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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 4 years ago

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Raise the Stakes, Part 13

I just had to sneak in one more part before the big showdown tonight. Aside from this, the card for Resurgence looks awesome!

Pairing: David Finlay x OFC x Jay White

Word count: 2,897

Content advisory: sexual content (not as graphic as previous parts, but still more than just mentions), language

Previous sections (and the prequel) available on the Master List

This is completely normal, you tell yourself. He has a big match tomorrow. He needs a clear head and sleep and, as he’s fond of telling you, he doesn’t get either of those things when the two of you are together. It makes sense that he’d want to spend tonight at his own place, by himself.

So why do you feel like something horrible is happening?

You close your eyes but the second you do, you get a vision ofJay lifting David limp body off the mat. You can still hear that awful crack of David’s unprotected skull hitting the chair and immediately you feel sick to your stomach, just as you had when you’d watched the moment unfold. You were as powerless then as you are now to change it. All you could do was follow the assistants who’d come to help him to the medic’s room.

By the time they got him back there, there was already a red welt visible on his forehead. He was barely conscious, growling at anyone who tried to help him until you approached. He hadn’t said anything, just leaned into your body and let his head fall on your shoulder. He wasn’t aware enough to notice that you were crying, even when a few of your tears dripped onto his skin.

You’d held him tight until the doctor arrived, her expression doing nothing to ease your mind. Nevertheless, after a thorough check, she pronounced that he wasn’t concussed and wasn’t injured beyond the obvious bumps and bruises. Not physically at least.

Of course, you’d insisted that he come back to your place where you could keep an eye on him and take care of the wounds he had sustained. Well, you hadn’t really had to insist. He was happy to go along, laughing at the way you tried to do everything for him. It became a rather hilarious tug of war, you trying everything to keep him still and him doing everything to annoy you, getting himself a bottle of water from the fridge, trying to make something for dinner until you’d literally smacked his ass repeatedly with a spatula, which had you both laughing so hard you almost fell down.

Getting him into bed was a battle, too, and once you got him undressed and relaxed, he’d immediately started to get frisky. He kept insisting that he was fine and had ended up spending time both last night and the first part of the day today showing you just how fine he was.

“I can’t wait until this weekend is over,” he hissed into your skin during one intimate moment.

You’d agreed because, despite the fact that there are other shows and other matches coming up, there does seem to be a sense of finality around their showdown this weekend. Sure after this, Jay’s going to calm down or get distracted and he won’t be so determined to screw with your lives.

“Never again,” Jay had fairly shrieked, sitting on David’s chest, clinging on to his belt. “You will never beat me again.”

Sure, his words made perfect sense within the context of their fight for the belt and Jay’s determination to avenge his loss months ago. But you knew that wasn’t it. The animalistic way they’d stared each other down before the fight, the rush to get started. Jay always loved to tease confronting an enemy but backed out at the last seconds toying with them until he was convinced he’d rattled their nerves. Not last night. He and David had gone right after each other, brawling like they were in a bar.

Thinking of that reminds you of a night you haven’t thought about in years, back in their early days, your early days, in the dojo. It’s not a night you should remember at all, given the condition you were in but you remember it, or at least the end of it, perfectly.

The three of you had been out drinking. Drinking a lot. You’d stumbled back to your barracks leaning on one another to form some sort of solid mass that could stay upright. You’d still ended up tumbling a few times, which was hardly surprising. You must have all had some kind of homing instinct because none of you could tell where the hell you were.

You knew that by the time you made it back, the door would be locked but your super power at that time was that you were small enough and flexible enough to get through the window in the kitchen that was stuck open. You’d needed a boost from the guys, which had taken a couple of efforts, but you were eventually able to scramble through and unlock the front door, albeit after crashing into so many things and making so much noise that there was no way anyone slept through it.

Your room was in another area of the building but you’d just headed to their room. You’d passed out on the floor on several occasions, always on the floor even though you’d already started sleeping with Jay by that point. The two of you were half-assed pretending that nothing was happening, even though you’d very quietly fool around before falling asleep.

You’d been keeping things a secret to avoid gossip but also, at least on your part, because you hadn’t wanted to hurt David. It was clear already that he was sweet on you and you’d figured that as long as it wasn’t right there out in the open, you could pretend that there was no reason for him to feel hurt. Later on, you’d confide in him about how miserable Jay was making you, but at that point, things were still fun, still inconsequential.

In retrospect, you realize this period must have been agony for him. Jay was a braggart and had advertised his conquest to his roommate pretty much right away, but from there, you’d all pretended that nothing was happening. It’s only been in the last few weeks that you found out just how much and how early he’d liked you. Going through that must have sucked.

But on that particular night, there was no problem because you were all feeling no pain, either physical or emotional. You’d ended up crawling up the stairs on all fours, basically pulling both of them along with you. Jay had informed you loudly that he needed to take a piss and you and David had somehow made it back to their room.

It was dark, which meant the two of you were stumbling all over the place, but eventually David had flopped down onto his bed and turned on the lamp that stood on the shelf just above it. Unfortunately, as he did so, he’d knocked the lamp backward and left it hanging precariously, wedged between the headboard and the wall.

“David, get the light!” You’d been laughing so hard you could barely get the words out. There were tears streaming down your cheeks.

“It’s ok,” he mumbled, laughing as much as his semi-conscious body would let him.

“It’s not ok, David, you have to get the lamp because it’s going to…” You could not for the life of you remember the word “fall” in that moment.

After a few more seconds, you’d gone over to retrieve the lamp yourself, not that you were particularly graceful at it, balancing yourself as best you could on the edge of David’s bed and placing one hand on the wall to try to keep steady, all while trying not to collapse onto David’s chuckling form.

Out of nowhere, he’d snaked an arm around your leg and pulled you down onto his face, which made you both laugh even harder. You’d been giggling as he clumsily pushed your panties out of the way and started licking you with sloppy enthusiasm.

“Oh my god, David, what the hell,” you laughed. “That tickles!”

Maybe you would have told him to stop, or he just would have passed out in the middle of what he was doing because he was just that loaded, but before either of those things could happen, you’d been interrupted.

“What the fuck?” Jay was standing unsteadily in the doorway.

You’d tried to shush him as you fell back a little, sitting on David’s chest. He was laughing too but Jay decidedly was not.

“What are you, eating her pussy?”

You’d just cracked up laughing. David hadn’t opened his eyes, just grinned in a drunk, goofy way and responded, “I don’t know. Sort of?”

“Turn the light off,” Jay snapped.

“I’m trying to!” Another wave of laughter rolled over you as you’d pondered the ridiculousness of not being able to turn off a light.

“Turn the fucking light off!” Jay yelled.

He gave it a hard kick and shattered the bulb, solving the problem. He’d helped you stand up and although you couldn’t see him well, you’d felt like David was already unconscious as Jay led you over to his bed.

He’d pushed you down and started pulling your clothes away, which was unusual. Part of trying to keep things secret was learning how to fool around without getting naked and being as quiet as possible. But that night, Jay had been insistent about getting you naked. He’d been rough and he’d been loud. And he’d bit and pinched and scratched at you until you were loud as well. If you hadn’t managed to wake everyone in the building up with your arrival, that must have done the trick.

The only person it didn’t disturb was David, whose light snoring you could hear while you were going at it.

Jay had never been one to stare into your eyes and focus intently on you during sex, not back then at least. He’d look at you, then away, like he was thinking of what he could do next, or what he could get you to do. But as you remember the night now, you realize that his eyes flickered repeatedly towards the other bed, vibrant with anger. You knew that Jay had come to see you as one of his belongings during the time that you’d been working for him, but it’s only now that you realize how early that had started. Even then, when he’d been very clear that the two of you were not exclusive, he’d been livid at the idea that someone else would touch what was his.

The son of a bitch would have known that David was hung up on you, too. He’d done his best to make sure that he’d hear him fucking you right there in the room, like David didn’t even exist. David who at that point was still his best friend.

You don’t know if David woke up while all this was happening. You hope he didn’t. Although he’d apologized for what he called “his behavior” the next day, you’ve never been sure how much he remembers. Certainly by this point, it might have faded from his memory entirely. You hope that’s the case. You hope he doesn’t remember it anything like the way you do.

In his position, you don’t know if you’d ever be able to trust you, to believe that your emotions weren’t contaminated or at least inconsistent. You can’t believe that doubts don’t start to creep in the second you’re out of his sight, which is why, although it’s understandable that he’d want to spend the night by himself tonight, you feel worried. The second he starts thinking about how many problems you’re causing and how much he’s had to deal with for years because of you, he’s likely to move to Siberia just to ensure he never sees you again.

And as if you weren’t capable of driving yourself crazy with anxiety on your own, Jay’s trying his best to make it worse. Since you are the talent liaison for New Japan in America and Jay is a New Japan performer currently working in America, you’re no longer allowed to stop him from accessing you and tonight, he’s apparently decided to take full advantage of that.

Your phone lights up to indicate another text message. You check every time because it could be David, or someone actually trying to contact you for work, as opposed to what Jay’s doing, which is trying to drive you right out of your mind. But it seems like no one has anything to say to you except Jay.

Are you alone or do you have to take care of your boy tonight?

I hope you’re not wearing him out. I want him to remember how easy it is for me to beat him even at his best. And I know how you can be.

Try not to think about me when you two are going at it.

If he’s not there, come over. I’ll keep my hands to myself if you do.

You know I can get women whenever I want but I never stop thinking about the filthy things I’d like to do to you.

Play the good girl all you want, I know you’re going to be thinking about that last text for hours. I’ll bet you’ll even touch yourself.

Send pictures when you do. No reason for us not to enjoy ourselves.

Wonder how he’d react if I told him you were coming over. Guess I could find out. Not like he’d know I was lying. Or maybe I’m not lying?

That last one does it. You can’t just ignore that because you don’t know if he’s going to make good on the threat. So you type back the only two words you can think of: STOP IT.

Ha. I knew you weren’t sleeping. And I’ll bet your sweet prince is back at his place because he wants to be focused for tomorrow. Poor boy denying himself his last meal.

You flinch and respond again in all capital letters: I MEAN IT. KNOCK IT OFF.

You’re tense. You should definitely come over. I’ll give you a back rub.

You should have just let him keep texting and gone to sleep, not that you can sleep because you’re so tense about things with David and the fact that Jay’s threatening to ruin them. Now you’re caught in one of his mazes that you can never seem to find your way out of.

Fine, you’re not coming over. Phone sex?

NO.

Come on, it’s probably the one thing we haven’t done before. Call me.

NO. GOD WILL YOU JUST STOP? I’M TRYING TO SLEEP.

I know how to help you calm down. Call.

Ok, seriously, let me help you relax. We don’t have to talk about you putting my dick in your mouth.

You roll your eyes and answer: Nothing with you relaxes me.

Seriously, I have a technique.

NO.

You’re no fun. Think I’ll bug Super Dave for a bit.

You don’t even text him back. You call because at least if he’s on the phone, he can’t be texting David to tell him god knows what.

“Well this is a nice surprise,” he purrs.

“You can’t do this. I need to sleep. Hell, you need to sleep. Just let it go, Jay.”

“I don’t really need to be well rested to beat Finlay. He got lucky the one time. Even you don’t believe he’s good enough to beat me twice.”

“Maybe I don’t care if he wins or not. Maybe I’ll be happy because I get to be with him one way or the other.”

“I’ll bet he cares.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“No, come on, I promised I’d help you sleep and now you’re even more worked up.”

You try to think of a smart comeback but you can’t. He waits a minute before continuing.

“Are you lying down?”

“Not that it’s any of your business but yes.”

“It’s purely professional interest, I promise.” You can hear a dark laugh buried in his voice. “Lay flat on your back and close your eyes.”

You’re not sure why but you do as he says. You do need to sleep and maybe the bastard actually can help with that.

“I want you to breathe all the way in, really slowly, through your nose.”

You give it a shot and he immediately interrupts.

“Don’t do it like you’re angry at me. Soft and slow, until your lungs feel full.”

You comply, fighting to keep from getting angry at him.

“Ok, now exhale very slowly through your mouth. All the way.” When he’s satisfied you’ve done that properly, he continues, “Keep doing that, as slow as you can manage. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

You can’t deny that you can feel your body start to relax after only a few repetitions.

“Now take your hand and place it over your face, right along the hairline. Just barely let your fingers touch your skin. Then run your hand down your face, all the way to your neck. Keep your touch as light as you can.”

The sensation makes you shiver but as much as you feel like your nerves are being activated, you also feel like you’re pulling the tension out of your body. He tells you to repeat this gesture a few times, always keeping your breathing slow and even.

“Good night princess,” he whispers. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The line goes dead before you can say anything.

#david finlay fanfic #david finlay imagine #jay white fanfic #jay white imagine #njpw fanfic #njpw imagine #impact wrestling fanfic #wrestling imagine #wrestling fanfiction #wayward wrestle writing

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wrestlingisfake · 4 years ago

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Triplemania XXIX preview

This is traditionally the biggest show of the year for AAA. For the first time since the pandemic started, AAA is doing an indoor show with fans in attendance. The show starts at 9pm EDT tonight, but it's only being streamed within Mexico, because AAA's international broadcast rights are tied up in a lawsuit. Noted lucha libre reporter thecubsfan plans to get around that, though, so you might want to check out his Twitter for more info.

Psycho Clown vs. Rey Escorpion - This is a lucha de apuestas, so if Psycho loses he must unmask and reveal his true identity, and if Escorpion loses he must have his head shaved in the ring. There are no higher stakes in Mexican wrestling that putting your mask on the line, and the only thing that comes close is risking your hair. So if you're wondering why this is the main event and not Kenny Omega vs. Andrade, that's why.

The backstory here goes all the way back to 2013, when Escorpion was in CMLL and defeated Psycho's father, Brazo de Plata, in a hair vs. hair match. That was supposed to lead to another of Brazo's sons, Maximo, getting revenge on Escorpion, but the match never came together. Escorpion ended up going to AAA in 2017, starting a long-running feud with Psycho. So now Psycho has a chance to do what his brother couldn't, and avenge his father. Coincidentally, Brazo de Plata (aka Super Porky) passed away a few weeks ago, and I assume that will be incorporated into Psycho's motivation here.

I don't follow AAA closely enough to keep track of the regulars, but I know Psycho Clown is one of the biggest stars in the promotion and he's no pussycat. I would expect a wild brawl between two guys who can't afford to lose. Of course, in a match like this, I tend to think the favorite is the guy defending his mask, since hair grows back. So look for Escorpion to finally get his comeuppance after all these years.

Kenny Omega vs. Andrade El Idolo - This is Omega's fifth defense of the AAA mega championship since he won it in October 2019. Kenny went on to win the AEW men's world title in December 2020, and the Impact/TNA world title in April 2021, becoming a triple champion with four belts. However, he lost the Impact and TNA belts to Christian Cage yesterday, which has him looking particularly vulnerable. If Andrade wins the AAA title tonight, Omega will have lost three of his four belts in about 24 hours.

Andrade was best known as La Sombra in CMLL until he joined WWE/NXT in 2016. After requesting his WWE release in March 2021, he appeared on a May 2 AAA show and challenge Omega to this match. A month later he debuted on AEW, in a baffling storyline where nobody seems to understand how anything works. As far as I can recall, AEW has never once mentioned that this title match is happening, even though Omega, Andrade, and the AAA belt appear regularly on AEW programming.

Andrade's post-WWE career has not impressed the pundits, raising questions about whether he can reclaim the greatness that got people to care about La Sombra in the first place. If he can't have a great match with Omega, that discourse is likely to dog him for a long time.

Within the world of AAA, Omega has planted seeds for a match with Hijo del Vikingo, and Andrade has teased the idea of a match with Psycho Clown. I would think AAA would rather have the title involved in Andrade vs. Psycho, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll go that route, or that they'll start setting it up right now. I'm leaning toward a title change happening, but either outcome won't surprise me much.

Faby Apache vs. Deonna Purrazzo - Apache is the AAA women's champion, and Purrazzo is the Impact women's champion. Both belts are at stake, so it will be champion versus champion, title for title. Deonna is already booked for a title defense on August 28 against Melina Perez, so it's not clear what would happen to that match if she loses here.

There's not much of a story here--Purrazzo just wandered into an AAA show to confront Apache and issue the challenge. This comes across as AAA's big idea to get their belt on international TV by putting it on a top foreigner, similar to what they did with Kenny Omega. It doesn't really feel like Impact is even involved, outside of their office approving the booking. I'm not sure Impact has promoted or even mentioned the match, although I haven't kept up with it lately.

Apache is a big star for AAA, but Purrazzo looks to be the heavy favorite to win. She's gotten a lot of buzz for her in-ring work, and Impact recognizes that and presents her like a big deal. It feels like they've got a destination in mind for her later this year, and I can't believe they'd disrupt that to have her lose her title in Mexico. I can believe, on the other hand, that AAA would send their women's title to the US and forget about it for six months.

Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix vs. Hijo del Vikingo & Laredo Kid vs. Taurus & ? - Hey, remember when the Penta and Fenix defended the AAA tag team title in the ladder match at AEW All Out 2019? They've had those belts this whole time! I totally forgot. Anyway, they're defending them here in a three-way, so whoever scores the first fall will win the title for his team.

Vikingo and Laredo were once teammates in Los Jinetes del Aire, but that was a couple of years ago. Taurus normally teams with Crazzy Steve on Impact Wrestling, and he holds the AAA trios title with El Texano Jr. and Rey Escorpion, but for this match he's got a mystery partner. It remains to be seen if this is the kind of mystery partner that's a big surprise, or the kind where it's just some guy that wasn't worth advertising ahead of time.

I don't keep up with AEW's Youtube shows, and Penta and Fenix haven't teamed on Dynamite in months, so I haven't seen those two really go nuts in a long-ass time. Vikingo and Laredo have a lot of buzz, and I keep assuming they're about to sign with a major American promotion, but they still haven't from what I can tell. So this could get pretty flippy and wild, especially with Taurus there to, like, be huge and catch people and stuff.

If I thought AAA gave a damn about keeping their belts on regulars, I'd expect Vikingo and Laredo to win. If I thought the priority was to deliver a big surprise to pop the fans, I'd expect a win for Taurus's mystery partner. But as it is, these belts belong to the Lucha Bros., and I expect that's where they'll stay.

Pagano & Chessman & Murder Clown vs. Puma King & DMT Azul & Sam Adonis - Azul used to be Diamante Azul in CMLL, but he recently jumped over to AAA to team with Puma and Adonis, who are also ex-CMLL guys. Together they're La Empresa, an unofficial CMLL invasion group. So the other team is fighting for the honor of AAA, but Pagano and Chessman are nuts and hate each other, so the big question is CAN THEY COEXIST~? My guess is that they can't, and La Empresa will pick up a win to build steam for this storyline.

Copa Triplemania battle royale - This is basically an undercard battle royale featuring everybody that isn't booked for some other match. The rules are kind of like WWE's Royal Rumble, but frankly I've watched several of these and I've never been able to figure it out. "Copa Triplemania" translates to "Triplemania Cup" but I can't remember if there's an actual trophy or any kind of stakes to this. As I recall it always comes down to a babyface and a heel and then somehow the heel referee is always in there, but somebody clobbers him and the good guy wins anyway.

Marvel Lucha Libre something something - For some reason Marvel has a promotional deal with AAA, wherein AAA books matches featuring wrestlers dressed up as Marvel superheroes. It's hard to believe this is going to sell even one extra ticket to a Marvel movie, but okay. Anyway, I remember seeing one of these with Captain America and Spider-Man vs. Thanos and Venom, which you'd think would be awesome, but it didn't really hold my attention. I don't know which characters will be represented this time, although if AAA wants to book the Loki and Sylvie vs. Kang and Renslayer, I promise to mark the fuck out.

#aaa #triplemania #triplemania xxix #psycho clown #rey escorpion #kenny omega #andrade el idolo

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five-rivers · 5 years ago

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Manuscript

Phic Phight phic phor @phantomroyalty. I'm experimenting with a slightly different Clockwork. Sort of inspired by those prompts I did late last month.

Once, there were half-ghosts.

Danny knew this, now, drumming his fingers on the hard plastic surface of the binder he'd borrowed from Sam. Written on one cover in purple sharpie was the title 'Voynich Manuscript.' It was, according to Sam, an untranslated 15th century work that had baffled cryptologists and linguists for years and years.

Danny could read it. It had been written by a half-ghost.

At least, that was the claim, and, considering that Danny could read this language he'd never learned, Danny was inclined to agree. He opened the binder again, running his fingers down the printed pictures of the pages. He'd been doing that off and on throughout the evening, ever since Sam had showed it to him, instead of doing his homework.

It was comforting. Strange, but comforting, to know that Vlad had not been the first half-ghost. To know that there were other paths to his future than 'bitter old man,' even if the other visible path was 'weird botanist.' To know that Vlad's issues really were Vlad's issues, and not half-ghost issues.

The book was about ghost plants, what they did, what they were good for, how to find them, and when to harvest them, complete with maps, time tables, and recipes. It was a sort of almanac, almost. A very out of date, almanac, true, and Danny was pretty sure those islands weren't arranged like that, at least not any more, but still...

And it had been written by a half ghost. That, more than anything else, was what kept drawing Danny to the pages. The author had barely mentioned their identity, skimming over their origins in the first couple of pages, but every plant had notes regarding how it affected half-ghosts in particular, every recipe was tuned for the half-ghost anatomy, with side effects listed for humans and ghosts as an afterthought.

Danny slowly leafed through the pages, occasionally pausing when sentences jumped out at him.

This book had been written by a half-ghost. It had been written for half-ghosts.

Once, there had been half-ghosts. Many of them.

What had happened?

There were a limited number of people he could ask. He threw the book into his backpack, shouldered it, turned himself invisible and dropped through the floor. He fell through the kitchen and into the lab, whereupon he slowed his fall to a gradual drift and set himself down lightly on the floor.

His parents were, of course, working in the lab, but they didn't notice Danny. He padded by them, silent, and snagged the remote for the portal doors from the table. After taking a moment to make sure they didn't notice the sudden disappearance of the remote from the table, Danny pressed the button and darted through the still-opening doors.

Safely in the Ghost Zone, Danny released his invisibility, which he still found tiring to use for long periods of time, and went ghost. Ghostly tail streaming behind him, Danny flew to the lair of the only ghost he could be sure had all the answers.

The clock tower certainly lived up to the 'tower' part of its name, looming tall above Danny as he approached the front doors. Not that it didn't live up to the 'clock' part. It did. And the surrounding zone kept up the theme with all the gears floating around. It all added to the sense of foreboding about the place.

But what really pulled it off was the faint, persistent ringing sound that hung just on the edge of Danny's hearing, like that of a large bell that had been rung just a moment ago, its sound perpetually fading into imperceptibility but never quite getting there.

The doors opened as Danny raised his hand to knock on them. Danny always at least tried to knock on the doors, because the time he hadn't, he had walked right into them. Clockwork had a weird sense of humor.

