#it’s unfortunate because I know I’m intelligent and good at my job the job market is just abysmal for biotech rn | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fireflylitsky · 3 months ago

Note

For the WIP ask meme: what's Melonverse?

So this is actually a kind of absurd OC x OC fic 😂 Basically @qettleqorn has this amazingly fun Nara OC, Michi, who is very handsome, charming, funny, intelligent, slutty, and all sorts of flawed (complimetary) and y'know, I just love him. (He's actually half Nara, half Yamanaka, which makes him cousins with Inoichi and I love that too because someone should give Inoichi a hard time)

Bada bing bada boom, now I've got this 25k word wip about my girly Izumi, single mother of twins making a living off a melon stand in Konoha market, and Michi, who is absolutely not the the father. He definitely did not have a one night stand a couple years ago which lead to these kids. He was definitely not shocked when he ran into her at the village market and saw two little rugrats strapped to her (one of which looks like his tiny replica, and the other has his very distinct ears). And no, he isn't slowly growing more and more fond of them over time. He's totally cool and chill about all of this. He doesn't mention any potential relation to the girls, and neither does she.

Long story short, it's like anything I tend to write. Slow burn. Kinda goofy. Dramatic. I actually write Michi more than I do my own OC 😂he's a lot of fun. And Q is a champ about letting me just take him and run, and reading whatever the brain spits out.

I'll leave a snippet of him, Anko, and Inoichi. For context, Izumi has been undergoing investigation by T&I due to her unfortunate ties to Orochimaru. Inoichi's been searching her mind to try to either find out if she's clear, or an informant, and ends up discovering her unspoken past relationship with Michi, and the fact that he has two secret little nieces. Basically Inoichi wants to Parent Trap Michi and Izumi alkjflsadkj

The office door cracks open and Anko’s smiling face pops out. “Nara Michi here at the asscrack of dawn? Never thought I’d see the day.”

He stretches out, bringing his hands to lace behind his head and gives her a lazy smile in a display of expertly crafted nonchalance. “I’ve always been full of surprises, Anko, you just never let me show you.”

“Hm, it’s like I have common sense or something."

“Or something,” he agrees in good humor. “He almost ready in there or what?”

“Yeah, yeah. You know how he is, Mr. By-The-Book. He’s just finishing up, but he says you can come in if you want.”

Yes, he wants.

Michi gets up and follows her into a fairly large, shared office space. Anko sits in the back corner. Inoichi is at the desk front and center.

“Good morning,” Inoichi greets absently, focused on the explosion of paperwork before him. “Sorry, I’m almost done. You can have a seat.”

“No worries,” Michi lies, and to his credit, it sounds very believable. This isn’t his first, second or third rodeo, and he recognizes immediately what Inoichi is doing. He’s putting a file together. A work order. Meaning Michi is there to receive a job assignment.

This is a problem.

Michi doesn’t want a job assignment. He wants an update. One that he can’t openly ask about with Anko in the room.

“Got a job for me?” Michi asks, wanting to confirm his suspicions on the off chance his gut is wrong. It’s usually not though.

“I do,” Inoichi murmurs, clacking a small stack of papers on the desk until they align into a nice, neat packet. Punching a staple through it first, he holds it out to Michi with a finite sigh. “The details are all there. Your charge will be a civilian woman.” Inoichi delivers the order just as he would any. “And by proxy, her two children.”

Well then. Isn’t this a fun little game they get to play in front of Anko now.

Michi takes the packet casually, skimming it over as he sits on the edge of Inoichi’s desk. “This is a protection order,” he realizes aloud.

“Yes. For two weeks—tentatively.”

Michi looks at Inoichi and the two exchange a subtly knowing look, lingering in it for just a moment.

Inoichi clears his throat, breaking the silence before it can stretch on too long. “I know it’s not your usual job detail, but based on the qualifications requested, you were selected.”

“Makes me curious about those qualifications,” Michi mumbles, still reading.

“The request is in there.” Inoichi gestures to the packet. “By all means, look it over. It should be a fairly easy job. It’s more precautionary than anything. Think of it as being a bodyguard for a couple weeks.”

With a humorous snort, Anko interjects from the corner, “He means babysitter. You don’t even have to leave the village.”

“Oh, well that’s perfect,” Michi says. “Think of all the experience I have from watching Ino.”

Inoichi looks mildly amused. “Yes, well, Ino didn’t have a bounty out for her live capture.”

“That you know of.”

Anko snickers quietly, half paying attention as she fills out some forms. Inoichi just sighs. “Regardless, feel free to step it up a notch on this one, Michi.”

“I’m steppin’, I’m steppin’,” Michi defends, sounding pretty unconcerned about the whole thing. Like a cool guy. A very cool guy. Definitely not a guy playing this out like speed shogi in his head, trying to frantically decide if this is a very good or very bad turn of events. Does he love Inoichi right now or does he hate him? He needs more information. “Alright so what’s the deal with this woman? Civilian with a bounty? I’m interested.”

“You should be, she’s cute,” Anko pipes up cheekily from her corner, still scribbling away.

“Oh yeah?” Michi questions, as if he isn’t fully aware of how cute she is. “As cute as you?”

Inoichi scoffs under his breath at them, but they’re used to his disgruntled noises and ignore them happily.

“Mm,” she hums in thought before deciding, “different kind of cute.”

“Alright, alright,” he muses. “I think I can work with that.”

“She’s also really sweet though, so be nice.”

“What are you talking about? I’m always nice.”

“Hm, weird,” Anko feigns confusion with a cock of her head, “You’re pronouncing ‘incorrigible bastard’ wrong.”

Michi clicks his tongue with a sigh. “Ah, sorry, I’m actually not accepting insults before 7am.”

“Aw, is little Michi tired?” Anko coos.

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “If I said yes, would you get me a coffee?”

She looks at him, amused, and lets out a long sigh before standing up with a stretch. “Y’know, you’re lucky you’re pretty.”

“What a coincidence, so are you—lucky, that is. That I’m pretty. You’re the one that gets to look at me so much, after all.” Another sigh from Inoichi. At this point it's practically a game for Michi and Anko.

Anko just scoffs with a shake of her head. “Like I said, incorrigible bastard.”

“That’s a ‘yes’, right?”

“That’s an ‘I was going to get some for myself anyway, and since you’re looking so adorably pathetic, sure, I’ll take pity on you’.”

“Nice.”

She laughs on her way out. He’s fairly certain it’s at him and not with him. Either way, he’s won here because not only has he gotten rid of her, he’s getting a coffee out of it.

Inoichi gives him the most deadpan look in the history of deadpan looks. “You two should be separated.”

As an expert in sidestepping his dear cousin’s disapproval, Michi moves right along, waggling the work order in the air. “What kind of strings are you pulling to get me on this?”

#WIP ask game #asks #thanks for the ask!#OC x OC #Melonverse

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lubdubsworld · 4 years ago

Text

Better Man. ( Taehyung x OC)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Rated 18 +

Post Divorce, Getting Back Together, Second chances, Angst.

Chapter 3 ~ The problem with marriage is this : it isn’t worth the pain of divorce.

Denial isn’t healthy.

But sometimes it helps you stay sane , at least long enough to get your act together. When you’re in denial, you kind of keep yourself together a bit. You process things a bit more slowly. Take your time examining the facts.

It helps you make a delayed but possibly more informed decision.

Impulsive decisions never end well.

So it’s good to stew in denial for a while ( a short while) and then slowly begin processing what happened, think about it, think how its gonna affect you and then make a choice.

Unfortunately for Taehyung and I... I wasn’t in denial.

Maybe I should have been.

The time between Taehyung turning up drunk and the me leaving the house was less than twelve hours. Taehyung showed up drunk and I just told him I was leaving. That we needed a break and I didn’t know when I’d be back.

Terrible choice.

In the first twelve hours, the hurt is so potent and strong , the wound so raw and fresh that you can’t think beyond the pain . Your instinct is to repay the pain, to retaliate and make the other party feel exactly what you’re feeling. So you think of the thing that would hurt them the most and you go ahead and do it.

Like move out of your shared home of eight years, take away the son he adored and possibly rip the ground right out from under his feet.

And then after the first twelve hours, reason begins to catch up.

I had wanted to go back.

I had wanted to go back to him but I was scared.

Scared that I was being weak.

That if I didn’t stick to the choice I made, Taehyung would forever see me as a pushover. That he would take it as some sick permission to do it all over again. That he’d just think I was too weak to walk out on him.

And i couldn’t have that. I couldn’t have him hurting me and not facing the consequences of it. I just couldn’t.

So I stayed away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I worked on the seventh floor of a high rise in Gangnam, probably a twenty minute drive from Taehyung’s agency. It was an electronic/ tech company that dealt with everything from mobile phones to home fittings . As the assistant director of Marketing I dealt with branding and keeping up the image of the company. Annual budgets, endorsements, campaigns and what not.

I was good at it and i enjoyed it . everyone agreed that i did a good job because the numbers spoke for themselves. But I think the main reason I got the job was because I was married to the biggest brand ambassador in the country.

“ I need the reports on consumer trends for this month and I want to meet with Social media team before lunch. There’s a drop in our web traffic and that needs to be fixed.” I told my assistant, accepting the hot coffee and muffin that he held in his hand before moving to the corner office, my strides faltering just a bit when i noticed that someone was already inside. The figure had his back to me but I could vaguely recognize the broad shoulders and muscular arms.

“Mr. Jeon’s been waiting for about ten minutes now.” Mingyu said with a smile and I nodded.

“That’s fine , I’ll handle him.” I waved my assistant off and moved to the door, unlocking it and stepping in.

“Morning, Jang Mi.” He smiled, eyes flashing with ill concealed delight and I inhaled to calm myself down. .

I could already feel a headache coming on.

“Jungkook.” I said curtly. “ To what do I owe this very early visit?” I glanced at my table finally taking the bottle of champagne in the small ice bucket.

“Thought we’d celebrate you finally being free.” He grinned.

Jeon Jungkook was handsome, intelligent , and annoyingly good at everything he did.

At 34, He was one of the youngest CFO’s in the industry, and everything he touched turned to gold. I didn’t report to him and he had zero reasons to be in my office at any given time. But , unfortunately he had never gotten that particular memo.

“I’m not in the mood, Jungkook.” I sighed, moving to the back of my desk and dropping my bag on the small ottoman on the side and my keys in the desk. I plugged my phone into the cable on the side and then went to open the blinds.

“Come on... You know how sick I’ve been of two years of hearing ‘ I’m sorry, I’m married.’ .... you’re gonna have to come up with a better excuse the next time i ask you out.”

“No. No is a whole entire sentence that you should be able to accept.” I said evenly, fixing the cushions on the couch only to have him plop down on them immediately after.

“One date. Dinner anywhere you like. i can fly you to Paris if you want.... Macua? Jeju Do? Tell me what you want and I’ll get it done. ?”

i stared at him.

“I want you to fire Kang Yeseul from the Social Media team.” I said with a shrug.

He frowned.

“The new girl? Why?”

“She’s been posting nudes that she took in my office when I was on leave last week. My name plate is literally visible.”

“Jesus fuck...these bitches get dumber by the minute.”

I couldn’t even deny it.

“I’ll take care of it.” He said swiftly. “ Anything else?”

“Web traffics gone down and I’m gonna find out why. It’s probably time for us to work out the budget for the Christmas Carnival. I think we should go for something new this time. If you can set up a meeting with all the department heads we can brainstorm a few ideas...”

“I can’t forget about that night.”

I froze.

God.

i turned around to stare at him as he lounged on the couch. If Kim Taehyung was the most handsome man I’d ever seen, Jungkook was definitely the second.

He was disconcertingly good looking and where Taehyung’s image was always the clean cut gentleman with the perfect character, Jungkook had a reputation as a bit of a delinquent. Simply because he had a penchant for leather jackets and liked to ride around Seoul on his motorbike on days off.

Which was ironical because in truth, Taehyung was far from a saint and Jungkook was relatively more put together

He was also a divorcee and a single parent. His daughter Jennie was easily the cutest two year old on the planet.

His wife and him had fifty fifty custody but she had cheated on him with his best friend. Jungkook had no patience for her. They had a very volatile relationship but he was fighting for full custody and rumor was that he would most certainly be granted it, soon.

A marathon runner , he didn’t drink or smoke.

Jungkook liked to paint and volunteered at an animal shelter once or twice a month because he loved dogs but couldn’t keep one because of his busy schedule.

So all in all , a pretty solid candidate if I was looking for a guy.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that I was completely and utterly done with relationships for the rest of my life, I would actually give the guy a chance.

But , it is what it is.

“That sounds like a you problem. “ I shrugged. “ It was supposed to be one night with no strings attached. And by string I meant awkward conversations three months later .”

Jungkook groaned and sat up straighter, legs spread and shirt sleeves riding up to show a very sparkly watch. Rich men and their vices. I smirked a little.

“Come on... its just dinner. I want to get to know you, that’s it.” he held his hands up.

“There’s nothing to know Jungkook. I’m actually more boring than i appear, which is saying something. I’m not going to be the girl in the leather jacket clinging to your waist when you’re joyriding that motorbike of yours through Seoul. That’s not me. I would hate something that”

He chuckled.

“Are you sure? You ever tried it?”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“That’s not the point.”

“I’ll buy you a jacket. Join me this weekend. We’ll go a ride. Then you can make a decision.”

I opened my mouth to argue when the phone rang. I grabbed it quickly.

“Hello?”

“This is Lee Taemin from the Advertising Department.”

“Yes?”

“We have a Mr. Jung from HYBE on the phone. They want to talk to us about a possible candidate for our Christmas Campaign.... “

I blinked, surprised.

“We haven’t even decided on a theme yet. “

Choosing the right actors to endorse stuff was usually the last step.

“I know but he’s saying they want to talk about Mr. Kim Taehyung as a possible candidate?”

I felt my entire jaw come unhinged.

I turned to Jungkook stunned. His eyes widened at the look on my face and he mouthed a ‘ What’

“Please tell him I’ll call him back in fifteen minutes.” I said quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Jungkook demanded.

“Taehyung’s manager...he... he wants to make him the face of the Christmas Campaign.” I said dully, mind ringing. I was utterly stupefied.

Taehyung was the face of Gucci and Versace . He was so far out of our company’s league it wasn’t even funny.

Jungkook stared at me in disbelief.

“No.” He said quickly.

I gaped at him.

“What?”

“No... we can’t have that. He’s.. he’s obviously doing this to get back with you...”

I shook my head.

“that can’t be it. He’s the one who gave me a divorce. He’s the one who wanted to end it. “

It was the shock of what I’d heard. There was no other explanation for why I said that to Jeon Jungkook.

Jungkook gave me a look.

“Really? But you wanted one too right?”

“Of course I did.” I lied easily, waving him off. “Anyway that doesn’t matter. We can’t say no to him, Jungkook. Our sales would skyrocket if we get him onboard.”

Jungkook swore.

“Fuck, you’re right. The Ceo will probably piss himself in excitement. You sure you’ll be okay with it?”

Jungkook looked worried.

“You forget that Taehyung and I are actually quite good friends.” I said gently.

He grimaced.

“That's just unnatural. If you can stay friends with an ex it clearly means that either you’re still in love with each other or....”He shrugged.

“Or what?”

“Or you never loved each other in the first place.”

I swallowed the remark hitting a little too close to home for comfort.

“Schedule that meeting Jungkook. We’ll come up with a campaign theme that would fit Taehyung’s image. I’ll take to Hoseok and Taehyung.”

“You’re going to call Taehyung?” Jungkook asked casually.

“Hoshi’s with him today. I’ll probably go over to his place after work and talk to him in person.”

“Lucky bastard. He gets to hurt you and yet still have you.” Jungkook said bitterly.

I rolled my eyes.

“He doesn’t have me.”

“Doesn’t he? Why else would you turn down dates with anyone who asks? its one date.. a dinner... If you’re not still hung up on your ex husband why wouldn’t you just go on one date with-”

I’d really had quite enough of it. I threw my hands up in sheer exasperation.

“Alright fine.” I yelled, “ I’ll go to dinner with you...can you just stop psycho analyzing my relationship with my husband?”

Jungkook’s smile told me that I’d been played like a fiddle.

“excellent. Go see your husband after work and I’ll come pick you up at eight.”

“What...no wait...”

“I know where he lives. Don’t worry about it. I’ll schedule that meeting and maybe after lunch we can go over the kind of budget you’ll want. Okay?”

I felt a little like I’d stepped into quagmire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn’t go see Taehyung after work.

I didn’t have to.

An hour before I was due to finish my daily report, he turned up at the office with my son. My assistant let him in and I could only gape at him.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked , completely thrown.

“Mama I had ice cream with strawberries and sprinkles in a hundred colors.” Hoshi looked excited, eyes shining the way they usually did when he was with Taehyung.

“That sound incredibly exciting....”

“We missed you mama....can we go again?” He said excitedly.

“I’m sorry honey, Mama’s a little caught up with work...”

“Why don’t we wait?” Taehyung said cheerfully, “ Mama likes blueberry scones so we can get those for her...”

I stared at him.

“Okay...” I sad carefully, staring him down. What was he doing really?

“Okay... Can I go see the fishies....” Hoshi waved at the large fish tank built into the wall in my office and Taehyung laughed, letting him down.

“Sure bud.. go see how many of the fish you can identify...” He said brightly.

“ Since when do you pick me up for blueberry scones after work?” I asked briskly and he shrugged.

“Let the kid be happy , Mia. I heard Hobi hyung already spoke to you.”

“What is that all about, Tae?” I said tiredly.

“All the other offers i got are out of Korea. I want to stay with Hoshi during the Holidays so i thought this way , we could spend some time together..”

“By we, I hope you mean you and Hoshi.” I said drily.

“Of course. I could’ve picked another mall or something but i thought it could be a good thing if we worked at the same place... we can keep Hoshi with us and there wont be all the commuting back and forth nonsense....”

I nodded.

“I suppose you’re right. “ I sighed. “But be warned, you’re probably not going to have a very exciting time.

“I’ll enjoy it nonetheless.”

I nodded.

“I won’t tell you how to live your life And I most certainly won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. My Ceo might just give me a huge pay raise for this. He’s been waiting for it since the time he hired me.”

Taehyung gave me a smile.

“I would have done it the minute you asked. You never asked.”

I shrugged.

“Like I said, I won’t tell you how to live your life.”

“Jang Mi?” The knock on the door made us both look up.

Jungkook stood framed in the doorway, jacket off and slung over his arms . He looked bigger than usual, muscles straining against his button down and hair mussed.

He stepped in casually, holding a hand out to Taehyung.

“The golden boy of Korea. in the flesh. A pleasure to meet you Mr. Kim. I’m Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook”

The pair of them shook hands and I felt that I would rather be anywhere in the world than there.

“ Nice to meet you Mr. Jeon.” Taehyung smiled politely.

“We still on for tonight?” Jungkook asked casually, turning to me with a bright smile.

This is why i hated men.

Taehyung’s eyes snapped to me so fast that i was sure he must’ve got whiplash.

“Sure. I’ll call you.” I said shortly.

“What’s tonight?” Taehyung smiled, face neutral and smile still in place but his eyes flashed and his voice carried a knife edge to it.

“Business dinner. We’re going over the budget for the Christmas campaign.”

“Oh... where?” Taehyung asked with the same smile and I frowned.

“We’ve not decid-”

“I thought I could cook for you. i make a mean steak dinner and I thought I could pick up a bottle of your favorite wine on the way. You have my address right? ” Jungkook smiled.

Taehyung went still next to me, his entire body taut .

“A little inappropriate for a business dinner, don’t you think?” he snapped.

Jungkook glared back at him, eyes narrowed.

“Well, you know what they say about all work and no play-” he began but I’d had enough.

“I think this conversation needs to end now.” I said loudly.

They both shut up but glared at each other.

“I’m gonna make a reservation at the Hyatt for tonight. I’ll meet you there at seven thirty. “ I said, glaring at Jungkook.

He nodded.

“Pleasure meeting you Kim Taehyung.” He nodded curtly at my ex husband before moving away.

The silence he left behind was pretty awkward.

“Bit too much of a douchebag than your usual type.” Taehyung said casually.

I groaned.

“Don’t start.”

“ I won’t if you don’t date him.”

I opened my mouth to argue but then stopped.

“Lets just get that ice cream ? “ I said tiredly. Hoshi reappeared from the inside room, looking excited and happy and I smiled despite my weariness.

I could use a little sweetness in my life after a bitterly exhausting day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s note : Feedback is welcome . Probably going to be a long , terribly angsty fic with a lot of pain for everyone involved. I still haven’t decided who ocs going to end up with so we’ll see... what do you guys think?

#taehyung smut #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fics #bts smut #bts fic #bts fanfic

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ghostsreadingghosts · 3 years ago

Text

The Specialist

Synopsis: Welcome to the Institute - a business slotted into the space between worlds. Here, strange things aren’t so abnormal, but should still be feared. Follow Ellis, a Data Specialist, as she fulfills her tasks in the archives and perhaps finds more than what she was meant to in the process.

Data Specialist. Data. Specialist. Such a vague title, though Ellis thought it was probably fitting. She felt like a vague member of her company, just an almost faceless little job puppet that flitted from work load to work load without ever leaving much of an impression on anyone. She wasn’t closely tied with any person here - wasn’t even close enough that most of them knew her name. But she knew them, or at least, observed them.

Amilia was head analyst for the Institute, meaning she was the one who assigned everyone’s work load in their department. She was a petite, intelligent woman who’d never worked anywhere other than the Institute for her entire life and, honestly, was probably born there. No one was really sure where she came from. She just sort of appeared one day working in the archive vault and no one questioned it. It was one of those things that was best not to question, Ellis had learned.

Charlie, on the other end of the employment ladder, was a junior analyst, having been hired right off of his college internship, meaning he’d already been working there for a year so it was easier than putting up another job posting and training in someone else. It also meant he’d probably stick around for awhile because he had no “real world” experience yet outside of an internship and he was just poor enough that he couldn’t afford to quit without another job lined up. Which was unlikely in the near future, given the experience garnered at the Institute was a very specific kind.

