#i finally was able to log back into this account it's been ages everyone ;-;

[queen-of-seventeen]

Abandon who you love, love with abandon

Hello, back with a new au and something that is plotted and thus will probably be finished. It’s an andreil hans and gretel au so I love it and hope you do to.

You can also read it on ao3

Andrew could feel a pair of eyes on him. They burned at his back but he refused to turn around. He rolled his shoulders and typed harder at his keyboard. He didn’t know what Renee and Wymack wanted from him but they’d been staring ever since he entered the office and it was getting tiresome. As tiresome as anything could get if it happened from eight am to three in the afternoon.

He wasn’t going to say anything though. He was above it.

The desk at which the blond sat was set up with a wall of monitors and the newest military-grade computer. Nothing but the best for the FBI. Even for their underfunded star squad. That’s what Wymack got for picking from the people who barely scraped through the psych test. Or failed it as Andrew had.

Yet here he sat.

His attention got caught by an irregularity in the code in front of him. Something was up in the Nathan Wesninski case. Andrew’s team had been put on the case after everyone else failed to pin anything on Wesninski but the FBI knew something was up. They’d known for almost as long as Andrew had been alive. Two years ago however Nathan Wesninski and three of his closest friends disappeared off the face of the earth. Or so they thought because Andrew had just found one of them.

He and Renee, the other tech nerd, had been working on this code for ages to flag bank accounts and passports that looked just a little too much like Wesninski’s inner circle.

“Andrew,” Renee said. She pushed off on the floor and rolled towards him. “Wymack asked me to talk to you.”

“And he thinks that’s going to work?” Andrew’s fingers flew across the keys. Passport, name of M. R. Mero. Malcolm Romero. Two clicks later Andrew had his picture up on the screen. Different eye colors but the same man. Mole above his right eye and shaving scar on his cheek. He couldn’t be the smartest or Wesninski wouldn’t have been able to avoid the FBI for so long.

“You’re listening to me now aren’t you.”

“I don’t know, were you talking about the scheduled zombie apocalypse for October.”

“Andrew…” Renee tried placing a hand on his but he pulled away.

“Renee, I told you not to do that.”

She sighed and twirled in her chair. It was a nasty habit she’d picked up from her girlfriend. “Wymack says you need to start pulling your weight on the Wesninski case. He wants to know what you want in return.”

“He’s already paying me isn’t he?” Andrew Switched screens and logged into a different database to start checking bank accounts. He plugged in the information and waited.

“Then why aren’t you doing the work?” David Wymack walked into the dark room. “Would it kill the two of you to open a window from time to time?”

“There aren’t any windows in here,” Renee said. Andrew heard a hair tie snap against her wrist meaning she put up her hair. “There have never been rooms.”

Wymack grumbled. “I’m assuming that Andrew hasn't put in any effort into the Wesninski case yet.”

“Not on my account,” Renee said.

Andrew rolled his eyes and the screen finally loaded up. New bank account for an Australian bank accounts for Mr. M. R. Mero. Gotcha.

He let Renee and Wymack talk amongst themselves as he checked the information a final time and flagged the accounts. He’d let them know if anything came of it.

Steps echoed around the room as Wymack walked to Andrew and dropped a thin Manila file in front of him. “I think I found your challenge.”

Andrew looked from the file to Wymack before pushing it off to the side. “I didn’t ask for a challenge.”

“You also didn’t ask for a job, you midget but here you are. Open the file.”

Andrew rubbed his face with both hands. He’d been at work for twelve hours. Seven am to pm was too long when his best friend insisted on drinking during the evenings.

He pushed the file to the side again and waited for Wymack to leave the room, he took Renee with him. Andrew heard their voices disappear down the hall before snatching at the file. Unwind the thread, open the folder, flick, flick, flick with his thumb. Three pages. Three pages of information. His eyes caught on a rectangular note paper clipped to the bottom of the first page. Andrew nudged it loose and turned it around.

It was a picture. A family one. After three years of working in the Fox squad, Andrew knew Nathan Wesninski’s face better than his own, even the young version, but it wasn’t even showing. Next to him was a woman, short, with light brown hair. On Nathan’s shoulders was a small boy. His face wasn’t showing but Andrew knew that must be Nathaniel. According to the note on the back about eight years old.

The picture seemed to be taken during a good moment, with the wife and Nathan smiling but Andrew wouldn’t have become FBI if he didn’t notice the little details. The bruises peeking beneath sleeves and the tension around the woman’s eyes.

Andrew put the picture to the side and read the rest of the file.

Andrew hadn’t felt many strong feelings since he was little but hatred for Nathan Wesninski was steadily burning a hole through his chest. The brutal ways Nathaniel and his mother had been abused were detailed on the three pages in the file. Andrew felt sick. 

His fingers didn’t shake as he put the file back together and shoved it to the side of his desk. He didn’t pace his office as he waited for the computer to light up with another hit on Romero. He didn’t do anything. He stared at the screen without seeing and watched the code shift as the program rolled on another screen. 

“Nathaniel Wesninski.” The name rolled off his tongue. It felt a bit sour. Like milk gone bad. “For all, I know you’re dead on some beach as well.”

“That’s what I need you to find out,” Wymack said gruffly.

Andrew swiveled in his chair and found his boss standing at the door opening. Wymack walked over and sat on a chair at the small table Renee and Andrew used to collect printouts. “Why me? Renee can do this? Another department could just as well track a dead man.”

Because it’s a dead end. Andrew crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t want to do it.”

“You will,” Wymack said. “Because you read that file and you want that eight-year-old boy to have justice just as much as I do.”

“You want me to find a murder victim? I’m an IT guy.”

Wymack shook his head. “I want you to find a twenty-five-year-old with a penchant for stealing his father’s money. I’ve seen the stuff Renee and you code. You’re the only one that can do this.”

Andrew could but that didn’t mean he wanted to. Nathaniel would have had years to figure out how to work around tracking. Every idiot with access to google could find out how to avoid getting tracked online. But fuck it he was interested. Nathaniel’s case hit a personal spot and it might help him to track down Nathan as well. 

“Fine,” Andrew said and turned back to his monitors. “But you’re bargaining with Chuck to get Renee and me an office with windows next time you see him.”

--00--

Rule number one of stealing is to not look conspicuous. Neil’s mother had taught him that when he was ten and left the supermarket by himself for the first time without paying for the groceries hidden in his school bag. He hadn’t gotten caught. Now fourteen years later Neil had just walked out of an old-fashioned second-hand computer store with a gaming laptop that had been there for cleaning. Neil Josten didn’t feel remorse about stealing it. After all, he was doing it for the greater good. 

His own bank account.

Neil ran a hand through his brown curls and walked into a cafe two blocks down. Not close enough to easily be found but also close enough that when he left the laptop in the cafe it may someday return to the rightful owner. Or it would just get stolen by somebody else. That wasn’t Neil’s problem.

The cafe he’d picked out earlier was slightly crowded. Just enough for him to blend in but also to have a table to himself. 

In all truth 'Don't be conspicuous' hadn't been his mother's first rule. There were many rules she'd imprinted upon his brain before she died on some sandy beach in America. Neil had never cared for the country he'd been born in and even less so now after his mother's death.

America was the country his father lived in. It was the country a previous version of Neil had been born in and spent all ten years of his short, miserable life. Then Neil left and saw the world. It wasn't any less miserable but it meant his life span was at least a little longer.

Neil walked up to the counter and ordered himself a sandwich and a black coffee. Don't be conspicuous. He waited in line, he told the girl to add a dollar or two to his tip and he spoke in the Australian accent he'd perfected over the past four months.

Four months of living all over Australia. Four weeks of driving along the East Coast. Four days of renting a room in Sidney with the money he'd pilfered from his father's contacts. It wasn't a grand life. It certainly wasn't the life of a pro athlete that he'd dreamt of as a kid but at twenty-five, he was damned proud he was still breathing every single day.

Neil collected his food and drink and walked towards an empty table in a back corner. He sat with his back to the wall and checked if nobody would be able to see his screen.

Drink, food, walls, privacy.

It only took Neil three minutes to crack the code on the laptop. A simple override code he'd learned in some IT class he'd followed at a German college. But now the real work. He took the driver out of his bag and connected the cables. A simple code scrolled across the screen and began downloading several programs onto the borrowed laptop.

The computer took long enough that Neil got to finish his sandwich. The programs opened in front of him and he got to work. Over the years he’d gotten accustomed to finding the hidden bank accounts of his father’s partners and his father. Nathan had been smart but there was always a telltale mark that something was his. Like a brand mark. 

Neil idly rubbed his shoulder. 

It took him about an hour to find the correct account and another two to hack in and transfer the money towards three separate accounts. Neil’s emergency account on the Cayman islands, one in the Netherlands, and finally a couple hundred towards a new bank account at the Bank of Australia. Courtesy of Neil Josten and his falsified passports and driver’s licenses. He’d pull the money out of there tomorrow at the bank. There was no way a machine was going to have all that money for him to cash out. 

And cash was needed. He was already leaving too much of a trail by using a smartphone and stolen laptops. Someone only had to get to his level and they’d be able to track the breadcrumbs from account to account until they found him. 

But twenty-five wasn’t enough. Neil wanted to get old. He only hoped his father would die before then. 

He ordered a final coffee to go before starting to meticulously delete every file he just downloaded onto the laptop and made sure to clean the trash can. He logged out of the account and logged in with obviously wrong passwords a couple of times before closing the thing. 

Neil opened his bag and pretended to put in the laptop. He placed it on the chair beside him and finished cleaning up his stuff. He got up and grabbed the coffee cup. Still warm. He raised a hand at the barista who’d helped him and walked out of the store. 

He rubbed his eyes. The brown contacts were bothering him. He walked towards the harbor and sat down on one of the benches facing the Opera house. 

Neil fumbled as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He was running out but he didn’t want to break into his emergency cash in case he needed to take a plane somewhere else. It took a couple of inhales before the cigarette lit. He took one more breath to keep it burning before watching as he let it burn down to the filter. He didn’t want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother. 

He ground it against the bench to stop the flame and pulled his phone from his pocket. It still felt dangerous and with nobody to call it felt useless but the internet was the easiest way to gather information about his father. Within five minutes he was looking at the New York Times.

A new team was put on his father's case. New people digging into his past and coming across the origins of Neil Josten. Neil shivered and got some weird looks from people passing by. He was bundled up enough for late winter in Australia but knowing someone else could come knocking on his door was a familiar nightmare clawing on the solid walls of his mind.

He stood up and grabbed his bag. He’d go to the bank first thing tomorrow. Right now he needed to pack his stuff. He needed to get a new passport. He wouldn’t sit here like a duck to be shot but he wouldn’t run for a while longer. Neil Josten was as cold a trail as any.

The door to his apartment was swinging open before he’d finished his plans. He’d move in two weeks. That was enough time to get his papers ready and get the money to buy his ticket in cash. He’d be untraceable on some other continent. He’d be running but at least he’d be free.

[doogermcdoogs]

vive la brigade!!

[johnsamericano]

𝔖𝔲𝔤𝔞𝔯 ℜ𝔲𝔰𝔥 𝔧.𝔧.𝔥

Hi everyone! As promised, here’s one of the two most voted fic continuations. There will be more chapters to this story though I'm not sure how many yet. Thank you for reading!

warnings: sugar daddy jae, mentions of injuries and hospitals, language.

taglist: @thoreeo @trustmahluv

Sugar rush m.list.

The machine monitoring your father’s heartbeat was the only sound filling the quiet hospital room, where your once healthy father laid unconscious, his perfect, chiseled cheeks adorned with cuts and bruises. Would they leave a mark?

The machine monitoring your father’s heartbeat was the only sound filling the quiet hospital room, where your once healthy father laid unconscious, his perfect, chiseled cheeks adorned with cuts and bruises. Would they leave a mark?

The machine monitoring your father’s heartbeat was the only sound filling the quiet hospital room, where your once healthy father laid unconscious, his perfect, chiseled cheeks adorned with cuts and bruises. Would they leave a mark?

The machine monitoring your father’s heartbeat was the only sound filling the hospital room, where your once healthy father laid unconscious, his perfect, chiseled cheeks adorned with cuts and bruises. Would they leave a mark?

The machine monitoring your father’s heartbeat was the only sound filling the hospital room, where your once healthy father laid unconscious, his perfect, chiseled cheeks adorned with cuts and bruises. Would they leave a mark?

Where did everything go wrong?

Your string of thoughts was cut off by a call from your aunt.

Your string of thoughts was cut off by a call from your aunt.

“Hello?” Your voice was raspy from not using it. There was no one to talk to in the quiet, hospital room but the nurses, who weren't especially keen on chatting.

“How’s your dad, sweetie?”

“They let him out of ICU, but he doesn't look good to me.” Your fingers traced the cuts in his chiseled cheeks that would soon turn into scars, ruining his perfect skin. Your eyes then diverted to his head, thoroughly covered in bandages to protect his damaged skull.

“Honey, I've got bad news...”

“They rejected the case, didn't they?”

“Not precisely.” She deeply inhaled before continuing. “It’s a tough case, almost impossible to win, nonetheless, they're willing to take it. But their fee is a little...”

“Expensive.”

“Yes.”

As expected from the best firm in town, they wouldn't take less than $8,000. Your bank account didn't have enough money to even cover half of it, and with your job at the convenience store, you'd only earn so much to cover your expenses.

“We can take the lawyer that the government provides us with, it would be free.”

“But then I'm sure we’d lose.” You groaned in frustration, using your free hand to rub your forehead. “Don’t worry, I'll find a way to get the money.”

“Why don't we just accept the compensation they're offering? It could pay for the hospital bills and you'd still have some left to pay for your tuition.”

“That would be like putting a price on my father's life. I don't want their money, I want them to make themselves responsible for what they've caused.” The sound of wheels approached the door of your father's room, signaling the nurse was outside with his meds. “It’s okay, Auntie, I'll take care of everything. You can go back home, I know my uncle isn't doing so well.”

“Are you sure, darling?” It was undeniable that she wanted to head back to her little ranch fat away from the hectic city life to take care of her sick husband, but still, her brother was laying down on a hospital bed, fighting for his life.

“Yes, I'm an adult, I'll find a way.”

“Take care of yourself, and don't hesitate to call me if you're having any difficulties. I'll be there in the blink of an eye.” She said before sending a kiss into the speaker, proceeding to hang up.

You sighed. It was never usual for you to ask for help, as you were an extremely prideful and independent person, and you doubted this time would be different.

“Don’t worry, dad. Everything will be alright.”

Three failed job interviews and one more to go. Your feet were killing you, the high heels covering them already worn out from walking to avoid taking the bus. Every penny counted, and as long as your legs worked, you weren't spending any more money than what was necessary.

You sat down in the waiting room of the company, massaging your neck to relieve some tension. College was becoming a burden. Maybe you'd take a semester off to focus on working, that is if someone wanted to hire an inexperienced student.

“Y/n, Y/l/n?”

“Here.” You darted up, gathering your belongings to enter the room on which your life almost literally depended.

You gave all the right answers, earning a polite ‘we’ll contact you’ in return. But you could see that they weren't convinced with your lack of experience, no company in their right mind would be.

As soon as you arrived at your apartment, you slid out of the uncomfortable pencil skirt, tucking yourself under the covers with your phone screen almost hitting your nose.

To take your mind off things, you decided to watch some videos. Halfway in, an ad popped up, interrupting the interior deco video you were watching.

A picture of a girl about your age hugging an older man was right in the middle of your screen. Written with fancy letters, the words ‘make your life simpler’ could be read, followed by what you guessed was the title of the app. Sugar rush.

Out of pure curiosity, your finger tapped at the small icon that led to the app store, absentmindedly clicking the download button. A few seconds later, an icon with the letters ‘SR’ was added to your home screen.

“Log in?” You murmured out loud, squinting your eyes to adjust your eyes to the bright, white homepage.

Just as you were about to click out, the phrase from the ad reappeared, stopping your finger from moving any further.

You could always delete your account if something went wrong, right? Nonetheless, you decided to use a false name, and that's how Melanie Kim’s profile was created. You left the circle of your profile picture empty for now, only filling the spaces that asked about your likes, dislikes, age, and all that stuff that people care about so much.

You knew what the app was for, but that didn't stop you from being surprised when a list of men and women of different ages greeted you. Right then, a small rectangle obstructed your sight, two buttons offering opposite things.

‘Pick the role you'd like to develop.’

Sugar daddy/mommy / Sugar baby.

Clearly, you didn’t have nor the money or the years to be the first, so you clicked the opposite button without giving it more thought.

‘Welcome. You've been registered as a sugar baby at Sugar rush. Meet thousands of men and women willing to finance you for free!’

You hummed.

‘As we're always looking to make our users’ experience better, we've developed Sugar Rush premium, a membership to meet the richest and hottest people in your surroundings. Get the premium version for only $5.95 a month. Click here to get Sugar Rush premium.’

Your finger pad was dangerously close to the blue button, almost grazing the screen of the phone. It was then when you were pulled out of your trance, blinking as if just then you'd realized what you were doing.

“I must be crazy.” You turned off your phone, not bothering to turn on an alarm for the next day. You had no interviews left. You had nowhere to go.

Waking up was getting harder with every passing day. Not being able to call your dad to go out for breakfast or even sending a simple good morning message hurt you deeply. You missed him. But seeing him laying down on a hospital bed, unable to do anything by himself, was even worse.

Ding

A notification filled the silence in your room.

‘Come back, you haven't finished setting up your account yet!’

You scoffed at your past self. What were you even thinking when you downloaded the app?

You simply turned off the phone before standing up to take a relaxing shower. As the water soaked up your tense body, your mind started wandering off back to the app. A million what-ifs filled your head, nonetheless, there was one that remained the most persistent.

‘What if this can pay for a lawyer?’

Your part-time job surely couldn't, and you had no one to assist you financially speaking. The whole idea of paying that ridiculous membership seemed more tempting as your fingers started getting wrinkly under the showerhead.

You decided to take some time to consider it, after all, you still had a week to give the lawyers an answer.

Hot soup seemed like a good option to comfort you, and thankfully, there was a store right in front of your place that claimed to sell the best soups in town.

It wasn't bad, but not nearly as good as the one your dad cooked when you were a kid. You sighed, wondering if you'd ever be able to eat it again. Just then, a woman about your age came into the shop, carrying a couple of bags where names of popular brands could be read. A pinch of jealousy made your heart stir as you glanced at yourself through the reflection in the glass at your side. You looked devastated, your skin pale and your cheekbones slightly sunken, a sign of the lack of rest and food you'd been getting.

Out of pure impulse, you pulled out your phone, clicked on the app you'd recently downloaded, and finally accepted the charges for a premium membership.

‘Welcome, new member of our wide community, click ok to get started!’

Well, no turning back now.

Right after pressing the blue letters with your thumb, you were presented with a list of potential prospects, some of them including pictures, some of them only including name and a brief description of what they were looking for. The minority included their ages, but most left the space blank.

A bunch of old men looking for a youthful, pretty woman to be by their sides, some of them even went as far as writing the weight and height their ideal partner should have. Of course, there were also some women in the look for young meat, but the number of men overpassed them.

About to exit the app in defeat, a profile caught your eye. His pale pink hair was parted, allowing his thick eyebrows to stand out. His high cheekbones made him look like a statue, the details in his face almost too perfect for a mere human. He must be the incarnation of a Greek God, you thought.

‘Jung Yoonoh. 41 years old. Owner of N & C.’

“Should I...?” You asked yourself in a voice lower than a whisper.

He has probably gotten hundreds of messages, so what would be the point of sending one yourself? Your eyes scanned the picture over and over again as the remains of your soup started getting cold.

He was probably the only acceptable man in the whole app, so why not give it a try?

You already spent five whole dollars on it, might as well make it worth the money.

‘Hi.’ Sent.

“Holy crap.” You breathed out, regretting every single action that led you to take such a stupid decision. “Ah!” You squeaked as three small dots appeared beside his profile picture, signaling he was writing a reply.

What if he rejected you right from the beginning? God, that would be so humiliating. His message stopped your train of thought.

‘Hi!’

Followed by:

‘How are you?’

Sweating like a pig, thank you for asking.

‘Fine. You?’ Read.

‘Thrilled. No one had messaged me since I created my account two weeks ago.’

‘How is that possible?’ You imprinted your thoughts on a message.

‘It’s hard to trust people nowadays. I guess people might think either my picture is photoshopped or I'm lying about my job.’

‘Their loss, ig.’ Read.

He was taking some time to answer. Had you said something inappropriate?

‘Hahaha.’

The conversation stopped there, as you didn't know how exactly to answer his message. But a few minutes later, another text from him popped up at your chat.

‘If you're okay with it, we can start talking about a possible arrangement.’

Already? You've known each other for like five minutes. But then again, arrangements were the whole purpose of the app.

‘Sure.’

‘May I ask your reasons for joining the app?’

‘I need urgent money, but my job doesn't pay nearly enough.’ You omitted the part of your agonizing father, he didn't need to know that. ‘And you?’

‘I need someone to be my partner at public spaces.’

‘Alright.’ Read.

‘Do you happen to have some free time tomorrow at lunchtime? I think it’d be better to meet first before making any decisions.’

‘Yeah, I'm free.’

‘Great, I’ll send you the address.’

You thought a day would be enough to prepare yourself, but time passed by quicker than usual, and soon enough, it was time to get ready for your meeting with Mr. Jung. He was only a few years younger than your father, and calling him by his first name wouldn't feel right.

Unsure if you should wear something formal, you threw on a beige (the color you'd agreed on wearing so it’d be easier to recognize each other) summer dress, pairing it with the gold hoops you'd inherited from your grandma to make it look more elegant.

The hardest part of your routine was makeup. Your sunken cheeks couldn't be covered, and only after a few layers of blush and highlighter, you could bring your skin back to life.

On your way to the cafe, you went through the things you'd say when you met him. It was your chance to get your father what he needed.

You stood at the entrance with wide, scared eyes, shyly scanning through the place to look for your date.

“Melanie?” A hand on your shoulder had you jolting. “I’m Jung Yoonoh, nice to meet you.”

What you saw after turning around was breathtaking. A handsome, healthy man, with the most beautiful pair of dimples.

“Nice to meet you.” You managed to blurt out without stuttering, extending your hand to make the greeting more formal. The fake name didn’t seem necessary anymore. “It’s actually y/n, I didn't want to use my real name.”

“I understand. Let’s take a seat.” He offered with a kind smile.

He left you seating at the terrace while he made your order, a latte, and a chocolate cookie. Your fingers played with your hoops anxiously, trying to regulate your breath.

“They’ll bring our food in just a sec.” He offered a warm smile. “Your dress is pretty.” Yoonoh said out of nowhere.

“Thank you.”

“I see you're not a chatty person.” You were about to object, but he started speaking again. “It's not a bad thing! I usually talk a lot, so it’s a nice way to balance things.”

You nodded, seemingly uncomfortable with the man sitting in front of you.

“So, uhm, this is my first time doing this, so I'm not really sure where to begin.” He pulled out a folded paper from the front pocket of his dressing pants. “It’s a bit creased, but I can always print another one. I brought it so you could take a look and let me know if you wanted to change anything. I don't mean to pressure you, but you said it was urgent, so...”

You read the paper under his attentive gaze, making sure not to miss a single word. Everything seemed correct, except...

“Six months?”

“Is that too much?” A small wrinkle formed between his eyebrows, a sign of deep concentration. “Okay, so let's do this instead.”

He took back the contract, pulling out a pen from the pocket in his dressing shirt to correct the original stipulations.

“Four months, and if by the end of them you don't absolutely hate me, we can extend the time. Deal?”

“Just one more thing.”

You cleared your throat, conscious that your following words might jeopardize the whole arrangement.

“Are you sure you want to make it official already?” You had to stop for a moment as the waiter left your orders on top of the wooden table. “I mean, it's not that I have a problem with it, but it's your money and maybe you'd like to give it a better thought.” You resumed.

“The fact that you're concerned about me proves I'm making the right choice. Now, tell me, how much would you like to receive as a weekly allowance?”

Would it be too reckless to ask him straight up for the $8,000?

“H-how much are you willing to give me?” You felt dirty, accepting a stranger’s money like that.

“Whatever you need.” His hand suddenly reached forward to yours, causing every ounce of blood in your body to rush to your face. “There’s no need to be embarrassed, I'm here to help you.” His voice tone dropped, acquiring an almost soothing feeling.

“I need eight thousand by Thursday, next week.” His eyes were wide open, mouth having difficulties remaining closed. “I-I know it's too much, but...”

“I can find a way to give you that money, but I'd like to know the reason why you need it. Just to make sure it's nothing illegal.”

You puffed your cheeks, trying to find an excuse good enough to justify the amount of money you were asking for.

“It isn’t illegal, is it?”

“No!” You retrieved your hand from below his, now embarrassed at the possibility of him having a bad image of you. “I need it for my father.”

“I suppose you don't want to talk about it.” He started at his palm, lips pressed in a thin life. “But when it comes to arrangements like this, we need to trust each other, alright?” You barely knew each other, yet, he demanded to know a very personal detail of your life. Not that he didn't have a good reason for wanting to know, it wasn't a particularly small amount of money.

“He had an accident at work...” You started, fearful of looking up to find pity in his eyes. “I need a lawyer to make his company legally responsible. They intend to throw it under the rug and pay a somewhat decent amount of money to make it go away. The firm I intend to hire is supposedly the best in town, probably my only chance of getting justice.”

“And why don't you just accept it? There's no guarantee that your lawyer will win the case.” You fisted the delicate fabric of your dress, eyes watering as you tried to hold back your anger.

“My father’s life is priceless, and if you think what I'm doing is a waste of money, then fine, we can both look for someone else to help us.” It sounded more aggressive than you'd first intended, but you meant every word that came out of your mouth.

Before you could even stand up, his slim fingers had already wrapped themselves around your wrist.

“I never said that.” He whispered with an almost sad tone. “Come on, sit down.”

He tugged at your arm the slightest, showing off his charming dimples once again.

“I’ll give you the money on one condition...” He raised one of his thick eyebrows. “I’ll go with you to see the lawyer.”

“Why...?”

“That’s my condition, take it or leave it.”

“Okay.”

The days before your meeting with your potential lawyer were nerve-wracking. You'd seen Yoonoh another time to sign the contract, which finally made your arrangement official.

You’d visit your father every day, always hoping he'd be sitting with his arms wide open, ready to hug you. But nothing had changed ever since he first came into that room.

“I’m here to see Mr. Kim.” The secretary's gaze lingered on Jaehyun a few seconds before he finally snapped out of it. “Y/n Y/l/n.”

“Just a second.” He opened his agenda and quickly found your appointment. With a warm smile, he guided you through the corridors of the building, all the way to the elevator. “It’s the only office on the last floor, I'll be at my desk if you need anything.”

Once again, he shot Jae an uneasy glance before the metal doors slid close.

“What was all that?” To be honest, you couldn't care less. But a small chat might calm your nerves and prevent you from throwing up all over the place.

“What do you mean?” He grinned, pressing the button to the top floor.

“You know what I mean.” You scoffed, annoyed at his evasive behavior.

“We just happen to know each other, nothing special.” Before the conversation could continue, a loud ding resonated through the metal cubicle. “Let’s go.” His hand found its place at the small of your back, pushing you towards the glass door. Through it, you could see a black-haired man reading a pile of documents, occasionally raising a photo to examine it with his gold-rimmed glasses supported at the bridge of his elegant nose.

Jaehyun extended his arm over your shoulder to knock on the door, earning an almost annoyed ‘come in’ from the man inside.

“Let’s go.” Once again invading your personal space, he reached for the doorknob with you trapped between his arms.

As soon as the door opened, the man raised his eyes from the documents he was checking.

“What are you doing here, Jung?”

“I knew something was off...” You murmured, loud enough for the man at your side to chuckle.

“I brought you a client, you should be happy.”

“Miss y/n, I suppose. Have a seat.” His demeanor completely changed while speaking directly to you. “I spoke with your aunt last week, she explained the details of the lawsuit, but I must say, it isn't an easy case.”

“I know that, but I've been told you're the best firm in town, I know I'll have more possibilities of winning if you're my lawyer.”

“Best firm in town my ass.”

“Be silent or I’ll kick you out of the building.”

That was enough for Yoonoh to zip his mouth. For a while at least.

“I suppose she also told you about our fee.” He pushed his glasses up using his thumb. “We’d also keep 25% of the lawsuit money assuming we win the case, is that okay with you?”

“Yes-”

“Okay, stop.”

“I’ll call security, Jung.”

“Look at me, y/n.” He squeezed your arms. “This clown is trying to scam you...” He pointed his finger at the lawyer without breaking eye contact. “You’d be spending loads of money for someone who isn't even confident in his abilities. It isn't worth it.”

“And I suppose you'd do better than me, then.” The black-haired man scoffed. “If that's the case, then you can both leave. I'm quite busy at the moment.” With a turn of his wrist, he signaled you to leave the room.

You were fuming, stomping out of the building with Jaehyun right behind you.

“I found a great restaurant nearby, we can go there and-”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Calm down-”

“Don’t tell me to calm down when you just fucked up my only chance to give those bastards what they deserve.” The sun was starting to set, yellow light casting shadows over his tender cheeks.

“Can you listen to me for a second?”

“Are you laughing right now?” You bit your lip, hard, trying to hold back the tsunami of tears threatening to come out of your eyes. “Asshole.”

“Ouch.” He furrowed his eyebrows mockingly. Oh, how close you were to punch that pretty face of his. “Can I explain now?”

You remained silent, staring at the ground with the smallest frown between your eyebrows.

“How do you think I know Kim Doyoung?” Before even giving you a chance to answer, he continued. “That son of a bitch has been stealing my clients for ages.”

“Your clients...?”

“He isn't even that good of a lawyer compared to me.” He scoffed with fake arrogance.

“You're a lawyer?!” You slammed your palms into your face, whining at the newly acquired information. “Why didn't you tell me from the beginning?”

“Just wanted to swing by and annoy him a bit. Don't worry, I wasn't gonna let you accept his deal.” He winked playfully.

The sun was now hidden, the sky darkening as the moon rose to take its shift.

“Though I gotta say, I'm kinda offended I wasn't even an option. I'm a pretty great lawyer, you know?”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you if you join me for dinner. What do you say?”

As you walked into the darkness of the streets, his shoulder occasionally bumping yours, you wondered if meeting him was a casualty. Maybe the world was finally smiling at you.

[sirtommyholland]

Four Years of Birthdays

A/N: Hey everyone! This isn’t my first time writing for Harry but my first time actually posting it so I’m very excited! This is inspired by the little piece I wrote on Tom Holland’s birthday, I wanted to make a similar concept. Hope you guys like it, and happy birthday to our beloved baby boy Harry Styles! We love you so much!💜

Word Count: 2.4k (she tiny because I suck)

Summary: Harry’s four different birthdays with Y/N in differents points of his life. 