"Clockwork?" called Danny, floating into the large main hall and searching the corners.

"Yes, Daniel?" said Clockwork, once again managing to wind up right behind Danny despite Danny's best efforts.

As always, Danny tried to hide how startled he was by turning and smoothing down his ruffled hair.

"Hi," said Danny. Clockwork smiled. "So, uh, I'm guessing you know why I'm here?"

"Yes," drawled Clockwork, circling Danny once, then floating away.

Danny flew after him. "I'm just, well, you understand why I'm curious, right?" asked Danny as they flew into a narrow hallway lined with time mirrors. Each one held an image of a different time, a different age. All the mirrors on the left were of the Ghost Zone, and all the mirrors on the right were of Earth.

"I do."

"So, you know what happened to them, right? All the halfas?"

"Of course," said Clockwork, stopping to face an image of a city that might have been London.

Danny drifted to peer over his shoulder. "Will you tell me? At least, what they were like?" he asked, hopefully.

His blood when cold(er) when Clockwork shifted to look at him. The expression on Clockwork's face was pure trickster mentor.

"Oh, Daniel. You know I like you to find answers like that on your own time."

"Yeah, um, I'll just-"

Clockwork pushed him. Danny tumbled back, farther than the hallway should have allowed. Heck, heck, heck.

He righted himself, hands going to his chest. They seized on something small and round. When had Clockwork managed to slip a time medallion onto him?

After a beat he processed his question and snorted at himself. Clockwork could have put the medallion on him at any time. That was kind of Clockwork's whole thing.

Danny looked around himself. He was still in the Ghost Zone (unless, of course, the Earth's sky had turned green for some reason), but the land beneath him spread out in all directions. There was even a slightly curved horizon.

Directly beneath him was a city. The streets were all covered over with blue cloth awnings, and the buildings sparkled like crystal.

Alright. So, Danny had a couple of choices. One, he could take the medallion off right now, go home, and have to learn whatever lesson Clockwork was trying to teach him the hard(er?) way. Two, he could stick around and (possibly) get the answer to one or more of his questions. Probably a lot of trauma, too, considering he'd asked about why the other half-ghosts were all gone, but he could take the medallion off whenever, provided that no one decided to phase it into his chest.

Were there half-ghosts in the city beneath him?

He wanted, needed to know.

Letting go of the medallion, he flew down diagonally, reaching ground level a good distance outside the city. He didn't know what the etiquette was for entering this city, but starting off at the gates was probably a good idea.

When he reached them, skimming along the purple earth, the gates were wide and open, the tunnel they formed in the wall carved with abstract swirls. There were no guards that Danny could see, and no one was going in or out through the gates, but Danny still proceeded cautiously. Beyond the gates he could hear the noise and bustle of a crowd, and, sure enough, as soon as he got past the first building he found himself in a marketplace.

This was not the first marketplace he'd seen in the Ghost Zone, and it had many familiar features. Unidentifiable glowing plants, glowing potion jars, glowing clothing, glowing powders, things with too many legs being sold as food, a lot of glowing in general, poison-bright colors on otherwise mundane merchandise, things that floated, rugs with kaleidoscoping patterns, etcetera.

The difference was that so many of the shoppers and merchants were human.

No, he corrected himself as he caught one of them changing forms with a pair of bright blue rings, they were halfas.

Danny stayed in the market place and listened.

He listened to gossip and haggling and children playing with each other and begging for their parents to buy them this or that. He listened to merchants advertising their wares. He listened to a young man not much older than himself complaining about new powers. No one pointed Danny out as unusual, even when he switched forms a few times.

It was amazing, just seeing half-ghosts live like this. He wished he could talk to them, but although he could understand what they were saying, he had no confidence in his ability to pronounce the words.

It was just so peaceful.

A shape fell through the blue awnings stretched above the marketplace, tearing them and pulling down some of the poles and booths they were attached to. People screeched and shouted. Merchandise escaped. From the epicenter of the wreckage, a man stood, eyes flickering between sea green and toxic glowing orange.

"Lord Dimidius!" shouted one woman. "What has happened?"

The man's face was twisted in pain and fury. "Pariah Dark has declared war on us."

A hush fell over the market. Except for the chickens. Chickens feared neither man, ghost, or god.

"Why? My lord?" asked one of the men, floating forward.

"The Observants," Dimidius said, spitting, "gave him a prophecy that one of us will someday end his rule."

"Then let's make it true!"

"Time out," said Clockwork, putting a hand on Danny's shoulder. The scene froze, chickens and all.

Danny had been right about the trauma.

"Was this," said Danny, "about me fighting him? Did all these people die because I fought him, and the Observants saw that?"

"No," said Clockwork. "Ultimately, Pariah was looking for an excuse. The Observants wanted to give him one. The prophecy, as far as they knew, wasn't true. They made it up. Besides, Pariah doesn't succeed in taking this city for another hundred years, and most of the younger residents were able to flee to the human world."

Danny exhaled. "Really?"

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you would."

Clockwork laughed. "Let's get you home." He opened a portal. "Other than the revelation at the end, did you have a good time?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "I did."

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2020

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years ago

Text

Best Part of Me -Chapter 60

Warnings: none

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @ocfairygodmother

When she finally wakes, it's with sunshine streaming through the bedroom windows and the digital bedside clock advertising that it’s 10:35. The latter nearly sends her into a blind panic; bolting into a sitting position, eyes still blurry from sleep and her brain groggy as it tries to orientate itself with the unfamiliar surroundings. Momentarily oblivious to the fact that she isn’t at home. Briefly not only forgetting that she’s actually thousands of miles away, but just WHY she is.

She’d spent the last nine hours in a deep and peaceful slumber; a feat she hasn’t managed to achieve once in the past six years. Worn out not just from the lack of adequate rest over the course of the last month and a half or from the gruelling twelve hour flight from Australia, but the hours after the conversation with Tyler that she’d spent dwelling over the pain and the worry that not only tinged his words, but dripped from his voice. He’d never admit just how things are; preferring to suffer in silence under the misconception that he's somehow a burden. It’s a hard habit to break someone of, if not entirely impossible. She’s been working at it for almost seven years now; attempting to not only break down that final barrier he’d long ago built up around himself, but convince him that the second they decided to have a life together, his issues and problems stopped belonging to JUST him. But he’s ferociously stubborn, and years of being raised in an abusive home by an extremely toxic and volatile man, followed by military life, has done a lot of damage. The last effects and scars from physical injuries left behind, but the deepest and most painful wounds festering just under the surface.

She casts a furtive glance towards the cradle at the side of the bed; appreciative of the fully furnished and exquisitely decorated nursery that Anil had provided, but needing the baby as close as possible, at least for the few nights. And her eyes widen and her heart immediately begins thundering in her chest when she finds Addie’s bed empty; devoid of even the stuffed koala -which had once belonged to Millie when she was just newly born- that had been tucked into the corner of the cradle. And she’s ready to toss off the blankets and jump out of bed when a tiny voice pipes up from beside her and puts her worst fears to rest.

“She’s downstairs. With Prisha.”

Esme frowns. “Who’s Prisha?”

Tanner shrugs. “I dunno. I think she’s a nanny or something. But she’s old. Like grandma and Nana Bonnie. Why are there so many people living here? Why do they all do so much work? They clean, they cook, they watch kids. At home, you and daddy do all that stuff.”

“Because Anil has a lot more money than we do and he’s so busy, that he needs to have people taking care of things around the house. Which is bigger than ours. WAY bigger. And when you have a place that’s this big, you need help keeping up with it.”

“Our house is big.”

“By most peoples’ standards. But compared to THIS house, it’s tiny.”

Tanner shrugs. “I like our better, anyway.”

“You don’t like it here? I thought you’d find it pretty cool. TWO pools, a home theatre, all kinds of awesome animals…”

“I like home better. Because it’s home. Because all our stuff is there. I don’t want new stuff, I want OUR stuff. And the beach is there and the smell of the water and the sound of the waves and none of that is here.”

“And it will all still be there when we get back,” she assures him.

“What if we never go back? What if we have to stay here? I don’t wanna stay here. I wanna go back to our house. I wanna go back to our furniture and eating OUR food and sharing a room with TJ. I don’t like not sleeping with him. I’ve always shared a room with him. And I was with him in your tummy too.”

Esme lies back down and rolls onto her side, watching him. One his stomach beside her, knees bent and his bare feet slowly kicking back and forth. Brow furrowed in concentration as he uses a pencil to carefully circle things and fill in blank spaces in the workbook open in front of him. And she reaches out and pushes his hair out of his eyes and off his forehead, then runs a fingertip down the bridge of her nose and taps it against the tip.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re really cute?” she asks,

“There’s a couple girls in my class that say it all the time.”

"Really?"

He nods. “But I told them I can only be friends because I don’t like girls in THAT way yet. I told them I only love one girl, and that’s mommy.”

“No wonder you’re my favorite. Sweet talking me like that. What are you doing?”

“Homework.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I want to.”

“Let me see…” she pulls back the corner of the cover to read the title. “Where did you get this? It’s for kids in grade three.”

“Daddy bought it for me the last time we were in town. ‘Cause he said the stuff at school is way too easy for me”

“And you actually understand what you’re reading?”

“Ummm...yeah…” Tanner gives a heavy sigh and a roll of his eyes. “...of course I do! I’m not stupid. Besides, daddy made me read some to him and made me answer some of the questions before he’d buy it. He said I have a huge brain pan, whatever that means.”

“You honestly can read it and understand it?”

“Mommy, I’m smart like you. Just ‘cause Millie and TJ as dumb, doesn’t mean I am,”

“Okay first off, that’s a little harsh. You brother and sister are not dumb. Far from it. But you? You’re insanely smart. Scary smart. You’re also very grumpy this morning.”

“I’m not grumpy.”

“You ARE. And I have seen that exact frown and those lines in your forehead and those serious eyes a thousand times. You are sounding and looking more like your daddy every day. He gets that same look on his face when he’s grumpy. And what are you wearing?” She tugs at the sleeve of the black and gray Emery t-shirt he sports; miles too big on his slight frame.

“It’s daddy’s. I asked him if I could have one of his shirts before he left and he picked this one and packed it in my bag for me. I wanted something that smells like him ‘cause it helps not miss him so much.”

Tears sparkle in her eyes. That honesty; so pure and so innocent. A little boy that possesses such huge emotions and loves so fiercely. “Oh little nugget…” she tousles his hair. “...you have such a big, sensitive heart. Come here; let me make it so it fits better.”

She gathers him into her arms and rolls onto her back, and he sits crossed legged on her stomach while she gathers the bottom of the shirt and draws it around his waist; securing it in a knot before doing the same with each shoulder. “We’ll have to buy daddy a new shirt. Something tells me you won’t give him this one back.”

“Imma keep it,” Tanner says, then wraps both arms around her neck and stretches his legs out; pressing himself tightly against her, face nestled against the side of her neck, feeling the soft tickle of those ridiculously long lashes against her skin when he closes his eyes.

Despite how much he hates hearing it, he IS still so very little. Four inches shorter than his brother and at least fifteen pounds lighter; limbs not as long and shoulders much more narrow. But it makes for good cuddles, and she can still pick him up relatively effortlessly and carry him if she has to. And his personality matches his appearance. Softer and more tender hearted than his twin; affection and loving and breathtakingly sensitive and heartbreakingly wise. An old soul in such a little boy. And while TJ is rough and wild and carefree, Tanner is more cautious. Wary, almost. Fiercely protective of his own self. And her own eyes close when she wraps both arms around his slender body and drops a kiss on the top of his head.

“I don’t want to be the little one,” he laments.

“Where did THAT come from?”

“I want to be the big one. I want to be tall and strong. Like daddy. How come I have to be the small one?”

“You’ve always been small, nugget. Even when you were a baby. There’s nothing wrong with being small. I’m small.”

“But you’re a girl. How come I had to be the sick one?”

“It’s just the way it worked out. Sometimes things go wrong when mommies are having babies. And we didn’t know you’d be sick; it just happened. You guys were born too early and you ended up being the much smaller one.”

“And why couldn’t I come out first? I wanna be named after daddy.”

“What does it matter?”

“‘Cause it does. I want daddy’s name. It’s a good name.”

“You don’t like being named Tanner?”

“I’d rather be named Tyler.”

“I have a secret to tell you,” Esme says. “But you have to promise to never tell your brother. Because it would hurt his feelings and we don’t want that, right?”

Tanner nods.

“When you were in my tummy? When daddy and I found out it was two babies and not just one? We decided that I’d pick one name and he’d picked the other. So when we found out we were having two boys, I said I would name the first that came out and daddy would name the next one. And I decided that I wanted the first to be named Tyler.”

“It was your idea?”

“Yep.” She combs her fingers through his hair and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Daddy didn’t want either of you named after him, but I got my way. And he picked the name Tanner. So you know what that means? You have the name you do because that’s what daddy chose. He wanted you to be named Tanner.”

He raises his head to look at her. “Really?”

“Really. He picked your name. That’s how much he liked it. That’s what he wanted you to be named. And you know what else? You were so sick when you were born, that daddy was the only person allowed to hold you before they took you to take care of you. And he stayed with you for two whole days in the NICU. He slept in a chair beside your bed and he never left; he didn’t want you to be alone and I was too sick too and I wasn’t allowed to see you yet. So it was just you and daddy for a whole forty eight hours.”

“Just us?”

“Just the two of you. And you remember what the doctor told us to do with Addie? When you place her against bare skin? Do you remember? What animal is it named after?”

“A kangaroo. Kangaroo care.”

“That’s it. Well daddy got to that with you, too. Even though you were hooked up to all kinds of wires and tubes, he still got to hold you like that. And the nurses said that was the only time you were nice and calm and never cried.”

“Never?”

“Never. And daddy was really, really sad. Because he was so worried about you. But stayed there with you the whole time because he already loved you THAT much, and he would have stayed even longer, but someone needed to take care of Millie and TJ and I wanted to spend time with you. But see? Daddy’s always loved you. IT doesn’t matter how small you are or what your name is. He still helped make you. And that’s what matters, right?”

Tanner nods.

“He loves you so much, nugget. Right from the beginning. Right back to when you were still in my tummy and he used to talk to you guys and you’d both kick like crazy whenever you heard his voice. And you were strong even then. You kicked HARD.”

“I did?”

“Daddy would always say that you were going to be a professional soccer player. Or an MMA fighter. That’s how hard you kicked! And you’re still strong; even stronger than your brother. You’re small, but you’re mighty.”

“Like you. And Addie.”

“Well maybe not THAT small. But you’re probably going to have a growth spurt when you’re fifteen and end up as tall as daddy. I want you to stay small, though. It’s easier to cuddle you. I LIKE cuddling you. What if you grow big and strong and you don’t want to cuddle me anymore?”

“I will always want to cuddle with you. You’re my mommy. No one gives better cuddles than mommy. No one.”

“So when you are six foot five and weight two hundred pounds and you ARE a bad ass MMA fighter, you’re still going to want to cuddle mommy?”

“Always,” he promises, and presses a kiss to her lips before settling his face against the side of her neck once more.

“Is everyone else downstairs too?” Esme asks.

Tanner nods.

“How come you’re not down there?”

“I was. But I left and came back upstairs.”

“Why?”

Because Anil is trying to be daddy and I don’t like it.”

She frowns. “Trying to be daddy? How…?”

“He made breakfast for us. But nowhere near as good as daddy’s. And he let us sit outside while we ate and he told us cool stories and talked all about the animals he has and told us we could go swimming later. All the stuff daddy does with us, but not as fun. With daddy it’s different. It’s more fun. We get to go surfing and we walk on the beach and collect rocks and shells and stuff. And he’s nice and all that, but he is NOT daddy and I don’t like that he’s trying to be.”

“I don’t think he…”

“I don’t want him taking daddy’s place. I don’t want him thinking he can steal you away from daddy. ‘Cause I like him and all that, I don’t want him to be my dad. I already have a dad and he’s the best dad ever, so…”

“Okay, you know what, nugget? You and I need to have a talk. Sit up. I want you to look at me when I talk to you, alright?”

Tanner nods, then sits up and settles himself between her splayed thighs when she does the same.

“Now listen to me, alright?” She pushes his hair off his forehead, then places her hands on his shoulders. “No one is taking daddy’s place. Because for that to happen, I’d have to be okay with it. And that’s something I will never…ever...be okay with. I don’t want anyone taking his place. Because you know what, your daddy is perfect the way he is. He’s perfect for me and you guys and...”

“But if he dies…”

“Tanner, listen to me. He is NOT going to die. And even if he did...and that’s a huge if...I still wouldn’t be okay with someone taking his place. No one could ever do that. If something happened to him, it would me and your brothers and sisters. That’s it. Understand?”

He nods.

“Your daddy is way more than just your daddy. He’s my husband AND he’s my best friend. And I love him more than I even love myself. And there’s no one earth that could take his place.”

“Ever?”

“Ever. Anil is NOT trying to be your dad. He’s not trying to take anyone’s place. He’s a friend of daddy’s and he promised daddy that he’d give us a nice, safe place to stay while he works. And it’s a really awesome place isn’t it.”

Tanner nods.

“Daddy trusts Anil to look after us because he can’t right now. Anil’s just trying to make this easier on your guys. Because he knows how sad you all are and how hard it is to be away from home and away from daddy. He’s just being nice and trying to make us feel comfortable and welcome. That’s it. Understand what I’m saying?”

“I understand.”

“So stop worrying so much about all this other stuff, okay? Daddy’s not going to die, no one is going to take his place, and eventually we’ll all get to go home. You believe me, right?”

“I believe you, mommy. But I still don’t want to go downstairs without you. It’s bad enough I can’t do things with daddy. I don’t want to do things with you EITHER.”

“Well can I least go pee and put on something other than pjs first?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose, do you?” She smothers his face with kisses until he’s shrieking and giggling, then tousles his hair. “You want to call daddy? I told him I’d call when I got up. You want to talk to him first?”

Tanner nods enthusiastically, then scrambles across the bed on his hands and knees to retrieve her phone from the night table. “Can I dial it?”

“You know his number?”

“Mom, I know how to get into your contacts. I’m five. I know this stuff.”

“You are way too smart for your own good,” she declares, then presses a kiss to his temple as he settles himself between her legs, back against her stomach.

****

Tyler excuses himself from the team briefing when his cell phone vibrates against the tabletop and his wife's name appears on the screen. When she’d promised to call when she woke up, he’d expected it to be a lot sooner; mornings come quick with five, especially with an infant. With the lingering uneasiness from last night’s confession and subsequent conversation, it had been easy to let his paranoia and worst fears get the better of him; growing more and more concerned with each passing minute, yet resisting the urge to call incessantly and left umpteen messages. He’d KNOW if something was wrong. Nik is there. Anil had even gone personally to make sure that everyone is settled and comfortable and being treated well and to check that things are running smoothly. Had something gone down...IF they were in any danger...he’d be the first one to find out.

He snags his half full take out cup of coffee from the table before heading into the central courtyard; blinking against the harsh, brilliant sun, and groaning inwardly when two of Anil’s people -heavily armed- followed closely behind. None of the rooms that overlook the area have balconies OR windows that open; the only real threat could come from the roof, and that’s sixteen floors above and Anil has even more guards stationed up there. And he grimaces as he takes a seat on one of the concrete benches; an ache across the small of his back and stiffness in his knee.

Nothing a couple of hours in the gym won’t solve; working up a sweat and getting all the kinks out.

“Hey,” he says as he answers the call. “You sleep in or something? ‘Cause…”

“Hi daddy!” Tanner cheerfully greets, and a smile immediately plays on his lips. Six months ago he would never have been able to tell the twins apart on the phone. Now it’s more than obvious who is who; Tanner’s accent coming in much thicker and more pronounced.

“Hey, mate. What’s going on? What’cha up to?”

“Mommy said I could call you. Are you busy?”

“I’m never busy when it comes to you.”

“You’re not beating up any bad guys?”

“Not yet. Later. Once you go to bed. You okay? Sleep alright?”

“Not really,” Tanner admits. “I didn’t like sleeping without Teej. The room is nice and all that and the bed is huge, but I’ve been with Teej for forever. Even when we were in mommy’s tummy. I don’t like being without him. I can’t sleep proper.”

“Well maybe tonight, just go in and sleep with him in his bed,” Tyler suggests. “He won’t admit it. But he’s probably missing you too. He’s used to you always being around. You having fun? What’s the house like?”

“Alright, I suppose.”

“Just alright? Your mom made it sound pretty awesome. Lots of cool stuff to do there, yeah?”

“I guess. I don’t know. I miss home. I miss our stuff. I miss the beach. I miss you making breakfast and waiting for the school bus with us.”

“When this is all over, we can go back to all that stuff.”

“How long?” Tanner asks. “Until it’s over?”

“I don’t know, mate. Not too long I hope.”

“We don’t have to stay here forever, do we? I don’t want to stay here forever. It’s nice and all that not, but it’s not as nice as home. Everything I know is at home. I don’t know any of this stuff. And there’s too many people here. I don’t like lots of people around.”

“I know it sucks to be away from home, but I need you to do me a favor. I need you to at least give the place a chance. I know you miss home. I miss it too. But this will all go a lot faster and easier if you try to enjoy it. Can you do that? For me? At least try?”

“Just for you,” Tanner promises. “And I don’t want another dad.”

Tyler laughs, coffee cup poised against his lips. “What?”

“I don’t want another dad,” his son repeats. “Anil’s a nice guy, but I don’t want him as my new dad.”

“Tanner,” Esme sighs in the background. “We talked about this. Stop.”

“I’m telling daddy about it. He should know if someone is trying to take his place.”

“No one is trying to take his place. We JUST talked about this.”

“Anil is trying to be you,” Tanner explains. “Not you, exactly. But a daddy. He’s trying to be a daddy. MY daddy. And I don’t like it. I already have a dad. I don’t need another one. Can I come stay with you wherever you are?”

“I don’t think he��s trying to do that,” Tyler says. “I think he’s just trying to be nice.”

“What if he tries to steal mommy from you?”

“Well if he wants her that bad…”

“I can hear you,” Esme pipes up. “He has you on speaker phone.”

“No one is going to steal your mom away,” Tyler assures his son. “Or even try. Especially if they know what’s good for them.””

“You’ll beat them up?”

“I was thinking they wouldn’t be able to handle her cooking. But if you rather I beat them up…”

“You’re both on my shit list,” Esme declares.

“Anil isn’t trying to be your dad,” Tyler says. “He’s trying to be dad like, but not A dad. Know what I mean?”

“Not really,” Tanner admits.

“He’s trying to do things for you guys that a dad would do. So you’ll be comfortable there. So you’ll be happy. That’s all. He’s not trying to be your dad or take my place. And unless your mom is planning on getting rid of me, you’re kind of stuck with me.”

“But what if you die?”

“Tanner!” Esme scolds. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s a valid question, mom. What if daddy dies? Then what? Then I have no dad.”