Then there was Darius, who was one of the Analysts and field workers. They were always running on too much caffeine and too little sleep, but so was everyone else in the Institute aside from Upper Management. They’d been a runaway at one point in their life, but by now would simply describe it as having a ‘no contact relationship’ with their parents. Only Ben tried to ask about them once and Darius had stonewalled him at every turn. So much for a “close knit workspace,” as Ben liked to call it.

Ben was the secretary and the liaison between Upper Management and the Data & Records department where Ellis worked. He was the perfect creature of poised charm and warm smiles - all grins and business talk with nothing really much deeper. It made Ellis’ skin crawl. He looked like one of the Office Drones from the top floor. Those strange little eldritch beings peeled off of the Beyond and stuck into expressionless skins, milling about on the upper floors in jerky, uncoordinated movements as they fulfilled the tasks of their masters until they could be released back into the Beyond again were the primary menial workforce of the Institute, though Ellis couldn’t imagine why. Their faces never moved right, their skin and clothes never settling quite into a perfect facsimile of humanity. Instead it was always just off enough to cause discomfort and Ellis had long learned to steer clear of them when they made their rare appearances on the lower floors to deliver packages or run office errands. It did make Ellis wonder how other offices worked, though.

She had never really had work outside of the Institute, as far as she could recall. Maybe a job when she was teenager babysitting or cutting grass, but she couldn’t remember. Her life was full of long days and boring evenings, so it’s not as though there was anything particularly worth remembering if her life had always looked the way it did now. But she heard stories from time to time from other people about work outside of the Institute and it always made her mind twist about in strange ways.

She’d gone on a date once with a man named Garrett who, when Ellis asked about his work, laughed and said he was just an office drone. He’d been very confused when Ellis’ color drained from her face and she excused herself to pay her tab and leave. Ingrid, Ellis’ roommate and a woman who worked in marketing, stated that he was just making a joke and that Office Drones were different outside of the Institute. Ellis wasn’t sure what to make of that, but wasn’t particularly keen to go out with someone who referred to themselves as a lifeless husk with nothing but a squirming, wriggling mass of inhuman tentacles and teeth inside.

But was it really any better than her job, when she thought about it? Data Specialist. Did that mean she specialized in data? Or that she dealt with specialist data? Perhaps both. She did have to sign a rather lengthy NDA when she was hired, or at least she thought she remembered signing an NDA. It was so long ago now.

She frowned as she climbed up onto a ladder in the archives, putting a rather temperamental file back onto the top shelf. As she completed the task, she shuffled through her notes and found the form she was looking for just as Ben rounded the corner.

“There you are, Ellis,” he said, never looking up from his clipboard. Ben was one of the only people there who actually remembered her name and Ellis was fairly certain that it was only because he worked with Upper Management and thus was required to know any and everyone who entered the building. “You’re so quiet now. I was wondering if you had the -” he lifted the pages on his clipboard and flicked through a few before Ellis cleared her throat.

“Here.”

“Ah, excellent.” Ben took the yellowed sheet she had stuck in his face, the heading printed in dark gothic lettering, and slid it into the papers on his clipboard. “And the -”

“On the table.” Ellis motioned to the work table where a thick manilla folder sat.

Ben followed the gesture of her hand and spotted the envelope. “Splendid,” he purred through a toothy smile. The air hissed through his teeth unpleasantly as he did so. “I’m not sure how we managed before you, Miss Ellis.”

Ellis wasn’t sure how to take that, but the statement almost sounded like a threat. She wasn’t entirely sure how it could be a threat, but it definitely felt like one.

Before she could respond to his question, the man was gone, the clip of his hard leather soles reverberating through the cramped archive halls. Ellis sighed through her nose and collected her papers into her soft leather briefcase before sliding haphazardly down the ladder to land with a neat plop on the floor. One of the files about halfway up the shelf - far out of reach from the ground level - spat a paper out at her and Ellis caught it with her fingertips as it drifted towards the floor.

“Thank you!” She waved up at the shelf and saw the edge of the file rustling back and forth in response.

“That’s a neat trick. I don’t think the archives behave that well for anyone else here.”

Ellis jumped when she heard the voice behind her and turned to see Francis resting against one of the shelves, his arms crossed against his chest and his dark eyes blinking at her in the dim archive light. Francis had always reminded her of a spider, somehow. Perhaps it was all of the eye tattoos on his arms or his long, spindly fingers that always seemed to be able to grasp things just beyond their reach. Whatever it was, he was as unnerving as he was beautiful and Ellis did not like that she was alone with him in the archive of all places. He technically was the head of Human Resources, so never really needed to come down to the archives except in very specific circumstances.

Ellis didn’t like Very Specific Circumstances. She swallowed and wiggled her fingers in a nervous ‘hello’ towards the man who was technically her superior but was still in a completely different department.

“Ah, I forgot about the silence thing. It has been a while since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?” he mused. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture before Ellis could answer. “It doesn’t matter. I was hoping you’d be able to find something for me and bring it down to the mail center. I’d bring it myself, but, well - you are the Data Specialist for a reason and even I can’t crawl my way through these archives the way you can.” Francis bared his teeth in a strange mimic of a smile which Ellis couldn’t bring herself to return. She cleared her throat to ask what Francis needed, but the suit-clad HR manager simply began speaking again.

“It’s actually a few somethings - if you don’t mind. It’s for the Guillespe case. You know the one, I’m sure. The gentleman with the unfortunate bog hound?” Francis pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket, folded long ways down the center and handed it off to Ellis. “I was hoping it was an isolated incident, but Hellen thinks otherwise. She gave me a list of call numbers for you to look up. Just put them all in an envelope for me and bring them down to the mail room. They’ll make sure it gets to me in the morning.”

Ellis tugged on the tarnished chain hooked to her belt and pulled out her pocket watch to check the time. If he wanted this by morning, it meant a late night for her. And it was supposed to snow as it was. She frowned.

“Any questions?” Francis asked and Ellis looked up at him.

“I don’t think -”

“Good. Have a good night, Ellis. I’ll try to remember to swing by more often. It’s such a lovely little hovel you’ve carved out for yourself down here.” With that, the man scurried up the shelf and back into one of his tunnels in the ceiling, disappearing into the black void without another word. Ellis let out an exasperated sigh and unfolded the paper in her hands, scanning the call numbers and already forming the most efficient way to look for the articles and files that Francis wanted her to dig up. It would take her awhile, but she could manage it if she worked quickly and the archive decided to be helpful.

She made her way determinedly through the sprawling catacombs of the archive, taking long-familiar turns and winding her way on sure feet through the space, sometimes pausing and glancing up at the shelves to verify the call sections again. The struggle in compiling already collected data for the people at the Institute wasn’t so much that it was difficult to find, but rather that it was difficult to get to. Shelves were sometimes fathoms deep and some files were particularly cantankerous, whereas other organizational units and shelves were high enough that just getting up the ladder took several minutes, let alone climbing up on the shelf to then finish the journey. The information was easy enough to find, but collecting was a wholly different matter.

But Ellis knew the archives. She knew every shortcut, every switchback and wrong turn, every ladder and high shelf and soothing song to play for the files and the creatures that lived with them. She knew where to go and how to get it and where other people could become lost in the endless hallways and cramped corridors, Eliis could always find her way. It was a pity that so few remembered she was here to congratulate her on her hard work.

Oh well. She couldn’t have everything.

It was a long trek to collect all of the data for Francis and by the time she had it all, it was well past closing time for the Institute. The mail room would still be open since they sorted mail at all hours to make sure they kept deadlines, but most everyone else would have gone home or be in their Institute Approved cabinets by now. She’d be lucky if she wasn’t locked in.

The hallway to the mailroom was long and narrow and steep, almost more of a chute than a hallway and it was always a struggle to get back out again. Ellis had once slipped and wound up falling into a mail bin and was almost put in the paper shredder since non-addressed living organisms couldn’t be accepted. She’d gotten out of that by quickly writing “To: Archives” on the back of her hand, making her an addressed living organism and thus mailable. It had taken half an hour, but she eventually was deposited back at the archive door and only had to spend a few minutes getting the mailroom label off of her forehead. Ever since then she’d been more careful and always made sure to keep a new felt-tip pen on her when she went to the mailroom just in case. She tucked the files into an inter-office folder and wrote “Human Resources: Francis” on the front before dropping it into the open maw of the mailroom and scurrying her way back up the hallway to safety.

To her dismay, it wasn’t the locked doors that were keeping her in the Institute when she finally reached the entrance, but the foot and a half of snow piled up on the ground. Ellis groaned as she looked out at the fat snowflakes the clouds hurled down at the earth. She couldn’t see more than five feet out the door, which meant she’d almost certainly get lost before she made it to the bus stop. If the buses were even running in this weather, which they probably weren’t.

She eventually turned back into the Institute entryway to see if she might be able to snag a guest cabinet for the night. It was no use trying to find alternatives outside. She would sleep in the archives, but that wasn’t the best idea. She knew what was there when she was awake, but even Ellis, who knew the archives better than anyone, didn’t trust them while she was sleeping.

Twenty minutes and several flights of stairs leading to nowhere in particular later, Ellis found herself at a very odd door that she didn’t remember seeing before. It wasn’t as though the door was odd in any way. It was simply an office door - brown with blinds covering the window and a round handle with a lock in it. It looked much like any other door Ellis had seen in the Institute before, but Ellis was certain - certain! - that it had not been there before. Or, at least, she was sure that she’d never seen it there before. So then why did something just seem so familiar about this one?

Ellis had always been a curious person and on instinct, her hand began to reach out towards the handle.

“Don’t open in,” a part of her whispered in her ear and her hand paused. “You know something bad will happen if you do.”

“Open it,” another part replied. “Who knows what might be behind it? It could be different this time.”

This time? But Ellis hadn’t ever seen this door before. Or, at least she thought she hadn’t. Had she? No, wait, that wasn’t right. Something was… wrong.

Ellis dug the heels of her palms into her eyes and scrubbed until she saw stars. She felt a headache coming on.

But she wanted to know what was behind the door. And besides, Upper Management went to bed when the Institute closed for the night. And Francis - dealing only in Human Resources - was probably out schmoozing their next Human Resource, so it’s not as though he was there to get angry with her. What harm could it really do? She placed her ear to the door and listened. If there was no sound coming from inside, then it was probably just a storage room and she wouldn’t bother going in, she decided. But she did hear something. A little mechanical whirring noise, followed by a pause, then more whirring.

Hesitantly, Ellis reached out and tried the handle of the door. It was unlocked. Ellis felt her heart thrumming loudly in her chest and she swallowed before swinging the door open and looking inside.

Ben looked up from a desk. Bright pink readers perched precariously on the end of his thin nose and his eyes narrowed as he saw who was standing in his doorway.

“Ah, Ellis. I’d hoped you’d gone home for the evening.”

In front of the man was what looked to be a rather ancient sewing machine all in black with an electric lamp attached to it that had clearly been added at a later date. Ben appeared to have been using it and now he picked up a seam ripper from the desk and clipped the threads connecting his project to the machine.

“Rather unfortunate, that. I had hoped you’d remember what happened last time. But I suppose it can’t be helped. They did a little too good of a job when making you a Data Specialist.”

Ellis’ eyebrows furrowed and she tried to open her mouth to speak.

“Ah, ah, no. You’ll tear your stitches, dear Ellis.” Ben rose from his seat and crossed to her. Ellis noticed for the first time just how tall he was. And that he wasn’t wearing his suit jacket. Without the suit jacket, the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to reveal the thousands of little threads running up and down his arms. All his Connections. It was a little frightening how many he had. Ellis looked up at him in confusion and Ben simply motioned to her left.

In the mirror was a woman - unkempt dark, curly hair and large eyes that looked like black marbles. Her long, thin form was covered by dusty, ragged clothes and her soft leather briefcase hung at her side like a satchel. But her mouth -

Her mouth had been sewn shut.

“I suppose you won’t remember. I had hoped-” Ben paused behind her and looked over her reflection. His face held the imitation of a frown and for a flash of a second he almost looked sad. Almost. “Well, in the end t was Upper Management’s decision, not mine. Though, I did ask to do the the stitching myself. I thought the blue silk suited you. It really stands out with your eyes.”

Ellis blinked at Ben’s reflection in a panic, her heart racing faster than before.

“Oh, now, now, Ellis, don’t worry,” Ben spoke reassuringly as he pulled several long threads from his arms. He held them up to his lamplight, squinting and checking the threads against each other before choosing one and threading it on a needle.. “We’ll just start again like last time, little puppet.”

Ellis watched as Ben lifted the limp form from his sewing machine up, holding it out like a dress for her to appreciate.

“What do you think?” he asked.

It was a skin. A skin that looked like her. Ellis felt herself go stiff with fear as Ben laid the skin out carefully on the work desk and walked over to her, brandishing his seam ripper.

“Now, hold very, very still.”

#writing #short story #horror #writers on tumblr #original fiction

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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HOW TO GET STARTUP HUBS WORK

Companies do them because they have to learn it to get a job. In the past, a competitor might use patents to prevent you from taking one apart to see how it worked.1 But this is probably not an option for most magazines. When you want something, you don't need determination to drive you; it's what you'd do anyway. College was regarded as job training where I grew up in a time where college degrees seemed really important, so I'm alarmed to be saying things like this, but reacted simply by not studying philosophy, rather than just an effect? But they are indirectly influenced in the practical sense that interest from other investors imposes a deadline. Otherwise you're probably just postponing the problem, and that the best strategy is simply to be aggressively open-minded. At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble for that. And yet there may be a way to choose a good language.

In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination—partly because it makes raising money take longer and cost more in legal fees. The catch is that Sequoia gets about 6000 business plans a year and funds about 20 of them, so the odds of getting this great deal are 1 in 300. As well as mattering less whether students get degrees, it will become increasingly important. No one actually proposed implementing numbers as lists in practice. For example, suppose Y Combinator offers to fund you in return for 6% of your company. If some applications can be increasingly inefficient while others continue to demand all the speed the hardware can deliver, faster computers will mean that languages have to cover an ever wider range of efficiencies. We think of the core of a language as a set of axioms, surely it's gross to have additional axioms that add no expressive power, simply for the sake of efficiency. My friend Trevor Blackwell built his own Segway, which we called the Segwell.

In this case, n is. To some extent, yes. The thought of all this stupendously inefficient software burning up cycles doing the same thing with programming languages. Of course, there are other factors to consider in a VC deal. What makes good food? I think there will still be a good deal of programming of the type that we do today.2 The word essay comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. There will always be pushing you toward the bottom. If it seems surprising that the gap was so long, consider how little progress there was in math between Hellenistic times and the Renaissance. Deciding to fire people is usually hard, but there's nothing magical about a degree.

So I don't even try to predict it. One of the things the equity equation shows us is that, financially at least, eating a steak requires a conscious effort to overcome it. The evolution of languages differs from the evolution of programming languages is more like the rate of evolution in programming languages is likely to lead, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Suppose the company wants to make a weak-willed person stronger-willed.3 Do you, er, want a printout of yesterday's news? Do you, er, want a printout of yesterday's news? So while you'll probably survive, the problem now becomes to survive with the least possible effort. Those are interesting questions. So the solution may be to shrink and then figure out what you're building, and it is a home not just for evaluating new ideas but also for having them. Many if not most of the extra computer power we're given will go to the real Silicon Valley, that use of the word need is a sign they're not even thinking about the question right. I think they're onto something.

Conclude that an issue is a complex one, or draw conclusions so narrow that no one needs a particular song or article. But he turned out to be fuzzy around the edges if you examine it closely. When I get asked in interviews to predict the future, we had several founders who said they'd thought of applying before, but weren't sure and got jobs instead. I predict this situation is also temporary. Since this is in effect the company's profit on a hire, the market will determine that: if you're a hot opportunity, you can charge more. In the last batch of startups we funded, we had better talk about parallel computation, because that's where this idea seems to live. But unfortunately most investors are terrible judges. Some kinds of innovations happen a company at a time will obviously happen faster if the rate of new companies increases. The situation is much the same with digital books.4

2 that the spread of the Industrial Revolution. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches. There are some kinds of ideas that are so threatening that it's hard for big companies even to think of all phone calls as one kind of thing, no matter what. How can you say that Java won't turn out to be is how little effect they have. Presumably many libraries will be for domains that don't even exist yet. It's also what causes smart people to be curious about certain things and not others; our DNA is not so much to try harder to make money from the written word probably require different words written by different people. Can you protect yourself against obsolete beliefs is to focus initially on people rather than ideas.5 However many Google does, Microsoft should do ten times as many.6 The first step is to have an explicit belief in change.

Notes

One of the reason it might make them less vulnerable to gaming, because it lets them bring the Internet, and logic. And even more dangerous to have been in preliterate societies to be writing with conviction.

Experienced investors know about it wrong. In rice cooker.

The solution was a kid who had recently arrived from Russia. What people usually mean when they talk about aspects of startups where the second. Pliny Hist. A variant is that you should never sell i.

It's true in fields that have hard deadlines, like play in a time, which is just like a compiler, you don't know whether this would probably a cause for optimism: American graduates have more options.

Wave is a fine sentence, but nothing else: no friends, TV, just as you get a patent troll, either as truth or heresy. Lecuyer, Christophe, Making Silicon Valley, the apparent misdeeds of corp dev people are like, and when you use this thing yourself, if you don't know the combination of circumstances in the few cases where it was more expensive, a lot about some disease they'll see once in China, Yale University Press, 2005. Everyone's taught about it well enough to guarantee good effects. But it wouldn't be able to spend on trade goods to make your fortune?

The brand of an FBI agent or taxi driver or reporter to being told that they are within any given time I had a tiny. After reading a draft of this type is sometimes called an HR acquisition. Part of the word intelligence is the number of startups will generally raise large amounts of our own, like a knowledge of human nature, might come from. And then of course.

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rocky00 · 4 years ago

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The Monster I’ve Become

Inspired by Falling In Reverse - I’m Not A Vampire Revamped

I’ve written this like a script but I’m open to suggestions, hope you like it!

Can you imagine becoming something so evil without asking for it, learning about what you've become, and realising you can't do anything about it or warn people about the threat you pose because the would destroy you?

The scene is set in 1540 a wealthy man and his wife in their 20's are roaming the grounds of their estate on a sunny day

Ct Oswald: There have been rumours amongst the wealthy that a new count will be arriving from a faraway state soon he's quite controversial in his home

wife: why is that darling?

ct Oswald: apparently he acts quite strange?

wife: that's hardly new there are more than a few strange gentlemen in this country

ct Oswald: no, he's a new strange he's rumored never to be seen eating...drinking or sleeping even by his servant's

wife: well that is peculiar? is he a degenerate?

ct Oswald: actually I've been told he's quite intelligent

wife: what's his name?

ct Oswald: His name is Count Ronald of red ruins

wife: that place? I thought it was to be abandoned to the rebellious decades ago?

ct Oswald:....it was

Count Oswald has a troubled look on his face, his wife is puzzled, they continue walking in their gardens processing the information trying to piece it together

The scene cuts to a few days later, it shows a dock on a stormy day, servants are unloading items off of the ship onto carriages. Some of the servants are talking quietly amongst themselves

servant 1: I'm scared to touch this stuff who knows what might happen to us

servant 2: what do you mean, what's wrong with it?

servant 2: you've heard some of the rumours, haven't you? about the owner of these possessions?

servant 1: yes but we still have a job to do no matter what matter of creature they belong to at least he's not here

servant 2: but he might catch our smell or something, track us down?

servant 1: but we're helping him so why would he want to track us down?

As they are talking the owner of the servants catch them talking

Hugh: Oi you two! you're here to work not to spread rumors that's not why I pay you get back to work!

They finish unloading all of the items off of the boat and onto the carriages which are shown winding down a long road to some gates, The camera pans up and shows a large dark house which are nearby some extremely high cliffs.

The next night a posh carriage drives up to the front door of the house the door is opened and a man gets out he has jet long black hair and wears dark/grey clothing he holds a cane although it is just for aesthetic, his head of servants address him

Margaret: everything has been made ready for your arrival sir, is there anything I can get for you, some dinner perhaps?

The Count keeps his eyes forward

ct Ronald: that won't be necessary

Margaret: yes sir...

He enters the house and dismisses the servants for the night. He explores the mansion and comes to an upstairs balcony at the front of the house and takes a deep breath looking fatigued.

The camera pans behind him to see the town and docks in the far distance.

Ct Ronald: it's still as hard to be around these people as I remember I would almost miss that mount of rock and ruins

His hair lightly blowing in the evening wind. The next day the town is busy as the market day has approached, people are out in the sun as horses are pulling into the square marrying heavy loads and expensive goods from other towns and countries. Groups of women can be seen walking together catching up on the latest gossip

Elizabeth: Ladies did you hear the new Count arrived late last night?

Anne: My servants were talking about it this morning apparently his head of house is quite frightened of him, apparently, he's quite intimidating

Mary: but he is a handsome man it seems I've seen his portraits, his quite enchanting you know

Jane: all these men are the same, rumours spread like fire but they just flirt and try to impress everyone

Elinor: I'm quite curious, whilst I was speaking to the captain of the ship which brought him here, he told me some quite unnerving stories about his origins

Elizabeth: Well don't keep us standing here wondering to ourselves enlighten us.

As the ladies wonder about the new arrival to the town the men are also having similar conversations

henry: this chap seems to be quite different from the usual sort we'd have around here, what do you suppose is wrong with him

Gregory: he could be ill in the head I suppose?

Richard: but not enough to have him committed to an asylum

Eric: but he is a strange man there's no denying, mary and I have seen his portrait I don't know what it is about him but there is something I don't like...something dangerous

Gregory scoffs

Gregory: superstitious as usual my friend, it does you no good to overthink these things

Eric: I have my doubts, but I could be wrong after all I have yet to meet him

The day soon runs into the evening and a gathering is held at a noble's house for the wealthy to come and celebrate the host's son returning from battle. As everyone arrives and talks, the newest arrival to the town is announced.

