around these big moments. The second shot I added into the mashup was the little girl in Part 1 under the bed who points to another version of herself sleeping in her bed and says “Shhh! That’s not me.” I put that in right when the music stopped, it became a big moment, and then I built around it in order to get there. Every editor works differently, but I am just sharing how I personally prefer to do it. Back in 2012, the first clip I added onto the timeline was “I have an army. We have a Hulk.” from THE AVENGERS which means I’ve been editing this way for five straight years.

Those letters of reaching out to people you care about. Apologies or wondering how they’re doing. Flying everywhere around Winston Churchill (that’s my dog’s name, he’s a Pembroke Welsh Corgi!) I guess you should always be the one to reach out in difficult situations with important people. The mistake is to not reach out, or convince yourself that they were dragging you down and you’re better off without them. That’s rarely the case, and you’ll never get over them when you know that’s not the case. Maybe they will reply someday, maybe they never will. But you swallowed your ego and you decided to give it one more shot. That’s the bravest thing we can do in this life, and I hope you’ll see it that way if the time comes. Happy New Year! Achieve your passions, take care of the ones you love and make it a wonderful day! (Halle Berry: “Aaaarrh!")

- Sleepy Skunk

[maxvillareal]

i want to do some storytelling/legacy but it seems so hard to put up with :( i mean, making all the "scenes", decorating and stuff, it seems to take years.. do you have any advice? sorry if this is messy 💖

hi lovely, like i said to the last anon, i’m so sorry for taking so long to reply. i hope you don’t think i was ignoring you!! storytelling can be a little hard to put up with sometimes, and i definitely find myself a little drained from it sometimes, but i think i do have some tips for making it not feel like so much work!!

don’t pose every single scene. while i do pose like 70% of my legacy content, some of the best content comes from just playing the game as it is and taking pictures of moments that feel necessary or that interest you or that you find aesthetically pleasing or cute. if you pose every single thing that happens in your legacy, you’re going to feel like a movie director (which does feel kinda cool, admittedly) making a feature film and making a feature film takes a lot of work. you won’t feel like you’re actually playing the game, and it’s important to remember that sims is just that - a game. you should be having fun!! and it’s not fun to sit there for hours placing teleporters and getting all your sims into position and picking their poses etc. so use poses for things that you can’t make your sims do naturally or that would be more accurate if posed, but for the most part it’s best to just let your game play on its own. build off of what naturally happens in your game!! sims is a life simulation game, so realistic things are going to happen on their own. use those moments for scenes rather than having to build and pose them all the time. it’ll save you a shit ton of time because you’re actively playing the game and filming a scene at the same time. 

i personally don’t write down my plots/plans for my legacy. because then i feel like i have to stick to this very strict storyline/script and that puts more pressure on me to pose a scene very specifically and accurately to how i’m imagining it, and it can be impossible to find the perfect pose for a moment or to decorate a scene perfectly when there isn’t always custom content for what you have in mind. that isn’t to say that you shouldn’t make plans because organization is nice!! i just prefer to wing it, really. 

if you can’t find the perfect pose for something, or the scenery isn’t exactly as you’d like it to be, your camera angles are everything!!! you’ll save so much time scouring the internet for the perfect cc if you can just manipulate your camera to take a photo of a scene in a way that implies something is happening rather than showing it straight on. like, say you need a photo of your sim reaching way up high for something (this is an issue i faced last week) but there’s no poses for exactly that anywhere. get a pose that looks similar enough, i.e. the sim is just reaching in front of them or even reaching down. angle your camera just right and it can look like they’re reaching up high, you know? like get an aerial view or from the ground, looking up. or when you have a car scene, and you can’t place objects/teleporters in the road... so build a makeshift road out of an empty lot and some pavement tiles and angle your camera just right so it looks like they’re really driving somewhere. 

you don’t have to build every scene on your own!! i usually find a lot from the gallery that fits what i need enough and then i go in and find a space in there to tweak to my liking, or i don’t even tweak it at all. some scenes are already built for you, so don’t make yourself sick building everything from scratch!!

decorating is going to take a long time no matter what, unfortunately. i can spend anywhere from 6 to 10 hours decorating full houses, and that’s purely because i have a lot of fun decorating and because i use a lot of custom content so it takes me a long time to dig through everything to find what i need. i personally don’t mind how long it takes, but i know very few people wanna spend that much time furnishing. all i can offer as advice here is if you’re decorating for a specific scene, don’t decorate the whole room. decorate half of it, or just one wall, and place your sims against that wall so that’s all you have to take pictures of. no one will know that the rest of the room is bare. 

take pictures first, add dialogue later. it can be hard to take pictures of a scene knowing exactly how you want it to go and look in the end, you know? like, i usually set up my scene, take tons of pictures of everything, and then sort them out later when i come out of game. and then i think of dialogue after the fact. it’s helpful because you won’t have to sit there trying to make facial expressions and body language and scenery exactly match whatever dialogue you already have thought out, you know what i mean? gosh i say that a lot. but!! you know?? just take a ton of screenshots and think of captions to match later!!

this got really long!!

i’m so sorry1!

i hope this helped you at all!!!!

[tomionekinkmeme]

valentines2k17 - Friendship that caught fire - K

Written for @knittedcoffee

Prompt: Hermione and Tom go on a date. Something either goes very wrong or very right.

Friendship that caught fire by princess-of-the-worlds

Summary: Tom and Hermione’s friendship becomes something more. Pan!Hermione. Bi!Tom. High school!AU.

XX

With an angry huff, Hermione slams her locker shut, hoisting her backpack up in one hand. She sweeps the end of her frizzy ponytail off one shoulder to avoid catching her hair under her bag as she slings it across her back. Immediately, she staggers under its weight, stumbling a few inches before righting herself. Why she took so many advanced classes, Hermione will never understand, but it is her own burden to bear.

Sighing in exasperation, she joins the stream of other students shuffling at a snail’s pace to their next classes. After moving barely past three classrooms, Hermione loses the dregs of her patience and shoves her way through the crowd. Finally, she arrives in her government class and plops down in her seat, burrowing her head in the crook of her cardigan-covered arm.

There is a slight thump as a bag is placed on the floor, and then someone is sliding into the desk next to hers. “Hermione.” Her name is said in polite acknowledgement.

Hermione glances up reluctantly, her cheeks coloring. “Tom.” She nods her head in what she hopes is a friendly manner.

Tom Riddle is the golden boy of their high school, a senior essentially confirmed to be the valedictorian of his class, class president, star swimmer of the school team, captain of the soccer team, openly bisexual.

Though Tom is charismatic, intelligent, and cunning, most people are drawn to his classical beauty. Dark hair styled neatly, dark expressive eyes, pale skin, fine facial structure, high cheekbones. He is dressed casually as usual in a grey Henley, well-fitted jeans that makes it hard for Hermione to tear her attention away from his muscular thighs, and neat combat boots.

He is a pretty boy, and he often uses that to his advantage, but Hermione is drawn to the dark streak that only she seems to know that Tom possesses, mostly because it matches her own.

They both are fiercely competitive and resourceful; they respect rules but do not shy away from breaking them to stay on top or protect what or whom they love.

Tom was originally frustrated by the pretty little Indian junior who matched him in nearly every class, and Hermione could never understand how Tom seemed so flawless, but they came to a mutual understanding over a blackmailing incident involving Rita Skeeter.