Fluff all the way! with like a little talk about sexual themes because I had to.

poc friendly and plus size friendly (I think, please tell me if I made a mistake!) because we dont blush bright red or swim in men’s clothes in this house💫

2019 - 25th Birthday

Spending his birthday with Y/N was one of Harry’s favourite things. Over the last ten years of his life, she had missed quite a few of them as he was on the road and she was back home in London, going to uni and living a normal life. It was only the last couple of years that he was able to be home on his birthday, his solo career allowing him a bit more freedom to arrange his schedule as he wanted. 

This year, he had wanted to have a quiet birthday, just with his family and close friends. And of course, his girlfriend, who was currently climbing on his back on the bed, trying to coax him out of sleep. 

“Loviee” she whined into the back of his neck between kisses. “Wake up.”

“No.” his voice was deeper than usual as he groaned, trying to bury himself more into the pillows to avoid the bright sunlight in the room. “‘M sleepy.”

“But it’s your birthday.” she protested with a kiss to a small part of his cheek that wasn’t hidden away. “I need to give you your 25 kisses.”

“Just 25?” he frowned, raising his head from the pillow to look back at her. “That’s nowhere near enough! You kiss me more on a regular day.”

“Hmm..” she pretended to ponder his words, one of her hands going up to brush away the soft curls that fell on his forehead. “Then how about I give you a blowie for 25 minutes?”

Even if she couldn’t see his face, she would still be able to hear the grin in his voice. “Now that’s more like it.” He was turning over and laying on his back in a heartbeat, tugging at her thighs to make her straddle him again. 

She complied, throwing one leg over his hips and gently sitting on thighs, not putting her full weight. She leaned down to softly brush her lips against his, once, twice, three times. “Happy birthday, baby.”  she sighed against them, rubbing her nose against his lovingly. 

“Thank you, angel.” he smiled, letting his hands roam over the soft material of her shirt. “I reckon it’s gonna be the best one so far.” 

“Really? Is there a reason why?” she grinned, feeling like she already knew the answer.

“Because this is the first one I’m waking up with you as my girlfriend. Finally,” he sighed. “I can kiss you for real instead of making a wish for it when I blow out the candles.”

“You’re so cheesy.” she teased with a smile, leaning down to give him another kiss. “I still can't believe you wished for it.”

“Literally every year.” he confirmed, only blushing slightly under her loving gaze. “Honestly don’t know what I’m gonna wish for this time. It’s been the same thing for many years.” 

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” She placed a final peck to his lips, then swiftly got up from his lap. “Now get up, your mum’s expecting us for breakfast.”

“But- but- my blowie!” 

She looked back to see an adorable pout on his lips, one that she almost couldn’t resist. Almost.

“Later.” she promised, pulling him to his feet and laying a few kisses on his neck. “I’m gonna take care of you properly tonight, after your party. Along with your final present.”

“You’re a tease.” he breathed, the meaning behind her words not so hidden. She grinned, and trailed her hand softly down his back until she was grabbing his bum, giving it a firm squeeze. 

“Heyy!” he jumped, trying to grab her before she made a run for the bathroom, and failing.

“Pick your outfit, it takes ages!” she yelled through the closed door, making him huff and fall back on the bed dramatically. 

“Harry Edward Styles!” Well, guess she knew him too well.

“Yes, ma’am!”

2009 - 15th birthday

“Hello.”

Harry raised his head from the plastic cup he was refilling, to see a familiar girl looking at him with a friendly smile. 

“Hi.” he smiled back as he straightened up, silently giving her the cue to go on. 

“Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to say that I really liked your performance. You guys were incredible!” 

“Oh, thank you! Of course you’re not bothering me. I’m glad to know you liked it.” He grinned. “We’re at the same school, right? I’ve seen you around before.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never actually talked, I think. I’m Y/N, by the way. Will invited me because I live next door.” she explained, nodding towards his bandmate that was currently hosting his birthday party/small concert in his garage. 

“You don’t need to explain yourself! Next time, I’ll just have to make sure that I invite you myself.”

She grinned at his words. “That’s very nice of you, Harry. Oh, and happy birthday, by the way! I almost forgot.” Right, she was at his birthday party. She already knew his name. 

“Thank you! And thanks for coming.” 

Before she could open her mouth to say anything else, the lights were dimmed and the back entrance of the garage was illuminated with a soft, orange light as his friends brought in the cake. Off-key voices singing him happy birthday filled the space, and he made his way to his friends with a huge smile on his face, Y/N joining the small crowd around him as they waited for him to blow out the candles.

“Don’t forget to make a wish!” one of his mates yelled just as he was leaning towards the cake. 

“Sorry.” he chuckled, then closed his eyes to make his wish. I want to make music. For all my life.

Little did he know, that would be his only wish in the next ten years that didn’t involve the girl that he had just met. 

2016 - 22th birthday

“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling twenty-two! Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you!”

“What the fuck.” he muttered into his pillow, trying to figure out if he was dreaming or if his phone was actually ringing with a Taylor Swift song. But even when he was wide awake after a few minutes he could still hear her melodic voice, so he reached out with a groan and checked the caller ID. Of course.

“How did you manage to change my ringtone all the way from London?” he answered in a groggy voice. 

“Well, good morning to you too, hun, took you long enough! I’m very good, thanks for asking! And I got Niall to do it yesterday, obviously.” 

“... Morning Y/N.” 

“Oh, stop grumbling, it doesn’t suit you. Get up and get ready, I’m gonna facetime you in thirty minutes.” And before he could say anything, she hung up on him. 

He looked at this phone in disbelief. Did she just hang up on me on my birthday?! He rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the soft smile that appeared on his face. To be honest, there were a lot of things he couldn’t help when it came to her. 

Half an hour later, when he was freshly showered and dressed, his phone rang with an incoming facetime call just like she said. She probably set an alarm for exactly thirty minutes, he thought fondly.

Her smiling face greeted him as he accepted the call. “Happy birthday, Haz!!”

“Thanks, love.” he chuckled, eyeing the tiny cupcake in front of her through the small screen. “Whatcha got there?”

“That’s your birthday cupcake, made it myself! Was tired of shitty store-bought cake.” 

“I don’t know, it looks kind of ugly.” he joked, grinning at her mock-offended face. “I could do better. I worked in a bakery, ya know.”

“You literally just ran the register and washed the dishes.”

“Still, in a bakery!” 

She was shaking her head at his shit-eating grin, but he could still see a soft smile playing at her lips. It caused his heart to flutter in his chest. What he wouldn’t give to see her smiling at him like that everyday. 

“Anyway, candle time!” she piped, grabbing a lighter from somewhere behind the camera and lighting up the single candle on her tiny cupcake.  

Harry watched her raise the cupcake closer to the camera and she instructed him to make a wish. This routine was familiar to them now. Every year, she would video call with a different type of cake, to make up for not being able to be there with him.

Harry closed his eyes, and made the same wish that he had been making for the last six years of his life. I wish you were mine. 

He opened his eyes and blew lightly towards the screen, her actions matching his as she blew out the candle in his place. She gave a little cheer afterwards, and the brightness of her eyes warmed him up all the way down to his toes, even through a phone screen. 

They talked for a while after that, catching up on each other’s lives and discussing the dates they would be able to meet up again. She hung up with a final ‘happy birthday, love you!’ and then he was left staring at his phone, a small smile still remaining on his face. I wish you were mine. 

And later, when he logged onto his twitter account and tweeted some certain song lyrics, he only cared about one person’s reaction out of millions. 

2018 - 24th birthday

“Hey. I’ve been looking for you.” 

Harry turned towards the kitchen door that led to the back garden, seeing her slide it close to make her way towards him.

“Just taking a breather, love.” he said, accepting his woolly coat that she handed him. “Thank you.”

“Didn’t want you to catch a cold.” She sat next to him on the wooden porch bench, wrapped up in her own fuzzy coat. There was another item in her hand, a thick, heavy looking box. 

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at it. 

“Oh, I came here to give it to you. Your final gift.” 

“Y/N.” he sighed. “The others were more than enough.” 

“I don’t think this even counts as my gift, honestly.” She grinned at the puzzled look on his face. “Just open it.” 

He did. Inside was a thick notebook, a scrapbook by the looks of it, that read ‘Happy Birthday Harry! - 2018’ 

He looked at her curiously, but she just smiled and told him to open it again. He turned to the first page, and ran his gaze across the page. His eyes widened in surprise. He quickly flipped a few pages to see that all of them had the same thing; printings. Printed screenshots from various social media platforms, of his fans wishing him a happy birthday. 

“I know you don’t use social media a lot these days.” she explained as he kept reading the tweets glued onto the scrapbook. “But you were trending on Twitter today, and yesterday too, lots of people wishing you a happy birthday and telling how much they loved you. I thought you might want to see it.”

He let out a watery laugh, not being able to tear his gaze away from the book in his hands. He couldn’t help the tears, not really. She had taken the time to print out lots and lots of tweets, instagram posts, everything; she had cut them and put them in this book and added little stickers in between with colorful doodles. And she had done it to carry his fans’ messages to him, she had basically hand-delivered their gifts of love to him.

“Thank you.” he breathed, his voice catching in his throat. “This is… I think this may be the best gift I’ve ever received.”

“Well, like I said, it’s not technically from me. I just put some tweets together, your fans are the ones who wrote them.” She paused, then added. “I just wanted you to see just how loved you are. By everyone. You have such a kind heart, and an amazing soul; all of these people are aware of it and they love you for it.” She tapped the book in his lap, emphasising her words. 

“Thank you.” he repeated himself, seemingly at a loss for words. He closed the book and carefully put it back in its box, intending to read everything in it later. He placed it beside him, then turned to her and pulled her in a hug. 

Her arms were around him in a second, not hesitating to tighten around him and pull him closer. She was so warm even in the cold weather, and she smelled so nice, and he wouldn’t be able to pull back if he tried. He didn’t know how long they sat there in each other's embrace, but when he felt her starting to lean back, something in him shifted. He turned his head towards her as she pulled away, so his cheek was softly grazing hers. She stilled a bit, looking into his eyes as if she was looking for something, then she closed her eyes and turned the rest of the way, her lips meeting his in a gentle kiss. 

His breath hitched in his throat as his lips slightly parted, a small gasp making its way out of them when he realized finally, finally he was kissing her. He was kissing Y/N. This was really happening.

He brought a hand up to gently cup her cheek, his thumb stroking her cheekbone as they kissed, probably the softest, the most incredible kiss of his life. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe how amazing she felt against him, how her hands in his hair felt just right, how warm her cheek was under his hand. 

But despite every bone in his body wanting to kiss her forever, he was the first one to pull away, because he just couldn’t keep it in anymore. “I wish you were mine.” 

“What?” she asked breathlessly, apparently still under the effect of their kiss.

“I wish you were mine.” he repeated. “That’s the wish I’ve made on every single birthday since I was sixteen. Everytime you looked at me and told me to make a wish, I was only able to think about how much I wanted to kiss you.” 

She stared at him with parted lips, looking into his eyes like she was trying to figure out if he was messing with him. She could only see love and admiration. 

“You’re an idiot, Harry Styles.” she breathed. Then, she cupped his face with her hands and kissed him again, and again, and again, and he felt like everything in his life was finally going to be okay. 

 some end notes: Sooo I’m sorry for the kind of shitty ending. It’s literally 3 am in Turkey rn and I have an early class but I just wanted to finish this quickly and post it before I went to bed. I haven’t written anything in months because I wasn’t 🌌feeling it🌌 so I basically bullied myself into writing this haha. This is my first posted Harry piece but there are a few other pieces I’ve been working on! (for months, literally. *sigh*)

~~

If you liked it, please feel free to reblog and leave a teeny tiny feedback! Writers really appreciate it!💜

[felassan]

DA4 Lead Producer Scylla Costa’s BIG Festival talk, “Challenges of Dragon Age production during the pandemic”, can currently be rewatched on YouTube here starting roughly at timestamp 8:57:02 after a lil presenter blurb/intro. It’s 1 hour long. When it was streamed live, there was an English translation ‘voiceover’. There isn’t in this vid, however I want to post the link for Portuguese speakers, and also it’s neat for everyone to be able to see all the slides he presented with for themselves in context.

I don’t know if an English-language version will get put up so I’m sharing the notes I took during the talk below, in case anyone’s interested and because I might as well since I wrote them. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

Edit: Found a place to re-watch the English version of the talk

(Quick note: I didn’t note down everything, mostly things that caught my interest, so this isn’t exhaustive, and when I was watching I was real tired, so pls bear that in mind and don’t take these notes as bullet-proof 100% accurate gospel or direct quotes. If you watched it and think I’ve written down something wrong/misunderstood, let me know and I’ll fix. Also if you’re a Portuguese speaker and I’ve gotten something incorrect or missed something important etc, again just let me know.) **

** Edit: I’ve now gone through my notes while watching the talk again. I’ve filled in some of the gaps (although they still don’t cover everything said) and so forth, and now I’m no longer worried about there being possible errors in this post.

-----

For some context, this slide contained the breakdown of the talk’s structure. Bear in mind there are other slides present in the talk than the ones I’ve posted here, I didn’t include caps of all of them, just ones which were of note to me.

In the talk, chief Producer Scylla goes over challenges of DA4 production during the pandemic. He discusses the adaptations - necessary skills and learning from remote work - and he ponders on the future of teamwork.

After the launch of ME3 he became a producer, all his MMO and other experience helped a lot. He was on DAI for 3 years and MEA for 9 months, then Anthem. Today, on DA4, Scylla and another Lead Producer were the heads of the whole project, and there is his boss is the Executive Producer Christian Dailey. 

^ the usual AAA game development cycle (brief introduction)

AAA games are games that are launched for several platforms simultaneously. 

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase of the game development cycle can have from 5 - 30 people, and up to almost 60 people when they’re just about to go through the gate to production. 

In the pre-production phase, they go through the game’s concepts and prototypes and start developing systems. They seek the game’s concept and focus, and its key features. They do lots of market research. In the case of BioWare, all their games are strong in narrative, so they have lots of tools related to game narratives and supporting the development of a narrative (cinematic design, dialogue system etc) that get focused on in this phase. Other parts of the team such as writers and cinematic design need these systems to do their own roles. 

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase through to launch can take 4 - 6 years, but it does depend on the size of the team during development.

With regards to Dragon Age 4, they were coming close to the time when they would shift from pre-production to the production stage when the pandemic hit.

During the production phase is when the development of content and features takes place, with the systems mostly already existing from the pre-production phase. A few new systems may be developed in this phase. In the production phase is when things start escalating, and the team really starts growing, to like 2- or 3-fold the prior pre-production phase size. 

(DA4 is currently in the production phase.)

In the alpha phase, features have to be fully implemented and systems all have to be running / working. All the game features should already be in the game by now. They test from pre-production onwards, but this phase is when they run heavy technical tests with lots of players trying to play at the same time. In the beta phase, the idea is that you should now have full content and that now you’re balancing it and running more and lots of different tests with players before launch. There are final tweaks and then the final launch, when in the weeks prior to launch, all the different business units and areas e.g. marketing team, technology team, publishing team, get together once a day and all of the game’s issues are reported and brought to the table to be prioritized. Then they decide the next steps re: these issues (this is known as ‘the war room’).

After the launch there are usually patches like day zero patches and other patches, this being standard industry practise. The last stage is the new content stage where there are DLCs and a game with more content.

On March 12th 2020, the team gathered to review the DA4 story in the new office. Everyone was very excited. (They had spent over 10 years in their last building and had noticed that with the team growing they needed more space. In August 2019 they found the new studio in the city center.)

Anyway that evening, they got an email from the CEO which contained instructions and said that due to the pandemic, they should from now all start working remotely. They had known that this happening was a possibility so they had been planning on how to have all the devs working from home, but initially less than 50% of the devs were able to work from home successfully/efficiently due to various issues e.g. you need a VPN to be able to log in remotely to do your job normally, varying home office setups. The day after this, the office was basically deserted, except for Scylla, the IT infrastructure people and one or two odd devs.

Scylla was part of the team that was working on allowing the devs to work from home. They first started looking at the short-term changes they needed to make to allow this.

“First, take care of our developers”. 

When the pandemic first hit, their and Scylla’s [as Lead Producer] first priority was to look after the devs. Many of them are parents (schools and day-cares were shut, children were studying from home), others have relatives living with them, others have other personal circumstances which of course need to be taken into account when it comes to assessing what needs to be taken into consideration for this new scenario. So, they looked at each dev on a case-by-case basis in order to evaluate, speaking to each one and asking them what they could do to support them.

One of the first changes/adaptations they could implement was flexible working hours and flexibility around deadlines. Generally speaking the devs got a lot of support, EA was really good and really supported the devs especially in the first months of the pandemic (and they are still supporting them). Initially not all devs had suitable office spaces at home, some were working from the living room from laptops or at the kitchen table. The whole covid situation basically just happened over night and nobody was really ready to deal with that change. So their first step was to enable their devs to work remotely. As a producer, Scylla’s main task is to communicate with the team such as via a number of daily meetings. He doesn’t depend so much on powerful hardware.

“Enable developers to work remotely”.

This slide shows some of a BioWare audio team. Different teams have varying and specific needs in order to do their jobs and therefore in order to do them remotely. For example, the audio team need good-quality speakers and amplifiers, while the lighting and art teams need other specific equipment such as tablets and large screens. So there was a lot of work they had to do to go through each dev to understand their individual needs and what needed to be done for them. ‘Could they download the builds? Did they have the right performance [tech-wise]? Could they submit their changelists, their codes to the server?’

Some devs needed a more powerful internet connection as it would take 6-8 hours to download a build (some devs live rurally). Some needed a lot of cable, as they were working far away from their routers (sometimes up to 50m). As time went by things got better and better. 

The chair devs work from is also important; a kitchen able chair etc is not suitable to sit in for long-term desk work, possibly leading to health issues like back ache and blood circulation problems in the legs.

Every 3 months they had money given to help devs buy new mice, keyboards, monitors - anything they needed really in order for their office setting at home to be improved. For a while, because lots of people [generally, in society] were needing and buying them, it was quite hard to buy things like webcams and microphones.

On mid- and long-term changes:

In terms of DA, we have to look at this from 2 perspectives, the change in the personal and the professional environments. 

As a consequence of working from home, people tend to be less active during the day (even in an office, you go between meeting rooms, up and down stairs etc). Physical activity supports life quality and therefore work quality. Scylla noticed that he began to feel listless and such, and found that he needed to change his routine that he had initially developed when he started working from home, for example; having a normal start time (as in, have a semblance of structure in your day as if you were still working in the office site), get dressed at the normal time, not having meetings over lunch etc. This wasn’t just him, lots of other devs encountered this and had this experience too. Devs which adapted faster had better productivity and became more productive faster.

Scylla bought a stand-up desk which he can raise up and down, and at meetings he would be delivering a talk while standing or even while walking on a treadmill. Other devs also got stand-up desks. He tracked his body’s data on a Fitbit. These sorts of things helped improve physical and mental wellbeing. Other devs did similar things, like starting going out for jogs or began practising yoga. Essentially, everyone needed to make changes to their daily routine in comparison to what they had been doing prior to the pandemic. 

The pandemic has been a thing for over a year now. In their location, every couple of weeks a new restriction is put into place or a rule is changed, and every two weeks there’s a new thing that you can and can’t do. Scylla also started moving around his property. He worked on his desk, fixed it up and painted - taking up a new hobby. Other devs picked up new hobbies too. These are good ways to be active and also to be somewhere else, i.e. to break up the working day and not be spending it all in one home office-type location. Scylla found that when he made these sorts of changes to his routine to improve his lifestyle, the data output by his Fitbit as indicators of his health/wellbeing etc improved, e.g. number of steps taken in a day, heartbeats per minute while at rest. As stated many of the other devs went through a similar process.

On the professional side of things:

They had to improve remote delivery of builds. Accessing things from home as a dev requires a VPN. They need to download a build every day and then upload it to the server after making their changes to the game. They had to work with infrastructure and research other tech, such as streaming tech to allow remote console access, in order to better facilitate this process. For remote access, they also had to work on adapting communications channels.

“Adapting channels of communication.”

In this slide, the team are working on the storyboards. Before you can implement motion capture & performance capture, you have to ‘run the storyboards’ like this. These are small illustrating drawings which reflect the drafts and are meant to quickly reflect the intention of the scenes that are to be built. Before the pandemic, the team would go to meeting rooms like this, sit down, talk and interact in person. After the pandemic, the question became ‘How do you do this over Zoom?’ You can, but it’s not quite the same; it’s harder to see peoples’ expressions, some people are embarrassed speaking over Zoom etc. Therefore they had to adapt their communications systems, and unlearn the ways in which they developed before in order to relearn and learn new ways of communicating.

Slack was a tool that they adopted on this front. Communications channels can be confusing on Slack, so there was a need to develop structure. For example, how quickly should someone reply (as a recommended convention for the purposes of work)? They had to define the process/procedures for the channels so it was clear for the team as a whole how it would all flow (this is important especially if you have a team with say 30 people or as a whole hundreds of people). Before the pandemic, they had stand-up meetings where they’d go around in a circle every morning and talk about their activities - what they’re going to be working on, any roadblocks they had encountered etc. The question arose ‘How do you replace these?’ They ended up doing Slack messages at a certain time of day and updating their statuses with some details on what they’re working on and color-coding (green - fine, yellow - need help, red - busy/blocked out).

Another issue that they faced was unforeseen - the number of meetings that devs were having really shot through the roof. When there wasn’t a good structure of communications channels, any conversation would become a meeting. Everybody began scheduling meetings left and right, and at the end of the day they would have little time left in which to actually work on their to-do lists. Hence, they had to work with the team to really analyze and be very pragmatic. ‘Which meetings needed to happen? Which didn’t? Is a specific meeting really necessary? Which meetings should be recurring? What can be done over Slack?’ This guideline had to be given to the team to help, and it improved things a lot. The number of meetings decreased a lot and they got more effective. For example, by making sure to set an agenda for meetings beforehand, and by having meeting notes (then a dev who didn’t really need to be at a meeting could skip attending and just quickly review the notes output after instead). They also decreased the standard length of meeting times from the default Outlook blocks of 1 hour and 30 mins to 55 mins and 25 mins respectively. This 5 minute change gave devs time for things like bio breaks (also 4 hours in a row at a computer in a home office with one meeting after another just isn’t good for a person).

“Adapting p-cap and mocap”.

On content:

From a content point of view, the most difficult thing in terms of the pandemic was adapting p-cap and mocap (performance capture and motion capture). They hire actors and it’s a large studio. The pandemic meant big limits to what they could and couldn’t do. The actors had to be masked and 5 meters apart in distance (although it doesn’t look like it in some of these shots due to angles). Also there could be no other person around in the studio - only the actors. The directors instead would ‘patch’ in remotely on big screens (you can see this in the second photo in the top right). 

Before the pandemic, they felt that they wouldn’t be able to do p-cap or mocap properly remotely, as the directors would usually stand right next to actors giving guidance on their performance. The techs would also usually be near. But they adapted! The keyword is adapting, changing process. It’s harder and it’s different, but it is possible, and people start rethinking what is possible. What was said to be impossible before now is possible.

P-cap differs to mocap in that it also captures voice and facial expressions.

On the future of work after covid:

There will probably be more working from home and more flexibility for workers e.g. being able to work say 3 out of 5 days from home. It does depend on what a dev’s specific job is however. For example, the audio engineers require lots of specialist equipment and said equipment is of higher quality and quantity in the office. So, depending on role, devs might be working more often or less often from home.

Another development is that lots of devs are moving house. In lockdown etc people started reassessing what’s most important in life. Some are moving further away from the studio to get a cheaper rent or for example couples who both needed an office space to work from home from but their current place only had one area. Others are moving closer to nature for a better quality of life, and still others have other different reasons for doing so. Over 10 devs that he knows in fact have recently moved, including Scylla himself.

The pandemic changed certain skills being used by people on a daily basis. Scylla used as an example of this one of his soft skills, being able to tell from looking/interacting in-person with someone if they are stressed out. Obviously it’s less easy to tell if someone is stressed out when you’re remote, so you adapt different ways of checking in with people in the new situation. To continue carrying out his role as Lead Producer, he began checking in with his team pro-actively on the new comms channels and asking how they were doing.

Also, now that companies are more open to working remotely, there is going to be increased competition for hiring devs. They saw both sides of this coin at BioWare. They were able to hire devs from many places that they couldn’t hire from before e.g. Montreal, Vancouver, the US, as there’s less need for devs to relocate to Edmonton or Austin. This opens up opportunities to hire really intelligent and skilled people that they would not have had access to before.

Question and answer segment:

The pre-production phase has been concluded. They’re in the production phase.

They are not giving out a lot of details yet but Scylla is really excited as a big fan of the whole series. He thinks that with DA4, they will have the opportunity/possibility to launch the best story out of all DA games. He feels that the characters they’re making are amazing. He’s dying to say more but can’t. 

When you work from home you need to keep your team as productive as possible. During the pandemic, when people started working from home, they noticed that some people became more productive and some people became less productive. They were analyzing it on a case-by-case basis so as not to make assumptions. They were interested in seeing what they could do to help. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were looking at the devs as people and seeing what they needed.

Production of DA4 still needed to continue during the pandemic because they want to be able to launch the game.

This slide shows a writer. Writing is an example of a role which is more able to work from home easily.

Their productivity did go down in the first month of the pandemic. After adaptations, some people then became more productive than they were before (this was role and personal situation-dependent, examples of this being artists and coders who were able to art and code at home without being interrupted, thereby being able to produce more). Covid has affected productivity in general, but this is part of our new reality. They have adapted and adjusted some deadlines. They have enough data (Scylla LOVES data) now to understand how long it will take them/how long they’ll need to launch the game. They have always had historical data for this purpose, but they’re doing more of this sort of thing now to ensure that they are doing things at the right time.

Remote hiring opens up the door to more talent joining, so if someone has talent geography will hold them back less. Some companies though may choose not to hire people from other countries due to labor issues, cumbersome legal aspects, time zones. But even in such cases there are activities for example that can be carried out while the rest of the team is asleep such as testing or working on the build, or there are cases where those companies still will want to hire a specifically/highly talented person even in spite of the potential legal aspects and so on.

On mental health: People were affected. There is the mental, physical and social impacts of the pandemic situation on people. EA supported them during the pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing, there are specific companies (services offered, speaking to a therapist) that they can contact if they need something or help. EA had always been good at supporting them with this sort of thing but this has improved further during the pandemic. Another change was that they could/can take a couple of days off if they needed/need to because of the pandemic e.g. to take care of children, who were obviously not at school at the time. As a producer he had to be very mindful of all of this. How much they were monitoring peoples’ wellbeing really went up during the pandemic.

A question that was asked - in terms of DA4′s storybeats, is there anything in there that they decided to change due to the pandemic as it wouldn’t be sensitive or appropriate to include anymore, for example a plague plotline or something? Scylla’s answer is that DA and ME are games in which they try to have narratives that are relatable, which include things which people will identify with, so that players understand what characters are going through etc. Nothing in DA4′s plotline/storybeats has been changed (in the frame of this question, relating to the pandemic), as it didn’t have anything in it that could be specifically or a directly connected to a pandemic-type situation or anything. Of course the DA story has Blights and the Taint, but these are different & fantastical things and existed long before the pandemic situation. So this wasn’t the case with DA4 and there was no need to change anything, but this has happened to other games where they decided to change a storyline due to a strong correlation with something in the real world.

There were then concluding/closing remarks. The message he wants to send is that a crisis will always spark opportunities. Look at a crisis and try to see how you can grow.

-----

[☕ found this post interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[theunchainedmelody]

Vanessa x Yami One-Shot

So... I got sick and tired of the lack of attention this rare pair gets so I wrote a one-shot for it. WARNING: This Story is VERY, VERY ADULT AND LEMONY. Also, it’s probably not the most feministic writing. So I apologize if any of it offends people as I was writing it for myself and it’s not my intention to be problematic. If you want to support me, leave a comment here or leave a review at https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13905101/1/Witch-s-Lust-The-Seduction-of-Captain-Yami

"Witch's Lust" The Seduction of Captain Yami

The rose-haired witch was staring intently at a bottle of wine standing criminally unopened in front of her. As she wondered whether to uncork it, she swirled around her wine glass, of which, now only a small burgundy pool at the glasses' bottom remained. Her velvet glove slid around the glass's stem as her mind drifted off. Vanessa Enoteca had been drunk for most of the day and was now suffering through the remnants of a hangover. She rested in her lingerie, happily presenting to the men in the room as she lay sprawled out on a sofa in the main room. Here, most of her squad was gathered, engaging in all sorts of merrymaking and violent duels. This company was spread out through a fireplace-lit chamber filled with sofas, dining tables, and tapestries.

The sound of Magna and Luck engaged in a magical battle was ringing in her ears. It was almost as loud as their voices as they quarreled. Vanessa let out a sigh as she half-regretted her choice to drink so early in the day. Just this once, perhaps she should have taken her day off to go and meet some dreamy man. Yet in the end, it was easier to stay here and lazily lounge about the mansion. That was when she heard her beloved captain come marching into the main room. The stomping of his boots alerted her to his presence as he marched in with his usual swagger. Her eyes wandered to Captain Yami as he looked over the Black Bulls. For some reason, she felt a bit pained seeing him. It was not as if she adored him any less, but from what she had gathered, he had met with the Blue Rose's captain Charlotte several times recently for some sort of secret missions. As Charlotte's crush on him was obvious, the entire situation made Vanessa uncomfortable. She was not so naïve as to be clueless about why she felt this way. She had a crush on him herself, perhaps even something akin to love. Unfortunately, Vanessa was too lazy to do anything about it. She sometimes casually flirted with Captain Yami or even the other men in the Black Bulls. With Captain Yami, it had never led anywhere as he never seemed to care about her playful confessions or flirtations.

In any case, her drunken gaze ate the eye candy in front of her. Yami was so incredibly handsome it should have been illegal. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with messy black hair, a bit of stubble, and a cigarette in his mouth. His rugged, virile masculinity was always pouring out, most evident in how his muscular pecs looked painted on upon his sleeveless white shirt. This was to say nothing about his incredible height, his muscular shoulders and biceps, those veiny forearms, and his handsome, rugged face. His sexiness further oozed out in how he carried himself, with a macho, laid-back attitude containing a sharp, fighting spirit. She certainly wasn't the first woman to think so about him and she doubted she was the last.

She heard Yami say in his deep baritone, "Alright. Listen up. We've got a mission. Some new bandit gang has been assaulting one of the big-time merchants and the nobles want us for an armed guard. I'm sending two of you out on this."

