#it's not necessarily more work to maintain long hair - it's probably less work actually

[blueepink07]

Thinking about this question addresed to Muu...

What's your dream for the future?

Muu wanting to be a model herself it's not something very surprising, sure, especially considering that her mother was a model too.

What are the occupations of your family members?

However I always wondered what kind of model she can be.

Fashion model industry has a requirement for heights. Usually, you need to be at least 170 cm (5'7") to be able to be a fashion model. Because of Kotoko's height and appearance, even Milgram describes her as having features that will make her a good model!

In Japan, the height requirement is less strict, the minimum being 166 cm (5'6").

However, Muu's official height is 162 cm (5'3"), so she doesn't fit the height requirements. And unfortunately for her, the chances of her becoming taller are low, because girls usually stop growing after 15 years old, Muu being older than that.

So how did Muu receive scouting offers if she doesn't fit the requirements to be a fashion model? Well, simple, despite that I always viewed Muu as being a fashion lover, especially after trial 2, there are other types of modelling!

Fashion (Editorial) Model, Runway Model, Commercial Model, Fitness Model, Parts Model and many more! (if anyone is interested I'll put the link here!)

Based on these, Muu can be, most probably, a commercial model and parts model!

Commercial Models are not restricted by age, height, or size, while parts model basically means having body parts and facial features that make you stand out, usually used on editorial, advertising, and catalog work.

Muu has been complimented many times for her looks, even her profile states that she is very beautiful.

But modelling is not just about being considered pretty, you need to have something that makes you stand out!

"Being a model isn't just about being “good looking” or “pretty.” There are a lot of beautiful people in the world. If you're serious about getting into modeling, it's important to have “a look.” There should be something unique about the way you look or the way you're built."

And Muu actually posses this feature!

In the first voice drama, Es is noticing her unusual and pretty face features.

Based on this, we can say that Muu might be a perfect face model!

"Beauty modelling, also known as face modelling, is a category of modelling that takes place predominantly in the beauty industry – so skincare, make-up and cosmetics. Models regularly require extremely close-up photos of their faces, or parts of their faces, so it’s important beauty models are well-groomed and take care of their skin, hair and nails."

Healthy hair and clear skin

Well-maintained nails

"You need to learn how to move the tiny muscles in the face to create different expressions. Can you smile or laugh convincingly on demand? Can you look gloomy or thoughtful at a moment’s notice? If you have a natural poker face and struggle to control or show emotions, you’ll struggle being a beauty model."

Muu is very expressive when it comes to her emotions and feelings. If something bothers her, she will not hesitate to be blunt about it. An event that made her upset? She will show her sadness by crying, will be vocal about it. An action that made her happy? Her body language is easy to read and, with a confident and pretty smile, she'll show her cheerfulness!

Moreover, Muu is able to change her emotions very quickly and easily.

A good example is in her first voice drama, where Muu, after many minutes of crying, is changing her attitude in a few seconds, after seeing Es talking with Jackalope.

So Muu can easily be a famous face model if she truly wants to!

Also, another interesting thing!

Muu is saying that her mother, who was once a model, is not active anymore.

"But while most female models are considered ready for retirement by the time they turn 25, males tend to start later and are more likely to make modeling a long-term career."

Although, 25 is not necessarily the age when female models have to retire, there being many exceptions, depending on how they maintain themselves, for Muu's mother it's very possible that she retired during that age!

If we take Muu's father age, based on this portal timeline conversation:

"Kazui: Hm? Ah…… Kusunoki-chan. Sorry for asking out of the blue, but how old is your father?

Mu: Eh…? Um… I think he’s 41…"

which is 41, and we consider that her mother is the same age, then, when Muu has been born she was 25 years old! The same age when most models retire! So Muu's mother most probably retired short after her daughter's birth!

[perfectlyvalid49]

I wanna weigh in on this as someone with a BA in English that I earned 20 years ago.

And I mention that my experience is from 2 decades ago because this is not a "kids these days" problem. Like the above poster, I read a TON in middle school, and only slightly less in high school. But if my English professors had bothered to ask what my favorite books were, I would not have responded with a classic either. I probably would have gone with something from Discworld at the time, and if not, it definitely would have been something that would have been sneered at for being "genre," which to be clear, is what lit professors say when they mean "trash."