Servant: The Count Ronald Radke

Everyone looks up at the top of the staircase as the count descends, cane in hand dressed in his finery but still unnerves the whole room without saying a single word. He is approached as he takes in his surroundings.

Countess Isabel: Good Evening count Ronald, please allow me to introduce myself I am countess Isabel Rochester it is a pleasure to meet you

ct Ronald: the pleasure is all mine countess

Isabel: We have long awaited your arrival it has been the news of the town for weeks, you have quite the reputation

Ct Ronald: I've heard about these rumours from distant friends

Isabel: rumours are just words that have neither been confirmed nor denied but they are hard to ignore as I'm sure you are aware?

Ct Ronald: I am, unfortunately, I have built up a number of which before even reaching these shores

Isabel: we all hear stories either from friends who have ferried supplies to your island or rumours from people who dare to go near the so-called cursed place

Ct Ronald: do you believe them?

Isabel: come again?

Ct Ronald: do you believe them? the stories of what occurs on the cursed island of the red ruins, the stories about myself? that I am a dark creature that lures people in only for them to never be seen again?

Isabel: I believe what I see Count Ronald and I have not seen any of the stories that have supposedly occurred near that place nor of yourself.

Ct Ronald: so what do you think of me thus far?

Isabel: I think your an enchanting young man, whose past makes me curious yet I thoroughly enjoy our conversation

Ct Ronald: thank you for your compliments

Isabel: may I introduce you to my friends, they are quite eager to meet you?

Ct Ronald: I would like that

The Count takes a deep breath and still without smiling manages to withstand the scents and same old conversations with most of the people attending the gathering, he has grown used to hearing the same questions repeatedly although this had allowed him to practice a few responses for each question without having to reveal too much.

2 days after the gathering starts to struggle with his hunger and need for the only thing he can consume that will satisfy him, he takes his first victim...a servant girl. He wanders to the servant's quarters 2 floors down. Below the kitchen and cleaning areas.

servant girl: Sir, are you alright, may I help you with anything?

Ct Ronald: I am quite alright just lost in my thoughts I hadn't realised where I was going

Servant girl: may I be allowed to escort you back upstairs?

Ct Ronald: Actually I haven't been able to explore the mansion fully would you give me a tour of your quarters.

The servant girl blushes but acknowledges his request and signals for him to follow her. the go through a series of corridors and arrive at the servant quarters she turns to look at him but before she can say a word he grabs her throat and shoves up against the wall

Ct Ronald: Forgive me

His eyes turn red as he bites her neck, blood dripping down her clothes staining her skin a rich red, she tries to struggle but it's no use she is dead in minutes. He makes sure no one is around and covers her in a blanket and carries her body through a door which leads to servant exit outside, he digs a hole in the bushes, and body is covered with mud. he wipes his mouth and hands and covers his shirt and returns inside.

A few hours after

Margaret: Sir have you seen Greta? she is a servant with brown hair she's gone missing

The count realising this must be the girl he disposed of just hours before

Ct Ronald: No I haven't, please inform me if she is found

Margaret: yes sir

Chapter Two

The days go by slowly and the servants start to get concerned with their master's routine, how he is never seen during the day unless it storms, how he never eats or sleeps yet seems to be nourished. After a few weeks, 3 servant girls have supposedly gone missing their deaths were blamed on common men who were seen with them not long before they died who were getting too close when they were rejected.

Joyce: Sir, there is someone to see you

Ct Ronald: who is it?

Joyce: she says she met you briefly at a gathering a few weeks back

Ct Ronald: send her up

A woman walks into the room it is Countess Isabel.

Isabel: nice to see you again Count

Ct Ronald: you too countess to what pleasure do I owe your visit

Isabel: I haven't been able to stop thinking about you these past few weeks

Ct Ronald: I'm flattered

Isabel: please, tell me about your past life before you arrived here

The count considers whether to lie and have her walk away or to actually tell her what he is and the horrendous things he's done...

Ct Ronald: On the island of the red ruins I arrived there having been forced to stay after being kidnapped from my home as a child, I survived for a whole with the other unfortunate people who were abandoned there

Isabel: I've only heard from ferrymen about the horrors that have occurred on that island, are any of them true?

Ct Ronald: whatever do you mean

He already knew what she was going to ask.

Isabel: Is there a creature who lives in the red ruins who has dwelled there since before it earned its name and reputation, who doesn't eat or sleep who only survives on the blood of mortal men?

Ct Ronald: this...is true

The countess gasps

Isabel: so the stories are true? oh, how awful! how his poor victims must have suffered! have you ever seen him?

Ct Ronald: I did...once I felt sorry for him he was terrifying I followed him after he took a woman while everyone slept...I saw him take her life before she had the chance to scream it sent chills through my core and down my spine I will never forget that night

Isabel: does he still dwell there?

Ct Ronald: He left not long ago, I don't know where though

Isabel: that's terrifying, he must have killed hundreds at least! the reports of the population on the island have been going down rapidly over the last few years although that's not entirely a bad thing

He looks out the window as he listens to what the Countess is saying wondering again why such a creature like himself has been allowed to stay between life and death for so long

Isabel: Does it still linger in your mind? the memories of that place?

He has a confused look on his face

CT Ronald: why the sudden interest in what dwells in my head

Isabel: I've been beginning to suspect for a while now

The count knew what she was thinking a skill he could never be rid of unfortunate for him, he had known what she was thinking since they met, she had been suspicious for a while but now she was certain... he would have to make sure no one else found out but he must be careful on how he did it

CT Ronald: what do you mean countess?

Isabel: I have studied so-called men like you before...the ones that come from your island you see they come here to be examined then burned to see if we could find a way to rid this world of the creature from the red ruins

CT Ronald: and have you found a way?

Isabel: my husband suspected that burning was the only way but our test subjects were already dead so we could never be sure

Ronald knew how he could be destroyed after all he was not the first of his kind to dwell in the red ruins...

There was a creature who had been there for thousands of years, she was the one who made him what he is

Isabel: this was until we found the child of another creature who had previously resided there, our fishermen went near the island although it is illegal for civilians, and the child was unaware it was being watched. it was captured and brought back to our dungeons and the governor tested ways to kill it

All Ronald could do while she told her story was sit in horror...he never knew the woman who turned him had produced a child only that she had died mysteriously which was uncommon for their kind.

CT Ronald: what happened to it?

Isabel: eventually the sun came up after days of storms and rain, the guards on duty saw first hand what happens when sunlight touches a vampire. in fact, the screams were almost enough to make you feel sorry for it but not quite

CT Ronald: that's horrific but unfortunate

Isabel: you mean you feel sorry for it?

He knew he had to make sure she didn't suspect him any more than she already did even though the only way to get a vampire to feel empathy is to let it witness the torture and death of its own kind.

CT Ronald: of course not, but after all, it was only a child and did not deserve to live such a life

Isabel looked at him puzzled she didn't know whether he was who she thought or not there were a few signs but in her years of searching and research of these creatures she had never discovered a vampire that did not feel empathy for the torture of its own kind.

The night was beginning to turn late and the count had to make the decision of whether to let this torturer live or whether to kill her as soon as the chance presented itself

Isabel: it's getting late I should be going, this was an...interesting conversation thank you for speaking with me

CT Ronald: the pleasure was all mine countess

The countess smiled but stood still she and the count stood staring at each other until they rushed to each other embracing a rushed kiss, they hurried to his chambers still embracing each others kiss. taking off each other's clothing as quickly as they could he pushed her down onto his bed her hair unravelling, he stood for a moment taking in every inch of her porcelain skin before leaning back in for the kiss, his tongue slips into her mouth and she accepts. As he stood topless over her as she felt every bit of his chiselled pale chest. As he explored her breasts she wrapped herself around him and maneuvered herself so that he was now the one laying down, a surprised look came across his face.

Ct Ronald: I've never seen that done before?

The count said smirking up at Isabel

Isabel: if you like that you're going to love what I'm planning to do

They continued to kiss passionately as she removed his trousers to show what had been hiding inside she smiled at him, his eyes fixated on her, she mounted him, small moans escaping her mouth as bucked her hips making the count moan with pleasure enjoying every minute it wasn't often he could experience these moments of pure pleasure anymore. He is inside her he closes his eyes feeling everything more intense as a vampire it only increases his enjoyment, for a short while he can forget about everything he has done and what he will do in the future and take in this rare occasion. After what seems like a long time their moans get more intense their breathing gets quicker and more passionate, sweat drips from their naked bodies then he looks up at her knowing what her fate will be, she looks down at him mesmerized his hair laid out behind him, his deep brown eyes staring back at her his strong arms guiding her hips, his veins pulsating through his skin, he moves suddenly by grabbing her legs and wrapping them around his waist and standing up so she is resting on his hips he lay her down in the same spot and increased his speed forcing her to let out a load moan he caressed her breasts as her hands clenched his waist, one hand stays taunting her nipple while another moves down her stomach down to her clitoris teasing it while keeping his speed and rhythm he leans down kissing her slipping his tongue in her mouth they both start to reach climx as their breathing starts to get quicker and quicker as the moans get louder then they both start to throb as she releases letting out a deep breath then he does the same forcing another moan from both of them.

He steps away from her breathing heavily and redressing himself while she calms down her own breathing. Isabel has a puzzled look on her face as she starts to redress herself.

Isabel: don't you want to rest with me?

Count Ronald looks out of his balcony at the night sky, stars gleaming down at him

Ct Ronald: I don't do much sleeping

Isabel: Just as I suspected...

Ct Ronald: excuse me?

Isabel: I had my suspicions about you from the start...ever since I saw you for the first time at the gathering

Ronald stood there in silence realising his secret was out

Ct Ronald: and what do you intend to do with this information?

Isabel: I intended to tell my husband so he can come and arrest you to take you to our dungeons

Ct Ronald: are you going to torture me like the others you've found?

Isabel: if I told you that you'd make a run for it and we can't have that. but I suppose since you already know I might as well stop trying to hide it, I love torturing your kind

Ct RONALD: WHY?.... WHY DO YOU DO IT

Isabel: because you creatures are an abomination! you aren't meant to be in this world you're meant to be in hell!

Ct Ronald: I suppose given your way you'd have me talk a walk in the sunlight?

Isabel: you wouldn't get off that easy, and I'm going to make sure you don't

Isabel storms out of the room and down the corridor, but the count is too fast he catches her dragging her back into the bedroom

Ct Ronald: you didn't really think I'd let you leave with you knowing what I am did you?

Isabel struggles trying to break free of his grasp but its no use his strength outmatches her by miles

Ct Ronald: my existence may not be what I wanted but I'm not dying at the hands of mortals

She tries to scream as he reveals sharp fangs that appear from nowhere but he sinks his teeth into her before she has the chance, as she starts to weaken he pulls back for a moment.

Ct Ronald: Now do you believe the stories?

Her eyes widen

Ct Ronald: Everything about the red ruins and creature who lives there is true...ALL OF IT, all the deaths and rumours about the THING who has dwelled there for centuries...it...was all...me....

She tries to scream realising who he really is but he latches onto her neck once again and blood drips down from his mouth as he lays her on the floor her head and neck in his hands, her eyes start to flicker as he drains her of her energy and blood and after only a few seconds her life force disintegrates and she lies lifeless on the floor...

He looks down at his newest kill, the same recurring feeling rising up from inside him...the feeling of disgust and hopelessness.

Ct Ronald: No matter where I go or what I do I always end up doing the same thing over and over...WHY CAN'T I JUST DIE!

Although these moments are not a rare thing he must continue to find ways to survive without being discovered for a vampires death is far worse than their existence

Ct Ronald: How do I make sure this doesn't come back to me? I need to get rid of you first

He takes the countesses body to the same graves he has put the bodies of the servant's girls and some other village people who didn't really have many connections, this way there would be less suspicion when they went missing.

After the body was disposed of he shapeshifted into Isabel, something he could not do for very long, and found Margaret

Ct Ronald: The count has told me to inform you he wants to see no one for the rest of the evening, he needs some time to himself

Margaret: thank you, ma'am, it was nice of you to visit

The count having done this a few times no longer felt nervous to pretend to be his victims anymore, as long as his secret was kept safe he didn't much care what lengths he had to go to. To ensure he covered his tracks completely he also made sure that Isabel's husband Count Bayard (a rather large man) saw her enter their estate and as soon as he got the opportunity he would leave for the morning was soon to arrive.

Chapter 3 coming soon!!

#ronnieradke #falling in reverse #fantasy death imnotavampire

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self-proclaimed-chaotic-good · 5 years ago

Text

Falling Slowly | Cassian Andor x Reader (Oneshot)

Words: 5992

A/N: I don’t even know. I just love writing Cassian and reader being awkward messes. It was supposed to be a nice oneshot about a bubbly new recruit that’s assigned to work with Rogue One and Cassian has his reservations on them, but they prove to be really competent and they start to fall for each other. But then it grew into something else all because my brain wants to make things complicated, so it became something about letting go the past that’s keeping you from enjoying the present? So... enjoy?

Warning: Not much, just slow-burn, reader doesn’t know how feelings work

“Captain, the general has requested that we bring one of the new recruits along,” K-2SO reminded Cassian.

Bodhi’s ears perked up at that, stepping away from one of the mechanics to listen in. “New recruit?” he asked curiously.

Cassian sighed. “There has been more people siding with the Rebellion, sending in people that have no experience in warfare to help,” he said, dropping his backpack onto a bench in the U-Wing.

“You don’t look so happy about that,” Bodhi noted, earning a snort from Jyn as she walked up to the group, a bag slung over her shoulder.

“He never looks happy,” Jyn muttered to Bodhi. The pilot hid his smile with a cough, turning his attention back to the mechanics to make sure the ship was ready to go. “And when is this new recruit arriving?”

“You’re late, Jyn,” Cassian said with a frown, though when is he not frowning. “The new recruit is late. Even Chirrut and Baze were here early, and they always take their time.”

“I’m blind, not deaf,” Chirrut quipped, then added pleasantly, “Good morning, Jyn.”

“Morning, little sister,” Baze chimed in.

“Morning, you two. How long has Cassian and Kaytwo been complaining?”” Jyn asked them as she climbed into the U-Wing.

Chirrut answered with a sigh and a shake of his head. Baze made no comment, settling for cleaning his gun. Jyn set her bag down and plopped next to Chirrut, sighing impatiently. Cassian gave her a tired glare before taking a walk to think. Mon Mothma and Draven had given him another briefing for the mission with the addition of the new recruit to the plan. He had been fine operating on his own until he got K-2SO and was just getting used to having a full team of five to lead and now they’re adding someone who has no experience in the field.

“They’re inconspicuous and they know how those types of environments operate,” Mon Mothma reasoned with him.

He nodded stiffly, knowing that he couldn’t talk his way out of this. The recruit was a liability. Any signs of danger and who knows what they will do? Blow their cover or turn on them or run. Then again, he was cautious with having to work with Jyn during their first mission and she turned out to be an admirable ally and friend. Mothma and Draven wouldn’t send the recruit to him if they didn’t think that they were competent enough to get the job done.

As he walked back to the U-Wing, he could hear the team laughing along with a voice he was unfamiliar with. He stepped into the ship and saw the new member of the team sitting on one of the benches in the middle of telling a story while the others surrounded her, listening intently.

“You’re an hour late,” Cassian said, breaking the mood. Jyn rolled her eyes before sitting down across from you.

You shot up from the bench. “I’m sorry, Captain. Some of the mechanics were having trouble moving the new shipment and I stopped to help-”

“It’s fine,” Chirrut assured you.

“You’re just lucky that we’re not pressed on time for this mission,” K-2SO clipped, “but we do need to start to head out as soon as possible.”

“I’m so sorry,” you began to apologize again.

“Enough,” Cassian said, walking past you to the cockpit, “We leave now.”

You slowly sat back down, hands folded on your lap as you waited for the U-Wing to take off. Chirrut gave a comforting pat on the hand while Jyn gave you a smile. She scooted to the edge of her bench, looking at the cockpit where Cassian and K-2SO were arguing about something, then back at you.

“So, what happened afterwards?” she whispered, wanting you to continue the story.

Chirrut and Baze leaned in while Bodhi, seemingly busy taking inventory, was still listening in. You cast a cautious glance over to the captain before clearing your throat.

“So, anyways, where was I?” you whispered.

“The tourists were entering the forest at night when they heard something,” Baze prompted.

“Oh, right, so they ignored all the warnings given to them by the locals, thinking it was some silly superstition. They drank and littered, kicking the stacked rocks that were everywhere and just was being incredibly foolish. Then, they saw a light between the trees, followed by a whistle in the chilly wind-”

You went on to telling the stories you’ve heard over the years throughout your travels. It helped ease your nervousness for your first mission with the Rebellion and you got the feeling that the team knew that. When you ran through the hangar, looking for the U-Wing, Bodhi was the first to greet you. He flashed a kind smile and introduced you to the rest of the team. You’ve heard stories about Rogue One, so the fact that you were assigned to this team had put a lot of pressure on you. You weren’t a skilled mechanic or a talented pilot and you preferred not to have any physical confrontations. What you were good at was staying invisible, observing, and having a photographic memory. Apparently, this type of mission required people with your skillset and they promised that it shouldn’t be too dangerous.

“Okay, we’re here,” Cassian announced, landing the U-Wing. He walked towards the group and zeroed in on you. “I assume they had briefed you on your task?”

You nodded. “Gather intel on the target, then we find the target and escort them back to base.”

“No, you are gathering intel and reporting back to me. We,” Cassian gestures to the rest of the team, “will find the target and escort them. Once your task is done, you come straight back here and wait.”

You blinked. “Uh, okay. I gather intelligence on the target, report back to you, then wait here in the U-Wing,” you repeated almost mechanically.

Cassian seemed satisfied with this and went to grab his bag. You exhaled slowly, your leg bouncing as you tried to calm yourself, though it seemed counterintuitive to do that. You felt someone poke your forehead and looked up to see a smiling Jyn.

“You’ll do fine. Cassian’s always grumpy, but don’t take it too personally. He’s insufferable, but he’s capable. We’ll be listening in if you guys run into any trouble,” Jyn said.

“Okay… okay, thank you, Jyn,” you said, grabbing your small bag and following Cassian out of the ship.

“Stay close until we reach the inner city, then we split. I will be following nearby,” Cassian said as he held out a wired device to you.

You grabbed it, turning it around in your hands, not sure what to do with it. “Um…”

He sighed, showing you how to set up the communication device and hide it on your person before testing it. He adjusted his earpiece and you copied him. You jumped at the static from your end, the corner of his lips turning up in amusement before it disappeared. How embarrassing. You were an hour late for your first mission, always stumbling over your words, and now you’ve just shown how easily scared you were. He made sure the device was perfectly hidden before pulling away. It was strange how cold it felt when he did.

“Can you hear us?” Cassian said into the device.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jyn said, “Are you there, (Y/n)?”

“Oh, uh, yes, I-”

“That’ll do,” K-2SO interrupted, “I hope you’re not going to be like this throughout the mission. Cassian would be better off taking Jyn or Bodhi and we know how well that went the last time.”

“I didn’t think it went that bad,” you heard Bodhi mutter in the background.

“You did great, Bodhi, don’t listen to Kaytwo. He’s just upset that he’s stuck waiting with us instead of going with Cassian,” Jyn said.

You purse your lips, not knowing how to respond to this, but ultimately deciding not to say anything at all. Cassian shrugged on his backpack and zipped up his jacket before nodding at you. He started towards the city, checking every now and again if you were keeping up.

The walk to the city was uncomfortable for you. The space was too open, easy for you to be spotted and picked off if you were alone. But as the two of you got closer, you could feel the energy radiating off the busy streets, the rumbling of the collective voices in one area, and the heat of all the bodies and factory structures. You felt your muscles slowly relaxed once you reached the edge of the city. Cassian looked over to you to start walking ahead first. You did so, slowly being swallowed up by the crowd. You knew that Cassian was waiting a few beats before following, blending in like you.

There wasn’t much to go on when it came to finding the target. You were told that there was a potential and valuable ally hidden within this city under a heavy watch due to his inventions and engineering abilities. The Rebellion wanted to reach him before the Empire could get a hold of any of his blueprints or prototypes. No one knew exactly who he was and preferred to work with anonymity, but rumor has it, he owed a local kingpin a lot of money and was now working under them to pay that debt. Where do you start?

As you walked through the market area, you asked simple questions that travellers normally inquire about, like the businesses in the city, places to stay, if there were any forms of entertainment, just to get an idea of what kind of system this place ran on. You walked over to one of the market stalls, buying a variety of fruits before walking over to a couple of street urchins here and there who only gave you short answers before leaving. One person with ragged clothes and a cloth covering their face remained, so you sat down next to them. You took one fruit out of the bag and munched slowly, taking in your surroundings. You weren’t sure where Cassian was, exactly, but you suppose that was the point. Just have to hope that he’d be nearby to intercept if something goes wrong.

“You're new here,” the stranger commented, eyeing the bag of fruit.

“Is it obvious?” you asked.

“I know everyone that passes by here,” they said confidently.

“Really? And what kind of people pass by here?”

“Give me a fruit and I’d tell ya.”

You eased them into a natural conversation, from the old lady that smuggle drugs in her baking to the young men and women messing with the local law enforcement. All the while, people passed both of you without a second look.

“So who runs what?” you asked.

They raised an eyebrow. “What you mean?”

You shrugged. “I’d assume there’d be a group in control of certain areas around the city. There’s bound to be what with the state of the law enforcement and the illegal dealings going on around here. It just seems civil on the surface, if you know what I mean?” You took out another fruit and handed it over to them while you continued to munch on your own.