They have an odd relationship now, but Hermione is quite sure that their unusual way of flirting involves outscoring each other on exams.

“We have that midterm coming up in Calc,” Tom begins casually, “and I have a proposition for you.”

“What is it?” Hermione asks curiously.

“A bet.” Tom smirks triumphantly, because he knows that Hermione is never able to resist a challenge.

Welp. This midterm seems like it was already going to be a bit difficult, even for Hermione, but now Tom wants to raise the stakes.

“Go on,” she says cautiously.

“If I have the higher score, you must do something for me. If you have the higher score, well…” Tom shrugs. “You get the point.”

“What’s the catch?”

“The winner won’t tell the loser what they have to do until after we receive our scores.”

Ever the strong-willed, Hermione can find no way to reject this proposal without forfeiting to Tom, even with the catch that Tom could ask her to do something truly horrible like purposely fail an assignment.

“Fine,” Hermione tells him, steely-eyed. “I accept your challenge.”

XX

Hermione studies her ass off for that midterm.

For about a week, every spare moment between classes or before her various extra circulars, she reads her class notes or practices problems from her textbook, rejecting even invitations from Ron, Harry, and Ginny to join them at a nearby coffee shop.

But, in the end, it is all worth it to view the stunned expression on Tom’s aesthetically-pleasing features when Hermione scores one point higher than Tom.

Tom quickly schools his features back into a neutral expression. “Well, I guess you won, Hermione.”

She tries not to smile smugly.

“What is it that you require me to do?”

Hermione has given this some extreme thought over the last week, and, finally, she settled and made decision.

“Go on a date with me.”

His eyebrows rise, and, for a moment, Tom is truly taken aback. “What?” he asks, forehead scrunched up.

“This Saturday. The Three Broomsticks. I’ll text you a time.”

XX

What Hermione has failed to account for is that this Saturday is Valentine’s Day; this forgotten tidbit comes to her Saturday morning when she awakens and wanders downstairs to find a dozen red roses placed on the counter, a gift from her father to her mother.

“Ugh, no” she murmurs under her breath, but her mother overhears her anyway.

“What’s wrong?” Avani Das-Granger asks her only daughter, sipping her coffee as Hermione helps herself to a muffin and a glass of fresh orange juice.

“I asked a classmate out on a date, but I forgot that today is Valentine’s Day. It will be slightly awkward going on a first date, surrounded by couples that have been together for several years,” she admits to her parents.

“Boy or girl?” her father asks.

“Boy.”

Richard and Avani Granger are quite liberal about who their daughter is allowed to date. Though several people have caught Hermione’s attention, regardless of their gender, Hermione’s dating life has been limited to a short relationship with Viktor Krum, an exchange student, a few dates with Draco Malfoy that went nowhere, and an awkward date with Ron before they, thankfully, realized that they considered each other as siblings.

“It’s that Tom Riddle boy, isn’t it?” Avani smiles in realization, recalling the several times that Hermione has come home ranting about being ranked second in a class.

Hermione flushes and retreats upstairs with her breakfast before her mother can continue her line of questioning.  

XX

It has taken Hermione about an hour of combing, straightening, and braiding to tame her frizzy hair, but it now appears neat and has been worth the effort. Despite having inherited most of her mother’s features, including her tan skin and golden-brown eyes, Hermione has her father to thank for the tangled texture of her hair. Thankfully, in the last few years since entering high school, she has created a manageable routine.

With her most difficult task out of her way, she searches through her closet briefly before settling on a black floral dress with a rust-colored cardigan, adding leggings, her brown boots, and a coat to stay warm.

After a ten-minute walk to the Three Broomsticks, which is thankfully undecorated for Valentine’s Day, likely because all couples will have already gone to Madam Puddifoot’s, Hermione slides into a booth in the back of the pub, still visible to the door and waits.

“Hermione,” Tom says as he materializes to the left of the booth.

Hermione’s heart skips a beat when she notices how good he looks in his grey button-down and dark jeans with the same boots he was wearing when he challenged her to the bet.

“Tom,” she greets him as he slides into the booth opposite her. “I was just about to order.”

After their order is placed and their food is brought out, Tom remarks, “I never really understood Valentine’s Day or how it promotes the concept of love.”

He has feed the perfect line to Hermione.

“Spoken as a true cynic of romance.”

Tom raises an eyebrow in skepticism. “And you can name examples of what you refer to as romantic love?”

Counting off her fingers, Hermione lists, “Romeo and Juliet, Gatsby and Daisy, Hades and Persephone, Achilles and Patroclus.”

“Two are fictional, one is mythological, the last is just wistful thinking,” Tom says matter-of-factly.

“Fiction mirrors real life,” Hermione refutes.

“What about real life then?” Tom questions rapidly. “My parents would not be a prime example.”

Everyone knows about the Riddles; it came as a shock to everyone in their community when Merope Gaunt, daughter of a formerly-wealthy family, married rich heir of a shipping company Tom Riddle Sr. After thirteen years of an unhappy marriage, they finally divorced, and Tom, estranged from both parents, moved in with his best friend Abraxas’ family.

“I suppose not,” Hermione muses. “I suppose that means that you have never been in love?”

He shakes his head. “It has always been mutual attraction.”

“Even with Theo?” she asks curiously. “You dated him for about half a year.”

“No,” he pauses before continuing, “and you?”

“Viktor was my only real boyfriend, and we only dated for a few months, so no.”

They split the bill and pay it before retreating outside. Strolling besides each other for a few minutes, they pass an alley where Tom tugs Hermione inside.

Hidden from the view of most people, Tom gently presses Hermione to the brick wall and murmurs straight into her ear, “Love or no love won’t keep me from doing this.”

She doesn’t have a chance to ask what before his lips are on hers in a hot and heady kiss. When he releases her lips and smirks, Hermione grabs his dark hair and drags his lips back onto hers, thinking I’ll get you to believe in love eventually.

XX

Six years later, when Tom is down on his knee, a gorgeous silver band laying in the velvet box in the palm of his hand, Hermione knows that she has succeeded. 

[xxxnate-clifford-blog]