But I think something that needs to be discussed is that English majors were NEVER capable of reading the large volumes of dense text that a professor assigns. My lit classes in general asked students to read a novel a week or more. The Shakespeare class I took asked us to read an entire play, on average, every three to four days. In a vacuum, that's doable, but when you add in the three other classes you're taking (especially if you're taking more than one lit class at a time), and social obligations - well, I can honestly say that I don't know anyone in any of the classes that I took that actually did all the reading. I can also say that the general consensus at the time is that English classes assigned more homework per course credit than any of the other classes we had taken.

I also think that the argument that reading the classics or reading works you don't like in a university setting necessarily helps toward learning critical thinking skills. I can learn to think critically about works that are appealing to me just as easily as I can with works that make me want to tear my hair out. Perhaps even more easily as engaging with the text doesn't feel like a chore. And that Shakespeare class? I actually got docked points on a midterm for not repeating the professor's talking points back on my paper. Literally there was a note next to a paragraph that read "this isn't what we talked about in class." That's not exactly the feedback you give if you want people thinking critically.

Don't get me wrong. I still love reading, and talking about what I read with other people. I love theorizing about what an author meant, or what they might do next if the book is part of a series. And as for long dense texts? I'm a Brandon Sanderson fan - I do fine with those. But that was all stuff that I developed outside of the college setting, and maintained despite what my professors put me though, not because of it.

Ppl on the other hellsite losing their minds over this in every imaginable direction lmao

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

What do you think would happen if Nagisa was actually born biologically as female? I'm curious as to how it would change his character and personality 👀 And if the karmagisa dynamic would change drastically or not

I mean it depends. If Nagisa's birth sex is literally the only difference to canon, there's a chance he might have been less abused by Hiromi? I guess it's easier to look at this from the perspective of him being cisgender, because him still being a boy wouldn't significantly alter canon that much, you'd still have very similar issues I believe. I'll still use he/him pronouns in this post though.

I guess on an inherent level, Nagisa would probably have less of a complex about wearing skirts, having longer hair etc. I still believe he wouldn't LIKE it, but I don't think the same level of, arguably, dysphoria over it.

Hiromi would still probably be almost as bad, though. Her issues were never limited to Nagisa being female, even though that was the crux of it. She also wanted him to be academically successful, work for a specific company, and maintain a sort of hyper femininity? Nagisa being female would just remove that initial barrier to her 'replaying her own life'. I think she'd still be abusive in the same ways, maybe with more of an emphasis on different aspects.

I don't think Nagisa's personality would be fundamentally different, actually. Perhaps this is skewed by my own views on gender. But if we're breaking it down to what's basically a difference in testosterone, Nagisa never really acts with 'masculine' traits as it is. I still think it would be possible for him to be kind of a tomboy and prefer to wear his hair up etc.

His relationships with other characters would certainly be different. And, okay, I'm going to say it here because it's very important if I talk about karmagisa. Modern Japan is very interesting when it comes to gender stuff. And we have to take this with a pinch of salt that, though I have lived there, I'm not a teenager, nor am I Japanese. But generally speaking, you might consider views a little 'backwards'. A lot of women are relegated to housewife roles (mostly a result of 1900s campaigns, look up 'good wife, wise mother' if you're interested). The red light district and *ahem* adult entertainment industry, including brothels lovingly named 'soapworld' basically thrive, where sexual freedom is shied away from otherwise arguably. Long story short, there's a lot of misogyny. It's basically ingrained in the language itself, actually, but that's a very long argument. Point is, as one might expect, that effects relationships between boys and girls as kids. Not necessarily negatively- think of the 'never hit a girl' type of attitude. So, for example, I don't think what happened in episode one with Terasaka would EVER happen here. Similarly, I don't think Nagisa would be as close with Sugino, not in the same exact way at least.

KARMAGISA

I would bet [insert high value here] that they would be romantically canon. 100%. Like, I genuinely don't see any way in which it wouldn't be. If, at least, it's assumed that minimal plot beats change. Civil war probably would have ended with a kiss. I'm not confident that they'd address it much after that (though, valentines day episode?). But like, Chiba and Hayami are clearly canon without it being explicitly spelt out, so.

For the reasons I stated previously, I do think they would be written differently. Their distance, for instance, I really don't think would be significant. That's just kind of how it is, unless they're childhood friends from like nursery age maybe.