Once the members began to scramble for his attention as they always did, Vanessa found herself unable to understand a single sentence between them. Everyone was raising their hands frantically and shouting in unison. It served to heighten the sharp pain from her hangover. She moved over to the table with a bottle in hand, wanting to sit closer to the captain in case he chose her for this mission. However, she had an intuitive feeling he wasn't going to. For some reason, Vanessa felt less playful and jubilee than she would have expected. After all, she was infamous for being a lighthearted party girl, especially after drinking down a few glasses of wine.

Magna said, "Come on, Captain! I'm the man for the job. I haven't busted skulls in ages"

Yami said to Magna, "No way. You hit the last merchant we guarded over the head when he insulted you!"

When Finral offered his services for the chance to speak to the female merchants, the Captain answered with, "No way. If you're just going to flirt with the female merchants, you might as well stay home then."

It was the same response for Asta, Charmy, and Grey. He then looked over to Vanessa, sitting attentively at the table beside him. She pointed to herself with a rather humble look, the captain being the only man she'd ever act so meek around.

She said quietly, "I suppose the same goes for me since I'm always drunk?"

Yami's arms crossed and he said, "You're no use to us when you're all tipsy."

Vanessa's eyes lowered and she said, "Ah. I'm very sorry, boss."

Like all the Black Bulls, she admired him and fought for his affection. Still, she felt a bit sadder at his remark than she usually would. What had gotten into her?

That was when her Captain added, "But when you're sober, I'd say the opposite. You tend to have a level head. You're the most reliable one here."

His praise warmed her heart. She couldn't help but blush and beam happily up at him.

"Ah. Thank you, Captain" she said.

Despite this compliment, Yami didn't pick her on account of her hangover. Instead, he opted to send Noelle and Gordon on the uneventful mission.

______________________________________________________________

One month later….

Vanessa, Asta, Charmy, and Yami were all out on yet another mission. It was a busy week for the Black Bulls. Vanessa found herself hoping she would get a star accolade if she performed well enough. It wasn't like her to much care for such things but lately, Asta had been something of a motivation for her, as he was for all the Black Bulls. As Asta and Charmy were asleep in the spacious squad tent, Vanessa found herself alone with Captain Yami. It was rare to have this man alone to herself like this, and so she was quite enjoying it. The pink-haired witch felt more like herself tonight, perhaps thrilled because she got picked to go with Yami on missions several times lately. She had been able to show off her red thread of fate and the samurai even complimented her!

At the moment, Vanessa was drinking down more alcohol as Yami sat on a separate log to her left while smoking a fresh cigarette. She smacked her lips happily as she finished a sip of booze. She was a bit tipsy, albeit not fully inebriated, as they were still on a mission, and she needed to stay alert.

Yami said quietly, "Oi. Don't get drunk now."

"Aye aye, Captain," she said with a playful salute.

Vanessa showed her obedience by corking up the bottle. That was when she saw Yami gazing up at the starry sky, admiring the dazzling canvas of stars, planets, and galaxies that enveloped the heavens above them. She smiled at seeing the captain unusually lost in thought. Normally, he didn't seem to be thinking of much at all. She didn't consider him stupid, but he was a simple, honest individual. Vanessa didn't dislike that in a man. Yami was her type after all. Perhaps it was because he was her first encounter with a man, but he remained the golden standard. Just like back then, she continued to love his broad manly frame. She remembered the day he broke into her birdcage. It stirred something within her when she had him so close to her, an overdue awakening for her as a heterosexual woman. And now, she had Captain Yami to compare every other man to in her endeavors. She was happy to sleep with attractive gentlemen now and then, whether they be pretty boys or hunks, but the captain would always be the prize.

Vanessa giggled a bit as she remembered that nostalgic first meeting. She thought of it often, ever since her last encounter with the Witch Queen. That destined day, Yami showed her she could walk on her own two feet. What Vanessa now valued above all else was freedom. The freedom to enjoy all the pleasures she desired. The freedom to fight for her friends. The freedom to grow stronger. The freedom to seek a happy ending and rewrite her fate. In the end, she always did what she wanted. Even her loyalty to the Black Bulls was something she had chosen willingly. Her loyalty to this man was entirely her choice.

Now, as Vanessa looked over to Yami, she realized how comfortable she felt around him. Even so, this was not to say he didn't get her heart racing the closer he was to her face. She often found her heart beating madly when he was beside her. However, as he blew out a puff of smoke and paid her no attention, that was when it struck her…. the danger of being so casual with the captain. Likely, Yami saw Vanessa as no more than a little sister. Her heart raced when around him, but his heart did not race when around her. It was then that an even more disconcerting thought entered her mind.

In that moment, what WAS he thinking about?

Perhaps…

Perhaps he was thinking of another woman…

The witch shook away the infantile thought. Whether he was thinking of Charlotte or some other inane topic, one thing was for certain: Vanessa was not on his mind. Never once, had he showed an ounce of attraction or interest in her. The witch's eyes became sad. Her eyes darted over to the far-off tents. They were still zipped closed, meaning it was unlikely anyone would hear what she wished to ask him. And so, Vanessa finally decided to ask him the million-dollar question.

"Hey Captain, I heard you've been doing missions with the Blue Rose's captain. You're not getting a crush on her, are you? Those Blue Roses don't seem friendly to men. Haha."

Yami stared at her unamused and she regretted her lighthearted jabs. Of course, she was prying for information but this all left her feeling like an idiot.

At last, Yami asked, "Hmmm? Who told you that?"

Vanessa jabbed further and said, "I heard from a little birdie that you said she and you can get married when you are both old and alone. I'm so jealous. Charlotte's a lucky lady. Fufufu."

Yami again stared at her blankly, not flustered in the least.

He said, "I was mostly joking. Even if she has a crush, she doesn't say much."

Vanessa felt a bit of relief at his responses, but they were still far too ambiguous. She decided she needed to be absolutely sure of the situation. As such, she decided to risk her own attempts to woo him by saying, "Is that so? I thought she was your type. You like strong women and she's a captain. And she's ranked first in looks according to the Magic Knight's survey. But I suppose I was mistaken. You're such a hard man to read. Heh heh."

Propping up Charlotte hurt terribly, but Vanessa had to bear with it.

Yami rubbed the back of his thick, dark hair a bit awkwardly and said, "I'm not sure what to say. I haven't thought about any of that seriously. I'm not looking to date her or something. My love is battle, booze, and sword. And I'm busy looking after you brats."

He flashed a cheeky smile at her. Vanessa couldn't help but smile in response. He hadn't said he was uninterested in Charlotte, but it seemed that interest wasn't serious. And if it was, he wasn't going to make any moves within the next century or so. She decided to not pry further lest she expose her jealousy. Instead, she put a gloved hand to her cheek and smiled lazily. Honestly, she was impressed she had managed to get him to speak so much about his emotions and thoughts. Yami rarely opened up about anything. It seemed there was some depth to him he was hiding, much as she had suspected for many a years. Just as she was ready to return to sipping her glass of wine, Captain Yami added one last comment that would shatter everything.

"And besides," said Yami, "I don't know what's up with this bullshit survey you're talking about, but I honestly figured you'd be ranked first. Men are always looking at you starry-eyed, right?"

Suddenly, her cheeks were burning red. He had never complimented her looks before, even if his wording was a bit indirect. Again, she decided to test the boundaries of their relationship to see if she could hear the words she wanted so desperately for him to say.

"Oh?" asked Vanessa playfully, "Captain, you're making me blush. But there's no need to try and cheer me up. I placed fourth. I couldn't be happier."

She wasn't.

Vanessa had placed fourth because she was lacking in feminine charms, appeal, and a sense of propriety. This was not to say she was terribly insecure about it. She was far from desperate for male validation, even if she enjoyed the attention. Even Yami's affection was something she could live without. But right now, she started to doubt that last part. It was frustrating to know she didn't have a chance in winning him over. The sinful witch's advances on the captain couldn't compete with what a pure maiden like Charlotte could offer him. Her love was inferior and she was undesirable as a romantic partner. Men were happy to bed her, but she'd never gotten a confession in her life. And so, in this moment, she simply waited for the captain to shoot her down. It wouldn't be the first time he ignored her flirtations. It was her destiny to lose in the battlefield that was love.

"I wasn't trying to cheer you up," Captain Yami answered, "I was just telling the truth."

His tone was rather stern. Vanessa was both flattered and a bit afraid to see Yami's grave tone of voice aimed at her. Had she teased him too much? She didn't want him mad at her. Vanessa couldn't stand the thought of upsetting or disappointing Yami.

He continued in a casual tone of voice, "Don't worry about some shitty poll. Everyone knows that the most beautiful witch in the Magic Knights is the Black Bull's 'Lush of a Witch'. That's obvious, isn't it?"

Vanessa couldn't help but blush furiously. Her hands clenched together as she felt utterly embarrassed. She hoped he didn't realize just how flustered she was. Never in a million years did she expect to get this compliment from him. He saw her platonically, right? But his comment, while not particularly sexual, seemed a bit personal, didn't it? He was saying HE found her the most beautiful, right? She wondered if she should play it off with a tease, but decided yet again, to push her luck. Just maybe, she could change her fate tonight.

"Oh my, Captain," she said with a playful hand to her cheek, "You think I'm the most beautiful?"

She swore she saw Yami get flustered for once in his life. Not red in the cheeks but just a bit hesitant to answer. He then took in another breath of tobacco and sent a cloud pouring out from between his lips. He played it cool, as always.

He said slowly, "I said that, right? But don't push your luck and get a big head. You're part of my squad because of your abilities, not your looks. Save those worries for when you're off-duty, Vanessa."

"Of course, Captain," she was with heated cheeks, "I'm flattered you think so."

Vanessa was positively ecstatic now. Sure, he didn't have feelings for her, but if he found her attractive, that was a good start. In a way, his chivalry made her love him even more. He honestly respected her enough to not take advantage of her. He also respected her abilities as a mage, as a member of the Black Bulls. Perhaps she even met his qualifications for a strong woman. Even if she was not a frontline fighter, she was a competent witch who had won her fair share of battles. The lustful witch, with her insatiable thirst for the opposite sex, decided to risk it all for this man. And so, she sought to seduce her beloved captain. The ultimate prey.

______________________________________________________________

Later that night…

Crickets and frogs in some far-off bog kept the silence between them from being wholly unbearable. After another several minutes, Vanessa stood up and brought her bottle over to beside Captain Yami. For a moment, she was frozen behind him, staring down in petrification. Her mind momentarily froze as she wondered what to do next. Vanessa was sweating. What had gotten into her? She never froze, even in the company of a particularly gorgeous man. But this was Captain Yami we are talking about!

Just as Yami was about to ask what was up with her, the scarlet-haired witch sat herself down beside him on the log.

"Want a drink, Captain?" she asked playfully.

"Eh? Alright," he said casually.

He drank from her wine bottle and she took a swig herself. She truly wasn't like Charlotte, blushing from indirect kisses from Yami. She was just herself… Vanessa. And either he liked these parts of Vanessa or he didn't. In any case, Vanessa wasn't going to wait timidly any longer like her rival. Besides, Captain Yami would never make the first move. She'd never even see him with a woman before. She wondered why that was. Vanessa decided to learn where she stood in all of this, or rather to wrap her red thread of fate around him. Only this thread didn't require Rogue, only her womanly charms.

Vanessa slid her gloved hand behind his muscular arm and looped her arms around it until she had him wrapped in a loving embrace. He gazed over at her with a raised eyebrow. She placed her head on his shoulder. He didn't recoil or pull away. Even so, her actions could be mistaken for one of her casual flirtations, especially after the nice things he had said. She'd never gone further with him than this. It was time to cross the line!

Enoteca released her grip on his bulging arm muscles and placed her hand on his pec. It was so firm, ready to burst out of his shirt. It drove her mad with desire. She let her hand cling to his chest as she began to rest her cheek on his shoulder. There was no denying what she was trying to do, right?

"Hmm? What are you trying to do?" he asked blankly.

She said in a soft voice, "Captain, you must know I've got a huge crush on you. I've had one since you rescued me from that birdcage."

She lovingly stroked his pec and let her hands rub on the tree-trunk limbs he called arms. He stared forward like before, but she could feel it. His heartbeat was increasing.

Yami said calmly, "You know we can't. I'm your captain. I can't abuse that power."

Vanessa said, "What if I want it? If the sex or dating doesn't work out, we can just go back to how it was before."

Yami replied, "We can't go back, Vanessa. You're my beloved subordinate. I care about you. You should find a good, honest man to take care of you."

She exclaimed passionately, "Captain, you're the man I love! Only you."

She swore that for a moment, Yami flashed her the slightest hint of a blush.

"You're drunk," he said.

"Captain, you're so mean," she whined in a girly voice, "Just reject me outright. Say if you don't want me. For a man of few words, you sure dance around things."

Yami rubbed the back of his hair and said, "Want has nothing to do with it. I'm your captain. There are boundaries we can't cross."

Vanessa asked slyly, "So if I wasn't your underling… Are you saying you would?"

He didn't answer.

She leaned up to his ear and began to speak in her most erotic voice, "If I was in a different squad, would you get excited if you saw me in this outfit or in nothing but my lingerie laying on your bed? Waiting for it? Begging for it?"

He seemed frustrated now and rubbed his head as he said, "You look sexy as hell all the time. In your panties or your uniform. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Mmm-hmm," she said as she leaned up and kissed Yami on the lips. She put her hands on each side of his face as she pressed her lips against his. She was kissing her beloved captain. Vanessa felt his cheeks heat up even as he kept eye contact. She decided to do the same and give him "fuck me" eyes as she tasted his lips. At last, he kissed back.

"Mwuah," she said as they smooched.

Her heart was racing and her body was warm with fever.

"If you don't tell me to stop," she said in a breathy voice, "I might just go all the way, Captain. Fufufufu."

She giggled as her hands now roamed down his neck, laying loving kisses upon it. She tugged on his ear with her teeth like a predator tasting its meal. This man could break her in his arms, but right now, he seemed to have turned into jelly before her. Her hands wickedly fondled his muscles and ran across his delectable collarbones. She let her lips leave nude-pink lipstick kisses on his white t-shirt. Vanessa then traced her fingers over his abdominal muscles as she slid down and got onto her knees, a position she only took when devouring a man. She let her hand wrap around his bulge, and to her delight, her beloved captain seemed to be stiffening up. But she needed to truly impress Yami if she was to make him go absolutely wild for her. For that, she would use her man-pleasing skills until he was unable to think of any other woman than her.

"Wait," said Yami, "Those brats will see."

Are you getting flustered, Captain? How cute.

Vanessa said, "Then you better not moan too loud for me, Captain."

She was disobeying him. It was exciting to finally get what she wanted with the captain. However, she decided to pause a moment. Despite her desire to seduce him, she wanted his consent in all of this. And so she remained between his legs, dangerously close to his crotch as she gazed up at him patiently, awaiting those magic words. If he wanted her to stop, he merely needed to say so.

At last, he whispered, "Fine. But keep your voice down."

The witch sported a wicked smile. She slid down his pants and smirked at the sight of his fundoshi. She then slid aside his loincloth as her eyes widened.

This is Captain Yami's… cock

Vanessa licked her lips excitedly at the delectable sight in front of her. She hoped she wouldn't drool as anticipation left her starved for him. Her captain was well-hung indeed. She couldn't wait to kiss it. To taste it. To suck on it. To lick it. To swallow it. For it to stuff her full. Instinctively, she moaned as she slid her tongue on the underside of the shaft. She was already wet just from a taste of the erotic cock before her. It was almost instinctive how she devoured it hungrily. However, his veiny member wasn't yet at its most magnificent. Vanessa began to play with it in her skillful hand, rubbing her thumb over the bulbous head as she pulled back his foreskin. She then swirled her tongue around the glistening tip of Yami's throbbing erection. He was erect for her! She had succeeded in turning him on. She looked up to see Yami was panting a bit now. Inside, his rigid emotions were shattering.

He thought, "Damn. She's good at this. How many men has she done this with?"

The sight of Yami's ever-growing lust for her turned the witch on to no end. As did the taboo of sucking her captain's cock, a man who was practically family to her and the Black Bulls. There was also the thrill of getting caught. Vanessa did enjoy the idea of another man watching, but she knew if her comrades woke up, it was over. Even so, she wanted to make him moan and growl for her. She tasted his delicious manhood before wrapping her lips lovingly around the thick head and tasted his sticky precum. She then lay kisses down the underside until she reached her captain's balls, both of which were brimming with semen meant to impregnate her. She licked each testicle and wrapped her lips around them lovingly, sucking on them gently. Vanessa played with his balls in one hand now as she returned to his monstrous penis. Something so big… She would surely choke on it and it was sure to break her. Even so, she couldn't wait to find out if it would fit inside her womanhood. She decided to show him just how good she was at pleasing a man. She took his dick into her mouth and laid it on her tongue. She then sunk downward and let his shaft slide down her throat. The lustful witch was deepthroating her captain's entire cock, the man she was smitten with! It was like a dream come true for her. Vanessa couldn't help but moan as she took him in inch by inch until she swallowed him down to the base. She left his veiny dick covered in a wet froth of saliva. Her eyes were heavy with a fever for his manhood, and she let her finger rub against her clit. Without a doubt, this was the hottest blowjob she had ever given.

At last, Vanessa released his shaft from her mouth and asked him in her sultriest voice, "How does it feel? I'm quite proud of my blowjob skills."

He said both angrily and weakly, "Damn it. I'm going to lose it if you keep doing that."

"Then lose yourself to it, Captain!"

Vanessa slurped and tasted it hungrily before deepthroating the entire shaft once more. She was bobbing her head now. She could already tell the captain's manhood was throbbing and ready to burst. She giggled, somehow knowing he was not used to climaxing so soon. Unfortunately for him, there was dark witchcraft at work here. This witch's lascivious tongue was trying to drain him. She was kissing the head of it when she suddenly felt Yami's powerful hand wrap around her head. The young woman blushed as the muscular man forced her down onto his massive girth.

"Mmmmph!" she moaned both in surprise and in arousal.

She choked on it a bit as he handled her so roughly.

"S-Sorry," he said, "I lost control."

Vanessa giggled as she resumed her work and let him hold her against his crotch, making her worship it. He tasted utterly amazing. She licked his manhood lovingly now until it was left twitching and sensitive. As Yami began to rub her hair warmly, she let her tongue swirl around the head again. At last, she saw his dick twitch madly and the captain's teeth smashed together before he let out a growl. The untamed muscles of his body tightened, and his legs jerked forward violently.

"Fuck," he groaned, "Uggh….:"

Again, he forced her to swallow his cock as he climaxed. She lovingly took in every drop of this man's thick, fertile seed. The taste was salty and masculine. It bubbled as she drank it down, much of it getting stuck on the walls of her throat. Vanessa took down every drop for him, showing off the indisputable fact that she was a swallower, not a spitter.

"Mmmmn" she let out amidst licking her lips, "How was that?"

Yami said, "I doubt anyone can compete with that, Vanessa."

She loved when he said her name.

Her captain thought silently to himself as he recovered, "That's enough though. We can't go any further."

Vanessa said," Ooh. I got so horny, sucking your cock, Captain. Let's go all the way. Why don't you bend me over and have your way with me?"

Her words put an even more powerful hex on him, luring one of the most powerful captains in the Clover Kingdom into her trap. Yami grit his teeth again, looking like he was struggling to choose between a life and death choice on a hellish battlefield. But Vanessa already knew she had won. He then sighed as he regained control of himself… somewhat at least.

He answered flatly, "Not here. Let's go somewhere more private."

______________________________________________________________

Vanessa clung happily to her captain's arm as they made their way deeper into the forest. Around them, the air was growing cooler and the sound of nocturnal creatures deafened their ears. Once the tent was well out of sight, Yami brought Vanessa to a thicket of trees with a small grassy clearing on the other side. A fine choice. The wizard then pulled up her against him, his arms wrapping around her. It left her blushing and made her heart skip a beat. Her brain struggled to process that she was sharing such a romantic moment with such an aloof man as Captain Yami. His powerful hands slid down to her burgundy miniskirt, and he let his rough, calloused fingers feel her soft thighs.

He said, "You're always flaunting your body in this skimpy outfit, trying to get a rise out of men. Trying to get a rise out of me."

"Fufufu," she said, "That's right. Looks like I finally caught a good one."

She pulled down her corset dress and let her massive melons slip out. Her Captain Yami didn't waste any time in enjoying her chest. He began to press his handsome face into her cleavage, tickling her with inviting hot breaths upon her bare skin. Vanessa giggled, never expecting to see this side of her beloved leader. She let him take a nipple into his mouth and suckle on it fiercely as if searching for milk. His tongue was swirling around it as his sword-wielding hand sunk into her other breast. She panted and moaned, her breasts feeling all manner of pleasure from this man.

Once her nipples were left glistening with saliva, Vanessa guided Yami towards a large tree trunk behind him. She sat him down so his back rested against it as she began to kiss him again. She then grinned and blushed madly as she felt him lift up her skirt and slide down her purple panties. His forceful hands wrapped around her large round ass and sunk deep into it. Vanessa arched her back and moaned shamelessly as she felt him strike it with one of his burly hands. Her butt stung in the most delightful way as her captain marked her as his woman, leaving her rump stinging and a man's handprint temporarily tattooed upon it. He now spun her around so he could let his hands explore her from behind. Vanessa panted and squirmed as he gave into his pent-up desires. His hands fondled her breasts roughly from behind and sunk into them greedily as he nibbled on her ear, his teeth tugging on it gently. What a tease he was… She couldn't resist letting out another moan of approval. Yami let a hot puff of air linger in her ear, as if he were a hungry wolf about to devour her. His hand now slid down to her legs. She felt him slide a powerful index finger down to her womanhood. He played with the nub there, sending maddening pleasure up her body. Vanessa squealed in his embrace. His hairy arms were bulging and his veins were throbbing as he held her against him, exploring her body however he wished.

He said heatedly, "Your body is insane."

She panted, "Ooh. You're the … mmnn… one who looks built for breeding me."

He said sinfully in her ear, "What a coincidence, you look built for being bred."

His words were utterly arousing to her. Did he really just say such a thing? He wasn't usually like this. Was he drunker than he appeared? Vanessa wasn't sure of what the answer might be, but he was saying all the right things. Usually, she relied on a few words of praise from Yami each month, but today he was making her feel like a queen, even as he handled her so roughly. His fingers now slid into her lower lips of which were soaking wet. She panted as she leaked out fluids in response to his skillful finger. A second digit slipped into her womanhood and together both fingers began to thrust into her like a dick. After several minutes of being fingered and having her breasts fondled, the man-loving witch splashed out her juices for him. However, like Yami, she was far from winded. His teasing had only made her more desperate to push these boundaries past the point of no return. As he continued to play with her clit, Vanessa moaned out her true desire.

"Oh fuck, Captain," she said as she panted madly, "I want it. I want your cock. I want you to impregnate me! Mmmmnn."

Yami said, "Alright then. Bend over."

Vanessa grinned happily and obeyed him. Despite how weak her legs were after being pleasured by the samurai's ruthless hands, she perfectly balanced herself on her high heels. Vanessa bent over with her hands pressed against the tree's lengthy trunk as she presented her ass to him. Her garters dug into her flesh as she did. She panted and as she felt Yami's hot shaft land directly on her ass cheeks. He was driving her crazy! She found herself desperate to be fucked by him as if she were in heat during mating season.

"Ooh don't tease me, Captain," she said with a manic look in her eye.

He said, "Vanessa… Sorry. I don't think I'll be able to control myself."

"Don't hold back," she said, "Let out all your pent-up frustration… Unleash all your lust onto me."

He said, "Have it your way. You're the one that caused this so hurry up and take responsibility."

The witch panted as she felt Yami's shaft begin to force its way into her and spread her wide. He was stuffing her full and splitting her apart. He was utterly massive and just the feeling of it remaining inside her was driving her mad. Vanessa then felt his boiling-hot hands grab her ass as he withdrew. Immediately, he speared her deep and fast as he swung forward his muscular hips. His hard muscles crashed into her soft flesh. The clap of his testicles to her butt echoed through the forest. Yami seemed mesmerized by how her butt jiggled with his thrusts and so he struck both pale cheeks with his palm. The succubus witch moaned with every blow as he increased the speed of his thrusts. He suddenly grabbed her by the wrists and pulled them back beside her hips. Her captain was having his way with her! His thrusts became ferocious, like that of a bucking bronco. He slammed into her and impaled her deep, spearing her with every inch of his veiny rod. It sent a shock up her spine. She looked back to see the dashing ronin panting madly, baring his fangs to her like a feral beast. His handsome face was red and glistened with sweat. As he overheated, Yami gave her quite the show as he pulled off his shirt and revealed his glistening, glorious chest. His pecs and chiseled abs were practically oiled with sweat as he continued to thrust into her. His cock was already throbbing as it rammed in deep.

Her captain said, "Damn. I'm going to cum. Where do you want it?"

She panted as she frantically said, "Inside!"

"Suit yourself, witch," he answered.

As he poured into her, she heard him growl like a ferocious beast. He arched his back and tightened his grip on her wrists as he shoved his manhood in deep again and unloaded fertile seed into her womb. Venessa's tongue hung out as she moaned from feeling him froth within her. She knew she would need to buy an emergency pregnancy-control charm the next morning. A thick load like this was dangerous for her. And yet it drove her mad as he kept dragging back his hips and snapping forward into her, so desperate to impregnate her. Not a moment later, she climaxed again. She arched her back as her juices splashed out of her and his seed poured deep in.

In the heat of the moment, Vanessa cried out, "Captain, I've always loved you! Aaaahnn!"

Yami said, "That's playing dirty, you troublesome woman… Fuck!"

He grit his teeth angrily as his body began to tremble. His powerful eyes weakened and his face was red from blushing. For them both, it felt as if his virile semen would never stop filling her. As Yami pulled out, one last shot escaped him and splashed onto her ass and clothes. Vanessa was marked by the erotic scent of her mate. Yami panted now over her as his muscled tightened and relaxed with every breath.

"Oooh…" said Vanessa, feeling his load gush out of her.

She then looked back at her beloved captain. To her amusement, he was still rearing to go. She licked her lips and rubbed her butt against his manhood playfully, threatening to make it slip into either of her holes.

"Shall we continue until you are spent?" she asked playfully.

Yami panted and took out a cigarette, lighting a fresh smoke.

He muttered something that sounded like, "Insatiable woman."

That night they did it in every position imaginable. From behind. Missionary. Cowgirl. Vanessa even begged him until he dicked her asshole. As morning arose, she and her captain were left utterly exhausted. He was completely spent and her clothes were stained with the gift of her darling Captain's essence, the fruits of their lovemaking. Yami now tenderly held her slender wrist in his mighty grip, holding her close to him. His broad-shouldered body welcomed her into rest. Vanessa leaned up and planted another kiss on his lips. He did not resist as their lips crashed against one another. After such a hedonistic encounter, Vanessa was surprised the night ended so softly. Yet she would not complain. A romantic embrace with her captain was equally welcome.

As they heard Asta and Charmy begin to stir back at the camp, Vanessa and Yami immediately sprung to their feet in a panic. Suddenly, all the risks and consequences of their lustful endeavor returned to them.

Yami said, "Let's run for the river. We'll pretend we fell in boar shit or something."

Vanessa said, "Oh? I was going to brag to the other Black Bulls. Mission success! I seduced the captain!"

Yami said humorlessly, "You're mad, woman. Absolutely not. You're definitely joking, but don't forget, you and I will be in hot water with the higher-ups if I'm caught fraternizing with a subordinate."

Vanessa said, "Ah. I'm sorry about that."

He then put a hand on her head and let it ruffle through her pink locks. She couldn't help but blush the same as always. Anytime he doted on her, she was extremely happy.

He said, "So I'm saying it's best you keep this between us for now. Is that clear?"

"Aye aye, Sir," she said with a professional salute.

He then sighed again and for a moment, she saw a genuine smile upon his face.

Jeez. Just when I thought he couldn't get any more handsome.

Yami then gazed at her with a bit of determination in his eyes.

He said, "Oh yeah. I want to clear something up. You talked about me preferring strong women. But actually, I told you I like women I can drink with too. You're the one who asked me at the festival, remember?"

"A-Ah," she said a bit embarassed, "You mean-"

"I'm saying you fit both those things. That makes you my type of woman, doesn't it?" said Yami, "So no more pouting. You got your way after all."

He then continued, "Oh, and no more flirting with other guys, got it?'

She said a bit angrily, "Of course, I know that! Geeze."

Her man now smiled at her and waved back at her as he said, "Well, we best wash up."

Vanessa then heard him say gently and mischievously, "Seems I'm caught in the witch's web with no way out. What a pain."

With that, Yami turned around and coolly made his way towards the river, happily smoking as he did. He had his hands in his pockets now as he sported a sly grin she could not see. Instead, Vanessa was left with a hand to her chest as her face turned a brand-new shade of scarlet. That man… he liked her more than he let on it seemed. She couldn't help but smile lovingly at him, enjoying the sight of his shoulder blade and muscles pressing through his sleeveless shirt.

What an interesting man he was! Despite claiming to be a warrior of few thoughts and fewer words, Captain Yami was cleverer than he let on. A good match for a clever witch like her. He always knew what to say to make her happy. With those words, Vanessa knew that slowly but surely, they could start a relationship together. Despite her insecurities, Yami had picked her in the end. He chose HER. She couldn't help but feel a bit of pride and a sense of relief at her victory. She looked forward to the day he held her bridal style in his arms with her family, those rambunctious Black Bulls, cheering them on as they announced they were officially dating. Until then, she would be his wicked witch and pull the strings needed to get her way and gain their happy ending together.

<3 The End <3 

[chibimyumi]

🍵Japanese Reactions☕ Kuromyu 2021

Dear everyone, I received overwhelmingly many questions about Japanese audience reactions, so here you go!

Methodology:

For this post I logged out from Twitter to avoid any bias because of my own user algorithm, and just simply searched the term “kuromyu” (生執事) , and selected “latest tweets”. As you can see, all posts have the word 生執事 in bold, meaning that was my search term.  There are a LOT of reactions, I can’t possibly discuss them all. What I did was just search at any random point of time, and take every other comment. I censored the usernames of the commenter to protect some (ceremonial) level of privacy.

I watched the Kuromyu costume rehearsal and cried, this is not it，，I think it might be better to go to Osaka [performance] without expecting too much I shouldn’t expect the Kuromyu of until last time

Honestly no matter how often I watch [the musical] this time’s Kuromyu is fantastic... as someone who knows the energy of the original comics, I really enjoyed it...