“Well then your mom would have to find you a new one, I guess,” Tyler tells him.

“No frigging way! I’d rather no dad than a new one. I don’t want some shitty new dad.”

He can’t help but chuckle. “How about you stop worrying about this kind of stuff? You’re five. You’re way too young for gray hair and an ulcer.”

“I can’t help it,” Tanner laments. “It’s how my brain works. I worry. It’s what I do.”

“You sounded so much like your mom just then. Why don’t go and be a kid? Go swimming. Watch a movie. Go see the animals. There’s all kinds of stuff to do there. Go do one of them.”

“Nothing’s fun without you, though. It’s boring. You do cool stuff with us and now it’s boring as shit!”

“What did I say about giving things a chance?”

Tanner sighs. “Fine. I’ll try. But I’ll hate every second.”

“You’ll be saying that same thing when you’re older and you have to work for a living.”

“Not if I do your job. I’d like to beat up bad people.”

“Well there’s more to it than that and I’d rather you NOT do it. For now, you’re only five. Be a five year old, yeah? Leave worrying about adult shit to actual adults, hear me?”

“I hear you. And I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Let me talk to your mom, okay? You go be a kid. I love you.”

“I love you, daddy. Will you call me later? Before you go beat up the bad guys?”

“I promise I’ll call you. Try and have fun. Please?”

“I’ll try. But it won’t happen…”

“Tanner…”

“I’m nothing if not honest.”

“You’re grumpy is what you are. I’m serious; be a kid. Leave adult stuff to adults. Try to have fun. I’ll see you in a few days, alright?”

“Can you stay when you come? Even just for a couple of days?”

“I can’t. I want to. But I can’t.”

“Just for ONE day?”

“Not even for one day,” he reluctantly admits.

“Can you stay overnight at least? Then you can make breakfast in the morning before you go?”

“I’ll see, okay? I’ll find out if I can. I’m not making any promises, though. But I’ll find it. Let me talk to mommy. And NOT on speaker phone.”

“She’s in trouble, isn’t she.”

“You’re trouble, you know that?”

“What are you talking about? I’m the good one.”

Tyler smirks. “Tell that to the fifteen bucks you scammed out of me.”

“Listen, I did that fair and square. Not my fault you fell for it.” His giggling stops and he turns seriously once again. “I miss you, daddy. My heart is sad.”

“Mine is too, mate. But I’ll see you soon. I promise. Now let me talk to your mom and you go be a kid.”

“Fine.” Tanner huffs. “But I still don’t want another dad.”

“Go downstairs,” Esme gently orders. “And be nice. Quit being such a grump. And don’t give me that look because I don’t put up with it from your father and I sure as hell won’t put up with it from a five year old. Just go. I’ll be down in a minute. I swear…” she sighs into the phone. “...he is five going on fifteen. Hi, by the way. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. And what the hell is going on over there that he’s got it in his head that he’s getting a new dad?”

“Nothing. Nothing is going on. I haven’t even been downstairs yet. I don’t even know where downstairs is and if I can’t find it. I need a map or a GPS to locate the kitchen. And you know what Tanner is like. He worries about things that aren’t even happening and probably never will. He IS going to give himself an ulcer. And you say he’s not like you?”

He sips his coffee. “What about the other ones?”

“They’re fine. I mean, as fine as they can be. They’re at least embracing the whole thing and making the best of it. But I don’t know how much of this I can take. All these people around; maid and cooks and nannies and all that shit. I woke up this morning and Addie was gone. I almost had a stroke. I guess one of the nannies came in and got her.”

“It’s what he’s hired all these people to do,” Tyler reasons. “To take care of you guys.”

“She could have at least said she was taking her instead of just coming in and doing it. And I don’t need people watching my kids. This isn’t my first baby; I’ve taken care of four other ones, including two at once. It’s just weird. I don’t know how people live like this.”

“And you call Tanner grumpy?” he chides.

“I don’t like strangers just up and taking my children. I’m used to it being us. Not twenty different people I can’t even communicate with. And I’m sorry; I didn’t call to bitch at you, I swear.”

“I’m used to it. It’s been seven years. Nothing new to me.”

“You're such a smart ass,” she mutters, then turns serious. “Are you okay? Did the night get any better?”

“A little.” He won’t tell her about the bottle of whisky he’d polished off, or how guilty he feels about it now. Some things are better left unsaid.

“Do you want me to come there?” Esme asks. “I could stay for a couple of days. Just to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” he insists.

“That’s horseshit and you know it. If you want me to come…”

“It’s not that I DON’T want you to. It's that I also want you to say with kids. Where I know you’re safe.”

“I’m safer with you. I trust you. These people are strangers and I can’t just blindly trust them. I at least know...one hundred percent...that I’m safe with you.”

“They’re not all strangers,” he argues. “Nik’s there.”

“Nik isn’t you. Seriously, if you want me there…”

“I do. You have no idea how much. But I want you to stay with the kids. MY kids. Bad enough I’m gone; they don’t need the two of us taking off.”

“And you’re going back out tonight?”

“Yeah,”

“Alone?”

“Don’t start.”

“How dangerous is it? Is it something you should be doing alone?”

“On a scale of one to ten? Maybe a three.”

“I don’t trust your scale. What you can handle and what a normal person can handle are two entirely different things. How many people this time?”

“Four.”

“Four? By yourself? Tyler, what the fuck?”

“It’s not hands on. Sniper work. It’ll be easy. Four shots and I’m done. Nothing to worry about.”

Esme sighs heavily. “I think you just gave me a hundred more gray hairs. This is insane. Four people? By yourself?”

“I just told you…”

“I know what you told me. I think it’s too much. Even for you. Take someone with you. Please? For my own peace of mind.”

“Esme…”

“Tyler…”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Now is NOT the time to be stubborn. I’m just worried. You know that.”

“I do know that.”

“And I know that you won’t take anyone with you. Just be careful, okay? These people are smart. And that makes them even more dangerous. Just be careful and be safe, okay?”

“I will,” he promises. “I gotta go. I walked out in the middle of a team meeting.”

“You could have just said that at the beginning and you could have called me back.”

“You’re more important than any meeting. And I needed to talk to you. To hear your voice.”

“I needed that too,” she admits. “Maybe later you can phone and I can hear it again. This time saying more ADULT stuff.”

Tyler grins. “I could do that.”

“Oh I know you can. I know the filth that is capable of coming out of your mouth. I better go; before Tanner starts planning my wedding to Anil.”

“Well he could give you a better wedding than I gave you” Tyler reasons.

“Ours was perfect. It was small and it was quaint and it was very us. I love you. We’ll talk later.”

“Yeah, we will. And I love you, too.”

“Be safe. Call me as soon as soon as it’s done. So I know you’re okay.”

“I will,” he promises. “Let me know where you’re registered so I can get you and your second husband a wedding gift.”

“You’re not funny. In the slightest.

“That’s ‘cause I’m fucking hilarious.”

“In your own mind, maybe. Talk later.”

“For sure,” he says, then presses end on the phone. And he sits there for several minutes; eyes fixated on the blackened screen of the cell clutched tightly in his hand. Attempting to control the profound ache that settles deep in his chest. That overwhelming loneliness. And impending sense of doom.

#tyler rake #tyler rake fan fic #tyler rake fan fiction #extraction #best part of me #chris hemsworth character

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talesofafangirlwithadvr · 4 years ago

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AUGUST PICKS!

And we’re back with another month wrap up! August involved a lot of TV watching (as per usual), but I feel like I watched a lot of things I’ve already talked about before (ex: The 100, Violetta). So it was a little bit harder to feature some new titles. I felt accomplished this month because I finished quite a few series. So, without further ado...let’s do this!

Spoilers!! But you knew that already :)

...

......

So I know I’ve spoken about some of these shows A LOT recently, but I still had to include them in this wrap up because they were a good amount of the month. (Even if they feel like they were so long ago.)

CURSED

This book to screen adaptation on Netflix following Nimue (AKA the Lady of the Lake) re-invents the King Arthur myth. It was an entertaining and enjoyable watch that makes me hope there’s a second season. There were certain parts that bothered me and I wish some characters had more time on screen, but as someone who likes King Arthur and fantasy TV I’d recommend it. 3/5 for me.

For more on my thoughts regarding the show check out my earlier post: **Spoilers** Featuring Cursed

DC’S STARGIRL

A show that I’ve often been documenting my reviews/feelings after watching each episode. (That’s how you can tell IT’S THAT GOOD.) While it was a bit slow in the beginning (mainly because of it having the quality of being on a streaming service-ending on a cliffhanger for you to binge the next episode immediately kind of feel), it picked up and has easily become one of my favorites for the year. (YEAH...I KNOW. I SAID YEAR.) You can check out my page for more specific reactions in my posts, but here are some of the moments that stick out to me the most when I think about season 1.

I can’t wait for season 2!!

AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER

June doesn’t feel like that long ago, but because I started season 1 two months ago (and because of the world of quarantine) it feels like a long time ago. Especially when this show is only 18-20 episodes that are each about 20/25 minutes. For me, I enjoyed season 1, but not as much as seasons 2 and 3. I definitely watched the first season slower because of this. Once the Ba Sing Se plot happened I was very invested. I enjoyed most of Book 2 in the Earth Kingdom before this, but Ba Sing Se was definitely the best. I was so impressed that they put that into a kid show. Then again, there’s so much in this show that is well done and brings up such relevant issues to a younger audience. I loved following Aang, Katara and Sakka and enjoyed Toph’s addition to Team Avatar. Overall I think Uncle Iroh is my favorite character in the show. I loved all the wisdom he had and how he saw the best in Zuko the entire time. Their team up was great and I am so happy he got his tea shop in the end. His escape from prison was amazing. I love a good redemption arc and from the start was excited to see Prince Zuko’s (it’s one of the ‘spoilers’ I knew going in). I think it was really well done and I liked how they showed him struggling with it. The last agni kai between Zuko and Azula was such a beautiful scene and the music score behind it was so chilling. I love how they chose a slow, instrumental song to play in the background. It’s not what I was expecting and it was such an awesome choice. Overall, I really liked the music and have added it to my writing playlist. I’m really glad I decided to watch Avatar the Last Airbender.

From one binged show starting in June to another....

VIOLETTA SEASON 2

It’s crazy; you don’t think 80 episodes would go by that fast, but they do. Once you hit episode 50, I just zip by the rest in the season. So many of the plots get SO GOOD, you can’t help but watch so many episodes back to back (to back). For season 2, episode 75 was one of my favorites for the whole season. I love how some of the cast actually got to go to Madrid. (Even the intro music changed when they were there.) Diego really grew on me. I loved the added plot of discovering who his dad is! Feels very telenovela. Gregorio’s reaction was priceless-such great acting-and I loved how much it has changed his character so far. I’m excited to see where he is headed for season 3.

Leonetta forever! The reason they weren’t together was a bit weak, but I get they needed the love triangle. Overall the Leon/Violetta/Diego love triangle was a lot stronger than season 1′s (in my opinion). It felt better developed. I enjoyed a lot of the couples this season. Frederico and Ludi are a pair I didn’t know I wanted till it happened. Olga and Ramallo actually got a kiss!!! I loved hearing Ramallo talk about how Olga is the only woman in his life. So rare to see such emotions from him. Fran and Leon’s friendship was adorable. I loved their moments in Madrid. She was their #1 shipper. I know in the beginning I said there wasn’t a lot of music and performances, but as the season progressed we definitely got a lot of new songs (which I cannot stop singing). I miss my time at the Studio and hope the third season will be streaming on Disney Plus soon. I heard it could be September 18th so fingers crossed!!

THE INBESTIGATORS

Filling the void that was left by Little Lunch (and produced by the same studio) is the InBESTigators! A show that follows 4 elementary students who live in Australia and solve mysteries. One of the things I really loved about Little Lunch was how serious they made really trivial, kid-like things sound. I have often described it as an Office-like children’s show, where they talk about their problems directly to the camera and give several ‘Jim’ stares and glances to the camera. With the InBESTigators it’s a similar set up where our four sleuths, Ezra, Maudie, Ava and Kyle, relay a mystery they solved directly to us the viewer, while we watch in flashback. All of the mysteries are typical things that could happen in school or home; from overwatering a neighbor’s prize-winning flowers, packages getting stolen, a lost notebook or catching a cheater during a test. All of the kids are entertaining and funny. They each have a different dynamic that brings something to the team. Currently two of the seasons are on Netflix, and there will be a third season (but who knows when it will be filmed-I’m just happy it will eventually happen).

If you’re looking for a fun/light-hearted watch look no further. You’ll have a good time.

UNITED WE FALL

This ABC sitcom fits well on the network and like it would be on Friday nights, but has a stronger day in airing thanks to the pandemic. I hadn’t really heard much about the show and then BAM it was advertised. It felt like the network had it in its back pocket. Nevertheless, I am really enjoying it. The actors have a nice dynamic and it is very funny and relatable. I like how it represents a family with two different cultural backgrounds, but doesn’t make that the main focus of the show. Instead it is discussed naturally. Overall, I don’t know how many people know about it, so I wanted to share it as one of my picks for the month and suggest you watch it if you are looking for something both funny and optimistic.

DOUBLING DOWN WITH THE DERRICOS

I LOVE this family! As TLC is a network with predictable choices in TV shows, one about a family with multiples does not seem shocking. However, this is not your average family with multiples. At the start of the show, Karen and Deon have a total of 11 children (with only two of them being what they called ‘singletons’). They have twins, quints, and another set of twins (that would have been triplets). Her last three pregnancies were multiples and then she becomes pregnant with triplets. AGAIN! This family is considered a miracle because she had no IVF or anything like that for her conceptions. I love watching them because they seem like a great group to be apart of. They are what the epitome of family should be like. There is so much love. I know when my family watches the show we are all so impressed by how well behaved all of the kids are. People with half the amount of kids often have trouble teaching them to behave. I highly suggest giving the Derricos a watch. New episodes are now airing on TLC.

SOME LAST MINUTE ADDS....

I know Ben Platt’s concert has been available on Netflix for a while now, but I just got the chance to watch it this month. It was SOOO GOOD and I was upset when it was over. It felt so fast! I had already added a lot of his songs to my playlists, and after watching added the last few I had missed. Now I’ve been listening non-stop. I loved how his concert welcomed us so much into his personal life. The added stories in-between songs helped to see why he created that specific one. Watching the concert was a fun time and something you should consider if you are feeling down during quarantine.

Every Saturday night we try to watch a movie while we eat dinner. It’s become a new tradition since quarantine began and we were unable to go out to eat or to the movies. This week Jojo Rabbit was the pick. Going into the film, I didn’t know much expect, but that it was a comedy and I assumed a satire. What I didn’t expect was how dark of a turn it would take. It’s amazing how a film can have you laughing uncontrollably at the start and then have you crying at the end. This is definitely a film I could see analyzing in a film studies class. There was so much foreshadowing and moments where so much more was going on then what was shown on the surface. I think it did a great job making the viewer think not only about the time in which it was supposed to take place, but also our current world. I know it’s a good movie when it still has me thinking about it days later. I even did some research into it after watching. Definitely can understand the hype about it and will watch it again in the future.

When I was putting this list together I was just starting to watch Umbrella Academy. I know, I’m late to the party, but with the newest season coming out this summer I knew it was now or never. (I just had to finish some of the other stuff I was watching first.) Currently, I only have 1 episode left in the first season and am really enjoying it. I was pretty good about spoilers going into it, so a lot of it was new to me. I made some theories on who I thought would be the cause of the apocalypse and so far I am right. I am very interested to see how this season ends and get into the next one because I heard that the majority of people liked that one more. I’ll have a more detailed review in my September Picks, I’m sure of it!

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far-off-flower-fields · 4 years ago

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Weird Questions that say a lot

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans? Teacups!

2. chocolate bars or lollipops? Lollipops

3. bubblegum or cotton candy? Cotton candy

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you? We call elementary school primary school. It depended which teachers you asked, my favourites always said I was “conscientious, kind, and a pleasure to have in class”.

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups? Glass cups or bottles.

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear? I have like 4 looks, pastel, boho, and goth/witchy/grunge, also vintage-inspired which wasn’t mentioned but I love it.

7. earbuds or headphones? Depends on the shape, I love my Razr headset because it doesn’t squash my ears, and I like galaxy bud shaped earbuds, the ones with the little rubber doo-dads that fit actually in your ear. Apple or a lot of older flat earbuds cause me a lot of pain.

8. movies or tv shows? TV shows. Movies are getting longer and longer and my focus is getting shorter and shorter

9. favorite smell in the summer? Rainy days!

10. game you were best at in p.e.? The game of queue-ducking (where you go to the back of the queue to avoid your turn), or dance, or the less strength intensive parts of gymnastics. Or crying, always been great at that xD

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day? Muesli, or nothing.

12. name of your favorite playlist? I prefer to listen to full albums rather than playlists, but I have a few favourites on Spotify. Born to Run 150BPM, Infinite Indie Folk, Irish Folk: Jigs and Reels, All Out 80s/90s/00s. I also love scene/pop-punk playlists.

13. lanyard or key ring? Key Ring

14. favorite non-chocolate candy? Message Hearts (or anything with that texture), the red pack of starbursts (the UK version is vegan). Does Turkish Delight count because if so then that is my fave. I also like gummies if they’re vegan.

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment? To Kill a Mockingbird (high school), or The Bloody Chamber (uni), or Hamlet (uni)

16. most comfortable position to sit in? One foot under me, the other foot out to the other side, but both in the same position (if the surface is flat), or knees up.

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes? I own a lot of shoes so there isn’t really a single pair I wear the most. Recently my Air Force 1s, I’m trying to wear them in because the previous owner didn’t so the cause blisters.

18. ideal weather? Cold, overcast, rainy, still. Or without the rain. or snow (as long as I’m not going in the car and I can go crunch my shoes in it xD

19. sleeping position? Either side, but my body is kinda rotated towards the bed so it’s like half way between on my stomach and on my side.

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)? Notebooks

21. obsession from childhood? Animals, dinosaurs, goddesses, magic, crystals, neopets, sims. I still love all of these things, I am a rotating door of obsessions, usually a bunch of the same obsessions on repeat.

22. role model? I don’t have one particular role model, I do have tons of people that I love and respect.

23. strange habits? I have so many strange habits that I have become one myself. Nothing actually stands out though because 99% of it is because of my brain.

24. favorite crystal? rose quartz or moonstone.

25. first song you remember hearing? Maybe Dancing Queen by ABBA, definitely the first I remember dancing to, but my dad loves music so I grew up with a constant stream of it.

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather? Suffer xD when I’m able to do so comfortably I’d love to go out looking for pretty stones, and nice sticks with my fiance, also would like to go on picnics with him, or a friend if I had one.

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather? Baking, drawing, crafts, standing in the rain. Everything.

28. five songs to describe you? 6/10 - Dodie Robert Frost - Mal Blum Caught in the Middle - Paramore Side Effects - Jade Bird Snitches Get Stitches - Onsind Bonus track: The Seed - Aurora I wish I still had the playlist I made of songs I relate to, several of these were on it though.

29. best way to bond with you? Oversharing, or telling me about things you’re into.

30. places that you find sacred? Nature. My favourite spots are little creeks/rivers in wooded areas, but just like, all of it is special and should be treated as such. Also bedrooms.

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? I think maybe I’m not gutsy or whatever enough, but also unpredictable. I wear whatever I like, and I’m just as likely to cry in all of them as I am to accidentally get in a fight.

32. top favorite vines? I feel so basic because I never really did the vine thing. There was one that nearly killed me because I literally started to choke that was in some kind of office and the bit like can you run this past me again, and they just fucking legged it past them holding a folder up, Saw it once, never saw it again. Road work ahead. Why you can’t lift a house (might be a tok?) Brass dad and oven kid Look at this graaaaph Never learned how to read I can’t sit I have hemorrhoids The one with the people in blankets bobbing the nana nanana song Fr esh avo ca do Look at all these chickens

33. most used phrase in your phone? I love you - if I had to guess

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? right now, nothing. I often get the old Super Liquor jingle lodged in there though.

35. average time you fall asleep? 6am?

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing? Charlie the unicorn or that one Noodles video by Cyanide and Happiness. Are those even memes?

37. suitcase or duffel bag? Depends. I mostly use a bag though since I never go anywhere for long.

38. lemonade or tea? Tea? Usually if you ask for lemonade here you get Sprite which is not lemonade.

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie? I had a vegan lemon meringue pie once, so good. Cake is easier to make though, and I can eat more in one sitting without getting sick xD

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? Um, the principal in my last year of school got caught for being a peeping tom a few years after I left.

41. last person you texted? My Fiance.

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets? Jacket pockets

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket? Depends on the rest of the outfit and the weather. I wear Jean jackets most though.

44. favorite scent for soap? I love lavender, or vanilla/candy/fruity/baked goods type scents. I still have a bottle of Sugar Fairy spray from lush from a year ago and I love the smell of that.

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero? Fantasy I think.

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in? Nekkid?

47. favorite type of cheese? As a kid it was feta. Now I only eat vegan cheese. I was never a huge cheese fan tbh.

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be? Rotten xD um probably a cranberry or something because I’m small, and I’m not a fan of cranberry.

49. what saying or quote do you live by? An it harm none do what you will. Or treat others as you wish to be treated.

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? Probably one of the vines I listed above, either “run it past” or “can’t lift a house” because both of those resulted in crying and choking.

51. current stresses? My cat has been throwing up and having diarrhoea the past week or so, she’s been to the vet, it got better for a bit, but tonight suddenly got worse. Living with my parents who I have a very toxic relationship with. Living in a single very overfilled room. Trying to not spend money so that I can save up to move next year. Nightmares about my trauma. Either the house is haunted or there’s a build up of negative energy (probably that).

52. favorite font? I always liked the look of all of the script style fonts (freestyle, french, lucida, lucida calligraphy, Edwardian, Palace) but they’re not accessible so for anything people will actually see (which is literally nothing) I always go with arial.

53. what is the current state of your hands? Slight rash on one finger because I’m sensitive to what is in a lot of hand washing products apparently (never an issue until the pandemic), one broken finger nail that is a bit shorter than the rest. Not painted nails because energy. I always wear my engagement ring, usually I wear several other rings but with how my skin is being I thought I’d better not for a while.

54. what did you learn from your first job? Bakeries are hell, my circadian rhythm will not adjust to anything besides its natural state for longer than a couple of days at a time no matter how long or hard I try. I can absolutely fall asleep standing up.

55. favorite fairy tale? Ugly Duckling

56. favorite tradition? I don’t have anyway... Yet? Hopefully when I move this can become a thing.

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome? I’m interpretting overcome loosely here, meaning “I have not died from this” - Suicide of my first love - Bullying - 3 different jobs that all nearly killed me

58. four talents you’re proud of having? Literally can’t think of one. I’m not talented. I’m passable at a couple of things, but I worked for those things and I’m still not good enough for anyone to confuse me for being talented xD Those things I care about that I’ve worked on a lot are singing, art, languages, crafts? I still struggled to come up with 4. My bad.