I'm also not sure if Karma would have been so forward when they first started hanging out (ie coming up to him and demanding they go to the cinema), though they were also kids, so maybe? I still think they'd have been close friends and it would have broken down in the same way.

Again, I'm uncertain if their relationship would have gone same exactly as it does in the show. Especially the teasing and the one on one time. Though, them hanging out together might definitely cause rumours, especially the Hawaii thing...

(lowkey it would be funny if Sugino's just trying to be a friend, but Karma thinks he just has a crush on Nagisa for like half a year lol)

Without writing like, a whole fanfic about it right here, the other major thing would be civil war. I still fully believe Nagisa's assassination skill is the exact same. I think he and Karma might still fight. But the thing is, even Karma... Look, okay. There's like one manga panel (just take my word for it, it's at the start of kyoto arc) where he shows how he has evidence against people he beat up. The photo he has as 'evidence' or blackmail or whatever it is shows a guy with injuries and a girl who just appears to be crying. Point is, I really doubt Karma would beat up on a girl unprovoked. I doubt he views women as lesser or anything, it's just so ingrained. Even OUTSIDE of Japan.

So yeah, point is, I don't see him physically shoving Nagisa in this version of events. Nor do I see thigh choking occurring. I think you could still get the set up with them yelling at each other though.

Actual civil war, I can picture them fighting pretty much the same however. I think that's different. Though, maybe the onlookers would comment on it more, maybe chastising Karma for being that rough. I could see someone countering, however, that Nagisa's perfectly capable, Karma's merely recognising that. So basically the same as canon, just slightly more nuanced.

Yeah, as I said before, I think they'd make karmagisa canon following this. I don't see it changing their dynamic much more than how I mentioned already though.

Honestly, I argued mostly how I think things would go down from the POV of the writing. My own opinion of the characters, however? There's obviously the issue of sexuality, especially with Karma. Personally I've written him with a variety of identities. I think nowadays my opinion is pretty much gay until proven otherwise (especially since koroq). So, in reality, maybe a female Nagisa would be more of a platonic friend?

That was accidentally a lot. I even tried to be brief. Whoops? Well, that's some analysis anyway. If anyone desperately wants me to go deeper into hcs on this, I don't mind doing so.

[tommyspeakycap]

nsfw alphabet - andy robertson

A - Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He's a sweaty cuddler after sex. He doesn't care that neither of you have cleaned up or that you're both hot, sweaty and sticking together. He couldn't care less. Andy loves to pull your naked body as close to him as you can get with his fingers drawing lazy patterns on your bare skin until you fall asleep comfortably in his arms.

B - Body part (their favourite body part of yours and of their own)

Of yours, has to be your boobs. He just loves them. Loves to knead them between his hands, rolling your nipples between his fingers to arch your back into off the bed so your body is flush against his. However, more innocently he loves your stomach. It's always so soft and warm and it harboured your little kiddies for nine months three different times. He loved to talk to it when they were in there and now whenever you get time to be together, he makes sure every single mark, scar, stretch of skin is kissed and named as beautiful as he truly knows you are.

C - Cum (anything to do with cum, basically…)

Ohhhh in you. He loves to cum in you. Got a bit of a breeding kink to be fair but we'll get into that later. To know you're full of him even when he pulls out of you or to think about you leaking him until he pushes his fingers up to stuff you full of him again is one of the greatest turns ons of his life. However, Andy would also argue there are few sights more fascinating than that of you on your knees in front of him, his cum dripping down your chin as you look up at him through your lashes.

D - Dirty Secret (a dirty secret of theirs)

He gets turned on when people call you Mrs Robertson or (y/n) Robertson or even Robbo's mrs. Anything like that just sends him fuzzy headed. You're his and only his. You have his name, you wear the rings that he gave you and he gets enthralled by calling you "Mrs Robertson" a million times a day and occasionally in bed. Get's him ready to go any time of the day to be honest. Also it’s not dirty, more fluffy and adorable but he gets really, really excited after you get married and he gets to refer to you as his wife. He loves to point you out and just be all awe struck with sparkly eyes as he proudly announces “That’s my wife.”

E - Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Not necisarrily experienced but he is very good with what he does know. You've been together so long that you've learned just about every nook and cranny of each other so no one is left un satisfied at the end of the time you get to spend together. He's learned your body like the back of his hand and even on a day where the sex is as vanilla as can be, you always finish it feeling very satisfied. Also, for some reason that man has absolutely mastered the art of using his fingers.