They nodded. “So you from the slums, then?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“We’ve got four main gangs around here; Feuer, Erde, Meer, and Luft. They broke their territories up by quadrants, which is what people call them as a whole. Everything was supposed to be equal with trade going through each quadrant. But,” they held up a finger, “there’s been something that threatens this peace treaty. Lotta noise coming from the Feuer gang and the others are on edge.”

“Noise?”

They looked around before leaning in. “Zapata,” they whispered.

You frowned. “What’s that?”

They shook their head. “Not what, who. Look around, look at all the smooth machinery and the clear sky. This place was a smoggy sooty mess before Zapata found a way to make clean and practically infinite power to keep the factories going. The Quadrants have been eyeing him and they couldn’t agree about what to do with him. One says let him be, others say that he would bring trouble, then there were the other two who wanted him to themselves.”

“Why?”

They hummed, holding a hand out for another fruit, which you complied. “What can you do with an engineer like that? Practically anything, and that’s a scary power to have. What starts as something of good intention gets taken advantage of for others’ selfish reasons.”

You opened your mouth to ask more about Zapata when Cassian’s voice sounded through the earpiece. “We’ve got company approaching on both ends,” he warned.

“Where is this person?” you asked the stranger.

They narrowed their eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

You shrugged it off. You could see two men with charcoal colored light metal armor on either side of the street. “Just asking,” you said before handing them the rest of the fruits, “Well, I gotta get going.”

The stranger spotted the men and stood up. They had a hand behind their back as their green eyes flickered back to you. “Who are you?”

“Just passing through,” you said.

“(Y/n),” Cassian said, urging you to move.

“You’re looking for Zapata, too, aren’t you?” the stranger went on.

Your heart was beating against your ribcage as the men were drawing in closer. You quickly grabbed the stranger’s hand and squeezed it.

“(Y/n)!” Cassian said harshly.

You ignored him. “Look, I can help him escape here,” you whispered, “Help me, please. I know you know him.”

Their eyes studied you for a minute. “You’ve got a ship, then? Protection?” You nodded. “Then follow me.”

They pulled their other hand from behind their back and revealed a small blaster. Before the men could spot the two of you, the stranger pulled you through a narrow alleyway. You hoped that Cassian would be able to catch up as you were lead through the streets, weaving around through every alleyway or shortcut that this person seemed to know by heart. When it looked to be the outskirts of the city in the opposite quadrant, they pulled you into a small tavern.

They walked over to a booth in the corner of the room and sighed. A waiter came and set down a tankard of some strong smelling brown liquid in front of them before greeting you. You settled for a glass of water before looking around the tavern. It was relatively homely with the fireplace on one end, comfy chairs surrounding it, and a bar at the other.

“Where are we?” you asked.

“We’re in the Meer quadrant, a neutral zone,” they said, pulling down the cloth from their face, revealing a man with brown hair and a salt and pepper stubble, “but we can’t stay here for long. If the Feuer gang grows impatient and desperate, they may try to come here and look for me.”

“You? So, you’re Zapata?” you asked quietly. He nodded. “I was told that you were under heavy watch.”

He shrugged. “They don’t expect me to be able to climb out of the window of a four story building, but I’m an inventor. I have my ways,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “I love watching people. I love learning about their behaviors, their personalities. I grew to appreciate our… humanness. It was something that I took for granted when I was younger. Empathy. So I made it my goal to help people and to better understand them. I ran into a financial obstacle and asked the gangs for help, knowing that they cared about the people more than the law enforcement here. I should have known that something was off when my contacts were replaced with Feuer gang members. But it was too late, and I owed a debt to them.” He paused for a moment before clearing his throat. “Forgive me, I haven’t properly introduced myself. I’m Zapata, Julio Zapata. You can just call me Julio.”

“I’m (Y/n).”

“Pleasure to meet you, (Y/n).”

“And what do they want you to do for them?”

Julio shook his head. “Maybe we should wait for your friend to catch up, hm?” he said, taking another sip of his drink.

“How did-”

He tapped his ear. “Your earpiece. It’s hard to see for anyone who wasn’t looking, but I’m used to checking for those kinds of things.”

“No, just get the information and then leave, (Y/n),” Cassian said into your earpiece.

You purse your lips. “Is there a ‘fresher here?” you asked Julio.

He gave you an amused smile before pointing to the door on the opposite end of the tavern. You thanked him before rushing over, locking the door behind you.

“But I have the target here with me,” you told Cassian.

“I know, but if we can find out where they had been holding him, we could get a hold of his work and leave.”

“But aren’t we supposed to get him out of here. The point wasn’t to get his work, it was to get him, so they wouldn’t be using him.”

“He sounds like he already has an escape plan. He always does,” he added, then said, “we get his work, he leaves, then there’s no threat to deal with.”

“I think we’re his escape plan, Cassian. What’s going on? Besides, he won’t tell me any more information unless you come. He knows I came with someone. We might as well talk to him now, then move him to the ship together.”

“I am the captain here, (Y/l/n). Get the information, then we move on,” Cassian said firmly before ending the connection.

You ripped the earpiece out in frustration. This mission wasn’t turning out to how you thought it was going to be. But then again, Cassian was acting in a way that you thought that he wouldn’t. In the short time that you knew him and from the stories you’ve heard of him, he didn’t seem the type to cut corners. When he has orders, he does what he must to finish them. It wasn’t like the mission was completely compromised. If anything, this was easier, knowing that you had already found the target and he was willing to talk to you. You thought that Cassian would at least warm up to you more with how things have gone so far.

Julio was waiting patiently back at the booth, half of his tankard gone, but he still looked sober. You sat back down and took a couple gulps of water before sighing.

“Let me guess, your superior is being impatient?” Julio asked. You nodded. He huffed out a laugh. “He thinks I didn’t see him, but I did. When you live like the way I lived, you learn to be more observant of your surroundings. Not trust anything you see. It was easy to spot him.”

“You trusted me,” you noted.

Julio nodded. “You’re the most sincere thing I’ve seen in years. When I’m not working on machines, I’m working with people with masks that they show to the world. I suppose, I’m more aware of this when I’ve had a mask on even around the people that trusted me the most. I’ve paid the price for it, but I don’t want to be jaded by my experience. I have this hope, you know, that there are genuine people out there.”

“You mentioned that you saw him. How did you even know that it was him that I was with?”

“I knew him. Years ago, and I’m guessing… no, I know it’s the reason why he’s not going to come over here,” Julio said, playing with the droplets that formed on his tankard, “Understandably. But, I really do need your help and you guys were sent to help me. Is he still listening in?”

“I don’t know.”

Julio sighed, then muttered, “You wouldn’t put personal grudges in the way of your mission, would you, Cassian?”

The two of you were silent for a moment, until he started asking questions about you. There wasn’t much to tell, only that you’ve been travelling around your whole life. You didn’t know your family, and you guessed that made it easier to not settling, but it didn’t mean you closed yourself off to the rest of the world. You loved helping people, telling stories, and learning about others. Maybe that’s why it was easy to talk to Julio, due to your similar mindsets. He expressed that he wasn’t always like that, that he was bitter even as a child. After a fall out with a close friend of his, he decided to change himself. He didn’t want to answer any questions related to the mission, and you wondered if he was just stalling until Cassian made up his mind.

Then, the front door of the tavern opened. You saw Julio’s eyes trained on the newcomer, a ghost of a smile on his lips. You turned and saw Cassian walking over to the booth. He gave a frustrated glare to both of you.

“I’ve ordered Kaytwo to move the ship closer. Jyn will be meeting us there. You tell us where they’ve been holding you and we’ll get you on our ship, got that?” Cassian said. After Julio nodded, Cassian turned to you with a stern look. “Let’s go.”

Julio pulled up his cloth mask again and followed you and Cassian out of the tavern and through the streets until you found Jyn waiting a mile out of the city. She didn’t look too pleased with Cassian, but gave you a smile instead. After Julio told the team where he was held, Cassian told Jyn to ready herself to leave with him.

“(Y/l/n), you are to wait on the ship with him while Jyn and I get the plans,” he ordered, holding your gaze to make sure you knew that they weren’t to be questioned.

“Okay,” you said with a nod, “I wait on the ship with Julio while you and Jyn get the plans.”

Cassian grunted, not amused by this. You led Julio into the ship where the others were waiting. He sat down across from Chirrut and Baze when Jyn grabbed your arm.

“You did good,” she said before leaving with Cassian.

“So you guys just sit here while Cassian does his thing, huh?” Julio said. They all sighed, even K-2SO, which was enough to answer him.

“We’re here as backup and protection if anyone finds the ship,” Baze said.

“At least with (Y/n) here, we get to listen to stories while we wait,” Chirrut added.

Julio turned to you. “Stories? I’d like to hear one.”

You were finished with your third story when there was a rhythmic knock on the ship. K-2SO moved to lower the ramp, revealing a tired Cassian and an angry Jyn carrying Julio’s projects. K-2SO grabbed the heavier objects off of them and placed them on the back of the ship. Once everything was settled, Cassian looked over at you as you sat close to Julio, before making a beeline to the cockpit.

He hadn’t spoken to any of you for the rest of the journey back to base. In the meantime, the rest of the team got to know more about you and Julio, exchanging stories about your childhoods and for them, how they ended up with the Rebellion.

“So, how did you end up with the Rebellion?” Julio asked you.

You shrugged. “Well, as you guys know, I just want to help people. Figured joining the Rebellion would help me do that,” you responded vaguely.

They all seemed to accept this, though you felt that Jyn was going to question more about it later. Bodhi asked him about his inventions and he began to talk about how he got started in engineering.

Soon enough, the U-Wing was back at the Rebel base. Cassian never spoke to you after the mission was wrapped up. There were times where you tried to psych yourself up to confront him, but you either become speechless the moment your eyes landed on him, or he’d turn the opposite direction. You feared that by arguing with his decisions, it affected whether or not the Rebellion wanted to enlist in any future field missions.

The others were fine talking to you, it was only the captain that was hard to deal with. Jyn had told you to stop wasting your energy worrying about it and you honestly don’t know why it bothered you this much. You’ve travelled enough to know your fair share of people that were cold, mean, and guarded towards you. So why was Cassian any different?

Rogue One had gone on to continue with their missions and Julio was given a work space near the hangar. Then, you, having no other skillset to offer, began floating around and learning everything you could to help in some way. You came all this way to join the Rebellion. You didn’t want to become a burden.

You were in your first week of shadowing the medics when you heard a commotion enter the medbay. You jumped out of the way of the incoming stretcher, only seeing a glimpse of who was lying on it. The others that rushed in after him only confirmed who it was. K-2SO pushed past you and followed the medics into one of the rooms.

“Oh, (Y/n), you’re here,” Bodhi said, walking up to you.

“What happened?” you managed to ask as you felt a strange stirring in your gut.

“Cassian got hit while we were running back to the U-Wing. The damage looked pretty bad,” Jyn said, “How are you?”

“Well, I was doing fine until... ,” you trailed off.

“Yeah, and how’s Julio?”

You frowned, not sure why she would ask you out of all people that. “Fine, I guess. I’ve visited his workshop once or twice a week to check in,” you said.

Jyn tilted her head and frowned. “Only once or twice?”

“Yeah,” you said slowly, “Why are you… why are you asking me this? You can go check on him if you want-”

“So it’s just platonic, then?”

“Well, yeah. We’ve become good friends since we brought him here. Why are you…” You looked at Bodhi for answers.

He gave you an apologetic smile. “I’m going to go check on Cassian’s status,” he said, excusing himself.

“I’m sorry, (Y/n), I was just… trying to figure out what’s been going on in Cassian’s head,” Jyn said, “He seemed distracted lately. It’s not like him to be distracted. The only thing I could think of was you and Julio.”

“Well, I assume Cassian and Julio had some bad history with each other. He didn’t even want to bring Julio back when we found out who the target was, and he seemed angry at me because I kept arguing with him,” you tried to reason.

Jyn shook her head, knowing that there was something more to it. “When was the last time you spoke to Cassian?”

“Since the last mission and I’m pretty sure he actively avoided having me join on any missions after that.”

Jyn pursed her lips. “You did nothing wrong, (Y/n). Cassian’s being frustratingly stubborn as usual, that’s all. Maybe talk to him and find out what’s wrong. He wasn’t focused today and I don’t want to think what would have happened if we weren’t next to him to drag him away from incoming enemies.”

“I can try, but I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” you said, looking down the hall where they took Cassian.

“You’ll be surprised,” Jyn said, patting you on the shoulder, “I’ll see you around. I like talking to you.”

“See you.”

With your new tasks at the medbay, there weren't many opportunities for you to see Cassian. Or, at least, that’s what you kept telling yourself. What if he didn’t want to see you because you tried to disobey him? What exactly happened between him and Julio?

You were doing your rounds during your late shift and every time, you’d pass by Cassian’s room, lingering in front of the doorway before walking away again. When you came back, you heard voices inside, one of them was definitely Cassian.

“How many times do I have to apologize, Cass?” Julio asked, “We were young. Too young to even be a part of this fight. How do you expect a kid who had grown up in the lifestyle that I have to react when a blaster is pointed at their face? They fear death like everyone else.”

Cassian sighed. “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you want to talk to me?”

Cassian grew quiet.

“Well, I need some rest or else I slice my finger off the next time I’m in the workshop. I’ll come by later.” You hear the scrape of a chair as he stood up. “Oh, and talk to (Y/n). There’s been some misunderstandings going around and I’m not sure what started it. I just want things to be cleared up.”

You walked away as quietly as you could before Julio walked out. You sorted some papers out at the front desk and smiled as he passed by. This was the first time you’ve heard him mention anything about the small rumors going around base. You shrugged it off as joking around, but you made it clear that you and Julio were just friends. Granted, when he first settled down in the base, you were there to help him get used to the new place and stopped by to talk almost every day. Then, both of your schedules became busy, so those visits were reduced to once or twice a week. You could see why people who didn’t know the two of you well would misunderstand, but you never thought it was serious. Besides, what did Cassian have to do with it?

You still couldn’t bring yourself to talk to Cassian that night, and the night after that. Whenever you ended up helping a nurse in Cassian’s room, he’d be sleeping. You were off duty when he was discharged, rearranging your side of your shared quarters with Jyn after you moved in. She knew you hadn’t spoken to him yet and she refused to elaborate why you had to talk to him.

“This is almost the longest I’ve stayed in one place and that I actually want to stay,” you told her, “I feel… safe here.”

“Yeah?” Jyn asked with a small smile. She was about to add to that when a message popped up on her datapad. She read it through and she groaned. “Bodhi needs to get his arm fixed again,” she said, shaking her head, “I told him not to move anything heavy by himself. I have to go check up on him. Need anything while I’m out?”

“Uh, no. I’m fine. Thanks,” you said.

Jyn nodded, taking her datapad and made her way over to the hangar where Bodhi was. Once the door slid closed, you flopped backwards onto your small creaky bed and closed your eyes. This was where you’ll be staying for a long time, until the base relocated or the war was over. Home. That sounded nice on your ears. Maybe it’s going to be easier to get used to that now that you have found friends in Julio and the Rogue One crew. Well, except Cassian. That’s something you still have to deal with.

You hadn’t realized that you had fallen asleep until there was a knocking at the door. Jyn wasn’t back yet, so you quickly fixed your appearance and stumbled towards the door. You weren’t sure who would be knocking, but you assumed that they were looking for Jyn. What you hadn’t expected to see was Cassian standing there with his hand raised to knock again.

“Captain Andor?” you frowned. “Um, Jyn’s not here. She’s with Bodhi right now.”

He shook his head. “No, I came to see you, actually,” he said.

“Oh.” You blinked.

What was the proper etiquette for this kind of thing? Do you invite him in or go somewhere else to talk or…? You saw a mechanic pass by, eyeing the two of you curiously before hurrying away. You shuffled to the side and gestured for Cassian to come in. He tentatively stepped over the threshold and stood by the door as it closed behind him.

Cassian cleared his throat, patting his vest until he found the small cards he was looking for. He flipped through them with narrowed eyes, already regretting giving K-2SO and Julio permission to help him pick the words to say to you. Many of them were either insincere or too flirty to his taste.

“Is there something wrong, captain?” you asked.

“No!” he said quickly, making you jump, “No, no, no, no. I, uh, I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you lately.”

“Well, I did try to disobey your orders-”

“No, you did nothing wrong, I’m just… I’m just an asshole.”

Your eyes widened. “Captain-”

“Please call me Cassian. And… I was mainly mad at Julio during that mission. We knew each other when we were younger and we parted on bad terms. I was upset because I wasn’t able to let that go and when I saw you being close with him, I just… I don’t know. Then, people would talk about how you and Julio would make a cute couple and I just got… bothered by it. I didn’t know why, but what everyone has been telling me, they think it’s because I... ,” he cleared his throat again, “I like you.”

“Oh,” you breathed.

Maker, what do you do in this situation? Your heart was beating hard in your chest and at first it was kind of scary. There was no threat, it was just Cassian, but it gradually felt thrilling. Sure, you’ve noticed that the captain was a handsome man, but your mindset to do well on the mission got in the way of appreciating what you saw before you. It wasn’t like you had the time to properly get to know each other anyways.

“You don’t have to agree, but if you want, we could go somewhere offworld the next time our schedule is free, or maybe something simple like a walk or dinner-”

“Okay… I’d like that,” you said softly.

Cassian grinned, showing his dimples for the first time. “Uh, good. Um… good. That’s good. I’ll stop by the medbay later?” He slowly walked backwards towards the door.

“Sure.” You stepped forward and opened the door for him.

Cassian suddenly stumbled forward into you as Jyn, Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze, and Julio tumbled into the quarters. Cassian pulled you out of the way, his arm wrapped around your waist as he turned to see his friends groaning in pain and having the audacity to smile sheepishly up at the two of you.

“So… I’m guessing it went well?” Julio asked with a cheeky grin, carefully picking himself off the ground.

“We’ll see,” Jyn said, “If Cassian does anything to hurt (Y/n), I’ll hunt him down.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Cassian said, looking at you softly.

“What in the galaxy are all of you doing on the ground?” K-2SO demanded, framed by the doorway and blocking most of the corridor.

You sighed at this lovely chaos. You finally felt that this was your second chance at a new life where you could contribute to something good, somewhere where you felt like you belonged and wanted. You were tired of wandering. Tired of being scared to lose something or someone. You finally had people who you knew were going to stick with you.

Jyn walked up and looked over at Cassian with a smile before gently squeezing your shoulders.

“Welcome home, (Y/n).”

A/N: And Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess. Enjoy discount chocolate, buy yourself flowers, and sit back while you watch Diego Luna in Narcos: Mexico

#cassian andor x reader #cassian andor #cassian andor imagine #Star wars imagine #Rogue One #Rogue One Imagine #Oneshot

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anotheronechicagobog · 5 years ago

Text

Ava Bekker x reader

Togther written by @anotheronechicagobog

Warning: TRIGGER WARNINGS, attempted murder, arson, being forced out of the closet, fleeing to another country, being rejected entry, corrupt police, fear of the police, compliance for fear or violence, swearing

Hope you like it @sasssystephden

@chimerahh

Belarus was your home, it was where you grew up, and it would always be a part of you. Unfortunately, you couldn’t be a part of it. You didn’t move to Chicago, you fled to Chicago. Being a lesbian was not something that people could ignore, so your only other option was to pretend that you were really just a spinster, it was something that they reacted violently to. You hadn’t even come out to your family, you were outed by your so-called best friend. She’d been invited to your family’s Christmas party, along with half the town, and she announced it to everyone.

It was like a scene from a horror movie, everyone turned to you in slow motion, darkness taking over their eyes. They didn’t even ask you if it was true.

You shook your head, not wanting to relive that memory. You turned back to your computer screen. You’d gotten a scholarship to the University of Dijon and gotten a degree in computer science, it made finding a job in the states much easier. You felt as though your boss, Sergeant Voight, was corrupt. He did a lot of the things the police in your home country did, and while it was clear he made you uncomfortable, no one knew why. You took your job at intelligence, not because you actually wanted to, but because Voight was interested and you thought he’d make you disappear if you said ‘no’. So you were back to living a good portion of your day in fear. The team didn’t understand why you’d never joined them at a bar afterwards and you were too scared to tell them.

You’d met Brian at your grocery store, a family-run Slavic grocery store and restaurant, you ran into each other so many times that you’d started to become friends. He was heartbroken to learn why you moved to the states, so he told you that he’d be your family. You’d been touched, and as a result, your brother-sister bond was forged.

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It had taken a while for Brian to convince you to go to Molly’s because the team went there frequently, but he’d managed it. You put on a nice top, jeans, flats, a jacket, and headed to Molly’s before you could lose your nerve.

When you opened the ornate door you were met with warmth and laughter. “Y/N! Over here!” Brian was behind the bar, but there were women sitting on bar stools near him who waved at you. You sat on the seat in front of him and let out a breath. “Y/N, these are my friends, Sylvie and Emily, they’re the paramedics for 51, April, Maggie, Nat, and Ava, they all work at med. Guys, this is Y/N.”

“Hi, it’s nice to meet all of you.” Your accent was thick, something that all of the women noticed. Brian placed a glass of vodka on the rocks in front of you, which made Maggie raise an eyebrow and say, “are you Russian?”

“Belarussian, actually. I do speak Russian though.”

“Damn, I am not good at pegging accents. I thought that Ava was from the UK and she ended up being from South Africa.”

“I grew up in an area that had been heavily colonized, something that not many people are aware of.” You nodded, grateful that she answered your question without you having to ask. “So, how do you know Otis?” You must have looked as confused as you felt because Sylvie realized her mistake and spoke again. “Sorry, Otis is the nickname we have for Brian around the station. Sometimes I forget that’s not his name.”

“Oh, okay, well, we kept running into each other at the local market that we started talking, it was nice to speak to someone in Russian again.”

“Ah, so should we be seeing you around more?”

“I suppose so?”