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be? Aw jeez xD

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be? Magical Girl! This is an easy one, give me the powers and the clothes yessss.

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? Literally sitting here drawing a blank, so instead of favourite here is the first one that came into my head “eyes are the genitals of the head” (may have that wrong, I’m watching the Office for the first time rn)

62. seven characters you relate to? Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Amelie from Amelie Matilda from Matilda Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notredame (also my favourite plush as a kid) Iris - The Holiday Jess - New Girl Amelia Shepherd - Grey’s Anatomy Struggled with this because suddenly I drew a blank and also couldn’t remember who my Fiance was talking about every time he’s watched a character and said “that’s you” repeatedly.

63. five songs that would play in your club? Starlight - Superman Lovers Pump It - Black Eyed Peas I Bet that You Look Good on the Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys All the Things She Said - tATu Doctor Jones - Aqua Bonus: Push Up - Freestylers These are ones I have memories of dancing to when I was younger so that’s how I picked, but I’d absolutely be a themed night club with different music on different nights.

64. favorite website from your childhood? Neopets, which I still play daily. The first I played was MaMaMedia, then Bubblegum Club.

65. any permanent scars? That’s a SORE subject heh get it heh

66. favorite flower(s)? Lavender, rose, peony

67. good luck charms? I usually carry gemstones if I’m needing to be particularly lucky, or sigils.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried? I hate anything spicy. I had rootbeer candy that tasted like literal dirt. I can’t eat banana stuff without gagging and getting a headache. I hate anything that is artificial blackberry or blackcurrant, tastes like shitty cough syrup.

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned? Sea Monkeys breathe through their feet, but I remember where I learned that.

70. left or right handed? right

71. least favorite pattern? depends entirely on the colours, I like patterns. but certain stripes do make my eyes feel funny.

72. worst subject? If PE counts, then that. If not, math.

73. favorite weird flavor combo? I love pineapple on pizza but that’s not weird. Iused to eat cheese and jam sandwiches as a kid though.

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen? I operate on how long it has lasted instead of how bad it is, essentially I get so desperate so I’ll try it even though it probably won’t help. I have the resistance of a rhino to most meds.

75. when did you lose your first tooth? No idea, like 4 I think? I did keep them in a weird little box for no reason though because they never got taken away from under my pillow.

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)? I’m a fan of a good mash if it has lots of flavour (like gravy). Otherwise, crisps or fries.

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill? I grew a radish once! Something cat safe though these days, also maybe something heavy, and hard to knock over?

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store? Grocery Store sushi, if it’s just veg.

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo? My only ID is my passport, and it is BAD.

80. earth tones or jewel tones? Both.

81. fireflies or lightning bugs? Fireflies (ten million of them to be precise)

82. pc or console? Grew up with PC. Now play my switch mostly.

83. writing or drawing? Both. Wrote more as a kid, draw more now.

84. podcasts or talk radio? Podcasts.

84. barbie or polly pocket? Both. But I prefered pollies as a kid

85. fairy tales or mythology? mythology

86. cookies or cupcakes? cupcakes

87. your greatest fear? Based on my nightmares, stairs.

88. your greatest wish? To live in a comfy house, in the country, with my Fiance, I have travelled the world, we have pets, I can function, we are free.

89. who would you put before everyone else? My Fiance and out animals.

90. luckiest mistake? Can’t think of any, most of my mistakes have been more like bad choices, also never turned out well for me.

91. boxes or bags? Depends what it’s for?

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights? lamps, or fairy lights. Unless I’m particularly anxious, then overheads.

93. nicknames? None.

94. favorite season? Winter

95. favorite app on your phone? LINE, it has my fiance, and animated stickers.

96. desktop background? Little Twin Stars

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized? My own.

I never get asks and needed to distract myself so I’m going to just answer these anyway, like a survey or something. Original post by tr33-g1rl

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coolgreatwebsite · 5 years ago

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Cool Games I Finished In 2019 (In No Real Order)

We’re here. The end of the decade. 2019 was a weird, turbulent year for me. Despite my cross-country move already being a year behind me somehow, nothing’s really settled yet. Living situation is still weird, still separated from most of my belongings, I left my full-time QA job for a contractor position at a mobile game advertising company that may or may not convert into a full-time position... everything about what’s going on with me still just feels like I’m completely winging it, and while that’s not a position I’m really comfortable being in for such an extended amount of time, everything seems to be working out okay enough despite it. All this is probably why I spent most of my time playing the shit out of a handful of games rather than playing a bunch of different games this year! Needed some sort of stability. Also when I did manage to pull myself away from the timesink games and play something else, a lot of them ranged from “okay” to “real bad”. But I still managed to play just enough stuff that I liked to where I can put out yet another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2019.

Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (PC, 2005)

I haven’t bothered to do two thirds of the story quests yet and have barely touched any Episode 4 content so this game technically doesn’t count for this list, but if I left it off I would be neglecting to mention an extremely large portion of my video game playing time this year. I fell back into PSO preeeettty hard this year after the surprise announcement of Phantasy Star Online 2 finally coming to the US. Guess what: game still rules. It feels stiff to play and it’s obviously far less expansive than it seemed back in 2000, but the core of Phantasy Star Online is still as fun as it ever was and the aesthetics are still entirely my shit. I love everything about the way this game looks and sounds, I love stumbling on a weird new weapon, I love participating in the custom seasonal events the server I’m on runs, and I love how oddly relaxing the experience of playing this game and taking it all in is. I will probably continue to play Phantasy Star Online into 2020. I will probably still dip back into it after PSO2 US servers finally launch. If I know you and you want to join my Discord server for PSO get at me. PSO forever.

Cookie’s Bustle (PC, 1999)

You ever play a game that just speaks to you? Even through a language barrier? A game so incredibly out there and bizarre in the exact way you love that you can’t help but adore it despite barely understanding it? Holy moly did I ever find that game. I learned about Cookie’s Bustle through a news story last year about some rare games leaking from a Japanese collector’s stash. Didn’t manage to get it to run back then, but my off and on attempts to get it working finally paid off in March of this year and I’m so glad I kept trying. I knew nothing of this game other than it had a weird name and was about a bear doing sports, and it turned out to be a fully voice-acted and mostly unsubtitled adventure game starring Cookie Blair, a 5 year old girl from New Jersey who sees herself as a teddy bear and has traveled to Bombo World, an island nation once visited by aliens and currently in the middle of a civil war, to participate in the Bombo Sports Tournament. Dead level, I probably shouldn’t have been able to genuinely love Cookie’s Bustle as much as I did. The only context I had for what was happening and what I was supposed to do was provided by a 20-year-old Google translated walkthrough with broken images, the game’s slightly higher than usual reliance on English loan words, and 30-ish years of video games and anime allowing me to halfway pick up on a handful of Japanese words. However, Cookie’s Bustle is dripping with an undeniable and off-beat charm that genuinely transcends language. Even if you can’t understand the words and specifics, you can understand the basic plot, characterizations, and emotions they’re going for. Cookie’s Bustle manages to both be completely off-the-wall bizarre and feel totally genuine and heartfelt at the same time, a balance very few games manage to successfully hit but many of my favorites do. One could say that’s why it seems to have resonated with a decent amount of other people this year, too. Games rarely make me feel sad that they’re over. but when they do that’s how I know they’re one of the good ones. Seriously, go look up a longplay or stream of Cookie’s Bustle if you (understandably) don’t want to go through the hassle of setting it up and figuring out how to play it, it’s impossible not to love.

Devil May Cry 5 (PlayStation 4, 2019)

Here’s something crazy to think about: Devil May Cry 4 came out 11 years ago. Aside from being a potent reminder that time is moving too fast and we’re all going to die soon, that means that there hasn’t been a DMC for over a decade. Devil May Cry 5 does not bare this fact even a little bit. Not only did they pick up right where they left off and manage to make another Devil May Cry game without missing a beat, they made arguably the best Devil May Cry game. I mean I still like the story and single-character focus of DMC3 the best, but DMC5 is the best playing game in the series without a doubt. Nero finally feels like he has a complete and complex toolset, Dante is the most mechanically dense and fun to play he’s ever been, and they even added a new guy that’s... neat to play as, until you start trying to S-rank the harder difficulties. Then he’s kind of annoying to play as. But it’s still cool that they tried something totally different and mostly got it to work! They also did something very stupid that I love and used this game as an excuse to make literally every single piece of Devil May Cry media canon. Like, characters exclusively from the anime and the books show up and act like they’re someone you already know and love? And they go out of their way to explain the most esoteric lore shit possible?? And despite it all they still intentionally give DMC2 as short a shrift as they can??? It’s so dumb, it rules. It’s just one of the many things about the game that show that even with so long of a gap between entries, no love for the series was lost by the people that make it. I don’t think the suits at Capcom expected this game to hit as hard as it did though, because despite there being clear areas where the game could be expanded on with DLC there still hasn’t been anything announced. I hope they’re maybe saving it for some sort of DMC3-esque special edition, or maybe just already working on DMC6, because even after getting all S-ranks I still wanted to play more. The game’s just that damn good.

Hypnospace Outlaw (PC, 2019)

I expected very little from Hypnospace Outlaw. I backed the game on Kickstarter solely because it looked cool and I thought a game about fake GeoCities was neat, and then I immediately forgot about it until it released. Admittedly my lack of expectations stemmed mostly from the fact that it’s kind of hard to set expectations for a game you never really thought too hard about, but even in the brief period of time where I considered it enough to give it money, I never expected it to be much more than a pretty-looking 101 Great GeoCities Jokez delivery vehicle. Boy was I wrong. I mean, it is incredibly good at that, but Hypnospace Outlaw is so much more than a funny period piece. The basic premise is that you’re in alternate universe 1999 and have just become a community moderator for an Internet service provider that allows people to connect to the Internet while they sleep. You’re tasked with browsing the game’s weird fake Internet and issuing demerits to users who violate the five basic Hypnospace rules, but it quickly evolves into something way bigger. Hypnospace Outlaw’s greatest strength is its exceptional ability at weaving together subtle world building, small and engaging character arcs, esoteric microjokes, and a genuine sense of mystery and discovery into an incredibly cohesive and engaging package. It’s as much a game about the people that use and run its weird fake Internet as it is about that weird fake Internet itself. And a lot of the problems both face echo the problems we face with our real world Internet today. When I was mapping out writing this article like a month or two ago I was prepared to go on about how at its core, Hypnospace Outlaw is an incredibly poignant story about how uncaring tech corporations actively harm their users and always have, but then a couple of days ago I read Colin Spacetwinks’ game of the year list and his #1 entry put most everything I would have said about that topic down in a way more eloquent and well-written way than I ever could have. And then I remembered that Friend Of The Site Heidi Kemps covered some of the same angle but from the perspective of the early Internet in an article earlier this year, again way better than I could have. So I highly recommend you read those when you’re done here. What I wanna bring up instead is just how effortlessly surprising and interconnected a lot of stuff in Hypnospace feels, using a mildly spoiler-ish late game example. Two of the first “zones” you’re allowed to moderate when you start Hypnospace Outlaw are Teentopia and Goodtime Valley, which are essentially alternate universe Yahooligans and a little slice of Hypnospace just for Boomers respectively. On Teentopia you’ll see a bunch of kids that are wild for Squisherz, Hypnospace’s alternate universe version of Pokémon, and over in Goodtime Valley you’ll see (much like there was back in real world 1999) a few pages made by religious fundamentalists convinced that everything the kids like these days is the work of Satan. This of course includes Squisherz, and you can find a page by one organization full of crackpot conspiracy theories with flimsy evidence that TOTALLY DEFINITELY backs up their claim. Squisherz contains a wolf, which the Bible warns about many times! This giraffe monster CLEARLY has a pentagram in its design!! And the eye of this snake-like Squisherz is the eye of Horus, an Egyptian occult symbol and NEED I REMIND YOU that Lucifer took the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden!!! It is very clear what this page is goofing on and throughout the course of the game it doesn’t get updated at all, so it’s very easy to laugh at it and forget about it. Very late into the game, you get an optional sidequest. Adrian Merchant, one of the CEOs of Merchantsoft, the company that created Hypnospace, was found out to have logged traffic indicating he was a frequent visitor of a website called Children of HORUS, and a call is put out to investigate what that even is. You can easily find the website, but it asks you for a password if you click the Enter button. Adrian Merchant is consistently portrayed throughout the game as a complete idiot, and the solution to this puzzle has you capitalize on that. Another early game objective ended up with you finding a list of cracked passwords, and one of those passwords happens to be for the instant messenger account of Adrian Merchant. If you can remember that he was even in that text file from forever ago, and then put two and two together that of COURSE that dumbass would use the same password for everything, you just punch in his messenger password and you’re granted access to the Children of HORUS page. It turns out that HORUS is an acronym that stands for Hiding Occult References in Utmost Secrecy, and the page itself is a basic leaderboard with a list of names and two numbered columns reading “Hidden” and “Found”. In that list of names you’ll find A. Merchant, along with the names of various other CEOs and celebrities you might have read about elsewhere in Hypnospace. One of the other names on this list is F. Kazuma, the CEO of Monarch, creators of Squisherz. The funny conspiracy theory website from the beginning of the game that you most likely forgot about was, about this one specific thing, correct. There was an eye of Horus hidden on the snake from Squisherz. Not as any sort of Satanic plot, mind you, but only as part of some weird millionaire dickwaving contest. This dumb tiny revelation is not called out by the game at all and nothing comes of it, it’s just there for you to notice if you’ve been paying enough attention. Hypnospace Outlaw is LITTERED with stuff like this. Weird small interconnected things you wouldn’t expect to be interconnected. Little dumb things you wouldn’t expect to have any sort of payoff but somehow do. And it’s also just as chock full of big things. Having all the pieces fall into place at once to where I was able to access Hypnospace’s equivalent of the dark web was the best sequence in a game this year for me, even beating out the outlandish shit in DMC5. Getting and solving the final case was a rush. Hypnospace Outlaw is full of incredible moments big and small. It’s genuinely engaging and affecting, which is so much more than I was expecting from a game that was pitched to me as “Funny GeoCities Cop”. It almost has no right being so good. But it is. Hell, even the music rules! I didnt even get into that! I don't have enough time or space to get into that now! The music is so goddamn good! I know I started these lists because I had no interest in ranking games, but every year I sort of jokingly-but-not-jokingly say “haha this game sure would be my number one if I did that!” for at least one game. It’s time to fully lean into it. I don’t gotta rank ‘em all, but I can pick a favorite. Hypnospace Outlaw is my favorite game of 2019 with a goddamn bullet.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Etrian Odyssey (Nintendo DS, 2007): Man, this series just started out good, huh? I dabbled with the first two games in college when I got a DS flashcart but never really dug in until EO4, and the first game is enjoyable in just about every way the modern ones are. Definitely more barebones and punishing though. Kero Blaster (PlayStation 4, 2017): This is a game by the creator of Cave Story that does not aim to be Cave Story, and that’s fine! A fun little shooter in its own right, though I do think the shooting in Cave Story felt a little better than it does here. Space Invaders Extreme (Nintendo DS, 2008): I played the shit out of this game in college thanks to that flashcart I mentioned before, but I never finished a playthrough in full until this year for some reason. Still way stylish and way fun! I need to get a copy of the second one... CROSSNIQ+ (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Incredibly chill puzzle game that can be as hard or easy as you want it to be. Almost uncanny in how well it emulates the style of late PS1/Dreamcast games. Super Mario Maker 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Mario Maker 2 is kind of weird for me. It’s a solid improvement in a lot of aspects, but a clear regression in a lot of others. Also the online multiplayer is the second least amount of fun I’ve had with a video game this year (Secret of Mana swooped in and stole the number one slot near the end). Still, I had a lot of fun with it and I’ll probably end up going back to it eventually. Katamari Damacy Reroll (Nintendo Switch, 2018): The original Katamari Damacy is still every bit as fun and charming as it was upon its original release. This port is weirdly based on the Japanese version with the English text inserted, which means no English voice acting and Wanda Wanda only plays in the multiplayer mode. The Joycon sticks also aren’t the greatest for doing charge rolls. But none of these faults detract too much from the game. Bring on We Love Katamari Reroll! Earth Defense Force 5 (PlayStation 4, 2018): Sandlot somehow keeps finding ways to make each new EDF bigger and explodier, and EDF5 is the biggest and explodiest yet. I think the mission design in 4.1 was more solid overall, but 5 feels the best to play and has the most fun tools. Also the dialogue is the most absurd its ever been, and the final boss goes for it way harder than the series ever has. Pokémon Shield (Nintendo Switch, 2019): This game is honestly just okay, but leaving it off would again be neglecting a game I put a ton of time into this year. Pokémon Sword is fun in the way most Pokémon games usually are, and extremely half-baked in basically every other aspect. I’m still having a good time putting together teams and finding shinies and doing The Pokémon Thing regardless.

And that’s 2019 (and this decade) in the bag! I don’t know where anything’s going from here, but I’m going to ride it out as best as I can! I hope you do too! As always, thank you so much for getting to the bottom of all these words. I’m hoping to be in a more stable place mid-2020, and then I want to get back to all the things I haven’t had time to do. I want to get back to streaming, I want to write more dumb articles like The Best Babies, I want to do it all! I hope I will be able to do it all. Until then!

#article #year wrapup

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willsherjohnkhan · 5 years ago

Text

The English Savage

Chapter 1: A Rude Awakening

***

SOMEWHERE DEEP IN THE JUNGLES OF SARAWAK - BORNEO

Molly’s eyes fluttered open, still feeling like she was emerging through a foggy haze. Her mind filled with images she was unable, or unwilling to process.

“Now that you’re awake, perhaps you’d like to explain what it is you’re doing back here?” the baritone voice snapped with undisguised irritation.

Molly bolted upright, the sudden movement causing her head to spin.

Or maybe the curly haired man with piercing blue/green eyes standing over her wearing nothing more than a purple loincloth was the cause.

***

Chapter 2: Into the Unknown

***

LONDON – TWO WEEKS EARLIER

Molly Hooper checked her bank balance once again, and winced. It wasn’t that doing a medical degree and student debt didn’t go hand-in-hand. But it was clear her savings, such as they were, were in desperate need of a cash injection. And the types of jobs she usually took on over term break were not going to cut it.

Scrolling through an Employment Agency’s online job listings for temporary positions, one advert in particular caught her eye.

WANT AN ADVENTURE?

Intrigued, her eyes skimmed through the details and requirements of the position:

Proficient with analog camera... Bring own equipment... Valid passport... All travel expenses paid... Generous pay... Apply to K. Riley on...

Not giving herself time to think things through, Molly grabbed her mobile and entered the number given.

After two rings the phone was answered, “Kitty Riley.”

“Hello, my name’s Molly Hooper. I’m calling about the job advertised on...”

***

KUCHING, SARAWAK, BORNEO – TEN DAYS EARLIER

From the moment she knew she had the job, and her employer, none other than Kitty Riley, the renowned freelance investigative journalist, Molly had done her best to get to know Kitty Riley a little. But Kitty made it clear this was a business arrangement only, she wasn’t looking to make friends.

‘Fair enough,’ Molly thought to herself. So instead she tried to find out more about the assignment that had brought them here.

“So how was he discovered?” Molly asked, genuinely curious.

Kitty didn’t respond immediately, she preferred to keep such details of her investigations close to her chest. But seeing how eager Molly was she eventually relented giving a few scant details. “A couple of environmentalists were in the jungle to assess the effects of climate change on the rainforest,” she replied.” And they apparently just stumbled upon him.”

“Wow!” Molly breathed. “Who would believe Tarzan really exists.”

“Who,” Kitty queried, clearly confused.

“You know, Lord Greystoke. Tarzan of the Jungle, the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs,” Molly explained. When Kitty still looked at her uncomprehendingly Molly muttered, “Never mind.”

While Kitty went out to meet up with the two young men she’d made contact with to be their guides, Molly took the opportunity to leave the hotel and meander along the Kuching Waterfront esplanade that included a number of food stalls and restaurants.

After awhile she found the humid climate a little overpowering after the cooler weather of London, and gratefully sank down on one of many benches, all of which had excellent views of the surrounds.

Returning to the hotel just as the rain began falling heavily Molly found Kitty in the company of two young men who were introduced as Umar and Zikri

During the week they spent in Kuching they bought supplies that included not only camping gear and a well stocked First Aid kit, but also a number of gifts, to bribe any Natives willing to give information on the whereabouts of the Englishman.

The time was also used so that Kitty and Molly could acclimatise themselves to the weather.

Kitty spent her free time focussing on the assignment, double checking her notes, and checking to see if any further information had become available before they headed out.

Molly spent time getting to know Umar and Zikri who were students like her, but their interest lay in becoming Ecotourism Operators. They were using this opportunity as a trial run of sorts into what they hoped to do full time once they’d raised enough money.

***.

SARAWAK RIVER – THREE DAYS EARLIER

The only way to reach the area where the Englishman was reportedly seen was by boat, and then on foot.

It sounded easy enough, but Molly soon learnt it was anything but.

They had started off using a reasonably large and comfortable boat, but the further they travelled into the forest the river narrowed becoming no more than a stream, from where dense foliage encroached. This meant their only option was to change to the more traditional ‘prahu’.

But the going was continually slowed due to fallen trees that either blocked their way completely, with the only way to get past was to cut through them using machetes, or shoving those that hadn’t completely blocked their path out of the way.

And then there were rapids that had to be looked out for.

Pulling over to the banks and getting out so they could make their way on foot to the various villages along the way were also hazardous with steaming patches of marsh and mangrove swamps.

A dizzying array of vocalisations that included cries, calls, hoots, and howls from animals and birds, intermingled with the shrill, high-pitched trilling of various insects followed them wherever they went, whether on water or land. And though Molly kept a sharp lookout she rarely saw the creatures themselves.

The further they travelled through the jungle, two things became increasingly clear; the Englishman most definitely did exist. And he moved about constantly, staying with each village for only a few months, and sometimes only a few weeks.

***

DEEP IN SARAWAK JUNGLE – THE DAY BEFORE

They finally reached the village of another Ulu Tribe, this one quite possibly at the deepest heart of the jungle. Umar and Zikri had begun to make some enquires when without warning the atmosphere became charged.

Molly looked around to see what had caused the change. And then she saw what, or rather whom. For making their way down the rough ladder from the longhouse was a tall, curly-haired, lithe-framed man dressed in a ‘chavat’, (loincloth).

As soon as the Englishman reached the ground and turned to face them, Molly let out a gasp of recognition, for standing right in front of her was the famed ‘Hat Detective’ himself, Sherlock Holmes.

Barely glancing at Molly and the two guides, whom he immediately dismissed as unimportant, Sherlock turned his gaze on Kitty. Molly noted immediately how his body stiffened with recognition. His eyes narrowed and his lips curled into a sneer as he glared at the reporter with utter contempt.