F - Favourite Position

I get the feeling Andy probably prefers plain old missionary. It's the easiest, risks the least injury possibilities and allows him to see every single reaction and movement of your face as he bottoms out of you before plunging back in balls deep. He loves watching your eyes roll back as his name dances off of your tongue.

However he does also love taking you standing up. He loves the feeling of your legs tight around his waist because your knees were too weak from him to hold you up anymore and despite the fact it is much harder work, it's always well worth it. This usually doesn't happen at home, it tends to be the hidden corridors and empty rooms of Anfield after matches that are subject to said against the wall sex.

And finally, possibly his favourite is also watching you sink down onto his length, eyes fluttering shut. You take the reigns and he just melts, turning to putty in your hands. He rests both large palm on your upper thighs, fingertips bruising the soft skin of your bum, but they usually wander to your boobs until he’s reaching his high, where on will return to your bum and the other will grab a fistful of the bedsheets in a white knuckle grip as hips buck instinctively until he shoots his load into you with a loud shout. He loves when you ride him whether that’s lying on the bed, sitting up on the couch where he has an angle for his thrusts or if it’s simply you, rubbing yourself against the material of his shorts until he tugs them from the way and allows you to coat his bare thigh in your juices. He loves to be ridden.

G - Goofy (are they more serious or humorous in the moment)

He's a goofy guy through and through. He actually strives to make you laugh during sex because its the most intimate way and space a person could ever make the person they love giggle. It's usually when he's going in hard, almost always afterwards anyway. He'll share or tell little jokes or one liners that make you giggle, a blush heating your cheeks because he's still literally balls deep inside of you and you're giggling away. He just adores everything about it and making you laugh during sex always feels like an extra accomplishment.

Although if he's frustrated or got a lot of pent up energy then no ones laughing. The only noises that can be heard as slapping skin and you on those occasions and no one is complaining.

H - Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes etc)

We've all seen that video from Jordan Henderson's insta story so we all know it appears as though he is completely clean shaven down there. He's not necessarily got a strict routine, he just maintains himself how he likes it as he pleases. It's his beard you think about. Andy likes to keep his faint beard and when between your thighs, it definitely makes all the difference.

I - Intimacy (how they are during the moment? are they romantic?)

He can be quite romantic depending on the occasion (birthdays, anniversaries, valentines etc) but romance is subjective. Some may like rose petals and candles, but you're happy with just Andy really. He can make things romantic sometimes and other times he's just Andy, making jokes and making you feel ridiculously good. Although he certainly can dress up nice, putting on suit, lighting some candles and dimming the lights kind of evening. Those are few and far between but you're certainly not complaining.

J - Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He doens't do it a lot really. Maybe in the beginning of your relationship but almost never now. The time that he does want to get it on is always when you're there. Otherwise he's at training or with the kids or something like that. He's rarely not busy. When off travelling, Andy may opt to take things into his own hands purely for a release that he needs if he's feeling a bit wound up and missing you. There was one particular point however in your first pregnancy where you got all embarrassed one morning before admitting that the hormones raging around in you had conjured up a dream about Andy jacking off and you getting to watch, so occasionally he'll treat you with that in a nod to that little thing you love that has stuck around ever since.

K - Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Like I mentioned earlier, he has a bit of a breeding kind and further to that, he was absolutely always turned on for pretty much the whole of your pregnancy. He found himself doing a lot of jacking off then because you unsurprisingly weren't up for it most of the time that he was during the course of those nine months. But he was absolutely ravenous seeing you all swollen with his baby. He wanted to be all over you all the time. It just made him wild with desire.

He also has a hefty thing for winding you up in public. One time, at a players gala he fingered you under the table while everyone was eating and you had to sustain a conversation with Jordan Henderson, his wife and Jurgen Klopp. Andy just got so hard knowing what he was doing to you under the table and no one has any idea. It was marvellous; watching you fight everything back as he felt you clenching around his fingers, trying not to arch your back or buck your hips against him. You had a white knuckle grip on your silverware by the time your orgasm rippled through you and you had to pretend that you had chocked on your meal in order to cover up the small cry you let out.

To this day, Andy still whispers about it in your ear when you're in public and you're still waiting for a time to get one over on him for it.