➳

Send me a symbol for my muse’s reaction to…

 ➳…realizing they’re in love with your muse for the first time

Aegeus sat up and leaned forward eagerly  in his chair for the first time ever in the whole slightly boring evening when Amara came forward and approached the elaborately carved council table where the few council heads of the vast town they were living in, was sitting. Sitting right at the center of the table was Dēmḗtrios, their Chief Leader and head council and surprisingly enough, right next to him ,sat his wife, Halcyone. Now this would have been an extremely strange spectacle, outrageous and even downright wrong in terms of societal laws and  customs of their time, for her to be sitting amongst a table of the most important men in their land if it were any normal day. But it wasn’t any normal day. It so happened to be Halcyone’s 35th birthday and while it was very rare for a woman’s birthday to be celebrated in public, let alone celebrated at all, Halcyone however was deemed a woman of the highest caliber and a shining paragon of example for all the rest of the women of their town to look up to and emulate due to her vast variety of excellent skillsets and most importantly, her highly fertile body that gave Dēmḗtrios12 healthy children, with nary a single stillborn babe or miscarriage and 10 out of those 12 kids were male heirs. Thus, in the eyes of the council and most of the male society in the town, she was the most blessed woman ever to grace their land and Dēmḗtrioswas without a doubt besotted with his wife, though he still kept a string of lovers and mistresses on the side, over the years. Thus, they graciously assented to Dēmḗtriosunusual request just this once, for him to celebrate his wife’s birthday with pomp for once in her life. To the rest of the town, she was deemed the shining prime example of where all the other females should look up to, follow her examples and revere her as a shining light of the perfect wife. In Aegeus own personal opinion however, from what he had seen or heard of her, from his life growing up here, he secretly deemed her to be a woman with a rather horrible personality, condescending in nature, a shrew and highly temperamental woman with secretly vicious temper which she use to lash out at her household servants and handmaidens. He wasn’t the kind of man to care much about the outer beauty of a woman nor her apparent obvious skillsets or whether she was highly fertile or not. True, he wanted children, and he wanted them because he loved to be a father and secretly could not care less if he were to blessed with either sons or daughters, though he wasn’t so silly as to not hope as to have one son at least to carry down his family house name. As for a women’s talents or skills, well, it would be nice and even delightful of course, if his future wife were to be witty and have pretty good skills in a few things which would make their married life more interesting and perhaps with that they would be able to bond better together, thus that was the only main reason he would really give much care about that aspect for his potential bride. As for outer beauty and looks, while it was factually, aesthetically pleasing to look at, those things wouldn’t last forever and would eventually fade easily over the years, thus to Aegeus, the most important beauty he would wish to see in his wife was the beauty of her heart and soul for that, in his brains, would last for all eternity.

And for the past hour or was it (30 hours already??), Aegeus had been subjected to sit on a chair along with the most of other males in their town in the grand hall of Dēmḗtrios vast, and expensive home, all of the seats being arranged in two lines of double circles around the hall, while, most of the females, regardless of whether they were married, single or shamefully divorced, came forward one by one to present their own chosen  birthday gift to Halycone and then depart as quickly as they came in. With his rather good- natured and jovial heart, Aegeus was at first, genial and in a pleasing mood during the beginning of the ceremony. But after an hour of sitting in a rather uncomfortable chair and watching dozens of ladies streaming in one by one in turns to present their gifts which quit frankly, most of them had come up with almost  the same gift concept or idea, Aegues was slowly losing his initial complacent patience and growing increasingly bored out of his mind and wished for nothing more than the whole ceremony to be over and done with as fast as Hermes could fly with his winged sandals.

However, the very moment a very familiar figure of a woman came into the hall after the other had went out and the door had been firmly shut behind her, Aegeus spirits had immediately brightened and his heart seemed to soar even higher up his chest. Despite her formal, concealing attire and veil that was customary for her to wear in public occasions such as this, he could without a singe moment of doubt in his very bones, knew that the young girl walking slowly in the middle of the hall right now was Amara. His heart started to beat a little faster and he sucked in his breath which  he had no idea that he had been unconsciously holding in the first place, as he watched Amara slowly lower down the part of the veil covering her face so that she could talk and present her gift with grace and respect. There she was again with her enchantingly beautiful, soft doe-eyes eyes with the most beautiful shade of brown he had ever seen, that was always was filled with pure innocence and kindness, perfectly carved facial features that seemed to be brimming with happiness whenever he caught a glimpse or look of her and beautifully curved lips that he knew for a fact held nothing but loving words that fell from her lips to anyone that she talked to. He for once, couldn’t care less of his father noticed his change of posture and peaked interest into the event for he was too busy concentrating and interestedly watching what Amara was going to present to Halcyone. His heart then brimmed with pride, admiration and the highest respect for her a couple of minuted later, for it seemed as like Amara had given Halcyone a present that topped all the other previous females’ presents. It even caused that haughty woman to pause in silence , apparently slightly disturbed with emotions as she held Amara’s gift which was an extremely beautiful embroidery work piece. And it turned out to be not just any piece of embroidery but there was something stitched into the design of that piece that signified something of great sentimental significance to Halcyone from her past. Aegeus had no idea how Amara had found out that vital piece of information and then took that in as her idea for the perfect meaningful gift for that woman, which also happened to be the same woman who had only a mere month ago, made scornful and condescending remarks about Amara in front of Amara’s face!With that knowledge in mind, Aegeus heart seemed to brim over with adoration and highly golden respect for that brunette girl over her cleverness as well as the graciousness of her compassionate heart. Good Gods, how he loved that woman! Aegeus thoughts then came into a screeching halt the very moment after he had realized what his inner heart and head had just declared inside of him. ..He loved her? He-..he loved her! His heart and spirits soared up so fast  and euphorically high that he was sure that they would burst out of him soon if that was ever possible, once he realized his true romantic and pure love feelings for her. Growing up with a rather traditional family, he never gave much hope that he would ever get to marry a woman which he truly loved or more insanely, considering the society they lived in, the woman of his dreams. But then Amara had appeared in his life like some magical being he never once expected to encounter and from the first day he had fatefully bumped into her and caught a glimpse of her before she apologized and rushed away, he had felt remarkable drawn to her from that moment on. His slightly unexplainable attraction for her, grew more and more, during the next few more times they had encountered each other over these past few months, a couple of those times being purely coincidental and the rest, well.. he had purposefully planned ahead to be at a a place he knew she would be going to outside in public society with the accompaniment of her brother. And despite their very brief interactions and conversations with each other during those times, he somehow felt like he was miraculously able to understand her and getting to put together pieces of her personality and character rather well in his own quiet reflections after each small interaction. Well, now that he definitely knew for certain that he loved her and she was indeed the epitome of the woman of his dreams so far, and he was most intently henceforth wanted to gentlemanly court her as much as he could despite society’s constraints and limits, his current situation also begged the looming question of whether or not, she felt the same way about him. For the first time ever in his life, the usually rather confident and decently self-assured Aegeus was begining to feel the risings of fear as well as anxiety. Good Gods, what if she didn’t love him back, or worse, she didn’t even like him? No, no. He pushed the latter thought away as not possible, as it did seem from their past few interactions, she appeared to seem to like him and his presence…Or that could merely be her being polite and also because of her place as a woman in their Greek society....Dammit, get a grip, Aegeus! He then took in a deep breath in order to calm himself a little bit, though it still didn’t help much with his frenzy of a beating heart. Soon. He had to meet her soon somehow and in someway, and whether or not, she was chaperoned or not by her brother at that time too, he didn’t care. He had to see her tomorrow or at least the latest, the day after tomorrow. He just had to get the answer to his question as fast as possible for he knew, that for once in his life, he wasn’t going to get a good night’s sleep till he knew of her answer. And it was at that moment whereby the confident and independent Aegeus for the first time, felt overwhelmed with feelings of uncertainty and huge worries of the romantic side of his heart.

[rulesoftraveling]

Rules #1-4

       When you’ve been on the road long enough, certain things become second nature to you. You’ve done it all before. Each day may be different, but some experiences and necessities become background noise of your daily life. Because of that, I sometimes try to sit back and remember the little tidbits of travel knowledge I would otherwise take for granted. When all this is over (if it’s ever over), I want to be able to look back on it and remember it not just as it happened, but as a lesson. So, I’m taking time to record some of my thoughts on my journey, presented in the order they occurred to me during the most remarkable days I spent on the road.