THE OLD BAILEY – MEN’S TOILETS – TWO YEARS AGO

Sherlock was just finishing washing his hands, when he glanced up and saw the reflection of a young woman standing behind him.

He turned to face her. “Wrong toilet,” he stated.

“There’s all sorts of gossip in the press about you,” she began. “Sooner or later you’re gonna need someone on your side,” reaching into her pocket, Kitty retrieved a business card and tucked it into Sherlock’s breast pocket, “someone to set the record straight.”

Sherlock gave the young journalist a smile that never reached his eyes. “And you think you’re the girl for that job, do you?”

Eager to impress, she responded. “I’m smart, and you can trust me, totally.”

“Smart?” Sherlock nodded, “okay, investigative journalist. Good. Well, look at me and tell me what you see,” he challenged her. He gave her a moment to begin. When she didn’t, he continued. “If you’re that skilful, you don’t need an interview. You can just read what you need.”

Still no response, in fact Kitty was now looking a little awkward, like she’s been caught out.

Which she had, and Sherlock knew it. “No? Okay my turn.” He began pacing around her, looking her over, before starting his deductions. His words spoken rapidly are harsh and to the point. “I look at you and I see someone who’s still waiting for their first big scoop so that their editor will notice them. You’re wearing an expensive skirt but it’s been re-hemmed twice, only posh skirt you’ve got. And your nails, you can’t afford to do them that often, I see someone who’s hungry, I don’t see smart, and I definitely don’t see trustworthy. But I’ll give you a quote if you like – three little words.”

He deftly removed her Dictaphone from her pocket and raised it to his lips, slowly, and deliberately he said. “You...repel...me.”

DEEP IN SARAWAK JUNGLE – THE DAY BEFORE

“So? Not dead then.” Kitty smirked, looking like the cat that had caught the canary.

Unimpressed by her incredibly obvious deduction, the former Consulting Detective responded, “Clearly,” making no attempt to

***

Chapter 3: The 'Not Dead' Detective

***

DEEP IN SARAWAK JUNGLE, BORNEO – THE DAY BEFORE

The two adversaries stood glaring at one another. Abruptly Sherlock turned to a man who was clearly the tribes Chief, speaking with him in a local dialect.

The Chief listened carefully to what Sherlock told him, and then turned to the men of the tribe and began issuing orders that were followed out immediately.

Molly, Kitty and the two guides found themselves being moved on none too gently. They were being driven back in the direction from which they had come.

When Kitty made to force her way back, one of the men raised a blow pipe to his lips.

“No miss,” Zikri implored with some urgency. “The poison is deadly. And he will use it if you continue to ignore the wishes of their chief, and the white man.”

Kitty backed off and turned with obvious reluctance, and headed towards where they had set up their camp. As she moved off, she made it clear that she wasn’t giving up. “I will get my story, Sherlock Holmes. Not the one I was originally going to write. Now I have something far better.”

When satisfied that the unwanted visitors were at least temporarily on their way, Sherlock made his way over to his hut. Inside it was basic and very primitive compared to his rooms at 221B Baker Street. But he had done his best to make it feel like a home. He’d made a table and chair, and there was a small cabinet that contained notebooks, pens, his mobile, passport and a few personal items.

He sat down on his simple bed.

Of all the people to track him down, it had to be Kitty Riley.

The young reporter had, not surprisingly thanks to his harshly expressed opinions concerning her abilities and her trustworthiness, developed quite the chip on her shoulder where he was concerned.

He on the other hand had immediately erased her from his memory the moment he had exited the men’s toilets.

At the time he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Sherlock shifted so that he now reclined on the bed. With his palms pressed together and resting under his chin, he slipped into his Mind Palace to retrieve, and go over the events that had ultimately led him to become a wanted man.

THE OLD BAILEY – TWO YEARS BEFORE

His brief encounter with Kitty Riley had taken place just as he was about to appear as the star witness in what he would regard at the time as the most important case of his career.

Sherlock focussed all his energies on making certain that his testimony ensured that James Moriarty went to prison for a very long time.

But he should never have underestimated such a criminal genius. With all the resources at his disposal it was a simple matter for the Napoleon of Crime to get to the jury, thereby guaranteeing their ‘Not Guilty’ verdict.

Sherlock knew from that point on he would be Moriarty’s next target. But what he hadn’t anticipated was the turn of events as they played out.

The image would forever be seared into his brain.

***

BARTS HOSPITAL ROOF – SIX MONTHS LATER

Moriarty believed that he had managed to discredit the Consulting Detective in the eyes of his family, friends, Scotland Yard and the public in general. All he needed was for Sherlock to fall to his death, proof of his acceptance that his reputation had taken a dramatic fall from grace.

Except Sherlock was equally confident that he had secured Moriarty’s infamous Key Code, and that with it he would be able to restore his reputation that the criminal mastermind had so ingeniously dismantled over the previous 24 hours.

But then Moriarty had informed him that the Key Code didn’t exist, and that what Sherlock had was nothing more than a movement from Bach’s ‘Partita Number One’. If he was ever going to reinstate his reputation he was going to need Moriarty, and then to Sherlock’s horror Moriarty pulled out a gun and used it to blow his own brains out.

It was suicide, plain and simple.

But his confidence in the judicial system would be severely put to the test when he was arrested, and charged with Moriarty’s murder.

***

THE OLD BAILEY – TWO MONTHS LATER

The irony that he should now find himself standing in the docks was not lost on Sherlock.

The Prosecution had a field day. They played upon the animosity and contempt Sherlock had displayed towards Moriarty during the late criminal masterminds trial.

And then there was the cleverly tampered with CCTV footage that showed an altered version of the final confrontation between Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty.

***

CCTV FOOTAGE

“Here we are at last --- you and me, Sherlock, and our problem – the final problem,” was Moriarty’s greeting as Sherlock joined him on the roof.

“You’re ordinary, Sherlock, You’re on the side of the angels. Because as long as I’m alive, you’ve got a way out” Moriarty taunted smugly.

“Oh, I may be on the side of the angels,” Sherlock responded. “But don’t think for one second that I am one of them.”

Sherlock then began to circle his opponent. “I am you,” he stated. “Prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won’t do. You want me to shake hands with you in Hell? I shall not disappoint you.”

Then the footage showed Sherlock grabbing hold of Moriarty’s hand, while reaching into the inner pocket of his Belstaff and pulling out a gun which he forced into Moriarty’s mouth.

The footage was purposefully frozen at that point by the court, but not the audio of the ominous sound of the gunshot that ended James Moriarty’s life.

The footage was restarted at the point where it showed Sherlock standing over the body, the gun still in his hand.

***

THE OLD BAILEY

If that hadn’t sealed the detectives fate, than the testimony given by Moriarty’s partner-in-crime, and Peer of the Realm, Lord Sebastian Moran, who claimed to have witnessed the whole thing, and had called the police, was enough to absolutely guarantee it.

Sherlock knew Moran was a traitor. He’d been working for North Korea for a number of years, but he had never been able to gather enough information to prove it.

And not even Mycroft dared to intervene in the judicial proceedings, reluctantly having to allow the events that were set in motion to take place.

The case was a stitch up, and no surprises Sherlock was found guilty.

The press of course had a field day, and even Kitty Riley managed to get her two pence worth in.

***

Although Mycroft had been unable to do anything during the trial, he had come through after Sherlock made his daring escape for freedom.

He had secured Sherlock on a flight out of England, under an assumed name.

And was instrumental in advising the press about this bid to escape justice, giving them details of the flight that was ultimately doomed to crash, killing all on board.

DEEP IN SARAWAK JUNGLE, BORNEO

Sherlock emerged from his Mind Palace, and sat up.

With Kitty’s taunting words still fresh in his mind, and despite the humidity, the former detective felt chills run up and down his spine.

‘Was there no end to this nightmare?’

***

Chapter 4: The Ugly Side

***

DEEP IN SARAWAK JUNGLE, BORNEO

Molly rushed to catch up with Kitty who was ploughing through the jungle vegetation, her anger building with every step she took.

“So, you and Sherlock Holmes – you have history?”

Kitty gave an unladylike snort, then acknowledged. “You could say that.”

Molly’s expressive eyes widened, did Kitty mean...?

Seeing the look Kitty shuddered. “God no. He’s definitely not my type.”

“So? What then?” Molly pressed.

Kitty came to an abrupt halt, turned and appraised Molly suspiciously. “Why do you care?”

“Just curious,” Molly responded honestly. “I mean it was pretty obvious that there’s quite a bit of animosity between you. So what gives?”

“He humiliated me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why? Because he could,” Kitty responded bitterly. “When I was starting out I’d hoped to get a big scoop by doing a story on him ‘The Man Beneath the Hat’. But he refused, and then he tore me to shreds with his ‘deductions’. He made it clear what he thought of me, and my abilities.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ever since then I’ve worked hard to establish myself and prove him wrong. It wasn’t easy,” the bitterness was building up again. “Every newspaper and magazine editor had heard about how ‘the great detective’ viewed me, and wouldn’t give me the time of day. So, unable to get the type of position I wanted, I decided to go freelance. I worked damned hard,” the bitterness was now replaced by pride and a sense of accomplishment. “And eventually, little by little that hard work paid off.”

Molly was impressed, finding Kitty’s determination and work-ethic admirable. Most people placed in a similar situation would have given up. “Then maybe you should thank Sherlock Holmes for making you push yourself as hard as you have,” she suggested.

“Oh I’ll thank him all right,” Kitty replied, her tone dripping with malice. “I’m going to write an article that will ruin him for eternity.”

“You’re not serious,” Molly gasped horrified.

“Oh I’m deadly serious,” Kitty returned her expression smug. “I’ll make him regret the day he met me.”

“So that’s it, is it?” Molly asked. “Instead of writing an incredibly enticing article about how and why a man from England would choose to live as a native, you’re going to turn it into a sensational expose’ in a pathetic attempt to exact your revenge.”

“He deserves it!” Kitty spat becoming defensive.

“Why? because he hurt your feelings? If your skin is that thin than you’re clearly in the wrong line of work.” Molly retorted.

“He’s a convicted murderer, and a wanted man who faked his own death.”

“Then make your story about why he would go to such lengths. There might be more to the story than what was reported in the press,” Molly argued.

Kitty shook her head adamantly.

“Why not,” Molly asked becoming increasingly exasperated with the journalist.

“Because it wouldn’t make as much money,” was the petulant response.

Kitty stomped off, the guides trailing behind her.

“I’d keep up if I were you Molly Hooper,” the journalist called out. “There are plenty of predators out on the prowl in the jungle. Don’t want to get gobbled up do you.”

Despite the warning, Molly stayed behind. She needed time to think. Finding herself a comfortable spot to sit, she settled down and pondered the details as she knew them of the case that had so decisively destroyed the famous detective’s career.

It was clear to her that what had been reported in the papers could not be fully believed. The press had for many years made a handy living reporting on the extraordinarily remarkable abilities of the World’s Only Consulting Detective. They had further improved the sales of their papers and the like by running all sorts of stories about the ‘Hat Detective’, always able to find someone willing to sell their story that would give a usually erroneous account of the detectives personal life.

Sherlock’s refusal to be interviewed was ultimately going to lead to the press turning on him, and Moriarty’s murder was the perfect opportunity.

Molly had always admired Sherlock. But had felt he was out of her league, intellectually and physically. He was tall and gorgeous while she was short and plain. He was enigmatic and gifted, while she by comparison was down to earth, and practical.

This hadn’t stopped her from dreaming of one day getting the opportunity to work with him. It was for this reason in part that she had decided to specialise in Pathology.

Molly’s thoughts next turned to more recent events, concerning a group of sceptics that were making a lot of noise claiming that the case against Sherlock may not have been so cut and dried as first thought.

The Empty Hearse had been established by Phillip Anderson, former Head of Forensics at Scotland Yard. He had never been a fan of Sherlock and his methods, mainly because the consulting detective self-assured ability to consistently see the clues that enabled him to solve the cases that left the police force and the forensics team scratching their heads. Phillip had found it galling that they were always being upstaged by someone he regarded as a mere amateur.

But with Sherlock’s death, and rumours beginning to circulate that he had in fact been right about the tampering of the CCTV footage, Anderson became consumed with guilt. And so as part of his self-appointed penitence, he had established The Empty Hearse so that he and other like-minded people could discuss and investigate any clues that could at least prove the late detective’s innocence.

So caught up in her thoughts, it took Molly awhile for the sounds of a commotion taking place at the campsite to penetrate. With great reluctance she got to her feet and headed over to see what the cause of the ruckus was.

***

CAMPSITE

The sight that greeted her was truly horrifying. The two guides, Umar and Zikri lay dead, their throats cut.

“Molly! Run! Get away from here.”

Molly turned to see Kitty Riley struggling to get out of the grasp of two men who held her securely as they dragged her towards their boat moored close by. Movement behind her alerted her to the fact someone was behind her, turning Molly saw a third man making his way determinedly towards her, a bloodied knife in his hand.

With a quick last look towards Kitty, Molly bent down grabbed a handful of earth and threw it in the eyes of the man approaching her.

“Don’t worry about that one. We’ve already got what we came for.”

The heavily accented words barely registered as Molly fled as fast as her legs could take her into the untamed jungle.

***

ULU VILLAGE

Sherlock was restless, unable to settle to his usual routine. The arrival of Kitty Riley had unnerved him.

He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit here and wait for the authorities to come and arrest him. He needed to make some sort of deal with the journalist.

Knowing full well that it was likely going to be a fruitless exercise, didn’t stop the former detective heading off to where he believed would be the most likely location for where she would have set up camp.

He had not gone far when he his ears, sharpened by his time in the jungle, heard the distinctive sound of someone moving swiftly towards him.

Moments later the young woman with long brown hair who had accompanied Kitty emerged through the undergrowth. Fear was driving her forward, causing her to not pay attention to where she was going, with the inevitably result that had her slamming right into him.

Molly looked up, relieved when she recognised the man before her. She managed to gasp out, “Oh, thank God I’ve found you,” before collapsing in a dead faint at his feet.

Left with little other option, Sherlock bent down and gathered the unconscious woman up into his arms, and carried her into his hut.

***

Chapter 5: An Unforeseen Complication

***

ULU VILLAGE – SHERLOCK’S HUT

“Now that you’re awake, perhaps you’d like to explain what it is you’re doing back here?”

Molly bolted upright, trying her best to ignore the sight of the scantily dressed man who was currently glaring down at her.

And then she remembered why she was there: The guide’s lifeless bodies, Kitty struggling as the men dragged her away. And her frantic instructions for Molly escape. Because Kitty knew if Molly could get back to the Ulu tribe, Sherlock Holmes would be the only person who could track her down. It was this thought that got Molly to her feet

But as soon as she stood up a wave of dizziness assailed her. She shook her head to clear it, she needed to remain focussed time was of the essence.

With no concept of how much time had passed she queried urgently. “How long was I unconscious?”

“A few minutes,” Sherlock replied, his eyes scanning her face, and taking note of the tension in her features.

Molly moved towards the door of the hut. “You have to come with me,” she instructed with surprising force.

“Oh do I indeed,” Sherlock’s irritation was clear. “And why is that exactly?”

Molly noted the way his eyes narrowed as his lips tightened into a determined line. She didn’t have to be a detective to see the distrust in his expression. And in all honesty she couldn’t say she blamed him. She was after all in the employ of a woman who had made a lot of money from writing half truths and outright lies about him, and had done her part in helping to ruin his reputation and his life due to the whole Moriarty fiasco.

But she knew she had to find a way to convince him to come with her to the campsite, only then would he see for himself that she truly did need his help. She turned back to the former detective who remained standing by the bed. “Because you’re Sherlock Holmes, the World’s only Consulting Detective and I have a case for you,” before adding quietly, “It’s a matter of life and death.”

Sherlock was about to retaliate with a snide remark when he noted how ashen her face had become. Her impassioned speech had clearly triggered a memory, and not of the pleasant variety.

With a resigned sigh the former detective made the only decision available to him. With practical efficiency he gathered up a blowpipe and some poison darts which he placed in a pouch, made of animal hide that he had secured to a strap. He then slipped the strap over his head, adjusting it until it rested comfortably over his shoulder and across his chest.

He then made his way over to where Molly stood. “Fine,” he responded. “Then we’d better be on our way, Miss...”

“Molly Hooper,” Molly answered, relief washing over her as she took the hand he offered and shook it.

***

EN ROUTE - CAMPSITE

Sherlock took the lead, his sure silent steps confident as he headed in the direction of the campsite without the need to consult on the precise direction.

As they made their way through the dense jungle, Molly was relieved, as it gave her some breathing space to try and sort out the conflicting emotions she was battling with. She had complete faith in the former detective’s ability to determine who the men were and why they were after Kitty Riley, and to discover where they had taken her. Assuming she was still alive...

Molly shook her head vehemently, to remove the negative thought. The men clearly wanted Kitty for some reason, so she would be more valuable to them alive rather than dead. No, what had Molly concerned was whether Sherlock could set aside his hostility towards the journalist who had contributed to his being in his current position.

A position she found extremely distracting, as circumstances had placed Molly so she had the perfect opportunity to appreciate some might say perve, his near naked state. He was slim, but not skinny. His time in the jungle had ensured that his broad shouldered lithe frame had become well toned, but not overly muscular. Molly found herself increasingly mesmerised by the play of muscles, from his shoulder blades, down to his taut buttocks...

“Keep up Molly Hooper,” Sherlock instructed sternly.

Rudely jolted from her inappropriate thoughts, Molly felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment when the former detective, his gaze still firmly fixed on the path ahead, chastised her.

“Now is not the time for daydreaming.”

***

THE CAMPSITE

The cause of death of the two guides was self evident, their throats had been cut. A closer inspection revealed the precision of the action. Performed by one who knew exactly what they were doing. Sherlock doubted that either of the young men knew what was happening before the deed was done. So a professional hit then, not just a random assault as he’d first assumed

In the blink of an eye Sherlock went from casual observer to professional investigator. The first order of business was the gathering of any evidence that would lead to the identity of those who had cold-bloodedly murdered the two unarmed guides before kidnapping Kitty Riley.

As soon as they had arrived back at the campsite Molly immediately made her way over to her backpack, thankful to find it amongst the chaos, to collect any items that might be of use in the gathering of samples: tweezers, phials, plastic bags and a magnifying glass. It wasn’t much, but for the moment anything was better than nothing.

She returned just as the detective was finishing up his examination of the two guides. Getting to his feet he turned to her. “I don’t suppose you have anything...” upon seeing the items she had with her. “Perfect.”

“Oh, and you might need these,” Molly added, pulling a notebook and pencil from her jeans pocked and handed them to him.

Sherlock moved around the campsite, the struggle Kitty had put up clearly evident, as was the when she had been overpowered. His nostrils twitched as he carefully lifted a cloth soaked in chloroform with the tweezers and bagged them.

A quick inspection of the river bank revealed no sign of a body. He was satisfied that she had been taken alive.

But to what purpose, Sherlock was confident the reason Kitty had been targeted was due to her penchant for writing explosive exposes. He’d eat that damned floppy-eared hat if it wasn’t.

The euphoria he’d been feeling instantly died. One stray thought was all it took and the torrent of unwelcome memories returned, overwhelming him, and pouring cold water on his enthusiasm for the investigation, to be replaced with an air of aloof disinterest.

Molly became confused and alarmed when Sherlock abruptly stopped what he was doing and instead started packing up.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

“Change of plan,” was the cool response.

Her alarm turned to disbelief when it became clear he was intending to leave. Molly scrambled hurriedly over to him, and blocking his way.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

Sherlock released an impatient sigh. “Obvious surly,”

“You’re leaving,” Molly’s disbelief morphed into anger. “Why?”

“Because I’ve gathered enough evidence for the local authorities, with it they should be able to make something of it. Should they apply themselves,” was the cold response.

“What!” Molly couldn’t believe her ears. Not even Sherlock Holmes could be that callous. “Sherlock, you can’t leave this investigation to the local police force.”

“I beg to differ,” he stated as he attempted to move around her.

But Molly stood her ground. “Kitty needs your deductive abilities. She’s relying on you.”

“Then maybe she should have thought about that before writing nothing but lies about people,” he retorted, his tone petulant.

Sherlock turned, determined to head back to his hut. ‘Damned of he was going to be lectured to by this little common sparrow of a woman,’ he thought in growing annoyance.

But Molly hadn’t finished, stepping right into Sherlock’s personal space to continue the argument he had already deemed over.

“Oh dear god,” Molly exclaimed, her whole demeanour changing as she started laughing. “No wonder you and Kitty don’t get on. You’re so much alike.”

Sherlock’s head reared back, as if she’d slapped him.

“Sherlock Holmes and Kitty Riley are two peas in a pod,” she was openly goading him now.

Her action pushed him over the edge, and he snapped.

Molly barely had time to register the change in his demeanour before Sherlock lunged. His usually cold gaze became burning hot, his nostrils flared and a savage snarl emerged through his lips as he grabbed hold of Molly’s ponytail, using it to forcibly wrench her head back.

Molly gave a startled gasp of surprise, mingled with pain.

Her reaction triggered an unexpected need that totally overpowered Sherlock’s usually cool logic. Remorselessly he dragged her slight frame roughly until it collided with his sinewy iron-hard body, using brute force to masterfully subdue her, as he bent down to crush her soft, pliant lips with his own.

His intention had merely been to silence her. But his fierce actions had revealed Molly’s interest in him. She was turned on, her eyes begging him for more. Sherlock was more than happy to oblige her, confident in his ability to resist the temptations she was freely offering him. And he wanted to punish her for her impudence.

But before Sherlock could claim victory, Molly reached up and wound her fingers through his wayward curls, yanking at the sensitive hair follicles before using her short nails to scratch and massage his scalp, causing an uncharacteristic groan of pure lust to escape Sherlock’s cupids-bow lips.

Sherlock was drowning in the sensual onslaught of carnal emotions and cravings that he had spent so many years suppressing. His tongue slipped between Molly’s willing lips, its movements echoing those of his body that was thrusting frantically against Molly’s equally yielding form in its search for sexual release.

Molly too was engulfed in a whirlwind of erotic sensations, her ability to think clearly swept away by Sherlock’s fervour.

Sherlock’s hands moved down her body coming to rest on the curve of her breast, his long agile fingers making quick work of the buttons on her blouse, before slipping inside her bra to rub and pinch the nipple enclosed within. At the same time he rubbed his painfully erect cock against her feminine core, increasing the speed of his thrusts with a ruthless determination, his nostrils filled with the musky scent of her arousal.

But when Molly gave an encouraging groan, it shattered the euphoric spell he was under. Sherlock froze, he became completely motionless, his heated body instantly cooling, the primitive sensualist that had hijacked his mind, replaced with that of a cold, hard-hearted intellectual.

Abruptly Sherlock released his hold on Molly and stepped back, his face now a haughty, aloof mask. Without a word he turned and left the campsite.