L - Location (favourite places to do the deed)

He’s not really got a preference. Like i said earlier he really like to take you up against the wall, but he’s also partial to bending you over a counter or sinking you down onto him in the front seat of his car. He just is willing to take you anywhere really. Personally though one of his favourite is the shower. Your body can be all slippery, soapy and warm, reactive to his touch and despite the slight danger of possibly slipping, the heat of one of your legs hooked up around him, as he uses the stamina he’s gaining from being a professional athlete to pound himself into you as you yelp and shout out his name. The heat and steam just makes everything better.

M - Motivation (what turns them on/gets them going)

He is also insanely turned on by you in the mornings, groggy and messy haired with a sleepy smile and tired eyes. Watching you clamber out of bed ready to take on the day again with those little kids who laugh like you and yell instead of talk like Andy. You'll also usually emerge from bed wearing one of his old shirts or strips - like an old Hull City training shirt he hasn't worn in 5 years or a stupid cheap t-shirt he bought when he was 18 working in M&S that he thought he lost but actually had ended up being yours. You'll sit up on the bathroom sink while he showers, brushing your teeth ridiculously early just so you both get some time with each other before the little devils wake up. He'll stand between your legs, going in for a kiss that deepens until he's lining himself up with your entrance having pushed your very unflattering underwear to the side and you'll have to be as quiet and as quick as possible. He just loves every minute of living his life with you - even sneaky sex in the bathroom at not even six in the morning. He'll gladly take it.

N - NO (turns off, something/s they won’t do)

Andy is not at all interested in adding another person to the mix. He's surprisingly private as a person and he doesn't ever want your sex life to be something that comes out into the open to be talked about. There is always a risk with another person, plus he doesn't see either of you actually getting any pleasure out of it when sex is so good already. He probably will also never record or take pictures of the ac because he knows how easy it is for these things to end up in anyones hands. When he was younger, he used to. Andy had a really favourited picture of you on your knees in front of you with his hand in your hair as you look up at him after sucking him off. Cum and saliva were dripping down your chin and he still thinks about that long since deleted picture to this day. Andy is great at remembering things in his mind anyway, so he doesn't feel the need to create sex tapes that one day his kids might have to deal with when they're older if it ever breaks onto the news.

O - Oral (are they good? do they prefer giving or receiving?)

Honestly he prefers receiving but he definitely does not shy away from giving. Oh my god the beard burn he gives you is literally to die for, the perfect amount of friction he talks so much that his tongue is his lost exercised muscle so he is very, very good with it when it comes to going down on you. To be fair, it is one of those things that he wasn’t always very good at, but he has vastly improved and now it is something you will never ever turn down.

However, being sucked off by you is probably one of his favourite things ever. He literally cannot get enough of it, watching you get him off. God it’s unreal. Meanwhile he’ll have his head thrown back against the ball, hands on your hair muttering, “That’s it, pretty girl, fuck, perfect. Beautiful.” And you’re soaking wet waiting for him already.

P - Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual?)

He’s usually going for fast and hard. It’s all sweaty bodies and rapid breaths, whimpering out his name as his skin slaps against yours. He can be very sensual but rarely ever slow. His pace lets him reach every inch of you, pushing into you in every way as your nails drag down his back with your ankles linked around his waist. The way his muscles ripple quickly and his body clashes with yours is hot and fiery and perfect. He loves it, you love it. Why bother doing anything else?

Q - Quickie (their opinion on quickies. do they prefer it? how often?)

Dear lord Andy loves a quickie. Slamming into you with his finger over your mouth, warning you to be quiet in a Hampden park back room? Bliss. Pure bliss. He could get off just thinking about it. Post-match quickies are very common and when you become parents, quickies are also necessary when short on time. He prefers to have all the time in the world to take on you, but he will never complain about having a quickie.

R - Risk (do they think to experiment? willing to take risks?)

Andy loves the risk. He loves to pump his fingers into you under tables or have his fingers wound in your hair as you suck him off in a fancy marble walled bathroom at a gala. The rush of potentially being caught always heightens the pleasure. When you were younger and he used to still live with his parents, he didn’t care for the thumping of his headboard against the wall as much as you did. He just loves that he can have you like putty in his hands wherever. It’s not about the people there, it’s about the fact he can drive you crazy and he is in full control and nobody even knows. Although, you too like to get your own back on him, shuffling around in his lap during movie nights so he has to stay glued to the couch the rest of the night because of the hard bugle in his jeans. He’s also into experimenting. Anything that could bring you more pleasure? Bring. It. On.