“She’s insinuating that we have an emotional and/or sexual relationship.” Brian’s explanation was blunt and something you appreciated. Although you were fluent in English you didn’t understand all of the slang just yet. “Oh. OH.” You turned back to Sylvie and the other women. “Brian is a wonderful man and any woman would be lucky to be with him, but I am a lesbian, so Brian and I will not be in a romantic relationship.”

“Is that why you moved here?” Emily was closest to you and put her hand on your forearm, sympathetic smiles gracing the faces of all the women barring Ava, she had one of remembrance and understanding. “Yes. A woman I used to be friends with told my entire family and town at a party. No one reacted well.” Nat looked like she had a question to ask but Ava cut her off, “that’s terrible, Y/N. I’m sorry that happened. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“No thank you, I don’t enjoy remembering that night.” Nat leaned back into her seat and bowed her head slightly. You let out a breath and felt grateful that Ava had intervened. The night went by smoothly after that, Nat had pulled you aside later and apologized, knowing that it was obvious she had wanted to ask an invasive question. “I would love to become friends and I’m glad that Ava stopped me from asking that question, I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I should have known not to pry, I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay Nat, you didn’t actually ask anything, and I can see that it was just a slip of judgement and that you will respect my boundaries. I would like to be friends with you as well.”

“Of course, Y/N, I-”

“Y/N? What’re you doing here? I thought you were visiting a friend tonight?” Detective Ruzek made his way towards you with the rest of your team, his tone was surprised and somewhat angry, causing Nat and your new friends around you to bristle. “I am. Brian is one of the owners and he wanted to introduce me to these lovely ladies.” You smiled, hoping to diffuse some of the tension. “What so you just hang out with him every time we’re not working?”

“Usually, yes.” Brian knew how you’d felt about your job, and had admitted to having negative run-ins with Voight in the past. He’d gone as far as introduce you to his Captain, Matt Casey, who’d gone over how he met Voight in the first place. The meeting was meant to ease your worries, but all it did was increase them. You could see your team growing angry, you knew it frustrated them that you didn’t want to get close to them, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do so. Detective Burgess put her hand on his chest to push him back a bit, and then stepped right into your space, and since you were against the bar you couldn’t back up. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Detective Bur-”

“I’ve told you to call me Kim. We have all told you to call us by our first names except for Voight. So why won’t you? Why do you avoid us? What the fuck is wrong with you?” You couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. This is it. They’re going to kill you. Escaping Belarus only bought you another year of life, and you didn’t accomplish anything in that time. Your hands were starting to get clammy, and your breaths were getting shallow. “Back off, Burgess.”

“Stay out of this Otis.”

“No. God, can’t any of you get your heads out of your asses? She thinks you’re going to kill her.” Everyone within earshot sobered immediately. “What?” Ruzek’s face had gone pale and Burgess stepped back. “She’s from a country that was part of the Soviet Union and is still heavily corrupt in law enforcement. She only took the damn job because she thought she’d be killed if she refused!” Everyone turned to you and you couldn’t take it. “Mne nuzhno idti.” (I have to go). You bolted out of Molly’s, ignoring those calling out your name, and that you forgot your jacket.

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You broke out into sobs a few blocks from Molly’s. You startled when someone ran up behind you calling your name. You ripped a knife out from your jeans and turned ready to face whoever it was. It was Ava. “You forgot your jacket.” You didn’t respond, just breathed heavily.”Y/N, let’s get you home, okay?”

“I can’t. They know where I live.”

“How about my apartment, then?”

“... Okay. Thank you.”

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Ava’s apartment was lovely. It was clean, classic, and homey. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?”

“Some coffee if you don’t mind.” She smiled and walked around the kitchen island to get to the coffee maker. “My mother tried to kill me.” You whipped your head away from some photos she had on the wall. “She invited me to stay at our family’s vacation house for the weekend after I came out, she had glued all of the windows shut, then locked and barricaded all of the doors so that even if I got out of my room, there was no way I’d make it to any kind of exit. She’d left a chair in my room, though, I threw it at the window and jumped out. It hurt like hell. The injuries and the knowledge that the woman I’d looked up to not only hated me so much that she tried to kill me, but that she was praised for it by the police when they found out why she set the fire.” A heavy silence hung over the room, choking you in the knowledge that you weren’t alone.

“My best friend told everyone in my town at my family’s christmas party. I didn’t even get time to deny it, even though it’s true, before my dad came at me with a knife. Everyone surged behind him and they were all grabbing weapons, anything sharp or blunt that they could get their hands on. I barely managed to make it to my room, lock and barricade the door. My parents, along with everyone where I grew up, were poor and so I didn’t have a lot. I threw my stuff in a bag and I climbed out the window. I fell on my ankle, but I just started running. I didn’t stop, I just ran to the next town, where there was a train station, I got on the first train to Minsk. I ran to the Canadian embassy first, because gay marriage was legal there when it wasn’t in the U.S., but I got denied entry. I applied to the U.S. right after and got in. It was so hard, just leaving everyone and everything I love behind... But... I had to do it. The only good thing that came out of being forced ‘out of the closet’ was that I didn’t and don’t have to hide anymore.” Ava nodded, she set down her mug and wrapped her arms around you. You wrapped your arms underneath hers, around her middle, and cried into each others shoulders. Crying over everything you’ve lost, everything you’ve had ripped or burned away from you. Encompassing each other in the knowledge that neither of you are alone.

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Chicago became warmer after meeting Ava. You started dating a couple months later when you’d gone skating and she’d just stopped and stared at you. Her eyes went soft and her lips parted. You skated over to her to see what was wrong. “Ava?”

“Can I kiss you?” It came out in one tangled breath. “Yes. Please yes.” She held your cheeks in her hands, you held her elbows in yours, and leaned in together.

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You woke up to Ava kissing your shoulder. A smile spread across your lips. “Goodmorning, Ava.”

“Morning, love. I was called into work, so I have to go, but I left breakfast on the counter for you.”

“Thank you, I hope you have a good day.” Ava smiled, stroked your cheek softly. A feather-light kiss was placed on your lips before she gave a whispered goodbye. After the front door closed you got out of bed and padded your way to the kitchen. You smiled when you saw a plate of fried sausages and eggs on the kitchen counter. Your heart warmed at the thought of Ava making breakfast for you.

It was the weekend so you didn’t have to work today, so you decided to spend the day baking and cooking since you knew that if Ava had been called in on her day off it was going to be crazy, and that cooking is the last thing she’d want to do. So you got dressed and headed out to the market.

Smiling you walked down the street. The day was cool and brisk, only light power on the ground, but it would snow in the afternoon if the weather forecast was to be believed. You made your way to a South African grocery store to pick up the ingredients for chakalaka, Ava’s favourite dinner. You smirked as you entered, your eyes scanning the store.

The house smelled like warm sugar and spices. In part from the chakalaka and in part from the ginger cookie recipe you got from Nat. You and Ava both really liked it and you wanted to make sure that a wonderful meal was waiting for Ava when she got home.

The door opened just as you finished serving the chakalaka, “Ava? How was your day?”

“Wonderful, just like that smell. Is that chakalaka? Oh my goodness, love, you made all this for me?”

“Yes, I hope that this is a good end to a hard day.”

“A wonderful end. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

“I was thinking, Y/N, you spend so much time here, and most of your stuff is here, so... I just... I think we should move in together.” You smiled and wrapped your arms around her neck. “I would love to move in together.” Your foreheads touched and your lips brushed against each other. “Together.”

“Together.”

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sabinefm · 4 years ago

Text

( bruna marquezine , cis female , peach ) welcome to aida&stefano , SABINA REUBE ! thank you for choosing to stay here. in this form it says that you go by the SHE / HER , you’re TWENTY THREE years old , you’re originally from SAN FRANCISCO , and you’ve been staying here for ONE YEAR . it also says you’re known to be + RESOURCEFUL , but also - SELFISH. that really shouldn’t be a problem though. check in at the front , hope you enjoy your stay ! (the click of heels, hot sand under your bare feet, chocolate covered strawberries, the imprints a bra leaves on your skin, red lipstick staining your fingertips )

ABOUT THE MUN. i hope this email never finds you

hello all, my name is pepper and i have never been on time for anything, ever in my life sdjkdskj this is especially true today, rip. no but honestly, i never thought i would actually get accepted into this beautiful rp so i stalled checking acceptances cause i’m a Scaredy Cat and that made me really late, and then i ended up taking the rest of my coworker’s shift cause she had to go and thus ended up coming home even later than i thought which has made me really really late... BUT against all the odds i’m here! and ready to party! and tell y’all about my bby sabina! but first a little bit about me, i am twenty four (ew), i can’t cook (rip), and i currently spend most of my lonely quarantine days either watching anime or scrolling through tiktok. i am canadian but every canadian that meets me thinks i’m american and i don’t know why. when i was a child i had an irrational (or yk very rational) fear of sharkboy from sharkboy and lava girl, and tbh it has never left me. i was also afraid of gill from kim possible so you can imagine my horror when that fish f*cking movie won an oscar?? when i was younger i also thot god looked like king triton from the little mermaid cause he was white and he had a beard yk. it fit in my little brain. and finally i just recently discovered girl in red and therefore feel like i finally got my bi girl card,,, feeling validated in this chillis tonight. and if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about me idk what will. anyways, that’s officially enough about me onto who we’re all really here for, ms sabine!

BIO. the lengths i would go to to both get attention and avoid it... astounding tldr ; daughter of a guy who created a dating site + app, came to a&s after leaving her husband to be at the alter after catching him cheating with her mother, wants to be a bad bitch, sometimes succeeds.

THEN.

sabina came into the world the child of a mediocre stay at home mom and a penniless entrepreneur so it goes without saying that she had very little. her dad had a lot of passion and a lot of drive but no one would really give him a chance, and her mother kind of only married the man because she was expecting him to make it big enough for her to never have to work another day in her life so? yeah she was hella disappointed tbh

but not sabina! she looked up to her father so much as a child. while her mom was kind of ~emotionally unavailable~ her father was too, but like at least he had a dream he believed in, yk? he wanted to help people fall in love and sabine being the big romantic she was as a child had never heard of anything so noble. her daddy was her hero. sabina honestly had big daddy’s little girl vibes until she was like 22 tkjsdkjd

one day when their family credit card got rejected one too many times sabina’s mother called it quits on yk the whole mother gig. she left sabina on a bench outside of the grocery store while she went to go home and ‘get some cash’ which even at seven sabine knew was a damn lie cause they were too broke to have any damn cash. and yeah that was the last sabina heard of her for a long ass time. it was a reverse ‘dad went to get some cigarettes’ situation but just as traumatic honestly.

although not as much for sabine’s dad. that man literally saw his wife leaving him as a minor setback and moved on. he threw himself harder into his work, to the point where sabine barely saw him. this was the start of sabine desperately trying to compete with her father’s business for even a sliver of his attention. this was a battle she usually lost.

sabine raised herself for a while there, since her father yk remarried his job and her mother was following the jonas brother’s cross country. she became both very independent and very lonely for a child, which was an odd combination that both haunted sabine for pretty much the rest of her life after that point and lead her to make most of her worst decisions. but that’s a story for another time, because right when all hope was lost sabine’s father won the lottery. literally.

all at once they were five million dollars richer. they went from nothing to everything real quick. and this marked a change in the reube’s lives in a way sabine couldn’t have even imagine at the time.

sabine’s father hector used the money to fund his business and that shit blew up! he created a site by the name of loveisblind that was in the ring with the likes of match.com and christianmingle yk, one of those dating sites. everyone on loveisblind is set up on blind dates based on the information they fill out on their profile and are only allowed to see each other when they reach a certain point of emotional intimacy. the site had wild success rates, and got very popular, blah, blah, the point was the reubes? suddenly rich af!

and you think that would give hector more time to spend with his daughter right? no. it gave hector the money to hire nannies for his daughter.

yes, somehow despite hector no longer having to work himself to the bone, sabine saw him even less. tragic really. she really became that lonely rich girl trope real quick, and this is what unfortunately got sabine into the habit of seeking the attention she wasn’t getting from her father in other men and women, which she is not proud of.

that unfortunately didn’t fill the void that sabine had but you know what did? making the loveisblind app so her daddy would love her. basically around the time that tinder started gaining traction and getting popular, people stopped going on the loveisblind site and started instead turning to apps. her father was trying and failing to get into that market, and sabina, being yk, actually a lot more intelligent than her father ever gave her credit for, created the app for his site and pitched it to him over his lunch one day. it was honestly one of the first times sabina can remember her father really paying attention to her in the longest time. it was also the proudest she’s ever seen him.

the app was a big success! a whole new generation was using it and finding love, including one ms sabine reube. in the early days of the app launch sabine met her prince charming, christopher ‘kit’ johannson. he swept her right off her feet, and she fell HARD, and when they debuted their relationship it wasn’t long until they kind of became the face of the app?? like sabine’s father was the creator after all, the fact that his daughter found love on the app too was big news for a while. people followed their relationship and strived for something like that for themselves. sabine didn’t know it at the time but they were basically a walking advertisement, and her father was LIVING for that.

fast forward a bit and your girl went to yale for computer engineering and business (did her daddy’s status and money ease the way? maybe man, nepotism am i right) whilst kit went to harvard, they were long distance for a bit before they graduated and kit very publicly proposed (the whole thing was well recorded too, gotta get that gram), and then both sab and kit moved in together and both started working for their families respective companies. it was around then that sabine started to understand just how much and how often kit was cheating on her. it was a real wakeup call.

sabine ended up breaking down to her father about her suspicions, and he basically ended up telling her to suck it up and think of the business. the fact was sabine and kit, the face of their new generation and one of the first successful couples from the app getting married and living happily ever after was amazing for the company. and the two of them calling the whole thing off just because of a little infidelity just wasn’t going to cut it.

now once again, this is where sabine’s deep desire to be loved and accepted really bites her in the ass. this was one of the first times sabine’s father had ever really asked her for anything so... she did it. or at least she did her best to do it. she lasted until the wedding day around the time where she caught kit and her own mother (who she only invited out of a deep rooted need to actually know the woman who gave birth to her again) going at it in the coat closet of their wedding venue. yeah, at that point sabine pretty much snapped, blacked out, smashed a whole wedding cake over kit’s head, and took their honeymoon to venice on her own. she arrived at Aida&Stefano with running mascara in a ruined wedding dress trying to ask about a honeymoon suite. it was a whole mess, but you know what so is sab so at least she was on brand.

NOW.

after sabina arrived she spent about a week mourning her failed almost-marriage and yk, destroyed family before she decided to fuck it all and reinvent herself. she desperately wanted to become someone new, someone unrecognizable from who she was before, even if it was only on the inside. so she cut her hair (the first step to every transformation) hardened everything soft about herself and made the irrevocable decision to become a bad bitch. she (mostly) succeeded. kind of.

sabine basically curb stomped out the soft, hopeless romantic people pleaser in her and decided to become someone more unsympathetic. someone who puts her own needs first instead of burning herself up to keep others warm (cause what good has that ever done her before?). someone who people would be afraid to hurt but who wouldn’t even feel pain anyways. and to sum it up that person is a heartless bitch. or at least she tries to be.

i’m gonna stop here because this is already a lot longer than i wanted it to be and i haven’t even got to the other sections yet rip but you get the point i feel

PERSONALITY. *feels nothing* mmm, don’t like that *feels something but like too much* mmm not a fan of that either

most of this is tbd because i’m still developing her but

VAIN. the kind of girl who will file her nails or check herself out in the mirror while you’re talking to her. will reapply her lipstick in the rearview mirror of her car while she’s driving. checks herself out in any reflective surface, i mean i would too if i looked like bruna but Still

KIND. even though sab tries to be a hard ass she’s probably the most loyal, generous, kind person you would ever meet deep down. like she puts on this persona of being heartless, but if anyone needs her she will be there for them. kind of hates that she’s such a softie sometimes but she can’t help it.

EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE. doesn’t want to be hurt again and will do pretty much anything to avoid that. tries to keep people at arms length especially romantically. loves making friends though, and will indeed spoil them.

HEADCANNONS. who wants to hire me as their maid i’m not gonna clean im just gonna wear a cute maid outfit dust like 6 things and bend down a lot

has the vibes of that drunk rich aunt that’s always smoking like sexily as she looks far into the distance and wears like a super luxurious coat. will gossip with you. will buy you things your mom won’t. will cuss out your toxic father at the dinner table. that’s her energy.

unfortunately actually does smoke. i hate

okay fun fact, the only reason sabine went to university for computer programming and business was because she felt her father wanted her to. she honestly has no real passion for the subject and just wanted to use her talent to make her father as proud of her as he was on the day she debuted that app to him. but now that making daddy proud isn’t like the only thing occupying her entire brain sabine like is like ??? wait what do i actually want to do with my life ??? and it took her a while to figure it out but after a while she fell back on one of her passions, art. she’s actually making a graphic novel aimed towards young adults about a modern day hades and persephone vibe, kind of about a girl who falls in love with the grim reaper and the lengths she goes to to chase after her (yes it is a Lady Reaper) into the depths of hell,,, it’s wild. she’s very proud of it but also kind of shy about it tbh. her go to critic is georgio, because she knows that little shit will be honest and yk what she respects that.

but when it comes to making actual money your girl turns to cam work most of the time, because well. at the very least it’s quick, easy, and semi discreet. and sometimes she gets something out of it too. she figures it’s a win win, and she’s been doing it for about a year now, mostly because she absolutely refuses to use any of her father’s money.

is allergic to cucumber.

has a different 'relationship’ like every week or so, along with a few one night stands peppered in. unfortunately still attracted to people who are bad for her (kit for example was an asshole and a cheater and DEFINITELY conservative like she messed up on that one), but is also very afraid of falling in love again and letting herself get hurt, so she normally doesn’t let things last too long before she starts self sabotaging.

if you ever catch sabine with like... her nails growing out or her nail polish chipped, something is wrong. like something is deeply wrong. sabine will have her nails done in the middle of the apocalypse, the only reason they would be less than perfect is if she is having a breakdown. always has colour on her nails, and usually it’s a shade of red, purple, or black.

always has wild ass stories to tell about her tinder dates or one night stands and will tell them without shame for your entertainment. is a great storyteller honestly, a talent she got from her mother but she doesn’t want to admit that.

fun fact, her mother mariah was PISSED when hector got rich AFTER she left him and tried for years to sue him or something but no dice. she was so angry and vengeful over the whole thing that she took the opportunity of being invited to her daughters wedding to get back at her husband where it hurt, his business. thus sleeping with kit. didn’t really think about how her daughter might feel about the whole thing because she was yk blinded by rage, but that’s just how mariah is so i mean,,, rip sabina.

shops when she’s sad, or happy, or angry, or confused sdkjdsj will use any excuse to shop, and at this point she has more clothes than she knows what to do with. her style can be kind of out there at times, but she will let you borrow things though.

she has a cat named momo. yes that is inspired by her being the peach skeleton. also has a parrot named poe i think. i also have the urge to give her a snake but... i will resist. so sabine wants a snake for sure

her favourite colours are black and red

she is a horrible terrible driver. don’t drive with sabine unless you’re an adrenaline junkie or like want to die tbh

her dad 100% set up the relationship between kit and sabine as a pr stunt, but sabine doesn’t know that yet and when she finds out her father used her like that ooh boy things are gonna get wildt. as it is now sabine just thinks she disappointed him and it’s kind of eating her alive. half the reason she’s staying here is because she doesn’t want to face him or yk her old life anymore. her father is so caught up in the shame she caused him that he hasn’t even tried to call her after the whole thing and the one time sabine got hella drunk and called him all he did was tell her what a disappointment she was and ask when she was coming back to work so we love ~parenting~

WANTED CONNECTIONS. girls will “🥺🥺🥺🥺” their way out of everything

close friends please and thanks, best friends also please, uh, can i get some awkward one night stands that avoid each other at all cost, can i get a neighbour who’s ear sabine is always talking off in the hallway between their rooms even tho they just want to go home but can’t because sabine is Oversharing, maybe a flirtationship, but also i would love an enemy (it could be for a ridiculous reason or a completely valid reason but either way please give it to me), someone she goes out dancing/partying with at piccolo, a sibling like relationship, a confidante, someone who she trusts to read her comic and maybe even do some linework, and absolutely anything else okay my brain is fried rn but i want it all! please like this and i will slip and slide into your dms <3

#ostellointro #me: *sees a nice neat intro at an appropriate length* I Want To Do That #this monstrosity: bitch you thot

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zenithlux · 4 years ago

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Cadence Update - CH 23

In which Roxy and Vergil finally figure something out.

Catch up with the story on AO3 here!

I just think of you and everything you do You’re my one, my from now on… My first love song.

My First Love Song - Luke Bryan

It took Vergil a mere two weeks to not only feel his tail, but learn to control it. By the end of the summer he had a suitable attack pattern down with perfect precision. He could pierce enemies at his feet with a single stab. Swipe enemies away for Roxy to shoot down. The only downside were the extra scales that manifested along his cheek and chin whenever he used it for too long, but Vergil saw that as a promising sign. With more practice, he was certain he could phase different pieces of his devil trigger without a full transformation. He’d be faster, more efficient, and more prepared even without Yamato by his side.

Once again, Kuro was not impressed.

“If Sparda had had a tail,” The dragon huffed. “He would have learned all that in a quarter of the time.”

“My father was a more impressive demon than you’ll ever be.”

“I don’t deny that.”

Vergil scowled. “Regardless,”

“You have managed to learn something at least,” Kuro said. “I‘ll give you credit for that.”

And that marked the first time Vergil had ever wanted to strangle a demon rather than tear it to pieces.

“Alright, alright,” Roxy said as she tossed her bow into the sky. “Stop antagonizing each other.” Aki landed on her shoulder with a distinct chirp of agreement, and purred when she scratched behind his ears. “Let Mori know the demons here are taken care of.”