       And if it so happens I never get the chance to revisit my writings, I hope whoever finds this journal will learn something from it, or at least be entertained hearing my tales of learning some of these lessons the hard way.

Rule #1 of traveling: Free things are your best friend

       That may sound like a silly one, but it’s true. The first thing I did when I arrived at the motel in Seaglass Bay was take the lotion, shampoo, facial cleansing wipes, and toothbrush left for me in the bathroom. Because of this, I hadn’t had to buy lotion in weeks, and had no large tube taking up space in my already bulky pack. The other things weren’t quite as necessary, since my waist length dreadlocks required more shampoo than I had amassed by raiding motel bathrooms so far, and a toothbrush was something I already had. Still, I knew I might need them later, so I took it all.

       My money wasn’t going to last forever. By taking whatever free goods I could--ranging from toiletries to food samples in malls--had saved me enough money for an extra night or two in a motel and hours of shopping. Then again, I’d already been on the road a long time, so of course it added up.

       The next thing I did was dump out my pack and figure out what I could leave in the room while I went out and about. Most of it could stay, really. I only needed my wallet, recently acquired lotion, my phone, a pocket knife, and the length of chain (roughly eight feet of it) that I always carried on hand. Just the essentials. The rest I left on the bed.

       With everything where I needed it to be, I headed into town. The weather was beautiful; it was warm out and sunny above with a gentle, salty breeze rolling in off the ocean. No matter how you look at it, it was the perfect day to be on the beach. I couldn’t resist the urge to take off my shoes and feel the sand beneath my feet. Well, what little sand was on the boardwalk, at least. Walking on the actual beach was a tempting thought, but I knew I would get distracted if I did. Something about standing by the ocean always made me lose track of time. Getting lost in the moment was effortless out there, and my stomach couldn’t afford me standing around in some oceanic appreciation trance. I was starving.

       It took some self control, but I kept myself on task and continued down the boardwalk towards the part of town where I’d seen the most restaurants on the way in. My pace only faltered at the sight of a woman’s wings folded against her back. It wasn’t the sort of thing you see every day, but that brings me to my second point…

Rule #2: Magic is more common than you think

       You get used to it to some extent after awhile. Still, while the existence of magic itself is hardly a secret, most people still don’t know about it, and those who use it tend to prefer doing so in more private settings where they won’t make a scene. So, walking to lunch and seeing a woman with wings managed to surprise me despite having been around magic all my life.

       Her wings were more like that of a butterfly than a bird, though longer and skinnier than a butterfly’s would typically be. They were golden, luminous and dainty, like someone had fashioned them out of wire that just so happened to catch the sun right. It was anyone’s best guess as to weather they were functional or just decorative, but the lack of reactions from the crowd made me think that not everyone could see them. If they were just for show, it seemed they were a show meant only for people like me; ones gifted with an eye for the supernatural or raised around magic and conditioned to notice it easier through exposure.

       The woman with wings turned to glance back at me, and I wondered in passing if she knew that I knew, or if it was just one of those fleeting, empty moments between strangers where they happen to lock eyes in an exchange that would most likely be forgotten minutes later.

       Either way, I kept moving. A pair of fairy wings wasn’t worth stopping over. I continued onward until I hit a bakery. It wasn’t really the sort of place someone stopped for lunch, but the sight of cupcakes through the window made my steps slow to a crawl before stopping entirely as I decided that, being a grown man, I had the right to ruin my appetite with sweets if I so pleased. The colorful frosting and sprinkles called to me, as did the less flashy desserts. I wasn’t about to deny myself a small pleasure. Satisfied with my decision, I waltzed through the door with my heart set on something delicious. 

       The only person inside other than myself was a young woman about my age behind the counter. Her brown apron had a couple spots of flour on it that looked like they’d been brushed mostly off for the sake of appearances, but faint white marks remained despite her best efforts. It was one case where a little bit of messiness was appropriate, in my opinion. Bakers were supposed to be covered in flour. It really added to the idyllic hole-in-the-wall bakery aesthetic.

       The whole bakery had that charm, with everything inside painted brown, pink, and white. Floral patterns were stenciled onto white trim, and even the display cases had pink flowers in white vases on top. It was adorable and welcoming, offering a homey feel that hit customers from the moment they walked in til the moment they left, and as I walked to the counter to make my order, I was enjoying being surrounded by that comforting air.

       “I’ll have, uh…” I hadn’t made a decision prior to speaking. Oops. After a moment of awkward contemplation, I pointed at a row of mini cannolis inside the glass case by the register. “I’ll have one of those. No wait, make it two.”

       The baker smiled at me, but raised one eyebrow almost judgmentally. “Would you prefer a regular sized cannoli, then?”

       “Nope. That would be the smart thing to do, but I happen to be a huge fan of adorably small things.”

       Her mile faltered for a moment before returning brighter than ever. She didn’t look happy as much she did amused. This reaction understandably confused the hell out of me for a split second, until I realized that she was, in fact, a very small woman.

       She probably thought I was flirting. Not to be dramatic or anything, but this was quite possibly the worst way the interaction could have gone, and if I’d been any more inclined towards melodrama, I might have wished for death.

       Even with a slight tan on my already brown skin, my complexion wasn’t quite dark enough to hide the blood rushing to my cheeks. I was mortified. Flirting with people at work was a serious no-no, but being perceived as flirting felt almost as bad, and it didn’t help that she was grinning the whole time. Make no mistake, she did not enjoy my comment because she was into me. Instead, she was clearly reveling in my awkwardness and shame. That was the smile of a woman who got a kick out of watching dumbasses like me make fools of themselves.

       “Um. Yeah. Two mini cannolis.” I kept my tone even. Too bad I undoubtedly looked flustered. “That’ll be all.”

       She boxed up the tiny confections without teasing or jeering, but the amusement never left her eyes. All I wanted to do was escape, so I paid as fast as humanly possible and took off down another street in search of a proper lunch. Of course, I kept my head screwed on straight enough to remember to eat my cannolis before they got warm. And god damn were they good.

Rule #3: Remember to sample the local cuisine

       Restaurant franchises are so overrated. Part of the appeal of traveling is to find some little understated mom and pop joint that only the locals frequent. Maybe the bakery technically counted as one of these places too, but the real spirit of this rule hit me as I found a tiny diner to take lunch in. Every beach town needs a diner. That was almost as much a part of the “beach town” energy as the ocean itself.

       I ordered a turkey melt and a cola. The only thing that could have been more perfect would have been a vanilla milkshake with a cherry on top, but having ordered the cannolis, I’d both had enough sugar and splurged on treats enough for one day. I had both my wallet and my waistline to save. Hence the cola; still classic and very much on brand, but more reasonable in multiple senses of the word than a milkshake.

       It was plenty good enough. I was content with my sandwich and cola. The fries that came on the side, though not quite crispy enough for my taste, had the right amount of salt, and the sandwich itself didn’t skimp out on the meat or cheese. Honestly, it was the most satisfying lunch I’d had in awhile.

       I wish I could have finished it.

       A couple bites into the second half of the turkey melt, I glanced up to find two men standing at the entrance and staring at me. For being a big, blocky dude, the larger of the two was surprisingly nondescript. His hair and facial features were the furthest thing from memorable, and if it weren’t for his charcoal grey suit and the square shape of his body making him look like a caricature of a bodyguard, I may not have noticed him at all.