In Kuromyu Violet and Chesslock were the real thing

Like Violet’s way of walking being so slothful it was like the real thing, and the rapping of Chesslock in the cricket scene was cool

The reception of this time’s Kuromyu is entirely polarised, and indeed [this production] has a very different taste than the ones until now so I also understand the people who criticise it, but I think that’s fine.

Click “keep reading” for (a LOT) more reactions. Don’t lie to yourself and not click it, I know you all want the tea. Here’s the tea (ÒvÓ)ノ☕

There’s so much thought going on now I have seen the PV of Kuromyu. Eh? Because he [probably Konishi (Ciel)] has roots in Tennis [Probably prince of Tennis] once he holds the cricket it just looks like he’s swinging a tennis racket.

Bocchan is just too big, I’m not sure about that.

I only watched until half way ー

Calling it the Prince of Cricket is too befitting😂 Such singing and dancing, the youthfulness is exploding. They sure have stamina. #Kuromyu

Ah ーSomehow a lot of memories just popped up tears really are welling up... even though my deep-seated grudge has now passed, my obsession for Kuromyu surfaced, and it felt like it got beaten to a pulp by its big brother...

My heart is recovering through the Kuromyu DVD but the big brother is still the big brother... sob...sob (the dirty wailing of an otaku)

TLN: Big brother here means something’s superiour or better.

It became this production that made me think: Never mind the actors but is it the problem of the makers? Erm. I think it’s a waste. Is it because it’s the footage of the first day performance?

I don’t have the feeling that it’s not that, but that it somehow became cheaper? Is a really strong thought I got from this performance. With this line-up [of cast/staff] it should have been able to create the high quality of Kuromyu, but the impression is that it was a mess.

I finished watching kuromyu. Erm... somehow... it was a theatre production that strongly reminded me of the first Lycoris (the cheapness of the set), felt like they tried to create the feeling of🎾but failed, and tried to do something trendy (🎤) but then the production lost the sense of unity.

Well Mr. Tate’s [Tateishi] Sebas was good, and Undertaker’s acting was good (make up...)

I’ve watched the stream of Kuromyu countless times and gotten used to the songs, and even though I miss the old Kuromyu, maybe it’s not so bad that somebody who can’t let go is rewatching something countless times. If next time they will do the Cult Arc or the Witch Arc I’d be pursuing it. Honestly I want them to stage Lycoris again ←

Kuromyu was this place where I got stimulated by Yuta’s TOHO quality, Ms. AKANE [Madam Red] and Ms. Son [Akisono, Frances]’s Takarazuka quality. The synergy of everything, the original manga’s story, actors, music, directing all were so perfectly done in the past three productions they sure have become a tremendous bar. Once again Yuta, thank you for playing Sebas for us for three times 🥺✨

Kuromyu really was too fun, I’m in trouble

Honestly ------------- Kuromyu was so fun !!!!!!!!! Yasue-kun, you also go watch soon!! Ah, you going tomorrow???

It might be quite unsatisfying for people who only watch Kuromyus that are like Imperial Theatre grand musicals, but I think it’s good that it’s a bit like the Kuromyus of the beginning of before when they adapted the manga arcs

I watched Kuromyu and had fun 😊

I cried, I laughed, it was amazing anyway!

It was the first time watching a musical for me but I think I’ve been sucked into it...

Shall I buy the DVD, I’m indecisive 🌀🤔💭

Now I’ve seen the PV of Kuromyu I don’t think it’s worth going at all... Even in the PV the vibe of 2.5D was ridiculously strong...

My friend went to watch Kuromyu and gave me the review: “I’ve seen all sorts of 2.5, why did they do this for Black Butler. It’s trivial.” I’ve only seen the PV so I won’t say anything, and I really get what I’m refraining from saying. But Mr. Kuma once tweeted the descriptions of Black Butler, I guess it’s fine that the Boarding School Arc feels like this 🤔

Click here for the translation of this tweet. The description of the Weston Arc is as such:

(To the people who will be going to see it I’m sorry)

They did say that the staff along [with the cast] would entirely be renewed, but I feel like they’re actively trying to shake off the fans of Kuromyu until now   I’m a bit sad but I guess I won’t be watching [Kuromyus] anymore... I feel like      But I am buying the stream    I’ll think about it after I’ve bought it...

Anyway about Kuromyu, my mom said she wanted to watch it too so I watched it again with her yesterday, and she sure had a lot to say 😶 My father pulled this weird face of “what is this even” and I had to see him off halfway 😑 I thought about buying the stream of the final performance, but I guess I don’t need a second viewing. I don’t feel like watching the archive either. I really liked the Kuromyu of until now, my shock is too big.

At the beginning [of the musical] we looked back on Lycoris, Circus and Luxury Liner... kinda like some sort of recap, but I thought “huh?”... now I just want to watch that. I used to like Kuromyu, I really have trouble accepting it this time it’s painful.

But honestly when talking about Kuromyu it’s the Sebas with the superb voice who sung about the dynamic with the little lord full of emotion and built the world view, and for better or for worse the world view of Kuroshitsuji is maintained through Sebaciel, the songs, the directing of Sebaciel, but what happened there. Whether you should watch it or not. The past 3 productions were masterpieces、、、

But Sebas is not Mr. Furukawa, Ciel is not Reo-kun and even Mr. Izumi’s [role] of Undertaker was unfortunately changed, this is the new Kuromyu huh...

I watched the stream of the first performance.

I liked the songs so I checked, and I knew it.

This time has a lot of laughing factors, and I thought it was good it had a fresh cast.

I didn’t expect the cricket scene to be taken that far. I thought it was Tenimyu.

Kuromyu, this time be it the story, script, directing or casting, I thought: “it’s more enjoyable to take up this [musical] while temporarily erasing the memories of until now ～🎶”, and I watched the theatre piece without looking back to the past productions, and that was the right decision   To the people who came to love Kuromyu of until now, it’s safer to watch it while temporarily erasing the memories.

Did Kuromyu turn into Tenimyu half way?! I thought,

and the Elite Musical → 2.5D Musical transformation I also felt

Konishibocchan being cutesy was cute, and the P4′s desperate faces resonated all went by in a flash

Above was the report from the theatre ☺️

I went to Kuromyu

I went into it knowing it’d surely be something different from the past productions so it indeed turned out to be so

There were parts that made me go “erm the script....” and also this part that made me go “was it really necessary to make Undertaker descend into that dream in Act 1 just because you wanted to give him stage time??”

I went into 2 shocks gradually

Sebas doesn’t sing He only sings properly at the very beginning of the beginning Even though he’s Sebas There’s no ending solo Even though he’s Sebas

You’re the ♪ah~a~a~ number-one main character though!! That’s why this one!!! Is the N・E・W production--!!!!

I am in shock

I   A M  I  N   S  H  O  C  K  ANGER!!!

I watched the Kuromyu stream!

It was TOTALLY 2.5D~❕❕😁It was also a school setting and the Tenimyu vibes were strong (laughs)

It’s a bit of a shame that Ciel isn’t played by a child actor anymore, but because he has more stage time than Sebas has this time I caccept it.

Sebas and Ciel’s visuals are also good ~ ☺️ 

It’d be even cooler if they increased the fight scenes with Sebas though.

@ivvy_toshiki [Tateishi Toshiki (Sebastian)’s Twitter account]

Thanks for the hard work in the performance.

Today I saw the “first viewing of Kuromyu” of my dreams 🥀😆 Regardless of what I could say Sebastian’s beauty is from beginning to end spellbinding ☺️  My eyes were very happy. moreover, the songs and the killing were also AMAZING 😍 my eyes were nailed to Sebastian. I want to watch it again 💕☺️  I wish that the performances will go without a hitch until the final performance ❕

I was so happy to see the recap of the past productions

I really liked the Circus Arc (original comics), and even though it was comedy it really dived into the darkness! That was the story I also didn’t expect to see the Luxury Liner Arc So Undertaker, for real... for

Up to the last time there weren’t that many songs in total, but there were songs like I shall become your pawn and sword and the contract that made me go BATHUMP--- I have to rewatch this number!!! It’s a shame that this time there were no songs like that.

#Kuromyu

Calling it the Prince of Cricket is too accurate 😂 They sang and danced so much, the youthfulness was bouncing off it. What stamina they have. #Kuromyu

What’s different from the last time is the strong 2.5D vibe...... Until now the ages [of the characters] were fairly faithful [to canon] and in a good way there was no 2.5D-ness and I could just enjoy it as a proper theatre piece This time both the casting including the music had a strong 2.5D vibe for better or for worse #Kuromyu

Very personally! Matsushita’s Sebas was “heavy as the evil of evil and beautiful”, and Furukawa’s Sebas was  “evil, strong and unapproachable and beautiful and gorgeous”, and Tateishi’s was “light hearted and beautiful and a florid kind of evil”!! (My vocabulary is failing me) All Sebastians have a different aura about them it’s fantastic!!! #Kuromyu

The new Sebas is good

Overall

It’s this arc so that it’d get a chit-chat idol? vibe was within the expectation The cricket of the second half had a bad vibe and I was sick of it It might have been different had I watched it live I don’t like the Boarding School and Green Witch arc that much to begin with I am looking forward to the appearance of the real Ciel That's it for now

I don’t know why I’m mentally dead but it must be that, I watched the Kuromyu stream and I am thoroughly dead, mentally dead, but as I managed to say this I’ve reached a level that I recovered a bit??? I am too tired but I don’t feel like sleeping, but if I doze a bit then I realise my fatigue and feel like sleeping unnecessarily

This time’s kuromyu... erm I guess I’ll quit 🤔

I’ll be rant-puking for a bit

I’ve seen a lot of Tenimyu and A-stage [Mankai A3] but it’s not like I wanted to see that in Kuromyu... What I wanted to see was Kuromyu...

I watched the video of the Kuromyu PV? but it’s impossible. Watching the PV [I thought] children should be played by children... and as I watched their interaction it’s not the character building I had in mind... and there’s no wound on the vice principal’s forehead. I planned to watch the stream of the final performance, but I’m hesitant about spending more money to watch that... If I can’t accept Ciel and Sebastian I can’t watch this, that’s just me...

Now I’ve read the reviews of Kuromyu all are saying it went back to 2.5D, and I think that it’s not worth going after all. It’s probably because the Kuromyus until now far surpassed the quality of 2.5D... I guess it’s fine if one were to go for the cast, but I really loved the Kuromyu of until now.

[dappersheep]

Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (3/3)

Ladies and gentlemen, we've arrived at our final destination.

Again before we start, we have our obligatory disclaimers. I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the true history and likely fate of this game. I am entitled to the thoughts and opinions written within this post. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points being made.

This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are in the third and final stretch, and the checkpoint is past the cut.

Community

So... here we are, fellow Master Attendants.

As consumers of this piece of entertainment media, we are free to enjoy it however we wish. Appreciating what is there, creating something new from what exists, playing the game by the meta or however you want to play it (within your means and at your own risk of course). There's no one true and absolute way to experience the game.

However, just as you can enjoy something, doesn't mean you can't also point out flaws or shortcomings of the media in question. As an active veteran player, I've already pointed out the many gameplay design flaws  already. And I'd be pretty dumb to say that Food Fantasy's writing is perfect. Hell, it has a lot of holes from a worldbuilding consistency standpoint. 

And what of things from the community side? Yes, there will be times you'd see content you consider cringe, or something in fanon you don't agree with. Or there happens to be fan theories and fangirling posts you don't like the take of because of X or Y.

And that's fine. If we all happen to play the same way, like the same thing, agree on the same thing and produce the same thing, well, this would be one helluva boring community, wouldn't it?

But what if someone decides the way you're playing the game is wrong and harasses you over it? What happens if someone decides that their interpretation of the game's flavor text and lore is more important than what anyone else thought about it? What happens if someone decides that they're absolutely right, and you and everyone else who disagrees deserves to be bullied out of the fandom?

As much as I want to say we aren't part of the problem why the game is deteriorating, we are unfortunately, part of the reason why the game is as such even if most of the blame is directed towards Funtoy and Elex themselves.

⦁ Whale Authority. Whales will always be part of a gacha game's ecosystem. Without them, the game won't be able to maintain its upkeep costs, moreso  for one that services global regions instead of just one. But when a game decides to cater its decisions of what features should be prioritized and when it should be launched around only its most elite paying players' voices  -even if that influence has since tapered off-, you know there is something wrong with the publisher's management team and priorities.

⦁ Interguild drama. While I did not personally follow any of this, this has certainly been the peak of in-game tension back in the day. Poaching good players from both competitive and smaller guilds, guild mergers that often ended up making the annexed guild/s the equivalent of UK colonized India or Australia, suck-ups chummying up to guild leaders to keep a spot in an active, high ranking guild (for bragging rights!) despite never contributing much to overall damage, and just general dislike of certain players' attitudes. Actions like this have disillusioned many players about their playing experience and the reason why many eventually just lost the motivation to log into FooFan.

⦁ Cheaters. You know very well about the Hacker-teme I've mentioned before, but that was in context of Elex being incompetent with dealing with them. Here, I would like  to point out the players who are desperate to dominate  the playing field for whatever reason to the point that they would resort to cheating the ranks with forceful modifications of the APK. Whether it is to rank high in catacombs weekly, get a top spot in daily disaster damage, or weasel their way into the competitive whale ranks of a major ranking event, these are the people who have no qualms messing with the code to give themselves an easier time with the game. And if they're caught? Some pretend that they've made a mistake, some quickly sell the account to escape the blame, some others just scamper away into the dark and hide in the lower ranks where they can't be found. Others simply don't care and keep cheating until Elex decides to finally ban them... if Elex ever decides their rebates score isn't worth saving the account.

⦁ Ship wars. Ah yes, a staple of drama in any fandom. There doesn't need much explanation to this as we've all had our fair share of running into a battleground in whatever fandom we visit. Someone ships BB52 wholeheartedly? Nope, problematic 'age gaps'. Someone likes Napoleon with Pastel? Someone's bound to misinterpret their bios in order to justify that Napoleon was being abusive. Spaghetti and Borscht? Borscht is minor coded, ship her with Vodka instead. Whiskey and Pizza or Cassata? Cancelled! And I've never heard of the Foe Yay trope or pretend I don't know about it! Rarepairs? Disgusting! No fanon in my canon playground! Turkey and Eggnog? Gasp! How dare you, you pedo-shipper-even-though-you-never-said-you-shipped-them-romantically-but-that-isn't-my-point!

⦁ Character Obsession: Bias. On one hand, you love a character so much. Relate to a character so much. You have thus pulled this character into the folds of your bosom and coo at them like a mother dove and get so minutely triggered if someone so much as makes one disagreeable or joking comment about the character that you fly into an overreactive ballistic rage that would make a Canadian goose honk in fear. You don't care what they are in canon. You don't care about the possibility of mistranslation. What matters is the fanon space you carved out for them to exist in and that's all that matters. The problem with this is when this obsession takes over common sense and social etiquette and it steps into harassment territory. You begin to think: I'm the only one who 'understands' the character. I'm the only one who wishes better for the character, everyone else is out to defame them! Oh wait, you like them too? Do you like them the way *I* like them? No? Maybe if you're my 'friend', I'd let it slide. But to everyone else? No one else has the right to like them as much as I do. No one! Never mind that they're completely fictional- No one hurts my bias because in turn, they're hurting *me*!

⦁ Character Obsession: Anti. On the other hand, you hate a character so much. This character just makes you see so much red. Their smug little smirk just makes your blood boil. Their fictional backstory makes you recoil in disgust. You hate that someone else loves a character you hate so much.  You cannot *believe* that someone could be so daringly stupid to like a problematic character. They must be problematic too then. They must be hiding real life secrets that are problematic! Yes, yes. That's right. That person's a supporter of abuse. That person's into pedophilia. That person is into military lolita fashion that Japan started the trend of but clearly Japan was part of the Axis Powers! And that... that person... that person... is a roleplayer and a yaoi fangirl properly interacting with minors and adults. How dare they...!

⦁ Fan Translations.  Normally it wouldn't be a problem that a group or two or several are translating pieces of the game's lore ahead of the official. But with Elex's very delayed translations and extreme allergic reactions to translating Food Soul bios, people have become dependent on fan-translation groups to get their fix. The problem herein lies... is when the translators get drunk off the power that they are one of a handful in a small community who can magically transcribe the oriental moonrunes into English. The problem starts when the translator starts to have an inclination. The problem starts when the translator loses their professional detachment and start adding in details here and there into the fan translated product that ultimately changes the meaning and direction of the entire story. The problem is also escalated when that translator's embellished product is touted as the truth by their followers. If there was an upcoming character whose backstory is connected to a character they hated (either because of someone or they just don't like the character) and you were hoping to read the fan translation? How would you know that what you get isn't something doctored to the point it's basically fanfiction?

⦁ Social Justice Vigilantism. Sometimes someone does not have a character obsession or need it to be annoying. Sometimes, someone just wants to ring the alarm over something they find 'problematic' in order to police and sanitize the enjoyment of the media for 'everyone'. They no longer really take enjoyment out of a new Food Soul design being leaked, they no longer read the lore just to enjoy what it has to offer. Instead, they nitpick bits and pieces of the design and point it out repeatedly as a reason why the whole thing is bad. They point out bits of the story and inject their interpretations of it without really comprehending what they've read in full and react badly to it. What's worse is that they have no qualms publicly posting their reactions and eagerly and hungrily await those likes and echoes of agreement that they were right.

⦁ Circles of Influence. Everyone has a group they eventually gravitate to in a fandom. It comes with its own pros and cons. Sometimes you join a group because someone you admire is in there, sometimes you join a group because you just want to mingle and see more content. All valid reasons. Arguments can't be avoided in a group, it has to happen... But you have to take care. You have to take care to feel the change in the air of the group. When someone starts pushing people to agree with them. When your most admired people start to feel overly sensitive about certain characters or issues. When you start to feel obligated to spy on other groups outside of this one for 'nonbelievers', 'traitors' and 'heretics' who do not think the way this group does, and that bringing back bits and pieces of gossip as offerings would somehow make you more favored in the eyes of the inner clique or remain inside it. There is a gripping sense of annoyance when that person comes in to complain but you can't do anything about it but nod and agree. There is a pervading sense of fear and apprehension of overstepping an invisible boundary. There is fear that you might be next on the chopping block, after witnessing one of the others being ganged up on and thrown out without a second thought, their name spat upon like they're worth less than dirt. And so reluctant you are to give up what you have with them that when they push you to do something you are reluctant to do, all in the name of 'harmony and justice'... You do it. Even though it would mean offering yourself up to the mob with no salvation, and the stark realization that... [they] never cared about you as a friend.

And we've come to the end of this analysis trilogy. The writing got a little bit strange in this post, but honestly this is the best way I could put it. I'm aware things can and will be more complicated than the bullet points I've written but I'm just one person and I tried very hard to keep details of all the drama that happened in this fandom as vague as possible. Of course, that wouldn't work if you know what I am talking about.

The community is quiet now for the most part, the game is somewhere between limbo and the living plane. Things could be better for us, but I don't really count on it.

I wish I could leave a bit of a moral warning or something. But rather than do that, I just hope this was an entertaining read into one individual's eyes into Food Fantasy and everything that makes it up.

[willddheartt]

26 Days | Wilbur Soot

30 days to fall in love with someone? Sounds easy right? It would be if that person wasn’t so unbelievably annoying in almost every sense.

You’re not sure how you found yourself in this situation, but you were positive there was no backing out now…

Series Warnings: Mostly fluff and angst, and a very poorly constructed enemies to lovers plot.

Word Count: 2264

Masterlist Series Masterlist

26 Days

God, you hated him so much! You wanted to scream it from the top of a building how much you truly hated Wilbur. But you couldn’t

Lately, no matter what you did or said on stream, he always had a problem with it. You had been streaming Minecraft together, on the SMP. You were just messing around, no lore this time. You suggested you made a house together in L’manburg, no matter what you did, the two of you couldn't agree on a material, you wanted to build it out of birch wood and cobblestone but he insisted on dark oak logs and spruce planks would look better together. You gave up and let him have what he wanted because he was so persistent and you knew had it gone on you would have blown up on him in front of all your viewers, and that’s the last thing you needed right now. 

You were up late, last night, planning out when you were going to meet up, and just a few hours ago the two of you got along perfectly. Laughing over the phone as you were laying in bed, chatting mindlessly. You wondered what happened between then and now.  You and Will planned to meet up in the middle of next week, you were going to drive down to see him and stay at his place. Although you brought up getting a hotel room, Wilbur insisted you stay with him, too tired to resist you agreed, but now you're starting to think maybe getting a hotel room might be for the best. 

You and Wilbur ended your streams at the same time, and you sighed as soon as you were sure it was off. 

“What?” Wil asked, still in the voice chat.  “What was that back there? Why the hell are you so disagreeable?” You let out.  Will scoffed, “Me? You’re the one who kept on insisting birch and cobble when that wouldn't even fit in L’manburg!”  “Jesus Christ,” You sighed, leaning back in your chair and running your hands down your face. “How in the hell are we going to get through this month?”  “Maybe you should stop being so uptight and argumentative.” Wil shot  “Fuck you,” You mumbled before clicking out of the chat and leaving your PC. 

You needed to get out of the house and away from any form of contact you had with Wilbur and social media. You had been cooped up inside your apartment for close to a week at this point, maybe some fresh air would do you good.  You grabbed a jacket and keys before leaving the apartment, leaving your phone charging on your desk. You didn’t want to bring it with you because you didn't even want to think about getting a text or any kind of notification from Wilbur right now, you knew you would have blown up at him completely. 

The weather was just beginning to turn nice, the air was warm but the wind still had a slight winter chill to it, although all the snow was long gone Jack Frost still made his lurking presence known.  Buildings lined the walls of a small square common area where teens mostly hung out after school and on weekends. The square had a fountain in the middle of it, the water had been shut off for the winter but with the warm temperatures from the last month, it had recently been turned back on.  You sat on the ledge of the brick wall around the bottom pool for the fountain, looking at everyone passing through on this nice Wednesday evening. Older couples out for an evening walk, middle-aged business people speed walking their way home from the office, teens scattering the open area, sitting on blankets and laughing in their small groups of friends. You found watching people be interesting, it made you think. 

We are all living our own lives at the same time and most of us on this small planet don't even know of one another, or if you know of them you don't know them, you only know their name. It's weird how that works.  It's astounding to think about though, what are the chances of meeting exactly who you did, at the time you did, and what a gamble it is for them to stick around. 

You had been sitting on the fountain for close to five minutes and when the wind had just started to pick up, sending a slight shiver down your spine.  Your mind was clearer now and you were no longer angry with Wilbur, it was stupid what you fought about and as much as it pained you to admit, he was right.  You were being stubborn and didn’t take into account the surrounding aesthetic of the area. It was your fault that the disagreement broke out in the first place. 

You got home and saw your phone had been basically blown up by notifications from Wilbur, asking if you were really mad at him or if it was for a bit that you took too far, but when you didn't answer he slightly snapped you, asking if you were okay and where you were.  You answered immediately, scared he might have been worrying.

Hey! You typed, Sorry I went for a walk after stream, needed to get out. 

There you are! He responded within seconds, I got worried. 

I’m okay, I left my  phone home, needed a break from the internet and things. You know? 

You mean you needed a break from me? 

You could have sworn, had you been on a video chat with him you would have seen him frowning. You weren't sure what about that message got you, but you found yourself almost with tears in your eyes, you didn't mean to hurt him and you hoped you didn't -what were you talking about. Wilbur didn't mean anything to you, he was just someone you kept in contact with because you were in the same friend group. 

No, you typed, not the whole thing at least. I just needed to clear my head, and i'm sorry for being such a dick on stream, I didn't mean to cause that, and you were right about the blocks. 

You sighed when hitting the send button, never in a million years did you think you would be telling Wilbur, The Wilbur Soot, that he was right about something. I’m sorry. 

Christ Y/N it’s alright, really. Just don't scare me like that again, I was starting to think something bad happened to you. 

I didn't mean to scare you, Wil. 

You found yourself feeling bad about leaving him in the dark while you were out, you didn't mean to worry him, you just didn't want to hurt him by blowing up at him. 

Still call tonight, yeah? He messaged 

You nodded, even though he couldn't see you. Yeah, I'd like that very much. I'll call you before I go to sleep. 

In the time that you had been a fake couple, you and Will had started calling while you were getting ready to fall asleep in bed, you usually ended up falling asleep before he did, the sound of his raspy sleepy voice lulled you to sleep like there was no tomorrow. You'd wake up in the morning to find that Wil left the call going, you thought it was cute. Sure it might have been some highschool relationship stuff but it was cute nonetheless. 

-

“Hello, Y/N” Will said through the phone, his voice sounding tired and soft  “Hi Wil,” You smiled, giggling slightly. Although you had just been on a voice chat with him earlier you loved hearing his voice when he was tired, it sounded like stirring honey into your morning cup of tea, or reading an old book, but specifically an old book that smells of must and age of being stored at the back of your grandparents bookshelf that hadn't been touched in years.  “You sound tired,” you mumbled, laying down with the phone resting on your stomach as you looked up at the ceiling.  “I am,” He hummed, “You don't sound very tired though, did you drink a lot of coffee today?” He asked  “A little more than usual, but I’ll be fine.” You sighed, your voice almost coming out in a whisper. There was something about talking to Wilbur before going to sleep that made you feel soft and loved, but you couldn't put your finger on exactly what it was. Maybe it was the thought of having someone there, or maybe it was just as simple as it was Wilbur and it was you.  

“Are you excited for next week?” He asked  “Right now it feels too far away to be real,”  “Who’s talking here, is it you you or is it us you?” He asked, unsure if your thoughts were good or bad “Its both,” You said. “It feels so far away to me right now, but so close at the same time and a side of me cant wait for it to get here, so we can finally meet in person. But another side of me feels like it’s good that it feels so far away because maybe something will come up and I wont be able to make it and i don’t want to think that or even say it because thats a terrible thing to say but you know how it is.” You rambled, trying your best to explain it to him in a way that he would fully understand the crossroads your mind is at, and not sound like a dick while doing it. 

Although you couldn’t see it, you could tell he was nodding along. “How about we make a deal, alright?” He started, “In these night chats, we don’t have to put on the face of the characters we play on stream and through out the day, Alright?”  You rolled over to your side, putting an arm under your head and setting your phone on the mattress by your head. “I like that. Deal.”  “Okay now tell me how you really feel about all of this” 

All the thoughts ran though your head a mile a minute, you didn’t know where to start honestly, you had a lot of thoughts but if you really looked at it and narrowed it down most of them talked circles around the same thing just using different words. 

“You promise what ever I say wont hurt you or make you flip out?” You asked  “Swear on Tommy’s life.” You could sense the smirk that tugged at the side of his mouth when he said that. “Okay,” You started with a sigh. “So I din’t really know where I stand on it anymore, at the beginning I thought this was going to be insufferable, but now that we’ve gotten into it for a few days, you’re really not that bad, but I’m still on the fence.”  “I hope come meeting, your opinion has changed a little bit more. But I do understand where you’re coming from. Its weird being able to talk off stream and such with you and not be fighting twenty-four-seven. It’s nice, I feel like I’m getting to know you better.” 

He was right, you had told Wilbur more in the last five days than you had ever in your years of knowing him. You were surprised to find out that he’s actually not as bad as you thought, but you would never tell him that bit. 

“Do you have to put on a character when we do those streams and such, Wilbur?” You asked, 

“I don’t think I do, and if I do it I don’t know what I’m doing it. It’s just something thats easy to do, I’m not sure how to explain it.” He replied “Do you have to when we’re talking like this?”  “No. Not at all, this is 100% me.” 

You’re not sure what part hit you the most, when he said he didn’t have to put on a full character mask when showing your ‘relationship’ to the public, or if this Wilbur, the tired one was the real Wilbur who you've been falling asleep with for the past three nights. You weren’t sure what you though you wanted to hear when asking him that but it definitely wasn't what you go, but maybe it was what you needed. 

The line went dead for a couple of minutes, you had the radio playing softly in the background to help you sleep better, and Wilbur seemed to be enjoying listening to you breathe through the phone.

“Hey Wil,” You yawned  “HM?” He hummed, you could tell he had his eyes closed with the phone by his face, like he did on one of your face time calls the other day.  “I’m soon gonna pass-out,” You whispered  “Thats alright, go to sleep. Get your rest, I’ll be here when you wake up, love.” He was so sweet it almost made your heart hurt.  “Okay” You nodded, but don’t hang up, okay? I like it when you’re here with me when I fall asleep.” 

You struggled to keep your eyelids open, feeling heavy and light all at the same time. You felt so light it was as if you could float away but you were too heavy and weighed down to get up and move, even if you absolutely had to move for whatever reason you don't think you could have. 

“Goodnight Wilbur, love you.” You mumbled into your pillow  “Sweet dreams.” 

[theanxiousstudentblog]

What I've learned from the first year of university: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Three years later than expected, I finished my first year of university. At first, admittedly, it didn't feel like much; I submitted my final assignment, logged off of my student account, and went to watch the new series of The Real Housewives. It wasn't until a few weeks had passed that I was finally hit with how much this milestone meant to me and all the emotions that came with finally getting through the first academic year as a university student. This may not seem like a big achievement to some (I remember how in sixth form we were always made to believe that the first year of university was a piece of cake and way easier than A-levels) but, for me, it has been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. These emotions and thoughts are what have inspired me to write this post, specifically the feeling that university can be very very different from what you expect.

How I got here.

When I was younger, one of my sole dreams was to go to university. This may have seemed odd to some as I suffered from extreme anxiety when I was younger and actually refused to go to school between the ages of 7 and 9. However, it was never the academic side of schooling that worried me but the social side and being away from my family. I loved learning and I knew that I wanted to take my academic career to the highest possible level I could. The idea that I could pick any subject that I was interested in and do a whole course solely centered on teaching me as much as I could absorb was infatuating to me. It was for this reason that I spent so much effort making sure that I achieved good grades, despite my time off. I had my sights set on a prestigious university in London and in 2018 I received an offer to study there. However, instead of feeling excited about my future, I was engulfed with a feeling of dread. Unfortunately, due to events in my private life, my anxiety which had previously been kept under control by CBT and medication began to skyrocket. I would later learn that I developed complex PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) during this time. For the sake of keeping this blog post to a somewhat reasonable length, I will keep this account brief by saying that these difficulties eventually led to me pulling out of the London university and I decided to go to a local uni closer to home after taking a year off for my mental health (for a more detailed account you can look at one of my previous IG posts published 24/05/20).

Expectations vs...