S - Stamina (how many rounds? how long do they last?)

Everybody says that Andy is one of the biggest grafters in the team in terms of his engine. He could run forever, so i don’t see him being at all different in the bedroom. He could genuinely probably go forever and he very, very much loves to do so. When you’re wildly overstimulated, muscles tight, skin shining with sweat as you pant and gasp for breath beneath him, he gets intoxicated by it. His eyes drink your in, flicking over your face and taking in every little bit of you. He commits it to memory every time, each better than before.

But yeah, Andy could go for hours and honestly he will. It’s a very special treat for you always. Plus, who doesn’t like a guy who can go hard and fast four three rounds and still be fully ready to go down on you afterwards?

T - Toys (do they own any? do they use any? if so, preference?)

He does own a few, all funny little things he bought to tease you with. Like little vibrators that he can press again your clit and stuff like that. He doesn’t use them often and many he got when he was injured and couldn’t have sex with you the way usually would it would want to.

U - Unfair (do they like to tease? if so how much/often)

Aaaaabsolutely. He’s a massive tease. Andy absolutely loves having you writhing and whimpering beneath him, begging to have him fully in you or to go faster, to just move. Loves it. Definitely a big fan of edging you so close until you’re hazy, incoherent and begging for an orgasm that’ll ripple through your whole body so every in a five mile radius will know his name. Whenever you’ve got the time and the freedom, he’s teasing you and sometimes it’ll start in the morning before he leaves for work and he won’t finish it till much later it the day, making for an even more intense orgasm.

V - Volume (are they loud? what sounds do they make?)

Not necessarily loud, but he is very very very into dirty talking right into your ear. His hot breath tickling at your neck between kisses, grazing his teeth against your sensitive skin, god it drives you crazy. He’ll hum against your clit about how wet and ready for him you are and tell you the whole time how beautiful and perfect you are. It’s both romantic and painfully attractive. Apart from that he’s mostly grunts and some groans of your name but the sound he makes when he cums is *chefs kiss*. It’s deep and guttural, coming straight from the base of his throat when his eyes screw shut and his mouth drops open. It’s unbearably hot.

W - Wild Card (random headcanon)

He low-key loves to be marked by you. Not even actively, just passively almost?? Like he doesn’t think about it at the time but afterwards when he’ll spot the scratches down his back when he passes the mirror or if the guys comment on it in the changing room, it makes him feel good. He’s glad everybody knows he belongs to someone in every way, from the most romantic and simply to the most intimate. And knowing you have the faint, painless bruises from his fingertips on your hips with little nipped in love bites around your breast makes him feel satisfied that he’s left you with a memory of the evening. Even just you wearing your wedding ring or looking down at his own on his hand proudly makes him silently happy and all fuzzy inside in a completely non-sexual way because you’re so happy to show off to the world that he’s yours and your his you both love each other so so much.

X - Xray (what’s doing on beneath the belt?)

Again, i’m sure we all seen that video on Jordan Henderson’s insta story the other week, so we all know he is fairly packing. He’s not got anything extravagant or jaw dropping, but it’s still moderately bigger than bang average. It’s honestly just more about what he does with it and how he reaches every but of you that’s the wow factor.

Y - Yearning (how high is their second drive?)

Pretty high, to be fair but nothing out of the ordinary. like it’s not overkill but it’s usually completely unscheduled. Some weeks you’ll want to jump his bones every single night and he’ll fuck you twice a day and other time they’ll be a week between it. Schedules can be awkward and after you get married and have kids it’s a lot harder for things to run to any kind of plan. At the moment, it’s more of an ‘if we have time let’s just fucking go for it’ kind of thing. Although his sex drive is always higher when you’re pregnant or if the team are having a winning streak.

Z - zzz (how quickly do they fall asleep afterwards?)

Both of you fall asleep pretty quickly after sex now to be honest. You’ll usually fall asleep first because he’s tells sweet, soft jokes while stroking your hair and drawing circles on your skin softly. It’s very soothing. And then once you’ve fallen asleep, fatigue usually finds him quite quickly, but he’ll get up out of bed and clean you up a little because he’s ever the gentlemen. Then he’ll climb into bed and fall asleep pretty much instantly once you’re wrapped back in his arms.