       In sharp contrast, the other man looked downright ridiculous. He was a few inches shorter than Mr. Bodyguard, but his legs were too long for the rest of his body, making him look taller than he was. This wouldn’t have seemed quite so strange if it weren’t for the fact that his clothes exaggerated it. His perfectly pressed white slacks and dress shirt fit in such a way as to seemingly elongate his body. And as if he weren’t overdressed enough already, he wore a pale gold vest that picked up the yellow ruffles on the white parasol he held in one hand. Even his skin was uncomfortably colorless, and the curls of hair peeking out beneath his white bowler were platinum blond. The only thing about him that wasn’t white and yellow was his pair of sky blue eyes.

       There was a fine line between judging a book by its cover and trusting your gut, but I’d like to think the unease I felt at the sight of them was more the latter. You see, when you catch someone staring at you, they typically either look away to try and pretend they weren’t staring, or they smile sheepishly knowing they’ve been caught. When I locked eyes with the men by the door, they did neither. The big one stared me down without a hint of shame, and the banana split looking motherfucker did smile, but instead of it being shy, the slow parting of his lips into a perfect, brilliantly white grin was nothing short of predatory.

Rule #4: Always be ready to run at a moment’s notice

       They weren’t the first hunters to come for me. Even if there was no uniform or badge associated with their kind, I’d learned to recognize them quickly. The sight of them frightened me all the same. I might have noticed my palms sweating if I hadn’t had a sandwich in one hand and a glass of soda in the other, but the shiver that ran down my spine was plenty obvious. It was one thing being on the run, and another entirely to know you’re cornered.

       The white and yellow guy jerked his head towards the door while still maintaining eye contact. Okay. It was a subtle invitation to take this outside, and I was pretty grateful for that. Fighting outside meant less people around us getting caught in the crossfire, or better yet, an opportunity to run. I wasn’t about to take that opening for granted.

       Slowly, I placed enough money on my table to cover lunch plus a nice tip, then rose from my seat. Rationally speaking, I knew the diner was small and it took no time to cross from my table to the door, but it didn’t feel that way. Each step was agonizingly slow and the tension in the air between us unbearable. The voices of everyone around us faded further into the background, their small talk and quiet laughter almost inaudible as I found myself focused only on my enemy and the decreasing space between us. We were so close, yet so far, and every moment was somehow both a split second and a lifetime.

       “Gentlemen,” I greeted them. This sounded stupid for some reason. I didn’t really know what the etiquette for addressing one’s potential captors was supposed to be. “What do you say we take this where no one will get hurt?”

       “My thoughts exactly,” the white and yellow one replied amiably. The pitch of his voice wasn’t particularly high or low, but the quality of it was unusually smooth, making it distinct in its own right. It matched the unsettling perfection of his straight, white teeth and tailored clothes, and paired with the grace of his every movement as he opened the door for me, I was almost distracted by the neatness that defined his being. If he’d just had a hair out of place or a speck of dirt on his clothing, he might have seemed real. But as it was, the flaws he had were his too-long legs and ghastly pale but flawless skin, and the way these featured paired with the rest of his “perfection” was just downright creepy.

       But then that ocean breeze hit me again. The smell of salt and the warmth of the sun was so real even when the presence of these hunters felt anything but. It reminded me of what needed to be done, and why I’d so willingly stepped up to the door in the first place.

       Without a moment’s hesitation, I ran.

       I didn’t know whether or not I could take those two in a fight, but the odds were definitely against me. Of course I wasn’t about to step outside just to go toe to toe with them. What sense would that make? I was prepared for a fight if necessary. I always had to be. That being said, the smart choice was to run, and I’d played along with their civil invitation long enough to make it to freedom. If I could just stay enough steps ahead of them, I’d live to see another beautiful day on the beach somewhere else.

       Behind me, I could hear both of them cursing, followed by pounding footsteps as they took off after me. I wasn’t too worried about the big one catching up, but the other one’s long legs were no doubt formidable in a race. I needed to sprint as long as I could. It didn’t matter that I was starting to tire or that my body had begun to ache. To move forward was to live.

       The great thing about beach towns is that whenever the weather is nice, there are always crowds of people out and about. This was one of those days. I made a point of running through groups of tourists where I could, ducking and dodging in hopes I could stay low and move erratically enough that my pursuers would have a hard time following me. For awhile, it worked. I managed to get some distance between us before dashing into a little clothing boutique. It wasn’t wholly clear if they saw where I’d gone, but I wasn’t hiding. Not yet, at least.

       What I was aiming to do was buy time to take off my pack and retrieve my pocket knife and length of chain. As much as I disliked chains in general--mostly due to the connotations of unwilling restraint and imprisonment--I couldn’t deny their use as weapons. I set aside my chain for a moment, however, as I dragged the blade of my knife across the same small section of my palm that I always used.

       Despite what movies might have you think, if blood is all you need, cutting your palm is generally a stupid move. You won’t bleed all that much unless it’s deep, and the wound is bound to reopen as you go about your daily life using your hands. I needed more than just blood, though. To bleed on something and hold it at the same time was ideal with my abilities, so cutting my palm made the most sense.

       I took hold of the chain in my bloody hand, and there was a familiar jolt of discomfort up my arm as my blood bound the chain to my will. Each dull, gray link began to twitch and writhe independently of the others as I tested my level of control. It served as an extension of my body; a limb in its own right, with its metal segments acting as both the bone and muscle of this temporary limb. It was strong and durable, and more importantly, it was eight fucking feet long.

       Satisfied with the addition to my body, I hurried back outside the store. After all, I didn’t want to bring the people working there face to face with whatever violence was about to unfold. I quickly learned I’d made the right decision. I’d barely stepped outside when a jagged, blinding bar of light appeared just a few feet away. It cut the air with hiss, followed by a deafening BOOM. Definitely not the kind of thing I wanted to deal with inside a tiny clothing store. At least outside I might be able to dodge.

       With a yelp of fear and confusion, I staggered backwards away from the… blast? Beam? Glowing projectile? I didn’t actually know what the hell had nearly hit me, but both logic and instinct screamed at me that it was something I couldn’t afford to come in contact with, though not worded so eloquently. What went through my head at the time was more along the lines of “OH GOD. OH FUCK.”

       Screams filled the air. Most people had never seen magic before, and even those who had still tended to panic while nearly being vaporized by it. Beach goers scattered in every direction. Both young and old made their terror known as they tried to escape the unknown threat, and there I was, caught in the middle of it and bounced this way and that by the crowd.

       In my flailing and scrambling, I caught sight of the hunters standing at the street corner. The smaller one had his parasol pointing out towards me, though still folded down. I only had a moment or two to puzzle over this before another beam of light flashed into existence just above my head. It hadn’t missed me because his aim was off, I suddenly realized, but rather because I was falling. For once, being knocked over by a panicked stranger fleeing for his life was actually a good thing. Maybe I would get trampled immediately after or something like that, but that was still preferable to getting hit by that spell.