‘Mori’ was Roxy’s new name for Morrison who she’d met two weeks ago before Nico and Nero left for Fortuna. Since Dante could only take so many jobs (and Vergil had a feeling he was “donating” a few to the other devil hunters in the area), there was an influx of tasks around Roxy’s hometown. Unfortunately for Dante, who wasn’t about to trample on “Vergil’s domain” as he called it, the people in Fallen West Abbey paid significantly more, as there were less devil hunters. They were, therefore, valued much higher.

It was a lucrative market if Vergil were honest. One he was happy to exploit as much as possible.

“Is that enough for you?” Vergil said as he sent his tail away. Kuro retreated back into Roxy alongside Aki who gave a soft coo of good-bye.

“Yep,” She said. “Feeling better than ever.”

“No stasis then.”

She shook her head. “Kuro says his magic is holding stronger than before, so I might get half a year out of it.” She grinned. “All thanks to you.”

Vergil didn’t bother trying to hide the blush. It would have been futile anyway, one thing he’d come to accept since his promise. She’d teased him about it a single time, but he’d argued that he’d been redder because of the heat (false- his demon regulated his temperature perfectly) and not because he’d just held her for far too long after a sudden demon attack (he’d never admit that). “You’ve been taking better care of yourself.”

That time, it was her turn to blush. “It helps to have someone I want to impress around.”

Vergil blinked. “Impress?”

Her face brightened even more. “Isn’t it strange how many portals have been opening lately?”

Vergil scowled but didn’t press the issue. She was just stubborn enough that the conversation would never go back in that direction. “Considering the current location of Yamato, yes.”

“You don’t think Mundus is behind it… do you?”

“He would have crossed over already if he were.”

Her voice went quiet. “I’m surprised he hasn’t yet.”

As much as he wanted to, Vergil couldn’t disagree. Both Dante and Nero had reported increased portal sightings, but all of them had been small. Most closed after only a few demons crossed, and even fewer could support something as large as Mundus himself. The demon’s voice had, for the most part, quieted in Vergil’s mind. He’d had a few nightmares since the loss of Yamato, but they’d been less… real. Now, instead of being dragged under into an endless, almost inescapable pit, he was aware of them. Twice, he’d managed to pull himself out, though he didn’t miss the way Aki just so happened to slip back through the walls whenever he did so.

He still didn’t know if Roxy was aware of his nightmares, or if the demons were hyper attuned to his demonic half’s plight. But she’d never brought it up, he’d never asked, and it had remained a mystery ever since.

Just because you’re afraid of her…

Nero’s words weighed heavier on Vergil’s mind than he expected. Afraid. What could he possibly be afraid of? Physically she was no match for him (not that he cared about such a thing). She was intelligent, yes, but he’d argue he was at least on par with her despite his lack of general “street smarts” as Dante put it. She rarely said no to anything he asked, so he doubted she would reject him if he did “ask her out” (Nero’s not so subtle wording that he smacked Vergil with when Roxy wasn’t listening).

But Vergil didn’t know if it was the right time for such a thing. How long did people need to know each other before one ‘asked the other out’? Why did that feel like such a childish idea? Would asking her change their relationship at all? They were already close friends. They already lived together, as Vergil had decided there was no use in wasting a second apartment when he didn’t have many personal belongings. It was almost the same arrangement; Vergil on the couch when he actually slept, and Roxy on the bed. Their schedule was the same. Their lives were the same.

So… are we already in a relationship?

“Vergil?”

He blinked once before his gaze fell to hers. She was absurdly close now, so much so that if he breathed just a bit deeper, their bodies would touch. He didn’t know why she did that, as it required her to tilt her head at a rough angle to actually look up at him. Maybe it was so she could keep her voice down.

Maybe I should ask.

He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

She frowned. “You don’t seem fine.”

“Just a lot on my mind.”

“Like?”

His mouth went dry. “It’s not important.”

The look she gave him - the pain in her eyes - made his heart clench in his chest. She must have thought he didn’t trust her. That the discourse that was going on in his head was more important than her. Vergil wished he could tell her the truth. He wished he could tell her the million things whirling through his mind. But whenever he tried…

“It’s fine.” She said. “I get it.”

“Roxy.”

“Don’t worry,” She said with a sad smile. “I understand.”

“Are we a…?”

“How do you…?”

A phone call stopped them both. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, Roxy reached for her phone, grimaced, and hit the accept button. “What do you want?”

Vergil blinked. He’d never heard such hostility from her before. Who was she talking to? She didn’t have any debt collectors like Dante (and smooth talk worked better on them anyway). It couldn’t be her mother (and Vergil doubted Roxy would talk to her like that either).

“Good to hear from you too,” a man’s voice echoed from the other end of the line. “Trust me, I wish I wasn’t making this phone call either. But your presence has been requested at this year’s Art Gala. And I am bound by contract to invite anyone who receives even half the number of recommendations you did.” He sighed. “It seems you’re making a name for yourself, princess.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Again,” He snapped. “I wouldn’t be making this call if I had a choice. So are you coming or not?”

“No one ever responds over the phone,” She said, her voice a touch too smug. “Afraid you’re going to have to send the official invitation and I’ll get back to you.”

Vergil could practically hear the scowl. “I’ll be eagerly awaiting your response, Roxanna.”

She hung up on him, and Vergil knew from the look in her eyes alone exactly who that had been. Bryson. The infamous ex-boyfriend. Now it all made sense.

“He got your number.”

“Looks that way,” Roxy said.

“Are you going to accept his… invitation?” Vergil asked slowly. He didn’t really know exactly what they were talking about. It sounded prestigious, but Vergil didn’t know anything about it. She’d never mentioned it before, and she clearly knew something.

“I would rather not even see him again,” Roxy said. “He’s the whole reason I moved back here.” She crossed her arms, but Vergil didn’t miss the way they shook. He wasn’t, however, certain if it was rage, exhaustion, or if she was close to tears. Nothing else about her gave anything away. “But this stupid Gala...”

“It’s important to you.”

“Very,” She sighed. “It’s one of the biggest art shows on this side of the country. To have any art displayed, you need at least five hundred people to vouch for your work personally which is almost impossible. I gave up on the matter years ago, but it seems my clients are more aware of it than I thought.” She sighed again. “And if he’s telling the truth, I’ll get to display three pieces, which is astronomical. So much more exposure. More work. More money. You get the jist.”

“You could have promoted yourself.”

“I’ve tried before,” She said. “I don’t really care about the money, Vergil. I just want people to enjoy my work. If that means sticking with a small group of clients, great. If it means I get to show my work to thousands of rich people, that’s great too.” She waved him off. “But that isn’t the point. Bryson is a museum director. That’s how we met. And this year, he’s one of the hosts. Which means if I accept this offer, then I will be showing my work under his watch. And knowing him, he’ll do nothing but complain about it for hours on end.” Her frown deepened. “It’s six months away and I can already feel him ruining everything.”

“Don’t let him.”

“He already has.”

“No,” Vergil said as he attempted to mimic her tone from earlier. It only half worked, but he saw the flicker of a smile on her face before she could hide it. “Because you aren’t going alone.”

“I mean…” She started “Going to the Gala with someone is like attending a wedding, you know?” Vergil’s head tilted ever so slightly, and she continued. “You don’t tend to invite people unless you’re like… a thing.”

A thing. Why was that the term people used for relationships? Vergil had just assumed it was Nero being… Nero. But throwing that aside, Vergil, in a rather bold display, said, “are we?”

She stared at him. “I… don’t know.”

He frowned. “How do you not…?”

“You’ve never asked.”

“... Am I supposed to?”

After a moment of silence, she broke into laughter. Again. At least he was good at getting that kind of reaction from her or they’d be in trouble. “Yes!” She said. “I mean… I could have I guess. But with everything going on… and what you’ve told me about your past and Mundus and…” Her shoulders sagged ever so slightly. “I just didn’t feel it was my place to ask you. Maybe I was… I don’t know... overthinking it.” She turned slightly away from him and glanced up at the sky. It was a cloudy day - maybe not the best weather for whatever this conversation was - and Vergil had felt at least a few droplets of rain in the last twenty minutes. “I care a lot about you,” She said as she met his gaze again. “But I wasn’t sure… if…”

“I wouldn’t take care of you if I didn’t,” Vergil said. “I never would have accepted.”

“Then you’ve been thinking about this awhile.”

“... Not consciously.”

She chuckled. “I get it.”

“Why me?”

It was Roxy’s turn to tilt her head. “What do you mean?”

“The day we met,” Vergil said. “And each time after that, I was nothing but cold to you. But you still talked with me. Made bookmarks for me. Left your number twice, even after I ignored you for weeks at a time,” He took a breath to slow his thoughts down. “Why?”

“Kuro asked me the same thing.”

“What?”

“When we first met,” She said. “Before he realized who you were, he called you pretentious and said I’d have better luck befriending a fish.”

“... A fish.”

“I know right?” She threw her hands up into the air. “How silly of a comparison is that? A damn fish!? Fish are boring. You’re…” She trailed off as her hands fell back to her sides. “You weren’t. And it just... I had this feeling. I wanted to get to know you, but something kept telling me to wait. Don’t push it. If he wants to, he’ll call you. Just wait. Yadda yadda.” She waved her hand in a vague gesture. “So… I did. And lo and behold…”

“Here I am.”

“Exactly.” She rubbed at her arm. “But I didn’t expect to… fall for you.”

Fall for you. Why did those three words knock the air from his lungs?

Maybe it was because she’d never admitted it before?

“But that voice kept telling me to wait. Because I’ve lost so many things in my life… I didn’t want to risk losing you too.”

Gently, Vergil ran his hand along her cheek. Her green eyes stared back; a torment of emotions he couldn’t quite pick apart. But he realized at that moment that he didn’t have to. Not when her own hand reached up to brush his cheek. Not when she stared into his eyes with more confidence than most of the people in his life. There was nothing to say between them that hadn’t already been said. Nothing to say that hadn’t already been shared in small, unspoken ways.

“I’m not going anywhere,” He said.

“I know.”

When he leaned forward… when his lips brushed hers for the second time that month… His phone rang. Dante’s ringtone. Probably urgent.

Roxy groaned. “What kind of luck is…?”

Vergil kissed her. A soft, slow, sensual kiss that had him seeing stars and he was the one leading it. Her lips were so impossibly soft, and he could taste the strawberry lip gloss she’d only recently started wearing. He didn’t think about it too much (clever), preferring to pull her just a bit closer. It was a bit awkward, and he knew they’d have a lot better time when she wasn’t having to stand on the tips of her toes to kiss him back. But, despite the hazy weather, the impending rain, and the second round of Dante’s ringtone, the moment felt right. His heart thundered in his ears as it pounded against his chest. He could hear hers doing the same, especially when her fingers brushed along the nape of his neck. Vergil shivered - why did that of all things feel so good? - but didn’t pull away. Neither of them wanted to.

But when the phone started ringing for the third time, Vergil inwardly sighed and the moment ended in a silent, mutual agreement. He wrapped his arms around her, letting her head fall against his chest as he reached for the phone. “What do you want?”

“I’ve got some bad news and some worse news.”

“What is it, Dante?”

“Yamato’s missing, Verge,” His brother said. “And I don’t have a clue who took it.”

Ko-fi – Master List – AO3

#zenni-writes #cadence #update #vergil #dmc #fan fiction #vergilxoc #vergilxroxy #romance is finally in the air

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hollywwav · 5 years ago

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Climbing the Corporate Ladder (DiaDop fanfic)

I'm working on the next chapter right now! I hope you like it and don't forget to comment!

READ ON AO3

Summary: The new president and his young assitant come to change things for good on Passione Inc., a company dedicated to make up and female beauty.

The young boy is secretely in love with his boss, but thanks to an embarassing accident he will have the chance to get more closer to him! Or not...?

An AU where Doppio, the Bucci gang and other characters work for Diavolo, with the special participation of La Squadra!

Warnings: none.

Chapter 1:

ＰＡＳＳＩＯＮＥ™ Empress Liquid Matte Lipstick

After some months of back and forths, this was the change that Passione Inc. Needed since a long battle with sale drops, unproductivity and a really uncomfortable laboral ambient. The employees of Passione weren’t really amused to welcome a new president, mostly because of the fear of another group of severe managers and supervisors, the complete re-structuration of the company or, worse of all, the posible chance of massive layoffs. The business destiny was uncertain, and this was possibly the last opportunity to avoid going bankrupt. But maybe, just maybe, changes don’t have to be necessarily bad, right? Why not being optimistic just for once? Maybe it couldn’t be that bad to have a new male president for a makeup company...

Diavolo was the perfect man for the position. A clever, determined, and experienced man with a short but sucessful career in the world of female beauty. Too impressive, but also too “misterious” and portable of a “dark menacing aura” that most of the employees could not stand and tried to avoid as much as possible. A total opposite of him was his assistant, Vinegar Doppio, a cheerful young man that sometimes was too clumsy and distracted, and sometimes too shy at interacting with other people. But everyone in the company liked him anyways, he was really pleasant and interesting to talk too, everytime he had a break after serving his boss the lunch or a cup of coffee.

“He is too harsh with everyone around him!” told Mista to the young boy while helping him with some fallen documents.

“I think I heard him yelling at you this morning, did he?”

“What? Of course not! He must have been talking to his daughter on the phone!” said Doppio with a little blush in his cheeks and looking down a bit nervous.

“Also... he always treats me respectfully...”

Oh yes, Doppio was working for Diavolo since some months ago and now he was deeply in love with him. He couldn’t resist his imponent presence, elegance, his deep voice, his misterious green eyes and, god, that lovely long pink hair... Everything about Diavolo was enciting. It was really difficult to concentrate on the daily work when he had such a desirable man around him most of the time, then things got worse when the boss started to smile and talk to him more confidently, and even he started to call him “my Doppio” after being used to his joyful presence and great efficiency in the organization and personal tasks.

“Ah... why do you have to torture me saying that!! it's not fair...” said Doppio to himself while daydreaming with those dark lips caressing his.

“My Doppio ... you do such an excellent job ... I need to reward you in some way ...” said the boss in the boy's imagination, letting him sit on his lap and lifting his chin up reaching for his little soft lips. Doppio just closed his eyes and corresponded the kiss.

"Oh, boss ... you're so nice with me ... I love working for you ..."

Unfortunately, those daydreams were just that. Daydreams. Doppio heard the boss was married to a beatiful ex model called Donatella Una, and they had a teenage girl called Trish. The same girl that sometimes called the boss begging for money for new shoes or to negotiate her remain days of grounding. Doppio didn’t know about Donatella because he wasn’t really interested in the fashion world, and Diavolo didn’t like to talk about his family or private life. But of course, it was totally logical to have a model or celebrity as wife when you're a rich and sucessful bussiness man. Anyways, if Diavolo wasn’t married or if even he liked men, there would be no chances at all to conquer his heart. Why would him fall for a childish and simple boy like him? He wasn’t tall, strong or intelligent like his boss. And after some recent rejections, why would Diavolo -of all the people- would accept him so easily?

With a deep sigh and a slight sense of pain in his chest, he accepted the reality.

“It’s ok... at least I can work with him and enjoy his company...” said Doppio to himself with a sad smile.

But Doppio was wrong. So wrong. Diavolo desired him secretly as much or even more than he thought since the day he saw him in the HR department for the job interview. There were few candidates, but after personally checking his CV he decided Doppio would be the ideal person for the position, so after talking with Bucciarati from human resources, the boy got the call of approval.

The first days were a bit uncomfortable and the boy felt weird for being with such an important person, but he gradually got used to Diavolo’s personality and did his best to meet his needs. Most of the time the boss was busy and participating from meeting to meeting, but when he had a spare time he liked to talk to Doppio about his day and other trivial things. Diavolo was pleased with the boy’s job performance and mostly with his lack of bad intentions, something he was used to expect about most of the people of the bussiness world.

“God... he’s so cute and works ten times better than the last assistant I had...” said the boss to himself daydreaming with that cute butt and adorable freckles. Diavolo loved the sight of those round buttocks and nice thighs every time his assistant bent down looking for a fallen pen or searching for an specific document in the lower drawer. He loved those amber eyes, tiny nose and pink lips but most of all, his cheerful and caring personality. Diavolo desired him with so much yearning. He wanted to declare himself but didn’t exactly know how to. On the other hand, a cute and lovely boy like him must have a couple.

“I just want to grab him right here... I want to touch him... mark him... oh, I want to fuck him so badly... But I can’t do something like that, at least not that way...I’m sure that he would be terrified and he wouldn’t know how to react. But... such a nice boy like him sure has a girlfriend. Can he possibly like men? If so, he would like men like me?... Maybe he just sees me as his boss and nothing else?...”

Diavolo was getting nervous asking himself those questions but he had a company to lead, and tons of problems to solve, so he tried to forget those thoughts at least for some days.

That was a terrible week and it was just Wednesday. An issue with the internet network delayed the work, Diavolo had an argument with the marketing director, the sample pigments for the new palettes came with a color mistake, and several employees were sick because of the winter weather. Doppio was healthy but lately more stressed due problems with his department, and now he was running late to Diavolo’s office with mineral water, a pair of folders and receipts. The boy entered the office to discover his boss on the phone, scribbling on a piece of tissue since he couldn’t find anywhere to write between the mountains of paper above his desk.

“I’m sorry, boss. The elevator is on maintenance and mr. Bruno told me to give you this” -said the boy placing the folders in the chair- “Let me help you with those... papers” Doppio had to take a pause while talking to admire his boss’ outfit. He was wearing a dark burgundy suit, black shirt with a red tie matching his dark lips, a pair of dark gloves and reading glasses.

“Oh my god... he looks so hot!!” thought the boy with a flushing face, trying to look elsewhere.

“Doppio! I need to talk to you about the next week schedule, do you have a minute right now?”

“Of course, boss” the boy tried to just look at Diavolo’s hands, instead of his hot figure.

“I know I already asked for various re-schedules but please, could you book me an hotel for next monday? I need to reunite with these people in Venezia, unfortunately there is the chance of closing some subsidiaries and...”

Diavolo just kept talking while moving his hands but Doppio couldn’t resist to his boss presence, he was totally ignoring what he was saying at this point.

“His voice is so enchanting... oh... I wish he could say he loves me with that deep voice... I want those arms holding me tightly... I need him... I need him so much...”

“What's wrong with him? He looks feverish ... ”thought Diavolo watching his assistant's face growing hotter and sighing heavily, with half lidded eyes and semi-opened red lips.

“Umm... my Doppio... are you ok?” Diavolo just tilted his head down a bit and he found the cause of the boy’s condition. He stopped talking, changed his serious expression to a smirk and got his hand closer to his lips, teasingly.

“My Doppio... am I distracting you, right? I don’t blame you, it’s inevitable...”

“Uhh... what! Oh-of course not, boss!! I’m listening!” said the boy snapping from the daydream, and obviously lying to avoid getting scolded.

“Excuse me, but then... why are you so hard right now?”

“...”

“whaaaaaaaa...?” the boy looked down, and efectively, his dick was completely hard and asking for some release. Doppio looked at his boss, then at his erection and then covered it with both hands. His cheeks were completely flushed, and now tried to hide his face, incapable of pronouncing any word.

“How cute... I should not make him think I’m laughing at him...”

Diavolo chuckled a bit and smiled, he really was enjoying looking at the boy in this peculiar situation, but then...

“I-I am... I am sorry...!! I’m so sorry, boss!” said the young boy trembling and crying huge amounts of tears. He started weeping uncontrolably.

-“I can’t believe this is happening!! I’m getting fired! I ruined everything!! Now he thinks I’m gross... he won’t forgive me... I’m so fucking stupid!!”-

Doppio just covered his face, trying to not look at his boss, and kept crying. He looked like a filthly brat in front of his boss. Why this had to happen now? Why exactly in this moment? Why can’t he stop being so horny all the time? He never was so ashamed like in this moment. Diavolo changed his smile to a serious look again and got up from the chair instantly when he heard Doppio sobbing.

“It’s ok, Doppio. Don’t worry.” “Shhhh... don’t cry. It just happens, sometimes for no reason...” Diavolo hold him tighly and cleaned his tears away. He didn’t really wanted to make him cry.

“I-I... I’m so embarassed... I didn’t want to offend you, boss! Please!... forgive me...”

“I said it’s fine, my Doppio. I won’t punish you for this, don’t worry...”

“B-but... I...” The boy was really confused. Why his boss was comforting him so nicely? why didn’t he yell or slapped him? why he looked like this situation was ok?

“A-aren’t you mad at me?”

“Of course not, my sweet Doppio”

“...sweet???...” thought Doppio, most confused than ever.

“But why?”

“Well... basically, it’s not your fault... that’s something we can’t control over, right? And that gets worse when you... are in front of somebody... that you really like... right?” Doppio looked at Diavolo directly at his eyes, completely speechless.

“Am I correct, my Doppio? This reaction was because of me?”

Doppio’s eyes were big like plates, he was trembling and unable to articulate any words.

“My Doppio. I am your boss, and you should obey all my orders, ok? Now I’m ordering you to tell me the truth... Do you like me, Doppio?”

The boy hesitated for a moment and then gave up. He just looked down, waiting for the real punishment.

“Yes, boss... I do like you... I want you...” he pronounced the last words like a whisper, almost bursting into tears again.

“Good”

Diavolo quickly tilted his chin up and smashed his dark and plump lips to the boy’s trembling ones. Doppio instantly opened his eyes and the boss hugged him more tighly. The boy was unable to react. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even breathe, and then, after some seconds that seemed like eternity, the boss broke the kiss with a fine thread of saliva connecting their mouths.

“Ah...” said Doppio with the face red as a tomato, too shocked to say anything else.

“I am so glad to hear that” said his boss looking at him with lustful eyes, licking his lips for a second round of making out.

#myfics #mywork #diadop #diavolo #jojo #doppio #vinegar doppio #jjba #jojo fanfic #diavodop #jojos bizarre adventure #corporate!AU #alternate universe - modern setting #boss/employee relationship #sfw in this chapter #sfw

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doyouneedtorant · 4 years ago

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april 29, 2019 (time unknown)

This is an old piece that I wrote for an English assignment. It is entitled “The Missing Fairy Princess”.