[wutheringmights]

I just read the newest chapter and I loved it! ♥ ♥ ♥ I was wondering if you had some hcs about the engineer that you could share?

Awww I'm glad you like it! I just spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what "HCS" meant before realizing I'm a tired idiot who can't read lol

But yeah! I got some headcanons for the engineer/Spirits I can share!

These headcanons are a mix of things I generally believe for any iteration of the Hero of Spirits and a few things exclusive to CTB. It's pretty obvious which are which.

Technically this is slight spoilers since most of this is not mentioned in-story, but Warriors is a such a self-centered asshole that I'm not sure when I can get him to explicitly ask about Spirit's backstory lol

This got super long and kind of just became me talking about Spirits's entire backstory, so enjoy:

Spirits is sixteen during the course of Spirit Tracks, mostly because that was the vibe I got from him when I first played the game (I made him younger for CTB)

He's not descendant from Wind (who I maintain disappeared instead of settling in New Hyrule); instead, he's Aryll's great grandson

His family name used to be Outset, but when everyone who originally immigrated from Outset island took on that last name, they changed it to Aryll to reflect the family matriarch

So Spirit's full name is Link Aryll, though there is a branch of his family that uses Macaryll instead

The Aryll/Macaryll family is huge; everyone has at least six aunts and uncles on all sides of the family and they can trace back how they are related to Aryll

"I'm Grandma Aryl's third son's second daughter's fifth child." -someone Spirits is related to, probably

He actually never met his great grandmother; she died before he was born.

Spirit's dad was full-blooded Lokomo while his mother was Hylian; his mother passed a few months after he was born after never truly recovering from childbirth while his father died in a fishing accident when he was eight

He went to live with an aunt and uncle who owned a general store; their relationship was polite at best. The aunt and uncle told Spirits upfront that they intended to give the store over to his cousin when he was older so Spirits needed to come up with his own life plan

Spirits didn't necessarily mind since he never wanted to work in a store for the rest of his life, but the ultimatum made it clear that they didn't care for him like a son

To this day, their relationship isn't strained and he doesn't hate them. But whenever they meet, he's overly polite; they're more acquaintances than family

He's cool with his cousin though. They have different interests so they aren't best friends, but they're okay.

Spirits also always had his spirit-sensing abilities. It's really like a sixth sense to him, as normal and automatic as seeing and hearing; he actually didn't realize this wasn't normal until he was a little older

His abilities at this point are limited to sensing vague ideas of a person's spirit (if they're light or dark, etc.), and seeing ghosts (which are really rare. You have to have a lot of power yourself to become one)

(Note: I'm not the only one who headcanons Spirits as having spirit sensing abilities; if you know who can up with the idea, please let me know so that I can tag/credit them!)

The elder of his village told him that select Lokomo had minor spirit sensing abilities, and those who did were traditionally made elders of their villages; being more of a follower than a leader, Spirits adamantly dismissed that idea and refused to be trained on how to hone his spirit senses. He also never learned any of the religion behind it

Which was a little worrisome since his abilities are way stronger than most

Besides, he's always liked trains and it's been his dream to travel around the kingdom as an engineer; being some town's elder would get in the way of that

Anyway, Spirits had to pass a written exam before being accepted as an apprentice engineer, so he's very studious and has a lot of drive (pun unintended?)

He went to live with his Uncle Niko during his apprenticeship in another town; Niko isn't related to him, but he's been a friend of the family for so long that everyone secretly thinks he's actually related to someone and they just forgot who

Niko is his real family, hands down. Those two are as thick as thieves and bring out the wild side in each other

A preteen Spirits used to think Niko was a little lame and kind of embarrassing, but now that he's older, he's all for Niko's weird old man-ness and has even picked up on some of his weird old man-ness himself

That being said, they're both disasters. Neither can clean or cook or do any kind of housekeeping and their shared house is cluttered with Niko's art projects and Spirit's half-finished tinkering

Growing up, Spirits had no idea he was related to the legendary Hero of Wind; Aryll died before he was born, but even in life she was filled with too much grief over her missing brother to discuss it often. Within the family, being related to the Hero of Wind is a rumor at best.