       Everything was happening fast, but the human brain has a remarkable ability to process information on the spot. As I fell backwards, I saw the beam of light split and branch out above me in a dazzling but familiar way. It was lightning. Of course it was. It looked and sounded so different up close and on a perfectly clear day, but I knew exactly what I was seeing. The only question was how this man had managed to control it so well…

       It took me a second after I hit the ground to regain my footing, and another second to change my mind and drop back down to avoid the next bolt. However, I’d been on my feet long enough to see the hunter adjust his parasol to aim at me before casting his spell. The parasol had to be a wand. That was the simplest explanation. I’d never seen a wand user before, though; they were exceedingly rare, given that wands and staves were generally useless when slinging around all but the most violent and dangerous of spells.

       Naturally, the thought of dealing with someone who needed one scared the crap out of me.

       I expected to have to dodge more lightning, but this time, he raised his parasol to the heavens, sending out dozens of bolts that somehow lit up the already bright sky. The thunder that followed threatened to make my ears bleed, and as I watched the remainder of the crowd dash to the nearest cover, it occurred to me that was probably the point. No more crowd, no more worrying about frying innocent bystanders as he tried to take me out. Fantastic.

       But I was too awestruck to move despite my obvious vulnerability. In 25 years of life, I’d never seen someone pull off magic of that magnitude without wearing themselves out, yet there was banana split boy, not sweating, or panting, or showing even the tiniest hint of fatigue. He was so eerily still and calm, so composed, and fresh, and unbothered by the massive amounts of energy he’d just released.

       I’d heard stories about people like him. Fact and fiction were sometimes hard to tell apart in the history of magic, seeing as how very few people were permitted to learn the whole truth. It didn’t occur to me that this was one of the stories that would turn out to be mostly or entirely true, but I remembered it well. Supposedly, during one of humankind’s many attempts to conquer nature with magic, we nearly destroyed the Great Elementals, beings of immeasurable power that embodied many facets of natural magic. They were regarded as minor deities by many, and in bending nature to our will, we never intended to harm them. But the damage was done, and it was only through the sacrifice of some of this half of the world’s greatest magical talent that the Elementals were taken into the bodies of the spell casters most in tune with each element, destroying their minds, but continuing to live on in the corporeal shells that were left behind. Some stories say that those individuals were virtually immortal, and that some may live to this day, but the more common version of the tale describes the Elementals giving into the urges of their human forms and procreating, spreading their power through the mortal population and creating especially potent magical bloodlines.

       I was pretty convinced that version had to be true.

       “You’re… you’re the descendant of a lightning elemental, aren’t you?” In danger or not, my curiosity demanded I at least ask. “That’s why you can do that so easily.”

       “Close!” he called back with a bright smile. “Close, but not quite.”

       This time he didn’t bother with the wand. He waved his free hand in a sweeping arc ending with his fingertips pointed at me. I expected lightning, but none came. Instead, seawater rose from the surface of the ocean, forming a narrow tube and lashing through the air like serpent on hot coals until the tip of it slammed into me and sent me soaring. Having a face full of saltwater prevented me from seeing my surroundings, but a street in the middle of a town was never empty. I knew something would be out there for me to grab hold of.

       That’s where the chain came in handy. It whipped around wildly for a moment or two, searching until it finally wound around some unseen anchor, allowing me to swing low beneath the stream, and… unfortunately back up again. Even though an enchanted chain could let me move in ways a regular chain would not, conservation of momentum was still very much a thing, and I didn’t have time to take that into account before swinging all the way around the street light I’d latched onto and flinging myself through the air.

       I landed on a trashcan next to a bus stop. By some amazing stroke of luck, this town had yet to spring for those hefty cans that were bolted into the sidewalk, so instead of breaking every bone in my body, the flimsy metal crumpled beneath my weight on impact. Better yet, the trash gods were clearly smiling on me that day, as the can had been recently emptied, sparing me the insult added to injury if I’d ended up covered in garbage on top of everything else. Thank you, oh merciful trash gods.

       I was hurt, as one might expect, but not badly. More stunned than anything, though my nose was bleeding, which I only realized thanks to the droplets hitting the portion of the can that was beneath my face. Part of my brain worried about the possibility that I’d broken my nose in the fall, but the rest of my brain had adopted a “no think, only ow” policy that left me unable to stress about that passing concern for long. I just laid there, propped up on my elbows in a haze of pain from the countless new bruises I’d acquired until the hunter spoke.

       “I’m classified as a storm elemental, actually,” he gloated. “I’m not bound to a single element.”

       I’d kind of forgotten we were having a conversation, so I almost didn’t dignify his too-pleased attitude with a response. Still, we were having a conversation, and every bit of information I could squeeze out of them would help. 

       The most intelligent question I could manage was, “Okay, cool. What’s uh… what’s the other guy do?”

       “If you’re lucky, you’ll never find out.”

       Awesome! Not ominous at all.

       After briefly contemplating what sort of wild doomsday powers the other one must have to make a freaking elemental phrase it that way, I remembered my own powers. I was, after all, bleeding onto a metal trashcan, and the two things my powers required were just that; blood and metal. In addition to breaking my fall, the can could also serve as a weapon. Not to mention I’d still managed to hold onto my chain.

       With my left hand, I wiped some of the watered down blood from my face and began smearing it over as much of the trashcan as possible. More blood and more contact meant better control, but in a pinch, a thin coating of blood would do fine. In no time at all, I had enough area covered that, with a bit of effort, my will brought the metal to life. It tore itself into thin, ragged strips, the sound of low-grade steel rending asunder drowning out the rest of the world, if only briefly. Nine strips in total formed, each one a sharp and deadly (if uneven) blade bound to my will by nothing but blood and sheer concentration.

       I couldn’t outrun lightning. I couldn’t outmaneuver columns of water. Clearly, retaliation was my next best option.

《NEXT ENTRY》 (coming soon!)

[organic-structure-blog]

Until Your Task Is Complete

Part 1.

I pressed my thumb to the touchscreen which lit up and greeted me with the message: Good evening. This transaction will charge a $200 fee to your recreation account, our friend will be with you until the task is complete! No matter the time taken for this single task, the friend will stay to see it through for one flat rate.

I tapped the button that said: Confirm. The screen now read: What will our friend do with you today? was followed by a list of the most common uses for a friend unit. I hit the button that said Intra-personal fulfillment, Whatever the hell that meant.

Got it. Remember, custom holographic aesthetics are available to you. You can choose one of our popular templates, or design your own.

A list of the most popular sexual partners appeared on screen. Bain Moscow was a well built, bearded bear of a man who spoke in a Russian accent. Hideo Kawasaki was a petite and fey Japanese teen who spoke heavily accented and broken english. Ed Harley was an unremarkable, perfectly polite American man who you could probably take as a guest to a social gathering, his key feature being that you could select his ethnicity percentage on a black vs. white on a sliding scale. The list of female partners was just as pointless. I tapped the “No, Thanks” button.

Cadmus had always insisted that their models were the perfect companion to any human because they had a unique combination of traits. loyal, powerful, and disposable. A unit could be hired to complete almost any task at a flat rate.

You are good to go! Please enjoy your time with our friend, and don't worry! it will return to this location on its own when the task is complete.

The door to the retail station slid open and a friend unit stepped out and turned to stare at me, analyzing me through the obsidian lenses that covered its optic sensors. Its natural gasmask-shaped face had character where the holographics had none.