***

EN ROUTE - ULU VILLAGE

Sherlock strode away from the campsite, desperate to regain control over the unexpected emotions that had overtaken the cool hard logic that he valued so highly. Unfortunately his attempts to think rationally remained futile with his body, though cool still craving the sexual release it had been so cruelly denied.

Furious with himself over his complete lack of control Sherlock attempted to find relief in thought, only to have his frustration grow when his Mind Palace turned traitor. Without permission it created an extra large room labelled MOLLY HOOPER.

Despite the speculation in the tabloid press Sherlock Holmes was no virgin. But the drug-fuelled trysts he’d engaged in at university had nothing to do with sentiment. Instead those experiences had hardened him, enabling him to strengthen his resistance to the temptations of the flesh.

From the infamous dominatrix Irene Adler, to the wiles of the native woman and girls of the Ulu tribe, all had tried attempted to entice him. And all had failed.

So what was it about Molly Hooper that affected him so?

While attempting to sort out the reason why he had reacted as he had, the last thing Sherlock needed was for his brother to appear a-la Jiminy Cricket style, perching himself elegantly on Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Taking the coward’s way out, brother mine?” Mycroft asked, his tone mocking as he appraised his younger brother with an expression of supreme superiority.

“Bugger off Mycroft,” Sherlock muttered through gritted teeth.

The spectre merely smiled in an infuriatingly knowing way. He wasn’t going anywhere. At least not until Sherlock admitted the true reason why he needed to escape the campsite.

Any why he’d so ruthlessly abandoned Molly to fend for herself, leaving her to deal with the gruesome crime scene all on her own...

The twinge of guilt that thought provoked had Sherlock coming to an abrupt halt. How could he had left her in such a precarious predicament.

“Sentiment, brother dear, tut, tut,” Mycroft’s voice taunted as Sherlock turned, intending to make his way back to the camp.

By now it was twilight and all manner of animals were on the prowl. Pre-occupied as he was, it wasn’t until a movement out of the corner of his eye alerted Sherlock of the danger he was in. Too late he realised he’d left his blowpipe at the campsite, and all he could do was swear as the Sunda clouded leopard pounced.

***

Chapter 6: In Need of Medical Assistance

***

CAMPSITE

In stunned silence Molly watched Sherlock leave the campsite. She felt like she’d been slapped in the face, and played for a fool.

Of course with his famous deductive abilities it would have been easy for him to observe her attraction to him, she hadn’t exactly done much to hide it.

But did he have to be so cruel to play upon her feelings, and then throw them back in her face?

She knew she’d probably pushed him harder than she should have, but it had amused her to realise just how similar the detective and the journalist were. Her intention had merely been to get Sherlock to admit that the reason he and Kitty Riley butted heads had more to do with the fact that they were more similar than opposite in their approach to their chosen fields.

But she had clearly hit a nerve much rawer than she had anticipated,

And Sherlock’s response had been equally unexpected.

She’d been aware of all the rumours circulating about his sexuality or lack thereof ever since he had made his claims about being ‘married to his work.’ It had led to untold speculation within the presses, both tabloid and the more conservative publications. He was described as anything from a machine right through to gay.

The latter gained a lot of traction when it became known that not even a well known dominatrix could get under his skin. Some of the more salacious tabloids even went so far to claim that the great detective wouldn’t know what to do to a woman, in the sexual context, stating he was an untried virgin.

But Molly had discovered firsthand how wrong that suggestion had been.

The kiss may have begun as a form of punishment, but there was no doubting his expertise, an expertise that easily eclipsed that of hers. Though Molly too was no virgin, her experience up until that point was limited to the fumbling of her fellow uni students, who were all raging hormones, more interested in getting their satisfaction, with as little foreplay as possible.

And she had surprised herself by being incredibly turned on by Sherlock’s primitive savagery. Its potent effect easily overwhelmed any thoughts of protest. Though initially shocked, arousal soon kicked in and she eagerly joined in, letting all reservations slip away.

So when he had pulled away and abruptly left, it felt like he was playing with her emotions, using it as a way to prove his superiority over her.

By now the detective was out of sight, and Molly shook herself out of her reverie, determined to have words with Sherlock when she caught up with him. But that would have to wait. She needed to focus on gathering up the evidence that had been collected.

And then there were the bodies of the two guides.

While her mobile was still fully charged, she took several photos of each, before taking a few samples for DNA testing, and recorded a brief report of the injuries that caused their deaths. She then covered their bodies with the sleeping bags they’d brought with them.

She knew it was probably a pointless exercise, and that by the time authorities eventually arrived the bodies would more than likely be dismembered by any predators that caught the scent of their decomposing bodies.

But she couldn’t bring herself to leave them so exposed. It felt wrong.

She had just finished reciting the Lord’s Prayer, when she became aware of a commotion coming from the direction that Sherlock was headed. Her initial reaction was one of ‘he could go to Hell for all she cared.’

But that thinking went right out the window when she became aware that he was being attacked by what sounded like a big cat.

Looking around frantically for something, anything that could be used as a weapon, Molly spotted the blowpipe Sherlock had discarded once he began searching for clues.

Snatching it up, she headed off in the direction Sherlock had gone.

***

DEEP IN SARAWAK JUNGLE, BORNEO

Sherlock barely had time to raise his arms as the leopard landed, knocking him to the ground.

“Oomtphf!”

With the breath knocked out of him Sherlock knew he was going to have to act fast. Instinct kicked in, he raised his legs to not only protect his chest and stomach, but also to prevent the leopard from reaching his head and neck, while at the same time he used his arms to hold it back.

Realising that in its current position the big cat was in a far more dominant position, Sherlock took it by surprise, using all of his strength to roll himself and the leopard over, so that it was now under him, and with the increased adrenalin pumping through his veins he was able to push himself up enough to enable him to get to a standing position. He then used the remaining few seconds that he had to frantically look for anything that he could use as a weapon.

Recovering from the unexpected manoeuvre the leopard leapt at the former detective in fury, nothing more than a blur of razor sharp teeth and claws that tore at his flesh as it tackled him to the ground once again.

But just as it gained the upper hand it was startled by an unexpected attack from behind.

All Molly saw was Sherlock on the ground covered in blood. Fuelled by a surge of adrenalin and with no thought for her own safety, she charged at the leopard, using the blowpipe to strike the unsuspecting animal.

Startled, the leopard immediately drew back. When Molly raised the blowpipe again and moved towards it, the big cat decided to make a strategic withdrawal.

Before it had disappeared into the undergrowth, Molly was at Sherlock’s side and assessing his injuries. She was relieved to find that they were not life threatening, but there were a couple of nasty looking wounds that required immediate medical attention.

“Can you move?”

Sherlock nodded, wincing in pain as he allowed Molly to assist him in getting to his feet. He wrapped his uninjured arm around her shoulders, taking the blowpipe to use as a walking cane. Molly placed her arm securely around his waist to support him as they made their way back to his hut.

***

SHERLOCK’S HUT

Once safely inside Molly assisted Sherlock over to his bed. With a groan of relief he gratefully collapsed.

After a brief search Molly found a box of matches, using them to light a couple of lamps. She then spotted the bucket of fresh water and a cloth Sherlock kept on hand. Bringing them over to where the detective lay, and with great care she began cleaning up the blood so that she could better assess the extent of his injuries, and was relieved when her initial assessment proved correct.

He’d suffered a series of deep scratches, but the wound on his side and his upper arm where the flesh was torn was of concern.

“How are you feeling?” Molly asked.

“Alive,” Sherlock responded, wincing in obvious pain when he tried to move. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“Not too bad. You were incredibly lucky.”

“Thanks to you,” he acknowledged.

Despite the praise Molly was aware that he wasn’t out of the woods yet. The wounds might not be life threatening now, but they were going to require surgery, and she needed to make sure the wounds didn’t become infected. Unfortunately she had nothing with her to use to clean and disinfect his injuries, or dull the pain and sew up the wounds that were of most concern.

Her eyes darted around the small basic hut in search of something, anything she could make use of.

Sherlock watching the way she chewed her lower lip, and quickly deuced her requirements. “Over there,” he said, indicating with a nod of his head. “You should find all you need.”

Molly followed his gaze and spotted a strong box under the table.

Opening it she found a First Aid Kit. Inside there were bandages and the like that you would expect to find, but there was also a bottle of pure alcohol, some surgical grade thread, a vial of liquid morphine, syringes, needles, and a box of rubber gloves.

Molly immediately set about getting everything organised. She washed her hands before putting on a pair of gloves. She used the alcohol to clean the wounds more thoroughly, before threading a needle and carefully drawing the correct dose of morphine into the syringe.

Given the circumstances, and with none of the specialised medical equipment she was not going to be able to knock Sherlock out completely. So she had to limit the dose so that it would mask the pain while he remained conscious throughout the whole procedure. A situation she had dealt with in theory but never in practice, until now.

When Sherlock nodded to confirm that the morphine had kicked in, Molly knew she had to deal with the injuries as quickly and professionally as possible.

Focussing on the task at hand she began on the wound on his side.

Sherlock watched on in curiosity that quickly turned to growing admiration. He noted her efforts in making the whole procedure as comfortable for him as she could. It was quite the accomplishment given the circumstances. He admired her deft skill with the needle, her needlework neat and small that would ensure that the scaring, if any, would be minimal.

By the time she’d finished sewing up the wounds to his side and upper arm, Sherlock was confident that in whatever field of medicine she chose to specialise in, Molly Hooper would prove to be an exceptional asset.

Satisfied that the sutures would hold, allowing his injuries to heal, Molly released a sigh of relief.

“You need to get some rest,” she instructed in what she hoped was a firm no-nonsense tone.

Sherlock never liked being told what to do. “Fine,” he responded haughtily to her instruction, but his features softened as he took in her exhausted state. “But only on the grounds that you join me.”

By now Molly didn’t have the energy to argue with him, and simply got on the bed with him.

Molly woke to the cacophony of bird calls. The first thing she was aware of was that Sherlock was no longer in the bed with her.

Sitting up she looked around the room, easily finding him. He was standing by the table going through the items he’d collected from the campsite.. She could see he was intently examining one item in particular.

Curious, she got up and made her way over to him to see what it was. But before she could voice her enquiry, Sherlock turned to her, his expression grim. “I know who has Kitty Riley,” he said. “We have to get to Sarawak as quickly as possible. We leave in an hour.”

***

#Sherlolly #Medical student Molly #On the run Sherlock #Kitty Riley on the hunt for a career breaking story #My take on the M&B classic Call of the Heathen

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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 4 years ago

Text

Fortune’s Rule, Part 2

Here’s the second part of story. You can find the first part here. Damian does make his appearance in this one! I *think* the next part will be the final one.

Pairing: Damian Priest x OFC

Word count: 3,268

Content advisory: Nothing for this part, unless you count some references to the violent bits in the first part.

50 days.

You spin the plastic coin on the table in front of you and sip your beer while you contemplate it. The coin says 30 days because it counts from when you first started Narcotics Anonymous, but really it’s 50 days since you’ve taken any kind of drug except alcohol. You know that you’re not supposed to touch that either but it’s not like you’re getting dead drunk. Just a drink to take the edge off. You work in a bar. It would be a bummer for the clients and the rest of the staff if you refused to drink anything at all. Besides, alcohol was never the problem. The other stuff was the problem.

Still, you’ve avoided mentioning anything about working in a bar or having a few drinks a week to anyone at your NA meetings. You’ve told them that you’re a waitress at a restaurant. That’s almost the same thing.

You look around the cramped room that’s become home. It came furnished and the landlord lets you pay in cash every week, which is the arrangement you need, but it’s not exactly thrilling to come back to at the end of a shift. There’s a small table that looks like it’s out of the seventies that just barely fits between the end of the bed and the wall. And you have to be careful to push the sole chair all the way in when you get up or it blocks the door. There’s one grimy window that looks out onto the fire escape and the alley below where homeless people and hookers come to relieve themselves or take whatever drugs they’ve managed to get their hands on.

It’s irritating that you know you could actually afford a better place; not an expensive place but an actual apartment. Between the amount remaining in the bag you grabbed from the sinking car and the salary you’re pulling down from work (although that’s under the table), you’re doing better than the residents of this shithole building. But getting an apartment would mean putting your name on a lease, getting a credit check, declaring income. That’s still not safe. You don’t know if that will ever be safe.

45 days ago, you’d come to in the night lying face down in the woods, moss and twigs and dirt stuck to your skin everywhere. You felt like someone was pounding a railway spike into your forehead and when you touched the point where the pain was centered, you could feel a cut. Your arms hurt. Your ribs hurt. Your knees hurt. You were soaking wet. But you were awake and you had a bag of money underneath you.

The moon was so bright that it illuminated the area around you, not that it helped much. You were in the wild. After a few minutes, you became aware of some unnatural noise coming from near the river and squinted to see what was there.

The commotion was coming from the far side of the river, the whirring of a heavy engine and the grinding of tires against the ground, followed by men’s voices. This repeated a few times and you crept forward, staying on your stomach, to get a better look. That’s when you’d seen the lights. Flashlights, the flashing amber light of the tow truck, the blue and red of a police car parked a little further back. You had to squint because the lights hurt your eyes but squinting hurt even more. But gradually, you’d been able to see what was happening: they were pulling the car out of the river. It was agonizingly slow work but inch by inch, your boyfriend’s car was rising from its murky resting place.

“Shit!” yells one of the men. “Stop it, cut the engine, we got a body!”

A body. Just one? Or just one that they could see? Did one person escape? Was there another body in the river? Did they know that this accident was connected to a drug crime? Did they even know about what had happened at that downtrodden little house, the one you’d fled?

You never knew.

You’d curled up next to a fallen tree trunk and tried to stay warm for the rest of the night. The pain in your head kept you from falling asleep and early the next morning, you’d started walking. You didn’t go back to the apartment you’d shared with Johnnie. You didn’t even go back to the town. You’d kept walking parallel to the highway, occasionally checking road signs to get your bearings. You’d walked for five days. You rested as little as possible, although the longer you walked, the more rest you needed. You drank water from streams or springs when you could find them, or directly out of the river. You ate leaves. You ate tree bark. You ate dirt. You hadn’t known enough to try the berries or mushrooms you saw along the way.

After five days, you finally reached the city. You’d been there before but not in years. It was far enough away from your town to be a hassle to get to. It was far enough away for you to disappear and be safe.

You’d sat down at a fountain downtown and washed yourself off as best you could. Then you’d gone to the first greasy spoon you found and ate a huge breakfast. Then you’d found your way to the part of town where seedy landlords rented rooms to people who didn’t want to answer questions.

For two weeks, you’d barely left your room and even then, you only left after dark. You expected the police to arrive at any time and haul you back home to face charges or at least to answer a lot of questions but it never happened. After those two weeks had passed, you knew there was no chance that the story was still in the news, if it ever had been, and you’d started to look for a job. You also joined Narcotics Anonymous. You went to meetings in the evening. You worked at night. After a month, you still felt uneasy that people might get too good a look at you, that someone was going to come for you.

You take another gulp of your beer and touch your forehead. The cut has healed but it’s never stopped hurting. The pain wakes you up some days, bad enough to bring you to tears. But whatever damage you suffered, it’s going to have to get better on its own because going to a hospital is too risky. In case of an absolute emergency, you have your sister’s old driver’s license that you used to use to get into bars when you were underage.

Unconsciously, your hand falls to the leather bag at your feet. You’d replaced the satchel the day after you’d found this place. Nothing fancy, just an old messenger bag but it was sturdier and had a good thick double zipper. The bag went everywhere you went, no exceptions. You slept with your arms wrapped around it. It was a little lighter than it had been but there was still plenty left. You’d never even bothered to count it. You bought what you needed and very little else: cheap food, thrift store clothes, a few cans of beer from the corner store.

Your head throbs for a while, enough that the vision in your left eye goes a bit blurry, but then it subsides, as it always does. You’ve got this, you tell yourself. You made it out of the car. You made it out of the woods. You’ve bought yourself the time you need to figure out what to do next, how to make your life into something.

Rather than climb into bed, you open a second beer. You can tell this is one of those nights that you need to stay awake until your body simply can’t handle it anymore. If you let yourself drift off to sleep, you can tell that the nightmares are going to come, the nightmares where you’re back near the river, trying to lift yourself but your head hurts too much and your soaked body is too heavy. And as you’re trying to get up, you see them: Cynthia crawls from the river, her body shattered and bloated, her eyes opaque, and nearby you can see Johnnie staring at you. His face is unchanged, but there’s blood streaming from his nose and mouth. He doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes stay locked on you as Cynthia creeps ever closer, snarling and sobbing.

The best thing about your job is that you get some actual human interaction. You’re happy to talk to the regulars and to the ones who just stop in. It’s not a glamorous place but it’s a few steps above a true dive. There’s a long-standing clientele, people who were coming here before the current owner bought the place. But young people are showing up with increasing frequency, people desperate to find cheap rents and willing to take a chance on a neighborhood that’s still pretty scary. In a few years, this whole area is going to be gentrified and places like the one where you work will be hip hotspots and if you want to stay unknown, you’ll have to move somewhere else. Perhaps by then, you’ll be able to live something like a normal life. Perhaps you’ll find a way to a decent apartment and you’ll be able to make actual friends. Until then, you make friendly chit chat with the motley mix of patrons and keep yourself to yourself.

By law, you’re allowed to stay open until two but by about twelve-thirty or so, it’s always empty. Your boss has told you to lock up whenever it gets dead and trusts that you won’t just keep the place open to get an extra hour or two of pay. And you’ve never once taken advantage of him. Your nest egg means you don’t have to.

But sometimes, you’ll lock the door and pour yourself a drink (that you pay for) and sit in silence, watching the streets through the tinted windows, the cars of hollering college kids, the prostitutes hurling insults at drivers who disrespect them, the occasional wide-eyed suburbanites and tourists who came because a couple of edgy websites recommended a couple of nearby restaurants for a sort of “authentic” experience of the city.

Mostly, though, you find yourself watching for Him.

You don’t know who he is. You don’t even know his name, much less his back story, but the second you see him, it’s like there’s nothing else that exists. He seems to own, or at least be in charge of, the place across the street, the shop that advertises tarot, palmistry, charms, amulets, books of secret knowledge, and more. It has an inappropriate-seeming neon sign that screams “FORTUNES TOLD” and there’s a collection of strange trinkets in the window in front of a black curtain that obscures the interior.

Whatever goes on in there, the place keeps the weirdest schedule you’ve ever seen. You’ve taken to casing it, dropping by work when you’re not really needed so that you can try to discern a pattern, but there is none. Sometimes, the place is open in the afternoons. Sometimes, it opens in the early evening, around when your shift starts. Often, it opens during the night, or right at the end of your shift. Sometimes, it stays open all night, which you know because a couple of times you’ve sat here waiting it out. Other times, it’s like the place only opens for an hour or two.

The erratic schedule doesn’t seem to bother customers, though. They’ll show up whenever, sometimes visiting the bar and waiting until they see the sign flicker to life. Whenever he’s there, people show up. Especially women.

You can’t blame them for that. The first time you saw him, it was like all the oxygen was sucked out of your body. Your head started to throb a little and you shivered, despite the fact that it was summer. There he was, tall and muscular, his sleeveless shirt showing off his powerful arms, marked with tattoos. His dark hair was shaved at the sides but cascaded past his shoulders. He’s given to running his long fingers through it, the movement consciously slow and sensual, as if he knows he has an audience. Sometimes, he’ll come out and smoke a cigarette on the doorstep, stretching out every part of his long frame in a way that leaves your throat dry.

He seems to know a lot of the people who come to see him, or perhaps that’s just part of the act: he wants people to think he’s been waiting for them.

Tonight, it’s close to one when he shows up, casual as ever, and your eyes are fixed to him as he opens the security door and disappears inside. A moment later, the neon sign flickers to life. You bite down on your thumb as you imagine yourself crossing the street as if you’re just curious because you work so close, telling him that there’s a man you’re intrigued by but are too shy to approach, and asking him to do a reading to tell you if there’s a chance for you.

You’ve imagined this before. You’ve imagined this a lot. It’s a fantasy you’ve thought about many nights in your gross little room, thinking of how he’d grab you and throw you down on the table, tarot cards scattering everywhere, maybe The Lovers falling next to the two of you as you indulge your wild passions…

Once he’s been inside for a few minutes, you finish wiping up, packing the bottles into boxes for return, counting the cash, and starting the dishwasher. Your tasks completed, you head out, locking the door behind you. It’s only when you cut an inadvertent glance across the street that you see him on the step, eyes fixed on you.

He takes a drag from his cigarette and smiles at you, and you give him what you hope is a natural looking smile in return.

You start to head down the street when you hear a deep voice behind you.

“Nice night.”

He grins again when you turn to look at him, like he’s pleased he caught your attention.

“Yeah,” you answer, “very nice.”

The two of you lock eyes for a long moment and just as you start to leave, he speaks again.

“You should come by sometime. I’ll tell you your future.”

“I don’t know if I believe in that,” you stammer.

“Give it a shot. It’s on the house.”

He drops his cigarette and grinds it into the pavement with his heel, giving you another wicked grin as he steps back into the shop. And part of you wants to go rushing in after him but you stop yourself, because on the off chance that he is the real deal, you don’t want to risk anyone finding out who and what you really are. Better to go back to your dank little room and imagine what could happen from the safety of your bed. Which is exactly what you’re going to do.

A couple of nights later, he ups the ante.

Around eleven, he saunters into the bar like he owns the place and gives you a look like he can’t believe you haven’t taken him up on his offer.

It’s not busy but there are a few guys lined up along the bar and two or three clusters of people at the tables, and you’re on your own, which makes it tricky because all you want to do is crawl on top of him and tell him all the nasty thoughts you’ve had about him. This is made worse by the fact that he doesn’t ever seem to take his eyes off you, shifting however he has to in order to make sure he’s always got you in his field of vision. He’s being incredibly obvious and doesn’t seem to care.

“So what can I get you tonight?” you greet him brightly, trying to choke back your nervousness.

“You know how to make a whiskey sour?” he asks in a voice that’s almost unnaturally deep and earthy.

“Yeah, honey, I think I can figure it out.”

“Well, give it a try but I’ll warn you, I’m a pretty fussy guy when it comes to cocktails.”

“Oh good,” you sigh, “a critic.”

Truthfully, you don’t remember exactly what goes into a whiskey sour and you have to Google it. Then there’s the fun of finding the right ingredients, although you’re pleased to find out that the bar actually has them. You resist the urge to make a test one for yourself because you wouldn’t know what it was supposed to taste like anyway and whiskey has never been your thing.

When you go to place it on the bar in front of him, you feel a soft tremor run through your body, like you’re afraid of his judgment but also because, looking into his dark eyes, you feel this sense of fate. Yes, you’re attracted to him. You’re very attracted to him and you haven’t felt that in a while. And you have a bit of interest in what it is he does, whether he believes there’s magic and power in the things he sells or if he’s just making a few bucks off gullible people. You even catch yourself wondering if he could be the real deal.