I was excited for what awaited me at my local university; it was close enough to see my family whenever I wanted but still gave me the independence that I felt I needed to grow. Moving day came and went and it seemed to be going pretty smoothly, albeit some hiccups that came with my anxiety. It is important to note that I gave the university's wellbeing service a heads-up about my conditions before moving in so, at first, I felt confident that if I had any issues they would be able to work through them with me. However, over the next couple of weeks, my anxiety grew and grew, finally reaching its peak when my housemate turned around to me and told me that I needed to shut it about my mental health issues and stop hanging out with her. This triggered a major episode in my PTSD and I suddenly felt like I was spiraling out of control. However, despite my attendance beginning to drop and the multiple times I was having to leave lectures early due to panic attacks, I still sustained a level of confidence that my university would be able to give me the reasonable adjustments that the wellbeing team had spoken to me about before starting the term. Sure, they hadn't got back to my emails with any tangible support in weeks, but they couldn't just leave me like this...could they? All throughout my schooling, I was made to believe that educational settings were environments where any appetite to learn was nurtured and fed; education meant an opportunity to achieve anything you worked hard enough for, despite your background, disability, or start in life. Wouldn't universities be the ultimate conceptualization of this meritocracy?

Reality

Unfortunately, this vision would be quickly shattered by the stark reality of my treatment by my head of department and the well-being team. I go into more detail about this treatment in the IG post mentioned previously, but in summary I was given two choices: I get my attendance back to 100% with no support/reasonable adjustments from the university, or I leave/defer until I was "better". There was no comprehension from the uni that this wouldn't have a definable recovery date; I've been dealing with long-term mental illness since I was a child and it is something I've learned to live with alongside the appropriate support. To wait until I was "better" would potentially mean waiting forever. On top of that, I went out of my way to prove to my department that I was keeping up with my work and had achieved top marks on the most recent assignment but little recognition was given to my current grades. From the weeks since I started at university I'd met multiple people who had little passion in their subject or who were just at university because they thought it was what they should do. No hate to these people (I think the pressure young people face to go to university is a whole 'nother issue in itself) but I couldn't help but compare myself to them. The university didn't care that they had a whole student population of disillusioned young people who were indifferent to their academic fields but drew the line at a motivated student who suffered from mental illness. It became clear this wasn't an environment for people like me who were simply viewed as a wrench in the works. In December 2019, I was given no other option but to drop out of my university.

Starting again and the lessons I have learned

What was the worst blow to my mental health? Being kicked out because of my mental health...Having to leave university was a massive blow to my self-esteem and I began to catastrophize what that meant for my future. Luckily I had my family for support and my mum pushed me to look into the Open University, an institution based on distance learning. I enrolled part-time for the start of February (unfortunately I had missed the cohort to start full-time) and decided to focus on my therapy. This actually worked out great for me as in 2020 I was diagnosed with PTSD and started EMDR so being a part-time student gave me enough space to process the emotions that came up in my treatment. The Open University has been so helpful in making sure my needs are met and I have been so grateful to finally find an inclusive learning environment. It is definitely not how I planned to be experiencing university and I still do feel some disappointment in not getting the full "student experience" but it has also taught me some valuable lessons and given me a new insight into how far our education system still needs to go. These are the things I have learned:

Education isn't about degrees or academic prestige. Education is about a person's desire to learn, whether that be through books or the sheer act of being. Everyone requires different conditions to which they need to learn and thrive, and unfortunately, many academic institutions tend to expect us all to be cut from the same cloth. Despite this, no one can take away your passion to learn, and as long as you're living, you are learning.

There can be no equality without equity. The truth is people enter schooling from all different backgrounds and circumstances and it is not enough for institutions to treat everyone the same. In terms of mental health, many people are quick to say they recognise that mental illness can be just as debilitating as physical illness however until they put the actions and policies into place to make environments more tolerant and accessible then their words mean nothing. This means taking the time to talk to individual students about what they require and realise that the most important thing that a university can do is create a place where EVERYONE can learn. Schooling creates the foundations on which the future of our society is built and the fact that inclusion is barely making it on the blueprint is scary to me.

COVID has shown that in this digital age, attendance ISN'T everything. If only I could go back to that final meeting with my head of department and tell him that in a few months time everyone's attendance would be at 0%! Seriously though, this is a wake-up call to how simple accessibility can be if you just invest in a good digital learning platform that allows for people who can't attend in person to still be included.

You can be an academic and still put your mental health first. Despite what my first university led me to believe, my time at the OU has shown me that you do not have to sacrifice one over another. In fact, it has shown me that my mental health recovery and student journey can work hand-in-hand, encouraging each other along.

But most importantly...

It has shown me that despite the pressure to make your university years fit into a nice, neat package of fun, good grades, and self-enlightenment, it most likely won't happen like that. That's okay, let it go and keep moving.

[mariaiscrafting]

can i ask why you dislike dream? im not being passive agressive or something lol i am genuinely curious

S’all good, kinda figured you weren’t being, and a lot of people have asked me this lol. There are so many reasons, and I’ve said this so many times already, but I’ll try to go over some of the main things I can remember:

1) Arrogance: kinda put me off how he’s always responded to criticism. Always kinda had an air of superiority about shit, and it never really bothered me on its own because I think lots of CCs are arrogant & I’m arrogant myself, but combined with all of the following, it became a reason for me to dislike him lol

2) Manipulation of his audience: look, I kinda always knew that CCs with huge fanbases, especially CCs who grow this quickly, have some kind of grasp of how to treat and foster their audience to their greatest advantage. I’ve always been wary of CCs that put on soft or nice personalities, especially since the whole Shane Dawson debacle. But with Dream, it’s been a whole other thing ever since his cheating response video, and I’ve never been able to see him in a good light in regard to how he responds to his fans, ever since. I went into it in a lot more detail back when I first watched the video, the day it dropped, but I’m too exhausted to scrounge that post up, so I’ll summarize: that video had a very specific strategy that he used to victimize himself and appeal to his fans’ compassion for him, and after rewatching the video for the third time that day, it felt gross and calculated to me. The way that he focuses very little on the actual mathematical part of his argument. The way he frames the issue of the mods having favoritism or bias. It was already proven on Reddit and throughout Twitter that the numbers the mods looked at were for good reason, and not because they just wanted to pick the numbers that made Dream look the worst, but that’s how he framed the argument. When I logged onto Twitter and Tumblr that day, there were thousands of fans who had latched onto what he said in the latter half of that video and coming to Dream’s defense, and that’s kinda when it hit me: this guy fucking knows what he’s doing, and he’s doing it well, and I really really dislike it. There’s about a hundred other ways he manipulates his audience, including not coming to people’s defenses when huge chunks of his audience attack them (even though the people had respectful and correct criticisms of him), defending stans so adamantly in the face of antis, and posting periodic alt tweets that help garner the illusion that he super cares about his fans; but, that cheating response video was the major red flag, for me.

3) Cheating & lying: as is likely no surprise to y’all, I think Dream cheated lmao. At first, I was ecstatic that he had actually made a detailed response video and put out a report with the help of an actual professional, but as I read up on his supposed statistical argument and dissected the parts of his argument that felt off to me, I realized maybe he had cheated. Talking to some STEM major friends of mine, who weren’t into MCYT but had obviously heard about the whole debacle because they like Twitter and Minecraft, kinda put the nail in the coffin for me. I’m not nearly smart enough or have a good enough memory to detail exactly why I think he cheated on this blog, right now, in April, but essentially: his main argument relied upon claiming mod bias, instead of a sound mathematical or statistical argument; there’s no way of proving that the world files he provided to the mods and in the open source weren’t altered; the statistical problems he points out (i.e., stopping effect) don’t actually skew the original mods’ model nearly as much as his supposed PhD guy would say; and the odds he comes up with might not be nearly as impossible as 1 in 7 trillion, but they still come up to around 1 in 100 million, which is still fucking ridiculous, considering that there are only, like, 120 million people in the world who play Minecraft.  Not impossible, but laughable that he expects people to believe that. But... I guess they did, lmao. The thing that peeved me the most about the whole thing was the adamant lying lmao. When you look at the situation from the perspective of “dream cheated,” you realize just how fucked up all his Twitter responses, his adamance in streams and that video, and the general mood among his friends is... idk man, it’s just highly fucked.

4) Relationship with stans: look, there are significant numbers of  his fans that take part in Twitter cancelling vendettas, who spread around information about other CCs and their fellow fans that is false and meant to villify them, etc., and he never fucking says anything. It really, really bothers me. There are too many instances to enumerate, but a few that have caught my eye were when Dream stans would attack Techno, prior to their battle and when a Native American woman politely explained why he shouldn’t use Native music, he responded and said he wouldn’t, but tons of stans continued to attack her in her replies for “being so harsh/mean.” Like, he knows that just one word from him will make his fandom follow his beck and call. All it would’ve taken was one fucking word. There are so many fucking people that have been harrassed off of social media platforms because of the hivemind that is dttwt, for christ’s sake.

5) Reddit posts: All of the above were reasons for me to mildly dislike the guy prior to the Reddit posts, but they weren’t really enough to make me stop posting about c!Dream or reblogging fanart or reading DNF fics or watching Manhunts. I kinda just clowned on the guy, answered the occasional ask about the cheating thing or something related, and left it at that. The Reddit posts not only pissed me off for their content, but for the lying, as well. Do you think I fucking cared about him cheating at speedrunning Minecraft, of all games? Fuck no. What I cared about was the adamant lying that went into the whole debacle. Kinda the same with the Reddit posts. I’m one to usually forgive creators who acknowledge past errors, obviously. It is creators who try to brush stuff off, or even worse, create an elaborate lie to cover up allegations, that put me off a fuck ton. This is the reason I could never be comfortable with watching Pewdipie after I realized all the shit he had brushed off, and it’s now the reason I can’t go back to watching Dream. There is so much evidence that points to guilt, including but not limited to: his first move when the slideshow dropped (before posting to Twitter) being deleting as many old Discord messages as he could, the contradiction between him at first denying the account was his at all then changing the story to say he shared it with a friend, the wording and phrasing in the political posts being almost identical to the non-political posts that were clearly him (i.e., the one that explains his demographics perfectly), and the timing of the political posts (some of them being posted mere minutes after posts that were verifiably him, like the picture of Patches to the cats subreddit). People can claim that he’s likely changed, and what this it matter, as long as politics don’t affect his work now, but I can’t believe this fundamental misunderstanding of why bigotry in entertainment matters. I’ve always had a problem with the adoration this fandom has for cishet white men, and the constant criticism of non-cishet, non-white, non-men, but this really feels like the final slap in the fucking face. It’s like everyone truly believes that it doesn’t matter, that his beliefs couldn’t have possibly affected the way he’s treated fellow CCs in his circles or any of the number of people that depend upon Dream, directly and indirectly, for employment/CC clout. It’s like everyone truly believes that political ideology has no effect on the way we perceive, treat, and behave around other people in literally any field, not just politics. I, just... Christ. I don’t really wanna unpack my emotions about this whole thing right now, so I won’t. I’ll just say: I dislike Trump supporters and ex-Trump supporters alike, I dislike conservatives who claim they’re centrists (every fucking guy my age does this, it’s infuriating and makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall), I dislike people who levy their fans against criticism - even when it’s righteous - and I dislike people who lie about their past actions; Dream fits all those categories, so I dislike him.

[little-red-toyota]

Final good bye to the fandom

TW//Trauma, triggers, nsfw, sexual themes, rape, domestic abuse e.g.

This is gonna be a long ass post…

It has taken me a while to get emotionally strong enough to do this, as I will have to think back at some traumatic events from my past to address some of these things. That's why I waited until I got home from vacation with my family, as it will seriously affect my mood and mental health, and I want to be near my doctor and therapist, just in case.

And also, I know that the majority of those reading this will invalidate me and tell me I am making things up to clear my name. So, I literally have to torment myself to write a blog post people will just brush off as bogus anyway. But I will do it now that I am in safe surroundings. Then it will be off my chest, and I can finally move on. If people will continue stirring up the past, it will be their problem, not mine.

I think I should write one last blog post where I address everything. I have left the TTTE-fandom, but I will write that one as my final goodbye to the fandom. I just have to find out everything I've been accused of so I can properly address them all in order. I might leave out details of my life that is too hard for me to open up about. I know most of you will just invalidate me anyway.

1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

2. My mafia-AU.

3. The Darin incident.

4. Being a pedophile. (Where do they get this from anyway??)

5. Running the NSFW-blog.

6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

Is there more?

Ah... yes! Faking my own suicide, of course!

7. "Faking" being suicidal.

8. Having the audacity to survive and go on living.

9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

Anything else that needs to be addressed? What else am I being accused of? Send me a dm and I will add it to the post.

 Okay, I will bump the Stepney fic down a bit as it is the most traumatic thing for me to address, I will save that one for last.

2 and 3. The dark au/mafia au where I gave some TTTE characters some rather dark and unpleasant character traits, and the whole incident with Darin and the pedo-Salty was addressed in this blog post written by my husband last year, so I am not opening that can of worms again: https://little-red-toyota.tumblr.com/post/623743183795470336/in-light-of-recent-events

Even the thing about Toby cheating on Henrietta is addressed there.

As for the au, I never fully explored it as I started losing interest in TTTE around the same time. I found other things to enjoy and TTTE faded into the background and the au was dropped before I even wrote any stories, apart from the one about Toby and Henrietta.

Some people claim, like this lovely individual, that most of the characters were rapists and pedos. No, not most. Only one of each. And I did not write more than one story about rape and suicide. Where does this person even get that from? Someone who told someone who had heard from someone who might have heard….?

Don't spread rumors unless you are sure that they are true.

Anyway, it's all addressed in that blog post in that link. I don't see how this mafia au is any worse than other dark post-apocalyptic or violent aus. It mostly was about the diesel mafia and their illegal businesses, not about sex, even if it did occur now and then. I find the substance abuse in it to be more problematic tbh…  

 4. Being a pedophile.

I don't even know how to defend myself against this one, as I don't even know why people think I am pedophile. They only throw the accusation out with no backing evidence, so I have no idea where it comes from or what it is that makes people think I am one.

Apart from one claim that I had faved "porn" alongside "strangers'" baby photos on DA. I addressed that earlier though. As DeviantArt doesn't sort what you click "like" on, it all ends up in the same folder unless you actively go through it and sort it into categories, which I don't bother most of the time. It also doesn't say WHEN it was added to your faves. So, I can have faved an artistic nude on Saturday, and then faved my friend's family photo on Thursday. It's not like I actively search for porn, get all steamed up and then look at pictures of children. WTF.

The few children I have faved are not from complete strangers, but long-term friends of mine. Yes, it is possible to have friends on the same website. I have actually met a lot of my RL friends through DeviantArt. I posted photos of my daughter when she was a baby, they would fave it and congratulate me. So, I did the same when they had a baby. As simple as that. Nothing weird or perverted about it. Due to people doxxing me last year however, I deleted the photos of me, my husband and my daughter from DeviantArt, so it's no longer there.

Porn isn't allowed on DeviantArt anyway. The nudes there are so-called artistic nudes, and for the most part I use them as pose-references when I draw as it is easier to draw a pose using a nude base and then dress them up once you got the pose right.

"The very naked" centaurs I have faved. Well, I like the mythological creature Centaur. And as far as I know… they do not wear clothes, so how are they NOT nude? Look it up, it's a horse body with a human torso instead of horse head. I don't see them as sexual, but what do I know? Maybe YOU do?

I have no sexual interest in children whatsoever.

 5. Running the NSFW-blog on Tumblr and Twitter.

Yes. I was one of six people modding that blog. ONE of six, so I refuse to take the full blame here.

MerciResolution has openly admitted to being the founder, and she recruited me and some others to modify as the confession load became too heavy for one person to handle alone.

The original blog on Tumblr worked as follows: People would anonymously send a confession to our askbox, we would add a picture (sometimes photoshopped) to the text and post it on the blog. Always tagged as NSFW and with proper trigger warnings if necessary! The blog itself was also marked as explicit, so it didn't appear in searches and such.

For us, this blog was nothing but a joke. We did it for shits and giggles. If anyone took it seriously and thought we got off to the stuff that was posted, we apologize for that, but to us it was just for laughs. And we DID laugh a lot, you guys should have seen the weird shit people sent us sometimes!

We had fun and we never thought anyone would take it seriously, so we never thought of writing "joke" in the description or anything. It never occurred to us that it could be anything but a joke.

We also made a Twitter account for it, also locked for minors. But it was quickly hacked, and someone changed the password so we could no longer access it. We made another account and forgot about the old one…

After a while, the original mods started losing interest and the blog (both on Tumblr and Twitter) became less active. That's when a person I had known for years, and wrongfully trusted, came forward and wanted to take over ownership. So, the ownership was handed over to Russalita/Charlie.

That turned out to be huge mistake!

Me and the other mods had more or less forgotten that the blogs existed, when suddenly someone started bashing me and getting up in my arms over it. I got seriously confused as I hadn't been active on it in almost a year. But as it turned out, Russalita had removed the mature filters and made the accounts open for all the see. Even minors.

And as people knew I was one of the mods, they fired their guns at me. I can see why though, so I'm not pointing any fingers here.

I tried contacting her by phone, asking her to lock the accounts again, but she gave me a less than polite response, hung up and then blocked my number…

So, I decided to try to shut the blogs down on my own, trying the old passwords. It worked on the Tumblr-account, and I managed to password protect it, for some reason it couldn't be fully deleted. But the Twitter account had gotten its password changed by Russalita. I was however able to get a new password by logging into the e-mail we had used to create it. I deleted the Twitter blog fully. It can't be re-activated even if we wanted to. It's gone.

But it turns out the old, hacked one is still up and now open for everyone. And this one poses a huge problem as we have no way of getting into it to delete it. Only thing we have been able to do so far is reporting it and hope it will be removed by Twitter. So I only have one thing to say about it: report it.

I am no longer running any NSFW TTTE blog anywhere, nor do I have interest in doing so. So, if you come across one, claiming to be me or any of the other mods, it is false.

 6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

People seem to believe I have drawn genitals on trains. I have never done such. Any art on the NSFW-blog with genitalia on the trains were sent in by confessors and was not drawn by me. Most of them seems to have been drawn by someone who goes by the name "The Lance".

I HAVE drawn things for the NSFW blog, but there were no genitalia in those drawings. I drew Frank of Arlesdale looking grossed out by (I don't know what the part is named in English, but it is connected to the brakes of the engine) that stick-like thing on his bufferbeam being wet from whatever the confessor did to him. I drew an over-exaggerated comical pic of a horrified Peter Sam getting his face licked by his driver, who had an enormous tongue. I also did a couple of manips. Mostly maniping engine faces on humans, like the one where Gordon's face is on a less than fit guy flailing his shirt around, and the Arlesdale smallies' faces on a movie poster from Magic Mike. One with Mr.Conductor in a giant bun while Pinchy is applying ketchup on him, for a confession about eating him, I think?  I've done some more, but I forgot what it was, I only know I loved making them comical rather than erotic, as I saw the blog as a joke overall.

I HAVE also drawn aheago faces on engines because it looks hilarious. Though I have only drawn them on my OCs and the NRS engines, not TTTE characters.

Point is I have never drawn genitalia on trains. Ever. And I likely never will. It's not THAT much fun drawing NSFW stuff.

I see from this screenshot that a certain MK-Instrumentalist claim that all my personal art is age-regression art and infantilism…

Whose art have you been looking at? Because it's definitely not mine. I have drawn a couple of baby/chibi diesels… But claiming that all of my 700 or so artworks are depicting infantilism and age-regression stuff? I suggest people go have a look for themselves. I haven't drawn that. That MK-guy has been desperately trying to cancel me for ages for reasons only himself know. I don't even know the guy, and he doesn't know me, yet he wants to see me beheaded. Go figure.

I was for a long time bothered by some age-regressor on Tumblr who just wouldn't leave me alone with their weird asks, who tried to force themselves on me and some other artists here. They claim age-regression isn't a fetish, but the shit they sent to my askbox certainly looked like a fetish to me.

I don't want anything to do with that stuff. It weirds me out.

And no. I have never drawn pedophilia or rape art either. This guy can't even make up his mind on which one to accuse me of.

 7 and 8. Faking suicide and having the audacity to survive and go on living.

As many know, after the intense shitstorm against me last summer, thanks to Darin, I attempted suicide. I didn't succeed as my husband came home early. I was gone for a few days but returned when a young boy reached out to me for help as he was being groomed and didn't know who else to turn to.

Recently I saw a screenshot where someone claimed me to have faked suicide, and that I just came back after a few days when everything had died down.

Wow.

I am truly sorry I survived.

I don't remember much from those days to be honest, but as the load became too heavy and the bullying too intense, piling up on 30 years of old trauma… I decided to end it. I must warn you guys who might get triggered now; there are detailed descriptions of a suicide attempt. Proceed with caution. People told me I was a bad mother among other things, having had those same thoughts myself (according to my husband, I am a good mom) and people just confirming them, I thought that my daughter would be better off growing up without me. I could have chosen a more effective suicide method, but I was afraid my daughter would be the first to find me, so I wanted it to be clean and look like I was just sleeping. That way it could be explained as natural causes.

So, I decided to overdose on pills. I downed all pills I could find in the house that had a warning triangle on it (strong pain meds etc.) and then went to my computer to delete my online existence, especially the personal data.

As a former paramedic, I should have known better. Because after half an hour, my body started reacting. But not the way I had hoped and wanted. I started retching and almost vomiting. That's when my husband came home from work and found me. He immediately saw the empty packages and knowing my past suicidal tendencies, he reacted instinctively. He put his fingers down my throat and had me puke everything up, then he called an ambulance and had me admitted to the hospital.

I don't remember anything from the days I spent there. But I have been told they emptied my stomach and gave me lots of fluids. I was then assigned a psychiatrist which I am still seeing today.

I was gone for those days because I was in hospital, not because I was pulling some kind of trick and pretending to have ended myself.

So… I am sorry I "faked" my suicide.

I'm sorry my husband saved me. I am sorry the medics and doctors succeeded in saving my life.

I am sorry I survived and proceeded to live on. If I ever make another attempt, I promise to do better.

Why are you guys so persistent in trying to push people to suicide anyway? Do you get a kick out of it? Why do people have to be pushed to that point before you care?

What did we tell our daughter? Simply that I got sick and had to go to the hospital. She took that well.

I've seen a lot of people wonder why I am still around. Why shouldn't I? Does my daughter deserve to lose her mother over some online crap she doesn't even know about? I owe her to live and watch her grow up, to help her with her homework and whatever else a parent needs to do. I also owe my husband to stay by his side, like I promised him the day we got married. Even if I do not wish to live.

I'm sorry I survived, guys. Really, I am.

 9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it. And 1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

 First… why would anyone make up trauma? It's not like it's a competition to have the worst life, is it?

Sadly, I don't have to make up anything. My life HAS been rocky up until the birth of my daughter. I have been through so much trauma I couldn't even fathom it myself before my therapist listed it all up to me. Until then, I had just been casually talking to her about it, like I would talk about the weather. I didn't cry or get in touch with my emotions even once while telling everything, because I was taught from an early age to never complain, to suck it up and go on. So, no matter what people did to me, I would just smile and go on, even if it killed me inside. I did not want to show any sign of weakness, because then they would attack me. A habit I developed through years of being bullied in school. Never show feelings, just pretend nothing could hurt you, then they would eventually grow tired of it and stop.

Except they never did. They kept going through all my years at school. To such an extent, my boyfriend didn't dare to show himself hanging out with me out of fear of being bullied himself… And as we grew older, he would start cheating on me too. And I kept smiling…

My next boyfriend was a bit older than me, and while that didn't bother me, as we were both well over legal age, it bothered him. We only lasted one year before he bailed out and ditched me out of the blue via an sms.

The next guy… was the one who scarred me for life. Both physically and mentally. A charmer at first of course, until I was trapped. He was unemployed, so he moved in with me, and I paid for everything from food to phone bills. All while he was dating several women behind my back, calling various pay-phone services and in general acted like a manwhore. As I worked as an electrician (also being subject to massive bullying and sexual harassment at work), he would be jealous of all my co-workers and if I ever came home late or worked overtime, he accused me of cheating and was extremely violent about it. He would also isolate me from my friends and family, making me think I couldn't get any other than him. If any of my male friends (almost all my friends are male…) came over, he would give me such hell afterwards, it was easier just to tell them it was a bad time to visit. And after a while, they stopped asking. This guy also demanded sex. Every single day. If I refused, he would punish me, mostly by flogging me with lampcords, belts or whatever else he had at hand. My back is a criss cross map of old, faded scars even now nearly 20 years later. I would have shown you a photo, but I am so self-concious about my body after all the bullying, I hardly even show my face in photos. Maybe one day… but I certainly need more therapy before being able to show naked skin to strangers, even if it's just my back. So I had non-consensual sex with him more often than consensual. It has taken me hours in therapy to even take the word in my mouth and call it by its proper name: rape. I was raped, almost every single day for little over a year, before I found the strength to break out of the relationship and finally throw him out of my house. It all ended when I found some revealing texts on his cellphone, which he was extremely protective of… Texts that revealed that he had engaged in a relationship with a 12 year old girl, and it had been going on for a while. Not only was he cheating on me, but he was a pedophile too. Needless to say, I didn't even let him pack his stuff before I fetched my shotgun and chased him out of the house. I don't know where I got the courage and strength from… but I was furious.

I thought I had gotten rid of him, but no. He started stalking me in public. Hiding behind shelves when I was shopping, his car following mine everywhere I went. I received weird letters in the mail with cut-out letters from newspapers, glued together. On top of all, his creepy, old uncle called me with some rather disgusting suggestions and tried to come on to me really hard. I had to change my phone number, and after coming home to my house and finding out someone had entered my home using a key, only to empty the drawer of my night table, I also had to change the locks of my doors as he had clearly copied the key.

He didn't stop until I got the police involved.

So, when I finally met the guy who would become my husband (or rather, we found out we were made for each other, we had known each other since we were 11 years old), I had major trust issues towards men especially and it took him endless patience and love to break me out of that shell.

But the trauma doesn't stop… or start there.

In the year 2000, on January 4th, I would experience something that made me unable to even look at a train for over 10 years. The Åsta accident (google it). I was a volunteer in the Norwegian Red Cross then, and a paramedic in training. Back then, you were allowed to start training the year you would turn 16. So, I was still 15 when I witnessed the most traumatic event of my life. The day started out calm, we were stocking up the ambulance after delivering a patient to the hospital when we got a call with the code "500", which means "catastrophe". Normally when we get that code it is a rehearsal… so we drove towards the coordinates with the thoughts that this was just an exercise, nothing real… we didn't prepare ourselves mentally… And we ended up in the closest thing to hell I have ever been… The sight of the burning trains, the smells, the sounds, the screaming… I still wake up by nightmares to this day. Though the moment that haunts me the most is when the screaming stopped… because we all knew why… I don't want to go into details, but 19 people died that day. But we also saved 67 people. I try to hold on to that thought. The age limit for starting paramedic training was raised after this, as I wasn't the only one who was too young for an accident of that scale. Today it is 18. A memorial stone has been placed on the site, but I still haven't been able to bring myself to visit it, even if we drive past the site every year on our way to visit family further north in the country. I needed hours of therapy to even be able to ride a train after this. To have gotten to the point where I now volunteer at a heritage railway and is in training to become a driver, is a HUGE step for me. My next goal is to visit the site of the accident.

On to next trauma… A previous employer, a rather large electric company in Norway, whom I worked for 8 years. The first five years were great, we were a close-knit bunch of electricians, and we had a great relationship with the bosses and higher-ups. Our labor union was strong.

It all started changing in 2009 when we got new leaders… and those decided to get rid of everyone who were a member of the union. One by one, they started harassing workers in various ways, trying to get them to quit. In Norway, they need a legal reason to fire you, it's not enough to not like someone. There has to be a good reason to fire someone e.g. theft, neglecting work… Since they didn't have any reasons to fire us, they started making our work lives gradually harder and harder until we would break and find another job. Sadly, one of my co-workers couldn't stand the pressure… He bid us all farewell as normal one Friday and hung himself the following day.. But as I was a girl in a male-dominated profession, I had been taught at an early stage to ignore anything that would hurt me emotionally, just arch my neck and plow through. I kept doing that, despite starting to feel more and more mental and physical pains… even my co-workers pointed out how I was being mistreated before I acknowledged it myself. I tried to tell my boss, but he reacted by treating me worse. So, I went to his boss… and that's when things went to hell. Instead of doing his job and listen, he started harassing me too. He deemed my over-weight a problem, and he started demanding I gave him detailed lists of what I ate and how much I worked out… Completely illegal of course, but by this point I was broken down to the point I thought I was useless and couldn't get another job… so I accepted. He started accusing me of lying about my exercise, so I started training at the gym in the basement at work instead. One day, while I was there, he locked the doors and turned the lights off. There were no windows, no cellphone reception and hardly anyone walking by in that part of the building… I sat there in the pitch dark for 3 hours before I was let back out. I still get badly triggered by narrow, dark rooms and rooms with no windows. To such an extent, I jumped out of a small window on the second floor of a gym when I was in boot camp. I was allowed to train downstairs in the bigger gym with windows on all walls after that incident…

The harassment at work went on for years until I finally snapped, ended up at the hospital and got into therapy for the first time. I don't want to go into depth about what more happened, I just can't… I can't bring myself to write it all. Luckily, I had gotten more education while working, so when I graduated, another company called and gave me an offer I just couldn't refuse. So, I quit my job and never looked back, even if the traumas I suffered there still haunts me to this day.

Sadly, even after switching jobs, now getting a safe job with sane leaders… I started to relax, and that's when all my past trauma came washing over me. And one day, on while driving to work, I had my first serious panic attack. It started as this feeling I used to have at the old company; getting sick to my stomach and having the sense of someone being out to get me… then it developed to breathing problems… and I had to pull the car over. I broke into tears, struggling to breathe, stumbling out of the car to read the logo on its side just to reassure my body and brain that I worked for a different company now and there was no reason for panic. I called my boss and let him know, because he also was a "refugee" from that other company, so he knew what me and several others had gone through. He managed to talk me down enough for me to come to the office to talk to him. That helped.

I got back into therapy. A better therapist this time. But sadly, it got apparent that I could no longer work as an electrician as there was too many triggers. I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, and social anxiety. I'm still working on these and get better slowly.

I have been in therapy for a long time now, and it was my therapist that suggested I wrote fics to cope and "write it out". I tried to make up my own characters for this, but never felt any connection. I was by this time in the TTTE fandom and had met people with similar trauma and pasts like myself, and I started roleplaying with some of them. Me and a girl from UK then agreed to try to rp/co-write a fic to cope with our trauma. We both found it easier to write about pre-established characters we had a connection to, even if it was an au that made it barely recognizable from the original source material. Only the names and some minor things were similar.

That fic was Stepney's Virginity Gets Lost.