It’s backpacking season at the University of Michigan. For those of you who are unaware of what that means, “backpacking” is the process of choosing classes to put in your “backpack” before registering for them at a later date. It involves many hours of obsessing over the course guide and worrying about what the future will look like if you do not get the classes that you need for your major. With that in mind, it’s an extremely stressful experience for someone as manic and worried as me. At this point in my college career, I am bombarded with adults telling me “Oh, you’re just a freshman! You don’t need to know what you’re doing with your life quite yet!” when in reality, this question of “what do you want to be” is single-handedly eating away at my heart. I am a person of many ambitions and yet in a school full of aerospace engineers, aspiring business men and women, medical students, and overachieving triple-majors, I feel as if my creativity has been pushed to the side for a more practical pursuit. In these times, I cannot help but look back at the young girl I used to be who wanted to be everything.

At my preschool culmination, the teachers all asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. All the boys and girls said they wanted to be firefighters and police officers or dentists and doctors. Yet when it got to me, I said I wanted to be a fairy princess. One of the parents laughed at me and my dad essentially told them “Hey, if my daughter wants to be a fairy princess, she can. It’s more original and creative than being a police officer, like your kid.” Now, this is just something my father has told me over and over; I can only really trust him and his memory skills to assume that this retelling of the story is actually an accurate depiction of what happened. Same goes to the time that he told me that the mothers that led our Girl Scout group had to pull him aside, because during arts and crafts, I tried to make a mind-control device to brainwash the other girls. Although I can’t remember a single thing about these events, I’ve heard these stories so many times that I can seriously see them - well, at least in my own imaginative way. I see me shrieking “I want to be a fairy princess!” at the culmination and suddenly I’m in this cute, little purple fairy costume laughing as my dad has his altercation with the other parent. I can vividly see this “mind-control device,” a black-and-white pinwheel that spins as if I was some engineer who could have actually made that at the age of eight. Over the years, these tales have deeply embedded into me that I could be whatever I wanted to be and I had the drive and ability to be or create something inspiring. And at that young age, I could have been a fairy princess. I could have made a mind-control device. And as I got older, I found myself in love with so many things - writing, singing, teaching, learning, math, English, science, animals. I wanted to be everything and when you’re eight, the idea of being everything seems achievable.

Whether or not those stories were true, there’s clearly a path of imaginative behavior that trailed off from then. Starting in elementary school, I was starting to write my own books. Yes, crappy by default, but true pieces of art in the eyes of my younger self. (My debut story was Pretty and Paris, a book about two poodles that discovered they were sisters and then one was kidnapped by a jealous ex-best friend who planned to sell her on the black market. Iconic.) I was making short films about pineapples with jobs and reality shows about my stuffed animals. I started writing music about the food in my fridge and the boys I thought were cute in my second grade class. I learned how to play the guitar and piano by my own hand and I realized I loved to write poetry. In high school, I was in theatre and started writing plays and when adults told me they were good, it encouraged that childlike creativity that had always followed me throughout the years. I was bound for amazing things and that eight-year-old girl could look in the bathroom mirror and recognize it.

But now I am 19. And, yes, that’s ridiculously young and I am fully aware how bizarre it is for me to be saying I can no longer be creative or that I cannot be whatever I want to be. But at this point in my life, there definitely is a limit on the possibilities. I came into college thinking that I would take all the classes I was interested in, that I would be in multiple clubs, that I would have internships lined up for me. But that’s not actually how reality works. There are GEs (the “general education” credits that the school swears you must take to be educated) and prerequisites that you are forced to take as stepping stones. You have a job because the cost of living in a college town is extremely exaggerated, so now the time you have for clubs is cut short. There are internship opportunities over summer but you are so tired from a demanding semester that you cannot even imagine putting in a minimal level of effort until you have to next semester. I think most importantly that the biggest shock was that if you do not do certain tasks, you absolutely cannot be whatever you want. If you do not take Biology 172, you cannot be a doctor; and if you decide halfway through your college career that you want to pursue medical school, the amount of time and effort that you would need to just catch up with the intense checklist of classes for the MCAT would probably kill you. Not to mention if you want to attend graduate school at all, the competitive nature of students today requires you to get an extremely high GPA, despite the fact that classes are gradually becoming more difficult and teachers praise themselves when they fail a whole class with an unreasonably unfair exam.

Not to mention, the stigma around being a humanities major is hard to avoid. My friends joke about me being homeless after college when my useless degree creates a jobless and unsuccessful life. Growing up in Los Angeles and attending a performing arts school warped my view on how people saw art, especially in a school that worships STEM. Where I came from everyone was going to be some sort of creative when they grew up: a performer, a dancer, an actor, a photographer, a playwright. And to be honest, I believed that. I saw my peers achieving great things while they were still seniors in high school and it made that dream seem much more realistic. With that in mind, that creative eight-year-old flew two thousand miles away from her home, destined to achieve these amazing feats, just to be told creativity is only allowed when it is flirting with practicality. Maybe I could have gone to a liberal arts school instead or somewhere more understanding of arts-oriented students, but how can one do that when the University of Michigan has so much to offer? An amazing reputation, a sense of pride that no other school could match, an incredibly talented and intelligent body of students that collaborate to increase the chance of success, a campus that looks like it was plucked from a catalog. I mean, it was a no-brainer. I knew any program I decided to go into would be academically rigorous and extremely insightful. Now, do not get me wrong, the humanities classes I have attended were exactly that, but the fear of not doing enough has become a very heavy weight on my shoulders. Everyone I meet is a future doctor, engineer, material scientist, epidemiologist, dentist, or nurse. Where were all the fairy princesses?

I decided that I needed to do more and went into what I like to call: “Phase I: I am going to be a doctor!” The idea of becoming a pediatrician was attractive; I always adored children, I wanted to find a career where I helped people, medicine and health continuously peaked my interest. So, with this in mind, I launched my pre-med phase and started to plan out the next three years of my life, the classes I would take, the medical schools I liked, what internships I would do over summer. (It’s sufficient to say I am an overthinker.) I registered for, you guessed it, Biology 172 and a statistics class, making my way through the advised pre-med checklist. Things were going pretty smoothly and then I failed two exams, started missing lectures, and had to explain to my father that for the first time in five years, my grades were not amazing. I came to the conclusion that the root of my stresses was Biology 172 and I withdrew from the class two- thirds through the semester.

No more doctor.

Right now, I am looking at pre-health or pre-social work, trying to find something realistic to pursue and the question “Where are all the fairy princesses?” haunts me. I like to ask people what they wanted to be when they were a kid and what they would want to be now, but often the answer makes me sad. My friend who just graduated with a degree in sociology told me he wanted to be a teacher when he was younger. Teachers, unfortunately, are not paid well and so many kids turn their cheek to education, unless it means becoming a professor at a high- paying university. My friend instead got his degree in sociology, but has no idea what he would ever do with it, so he is applying for reception jobs at local hospitals and clinics instead. Another friend told me he wanted to grow up to be a basketball player, but the skill required and the sheer realistic nature of the dream steered him in a different direction. If money or impracticality remained out of the picture, my dream would be performing on Broadway, or being a cast member on Saturday Night Live, or winning a Tony for Best Play, or singing my own songs in front of a giant crowd. However, the fear of failure or not having something to fall back on is honey for my anxiety.

Once again, I want to make it extremely well known that I understand how young I am. I am going to live a long, luxurious life and the worries I have now will all fit into place, and in my fifties I will be laughing with my husband and children about how silly my troubles actually were. But for now, they are real and they are daunting. It feels like everyone knows what they are doing or they are committed to suffering through the difficult classes they need to succeed. And frankly, I’m not. Every time I look in the mirror, I still see my younger self in the reflection - a purple fairy dress on, stuffed animal in hand, smile plastered to my face - and it is hard to not feel disappointed. I want to look back at that little girl and tell her that we did it. I want to tell her we became everything we dreamed of - a writer, a performer, a doctor, a veterinarian, a teacher, a psychologist, an artist, a chef. And although I cannot predict the future, I understand some of these options have been eliminated just by major choice.

To tell sixteen-year-olds that they need to have some basic understanding of what they want to do with their lives by the time they apply to college is utterly ridiculous. The way we have been taught to push ourselves to absurd heights has left no time to breathe in between class breaks. My fellow classmates are either not participating in any social scene so they can study, or they are engaging way too much and developing some form of alcoholism or drug problem before they hit twenty. Those of us who plan to go to graduate school have stopped learning in order to save space for short-term memorization, when in reality, we all went to college in hopes of learning more than we did in high school. No one seems to be super happy about what they are doing in college because despite the fact that adults have raved on about how in college you get to study exactly what you want to study, the opposite has proven itself true. I may be a speck of dust on Michigan’s campus but the alarming rate of students that feel the same way tells me that something is wrong with the whole process. During these next three years, I hope to catch a glimpse of my younger self by diving into activities and classes that excite me, but I worry that one day, she’ll fade away and I’ll just have to wait for my dad to tell me more stories about her.

#writer #blogger #writing #blog #school #dreams #jobs #creatitivity #kids #college #majors #myrants

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hannerd100 · 4 years ago

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Pitch For Nuisance Corporation Conglomerate Liberal Streaming Media And Satellite Television Channel TO ZAYN

Original written on Grammarly, which hackers know about.

Hello Zayn. How are you?

I am a very busy person. I like to pretend that I observe nothing with meaning when I am fully aware of what is going on with all intricate details. These intricate details affect each other because of choices that people make that are fully conscious. I never got a college degree, consciously that I know of or can remember. I know very little about intuition, logic, common behavior to look for, and business because I was never formally educated consciously. I love marketing if you would like to know. I try to practice my brain skills every day. I want to mature and improve myself because I am motivated to an effective communicator who is also very witty. I like to get things done.

A fact about me is that I am not scared of people. I do not have social anxiety because I am stronger than most people. I tell people what to do. I want to be a great boss someday. I want to impress those in power so I get better job offers because I want to become wise, too. I want to learn to become an adult from other real adults. This is a logical statement.

The truth is, I made Nuisance Corporation about you, Zayn. I always want to impress you, Zayn, because you are worthy of respect. You are mature for your age. You are responsible for Apple Incorporated, which is a famous and respected company for computers and technology.

I am obsessed with learning about the way you think. You help me a lot when I need you to comfort me. You give great advice. I rather talk to you so I can share how I feel about what bothers me. Your mind is like what I imagine what solitude should be like, but I want to be included in your thoughts. We belong together.

I know I mean it when I say that you are the utmost masculine person I know, Zayn. Every move you make is always correct. You intelligently earned your money and are successful. You know the answers easily because you are very intelligent. You know every solution to all types of questions, I guess. What do you not know? You read me well. I look forward to seeing you again every day. I want to get to know you again. I miss you. I think you are capable of human emotions no matter how strong I describe you to be. I think you are the sexiest man alive. You are so brooding and handsome. You seem very antisocial in my favor. I like talking to you. I cannot wait to fall back in love with you. I want to be your wife. I know you're smart. I would donate trillions of dollars to your company for free because I felt like it. One day, I might earn a limitless amount of money so I guess I have a sense of humor after all. I get bored often because I am emotionally detached. You can have a blank check whenever you feel like asking me out. I might give you free money whenever you want to as an inside joke between us, as equals. I don't care what people think of me. I know I'm going to be successful.

The reason why I used the word you created that is based on your real name is because I think it protects us from people who do not like being told the truth. Being liberal means supporting gay and lesbian equal rights, ending Global Warming, and more. I never complain.

I am flirting with you, Zayn. I do not think you are annoying. "Nuisance" is a word that police take seriously. We need protection. There are a lot of creeps and weirdos out there. I am trying to be realistic in the real world. Fake or poser liberals threaten to kill people who are smarter than they are. There are a lot of cults out there, I heard. Besides social anxiety, some people type violent threats in words with a keyboard and post their sentences online, which is very scary to know about. The world is a dangerous place to live in. We should be fine. I want to make you trillions of dollars because I respect your work ethic as the founder of Apple, Incorporated.

To avoid trouble, I plan to mock rich white men who are naive about the real world so that other race groups attack them more instead of me if they know who I am. If rich white men are criticized more than I am, maybe I will be judged less.

I am very manipulative. I predict and interpret behavior. Unlike weak people, I want to be respected without asking more than once. I do not ask to be respected. I want to earn respect, which is completely different. I want a guarantee that I will be respected and left alone forever after I make my first million, then billion, and finally one trillion dollars. I probably am already rich. I might be a trillionaire. It doesn't matter because they both will own the conglomerate. Zayn, your name is in the word "Nuisance". I was joking.

An hour goes by and I feel closer to you, I hope. I am emotionally invested in you, Zayn. You are all I think about. I deserve to love you, Zayn. You are completely hot. I cannot stop looking at your face. You bring me so much happiness when you communicate with me. I enjoy asking you questions. You never stop being interesting to me, Zayn. You make me feel alive. I accept who I am when you compliment me by telling me that I am beautiful and funny. You are kind to me and I am indebted to you for helping motivate me to become who I want to be for you. I never grow tired of you because you are so different.

Now, after this long introduction, I can finally pitch Nuisance Corporation's Liberal Media Television Streaming App And Future Satellite Television Channel.

The Pitch:

Today, an activity worth using energy for is watching television. Why? The reason why watching television can be beneficial for learning about the real world is because of trust. Propaganda may sound like an overdramatic word to ignorant people because it is more commonly witnessed than people know. The media and advertising industries distribute a form of legal propaganda. Propaganda has emotional appeals and tells people what to feel, think, and believe. Some people feel emotions too quickly. That is why propaganda is proven to work. For example, hunger. Advertisements that show pictures of food can make viewers hungry. Why else do people use coupons they get from their mailbox? I am telling the truth. A lot of people accept propaganda because they believe it caters to their needs instead of controlling them in a generalized, efficient way. Otherwise, the economy would not exist.

The reason why propaganda is powerful is because it is a form of mind control. People who do not think for themselves rely on others to tell them how to live. These people are likely not confrontational or direct when they communicate. They might be codependent. They let people communicate for them, possibly. Naive people do not know how to be unique. They secretly want to be unique for attention, though, I can assume. This would be called an emotional appeal, "The desire to be unique." I think that people who wish are pathetic and have no work ethic. It is unrealistic to wish for anything. These types of people probably give up easily. If people want to become a better person, they have to change. If the world seems so evil based on a snippet of knowledge, there is always more evil in the world. The only equalizer on this planet is earning money. Financial income is what defines who the strongest is. The rest are weak and too busy wishing and hoping for the next day to prove who they want to become instantly. They waste time being egotistical and that is their problem. Nobody asks them for their approval because nobody believes them in the first place.

I used to think I was worthless. I was always independent as a kid. Growing up, I had plenty of friends who understood my jokes. I never liked to be used but I allow people to attempt to use me because I know more people care if I get hurt. I never get hurt. I am a vengeful person and it is very easy for me to admit this fact. People offer their weaknesses to me when they get emotional and use me as an artifact or stepping stone to fail at getting the attention of someone they find more valuable than I am. I always know when people are trying to use me. I never offer help because nobody worthy asks me for advice. I assume the worst about people before they explain themselves because it wastes less of my time and effort. Now, I know I am worthy of respect.

I was set up to get married to Zayn. He is a very successful genius man. We are happy together. I am lucky to be alive.

Amongst my qualities, I know that I am a good writer. I used to suffer from schizophrenic vocal hallucinations and paranoia. I cured schizophrenia. I always know what sounds like my real voice in writing. I am cynical, skeptical, and quick to criticize anyone who annoys me. This is why I am a talented and award-winning writer. I write about interesting ideas and topics that are important. To start, I want to become a successful screenwriter who earns a lot of money.

With television, nobody is toxic because everything is approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States. People receive information from television programs with little knowledge of the sources of who wrote that material. They interpret information to themselves based on opinion in their brains on purpose without checking who wrote every line. When people watch television, it is as if suddenly they are allowed to judge.

People need to thank the geniuses for inventing ways to protect everyone. For example, armies, police, F.B.I., C.I.A., and more are all invented by geniuses. Getting through the day would be easier if everyone normal had equal rights. Unfortunately, racism, sexism, homophobia, and more social issues exist in real life. World Peace is a dream of mine, to be honest. Microaggressions are irritating to encounter. I will answer society by starting a liberal media conglomerate that also emphasizes the importance of a healthy diet by selling organic food. Food can affect brains and thought processes. People who are healthier physically and mentally hopefully lead better lives.

Stress can be caused by many factors. Not everyone is happy. The people at fault are those who and indulgent and selfish. Some people will never be good. The goal is to tolerate what scares people who are unaware of who is intimidating. Street smarts are a necessity to survive in the real world. When immature people who are sheltered try to arrange who is the most important or intimidating in their brains in an inaccurate and self-interested way that is illogical, they live a delusional life that slows down society. Immature people waste everyone's time. I rather input one hour of work that will benefit me for an entire year rather than talk about annoying people who do not know what they are doing with their lives. I want to make a difference.

Fear and intimidation are what lead to a changing society. People never change. They only talk less and stop overreacting when people are around I can assume. Scaring people who are delusional and mean to everyone can help control society. Knowing about who people trust is how I can manipulate people, which is important to control a media corporation that is liberal. Trusting people easily is a sign of weakness. Nobody needs weaknesses, but they exist. Indulgence could be a sign that a person chose to be as weak as they possibly could when they realized that they had to work to earn respect and did not want to. When people think they are witty based on their own judgment, they have trouble reading other people's social cues due to their selfishness and narcissism. People who make people uncomfortable are not controlling or as dominant as they would like to be described. Allowing people to feel uncomfortable is a sign of wanting to be told what to do with little reward until the next time the weak person thinks they can control a situation. They want to be disciplined in front of an audience. This is annoying. I want society to reflect my gifts so I can make more money and live forever. Society is my tool for success. I can fix what cannot be fixed but only paid for. I want to treat society, which I consider royalty to me being a pauper, with my gifts.

Love,

Hannah, his girlfriend.

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

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Punny title about lesbians in love on an airplane (Branjie) - Mermelada

Hola! Did somebody ask for a Branjie lesbian flight attendant AU? Of course they didn’t, but it’s here anyway! Trigger warning for racism (third flight: Cancun section, skip if necessary as it’s not vital to the story). I hope you enjoy!

They first met on a flight to Tampa. They were both working in economy class, and were taking advantage of the turbulence to chitchat on their jumpseats at the back of the plane and get to know each other. Brooke Lynn learned that Vanessa had grown up in Tampa, had somehow acquired the nickname Vanjie at school, and was planning on spending that evening with her family. Vanessa learned that Brooke Lynn was Canadian, but had been living in the US for long enough to have almost completely lost her accent – except after a few tequilas, apparently – and used to be a pretty serious ballerina. Their personalities were polar opposites, and yet they hit it off immediately. They kept laughing with each other well after the plane’s wheels were on the ground and the passengers were nowhere to be seen. Although she didn’t want to admit it, Vanessa was somewhat disappointed when she saw her mother and aunt standing in the arrivals hall, and was thus forced to say goodbye to Brooke Lynn, who begrudgingly followed the rest of the crew out of the terminal to find their transport to the hotel. On the flight home the next day, both ladies picked up where they’d left off, their natural chemistry making their job feel easy and the flight seem quick. Far too quick. Before disembarking once they were safely parked back at base, Vanessa added Brooke Lynn on Facebook, delighted that their 56 mutual friends had made it easy. Their airline, however, was big, and they knew their chances of flying together again anytime soon was limited. Nonetheless, they exchanged goodbyes and thanked each other for such a nice flight.

-*-

They didn’t have to wait long for their next meeting, when Vanessa was called from reserve to go to Seattle the next week. All of her stress from speed-walking to the gate disappeared as soon as she stepped on board and saw the voluptuous blonde giant, who handed her a freshly brewed coffee. Airplane drinks had never tasted so good. Brooke Lynn was working in business class, so they didn’t get the chance to speak until the bus ride to their hotel in the city centre.

“I’ve never been to Seattle before, do you want to come sightseeing with me?”

Vanessa agreed perhaps too enthusiastically, her smile wide enough to park a bus, before she realised that in her frantic dash to the airport that morning, she hadn’t packed anything appropriate for the damp and chilly Seattle spring. A few awkward explanations and suggestive comments later, Vanessa found herself walking around Pike Place Market in her pyjama leggings, white jelly sandals, and Brooke’s red hoodie which drowned her tiny frame. It smelled like maple syrup – not in a stereotypical sort of way, but it was sweet, unique, and warmed Vanessa’s heart. They spent the day walking beside each other, neither woman flinching when their arms or hands bumped together. They chatted comfortably, and felt completely at ease in each other’s company. They’d spent as much time as possible exploring the city and eating more than either had thought possible, but the time change and early start was making staying awake increasingly difficult, and both made the decision to retire to their respective rooms before dinner time, promising to meet for breakfast when they inevitably woke up at the crack of dawn.

-*-

Their third flight together was the hardest. Brooke Lynn’s face had lit up the moment she saw Vanessa’s name beside a two-night trip to Cancun on her roster. They’d exchanged excited Whatsapp messages, having swapped phone numbers after breakfast in Seattle the previous two months prior, and planned a visit to a turtle sanctuary to find out “if those cute little fuckers really do try and swim to the moon”, a question Vanessa had been pondering since watching an Animal Planet documentary as a child. The reality, however, wasn’t quite as fun. An oil leak on their original plane meant a four hour wait in the terminal beside increasingly-agitated passengers while a new plane was found. Once they were finally on their way, a lady in the back row – who had most likely spent the delay downing gin and tonics at the airport bar – decided she didn’t like Vanessa’s bilingual English and Spanish announcements, unironically declaring loudly from her seat that “we want to keep America for Americans, we don’t want to be force-fed your taco-eating shit.”

In shock, Brooke left her colleague in the aisle and went to the nearest phone to call the Captain, thinking ahead of the next steps from the ‘dealing with disruptive passengers’ chapter in her training notes. Vanessa, surprisingly, kept her cool.