He notices your hand shaking and gives a wry smile.

“Am I scaring you?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” you snap back, more curtly than you intended.

He raises his glass to you. “Here’s to the power of a good, long rest.”

Your head starts to throb a little and unconsciously, you touch your forehead, willing it to stop.

“Must have been a hell of an accident.”

That’s enough to distract you and you turn to face him again. “I’m sorry?”

“You just flinched like you were in pain and you touched your head. There’s a little scar where you touched it. So I’m guessing you were in an accident not too far back.”

You’d thought that the scar was healed enough that other people wouldn’t notice. No one had mentioned it to you but now you figure they were just being polite.

“Just a bump on the head. I made out ok.”

“But maybe someone else didn’t?”

Once again, your whole body shakes and this time, it’s like your skeleton becomes hot, burning hot, your ribs especially pressing with the force of iron tongs into your chest.

“What the hell are you talking about?” you hiss, hardly able to make sound.

He keeps smiling his mysterious little smile and takes a long sip of his drink. “This is pretty good. Especially for someone who hasn’t made one before.”

“I never said that I hadn’t made one before. Just like I never said I was in an accident with someone else.”

He takes another deep swallow of the cocktail and rises to leave. “But I’m right about both, aren’t I?” Seeing your scowl, he continues, “I’m Damian and I have a gift for knowing things about people. If you wanna see how much of a gift, like I said, you should come by and let me read your fortune.”

“Yeah, maybe.” You try to sound casual but you know, even before he smiles triumphantly, that you’re going to accept his invitation as soon as you close up for the night.

#damian priest fanfic #damian priest imagine #nxt imagine #nxt fanfiction #wwe fanfiction #wwe imagine #wayward wrestle writing

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nickgerlich · 2 years ago

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Going Long

It’s Super Bowl weekend, or, as I like to call it, the World Series of Advertising. Besides, the NFL doesn’t like people or organizations co-opting its trademarked name, so I won’t use it anymore.

And like in the 56 years past, the annual game of one-upmanship is upon us once more with flashier, more attention-getting adverts than last year. With ads selling for an average of $7 million for a 30-second spot, this is high-stakes poker. Let’s just hope companies don’t do like they did in 2000, when a bunch of Dotcom darlings bet the farm…and lost. And let’s hope someone doesn’t flash a QR code on the screen and cause the internet to crash. (I’m looking at you, Coinbase.)

Since this is such a big deal, I’m going to dedicate two blogs to the subject. Tomorrow we’ll look at the ads running during the Big Game and halftime, but today, we’re going to look at a company that probably could have advertised during this festive occasion a couple of decades ago, but today is just a mere shadow of its former existence, forced to run its ad on social media instead.

I’m talking about Blockbuster, the once-ubiquitous video rental store with more than 9000 outlets across the US. Today, there is only one left, in Bend, Oregon. I stumbled into a boarded up Blockbuster last June in Coffeyville Kansas, and spent a half hour photographing it from every angle possible. Elsewhere, it is still possible to sniff out former Blockbusters, especially if there are any vestiges of former signage lingering. That ticket-shaped sign was pretty memorable.

While the Oregon location still rents movies the old fashioned way, it has become more of a nostalgia-seeker’s destination. Isn’t that crazy? It’s not like we’ve been renting movies all that long, but now anyone older than a Gen-Zer wants to go there to relive the past. And Gen-Zers go just to confirm that all this was really true. “What? You mean you didn’t grow up with streaming?”

So how do we tune in to their ad? Simple. Pull up their Instagram feed during halftime—assuming you don’t want to watch Rihanna—and wait for their live feed to proceed. The shop also promises to have VHS versions available in their store to rent for $2.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I rented a physical movie, but you can bet I’ll be watching their Insta tomorrow night. This is too cool. And going to the store in Oregon would be priceless. It ranks right up there with shopping in a Kmart now one last time, because there are only three left. Or Sears, which has only 41 remaining. Better hurry. They’re dying like tomatoes on the vine after the first freeze.

Kudos to the sole Blockbuster for having a good sense of humor, as well as the business savvy to cash in on nostalgia. We all know that the movie rental business is marginal at best, even though Redbox vending machines still exist, and Netflix still has two million mail-order customers. Heck, I only have a DVD player connected to one of my smart TVs because my adult children insisted on watching a disc last Thanksgiving.  You know. For old times’ sake.

The bigger takeaway from all this, of course, is the story of a company that failed to evolve, and, for added irony, even had the opportunity to buy Netflix when it was still a small firm. But no. They clung to their ways, and, as we have seen, will be buried with them once the last store kicks the retail bucket.

It’s fun to ponder how things could have played out had Blockbuster entered the streaming wars a decade ago, and shed the baggage of BAM locations. To be honest, Amazon and a few others effectively stole Blockbuster’s model, but via digital “rentals” for movies and shows. Typically, you get 30 days to watch it, but once you start, you have 48 hours to finish.

  It’s a great model, because you never have to leave home, and they never run out of titles. Why Blockbuster did not see this as their future will be fodder for class discussions for many years to come.

And a Netflix documentary. How’s that for awesome sauce?

Dr “Remember To Rewind“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #Blockbusters #streaming #movie #rental

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morkmywords · 7 years ago

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Not Really a Cinderella Story | Royalty au | Exo | Sehun | Part 1

Masterlist | Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 8.5 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 [FINAL]

Length: 5.1k

Note: This sucks a lot partly because I didn’t edit and partly because I'm bad at writing. This is the first time I have written in this style but practice makes perfect right:)

Summary: When a strange string of not so great events somehow land you a job at the palace punching the wrong people can be not so great.

The sunlight streaming through the window of your new home broke through your sleep forcing you to wake up. It was the first day of your new job that you just got yesterday but the craziest thing to you is how you acquired said job.

----

a month prior

your life used to be happy, keyword used too. up until about a month ago your days passed by happily, now obviously they still had their ups and downs but it was never as bad as this. About a month ago you lost the things you held most dear to you, your parents. A fire, that's how they left you, a fire in the small cottage you called your home. It was the middle of the night, and you were out walking the paths through the forest that you knew like the back of your hand ever since you started exploring when you couldn't sleep, they were sleeping while the blaze started and they couldn't escape. You didn't even find out until the house was nothing more than a pile of ashes.

You burst out of the trees after seeing a cloud of smoke rising above the horizon, the glow from the blazing fire felt like it blinded you as you stood there like a statue for what seemed like hours but in reality, it was only mere moments. As soon as you broke out of your daze you rushed to help other members of your town who were awake put out the fire. with tears streaming down your face, you heaved buckets of water onto the fire with a desperate urgency. Praying to all the gods you knew of you wished your parents would make it out alive, but it was no use.

The fire was out but there was nothing left, your house, your parents, and your entire life up until this point was a pile of ashes and rubble on the ground. The townspeople tried to console you but it was no use, everything you know had been ripped away from you and the only thought going through your head was, 'I should have been there too,' Funnily enough after a day no more tears leaked from your eyes, during that day you said nothing and ate nothing, you only thought about what happened and through those twenty-four hours you came to a realization.

There was absolutely nothing you could have done to stop this from happening.

At first, all you thought about was if you had been there you could have stopped this but you weren't there. Instead of letting this drag you into some sort of sad episode you thought about it some more. Things happen and there's no way you can go back and change them so you have to make the best of the situation. Your parents would want you to keep living and not turn into a crazy had wracked with grief. So that's what you did, you kept on living.

You let yourself grieve for a week while you waited to go live with your aunt and uncle. During the time you hardly spoke to anyone and lots of people came by to drop off gifts like food and old clothes seeing as all your old clothes were gone with the fire. Your aunt was your dad's sister, you never really met her and as far as you knew they were never close. She lived in the city with her two sons, her husband died a couple of years ago and that was really all you knew about them. You'd hoped they would be happy to take you but boy were you wrong. When they first arrived she was rude and abrasive insulting everything about you, the village you lived in, and the family you were staying with. As you were getting ready to leave for the carriage ride your departure was filled with many looks of pity and tear-filled goodbyes. Boy was this going to be a long carriage ride.

Once you got there it was a whole different story. The capital city was extremely different from the small town you came from, the streets were dirty and dimly lit, buildings were so squished together they climbed upward like vines trying to find the most space. The cramped townhouse they lived in was small, musty, and definitely needed a good cleaning. It wasn't the Jeweled district where the palace and all the rich lived but it wasn't the Copper district, or the slums as people like to call, it either. All the rooms were occupied so you were forced to live in the attic which was basically like a closet with a layer of dust coating the floor and patches of mould covering the walls, it was gross but you were prepared to make the best out of the situation. Her sons were a whole different story though, they ridiculed you, making fun of your used clothes, hair, or even your face and basically treated you like a sale forcing you to clean and do other household chores.

You told yourself you would get used to it, so you tried to put up with your aunt's never-ending screeching and her sons constant bullying by not giving a reaction and hoping they get bored, but that just seemed to egg them on. They started hitting you, at first it was just a few slaps but then it morphed into things like tying you up and using you like a punching bag, throwing plates and other various kitchen utensils, they even used knives sometimes. It was the last straw, you'd finally had enough so you left. Packing your few measly belongings you stole a loaf of bread and escaped into the night.

----

1 day prior

Now that you think about it leaving that house with only a loaf of bread a picture of your parents, a book, a candle, and two sets of clothes might not have been the best idea but it was better than enduring their abuse for any longer. Now you were stuck wandering the market district looking for a job. You wandered around looking for advertisements for jobs and when that didn't work out you started asking if anyone needed a maid seeing as that was what you had been doing for the past month. You asked from the early morning until late at night with only a small break for a lunch of half of the loaf of bread. it was around nine at night and the only people out were those going to the various bars and those leaving them whether or not they had someone with them. Unfortunately, you ran into some people in a very embarrassing state so you quickly apologized and ran off wishing you could scratch your eyes out and led you here. You were wandering around looking for a relatively decent looking alley to sleep in and so far you were having no luck. You heard a scuffling coming from behind you and being the idiot you are you turned around to investigate, ready for a fight. To your surprise it was a little girl who must've been no older than 7, she looked terrified and starving so you motherly instincts kicked in. You offered her the leftovers of your bread that would have lasted you another day but she obviously needed it more. After eating the whole loaf of bread in what seemed like 3 bites she muttered a quick thank you and ran off again. sighing as you got back up from your crouched position you felt the presence of someone behind you. You spun on your heel, the skirt of your dress and clock gathering around you only to be met with the face of a shocked old lady that seemed to be dressed in somewhat regular clothes.

"Hello?" she asked with a calm mask returning to her face. Flustered, you replied with a muffled "Hello."

"Were you the one saying you would work as a maid earlier in the Market District?" she asked with some emotion returning to her face and voice. _

"yes"

"Good, will you come work at the palace, you will receive fair wages, room and board, and an honest job if you come. of course, the work will be hard so you'll need to be prepared for that," she explained once you answered her previous question.

"W-w-wait, the PALACE, you mean THE palace where the royal family lives palace????" you stuttered out obviously a little shocked by her words _

"yes" she replied shortly with a quizzical look on her face

"You want me to work for the royal family, as a maid, at the palace?" you replied, a little shocked was an understatement now.

She tilted her head to the side, another degree of questioning crosses her face and she asks "yes, do you have a problem with that?"

"N-n-no," You leaned forward urgency flowing through your veins "I would love to come work at the palace."

"Good, the follow me," she said as she turned and brusquely walking down the street.

You followed after her, walking as fast as you could without running to try and catch up with her.

And now you're here, getting ready for your first day working as a maid at the palace. When you had arrived last night everyone was already asleep except for the kitchen staff who were preparing the meal for tomorrow. The old lady introduced herself as Kosho and explained to you that she was head of the maid and kitchen staff for the palace. You were told since you just started you would have more duties than the other maids especially since they were low on staff members. Starting in the morning at dawn you would wash breakfast dishes, after that you would head to the rooms of officials and clean them until lunch, at 11 you would help with lunch prep in the kitchen and wash dishes, after that you would dust, sweep, and help with laundry if needed, once supper started you got a break to eat and rest until you went to sleep, unless of course you were called upon.

While you were eating breakfast before going to clean Kosho gave you a crash course on proper etiquette and dos and don'ts of being a maid. After all the dishes were done and your hands all wrinkly like a dried prune you were taught how to properly clean a room and you were sent off on your own.

The cleaning was pretty easy and straightforward, although some officials left you special instructions which you happily followed. You ran into a few others of the palace staff and you happily introduced yourself and even gained a few friends. The work was hard but you enjoyed it, the head chef in the kitchen was an older fellow who liked to crack bad jokes and had a long silver beard and milky blue eyes. His name was Seon but he let you call him Uncle Seon seeing as he took an immediate liking to you when on your first day of kitchen duty you were the only one to laugh at his lame jokes. You also became close friends with a squire named Konu and his twin sister Mari who worked in the stables.

You were happy here, happier than you ever were with your aunt and you couldn't ask for more. Although you still were washed over with sadness at times your friends were quick to try and cheer you up, Kosho with her motherly love, Seon with his pecan tarts that you absolutely adored, Mari with her soft smiles and horses, and Konu with his sassy remarks and practical jokes. You had a family here, Kosho let you buy a goldfish with your wages whom you promptly named Glenn and love with all your heart.

----

Your night was plagued with bad dreams of fires as the faces of your aunt and cousins floated through your mind. This was a frequent happening and your roommates had grown used to your screams and cries, some were even sympathetic from having come from a not so great background themselves. Tonight seemed worse than usual though, you writhed in imaginary pains, cries escaping your mouth until you wake up breathing heavily as tears rolled down your face. Quickly sitting up you were thankful for the style of the nightgown you were provided with. The high neck, long sleeves, and length covered all the scars that littered your body from your cousins torture. you shuddered at the memory, pulling down the sleeves of the nightgown to cover your hands. You quickly changed into your uniform as you would most likely be awake until the start of your shift. Making sure everything was covered you headed out to roam the halls and palace grounds until the start of your shift

You wandered the halls lost in your own thought as usual when you couldn't sleep you wandered. Most of the night staff knew your strange habits and left you alone most of the time occasionally you would chat with them seeing as standing guard could be pretty boring. Tonight was different though, you stumbled around the halls feeling feverish and short of breath, you just needed fresh air. Through you foggy mind you seemed to find the way to the garden bursting through the doors and immediately inhaling the cool night air. Your whole body calmed as you felt the breeze tickle your skin and the scent of the forest surrounded you. With a sigh, you wandered around the garden calming your senses and your mind. You claimed a spot by the pond cushioned by the soft moss and began humming a tune, a lullaby your parent would use to sing you to sleep.

A small person sat down beside you, startled you stiffened and froze. The girl sighed and turned to you, she had long straight black hair, freckles dotted her nose, but her most striking feature was her eyes that seemed to peer into your soul reading you like a book. Your stay at the palace had only been about a month but you had never seen this girl before. You inhaled sharply as you met her intense gaze, pulling down your sleeves unconsciously.

"Please keep singing," she whispered quietly "I really like the melody, it's calming."

You immediately relaxed and releasing the tension in your muscles and looking at the girl. She gave you a small smile and you returned it, she seemed to take this as an invitation to scoot closer to you and join you on the soft moss. You closed your eyes and began to hum the familiar tune, as you progressed you started letting the words flow gently out of your mouth as well. You could see the girl's eyelids getting heavy and so when she dropped her head onto your shoulder it came as no surprise to you. as you finished the song the girl cuddled up closer to you softly snoring, she couldn't be more than a year younger than you, so you let her rest on your shoulder until dawn.

As the sun rose from behind the mountains you softly lifted the girl's head from your shoulder and woke her gently.she rubbed her eyes and stretched stiff from the position she was previously in.

"we should head back inside, it's morning," you whispered trying to wake her from her sheeplike state.

"mmhmm" was her only reply as she tried to stand, wobbling on her unsteady legs. You stuck out a hand to keep her from toppling over as you two headed back inside. You turned to head to the kitchen praying you weren't late, a hand shot out and grabbed our wrist.

"wait.." the girl said waiting for you to turn around. You whirled around anxious to get your wrist out of her grasp before the scars were exposed.

"what is your name?" she asked as she released your hand. Still shaken up from her grabbing your wrist you blurted out "Y/N." as quickly as you could before turning and running to the kitchen.

You rushed through the kitchen doors almost knocking a kitchen hand to the ground, apologizing quickly you hurried to find something to do before anyone noticed your absence. Dipping your hands in the lukewarm water you began scrubbing the pot caked with the remnants of porridge burnt onto the bottom, thoughts about the mysterious girl drifting through our head. Nobody noticed her absence and the rest of the breakfast run passed in a bustle of bodies brushing past each other and flour in the air. Once the rush had seemed to die down you went back to your room to change your clothes and feed Glenn. After you finished all your business you slipped back into the kitchen to see if you could nab yourself a leftover pastry or an apple. Brushing past the cooks who were leaving you made your way into the kitchen, on the hunt for something to eat when a hand clamped down on your shoulder and you were met with Kosho's accusing glare.

"How DiD YoU MEEt ThE PRINCESS!" she screeched at you. You flinched back away from her shrill yelling, backing up into a cupboard shattering a glass jar of spices onto the floor.

Softening her gaze and tone she continued, "The princess has asked for you specifically to be her new handmaiden."

"The p-p-princess?" you asked confused by what she meant, "I have never met the princess?"

"Then how did the princess ask for you, specifically, by name?"

"I really don't know," you answered and your thoughts drifted back to the mystery girl in the garden, her clothes looked expensive and she did have somewhat of a royal feel to her...

Your eyes widened in realization, Kosho seeming to catch on quickly demanded when you met her and most importantly how you convinced her to demand you become her new handmaiden. so you began your story

"Last night I had a nightmare, I couldn't fall back asleep so I went to wander the garden," you told her leaving out the severity of the situation last night, "while I was in the garden I began humming the tune of a lullaby my parents used to sing to me when I was younger," you smiled fondly at the memory and continued on, "She came up behind me and startled me, she asked me to continue singing so I did. She fell asleep on my shoulder until dawn when I woke her up and we headed back inside."

"YOU met THE PRINCESS!!" Seon exclaimed sitting down on the stool next to Kosho looking at you with interest.

"Yes... and why is that such a big deal," you asked still confused by the situation

"The princess is hardly ever seen, her parents keep her locked up away from the eyes of the public except on formal occasions, even the staff hardly see her."

"really?"

"yes they say she is entrancingly beautiful and had many suitors but the king and queen turned them all down."

"why?"

"Well, the queen isn't the mother of the princess or the two princes, she married the king after the old queen died, she has a hatred for the princess because she resembles her mother so much and the old queen still has the king's heart."

"oh." was all you let out "how come I didn't know this?"

"Well," Kosho joined in, "People don't really talk about it anymore, trying not to get on the queen's bad side seeing as she has so much power."

you replied with "ok I'll make sure not to try and get her bad side but why does she princess want me to be her handmaiden?"

"I don't know, she didn't tell me any detail but we should get going now so we're not late," said Kosho grabbing your hand and leading you out of the kitchen. You waved goodbye to Seon as he shouted a short good luck and you were off to meet the princess.

----

Kosho ushered you into the princess's private sitting room assuring you she would be waiting for you outside, and you took a deep breath and stepped inside. You saw her perched on a cream coloured sofa dress perfectly fluffed reading a book, you dropped down into a clumsy curtsy losing your balance and landing on your butt sprayed across the floor. A flush of embarrassment covered your cheeks hiding your face behind your hair as you heard her little heels clattering against the floor as she rushed over to you. You looked up to see a kind-hearted smile on her face as she sicks out a hand to help you up, you returned her warm smile to the best of your ability as she pulled you into a standing position.

"Y/N!!" she exclaimed and pulled you into a tight hug. You stiffened as a reflex totally unprepared but after a few seconds you willed your body to relax and you melted into her cheerful embrace loving the affection. she held you back at arm's length and happily held your hands.

"I'm so happy your here." she told you in-between giggles as she held your hand " I needed a new handmaiden ever since my old one left to care for her family and when I met you in the garden I immediately knew we would be easy friends." You felt her sunshine like attitude lift your spirit and replied with an almost equally cheery " thank you, your highness, I'm so glad you wanted me here."

"please no 'your highness' it makes me feel old," she said crinkly her nose as you both burst into a fit of giggles.

"what should I call you then?" you asked wiggling your eyebrows.

"Ji-Yoon"

"Princess Ji-Yoon?"

"noooooo." she let out a whine, "just Ji-Yoon."

"Ok, Ji-Yoon I'm y/n." you said sticking out your hand "want to be friends?"

"of course y/n," she replied shaking your hand, "friends forever."

And just like that, you found another friend, who just happened to be the princess of your country.

----

You quickly emerged from the room to tell Kosho everything was all right and you both went back to your respective duties. You spent the next couple of hours talking with Ji-Yoon and getting to know each other, you found out that you two happened to have a lot in common. You didn't tell her about what happened to you and carefully avoided questions about your past but it was ok other than that. At some point during the day, you both realized you were starving and that you had missed lunch, you both headed to the kitchen trying to find somewhat of a late lunch not realizing you were actually with the princess many jaws dropped when you opened the door. There was a chorus of clattering dishes, rushed curtsies, bows, and 'your highnesses. Ji-Yoon quickly asked them to continue working and they did without a second thought, a laugh slipped past your composure at the face of one kitchen boy whose jaw dropped and eyes seemed to bug out of his head before he went back to work.

you sauntered around the counter dragging Ji-Yoon behind you and tapped Seon on the shoulder, startling him before he turned around with a smile and greeted you both.

"So, Seon, the genius cook of the castle, what's on the menu today?" you teased him.

With a mischievous glint in his eye, he replied "well for the two most beautiful young ladies in the castle how about pumpkin soup and a fresh loaf of bread"

"that sounds delicious right now." the princess sighed stomach following with a grumble and you all burst out laughing.

While you were waiting for lunch you introduced her to all your friends I the kitchen and she charmed them all with her soft smile and soothing voice. After you, two were stuffed to the brim and you couldn't possibly eat anymore you wandered to the library. One thing in common you two had was the love of books, becoming infatuated with plots and characters is how you would spend your entire life if you could, but Ji-Yoon, on the other hand, loved the nonfiction books and the intrigue of learning new things with each turn of the page. Once Ji-Yoon found a nice book to read she took a seat in a plush armchair, she assured you she was fine a set you off to let you explore the library.

From the moment you stepped into the library you were enchanted with the tall arches lined with books that hold up the high mural covered ceilings, the rows upon rows of brightly bound books holding stories between the pages each one different from the next, and the large windows lining one wall giving a perfect view of the forest and mountains beyond, the whole place felt magical like it stepped right out of a dream. You wandered through the aisles of books, searching for something that sparked your interest, but nothing caught your eye. After stumbling through the back aisles of the library you almost ran into a ladder, curious you investigated further and found that it led to a secret third floor. Unsure of what to do you mulled over whether you should explore further or return to the princess, your adventurous side got the best of you as you decided to continue climbing almost fully confident the princess would be fine on her own.