Do we regret writing it? No. It helped us write out our traumas and helped us overcome some mental obstacles in out therapy process. Our therapists cheering us on, because we finally managed to break through the hard shell surrounding us. We both cried for the first time in years while writing it, some of it through roleplay, because some parts were extremely graphic and brutal and very mentally exhausting. We had to take long breaks between each writing session, so the fic wasn't written in just a weekend. But we got a lot of darkness out of our minds by writing all this. And we were definitely NOT aroused by it, like this pervert here claims.

It's when you dare to touch and feel the difficult and dark emotions, you can finally move along in the grieving process.

Should it have been posted online?

In retrospect, no. But at the time, we thought it might help other trauma victims, as we also found reading about other people's experiences and fictions touching painful subjects helpful to ourselves. So, we posted it, never expecting it to cause such a controversy 3 years later. In fact, we had more or less forgotten about it until it came back to bit us in the ass. Or rather, bite ME in the ass, as I am getting the full blame alone.

Also, despite what people claim, it was not posted openly for children to read. It was tagged properly and hidden behind mature content walls. If a minor chooses to break that wall, that's not the author's fault. It's the same as watching a movie with an age restriction way above your age, not the filmmaker's fault.

I think MerciResolution puts it nicely here:

"If your problem lies with you KNOWINGLY entering adult spaces when you’re a minor, ignoring all mature warnings that are literally SCREAMING at you “hey, this is what you’re getting into. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

That’s ENTIRELY on you. YOU are the fucking problem.

We’re marking mature things as best as we properly can. If you decide to ignore them, that’s your own damn fault. We’re not your fucking babysitters."

Also, I never posted the story on Wattpad, so if anyone has done that, it's not me. I posted the story on Fanfiction.net, DeviantArt and AO3, that's all. If it's posted anywhere else, it's not done by me.

I had honestly moved on from it when people pulled me back into it.

Other people who have done questionable shit in that fandom are easily forgiven because "they have moved on" or "changed". Yet, nobody believes I can move on or change…?

I had moved on; my interests had changed. But people won't let me, so here I am… Having to defend some crap I did years ago. A fic I no longer have any interest in.

I'm not even interested in TTTE anymore. I have moved on with my own book project now and I would like to focus on that.

So, deleting my TTTE content, whether it was the SFW or NSFW stuff, didn't cost me a penny. It actually felt like a relief. The only downside with it is that people now can't read it and make up their own opinion about it, but will solely believe in what others say, and those things are often seriously bent out of shape and blown out of proportions to such an extent it's barely recognizable.

If people claim that Arry and Bert rape Stepney in the fic, they have never seen it or read it. That's not what happens. That's just an assumption made by looking at the title and knowing there is a rape/torture scene in it. But I'm not gonna tell who the victim is or who performed it, because this is the only way I am able to tell who has actually read the fic or not, who is just trying to spread bullshit and who is actually telling the truth. The person in that screenshot, has no idea what he's talking about.

Does SVGL romanticize rape and abuse?

No, not in the least. It's described as the horrible, heinous acts it is and is in no way meant to be cute or romantic and definitely NOT something anyone should get off to. If anyone finds it sexy, that's their problem, not the authors'. If anything, SVGL might romanticize suicide, because one of the characters isn't able to cope with his trauma and chooses to end their life. Which is something I considered doing myself when I was in the darkest pit of depression. So, I apologize for maybe romanticizing suicide. The following chapters describe how friends and family handle the loss and grief.

It also describes a toxic relationship, where one of the parts struggles to get out of it. They eventually manage to break free, but it is not easy. This can easily be translated to my previously mentioned relationship, as it was my way of writing out my experience about how hard it is to break out of a relation when your partner has broken you down to the point where you no longer believe in yourself and your self-worth.

The last chapters start to gradually become brighter, as both our lives started getting better too. But we never really wrote the end because we both lost interest in writing TTTE content by that time and just left it hanging.

I'm not the only one who has written NSFW TTTE fanfics out there. But it seems like violence and murder is more acceptable than sexual things? I do wonder how brutally mutilating children's show characters are more tolerable than sexually abusing them. Neither should be okay.

Some content creators hide behind "it was a joke". I have been told that such topics that SVGL touches upon shouldn't be joked about… so I didn't do that, and yet it was wrong? So how should such topics be treated? Be hidden like it's a shame, like in the old days when rape victims were told to suck things up and keep it to themselves? When those subject to abuse didn't dare to speak up because people would judge them?

I think it is important to talk about these subjects and why they are so problematic. Victims shouldn't have to hide their trauma; they should be allowed to talk openly about it without fearing judgement.

Some of you claim that writing isn't a good way to cope… You're trying to dictate how trauma victims deal with their trauma, and that's a dangerous path to walk down. Nobody handles trauma the same way. You might have your thoughts on how you would react, but you'll never know until trauma hits you… and you might not react the way you had expected or planned. Trauma messes with your head and you won't be able to think clearly. It makes you do thinks you normally wouldn't have done and can make you act out of character. So, do not judge people without having been in the same situation yourself. Ever.

Someone wrote that I have "more problems that just a rape".

Read that again.

Just a rape.

This person does not know how damaging a rape can be. And if you made it this far in this post, you know I didn't only go through one, but several. Not just by my ex, but also being ambushed while I was walking home from a party, and later; a co-worker forcing himself onto me at a building site. I can't go into depth about them all, I just can't.

Just a rape…

"Just" the feeling of not being in control of your own body and your own decisions. "Just" being robbed off your dignity and self-worth. "Just" having someone intrude into your private zone, tear your clothes off and claim your body against your will. "Just" feeling how your life force leave you as you realize that fighting against it won't help you, and you silently give up and just lay down waiting for it all to be over. "Just" spending hours in the shower, scrubbing your skin until you bleed because you can't wash the filth away and you keep feeling dirty no matter how much you clean yourself. "Just" waking up at night, after having relived the scene again in a nightmare. "Just" looking over your shoulder wherever you walk because you heard something or thought you saw something or simply because someone is walking behind you. "Just" the fact that you'll never feel comfortable walking alone at night again or have someone walk behind you. "Just" never being able to relax because your body constantly think you're in grave danger. "Just" a rape…

That's such a neck-beard thing to say. Someone who clearly think of other people's bodies as property or things. Not taking into consideration that we are living, breathing individuals with feelings. And that having another person violate us isn't something we like or that we'll easily get over. We want to choose who we give ourselves to, nobody should be forced. We didn't ask to be raped. We didn't want it. We didn't like it.

Rape is trauma.

Yes, we should have chosen other characters for the story, but we did what we did, and it cannot be undone now. So, if the only thing I will be remembered for in the fandom is that ONE fic, instead of all my other content, that's what it will be. That's what people chose to. I'm moving on.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

*sigh*

This is something that could only happen in America, isn't it?

Some people don't bother educating themselves. The "nazi-letters" you guys are talking about is actually part of the Norwegian alphabet and has nothing to do with Nazism or white-supremacy to do at all. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters, the three extra is æ,ø,å or in capital letters: Æ,Ø,Å.

We can't help it if some morons over in the US abuse these letters as symbol of their twisted mindset.

Yes, my name contains one of those letters. It is my name… and I didn't choose it. It is a common Norwegian name.

As for me being a Nazi?

Those who knows me knows that I am as far from a Nazi as one can get. I despise Nazism with all my heart.

But the reason some people choose to believe so… was that some guy who has no hobbies or life went through every single fave I've made on DeviantArt since I joined the site in 2006, which is well over 20000 faves. And he found a few Nazi-characters from a web series I was following about ten years ago. I am very interested in history and especially WW2-history, so I found that particular web-series interesting and faved some artwork related to it. What this guy failed to notice is that I also faved the Allied characters… That's ALL there is to that story.

I has also faved a pic someone made of Joseph Goebbels (I think it was?) as a Pixar Car. That's not because I have any nazi-sympathies, but I simply found the concept of turning historical persons, both good and bad, into Cars as an interesting project. I would have faved any other historical Carsified person as well.

As for me being a Norwegian and have a natural pale complexion, that's not something I can help. That's nothing I choose. And it doesn't make me racist or Nazi. Period.

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

Again. Get educated.

This flag… is the actual flag of my country. The Kingdom of Norway.

There is nothing Nazi about it. It is not a symbol of white-supremacy. IT IS THE FLAG OF NORWAY.

During WW2 it was even illegal, so people would paint it everywhere in a protest against the Nazi-occpation and the SS. We even decorated our Christmas trees with it, and that is a tradition that has followed us into the modern day.

Again, if some idiots in the US choose to use it as a symbol for their disgusting logic, it is not Norway or the Norwegians' fault.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

I need people to elaborate here.

What exactly do you think I do to my daughter? What is the cause of your concern here?

The fact that I have made NSFW content? How is that harmful to her as long as I keep it away from her? You DO realize that even authors, pornstars and moviemakers have children and that they can be good parents, right?

Do you think I read pornographic content for her as bedtime stories? Or show her porn instead of kids TV? How sick are you guys, really…?

Some people even wanted CPS to take my child away from me… Have a look at these screenshots…

You want a happy, healthy, innocent child to be taken away from a stable, safe home with loving parents just because you don't like the content the mother made? You want her to be placed in foster care, where there is no guarantee that she will have a happy upbringing rather than have her stay with her parents who love her and care for her, for reasons she'll never understand and wasn't even aware of?

"Think of the children!" a lot of you say when it comes to my content. May I ask why this doesn't apply to my daughter?

Why do some of you go as far as to wishing her dead or wanting her to be removed from the home she feels safe and loved in? How is that thinking of the children?

As for the douchebag in that screenshot. You claim that if your mother did something like that you would want nothing to do with her… I have a question: Do you know EVERYTHING your mother do? Does she include you in each aspect of her life? Even her sexual life? No?

How do you know she doesn't do thing you don't approve of when you're not around? She could be a rabid pornmag reader for all you know. But stuff like that is something adults hide from their kids. So, you wouldn't know, unless you go snooping around in her business.

Everyone is entitled to privacy. What I and my husband do when our kid is not around is our business, not hers, and certainly not yours.

Porn and parenting are to be kept separate from each other. Period.

And we do.

There is absolutely no reason to be worried about my daughter. She is a happy, healthy child in a safe, stable home with family that loves her and cares for her. Not just me and my husband, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

If you want to remove her from that over a stupid fanfic behind a mature content wall, you're the deranged person, not me.

 This is all I have to say about all this and my time in the TTTE fandom. I have left by my own, free will. Yes, I am aware that many people don't want me there. That's fine. I don't want to be there.

I am a bit disappointed in those people who just blindly unfollowed me and unfriended me without any questions asked, just followed the leader. Big users tend to dictate who and what is worth following in that fandom. They will even protect real predators, but I'm not going to open that can of worms now. I'm done with the fandom.

Some of those people, I have been talking to regularly, even supported when they faced hardships in the fandom themselves. But when I got in trouble, they ditched me without a word…

If anything, this whole ordeal showed me who to trust and not, and who were true to their word when it came to how deep our friendship was. True friends at least give you the chance to explain before they drop you. I hold no ill feelings to those who did, at least they asked me before judging.

And those who still stayed with me, are the ones who truly know me and who I really am.

Some of the worst libels posted about me might be reported to the police, but I haven't made up my mind yet. I am not mentally strong at the moment, so I don't know if I have the strength to legally follow it all up. I will ask the cops at work for advice on the matter.

All I ask for now is some peace.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to follow me. You don't have to like my content. Feel free to invalidate me, I know a lot of you will.

But please, stop bullying me and my family.

Please stop sending me horrid messages and death threats.

Please stop doxxing me and calling me.

Please leave my family alone. If you don't care about me, at least care about them.

Please just ignore me. I have already left the fandom, there is no reason to keep hunting me.

I just want to move on and go on with my life and the content I am currently working on. After years in therapy, my life has gotten better, and I want to move on.

Please let me.

[needsmoresleepwrites]

Gift for Daiyanerd: Miyuki Kazuya. Always cool and collected. Has a great side profile. Good at baseball. Well, no, great is the correct word. (sofa’21)

Moratorium

Read on Ao3

ONE

Miyuki Kazuya

Always cool and collected. Has a great side profile. Good at baseball. Well, no, great is the correct word. Even when he sometimes messes up some of the smaller plays. Reliable. Daring. Funny. Charming. Has probably had a dozen girlfriends, or maybe not. Nobody has been able to get any concrete answer on that one question, but he's definitely a lady's man, his fan club primarily consisting of girls and women that claim they would leave their current lives just to marry him if he so much as hinted interest. Or at least that's what many of the magazines, both sports and gossip ones say about him

Not to be too full of himself, but Kazuya thinks that much of what they say has some foundation. Yeah, people like Yoichi and Jun know better but he has to agree that his catching skills are unparalleled. He might also really like sending magazine covers with blown up images of his smiling (smirking) face to Yoichi just to get a scathing reply or an angry call. His only response is his lady killer (annoying) laugh

He knows he's always being watched by someone, but it completely slips his mind that anything could go wrong on that day

The headlines are brutal and he's gotten many messages and calls from his friends. He hasn't really answered because, well, he hasn't been able to. But he knows what they're saying. He's laying at the hospital with bandages covering most of his torso. He has a sense of deja vu, having been in a similar position when he'd been in high school, but this is much, much worse. Something happened and everyone is scrambling to find out what

Everyone except Rei, who has been detained. The tabloids are lapping this up like it's the sip of water they've finally been allowed after being stuck in a desert for months. Except that they're ruining the lives of the people Kazuya loves the most

He sees different news channels trying to get interviews from the few people that make up his friends. They want to know about Rei from high school. They've dug up her whole life's story and put it on full blast. They want to know about Kazuya, as if they haven't already told all there is to say, invented and created his whole career. They talk about how Rei pretty much scouted him from a very young age. The same women that claim they would do anything for Kazuya have turned razer sharp, claiming that "they knew it all along" and that Rei "had it coming"

They all twist the information for entertainment and Kazuya closes his eyes, disgusted at what they say about her.

There had been an accident. His car had been hit and he knows he needed surgery. Later they found out it was all a setup and he went from being one of the richest people and baseball players in Japan to having nothing. His career may as well be over. It will take too long for him to recover. Games won't wait.

Kazuya throws the remote in his hand and wants to tell them all its lies. He knows Rei would never do something like this. She's smart. It doesn't make sense. As much as Rei will follow a gut instinct, especially if it's about recruiting potential, it's always based on logic. There is no logic here.

His name flashes on multiple headlines and all he wants to scream is no, I didn't she say she stole my money!

The machines connected to his body have been beeping for a while now and finally, nurses and doctors run in. They try to get him to calm down but all he can do is repeat It wasn't her! It wasn't her! Rei would never! Tell them to stop!

Soon he feels drowsy and he realizes he's been sedated.

Before he closes his eyes he sees a picture of Rei next to the news anchor. Her hair is down, her eyes look haunted, but her posture is proud. She's not in her usual suit. Instead, she's wearing that dreaded green top, almost drowning her, making her pale skin paler. She doesn't look right. It's not the Rei he knows. The Rei he owes everything to.

He feels the tears burn his eyes.

----

TWO.

It takes a little over a year for things to "settle" down, but once the storm is over, everything is ruined.

Kazuya still manages to get his face blown up on magazine covers, but this time it's for a different reason. He's now considered a victim and he hates the images of him being wheeled out of the hospital. Of the tabloids somehow getting a shot of his bloodshot eyes, his pale skin, and his hunched shoulders. He wishes his attorney had allowed Kazuya to do something, but everything was too precarious, we have to be careful. Careful of what? He can no longer play baseball. He was already pushing the age of acceptability, only being allowed to continue contracts because he was so good, was still quick, was dedicated in mind, body, and soul to the game. But now he was injured, would be in rehab, and nobody knew if he'd still be able to move as great as before. Nobody would take that risk

Rei is finally released, but her life is ruined too. Hers is worse than Kazuya's will ever be. Not just because she's the supposed mastermind of the accident and subsequent disappearance of his capital, but because she's a woman. It's made him sick how she's been torn apart and left behind. She had already been forcefully (through great results) making her own space at the table. This was just the excuse to make her disappear. Nobody wanted a criminal as their associate. The label was tarnished and it would take time to rebuild their name. "Apologies" had been passed around, but nobody would take the risk of allowing her space again

Nobody thought to ask her side of the story, to reach out and help. She was alone. Nobody could legally take what she's rightfully earned, but they can pile fines upon fines. She is "free to go" but they have severely limited what she can do.

It only makes sense that she finally retires. Kazuya goes to see her with the Seidou team. He breaks when he finally sees what they've done to her, all in "his name", to "protect him". Rei is strong, logical, smart, but she can't help but allow herself to show a bit of emotion at that moment. She wipes away at Kazuya's face, "There's nothing left for me here and there's no use crying. The only way to go now is forward."

Chris recommends that Kazuya go to the same rehab facility he went to in America.

Kazuya doesn't want to leave. It feels like admitting defeat, like running away, like he's abandoning his friends.

Yoichi grits his teeth, tells Kazuya he wants to punch him for being so stupid, "But hitting an injured person isn't my style, even though it's YOU."

There is little progress on his health, both physical and mental, and then Yoichi, who has been singlehandedly taking care of him whenever he has a moment to spare, nearly begs him, "Kazuya, please. Go. Don't let this defeat you. I don't want to admit it but I miss seeing that stupidly smug look on your face. Remember what Rei said. You have to keep moving forward!"

He can't help but laugh one night when he can't sleep, Yoichi's words and his concerned face plaguing his mind. He can't believe he almost let this defeat him. He can't believe he was down enough to force his best friend to make such a face, to make him cry for his sake. He feels like he's let everyone down, especially Rei.

He calls Chris a few days later.

Before leaving, he logs into his Twitter account, which, like any other media source, he's been avoiding for the past year. Someone has obviously logged in and cleared his notifications and as his last stand, no first, because even now "they have to be careful", Kazuya quote RTs an article he hasn't even read, but he doesn't need to. He chooses it because it has one of those headlines. He presses send and logs out.

I NEVER said she stole my money.

----

THREE.

It's two years when he finally comes back to Japan. His rehab had ended months ago but there was a part of him that had been afraid to come back. He's sure Yoichi had sensed it, which is why he'd pretty much dragged him back.

He remembers the conversation they had. It had been really late in Japan, he's sure that Yoichi was on the verge of passing out, could hear every yawn he tried to hide, but he wouldn't let Kazuya hang up, "I'm not hanging up until you agree."

Kazuya sighs, "There's nothing for me to do out there anyway. Here, I've been helping at the hospital."

"But you don't even like that kind of stuff! I bet you're bored out of your mind," Yoichi countered, and Kazuya has to admit that he's not exactly wrong. He misses the excitement from the diamond, feeling the burn on his thighs as he squats behind the batter, signaling different plays to his catchers, the feel of the ball as it lands perfectly in his gloved palm, the roar of the crowd as they once more strikeout another enemy batter. But he can't have any of that. This year Kazuya turns 30 and he has become stiff. He can't move as dexterously as before.

He hears some shuffling on the other end, as if Yoichi is changing positions on his bed, "Look. Not many people know this but...this is actually my last year playing."

Kazuya freezes at that. He knows Yoichi is still keeping up with his own records, has won his team countless matches for his boldness, knows they would never want to let him go. He briefly fears that maybe an injury is involved but shakes his head. No, Yoichi would tell him if that's the case, so then, "Why?"

"That's why I called and I need you to come back," there's another pause, not long, "I'm getting married."

Kazuya blanks out for a moment and then stops what he's doing altogether (he turns off the stove, he'd been making breakfast but this is more important. Besides, he had almost been done), "Married? Did you kidnap some poor girl? I haven't even heard of you dating."

"KAZUYA," he hears Yoichi yell, "I didn't kidnap anyone! And that's because my PR team has been making sure to keep things tightly sealed, and I guess we also haven't been able to see each other much too." That last part is mumbled but Kazuya catches it anyway.

Kazuya hums, still disbelieving, but only slightly. He knows Yoichi wouldn't kid about something like this so if he says he's getting married, he's getting married, "Congratulations then. Not sure how someone found you husband material, but they do say there's a type for everyone. How'd you meet her?"

"You are such a dick," Yoichi hisses, "How are we still even friends?"

Kazuya sometimes wonders the same thing. Yoichi has been with him at his best and worst and has never given up on him. He laughs, "My great personality?"

Yoichi snorts right before laughing, "Yeah right. Anyway, so I met this guy-"

"A husband?" Kazuya cuts him off, genuinely curious, but also can't help but tease, "You hid it so well with all those magazines. I'm sure nobody suspected. No wonder your team is doing such a great job at hiding this."

Yoichi yells into the phone, "Let me finish asshole! No! It's not a guy, her name is Wakana! And she's the childhood friend of this guy I met!"

Kazuya makes a tsk noise, "Yoichi, did you steal her from this guy? Are you a homewrecker?"

Instead of getting mad, Yoichi snorts, "As if. Can you believe Wakana was actually in love with Sawamoron for years and he didn't realize."

Kazuya adds, "So you seduced her?" before Yoichi can continue with the story.

"No? I mean, I'm not sure," but they both know that Yoichi probably couldn't seduce anyone even if he tried. Charmed, yes, but outright seduce? And a girl he liked? Very unlikely, "But she'd been tired of waiting and so I met her after she'd confessed and he rejected her."

"Hmm," Kazuya interrupts again, "So you took advantage when she was down. That makes more sense. She was probably so down about being rejected she would have said yes to anyone. Sadly that someone was you."

Yoichi is flabbergasted, "Take advantage?! MIYUKI, that's not- I'd never - just let me finish!"

Kazuya laughs, "Ok, ok. So how did you meet her? I won't interrupt again."

Just like that, Yoichi calms down and Kazuya notes the happiness in his voice as he laughs, not at Kazuya, but at something, the memory perhaps, and Kazuya is slightly jealous. He's not sure at what or who.

"So this kid, Sawamura, we were going to meet up at the park. He had something to tell me, but then I see him running after this girl, yelling about money or something. So I cut her off-"

Kazuya can't help but laugh, "Y-Yoichi, did you, did you attack the poor girl?"

"Didn't you say you weren't going to interrupt?!" Yoichi screeches, but he starts laughing a bit too, "And no, I didn't attack her but, well..."

There's a groan on the other end and Kazuya can imagine his best friend blushing to the tips of his ears, "I pulled her by the arm and she was surprised, but then she did something and next thing I know I'm on the ground, looking up at her and Sawamura is laughing like he's seen the most hilarious thing ever!"

He wonders if that kid was laughing as hard as he is now. He feels the tears tickling his eyes, his cheeks hurt, and he feels the force of his laugh pulling on his stomach, "I already like the girl. What happened next?"

Yoichi lets him laugh but his voice is annoyed, not at him he notes, but at what happens next, "So Sawamoron comes up finally and he knows the girl and I'm confused and just got thrown to the ground by a girl that doesn't even reach my chin, and I ask him why he was yelling about a thief, because that's what he was doing."

More shifting on Yoichi's end, "And you know what he said to me?"

"What?"

"He goes "I never said she stole my money!" so I knock him over the head because yeah, he's right, he was YELLING IT. Everyone in the goddamn park heard it! Made him buy me dinner and everything."

Kazuya feels a lump in his throat but pushes it aside, he turns the stove on again to finish preparing his breakfast, "I guess for Wakana I can go back. When's the wedding? And will I be your best man?"

----

FOUR.

Kazuya hasn't even been home a month when Yoichi walks into his apartment with their old Seidou team. Everyone seems to be there, even the first years like Ryo's little brother and Furuya. There really isn't anything Kazuya can do but move aside so that everyone can come inside. At the end of the group, right after the first years enter, he spots someone he doesn't know. A kid with unruly brown hair, brown eyes, and tanned skin who looks slightly nervous. His posture is too stiff but he's also looking around curiously.

Yoichi notices Kazuya looking at him and comes over for introductions. He pulls the kid into a side hug, "Kazuya, this is Sawamura, Wakana's friend."

Kazuya looks him over. He's heard a few things about him from Yoichi, "So this is Sawamoron?" he teases. He can't help the lift of his lips as the kid splutters in indignation.

A high pitched, "Kuramochi-senpai! You can't call me that anymore, we're practically family now!"

Yoichi howls, slapping the kid on the back, "You're always going to be a moron Sawamura, hyahaha!"

Sawamura grits his teeth for a second before standing up straight, stretching out his hand towards Kazuya, "Good afternoon, It's a pleasure to meet you! My name is Sawamura Eijun! Thank you for inviting me!!"

Kazuya looks at the outstretched hand for a moment before he doubles over laughing. Sawamura let's out another unidentified sound before yelling, "That's so rude Miyuki Kazuya!!" but he hasn't dropped his arm.

Kazuya takes a breath, isn't surprised he knows his name (briefly wonders if he knows who he is), right before taking that tanned hand into his own. Sawamura's hold is firm, if a bit sweaty, nerves probably, "Well, as you so clearly let my neighbors know, my name is Miyuki Kazuya." He pauses, "And I didn't invite you."

Sawamura pales slightly, looks over to Yoichi who just makes a rude noise, "Really Kazuya? You have to be a dick right off the bat?"

Kazuya only smiles brightly, finally letting go of the kid's hand, looks around his house, and says, "Actually, I didn't invite any of you over. Why are you all here?"

The others have already settled into his kitchen and, he peers through the doorway, there are bottles of coke and beer and the smell of oily pizza in the air. Jun has already made himself at home on his couch, a paper plate with a pizza on it. He's halfway into that slice and Kazuya doesn't know why Jun didn't just take an extra slice or two with him before settling down. Ryo and Haruichi are putting things in his fridge. He realizes now how empty his fridge must have been. He had been meaning to go grocery shopping but he supposes he hadn't had the energy to go. Kanemaru is clearing up some of the boxes he had yet to unbox, reading the labels Chris had helped him write, and arranging them accordingly.

He knows that many of these guys are still part of the leagues, wonders how they managed to take a moment to raid his home (notices a few faces are missing, like Yuki but he would have been REALLY surprised if they'd managed to get him to come over). He remembers how they'd made it a routine to visit him when they were at Seidou, knowing he could get lost in strategizing and numbers quickly. He feels a penetrating gaze and turns to see the new kid watching him intently. Kazuya can't help the grin that grows on his face and it's finally starting to feel like home.

He motions the two in, "Well, you may as well come in. Everyone is already inside. Feel free to raid my fridge and make a mess in my new kitchen."

Yoichi laughs, pulling Sawamura inside with him. The kid still looks slightly off-balance, but he sits next to the first years like he belongs and he wonders why this picture looks so right.

Yoichi dives in for the last slice of pepperoni pizza just as Sawamura is about to reach for it and then loudly exclaims, "Hey Kazuya, wanna hear something funny?"

Kazuya has already grabbed his own plate and he wonders how he missed all of these pizza boxes when they first came inside. He grabs one with sausage and mushroom, "Hm?"

"So while we were getting the pizza, we sent Sawamura to go get the drinks, right?"

Sawamura, who had just taken a drink from his can of soda, instantly spits it out and Kazuya is both intrigued and disgusted as he sees the drink mixed with spit cover his table, "Kuramochi-senpai, don't!"

He sees Kanemaru chuckling and Jun roars from the living room. Apparently, there were many witnesses to this apparently funny story. Haruichi pats Sawamura's back softly while the kid's face glows red. Kazuya is momentarily worried he might faint but then curiosity wins out, "Oh?"

Yoichi and he share a look, "Get this, we all gave him our share, right? So he goes in and comes back all mad, saying we didn't give him the right amount, but then, but then," It seems the rest of it is too funny for Yoichi to continue because he starts laughing and he notices Sawamura cover his face. He mumbles something but Kazuya doesn't catch it.

Ryo helps him out. He's also amused, a smirk on his face, "The girl stole his change."

Sawamura uncovers his face and yells, "I never said she stole my money!"

There's a moment of silence before...

Jun. He'd come back into the kitchen to get more pizza, "Who else could it have been? Had to be the girl at the counter, or did you just give up your money?"

Kuramochi, "Easy prey, how you're even a teacher is beyond me."

Kanemaru, "Wait. So it wasn't the cashier?"

Even Kazuya can't help but ask, laughter tickling his words, "Emphasis on "she"?"

Sawamura seems to realize his error and covers his face again. He's mumbling again but instead of being annoyed by the bad habit, Kazuya thinks it's almost cute.

"Haruichi?" Ryo questions and Sawamura uncovers his face to yell, "Onii-san! That's not fair! Haruichi you can't tell, you promised!"

Haruichi is looking back and forth between them, "Well..."

Then Furuya explains all, "He was flirting with the delivery guy."

It somehow gets even louder inside his house and Kazuya can't believe he thought of not returning. It's true that his baseball career is over, but this is where his family is at. This is where his life is truly at. He laughs until the tears in his eyes fall.

They spend hours getting him up to speed on gossip.

----

FIVE.

Even though he's only known Sawamura for a few days, maybe weeks, he's the one that keeps Kazuya company the most. And there's a big reason for that named Kuramochi Yoichi. Even though, or perhaps because, it's nearing the end of his contract, Yoichi gets busier. There are some rumors as to why he's finally leaving baseball, but just like he'd told Kazuya, everything is still under wraps. There are no incriminating photos and no face to put to those rumors jealous girls spread online. Kazuya wonders how things will turn out once Yoichi fesses up but until then, Sawamura becomes his shadow

One, he's not bound to such a strenuous schedule (Yoichi told him Sawamura is the grade school teacher at one of the local schools not far from Kazuya's new place. His new house is conveniently placed so close because it will soon be Kazuya's new workplace and they just happen to be on break now), and second...well, Kazuya's not sure. Yoichi didn't want to tell him. Not exactly

He remembers the last time he actually met up with his best friend.

Yoichi had invited him over for dinner and Sawamura had come up somehow (Kazuya comes to realize that Sawamura comes up in their lives very often). Yoichi had been contemplative. They'd just finished watching a movie and were just sitting there in the dark, the credits rolling.

"You know. If Sawamura had actually been interested in Wakana...I don't think I'd have ever had a chance with her. There's just something about him...he's so..." Yoichi makes vague hand movements, "you know?"

Kazuya laughs and wonders if this is what best men have to deal with with their to-be grooms. Jitters, he's heard them called, but he was sure this feeling was supposed to happen days before the wedding, not so far ahead when there wasn't even a date finalized, "Already second-guessing the married life?"

Yoichi doesn't even take the bait. He just sighs and leans back on the couch, "No, I'm serious. There's just something about Sawamura, he's so honest and hardworking. I can see why Wakana liked him."

"Careful, or I might start to think you actually want to marry Sawamura instead."

Yoichi kicks him halfheartedly, "Dumbass."

Their feet are still touching and Yoichi nudges him, "He's a good kid you know."