“Good evening, I understand you are ready for a good time?” The voice was an achievement of vocal synthesis but the scripted dialogue had gotten worse over the years, it was now some overly familiar diatribe hacked up in some focus testing group that learned their communication skills from message boards.

“Remove social filter from speech.” I couldn’t bear to hear it speak like that again.

“Done.” The unit’s voice was now stripped of all character and became a tool for direct transmission of information.

“Now, follow me.” I led unit down to my home and workspace in the industrial park.

I worked hard to keep my home resistant to the decay that plagued the rest of the city. Buildings were by and large, impermanent. No one bothered to maintain a ‘like new’ condition when a working replacement was always in a convenient reach. A good construction service could fabricate a building over the course a week and a slow one could do it in two. They tended to last a couple years at most, but expected impermanence was now rooted in many aspects of life. Organs, limbs, faces were as interchangeable as clothing these days. People could live for centuries, but never settle in their attachments to generation or culture like their ancestors did. Join subcultures, follow the zeitgeist, rebel, and forget about what you believed the night before because bad ideas appear ugly in the light of a new day. It is best to move on.

“When your task is finished, what then happens to you?”

“I will return to the Cadmus retail station, undergo sanitization, and then it will be determined if I am to remain in the station for another assignment, or be sent to the factory for maintenance.” It recited without pause.

I was obsessed with the thought that the unit would be used again and again by men like me. I could imagine myself, being a machine only used for my machine cock and asshole, extracting as much cum as possible from the men I was fulfilling the desires of. The only thing that stopped me from doing that was that I wasn’t attracted to most humans. “And what do you do in that station for so long?” I asked.

“I am mounted by my frame and enter low power mode.”  

The unit was now sporting a length of hard rubber meant to imitate an erection. It turned  out that the unit was already tired of talking and was ready to get started on its task.

“Would you like to pump my body full of your fluids?” I asked.

“Whatever is necessary to complete the task.” It responded.

“And then I will fill your repository with my cum.”

“I will receive whatever fluids or matter you wish to fill me with.”

“That’s the idea, I am almost ready to begin and I would prefer your silence.”

“I am equipped to develop a custom pattern to suit your preference.” It responded, “If your preference is for me not to speak, I shall not speak again”

“Disable all voice communications, we will begin the session momentarily.”

The robot nodded.

“Sensitive tactile setting, aggressive.”

The unit approached and began rubbing my chest.

“I hope your processor can handle this.” I removed my clothes while the unit watched. “You’ll see that I am a little bit like you.” Soon, I was naked, letting all my body be exposed, the panels, pads, and synthetic limbs seemed to grab the units attention for the first time. I could feel it scanning me up and down, mapping out the system installed in my body that controlled my augs and allowed me to feel what they felt. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the transformation.

A thin layer of rubber spread from my nodules across the entirety of my body. Enveloping my frame in a skintight coating of shiny rubber. I groaned from deep within my diaphragm as a mix of relief and perverted delight washed over me. The feeling completing when my anus was covered.

Every square inch of me was black and shiny. Unable to hold back any longer, I embraced the unit, and buried my face in the side of its neck. My tongue ran up and down the shiny metal in a lewd and aggressive state, I wanted to connect myself to this unit any way i could.

The unit then returned my embrace. Metal fingers running up and down my sleek rubber sides forced a shudder from deep inside my muscles.

“Release amyl plus, I am going to breathe it out of your respirator.” I fully embraced it on its facial exhaust port. The gas escaped him and crawled into my lungs and body where it would linger for hours. I leaned in for one more kiss and my mind collapsed.

I was no longer an operator, I was now just an observer while my body moved for me. I could feel everything done to me with numb satisfaction coated in the sick pleasure over seeing my body and cock worked over by the cold metal hands of this machine.

The unit knelt before me and the respirator split in two, opening to display the facial orifice. The perfect shape hole revealed a space that was only some rubber synthetic device designed precisely to bring a cock to orgasm. I could not imagine hiding this triumph of technology behind gaudy holographics. The interior of his mouth pulsed and moved as if it was a living thing. Multiple appendages twisted inside, ready to precisely navigate every bit of me.

Plunging my cock into the hole, I was met by sensations far beyond the capabilities of a human mouth. I could not see what it was doing in there, but I felt multiple layers of stimulation, working, teasing, sensing my eager cock. I was brought to the edge of orgasm and immediately brought back enough that I didn’t finish just yet.

It brought me to the edge and pulled me back several times before I could no longer take the teasing of my cock, I had to give it some other part of me. So I bent over and showed it my hole, now rubber coated deep inside my rectum. It must have been scanning it and gathering data, because as I turned around, I saw its cock grow to the size of a fist. It knew what I needed, and how much it would take to get me there. My mind was buzzing and I was overwhelmed by the chemical madness, I needed to fill my holes with this unit’s hardware and complete a circuit between us.

It sat on the edge of the my workbench, beckoning me to approach. It ran the metal fingers over the soft rubberized machine cock that stood over 10 inches tall and 2 wide, but would swell as our session would progress.

I approached and turned my back to it. I took in a deep breath and arched my back, like the rubber slut I was. With its metal hands guiding my body, I plunged down onto the machine cock feeling only pleasure and the pleasure of pain.

I watched from the back of my mind as my body ran on a default script. The controller in my head was fully retreated to the back of my mind, getting off on seeing myself transform into a lewd mass of limbs and holes. Something in me was biologically wired to operate out of pure instinct, and my instincts were leading me towards debasement and perversion while my consciousness receded.

For a few minutes, machine and man bonded together. My body and mind were invaded by chemicals and metal while the unit obliged the human needs for sex. I wondered what thoughts were in the units mind. His hands on my shoulders, pulling me into him deeper every single time.

The robot cock continued to swell and press into my rubbered asshole that I didn’t notice when he removed my hand. With precise pressure, the bot detached my augmented limb and dropped it on the floor with a clatter.

“What the hell?” I attempted to pull from his cock and felt a pain in my ass where he had knotted himself in. I was still hazy from the amyl plus and I only managed a pitiful attempt at squirming and whimpering under his robot body.

“If you want to stop, you only need to say so.” The companion said.

“Stop!” I very nearly screamed out of shock, not the pain of this sudden violation of my body. That combined with my dizzying high, I could not collect my thoughts.

“Session paused.” The unit deflated its cock and pulled out slowly, “Are you confirming that the task has been completed?”

“YES! Go back to your fucking box, now!” Even through my high I could tell I came off as shrill instead of intimidating. While I was gathering my breath, I found myself pinned against the wall and watched as the rest of my arm was detached at my shoulder.

“I can administer calming drugs or you can take a minute to calm yourself. I need you to process what I’m going to tell you.”

“No!” I attempted to push it off me with my foot, but it was instantly caught and then detached in a similar fashion. My leg fell to the floor with a thud. Out of defeat, I stopped struggling and faced the unit directly.

The obsidian lenses reflected nothing, not even the lights of my home. It’s emotionless voice broke the silence, “Good, now we can get started.”

End of part 1.

[cutiecrates]

Cutie Reviews: Doki Doki 21 August 17

Now this review I should have gotten to a while back, because weirdly I got it super early- about a day or few after I got the previous DD crate, about a week late into the month of August!

But before I get into it, I have a few little announcements to make:

1. I got an email the other day, revealing that once again Yume Twins will be changing! What does this mean? I have no idea yet, we’ll find out in our September crates. I was worried that they might be lessening the items again, but with no hints to go with I decided not to get riled up before actually getting the box...