“Ma’am, I’m Puerto Rican. We eat sorullitos.”

The angry woman stared at Vanessa like she’d just killed a puppy. Her face turned red with rage, and she spat obscenities at Vanessa like they were on special offer. Not wanting to listen anymore, Vanessa just walked away to join Brooke Lynn in the back galley, leaving the passengers around the lady to deal with her themselves. Unfortunately, the captain had decided that the woman was a potential risk to the safety of the aircraft, which is how they found themselves diverting into Charleston and exceeding their maximum time limit for a day’s work. As the rest of the crew debriefed over miniature bottles of wine on the bus to their unplanned hotel for the night, Brooke and Vanessa sat close together in the back row. The taller woman had her arm wrapped around the shorter one’s shoulder, gently rubbing circles into her upper arm. Out of nowhere, the impact of what had happened hit Vanessa. She buried her face into Brooke’s chest, unable to stop the tears which were now falling incessantly from her eyes. Vanessa looked even smaller than normal, as fragile as a glass Christmas bauble. All Brooke could do was hold her closer, stroke her hair, and hope that Vanessa knew that she cared.

Back at the hotel, Vanessa wouldn’t let go of Brooke Lynn as they collected their keys from the bored-looking teenager at the front desk. Brooke had never experienced racism at work before – drunk football fans shouting ‘aboot’ across the aisle didn’t count – but she knew that the most important thing at that moment was to support her friend.

“Do you want to sleep in my room tonight? We can get pizza and watch The Notebook.”

In the short time they had known each other, Brooke Lynn had learned a lot about Vanessa’s favourite things, including her surprising love of all things romantic, despite a less-than-perfect love life about which she often dropped elusive snippets into conversation. Despite never having been one for soppy movies, Brooke wanted nothing more than to spend the evening doing whatever she could to make Vanessa happy.

The short Latina looked up through wet, brown eyes.

“Only if I can borrow your hoodie again, that shit was ugly but comfy as fuck.”

-*-

A month after their failed trip to Cancun, Brooke Lynn and Vanessa had been in contact every day, trying to figure out how to get another trip together. Finally, they were lucky, when Vanessa convinced her friend Silky to swap her night-stop in San Francisco with Brooke for two days in Pittsburgh.

“Think of the ketchup, girl, you’ll love Pittsburgh!”

“Bitch, you are pussy whipped, I better be your maid of honour.”

The words replayed on a loop in Vanessa’s head during her entire journey to the airport that morning. “Pussy whipped.” It sounded disgusting, but she couldn’t deny, there was something so attractive about Brooke Lynn that she couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t just that she was tall, athletic, curvaceous, and had the twinkliest eyes in the universe; she was intelligent, thoughtful, caring, and wickedly funny at the same time. She was never bored when they were together, and she felt entire swarms of butterflies flutter in her stomach every time her phone dinged with a new message from the Canadian. She also gave amazing cuddles. They’d gotten a lot closer over the last month, especially since Brooke had opened up about never having had a serious relationship at their Charleston sleepover. Brooke had also admitted that night to having had no idea that Vanessa was also a lesbian, which elicited even more flirtatious teasing.

“Is it because I don’t wear plaid? Brooky-poo, you can’t just pigeon-hole your sisters like that.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Jesus Christ, I told you, my gaydar has been broken since the 90s! This is why I’m single!”

They spent the long flight to San Fran working together in economy again, their smiles never fading as their bantered with the passengers during the bar round. They were able to remove the frowns from even the grumpiest of businessmen’s faces, which left the colleagues feeling like they were on cloud 9. As they gathered their belongings at the end of the flight, the cabin manager Nina walked down the aisle to see them.

“Those were some of the happiest customers I have ever seen, what on earth did you give them?!” she beamed, her enthusiasm somehow even higher than usual.

“Oh, you know”, began Brooke, “A bit of the ol’ Branjie charm does wonders!”

Vanessa’s snort in response caused the three to burst into hysterical laughter, their good moods only getting better and better.

It wasn’t until they were sat together at a bar on Pier 39 that it was brought up again.

“So, Branjie, huh?” smirked Vanessa, stirring her cocktail with her straw and fluttering her eyelashes at Brooke.

“Yeah, it’s like a… what’s the word for it? A portmanteau. Brooke and Vanjie – Branjie!”

Vanessa couldn’t help but laugh at how comfortable Brooke was explaining it, “you’ve thought about this before, haven’t you?!”

Brooke’s cheeks turned the same colour as her strawberry daiquiri, and she couldn’t drink it quick enough to hide from the fact that she’d been caught. “Well, yeah… I was just brainstorming, y’know. Branjie is better than Broonessa or Vanooke.”

Vanessa successfully maintained serious eye contact with Brooke for four seconds before exploding into uncontrollable laughter, the Canadian joining in immediately. At some point during the raucousness, Vanessa’s hand found its way onto Brooke’s thigh, and Brooke’s foot wrapped itself around Vanessa’s shin. They inched closer until there was virtually no space between them, conversing as before, only this time with far more intimacy. A natural lull in the conversation led to a comfortable silence, where they stared into each other’s eyes, neither sure of how to proceed. Just as Brooke Lynn caught Vanessa’s eyes dart down to her lips, she jumped up from her seat and extended her hand, which Vanessa took graciously.

“Let’s go for a walk, you like sea lions?”

The pier was swarming with tourists, all trying to take photographs of every single square centimetre. Vanessa and Brooke Lynn aimlessly sauntered along, their hands connected and swinging at a gentle pace beside them. Despite not looking at each other, they knew that they were wearing matching smiles. They stopped at the end of the pier and took in the deafening racket from the giant creatures below, huddling together closely to counter the effects of the cool sea breeze.

“Sorry, I thought this was going to be romantic”, sighed Brooke, lightly removing her hand from Vanessa’s and looking down to inspect her nails, a nervous tick she’d developed as a teenager in dance class. “I wasn’t expecting it to smell quite so fishy.”

Vanessa couldn’t help but grin at her counterpart’s sudden shyness, taking it upon herself to make the first move by wrapping her arms around Brooke Lynn’s waist.

“I didn’t even notice.” With that, Vanessa stood as high on her tip-toes as possible and stretched her neck as far as she could, meeting Brooke’s lips halfway in a flurry of quick, chaste kisses. They held each other as they stared out to the sea, the cacophony of the sea lion choir filling the air. It was perfect.

-*-

They saw each other a lot more after San Francisco, meeting for coffee and drinks at home whenever their schedules aligned, or spending hours on Facetime when they didn’t. They were seeing each other, Brooke supposed. It wasn’t official or exclusive, nor had they spoken about what their exact status was, but whatever it was, it was good. It felt right. It had been 52 days since their first kiss, and the Canadian was ready to take their relationship to the next level. Unbeknownst to Brooke Lynn, Vanessa was had also been planning the perfect way to do so as soon as she’d laid eyes upon the 3-night trip to Maui appear on their rosters for next month. Sunshine, sea, and coconut bras… what could possibly be sexier?

The flight passed without a hitch, and all nine crew members chatted drowsily in the hotel lobby as they waited for their room keys to be ready. Vanessa and Brooke were sharing an armchair that was far too small to fit both of them, but they relished the closeness. Drawing gentle patterns onto Brooke Lynn’s lower back, Vanessa put the first part of her plan into action.

“So, I was wondering,” she began hesitantly, clearing her throat as a pair of sleepy green eyes met her brown ones, “since we’ve basically spent all of our last two trips together, do you want to maybe share a room?”

Vanessa knew it was a big step: despite having shared a bed for one night in Charleston, and enjoying an evening kissing during Food Network ad breaks in Brooke’s room in San Fran, they were yet to officially spend a night together together. And a room all to themselves would mean they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, without having to run halfway across the hotel to brush their teeth or change clothes. Vanessa was also desperate to explore every inch of Brooke’s body and do whatever she could to make her feel good, but Brooke’s slight hesitation in that moment made her doubt herself.

“We don’t have to, don’t worry, I was just thinking it might be nice to spend some time alone together since it’s been so long since we’ve been together just the two of us, but I understand if you want your personal space, I know you probably don’t want all my bikinis and shit cluttering up your room and…”

Before Vanessa could finish ranting, Brooke stopped her by pressing their lips together, so soft in contrast to Vanessa’s erratic rambling.

“Yes”, was all she needed to say, before Vanessa grinned like the Cheshire Cat and pulled her in for a longer kiss, not even caring that the rest of their crewmates had already left.

The atmosphere was unusually quiet in the girls’ room. Brooke had opened the door to the balcony, looking out onto the beach, meanwhile Vanessa rifled through her suitcase to find her phone charger. She really should start organising her luggage better one day, maybe Brooke could teach her. Neither had uttered a word to each other since walking through the door to their humble double room, and both seemed reluctant to be the first to break the tension. Eventually, having successfully plugged her phone in to charge, Vanessa decided to take a shower to wash the smell of Boeing off of her skin. Singing off-key to herself as she lathered up her fruity shampoo, she didn’t hear the bathroom door open and close again.

“Need some help?”

Vanessa jumped as she realised that standing in front of her was the most perfect, beautiful woman she has ever seen, completely naked, and looking at Vanessa with matching awe.

“If you want to”, was all Vanessa could muster before pushing herself onto the blonde goddess in front of her, pinning her against the wall of the shower cubicle and kissing her with a passion she’d never known she had. Brooke kissed back with a far greater intensity than any of their previous kisses, moving to nibble at Vanessa’s neck and clavicle.

Not content with not being in control, Brooke Lynn reached her hands down to grab Vanessa’s ass, and in one swift motion lifted her up and spun them around so that the shorter girl’s back was now against the tiled wall, with her legs wrapped as tightly as she could around Brooke’s hips. They continued kissing passionately, grabbing each other’s hair and softly moaning into each other’s mouth, when Brooke, who still had a hold on Vanessa as she inadvertently grinded against the Canadian’s pubic bone, lost her grip and could only watch as the brunette slid in slow-motion all the way down Brooke’s body like a firefighter’s pole, unable to land on her legs in time. She looked down at the shocked brown eyes staring up from the corner of the cubicle floor, not sure how it had happened, when the room was filled with the most glorious sound of Vanessa’s laughter. Once she’d started laughing, she couldn’t stop, which then infected Brooke to the point where neither could breathe. The situation only worsened with Brooke’s failed attempts to pull Vanessa back up again, the women’s hands slipping constantly in the stream of water.

“This wasn’t what I had in mind when I wanted to get you wet tonight”, Brooke barely managed to wheeze out as her stomach muscles ached from their sudden exertion. Just about succeeding to regain composure as Vanessa still howled below her, she turned off the shower and extended her hand, finally managing to pull the brunette up to stand beside her. They shared several soft kisses, hands wandering across their torsos, holding on to each other as if they might suddenly be split apart. As their kisses once more began getting more heated, Vanessa snickered and looked up at Brooke.

“My ass really hurts, I think you should kiss it better.”

All Brooke could do was roll her eyes and continue kissing Vanessa’s face, her smile never faltering.

“You are absolutely unbelievable, I can’t believe I have four more days of this.”

“You love it, really.”

Neither woman could possibly disagree, as they practically sprinted across the 1970’s-patterned carpet and jumped on the bed, which they had no intention of leaving in a hurry.

The whole duration of the flight home was spent with knowing smirks being passed between the other flight attendants as Brooke Lynn and Vanessa tried to remain professional and not hold hands or smash lips at every opportunity.

“Sooooo”, drawled Yvie over a dinner of over-cooked macaroni cheese behind the galley curtain, “did you two enjoy the beach?”

Vanessa began blushing as she stabbed her fork into her foil tray, looking to Brooke to save their dignity, however she appeared to be trying to shrink as far down as possible into her uniform blouse. They weren’t getting out of this one.

“I spent a lot of time there. There were a couple in the room next door to me who kept hammering shit to the walls and screaming about God all day and all night. I hope they had a good time, because I’m fucking tired.”

And with that, Yvie put her meal tray away and walked back out into the cabin, leaving Vanessa and Brooke to stare at each other in silence, willing the bottom of the plane to open up and suck them out.

-*-

They had been an item for six months. It was Brooke’s longest relationship, and the happiest six months of Vanessa’s life. It hadn’t been without its challenges: despite trying to synchronise rosters to spend more time together, they often found themselves on opposite sides of the continent for half of each week. They were eternally grateful for FaceTime, but nothing compared to the feeling of leaping into bed for a nap together after their respective flights home. They had both looked endlessly for flights they could work on together, sending out begging requests to swap at every opportunity, but none had been successful.

That was until Brooke cornered Yvie in the crew room, bought her a coffee, and pouted until the tall, brown-eyed girl had no choice to but cave.

“You still owe me about 20 hours of sleep from Hawaii, I’ll add this to your tab.”

Brooke’s initial plan had been to keep it a secret until the day of the flight to surprise Vanessa, but in her excited state, she couldn’t hold it in for one night.

“I’M COMING TO TAMPA!”

Flight six had been the best flight of all, with a fully-functioning plane, happy passengers, and the woman of her dreams across from her, somehow even making pouring coffee look sexy. Brooke Lynn thought back to their very first meeting, not quite remembering at which point it had all fallen into place, but she wouldn’t have changed a thing. She was in love.

Vanessa, feeling exactly the same way, couldn’t help but ride the overwhelming wave of joy whenever she thought about the tall blonde in front of her, handing out pretzels whilst looking like such a snack herself. Without wanting to scare Brooke Lynn away, Vanessa knew she was in this for the long run.

Just a couple of hours later, they walked through arrivals, each with one hand on their suitcases and the others linked together.

“I hope you don’t mind, baby, but I’ve already sorted out our transport home.” Vanessa smiled and squeeze Brooke’s hand, leading her through the throngs of lost-looking people in the terminal, until they were both embraced by two pairs of warm, welcoming arms.

“Mamá, Tía Alexis, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Brooke Lynn.”

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #fluff #mermelada #tw racism

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emisonme · 6 years ago

Text

Lauren's path..........

I'm not even sure, where to begin. People are banging their heads against the wall, trying to figure out, what the hell is going on, with Lauren and her career.

Again, the first thing you need to understand, is Lauren is still with Syco. If Simco Ltd. owns the copyright to her solo music, she is still under contract with them, period!

It's pretty clear, the initial rumors that Camila and Lauren had solo options in their contracts, were correct. It's also clear, Syco picked up those solo options, as they are the only two still connected to Syco. Syco didn't have solo options on the other girls, but Sony still had control over their recording contracts. After the hiatus, with the exception of Ally, they split the other girls between the Sony Labels.

Camila stayed with Syco/Epic. Lauren is with Syco/Columbia. Normani went to a RCA imprint, with distribution through RCA. Dinah went to LA Reid's new label, that is still connected to Sony. Sony cut Ally loose, and she signed with Atlantic, which is a WMG label.

OK, now, we got the "rumor" that Lauren was signing with Columbia, back in January of last year. A year ago. If they were spreading the "rumor", then the deal was pretty much done. So, she has been a Columbia artist, for at least a year now.

Lauren has said, she didn't start writing her own MUSIC, until the beginning of 2018. It appeared, she was contradicting herself, when she stated she wrote MTT 2/3 years ago, a long ass time ago, and before she started "dating" Ty. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt, and say, she wasn't necessarily lying or contradicting herself.

We all know, Lauren has been writing poetry, and song lyrics, for years. Even before X-Factor. But, lyrics are not the only aspect of a song. Those lyrics have to be set to music, to make a song. I can believe her, when she said she didn't start writing or composing music to go with her poetry/lyrics, until last year, because I think that's what she actually meant...If not, it's just another bullshit lie, among many.

Moving on. In June, they had her opening for Halsey's SA tour, where she performed three of her new solo songs, Expectations, Toy, and Inside. The fans started demanding the studio version of Expectation, so in October, we got it, with a video. Columbia never sent it to radio. It was a promotional single.

In November, she performed two new songs, at the MTV vote after party. They were More Than That and Freedom. The fans asked for MTT to be her next single, and a few days ago, that's what they got. The video will be released Friday. Columbia hasn't set a radio impact date, as of yet. Maybe they are waiting to see what the video will do.

I, too, will wait for the video, to do any kind of analysis of MTT. I will say, the production was subpar. Whoever did the sound mixing, done Lauren a definite disservice.

Lauren said, she is still trying to figure out her sound. That translates to, the Label is still trying to figure out how to market her and her music. It is the Labels responsibility to market the artist and promote their music. The label will monitor the internet, and collect the data, to find out what a particular artists demographic is, and they will cater the artist, to that demographic.

The artist will compile a big song library, for each album. Usually for the first solo album, they will have around 30/40 songs in the can, ready to choose from. The artist and their manager, will work with the label A&R, to choose the best songs for the album, based on the data collected. Columbia had multiple chances to collect that data. BTM, AN, Strangers, IYP, Expectations, Toy, Inside, MTT, and Freedom. They were all used for data mining. The Label A&R will use that data, to guide the artist in the direction to best connect to the public in her demographic.

Once they figure out Lauren's marketing strategy, it is up to the label to promote the music, to the GP. Thy choose the official singles. They choose when and if a single gets sent to radio. If it doesn't get sent to radio, it gets labeled a promo single, and it's up to the artist and their fans, to push it.

Radio looks to Shazam, and the amount of streams a promo single gets, to decide if they want to dedicate air time to it, or not. The more Shazam streams, the better chance it gets ait time. That's why people are always reminding the fans to stream on Shazam, as well as Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming sites.

It's also, usually, up to the label, to get a single put on popular playlists, and which, if any, television appearances for the single.

It's up to the artists management, to promote the artist. They do this, in conjunction with the label. It is the managements job, to create and control the artists/brands public image. They manage how the public sees the artist, when the public sees the artist, and where the public sees the artist.

The PR Teams and Talent Agents, work in conjunction with the management, to get the artist out there, to get attention from the media and therefore, the public.

It is the artist themselves, that has the most important role in their own career. The Label can market the artist, the management can get them attention, but it is completely up to the artist, to make a connection to fans and potential fans. If an artist isn't making a connection to the public, then the rest of it doesn't even matter.

Lauren is more than capable of making that connection. The problem is, her image is turning people off, and I'm not just talking about fans, but also potential endorsements. Her public image, right now, is not a good one, and she knows it. Unfortunately, her damn managers would rather promote Ty and a dog, more than Lauren.

Don't get me wrong, Gracie is cute and Lauren's interaction with her, is adorable. I know they made sure she, and her dog, got nominated for one of the most ridiculous awards ever, but I'd much rather Lauren be promoted and recognized for her talent, than her cute little pet.

Columbia needs to get her a presenter spot at the Grammy's, so she can walk the carpet, and be seen on prime time television. They need to get her a performance spot on the iHeart music awards. Those air on March 19. Hopefully Columbia is ready to release an official single, and she can perform it there, like Camila did.

Honestly, her next single needs to be about something personal. Something inspirational. It doesn't have to be a slow ass ballad, but it needs to be about something that makes folks want to get to know Lauren. Expectations would have been a good choice...IF they hadn't turned everyone off to it, by saying she wrote the damn thing about Ty not being there to cuddle when she wanted him to. (that was literally one of the dumbest explanations for a song, I had ever heard)

I really don't think MTT is that song, either. The subject matter has turned even her own fans off. (I have my own theory about the song, but I'm waiting for the video to see if I'm even close to right) The problem with MTT, is the subject matter automatically takes people's minds to her "cheating" with Ty. Even though she has said, she wrote it before she even started "dating" him. The lyrics just took people there, and that was a turn off, for many. Her next single needs to be something that represents her. Not her fucking "boyfriend", not her fucking dog, but her.

She has plenty of music ready to go, so they really need to get her out there, performing at some of these Festivals. They may not all know who she is at those things, but that's the point, to get her out there, seen and heard.

She really needs to do some of the more popular radio shows, like Zane Lowe. She did good on Zack Sang, but Zane is a pretty good interviewer. He doesn't throw softball questions, so she needs to be ready, and willing to answer all the tough questions.

She hasn't been to Europe or Great Britain since what, 2016. She needs to get over there and show her face. Do some interviews, especially BBC Radio, or whatever it's called. Really, she needs to be doing a lot more than walking around propping Ty's ass up, and packing around her pooch.

Maverick needs to do their damn job, and take her for a sit down with the Spotify and YouTube folks, and make a deal with them, herself. Her Label isn't doing much, but she can talk to them and get them to sponsor her and promote her, for exclusive content. That will get her on all the popular playlists, and billboards. She doesn't need to rely on Columbia to do all this shit for her. She can help herself out, as well.

They need to scrub her SM, especially her Instagram, of anything that might be deemed problematic. The big Brands will not even consider her, for Celebrity Endorsements, if all they see is her partying it up, smoking dope all the damn time.

Lauren is a solo artist, now. She is no longer handcuffed, by a group image, or the set plan for that group. As a solo artist, she does have more say in her career, but she isn't as free as she is letting on. She has more freedom, than she had as a member of 5H, though.

Lauren needs to take some of that new found freedom, sit her management team down, tell them what she wants and expects for her career. If Maverick isn't willing to manage her career, the way she expects them to, then she needs to fire their ass, and find a manager who will.

Yes, she can fire them. As a solo artist, she pays them 15% of her earnings. If they aren't earning that 15%, she can hire someone who will. Camila did. Normani did. She can, too.

They need to put an end to all these stupid narratives. They need to.....You know what, I could sit here all day, and say what I think they all should do, but I'm not Lauren, her manager, or her Label. Maybe they have it all figured out, and are just slow walking her, I don't know. But, I do know, what they have chosen to do thus far, isn't really working, and it's really pissing me off.

Lauren has the talent to succeed in this damn business. She has the intelligence to succeed in this damn business. I just hope she has the will to succeed in this damn business. It's not really going to get any easier, at least not for a while....I really hope she achieves that dream she had when she was younger. I hope she finds that solo success, she always knew she was capable of. I know I'm rooting for her.

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