Kazuya leans out to grab his drink from the low table, takes a sip, "He does seem like it. Although he's a bit..." He tries to find the right word. Dense? Airheaded? No..."innocent?"

Yoichi laughs, "Yes! The stories I could tell you."

It gets quiet and Kazuya enjoys it. It's been years since the two of them have done something like this.

Yoichi breaks the silence again, "You know...Rei actually tried scouting him."

Kazuya takes another swig of his drink, deep, and tries to wash away the feelings of guilt. He hasn't spoken to Rei since the incident. Hasn't really asked about her although he knows she's ok, thanks to Chris

But he's curious now. If Rei had been interested in him then he was undoubtedly good talent, "What happened?"

Yoichi scoffs, "The idiot turned her down! Said he didn't need any fancy schools to play baseball."

Kazuya can't help the snort he lets out into his drink. He hasn't known Sawamura long but he can somehow imagine the face he'd make, how loud he would yell that statement with conviction, "Too bad." He's sure Sawamura could have been someone if he'd come to Seidou and he somehow feels cheated of something

"What position?"

"Pitcher, a southpaw, nasty throw," Yoichi grips his cup tightly. He looks over at him, "He's not a professional but he does still play."

It's a subtle nudge that Kazuya ignores.

Which is probably why he finds Sawamura so often on his doorstep.

Today he's managed to wrangle Kazuya out of his house, but only because it's work-related. The summer heat isn't terrible today so the two decide to walk and even though it's not that far, Kazuya finds himself lightly perspiring. Perhaps he's let himself go more than he thought, and he begins planning a timetable to get his fitness in a better state. Meanwhile, Sawamura is all smiles

"Hurry up Miyuki Kazuya!" He's already at the side door, opening it with his staff key, and Kazuya wonders if they should even be here. There are hardly any cars parked outside and the school is obviously void of children. Classes don't start until next week

"You don't have to call me by my full name," Kazuya tells him as he enters the building. Sawamura slides past him after closing the door, making sure it locks properly, "You can call me Miyuki-senpai."

"What?!" Sawamura's voice echoes in the hallway, "Why should I call you that?!"

"Because you're younger," he pats Sawamura's head and grins, "And smaller."

He slaps his hand away, a blush on his face, "I'm not small! And you're not even that much taller!!"

He stands closer to Kazuya and points at the few centimeters difference between them. Kazuya pushes him back, "Miyuki-senpai."

Sawamura just rolls his eyes and continues walking, "You really do have a terrible personality Miyuki Kazuya!"

Kazuya just laughs, "Thanks!"

"Not a compliment!" Sawamura yells and then points to the rooms in the hall they're in, "I'm usually here with the kids. Since the school isn't that big you'll probably get kids as young as eight and as old as thirteen in your class too, since you're the only gym teacher until Kuramochi-senpai gets married."

Kazuya nods, "Ok, Sawamura...sensei."

Kazuya notes how easy it is to rile up Sawamura. How his face will quickly turn red and his lips will form pouts or grimaces, his body reacting so honestly so quickly. Now he brings up his hands to cover his ears as he yells, "Don't call me that!!"

"Then stop calling me by my full name, it's weird."

"MIYUKI KA-"

Kazuya somehow manages to raise his voice enough to speak over Sawamura, "So Sawamura-sensei, where do the kids go out to play? Sensei?"

Sawamura looks like he's about to burst and goes off yelling. Miyuki follows him, laughing, their voices echoing in tandem

They end up outside behind the school somewhere. Even though it's small, Kazuya is impressed by how well maintained it is. There is a small playground to the side, which has been recently repainted, signs marking the walls and tape clearly discouraging anyone from touching. The mats at the bottom look worn but not in bad shape. Then there is a track that circles what looks like enough field to be a neighborhood. Most of it is empty and Sawamura's talking about how sometimes the kids will go out there and play soccer or volleyball or really whatever sports they need that requires a lot of space. The only place that looks like it truly has a defined purpose is the baseball field.

He feels excited and scared at the same time, wants to run to home plate, to feel the dirt path against his feet, crouch, and take in the view. But he also thinks this is a bad idea. Maybe he shouldn't have come here, shouldn't have accepted the job. He knows why they want him, why they're willing to wait a year for Yoichi to come and teach. He's not sure if he can take the pressure

"Miyuki-senpai," he turns to Sawamura, who is pouting.

He's not sure why he feels himself calm down, perhaps it's because he'll take any distraction, even if it's loud Sawamura, or maybe it's because Sawamura looks ridiculous with his cheeks puffed out and his eyebrows scrunched up between his eyes. Kazuya smiles. It hurts a bit to do so, "Is this all just for the little gremlins? Lucky them, I didn't have something so big at my disposal when I was at school."

Sawamura suddenly inflates as he grins, "Yeah me neither! I'm from the countryside from a school even smaller than this! Wakana and I had to go to the other side of town with our friends if we wanted to play baseball. That's sort of what it's like here too. We share with some of the other schools and really anyone is welcome to come here as long as the kids aren't out playing."

"Wakana, huh," Kazuya notes. He hasn't actually met the bride-to-be yet, "Is she in the habit of taking people's money?"

Sawamura looks confused and perhaps a bit upset, "What?"

Kazuya only smirks, "I heard how Yoichi met her."

Understanding fills his eyes and he groans, "I keep telling Kuramochi-senpai not to tell that story! It's all lies! Lies! Come on, let's go to the gym, your to-be base."

They head back inside and Kazuya feels the smile that spreads on his face is lighter, amused. It's relaxing being with Sawamura, "So what, she wasn't stealing your money?"

"No!" Sawamura defends, "I never said she stole my money! It was all a misunderstanding!!"

"So what? She was just borrowing it?" Kazuya pushes and can't help but laugh as Sawamura goes red.

"I-It, my, NO! She just grabbed my wallet!! But she wasn't stealing it!"

----

SIX.

Kazuya hasn't been teaching for long when it's time to prepare for Sports Day and he forgets how tiring it can be. Sawamura is ecstatic the whole week leading up to the moment all the kids are let loose to run and play, and he's not sure how the flow of energy works, who feeds off who, but everyone seems to be ready to burst with enthusiasm by then. Kazuya feels like he's the only one who is burnt out. He's not usually used to so much happening, at least not like this

The school asks him to give an encouraging speech before the event begins, which Sawamura jealously admits had been his job the last two years, but he grins all the same. He encourages him to do his best, just like he does to the children and Kazuya isn't sure if he should be offended or glad when he feels the flat of Sawamura's palm on his back.

By then, Yoichi has finally wrapped things up with his team. He still has a few more interviews scheduled, but he's essentially removed himself (as much as he can) from the public eye. He's announced he's going to get married and has been asked many times about his to-be wife, but just like Kazuya, everyone is kept in the dark. On the few nights Yoichi manages to call him, to check up on him, Kazuya teases that maybe this is the most elaborate plan he's ever seen, that maybe this Wakana girl doesn't even exist

Yoichi just laughs, "What? Is The Great Miyuki Kazuya actually curious?"

Kazuya scoffs, "Of course not, and don't call me that. I can't get Sawamura to stop, I don't want you doing the same. It's so weird."

They talk until they're both ready to pass out but Yoichi tells him he'll be there and that he'll bring Wakana too. There's something strange with the way he says this but it's late, they've both been up for too long, and Kazuya doesn't remember the unease the next day

He doesn't remember until Sports Day, right before it happens.

It's usually a big event with parents and friends and the neighborhood coming by to see all their children perform at their best. This school is slightly different because of its size. It isn't just their kids (as Sawamura likes to say and Kazuya, reluctantly, has started to call his students), but a few students from two or three of the neighboring smaller schools. He's never seen the field so packed with kids. There are also a lot of cameras and flashing and suddenly Kazuya feels uncomfortably warm. This year it's not only locals that are here. He can see various news channels documenting the event and there are probably other labels walking around, trying to figure out what the next scoop will be. Or perhaps they've already been hinting at it but Kazuya has been avoiding all the gossip. He briefly wonders if they're here for him and while this might be slightly true, he's sure they're more likely to be here to catch a glimpse of Yoichi and Wakana

He decides to stick with Sawamura for most of the day.

Sawamura seems to be oblivious to all the attention, focusing on the kids, high-fiving everyone who is going to race, yelling encouragements as they pass him by, and yelling out happily as the kids make the baskets and reach the finish lines. Kazuya tries to show his support as well and Sawamura drags him from one event to the next. The parents love him as much as the children do. He briefly wonders if Sawamura will have any voice left for the next day

It's around the time the kids finally get their break for lunch (and that Sawamura pulls him over to an empty patch of grass so that they can finally rest as well, how Kazuya was able to crouch for hours on end before is almost a mystery to him now, he really HAS let himself go) that he starts to hear them

"I didn't say she stole MY money. Did you really not know?" "Is she REALLY here? "The NERVE of her." "We should tell the principal to kick her out. Where is she?"

Everything starts to go quiet as Kazuya looks around. There are too many people around, but he manages to find her by the fence behind the diamond. She's looking right at him and Kazuya feels himself stop breathing for a moment. He isn't sure what he was expecting but she looks exactly like she did three years ago, except somehow better. Her hair is up in her typical bun, she's wearing a pink button-up with her trademark pencil skirt. There's a small coat hanging off her arm, which is the only sign he has that she plans to stay for the whole of the day's events.

He gets up, ignores Sawamura's confused, "Miyuki-senpai?" and goes to meet her.

He remembers how Yoichi had sounded over the phone the other day and realizes that when he said her, he hadn't meant Wakana, he had meant Rei. She's smiling at him and once they're close enough, she says, "Miyuki Kazuya, it's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Rei," he all but whispers and he notices people are looking, the cameras are pointing in their direction and he smiles. He's so happy and relieved to see her. He wonders why he hadn't tried contacting her before, where the guilt and fear have gone. He thanks Yoichi, will thank him later as well, for always doing things like this for him, I'm the worst friend, aren't I? He can already see Yoichi's annoyed face as he threatens to punch him if he says anything so stupid again. He laughs, "It's been way too long. I'm sorry."

He finally has the chance to really apologize for everything, to offer his support, to ask how she's been doing, and he marvels at how Seidou is truly a family. His old teammates haven't just been trying to get him to move forward, they have also been helping Rei regain a semblance of her old life.

When they part, it turns into a game. They both know how things will go so they are bold, they grin, and take each other's hands in a firm shake.

"I'm sure I'll be seeing you on the field in the future." It's not a question.

"Of course." It's a promise.

At the end of the day, Sawamura and he are the last to leave the school since Sawamura offered to stay and clean up (and with him Kazuya). The sun is already on the verge of setting and Kazuya can't wait to take a bath and then crawl into bed. He doesn't want to wake up until a week from now.

As they're walking home (or really walking to his house because even now, he's never really asked where Sawamura lives, he imagines not far), Kazuya notices how quiet Sawamura is. He bumps his side with his shoulder, "Lost your voice with all that yelling?"

Sawamura looks over at him and shakes his head. Kazuya is momentarily mesmerized by this side of Sawamura. Quiet, almost shy. He's not pouting or angry, his features calm, slightly sharp on his handsome face. The remaining rays of the sun make his eyes look slightly gold and Kazuya wonders why he's suddenly noticing these things, "What's wrong then?"

The temperature had dropped enough that they were now comfortably wearing jerseys. Sawamura mumbles into the collar of his jersey and Kazuya is annoyed, but only slightly. It's that bad habit of Sawamura's and he wonders if he could tease those mumbled words out of him, is about to do that when Sawamura stops walking, closes his eyes, and yells out, "Do you like Miss Rei?!"

Kazuya is left speechless. At least that answers his other teasing question. Sawamura is as loud as always, "What?"

Sawamura opens his eyes, he's blushing and he can't seem to look him in the eye, "Well, there were those rumors...and then today...I mean, she's really pretty and just..." He goes quiet.

There's a lot here he wants to clear up, but he figures he should start with Sawamura's question, "No. At least, not really."

There's a question in those golden-brown eyes and Kazuya continues to explain, "I'm sure everyone on the baseball team liked her at one point. We were all teenagers and she's a really attractive woman, but that's it. Rei...she scouted me, believed that I could go far, pushed me, pretty much built my whole career. She's not really like my mom, not really an older sister...but yeah, like family."

They're both surprised by how honest he's been, which leads him to his own question, "Rumors? So you knew who I was. Is that why you called me by my full name?"

Sawamura looks embarrassed, "Yeah. I, I was curious about Seidou. I bet Kuramochi-senpai already told you about Rei and her coming to scout me?"

Kazuya nods.

They start walking again, "Well, I started seeing your name come up a lot. I always had trouble with my own catchers, I wasn't very good, sometimes my throws would go wild. I guess. I mean, they felt right, but Wakana, she was my main catcher, it was hard for her to catch them. Anyway, I started following your career. And just, well, then that happened and the rumors..."

They're quiet for a moment. Kazuya thinking back to how Yoichi had called Sawamura's pitch a nasty throw, the way Rei had pointed out Sawamura's staring while they talked and how Kazuya should catch for him, "When I saw him pitch, I knew you two would make a great battery. I knew you would be what could push him to greater heights, and that he would influence you too. All of Seidou. He has the heart of an Ace."

He's curious.

"Do you regret it?"

It's been a few minutes but Sawamura follows his question, turns to him, conviction in his burning eyes, "Never!"

----

SEVEN.

Kazuya finally gets to meet Wakana on his birthday. Yoichi tells him they're going out to celebrate at a fancy restaurant and he's not allowed to say no. Since he is the best man at their future wedding, he supposes it would be rude to not meet the bride-to-be so he pulls out one of his old suits, is relieved it still fits, and decides that's enough effort needed on his part. He also decides to forgo the tie and leaves the first two buttons undone. It's classy.

He's not surprised to see Sawamura also at the restaurant, and he's also not surprised to see him sporting a loud outfit. He's also wearing a suit but his shirt is a bright blue with baseball patterns, he's pulled up the suit jacket sleeves to his elbows (which, might he add, does not match his pants, but it somehow works), and he's actually wearing a tie. There's a girl trying to tame his hair but she soon gives up when Sawamura spots him and calls out, "Miyuki Kazu-mmyaa."

"Eijun!" the girl chides him, "We told you to be quiet!"

She's covering his mouth and let's go once he settles down. He rubs his hand through the back of his hair, ruining whatever work the girl must have done, "Sorry."

The girl shakes her head and turns to him, "So you're the famous Miyuki Kazuya, in the flesh."

Kazuya smiles, "And you must be the infamous money stealing Wakana."

They shake hands and Wakana laughs, "The one and only."

Yoichi comes up behind him, "Good, you're here. I thought I was going to have to send someone to drag you out of bed."

They're escorted to the back where they can dine in private. Yoichi walks in the back with him and Kazuya watches the way Sawamura's body faces Wakana even when they're walking. The way she pushes and holds his arm, laughs at what he says. The way that Sawamura lets her choose where she wants to sit and then makes space so that the table decorations aren't in her way. He sits across from her.

Yoichi whispers at him, "See what I mean?"

Kazuya doesn't need to see them interact to know why Wakana once liked Sawamura, but it definitely solidifies their closeness.

Wakana is very pretty. She has short hair that is slightly tinged with red, natural, she mentions when she sees him looking at her, "I get asked a lot." Apparently, it's a color she inherited from her great grandmother

She's as small as Yoichi claimed her to be, which makes her look tiny with her current company. She's wearing a simple and modest blue dress that matches perfectly with the ties Sawamura and Yoichi are wearing. She's just as honest as Sawamura is, and Kazuya wonders if all the people in his life are like that. It's refreshing. He instantly likes her and knows that Yoichi will be happy. It makes him happy too.

They're waiting on their food when Sawamura tells Yoichi that "Miyuki Kazuya" called Wakana a thief. Yoichi puts down his glass of wine, sending his best friend a glare, "I should have known you wouldn't behave!"

Sawamura is quick to respond, "It's all your fault Kuramochi-senpai! You keep telling that stupid story!!"

"The only thing stupid about that story is YOU Bakamura!!"

They look like children snapping at each other across the table and Wakana is just laughing. She turns to Kazuya, "Did he tell you what actually happened?"

Kazuya nods, "Sort of. Something about borrowing a wallet."

Wakana smiles, "Something like that, yes."

"See! I told you I never said she stole my money!!" Sawamura gets up suddenly but nobody notices the waiter coming with trays until the sound of plates falling to the ground and shattering are heard. But the worst part is probably the cake that Sawamura tries to save. Part of it lands on his hands, some of it on the table, but a big portion of it (thanks to Sawamura's interference), is now all over Wakana's dress. Everyone holds their breath, the waiter looks horrified.

Kazuya knows he shouldn't but he snickers and that seems to bring everything back to life. Wakana laughs and tells the waiter it's ok, she pats his hand reassuringly, "But can we get another cake? We'll pay for both of course."

The man is so relieved, he smiles and nods, and says he'll be right back to clean up, that he can also ask someone to help her out. Sawamura looks constipated and ridiculous standing there with chunks of cake in his hands.

"This is so coming out of your wallet Sawamoron!!" Yoichi cries out as he grabs chunks of cake from Wakana's lap and throws it on the table, "And YOU, I can't believe you did that!"

Kazuya only smirks, looks over at Wakana, and says, "Welcome to the family."

It seems like Wakana isn't just depleting Sawamura's accounts, but also stealing hearts.

----

OMAKE (months later)

It's the wedding night when Sawamura decides to crash at Kazuya's house. They're both exhausted and since they're both going to the same place the next morning, Kazuya doesn't make a fuss. When they make it home, they fight about who will take a shower first and Kazuya wins because, ultimately, this is his house so of course he has dibs. Sawamura pouts as he heads to the living room, ok, ok, just go you evil tanuki bastard.

When Kazuya comes out in a white t-shirt and boxers, he finds Sawamura already passed out on the couch, his arm and leg fallen off the side. He notices that he at least had the sense to take off his suit jacket and shirt. He's only wearing his undershirt and his pants have risen up his shins. Everything else is thrown against the back of the couch and his keys, cellphone, camera, and wallet, are all on the table. He's snoring lightly, his breath coming out more like little sighs, and there's a bit of drool where gravity has decided to do its job.

He's about to wake up Sawamura when he remembers something Wakana told him the first time they met. Right before they left the restaurant, she had pulled him aside, telling the other two NOT to come closer, Next time you get the chance, look inside his wallet. I promise it'll be worth it, and don't worry, he won't mind. He yells a lot but that's all there is.

The wallet is right there and Kazuya wishes it had landed the other way. At least like that, it wouldn't feel like he was snooping. No, he wouldn't. He doesn't really understand why Wakana wants him to look inside, but it's not really any of his business. He shakes his head and walks towards the couch. Before he can even reach forward, Sawamura shifts and mumbles a sleepy, "Kazuya."

Kazuya freezes at the stupid smile on Sawamura's face. He feels his face heat up and he's not sure why. He briefly glances at the wallet again, then moves to shake Sawamura's shoulders.

It takes a moment, a testament to how tired Sawamura is, before his brown eyes open and he sleepily mumbles, "Miyuki Kazuya?"

Kazuya hesitates for a moment. He doesn't have extra bedding and he knows sleeping on the couch is uncomfortable. They were going to share the bed, just like he always does whenever Yoichi visits, but suddenly he wonders if maybe this isn't a good idea. He tells Sawamura it's his turn to shower and nearly drags him to the bathroom. He stands outside just to make sure he doesn't pass out inside and somehow Sawamura looks even more drowsy than before. His skin is red from the heat of the water and they head to the bedroom.

Sawamura is out before his head hits the pillow. Kazuya arranges him on the bed properly and covers him with the blanket.

He finds it hard to sleep, the sound of his name coming from Sawamura's sleepy lips echoing in his head.

---

A/N:

I scoured Reddit for some inspiration and found this interesting prompt: "I never said she stole my money has 7 different meanings based on which word is emphasized." I sort of followed the prompt? LOL

things to note: 1. I just googled "prisoner clothes in japan" and green outfits came up, hence why Rei is dressed in a "green top" 2. I don't actually know how legal proceedings go in japan, if it would take longer or less (but this is fanfic so let's not question it) 3. Again, I don't know how long rehabs take but I'm not aiming for accuracy 4. If it wasn't obvious, Sawamura wasn't in the original Seidou team in this fic (lol) 5. Sports day apparently apparently happens around October (and again, Idk much about it)

I don't think I've ever written anything "complete" for this fandom but I hope you all enjoyed, especially you daiyanerd ^^

p.s. This got out of hand omg it's so long and hardly anything happens i hope you guys don't mind Orz Also, I kind of want to write more for this, maybe Sawamura's side of some of the events, maybe just a continuation, idk....

[let-the-dream-begin]

A Place to Belong Chapter 21: Auld Lang Syne

Chapter 20

Read on AO3

Brianna had been worryingly lethargic in the days following her seizure, and Claire had to keep reminding herself that it was perfectly normal for her to be tired. As long as her breathing and her pulse remained steady, and it did, she would be perfectly fine. Claire hardly let her out of her sight, toting the basket around and placing Brianna inside so she could watch her from the corner of her eye no matter the task. Claire had expected Jenny to admonish her for worrying too much, for driving herself mad with her hovering, but she hadn’t. It would appear that Jenny was as shaken up by the event as she was. More than once Claire had caught her peering into Brianna’s basket as well.

Fergus was beside himself. He had flat out refused to do any of his chores, insisting that his sister needed him more than the goats. Jenny had begun to scold him, insisting that the world didn’t stop turning and the estate still needed to be run, but Claire had stopped her.

“It’s alright, Jenny,” she’d said gently. “I understand, Fergus. Why don’t you go and sit with her?”

He had, leaving Claire’s side to gently rock the cradle, smiling at her dear, sleeping face in spite of his worry.

“Give him a few more days,” Claire whispered to Jenny. “It’s different for us. We’re inside with her all day. But if he’s outside working he’ll be worrying all day, not being able to see her. Surely you understand that.”

“Aye,” Jenny admitted. “I do.”

“Once he’s certain she’ll be alright, he’ll be back to it,” Claire continued. “Things affect him more deeply than he likes to let on, and he loves her so much…” Her voice broke, and she stopped talking, surprised by how emotional she’d become.

Now, it had been almost a week, and Brianna was finally just about back to normal. Claire and Jenny were standing on stools, arranging garland around the parlor. Claire heard Fergus’s laugh and turned her head to see him. He was sitting on a quilt that Claire had put down in front of the fireplace, leaning against one of the stone pillars that held up the mantle. His feet were flat on the floor, his knees bent, Brianna laying on his thighs as he held her torso. She watched, her heart warmed at the sight. Fergus was tapping his feet so that his legs were bouncing, a sensation that Brianna seemed to enjoy given the way Claire could see her little hands waving around. Fergus looked positively darling, his smiling, laughing face glowing in the firelight, his curls creating a perfectly lit halo around his head.

God protect my children, keep them safe, keep them happy.

“It’s good that she’s waving her arms again, is it no’?” Jenny’s voice interrupted her adoration of her precious children.

“Yes, I think it is,” Claire affirmed. “She always does that when she’s happy and comfortable.”

“Aye. She’s alright then.”

“It would appear so.”

She was loath to take her eyes off of the beautiful sight, but the garland was not going to hang itself. The servants were busy in the other rooms, hanging garland and wreaths, arranging the holly and stringing it to the chandeliers. Hogmanay was the night after next, and they all felt a bit rushed in decorating this year. Normally they’d have started much earlier in the week, but Brianna’s ordeal had kept them from being able to focus on anything but the wee one’s health.

“You know,” Claire said, stepping off the stool and moving over a few feet to hang the next section of the garland. “These decorations aren’t too far off from how Christmas looks in my time.”

She and Jenny stepped onto their stools again, and Jenny looked at her pensively. “Your time, aye?” Jenny was not yet fully accustomed to Claire’s time traveling, and quite frankly, Claire was not fully accustomed to talking about it so conversationally. It was freeing, like an enormous weight was lifted off her chest.

“Yes, we do celebrate the new year but it’s a little different. Christmas is the big holiday in the twentieth century. That’s when we give gifts.”

She laid the garland onto the lip of the wooden wainscoting, placing the rocks to weigh it down, then arranging the greenery to hide them, like Jenny had shown her.

“You still have garland and the like in yer time, then?” Jenny said.

“Yes, we do. Some things never change, I suppose.”

“Christmas was last week, was it no’?” Jenny fluffed the leaves as she looked up at Claire. “Why did ye no’ say anything? Fergus celebrated it in France, as well, I reckon.”

“Brianna’s seizure happened the day before Christmas Eve,” Claire said solemnly. “Time, dates and their holidays, seemed to make no difference. I spent Christmas Day staring at my baby and thinking that she might die any minute.” Claire instinctively looked behind her again, her heart rate relaxing to find that Fergus was still laughing, Brianna was still waving. All was well.

“Well, dinna fash, Claire. Yer first Hogmanay will be grand enough to make up fer missing yer Christmas,” Jenny said, stepping off her stool again. “Granted, it willna be as grand as I’d like it to be, what with things being as they are. Less food, surely. But ye’ll see. It’ll lift yer spirits well enough.”

Claire stepped down as well, and they moved over another few feet to raise the garland over their heads again. “I’m very much looking forward to it.”

“I used to think there was magic in this house during Hogmanay. When I was a bairn,” Jenny said, smiling wistfully. “Everything had a different glow to it, all the candles and the like. Everyone was always so joyful — though I ken now that’s to do wi’ the drink.” She and Claire both laughed at that. “It was always a special time fer friends and…and family.”

Jenny sniffled, and Claire did not miss the tears in her eyes. Claire’s own chest began to ache. “Holidays are difficult after you… lose someone,” Claire said, breathing shakily.

“Aye.” Jenny continued arranging the garland, not to be distracted. “Our first Hogmanay wi’out Mam was plagued wi’ sadness. Being a child still I thought that such a joyful time would make it all go away, ye ken? Everyone would stop being so heartsick, I would stop being so heartsick. ’Course I was wrong.” She gave a sad chuckle. “We tried our best, but nothing was the same.”

Claire nodded in understanding. “Not having Jamie must be just as difficult.”

“Aye.” Jenny nodded, though she was determined not to fall apart. “He wasna around for a long time, ye ken, what with the war in France, then the price on his head. Then we lost Da as well. I…I always thought…” She had to pause to steady herself, blinking away tears. “That once that bloody price on his head was gone, he’d come home to us and we could have a holiday like a whole family again. Different, but still whole.”

Overcome, Claire stepped off her stool and sat atop it. Jenny followed suit, sitting on the ground beside her and taking her hand.

“I hadn’t even thought about all this,” Claire admitted, her vision clouding. “I haven’t…been able to.”

“I ken.” Jenny squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry to burden ye wi’ it.”

“No…it’s better now than have it hit me in the middle of the dancing.” Claire sighed with a shudder and wiped her eyes. “I would have realized eventually.”

Jenny nodded in understanding. She pulled Claire into a comforting embrace.

“Well,” Jenny said lightly, releasing Claire. “Jamie’d no’ be pleased if the house was only half decorated on his account.”

Claire smiled sadly. “I suppose you’re right.”

They got back up on their stools to continue arranging the garland, but not before Claire threw another loving glance at her son and her daughter.

They are the greatest gift you could ever have given me, Jamie.

Thank you.

——

Jenny had been right.

The Hogmanay celebration that was unfolding before Claire’s eyes could rival any Christmas party she’d ever been to in the twentieth century. Despite how rushed their preparations had been, the parlor was beautiful. Claire remembered Jenny’s description of the Hogmanays of her youth, how everything seemed to glow. As she glanced around the parlor, Brianna pressed close to her, she couldn’t help but agree.

Dinner had been exquisite; Lallybroch livestock aplenty had been butchered and cooked, served in delectable sauces with vegetables cooked in just the right ways. There was more than enough whisky to go around, and Claire found herself sitting and nursing a glass that always seemed to refill itself, holding Brianna tightly with the other hand, bouncing her on her knee in time with the music. She watched lovingly as Jenny and Ian swung each other about, Maggie and wee Jamie watching their parents and trying to mimic their movements. Fergus had danced with a couple of different girls in attendance at the party, much to the chagrin of each of their fathers. Claire couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of her twelve year old son attempting to romance girls between the ages of ten and fourteen. 

At present, she couldn’t see him on the dance floor. As she looked around for him, someone tapped her shoulders, and she jumped with a small cry to see that it was the lad in question.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, laughing and setting her glass down on a table beside her.

“You have not danced yet tonight, Maman.” 

“My arms are a bit occupied at the moment.” She smiled down at Brianna, bouncing her again and holding onto her wee, waving fists.

“Someone can hold her. Come, dance with me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of getting between you and your lasses,” Claire teased, bursting into laughter when his face turned bright red.

At that moment, the fiddler concluded that particular tune, and the dancers all stopped to applaud.

“Claire Fraser!” Jenny was suddenly standing at her other shoulder. “Ye dinna intend to sit here like a log all night do ye?”

“I thought I looked a bit nicer than that. I did dress for the occasion.”

“Och…” Jenny shoved her playfully. “Enough o’ that. Get off yer arse and dance!”

“Come on, lass,” Ian chimed in. “Nothing like dancing at a Lallybroch Hogmanay.”

“I need to stay with Brianna,” Claire said simply.

“D’ye no’ see all the auld biddies sitting about holding everyone’s bairns?” Jenny insisted.

“Brianna isn’t a normal child,” her tone suddenly became slightly biting, and her arms wove protectively around her.

Jenny sighed. “Wait a moment.”

The fiddler started in again, and Jenny disappeared into the crowd. It didn’t take long for her to return with Mrs. Crook.

“Here. Mrs. Crook kens well what wee Brianna has been through. None here is more qualified to watch her while her mam does a bit o’ dancing.”

Claire shifted her gaze between Fergus, Jenny, and Mrs. Crook, who outstretched her arms.

“Go on, Mistress. She’ll be safe wi’ me.”

Claire pressed a kiss to the crown of Brianna’s head before handing her to Mrs. Crook. Fergus didn’t waste a single second before grabbing her hands and pulling her into the center of the room, and Jenny laughed triumphantly.

It took Claire a moment to get her footing, but Fergus seemed to know well enough what to do, and it wasn’t long before she was right in time with the music. It felt so silly letting a boy who just reached her chin lead her about, and more than once she burst into a fit of giggles, particularly when she had to bend her knees and hunch over to duck under his arm. As she’d expected, there were moments where the dancers switched partners, and she’d ended up with Ian, Peter Dunkirk, Lawrence Quigley, and half a dozen other tenants whose names escaped her. She was dizzy with movement and drink by the time she got back to Fergus, and when time came for them to cross their wrists, hold hands, and spin, she was laughing her head off.