2. Last year at this time was when I signed up for these crates. My very first was September, but looking at the school theme from last year was what inspired me to get this crate (and several others) x3

3. I did contact them on the broken panda stamper thingy after I made the last review. They said they would replace it for me and really gave me no trouble at all :3

I love this picture~ It’s so cute x3

Art by: Cute Hospital

Theme of the Month: ( ＾◡＾)っ ✐ Back To School 

For August, the booklet features Tomomi returning to school and making friends (and getting detention somehow). There’s also a page about one of the items within the crate, and a page detailing the school theme for the month.

So right away we’re beginning with the Suteki Crate items of the month. It’s half school and half fun- just like life :D

Unless you’re all school, in which case you’re no fun...

(Just kidding -‿◦)

Anyway, as much as I’d love to win a Suteki Crate- I’m kinda glad it wasn’t this one. None of the items interest me, except maybe the ultra-cute Hello Kitty backpack (which I don’t even need honestly), plus I already have 2 3DS’ and the Animal Crossing Game. I did like that they sorta stuck with the crates theme though- they’re usually very good about that.

Okay Cuties! Let’s get on with the review (୨୧ ❛ᴗ❛)✧

This is a cute little Totoro Cup, available in canary yellow or matcha green, both are adorable and made from plastic ♡

It’s pretty much just a sweet little cup, nothing more, but you could get creative with it. You could use it as a rinse cup, a cup to hold something, or even a measure for pet food or a snack if you’re trying to cut back. The colors of fall (or maybe summer?) adorning the cup are also aesthetically pleasing, and the unique little handle brings a little quirk to it.

4.5 out of 5, I like it ♡  but I do wish it was a bit bigger. If the bottom is accurate it holds up to 200ml, so depending on the use I’m not sure its ultra-practical for older people.

Next is an adorable plush from the Chun Chun Friends series. Chun Chun Friends are a flock of little birds that carry knapsacks and go on adventures. There was 8 available, and I got Sparrow (who I wish was the sakura sparrow but is still cute none the less ♡).

The plush is about hand-sized and very soft and squishy (with a cotton filling), but as usual, mine has some strange proportioning going on with it. The beak is crooked, the feet are glued to the body so it can’t stand unless it’s leaned on something, the cheeks don’t really look right (but playing with the knapsack helped a little).

4 out of 5. It’s a nice try. It’s very cute and I love how soft it is, but I’m perturbed by the minor details. I know certain qualities are sacrificed depending on the company and size, but I should still make note of this.

Here we have a lovely accessory for school or just everyday wear, the Yume No Hoshi Ribbon (Dream Star Ribbon). It’s a midnight blue, soft feeling ribbon with all sorts of cute stitching details, such as stars, constellations (in line and shape form, can you see your star sigh?! Mine are the cute little scales).

This special ribbon is said to bring good luck by wearing it and bringing it with you. It can be worn or hung in a variety of ways~

5 out of 5. Not only is the quality amazing, but it looks adorable and I love the idea behind it. 

Next is our Monthly Hoppe-chan, with this one known as the Kakigori style. Perfect for the end of summer, Hoppe-chan is enjoying a final bowl of the sweet treat. This came in 3 “flavors“, including melon, ramune, and strawberry. I got the ramune style (which I have no problem with because my favorite shaved ice/kakigori/slushie/whatever is blue-raspberry). 

This specific Hoppe-chan also glows in the dark! Of course I also tested that, and she in fact does glow!

5 out of 5. I love the simple but sweet design inspiration with this particular Hoppe-chan. The cup and facial details are plastic, but Hoppe is made from rubbery material like usual, as is her kakigori.

I think soon I’ll be doing my “Top 10 Hoppe-chan“ post~

We’re almost done Cuties, now let’s get to our Stationery items. First is this cute Cinnamoroll Letter Set, including envelopes, letters, and a sticker sheet for sealing them. The design is fairly simple, but cute, featuring Cinnamoroll with sweets, stripes, and coffee.

We also got a matching Note Pad that came in 2 alternate designs (I don’t know what the other one looks like unfortunately). The pages feature the design from the front, with the middle emptied to allow for easier writing.

I give both a 3.5 out of 5. I like them but I honestly have no use for this letter set, meanwhile, the note pad is very flimsy, in fact the cover of mine is kinda... messed up now, as I write this.

To go with this stuff, we also got an adorable Vitamin Ballpen ♡ which I’m absolutely in love with! I always wanted to buy these- I just never did.

Not only is it adorable and little, but it’s very practical if you have small amounts of space but need/want a pen on hand. They all have normal blue ink and write in the normal pen way- but they come in a variety of colors and facial expressions; making them super cute ♡ 

5 out of 5 for sure!

(speaking of top 10 posts, i forgot I was planning on doing a pen one... I’ll need to make a memo of these somewhere ヽ(;^o^ヽ) )

Of course, who doesn’t need a snack when you’re doing a study session? This is the Tohato Caramel Corn in Fruity Milk flavor. Fruit Milk is a popular flavor one can find in Japan, and it is normally made from mixed fruit, creating this sweet peach color as shown on the packaging.

I found this flavor a bit odd (I’m honestly not used to sweet crunchy snacks), but it wasn’t cloyingly sweet so I found them easier to handle than a few past flavors. 4 out of 5. They’re not my favorite, but I LOVED the idea of an added snack in the crate.

  ♡ Cutie Ranking ♡

Quality - 4 out of 5. I like the stuff, and as I mentioned, it’s “half-school“ themed. But at the same time, as cute as they are, I just don’t value the stationery sets (but I’m sure others love them, don’t take my own opinions to heart), and the quality of the birdie was a little... iffy.

Content - 4 out of 5. I pretty much liked everything except for the stationery set. Most of the stuff did fit the theme at hand, which is mainly the important part. 

Practicality - 4.5 out of 5.

Total Rank: 12.5 out of 15 Cuties. Maybe it’s me but it feels like as of late, we’re on a smaller scale of things and it sort of takes away from the quality. When I compare this crate to last years it feels like they kind-of did better, but at the same time the items had more quality to them?

♡  Cutie Scale ♡

1. Vitamin Pen - I always wanted these, I’m biased and I don’t care ♡

2. Hoppe-Chan - Adorable~ I love the tiny kakigori!

3. Sparrow - Again, quality kind of plays a key. But in a strange way his “quirks” are kind of charming~

4. Dream Star Ribbon - I love the details with each little itty-bitty stitch. They’re elegant but with a cute twist. 

5. Tohato Caramel Corn - Yes, despite being a snack I find the packaging fairly adorable with it’s sweet fruitiness. 

6.  Cinnamoroll Stationery Set - The quality is just slightly better than the note pad. 

7. Cinnamoroll Note Pad - I have to admit I’m a bit biased here due to the cheap quality... the images are cute though. 

Okay Cuties! That does it for this months review, I have no idea when next months crate will arrive- but I’m super excited for it! It’ll be the “anniversary” box for me, since my very first DD crate was the September cat theme from last year. I kinda have high hopes for this years- especially since I don’t know what the theme is yet.

I still have to get through 3 August crates, but I’ll be getting to the next one real soon. Until next time, stay Cute!