The ladder led up to a musty room lined floor to ceiling with books and covered in cobwebs and dust. The room seemed to leak the scent of books it filling your every sense. Trapped in your own world of exploring books that must have been hundreds of years old you failed to realize that another person was also with you in the small room.

A hand came down upon your shoulder startling you, in your panic, your fight or flight sentences kicked in and you whirled around knocking the handoff your shoulder and punching the mysterious person, who seemed to be a man, in the face as hard as you could. He fell to the floor with a loud thud and let out a moan of pain, realizing what you had done you immediately stooped down to asses the damage you had done.

"I'm so sorry, are-are you okay, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to." was the jumble of words that left your mouth. he abruptly sat up shoving you off of him resulting in you knocking your head against the shelf behind you. You both sat the rubbing you respective wounds until your curiosity finally got the better of you and you looked up to investigate the mysterious stranger.

You were previously correct he was, in fact, a man, his strong dark eyebrows framed his chocolate coloured eyes. A layer of shady dark hair fell over his eyes as he shook his head and stood up too quickly and ended up falling back down again. You offered a hand as you pulled yourself up but he just brushed it away and left you staring in shock at the beautiful man in front of you.

"what are you staring at?" he announced breaking you out of your trance. He was now standing in front of you and you could see his full height, he was tall but you were too so the height difference wasn't that much but he would easily tower over someone the size of Ji-Yoon.

"n-n-n-nothing." you stammered out.

He scoffed at you with a smirk adorning his face, you felt a surge of annoyance rush into you at his behaviour.

"I apologized for knocking you over so there's no need to act all high and mighty." you spit out unsure of where that surge of confidence came from.

A look of amusement became a mask on his face, he let out a small chuckle before walking past you, successfully pushing you into a row of shelves, he walked away farther into the rows of shelves. Standing back up you brush yourself off and picked up your book as you walked back to the ladder, trying your best to climb down the ladder one handed you almost landed on the floor again but luckily you caught yourself. Back on the main floor, you traversed the winding aisles trying to find your way back to the princess muttering to yourself 'what was his deal I did nothing wrong and he had to act like such a...total.......JERK!' You were brought out of your angry mutterings by the princess rounding the corner and running to you and pulling you into a tight hug.

----

"Where were you, you were gone for so long I thought you were lost!!!!" she exclaimed demanding answers.

Deciding to make an excuse up on the spot so you wouldn't have to tell her about the secret room or the mysterious stranger you answered "you know, just got so caught up in all the books." cursing yourself for the suspicious sound of your voice. She gave you a smile and forgot about it as she started telling you about the book she was reading about gardening. You were listening intently to the fountain of knowledge coming out of her mouth when someone rounded the corner. You scoffed as you saw the man from earlier rounding the corner nose stuck in a book. Ji-Yoon turned around interested in what you were looking at, as soon s she saw him she broke into a run, heels echoing against the marble as she pulled the man into a hug.

You stood there mouth hanging open looking like an idiot, baffled at what you saw you stood there staring, again. When the princess let go of her tight grip on him she dragged him over to you.

"this is my new handmaiden, y/n." she introduced you to the man.

"y/n this is my brother," she said smiling as she turned to you, "Prince Sehun."

"P-p-p-prince Sehun." you shrieked in disbelief and that stupid smirk returned to his face. You were embarrassed but also furious weren't princes supposed to act like gentlemen so why was he acting like such an uptight jerk.

"what, do you two know each other?" Ji-Yoon asked obviously confused by your sudden outburst. But you didn't answer and just kept your burning glare trained on the prince who was staring straight back at you amusement dancing across his features.

Note: I know this sucked:)

#exo #exo k #exo m #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #exo fanfic recs #exo au #exo scenarios #exo scenario #exo scenario au #exo sehun #oh sehun #sehun #exo royalty au #exo royal au

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elecman108 · 6 years ago

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(This is about to be a BIG rant on my part about MatPat’s video on YouTube he made today, so I’m gonna put my rant under the cut but you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/iB7C7o920zE )

MatPat summarized my whole opinion on YouTube in the video I mentioned above. Content creators, especially gamers, give back to their communities more than most, in more than just monetary values. I’ll admit, while I personally want to go into a Psychology field, I’d love to BE a YouTuber. And one in the gaming sphere, for that matter! Or maybe more like a variety channel with gaming and the rest in it. But that’s beside the point.

YouTubers give content because that’s what they want to do. They’re entertainers, educators, and yes, some could be bad, some could do stupid things, but look: Humanity is inherently flawed. YouTube in and of itself is comprised of people. Cat videos? Done by people. YouTube Gaming? People playing those games. Beauty Vloggers? That’s people on the screen right there.

There is no way I can describe my outright rage towards ad companies pulling ads for a bad press story one niche channel did in one small video in a sphere of so much other content from the platform. If that were the case, why don’t they pull their ads anywhere else? Racism, sexism, bigortry, and so, so much more happens on the Television. But you still see Disney advertising their theme parks, their movies. You still see all these ads for products you’ll never need just there, on your screen.

YouTube is television, sort of, catered to watching what you want, when you want, from who you want. Television, you’re stuck with what’s on right now on the upwards of like, 800 channels out there. I want to watch the Kirby Anime! Where do I go? YOUTUBE. I don’t care that each of a hundred and one videos, each of which about twenty minutes long, have an ad at the start. That’s a hundred and one ads over the course of a hundred and one videos, for about forty hours that I’ve wasted of my life watching Kirby beat Dedede at his own game. But that’s beside the point.

“No one wants to hear good stories from YouTube.”

With today’s reality, the news is full of... shit. For lack of a better word. I’m in Canada, so I watch local news - car crashes, events, shootings, fires, sports, entertainment, weather - and some satirical comedy shows out of the US - presidential, presidential, oh my god can we hear something that isn’t presidential I want to gouge my eyes out, disaster, Stephen Colbert’s “Meanwhile” segments, and interviews - and it’s a whole lot of shit. I get no real “feel good” stories.

But here’s the thing: MatPat mentioned charity streams.

There was the one by... oh, my memory’s failing me again, but the Trans DK64 livestream. I heard about that! It made me so happy! I watched (not live, of course, I’m a bit slow for that sort of thing) Awesome Games Done Quick from their YouTube channel, and watched their Mario Odyssey playthrough when they hit two million just to make the runner do the re-fights, and to support the charity. It made my little heart so happy at like, midnight one night when I watched the whole thing, to see so much kindness.

Because all “real” news gives us is depressing.

Give me some feel-good stories about the Yogscast Jingle Jam raising 3 million. Give me some stories about AGDQ raising two million for cancer research. Give me some stories about Markiplier raising almost a million for charity. Give me some stories about that twenty million MatPat spoke of that YouTube content creators raised this past year.

You want to know why I think this?

Because the media can’t control the content.

They can’t control the creators and what they want to do.

They can’t turn to a YouTube channel and say “no more use of guns on your gaming channel” because, here’s your wake up call, a lot of games have guns in them.

YouTube lately has, from what I can see in my own personal watching, done something about their content creators, because the Yogscast seems to be... censoring some swear words. They censored cunt before, and it was funny at the time because it came out of nowhere in a TTT video. But now they censored Lewis saying “Duncan, I think I fucked up.” in the recently completed SevTech series on Duncan’s channel. You can fuck up - EVERYONE is entitled to fuck up at least once in their life - and Lewis, the idiot whom we love so much for being awkward and terrible and having almost no filter when it comes to stupid comments, thought he fucked up.

But they censor it, and the gravity of Lewis realizing with a sinking heart that he’s fucked up is lost, and it’s just irritating beeps and Lewis sounds worried in tone. I can get it being in a television show - Children may be watching! - but on YouTube, the only thing you can stop is age restricting things to 18+.

And you can just make a new account that’s over 18. I have a spam Gmail account I use for signing up for things for school that I really didn’t want on my main email, and through the random act of hitting random dates and years, it’s an 18+ account I can use on YouTube. I mean now I’m over 18, but still.

I think they realize that kids have access to these 18+ concepts online, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Go online, look up boobs, the only thing stopping you might be Google’s Safe Search, which is easily turned off with a click of a button. Go on, look up Call of Duty with all its gun violence. Nothing’s stopping you! You can watch someone else play the games you can’t because of age restrictions.

I said before that I want to go into Psychology, and I’m currently in some Psychology courses at College - soon to HOPEFULLY be a Psych program next year for two years, possibly with Co-Op. Regardless, I think my class today in Developmental Psych taught me a couple key things. And I’m going to mention one of two here: Parenting.

Sounds kind of out there on a YouTube-based post, but bear with me.

There are four types of parenting, more or less, and I’ll just list them from my lecture slides (if they’ll load for me...) because I’m not going to bother with images that probably won’t load anyways: Permissive, Authoritative, Rejecting (and other terms for this one), or Authoritarian. I’ll cover each quickly for you.

Permissive Parents are parents who don’t control their children much, but are very nurturing. “We love you so you can do what you want”. Simple as that. Authoritative Parents are parents who control their children but care for them. I like to say helicopter parenting falls somewhere within here, but “I must know what you’re doing at all times because I love you and care about you deeply.” I know this part very well, and this is the “golden standard” which I’ll be returning to. Rejecting, Neglecting, or Uninvolved Parents don’t care and don’t control. “Do whatever, I don’t care.” Not good, lemmie say. The last is Authoritarian Parents, who are controlling with no nurture (or little of it). “You must do as I say because its my way or the highway.” I’ll return to this too.

Let’s talk about Authoritative. Take this concept and put it to YouTube. They want what’s best under their views for their users, so they control the content (or try to) that’s put on their side. Helicopter Website? But they don’t care about the viewer, they only care about money, I hear you shouting from the depths of this hellsite. Then Authoritarian, I raise to you. You must abide by these things to protect the children who may or may not see this content because it’s this way or the highway. Or the ban hammer. Whichever.

Now I said two things from my lecture today, so here’s the second: Gender Development. I can hear confusion. So here, let me clarify. Children around the age of two or three learn to differentiate the sex of themselves and others through physical appearance. Gender and sex are not the same. I’ll say it again. Gender and sex are not the same. Gender is a social construct. Sex is biological. Sex, in layman’s terms, is whether you have a puss or a wang downstairs, and if you have something else, that’s intersex. Gender is how you feel. I personally feel like social constructs don’t fit, so I am gender non-conforming. Because Society wants it to be black or white, I’m gonna be green like Luigi.

But think about it: YouTube has content for everybody. So... Children who go to YouTube for entertainment see these people and start thinking. I have another Yogscast example, bear with me.

Sjin, one of my personal favourites, does a thing (almost?) every Jingle Jam, and he dresses up as Elsa and sings Let It Go. He’s fantastic. And hell, he looks good in the Elsa dress. Think to these children told that boys can’t wear dresses and makeup and like girly things from a young age by society looking at this grown-ass man living the life and singing a Disney song for charity. That’s not something society wants, they want black and white. They can’t have Sjin in a dress because he wants to! They can’t have men wearing makeup and doing girly things! No way in hell that’s happening! And yet YouTube... is here... and Sjin is Sjelsa.

He gives open arms to people who don’t feel like they can conform to society’s standards and says, with his actions, it doesn’t matter, so long as you’re happy with who you are. No one can deny that Sjin loves Frozen, and loves Elsa. He’s happy. And some people, seeing a grown man in a dress go “I don’t want my kids seeing that, its indecent and not what a man should do!”

Dude. If you’re a woman wearing pants right now, then go put on a skirt. Its indecent.

Or so people would’ve said several decades ago.

Because Society is changing.

And these old crones need to learn that Society is being run by people who open their arms to difference, and instead of saying “its this or that and nothing else”, they kick the false dilemma fallacy that it originally held and say “Hey, you’re different, and I want to know why if you’re willing to share. Oh, that’s it? Cool! Let’s continue our lives both richer with the knowledge we’ve gained today.”

((God, I put both of my classes’ lectures into this rant...))

Life isn’t black and white anymore.

It’s not even monochrome.

Life is in colour. And society needs to catch up.

As per usual...

TL;DR: Society, as shown by MatPat with his video on YouTube, wants to paint any new thing in a bad light and really only a bad light even though its good. I theorize it’s because society is the helicopter parent nobody likes and the censorship to everything that nobody deserves.

Let people live their lives. Honestly.

#the disappointment speaks #honestly the words 'life is in colour and society needs to catch up' is such a powerful sentence #it reverberated in my SOUL when I wrote it #anyways here's a rant while I'm mid-youtube that took me over a half an hour to type and is long as hell #I have a midterm tomorrow and I need to study again for it #ANYWAY this is my hot take for the evening I hope y'all have a nice night and I'm probably gonna hit the snooze in like an hour #even though its like 11:30 my time when I post this #you know I just realized that with me giving aproximate times at which I post these rants from time to time #plus mentioning in this rant specifically that I'm in canada #y'all can probably guess where I live #spoiler alert: its canada #also spoiler alert: I'll never say you're right or wrong if you try so you dont need to bother trying #I wanna make a youtube channel.... but I need a gaming PC before I do that #so it'll probably be a few years at least while I save up money for it #IF I make a youtube after I buy one #because I might just buy it for modded minecraft #no joke none of my fat dang mods work anymore because they're all HD HIGH QUALITY EPIC 300+ MOD PACKZZZZ #All The Mods 3 Lite is the one I currently have and it doesnt even have bees in it #IT DOESNT EVEN HAVE BEES!!#it's got astral sorcery and thaumcraft as well as a mod I forgot the name of that looks real cool so like imma learn it #but otherwise IT DOESNT HAVE ANY BEES!!!#or like twilight forest betweenlands aether etc dimensional bullshit #rip me n my minecraft I guess?#sorry for the rant #and like incoherrent bullshit in the tags like hot damn #not counting like one line statements here I put 22 paragraphs into this #I doubt ANYONE's gonna read it but like its there #we exist in a society #and I hate it #not that we exist in a society but like the fact the society is kinda shit towards like

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castingdirect · 4 years ago

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ONLYFANS: Has The Pandemic Been Responsible For A New Sexual Revolution?

The new revolution It's safe to say that no one is more surprised that Sonja Morgan is the fourth most popular star on OnlyFans than Sonja Morgan. After all, she's 57-years-old and most famous as longstanding 'Real Housewife of New York.' Not the sort of person you'd expect on a platform comprised mainly of nudes and homemade soft-core porn. But Morgan, who is always looking to expand her empire (toaster ovens and even a Nigerian football team are among the doomed enterprises known to 'RHONY' fans), thought there might be room on OnlyFans for her brand of middle-aged flooziness. 'I'm known on the show as "Sexy Sonja" or "Sexy J",' she told the Post: 'I'm always the first to go naked in the pool. I date younger guys. I have all these videos running around naked at swimsuit parties.' When Morgan first joined OnlyFans, which was July 2020, after she had recovered from a neck and facelift, whilst that detail alone makes her a softcore outlier, consider that RHONY audience consists largely of high-income, highly-educated white women and gay men. Morgan explained this in the only way she knows how: 'I walk into Cipriani, and it's people who went to Harvard or Yale - that's who's watching the show. I'm well known internationally, for my lifestyle, as a model and a philanthropist who was married to JPM.' She is relating to John Adams Morgan, the banking icon known as JPM to his intimate friends. In other words, selling one's sexuality online is becoming a side hustle without the stigma and once upon a time, a reality star under contract to a high-profile cable network would likely be fired for sex work on the side. It wasn't all that long ago that Vanessa Williams, the first Miss Black America, was stripped of her title for having posed nude pictures, which were purchased and published by Penthouse. At the time the US gasped, but if released today, the nation wouldn't bat an eyelid. Now major movie stars such as Michael B. Jordan creates an OnlyFans account with close-ups of him biting his lower lip to bait you in to subscribing to zeros scandal at all. Beyoncé even name checks OnlyFans in Megan Thee Stallion's 'Savage,' and the site gets a 15% uptick in traffic within 24 hours. Then the likes of Blac Chyna, Cardi B, Tyga, 'Teen Wolf' star Tyler Posey - all top content creators sexualizing their content as little or as much as they choose to - there isn't any precise rules of what people should or shouldn't do with their accounts, within reason. But the celebrities are just a tiny fraction of OnlyFans users, as it's attracted college students, housewives, even married couples, and the average people who will show you everything to those who offer more of a tease. Since the lockdown, OnlyFans reported a spike of 7.5 million users in November 2019, and in December 2020 it was 85 million global users with a total payout of $2.7 billion to its content creators - it's like the Guardian says - 'Everyone and their mum are on it'. Where once make gatekeepers determined who and what was sexy - from strip clubs to burlesque dancers to Playboy bunnies and nude models - Now there were no barriers to entry. Women, men, trans, gender fluid, any age, race, weight - if you want to be on OnlyFans, all you have to do is sign up, and unlike OnlyFans' nearest competitor Pornhub, all the content you create belongs to you; the site takes only a 20% cut of the creator income. We are in the midst of a new sexual revolution, this time ignited by the collision of technology and a generational shift in attitude, with the power that women especially derive from online sex work, from setting their own parameters and prices, has transformed our ideas of who participates and why. Not to mention a global pandemic that has left many financially strapped, ready to take advantage of audiences still mostly confined to their homes. Kirsten Vaughn ,25, launched her OnlyFans account in January of 2020, and at the time she was on track to become the first female master technician at her Honda dealership in Indiana, with her take home page of around $450 a week after taxes. It wasn't enough. 'Six months before joining OnlyFans, I was trying to find a second job,' she said, stating that she decided to join the site and quickly averaged an additional $1,000 a week in gross income, which is $800 after the OnlyFans commission. 'When I first started out in the industry, I was always getting questions about being female: 'Why are you even here?"' Vaugh found herself trying to 'eliminate parts of her femininity' as she puts it, in a quest to be seen as neither male nor female - just an employee, one particularly good at her job, if she did say so herself. It didn't work, and when she got the idea to join OnlyFans, it wasn't just a way to make money, it was a way to enjoy wearing 'make-up and cute clothes, being girly and feminine.' Her parents, she said, don't have a problem with it, for her dad, it was simply a matter of delivery systems changing, his generation had magazines; her generation had the internet. Then came the day a salesman at her dealership approached her saying that he had seen more of her than he ever wanted to see, 'no offense' in his words, and apparently he said he was pretty disgusted, she said: 'And I was really scared that what would happen, happened' and she was let go. Vaughn still doesn't understand why she was fired while two salesmen who viewed her content at work weren't punished equally: 'They told me they didn't care that their salesmen were watching porn on the floor during work hours,' Vaughn said: 'I was a distraction in the shop.' General manager John Watkins said that Vaughn was fired for 'violations of company procedures and policies,' but declined to specify what they were. Vaughn's firing made headlines - especially as the world over, out of work due to the pandemic, turned to OnlyFans as a money-making venture, and to Vaughn, there was no shame, only anger: Just how many of her critics, she asks, watches porn? Why the double-standard - that it's okay for men to consume porn, and as much and as often as they like, but the women who create it should be ostracized, vilified and made to suffer? That said though, Vaughn would warn anyone planning to join OnlyFans, or to pursue any line of sex work at all, that everyone in your life will eventually find out, because she's part of a generation who will not just need to explain social media histories to future employers - or who may be fired for decades-old tweets - but who will have online sexual histories as well. So when Vaughn interviewed for hew new job at another dealership, she openly spoke about her OnlyFans presence, and no one cared. Her main concern, she said, is her personal safety: Yes, sex work online, whether it's a cam girl, often not nearly as profitable, or an OnlyFans creator, protects one from strange people and places and physical harm, be it violence or STDs. But that very technology also makes it easier for strangers to stalk her. Vaughn said: 'I'm in the public eye to a certain extent, and in a way, I don't have any anonymity. If some creepy guy wants to find me, all he has to do is show up.' On the other hand, Vaughn is her own boss - a role that women in sex work have never had before. 'OnlyFans is no different tan the peep shows,' says Marina Adshade who is a Professor that specializes in the economics of sex and love. But with peep shows there were still owners, typically men, who controlled the hiring, salaries, frequency of work and hours, to say anything of some of the abysmal unsanitary conditions. Any sex worker in 2021, liberated by modern technology, would ever put up with any of that. 'OnlyFans and cam girls can only bee seen as a good thing,' Adshade said: 'If someone is a sex worker of their own accord - I see now downside to this.' Stephanie Michelle has been on OnlyFans for about four years, after her former platform Patreon stepped back from sexual content, and she said the pandemic has been more profitable than she could have predicted. 'I'm like, "What's happening?" I'm just posting my boobs on the internet, but business has been booming, and all of us are at home bored out of our minds.' She won't divulge her age (because when you're a sex worker over 30, you lose half of your clientele), or her monthly income, but her base rate of $14,00 per month has helped support her husband, who is an out of work cinematographer, as well as their three cats. 'I don't do penetration,' she says: 'But then I learned you could literally crochet scarves on OnlyFans.' Which then brings us onto Bella Thorne, and though you can post whatever you like to OnlyFans, from cooking to decorating videos, it's known for it's sexual content. So obviously, when Bella Thorne joined, fans flocked thinking they will get to see the former Disney star gone bad in the nude, but she remained fully clothed. In the wake of a really big backlash to what some users had considered false advertising, OnlyFans put caps on what creators can charge, as well as what the user can tip, per day as well as other restrictions. As of August 2020, $50 is the limit for exclusive content per month (Its like paying for an additional streaming service), with $100 cap on tips. 'Bella Thorne made promises and didn't deliver, and that makes sex workers look bad,' Michelle says: 'She's making us look like we don't care about our fans, or that we're liars and cheats. The price cap didn't affect my business - however, that doesn't make me any less pissed off about the cap. I'm very upset for my friends' - other content creators who suffered as a result of the caps. Michelle sees OnlyFans as a net positive, one that is forcing society to reconsider what it means to sell one's image, likeness, or body. She said why is it, that it's more harmful to sell oneself virtually than in the real world, and why do we consider some forms of commodification valid and good, but not others? 'Athletes sell their bodies,' she argues: 'Footballers and boxers get brain damage. In my opinion that's more harmful than me putting my tits online. No one is forcing me to post nudes or make content that I don't want to make. I'm basically an entrepreneur.' Michelle also has direct conversations with individual subscribers, many of whom, she says, are looking for a way to feel less anxious and lonely in lockdown. Relationships have been stripped from us for a full year, said Michelle: I'm so thankful I was able to help people de-stress in a year that was only stress.' And as for Morgan, who has a new season of RHONY due to premier on 4th May 2021, OnlyFans has become part of her brand: 'Bravo is my lifeline, but I do OnlyFans for the same reason I get on Twitter every night - I like to connect with my viewership. And I can tell you: you make good money.' Plus by 2030, OnlyFans will seem quant to the point of innocence, what, with the rise in sex robots... Read the full article

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