She hadn’t felt this uninhibited since…well, she genuinely couldn’t recall.

The fiddler stopped, and Claire joined everyone in a hearty round of applause.

“You are a bonny dancer, Maman!” Fergus exclaimed, and Claire laughed gutturally again.

“You’re not so bad yourself, mon fils,” she said, curtsying to him absurdly. She looked up to see Jenny watching her, her eyes glistening, her smile wider than Claire could ever recall it being. Jenny caught her eye and winked at her as another song started up. Claire threw a glance over at Mrs. Crook, who was holding a very-much-asleep Brianna. Claire marveled at how she could sleep through all this ruckus, though she’d come to learn that her daughter could sleep through anything. And it was a good thing, too, because Claire did not want to have to part with her to put her to bed, and she was sure Jenny would not have allowed her to leave the party.

In the middle of this particular song, the clock struck eleven, and everything stopped.

“One hour until the new year!” Ian cried, and everyone whooped and clapped before the fiddle started up again.

Claire could see Maggie from the corner of her eye falling asleep beside Mrs. Crook, and then a -- miraculously -- very-much-awake wee Jamie dragging her out of her seat and back onto the dance floor.

The hour flew by, alternating between dancing, drinking more whisky, popping fruit into her mouth, checking on Brianna, and drinking more whisky.

At five minutes to midnight, the fiddler stopped, and everyone stared with bated breath at the clock in the parlor. Wee Jamie, still wide awake, was sitting on Ian’s shoulders, Maggie was on Jenny’s hip, fighting sleep (and failing, quite adorably). Kitty had long since been put to bed. Brianna was still dozing, though now she was nestled in Claire’s arms, her sleepy head resting on her shoulder. Fergus was standing right beside her.

Excitement bubbled as the minute hand drew nearer and nearer to the 12 on the clock, and a low humming started in the crowd just before it chimed midnight, escalating to a whooping shout as the chiming began. The fiddle started a lively jig again, and Claire felt a kiss planted on her cheek.

“Bonne Année, Maman!”

Claire laughed joyously and kissed his cheek with equal fervor. “Bonne Année, mon fils.”

She watched as Jenny and Ian shared a brief kiss, then Ian swung Jamie off his shoulders to give him a kiss.

“Now kiss yer mam,” he instructed, and Jamie obeyed. “And yer sister.”

“Wake up, Maggie!” Jamie admonished, shaking her a little before giving her a kiss.

Ian and Jenny laughed before both kissing one of Maggie’s sleepy cheeks.

Claire didn't recall when she’d started to cry. She supposed it was right at the moment she saw husband and wife kiss, and seeing their familial bliss certainly hadn’t helped matters.

How many New Years Eves had she spent in Frank’s arms, blissfully tipsy, counting backwards, kissing him until her head spun when the clock struck midnight?

And how many had she done the same with Jamie?

None.

Sighing wistfully, trying to blink back the tears, she pressed a fervent kiss to the top of her daughter’s sleepy head.

“Happy New Year, my beautiful little girl.”

If Fergus noticed her tears, he didn’t say anything. He gave Brianna’s head a kiss as well, eliciting a teary smile from Claire.

“Bonne Année, ma petit.”

“Maybe next year, she’ll be able to say it back,” Claire said.

“In French?” He cocked an eyebrow.

“We’ll make sure of it.”

Despite Claire’s momentary lapse into grief, the evening continued joyously, with plenty more drinking and dancing to be had. The guests lingered in drunken celebration for another hour, and then they were off to begin the first footing. When the last of them were filtering out, Jenny plopped down beside Claire on the sofa in the parlor.

“I think this may be the drunkest I’ve ever been,” she breathed.

Claire laughed, gently rocking Brianna. “Certainly the drunkest I’ve ever seen.”

“Ye’re no’ exactly sober yerself, sister,” Jenny said, but then a grin broke out over her face again. “Time to exchange gifts.”

Claire blanched. “Jenny…I don’t…I didn’t…”

“I ken, sister. Ye’ve had a lot on yer mind. I didna expect a thing.”

“But — ”

“None o’ that.” Jenny put out a hand to silence her. “My wee niece is gift enough.” She reached for one of Brianna’s chubby cheeks and briefly stroked it with a finger. “Let me take her.” Jenny opened her arms for Brianna, and Claire handed her over.

“Ian!” Jenny called.

Ian came over to them, holding what appeared to be a wooden frame.

“Here ye are lass.”

He turned over the frame, and Claire gasped as she took it into her hands. The frame was obviously hand carved by Ian, and it was beautiful, but it was what was set inside that brought tears to her eyes. In the center of a beautiful border of flowers and leaves, embroidered in beautiful cursive read: Brianna Ellen Fraser, with her birthday stitched just below. Claire ran her fingers over the delicate stitching, her mouth hanging open in awe.

“Jenny…Ian…it’s beautiful.” She couldn’t take her eyes off of it.

“Had the border and the ‘Fraser’ done fer months now,” Jenny said proudly. “Had to wait fer the ‘Brianna Ellen’ and the date. She cut it awfully close to the holiday, I must say.” She affectionately patted Brianna’s bottom.

“Had the frame done months ago as well, as per Jenny’s request,” Ian said.

“Thank you…thank you both so much.” Claire wrapped her arms around Jenny and kissed her cheek, then reached up for Ian to do the same.

“Fergus, lad,” Ian called.

Fergus’s head popped up as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing, and Claire couldn’t help but laugh. He’d been previously hunched over a table, undoubtedly still stuffing his face and drinking much more whisky than Claire would like.

“Come here.”

Fergus obeyed, wiping his hands on his trousers and rubbing his mouth with his sleeve.

“What is it, Milord?”

“Here.” Ian reached into his pocket and produced something that looked like a hunting knife, the blade bound in protective leather.

“But…I already have a knife,'' Fergus looked up at Ian in confusion.

“No’ one like this. Look.” He pointed to the wooden handle, and as Fergus’s eyes focused on it, his jaw dropped.

“Ye are a Fraser, lad,” Jenny said proudly. “About time something said so.”

“Let me see,” Claire said curiously. Fergus wordlessly lowered his gift to her eye level, and her heart swelled even bigger, if it was possible.

Carved with painstaking care into the handle was: Fergus Claudel Fraser.

Fergus was her son, that much was unquestionable. He’d been in her care for almost two years now, living in her home for almost a year, calling her Maman by name for almost a year. The Murrays had accepted without question that he was hers, and Jamie’s as well. To Claire, by that logic, he was a Fraser. But it struck her just then that he’d never been referred to as such, out loud or in writing, or in this case, carving. Claire watched Fergus with tears in her eyes as his fingers reverently traced over the letters, letters pairing his name with the name of the man he idolized and loved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

His father’s name.

This boy, the son that Claire loved with all her heart, had never had a family name. And now, here it was, carved permanently into his very own knife.

“It is…I…” Fergus looked up at Ian. “Thank you…Uncle.”

Claire’s heart was fit to burst. That was the first time Ian was referred to by anything but “Milord.”

“And thank you, Auntie.” He looked down at Jenny.

“Ye’re welcome, nephew.” Ian clapped him on the back. “Ye can get back to yer wee feast now.”

Smiling sheepishly, Fergus ducked away, tucking his new prize into his pocket.

“You have no idea how much that means to him,” Claire said, her voice tight with emotion. “And to me.”

“He’s a good lad. And ye’re a fine mother to him, Claire,” Ian said. “Frasers, through and through. The both of ye.”

“The three of ye,” Jenny corrected, bouncing Brianna.

“Aye, indeed.”

Claire sniffled and briefly wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry again that I have nothing…”

“Dinna fash about that, Claire! Ye’ve just given birth fer Christ’s sake!” Ian waved her off. “Though I expect ye to make up fer it next year.” He winked, earning a swat on the thigh from Jenny.

“Oh I will, I can promise that.”

Claire’s laughter settled into a contented sigh as Jenny placed Brianna back into her arms. Jamie and Maggie were curled into an armchair together, fast asleep, having hardly made it past the clock striking twelve. Claire watched lovingly as Ian lifted Jamie and Jenny lifted Maggie, feeling the warmth of her own child in her arms, watching her son content with a spread of food at his disposal. 

A familiar tune popped into her head, and she started humming absently.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?

Plucking up confidence from who knows where, she let her humming turn into singing out loud, her voice light and airy, giddy with drink.

“For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne…We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne.”

Jenny and Ian looked at her questioningly. “What’s that then?” Jenny asked, settling Maggie on her hip.

“It’s an old…well actually, it hasn’t been written yet. It won’t be for another twenty or thirty years.” Ian and Jenny exchanged a look. “It’ll be written by a Scot, actually. Apologies for making it sound so English. It becomes a worldwide tradition to sing it at the arrival of the New Year.”

Jenny made one of those Scottish noises in the back of her throat, and Claire smiled.

“Ye’ll have to teach it to us fer next year,” Ian said, putting a hand on Jenny’s back. “Goodnight to ye, Claire.”

“Goodnight Ian, Jenny. Thank you again for…everything.”

“Goodnight sister.”

The Murrays were off, leaving Claire, Brianna, and Fergus alone in the parlor. Claire stood up from the sofa and crossed over to Fergus.

“If you keep it up, you won’t have any room for that grand New Year’s Day breakfast your Auntie was talking about.”

“Believe me, Maman, my appetite comes back faster than you think,” he said, and Claire laughed out loud. “What did you mean? Just now, when you said that song had not been written yet?”

Oops.

Claire smiled wistfully. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you one day.”

He simply shrugged and went to pick up another grape, but Claire caught his hand. “I think that’s enough, mon fils. It’s time for bed.”

Pouting like he was much younger than twelve years old, Fergus allowed Claire to usher him up the stairs.

“What did you think of your first Hogmanay?” she asked as they approached her bedroom.

“I shall never forget it.”

The earnestness and genuine wonder in his voice almost made her burst into tears.

They stopped in front of Claire’s door, and she pulled him into a tight hug. “I am so grateful that your father brought you to me. I don’t know if I say it enough.”

“I am grateful, too.”

She fervently kissed the top of his head. “Goodnight, love.”

“Goodnight, Maman.” He disappeared down the hall and up the second flight of stairs to his bedroom.

Claire entered her bedroom and put Brianna down on the bed so she could put on a nightgown. She put the framed embroidery on the mantle, running her fingers lovingly over the stitching again. Just as she started to undress, Brianna began to fuss.

“Oh, it’s alright, love…you’ve been so good all night…just give Mummy five more minutes…”

She rushed through the rest of her clothing, unceremoniously throwing it to the ground and hastily slipping into a wool nightgown, not even bothering to tie the top.

“Alright…Here we go…”

Claire settled herself into bed, getting under the covers and taking Brianna into her arms. She briefly checked her nappy, and was satisfied to see everything was alright on that end; Mrs. Crook had just recently taken care of that for her.

“There you are, little girl.” Claire lowered her swollen breast to Brianna’s mouth, and she immediately latched on. Claire sighed in contentment, in awe, not for the first time, of her ability to literally give life to her own child like this. These quiet, intimate moments with her baby were something she would cherish eternally until she grew out of breastfeeding, and the memory of it would bring her comfort for the rest of her life.

“It’s been a long day, lovie,” she crooned, stroking her little cheek as she nursed. “Mummy is going to sleep quite well, I think. Let’s hope you do too, hm? Oh, but I’m sure you will. You are so good to Mummy, aren’t you?”

After she was fed and burped, Claire shimmied further under the covers with Brianna still on her shoulder, and then she maneuvered her so she was lying on the mattress right beside her. The first few nights following Brianna’s seizure, Ian, Jenny, and Claire had taken shifts making sure everything was alright. Now that Claire was sure that her vitals were alright, she had simply taken it upon herself to sleep with Brianna right beside her; that way if she began seizing again, she would feel it right away. She loved sleeping beside her anyway, especially since she normally slept right through the night. Of course Claire did sleep better when Brianna was properly in her cot, and she could stretch herself out on the mattress however she pleased, but to keep Brianna safe from whatever malfunctions her brain had to offer, Claire would face sleepless nights for all eternity.

With all the candles blown out and no light but the fire in the hearth, a golden halo framed Brianna’s sleeping, darling face. A drowsy, tipsy smile crept onto Claire’s face as her finger traced the squishy lines of her daughter’s face.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?” she sang softly, curling her fingers into Brianna’s tufts of copper. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?”

As she drifted into sleep, she swore she could feel the weight of the mattress shift behind her and a strong arm drape over her middle. A large hand joined her in Brianna’s hair, lacing their fingers together.

“For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne…”

She felt a stubbled kiss press into her cheek, and she sighed contentedly.

“We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne.”

As consciousness fully left her, she leaned into the ghostly embrace behind her, relishing in it.

And then she heard it, faint, far away, a whisper that sounded suspiciously similar to the crackling of the fire, or the rustling of the wind

“Happy New Year, Sassenach.”

[bb-tings]

campfires & kegs

rudy pankow  

requested by: @ampanonyg

summary: y/n and rudy go on their annual camping trip and meet up with their friends. 

taglist: @ampanonyg @ims0golden @jjsmentalpolaroids @stargazingstarkey @letsgofullkook @jjmbanks @maybanksbaby @1-800-jjslut @simpforstarkey @jellyfishbeansontoast @ilovejjmaybank​ @royalpogue

(i have people who have requested to be on the taglist and then i have some friends who i would like nice criticism from, but if you want off i completely understand.)

______

        The couple was so excited when they finally pulled up to the campgrounds. The time for their annual camping trip had finally come around and they couldn’t wait. When they hopped out of the car and looked around to see a few of their friends that they had made from the many camping trips in the past, the pair’s smiles grew even wider. They knew that if their camp buddies were around too then there would be a campfire party that night. 

        Rudy and Y/n began getting everything out of the car and setting the tent up. Y/n swat at the mosquitoes that attacked her skin, trying to get to the red substance beneath. As much as she loved these trips with her boyfriend, she was over the little bugs as soon as they arrived on the camping grounds. She turned to Rudy who was getting things out of the car. 

“Roo, did you get the OFF,” Y/n questioned her blonde boyfriend as they put their things inside the tent. 

“No...was I supposed to?” When she didn’t respond he turned around to see her standing with her hands on her hips with an emotionless look. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Rudy, did you at least get the bag of snacks that we packed?”

         When the blonde didn’t respond she let out a frustrated sigh and walked away from him to put the blankets and sheets on the air mattress they had brought. Rudy felt really guilty, he knew that he could be really absent-minded at times. But he was just so eager to camp with his gorgeous girlfriend that everything else just escaped his brain.

        Rudy walked into the tent and pulled the blanket away from Y/n, throwing it on the bed. He grabbed her hands and pulled her out of the tent and he sat on the bench in their camp area. Rudy reached out and pulled her hips towards him, and wrapped his arms around her. Y/n’s hands landed on the blonde’s shoulders. She then slowly made her way to the back of his neck and played with his hair. 

        “I’m sorry.” Y/n heard his words, but she avoided his eyes. She had long forgiven him, but she liked it when Rudy fought for her. In any way, whether he was fighting someone else or fighting himself, as he was doing now. She kept her eyes locked on his lips. When Rudy noticed that he launched forward and gave her a quick peck. Returning to his original position=, he noticed the small smile on her face and her wide eyes. 

“What was that for?”

“I felt like you were assaulting me with your eyes. So I put a stop to it,” the young actor responded with a smirk. 

“Oh. I was assaulting you, was I? I’m sorry, am I making you feel uncomfortable? ‘Cause I’ll leave.” She sported a big smile as she tried to pull away from the boy, but let out a squeal when he tugged her to stand in between his knees again.

“Nah, I’m not uncomfortable. I’m good. But I am really sorry for being so forgetful.” He looked up at the girl with sad blue eyes and poked his bottom lip out for effect. 

“I know baby,” Y/n let out a sigh. “But now we have to add bug spray and snacks to the list of things we need from Walmart. This was supposed to be a cheap trip, remember!.” The girl made a silly angry face and made her voice deeper. 

‘It’s alright baby. I think my bank account can take a hit of about $40 dollars. I don’t know if you know this but I’m a famous actor. I work for Netflix.” the boy smirked up at the girl. 

“Yeah, I remember. You never let me forget,” Y/n started to pull away from Rudy and grabbed his keys from his pocket. “Come on, Mr. Big Shot, Walmart waits for nobody.”

“Alright, wait for me in the car. I’m gonna go tell Luke and Annie to watch our stuff.”

        Y/n watched as he walked the 10 foot distance between their tent and the biggest RV on the grounds. Anne Johnson and her husband, Luke Johnson, were the famous when it came to the specific campgrounds. They had been there the first time the pair had gone camping. The four of them hit it off immediately, being the same age but somehow all in different stages of their lives. 

        The married couple was known for their campfire parties they threw. Renting out the biggest camp spot, they would buy 2 keggers, find logs, build a fire, play music, and then drive around on their 4 wheeler, inviting everyone on the campgrounds. Just strangers, hanging out by a fire, listening to music, and having the time of their lives. 

        When Rudy mentioned their much-needed trip to Walmart, the couple didn’t hesitate to agree to watch their stuff. When Rudy said bye and turned around walking back to his car, Y/n saw Annie and Luke waving towards her. She smiled a big small and waved back, excited for the inevitable drinks the group would share later that night. 

“Tonights gonna be so fun baby.”

                                                   -

“Rudy we don’t need 3 packs of hotdogs, we’re here for 3 nights. Not a week,” Y/n scolded her boyfriend. 

“Well, last time we ran out of food. And you know I get hangry,” the boy pouted next to his girlfriend as they made their way to check out. 

“Well, that’s because last time, somebody forgot to pack the right stuff, and instead packed the year-old weenies. OH and trust me, I know.” 

“You still love me though,” Rudy smiled as he wrapped his arms around the girl as she tried to put the groceries on the conveyor belt. “Unfortunately.”

                                                    -

        Y/n allowed her jaw to drop as she stared unbelievingly at her boyfriend. They had left the store and drove back to the camp. Rudy then walked over to help Luke build the fire, while Y/n helped Annie make some fruity alcoholic beverages inside the RV. They had been there for about 3 hours now, and to say the pair was slightly drunk would be an understatement.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Roo,” Y/n looked towards her boyfriend as he looked genuinely confused. “That bitch was all over you.” 

        When the words left her mouth, she heard Annie and some other people they had met throughout their night, start laughing. She wished the girls had been at the grocery store with them, knowing that they would have been on her side, had they seen the girl, who apparently had a death wish, giving Rudy sexual glances. 

“Babe, she was doing her job,” Rudy slurred as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, smothering the girl with his hoodie-clad chest. 

“Yeah, while simultaneously giving you bedroom eyes.”

        “Ok! Before this turns into a full out brawl, Luke is about to get his guitar out. It’s c-a-m-p-f-i-r-e-s-o-n-g time,” as Annie spelled out the famous lyrics from SpongeBob, Y/n pulled Rudy towards the benches around the orange and red flames. She made sure to grab the spots right next to the young boy with the guitar, wanting to get the best experience. 

        While Luke and Annie were talking around getting suggestions and requests for music, Y/n snuggled her way into Rudy. She was sitting beside him with her legs thrown over his through. 

        When Rudy turned his head to the left, Y/n took the time to kiss his neck. When her lips made contact with his smooth, freckled skin, she felt Rudy tense and squeeze her knee harder. “What’s wrong, bubba,” she questioned innocently.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to sit through this if you keep doing that.”

“What are you talking about Roo? I’m not doing anything wrong-”

“Alright! Kid rock it is!” Luke yelled to everyone and started playing his guitar.

Rudy looked at his girlfriend and glared into her eyes. “We’ll finish later.”

                                                    - 

“And we were trying different things, and we were smoking funny things!” 

When Y/n loudly sang the next lyrics she made eye contact with Rudy. “Making love out by the lake to our favorite song.”

        She felt bad for everybody who wasn’t there. Strangers sitting around a fire, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs, getting drunk, singing their lungs out. This was her favorite thing to do with Rudy. Before he met him, she had never gone camping but she was glad that he brought her along with that one year, because now she couldn’t think of another place she would rather be or other people she would rather be within that exact moment. 

                                                     -

Rudy picked up their last bags and waved goodbye to the Johnsons. He stuffed the bags in the backseat of the car, knowing that if he opened the trunk things would fall out, and then hopped into the driver’s seat. He looked towards Y/n to make sure she had all her electronics and chargers for the drive home and saw the sad look she was sporting. 

“What’s wrong baby?”

“I don’t wanna leave,” she responded with a pout. To this, the blonde boy let out a chuckle. He put his hand on the shoulder of her seat and looked behind him as he backed out of the spot, onto the main road. 

“I know baby, but there’s always next year,” he suggested this as he shifted into drive, then grabbed Y/n’s hand and placed a kiss on it. 

“That’s so far away, though.”

“Well, then you better start counting.” 

“Ugh! I’m taking a nap,” Y/n reached down between her seat and the door and relaxed as the chair slowly started to incline, while simultaneously letting out a yawn. 

“Ok baby. Dream of me.”

“I won’t.”

        When Rudy looked over towards the sleeping girl, he reminded himself how lucky he was. Watching her, he smiled to himself, thinking that she was so cute.  He loved the girl so much and he hoped he got to do just that for as long as she would let him. He just wanted to make her happy, then he too would find his happiness. 

[geekxgoddess85]

Very Bad Things

~PROLOGUE~ How It Began

“Are you sure a-about this Armin?”

“Of course, I’m sure. You trust me, right?”

Eren bit his lip, giving his childhood best friend a worried look. The two were currently on summer break from Trost University, going into their senior year. For Eren, junior year was a nightmare. If he was to be honest with himself, he had been slacking for the past two years so, when junior year came, he had to buckle down and keep his nose in the books in order to be able to pass the necessary courses to complete his credits. For college, staying an extra year on the count of not passing a course or lack of credits was more normal than one would think. But for Eren, he wanted to make sure he graduated the same time his friends did.

It was one week into summer break and Eren still felt the stress from taking his finals. It was the reason Armin was in his bedroom at the moment, making an account on—on behalf of Eren— on an adult live cam site called Strip ‘N Chat. Eren didn’t know how to feel about it. It was one thing to watch porn videos, but to actually interact with a person via webcam was kind of unnerving. Armin mentioned it was a great way to let off steam and when his best friend brought the idea to him, Eren was a bit…perturbed about it all. It was ironic, though. During their entire lives, Armin had been the conservative, stick-in-the-mud prude who used to balk at the very thought of sex, while Eren was the extroverted, loudmouth rebel. Three years into their college career and look at how the tables turned. Eren was still…well…Eren, but he found himself as the prude. The crazy thing was, Armin lost his virginity their freshman year during a frat party to Jean, of all people, while Eren was still a virgin. After his little tryst with Jean (and a couple of times afterwards), Armin began to blossom and open up in all ways, including sexual. He was openly gay and sexually active. And fucking proud of it all too.

The shit was crazy.

“Okay. Done.” Armin smiled and sat back in his chair. “You’re all signed up and I got ya’ logged in. Here’s your username and password.” He grabbed Eren’s sketch pad and began writing the information down. “Username is SlickxJagger and your password is Sk8terB0i30.”

Eren raised his eyes. “Slick…x…Jagger?”

“Yeah, corny, but cool, huh?”

“No!” He argued. “I sound like a washed up 90’s porn star!”

Armin shrugged and blinked his eyes innocently. “It’s a porn site, Eren. Everyone’s username sounds like a washed up 90’s porn star. Now, you’re all set! I loaded up that pic of you at Krista’s pool party.”

Eren sighed. He knew what picture Armin was speaking of. He posted it on his Instagram and had gotten a ton of likes. He didn’t think it was anything special. It was just him, with his red and white swim trunks on, holding up the hem of his shirt with his teeth, exposing his abs and various fake tattoos. He had grown his hair out—almost to his shoulders—and was a damp mess of a bird’s nest. Because of that and his long bangs, his face was pretty much hidden, though the sun light had shone just right on his sea green eyes, which caused them to sparkle and almost glow. “What do I do now?” He blinked owlishly.

Sitting forward, Armin clapped his hands onto the top of his knees. “Fill in your profile and filter out what you’re looking for. Then you can pick which Cam Model you like and subscribe to them. Every time they go live or post a pic or video, you’ll get a notification. Remember, some of that shit, they charge you tokens. It’s usually the more risqué stuff. The amount is based on their own discretion. And if you want one-on-one’s, you definitely have to pay out the ass with tokens.”

Biting his lip, Eren looked at his profile. He filled in the basic information about his age, height,  and build, and his likes and dislikes. He answered everything to the best of his ability and honestly. The only thing he lied about was his name. Instead of his real name, he decided to use ‘Jagger’ as being his first name. He didn’t provide a last name. His preferences came next. He started clicking the various boxes. “Um….okay, I like brunettes. Height doesn’t really matter to me. A muscular body would be nice. Don’t care about ethnicity…..” He continued to click away, with Armin helping him on certain things. “Is that all? Did I miss anything?”

“Yes, you sure did,” Armin replied, with a devilish grin. “And I know exactly which to pick out of Twink or Daddy. Click on Daddy.”

Eren winced. “Ew!”

Rolling his eyes, Armin sighed. “Not that kind of Daddy, Eren. Duh! Daddy kink.” He watched his buddy blink cluelessly at him. “I can’t believe you don’t know what that is. Even I know, dude. It’s when a younger male twink is enticed by an older male ‘Zaddy’. That’s the gist of it. If ya’ wanna know more, google it!” Standing, Armin slapped his hands down on Eren’s shoulders, before wrapping his arms around Eren’s neck, hugging him from behind. “I gotta go. Mikasa asked me to fill in for her at the Café. Did you talk to Annie about your schedule?”

Eren raised his own arms up and behind him, awkwardly wrapping them around Armin’s waist…or trying to as much as he could while sitting in his red and black gamer chair. “Yeah. I have the same schedule as you now so that I can catch a ride with you.”

“Great! I’ll see you tomorrow night.” Armin kissed the top of Eren’s head, before taking his leave.

Eren gave his buddy a lazy wave goodbye with a lopsided grin. When his bedroom door closed, his smile died down and was followed by a heavy sigh. He still didn’t know about this whole cam thing. But he was always up to trying new things. And if Armin liked it, then maybe it couldn’t be that bad.

Over the next hour, he had gone through dozens of pages of so-called Daddies. That process was a little more frustrating that what it should have been. Eren was picky when it came to who and what he found attractive. Not that it was a thing with him anyway, but he didn’t pick based on looks. He couldn’t because all models were required to wear masks for anonymity sake. He thought that was kind of neat. It gave the models a sexy, mysterious look to them. He had to go off based on their profiles and preferences. He had to weed out a lot of douche-bags but narrowed it down to two: The Captain and Dr. Pain. He was kind of skeptical about Dr. Pain. He looked to be into BDSM and while Eren didn’t have anything against it, he had never done anything like that. But Dr. Pain was 6”2, with impeccable styled blonde hair and chiseled features from what he could tell through the mask. They had a few of the same likes and dislikes. Overall, the guy sounded pretty normal, despite liking ‘a little pain with his sex’ (his own words). The Captain…well…there was something about him. He was a shorty, standing only at 5”3. Eren was a full five inches taller than he was. Not that it mattered. He didn’t think their was a height requirement to being a Daddy, but when he googled it, the norm was the Daddy was always taller and bigger than the Twink. They shared a lot of the same likes and dislikes, but what struck a chord in Eren’s heart was The Captain’s eyes. Even through his white, red, and black mask, Eren could see a pair of piercing blue-gray eyes. Almost a light cobalt. They pulled him in as if he were in a whirlpool, being sucked into the abyss.

‘What the hell?’

Blinking back into reality, Eren shook his head and walked to the kitchen. His stomach was roaring at him angrily to feed it. “Mikasa, are you hungry?” He called out to silence. Armin was gone to work, and it seemed like Mikasa had left to go some place too. So, he was alone.

Sighing, he kicked his door closed with his toes and plopped down on his bed. A sandwich and soda sounded real good right now and that’s exactly what he was chowing down.

It was a couple of minutes before ten when a notification sounded out. He thought it was his phone, but when he checked it, he saw that it wasn’t, he furrowed his brows. “Hm—oh! My laptop!” Scrambling off the bed, Eren rushed to the laptop and pressed on the ‘enter’ key to wake his system up. Checking his email, he saw one new message and blinked slowly. “It’s from Strip N Chat.” Biting his lip, he cautiously opened up the notif; reading every single letter that made up all the words.

“The Captain is now online.”

Swallowing hard, he clicked the link that took him straight to The Captain’s page. It was a simple page. There was a large blank box in the middle of the screen that said ‘The Captain’s Quarters’. The chat was at the bottom. There his stans already there talking to each other, waiting for The Captain to show.

And when he made his entrance, it was pandemonium.

“Hello Darlings, it’s your Captain speaking. Did you miss me?" Leaning forward, resting his chin on the backs of his fingers, he winked on cobalt blue eye. "Have I got a story for my horny little Ship Mates tonight.”

Eren watched a grin spread across his face, which he couldn’t see much of it. Like all the models on the site, The Captain wore some kind of masquerade looking mask that covered majority of his face. Only his eyes, hair, and his lips and chin were seen, as far as his face goes. His body…well that was another story.

“Wow….” Eren whispered, mesmerized by the guy’s body. His shoulders were broad, and his arms were toned. And as bright as day, he sported a winged tattoo on his chest, with what looked to be a matching one on his left hip. “That’s so hot,” he whispered. Eren had a thing for tattoos. He wanted some of his own but was too afraid of needles to get any. But fucking A if this guy didn’t look hot wearing his.

“…but first, looks like we got some virgins in the house.” He smirked; a pink tongue coming out to wet his bottom and top lips. “Come on.” His voice deepened, dropping one octave. “I don’t bite.....unless you beg me for it.”

Those very words and the way he said them sent a shiver down his spine and an electric shock to his dick.

“Crew, say hello to our newest Shipmates RainMan95, PoisonedL0v3r, and…SlickxJagger. Mmmm….hey Slick….just how slick is that tight, little hole of yours?”

“Fuck. Me.” Eren’s eyes went blind. He was caught. Hook, line, and sinker or whatever the fuck it was called. The guy had him. Him and his aching dick that was standing on end, making a tent in his sweatpants.

“Speaking of holes mmmm, wait until you hear this one. It about a cute, little Twink with a bubble butt that I ate. All. Fucking. Night. Long. When I was done with him he had a…Slick…hole too, Jagger.” Captain grinned widely. “Wanna hear the story, Crew?” He lowered his voice and his tone. Sitting back in his chair, he reached into his pants and pulled out his enormous, leaking cock and began to stroke it lazily.  “Get out your dicks, my lovely little perverts. Come stroke with me down memory lane.”

‘Oh no…’

Eren was fucking hooked.