Of course, Niko knows but keeps it a secret from Spirits; once he got back from his LU-adventure, Wind told Niko about the curse of the Hero's Spirit. Then he went missing post-New Hyrule's founding, which really drove the terror of the curse home. Niko thought he could keep Wind's family from falling victim to it by not inadvertently encouraging them to follow in Wind's footsteps

So Niko kept it a secret

And obviously, that didn't work

Spirits' quest to save New Hyrule resulted in him realizing that he needed to embrace his Lokomo heritage and get a handle on his spirit powers; Anjean gave him a little training during his quest but afterwards he traveled around the kingdom to find as many people as he could with abilities like his

They were all really excited to teach him what they knew, especially the religious aspects of the abilities; Spirits is still not the most religious person, but he at least understands and embraces the cultural significance of what he is able to do

This is where he learned how to read a person's Spirit to get an idea of their life experiences and the kind of person they're like; he can also detect where a person is without having to put much effort into it

At Zelda's encouragement, he also got more sword training from the Castle Guard. She offered him a place among them, but he turned it down in favor of remaining an engineer. He still helps around as a swordsman when he can and will act as Zelda's body guard

Speaking of which, he and Zelda are 100% in love. Their relationship started out as puppy love but over the years as matured into a deep connection built on mutual respect

When he's working on designing new engines or parts for his trains, he occasionally brings his drafting materials to the castle gardens so that he can work alongside Zelda; sometimes she falls asleep leaning against his arm and he has to be careful not to shake her awake as he works

Whenever she need to go anywhere in the kingdom, she rides in his train and teasingly criticizes his conducting; he takes a lot of pride in his conducting, but he lets her get away with it since her critiques are objectively hilarious

He keeps a tiny pictograph of her taped to his dashboard

But there's a bit of a problem with their relationship, and it's that he doesn't know if he wants to be the prince consort or not. He does love her, but that would mean giving up being an engineer in favor of being stuck at the castle all of the time

Plus, he's doing great as an engineer; he's saving up to open his own garage that produces his own train designs

Eventually, he leaves for the War of Eras

His experiences with Warriors leaves him more sure than ever that he doesn't want to be the prince consort, resulting in him ending his relationship with Zelda shortly after he returns home

It hurts for a long time to be around her since all of his old feelings keep coming back, so he keeps his distance for a long time; it takes a few years for him to go back to hanging out with Zelda as friends

But now she's approaching marriage age, and he spends a lot of time when he's on body guard duty super jealous of these princes and ambassadors from foreign kingdoms who try to court her

But again, he knows he can't be in a relationship with her so he respectfully and silently pines over her (I'm just a sucker for pining, okay?)

Okay, more random headcanons that are a little less sad

Spirits likes super spicy food, but since he can't cook to save his own life, he just eats whatever he can get his hands on

He's super dirty all of the time, just the epitome of scrappy; there's always a smear of oil somewhere on his person

He actually really hates bathing and only keeps his curly hair in check to comply with train safety regulations

He's really polite and a little shy, but once he loosens up, he gets talkative and personable

He's also very contemplative; he likes conducting so much because he gets to spend long stretches of time alone with nothing but his thoughts

His trauma/stress response is to shut down; he goes quiet, loses energy, and sleeps for longer periods of time

He tends to gravitate towards socializing with people who are older than him, which gets him labeled as being no fun by his peers (despite having someone as cooky as Niko for a uncle)

Post-adventure, his best friend is Linebeck III. They're drinking buddies. Neither can really explain why they even like hanging out as much as they do

(I just like the idea of Linebeck accidentally getting attached to one kid and his whole bloodline getting forever tangled with Wind's; they're bros for multiple lifetimes)

Not only is Spirits good at designing and building new machinery, but he's great at tinkering; he can fix almost anything and will buy broken things on purpose just to have something to fix

No one really knows he's a hero; he doesn't like the attention and, at his request, Zelda did her best to keep his involvement with Malladus a secret

Because not many common people know about his adventure and records of New Hyrule are very rare, he's considered in Warrior's time to be a forgotten hero; some scholars believe that a Hero of Spirits may have once existed, but if he did, no one really knows who he was or what he did to serve the bloodline of Hylia

[aotopmha]

The extra pages for chapter 139 seem to be pretty much finally out!

And they're a bunch panels relying on visual storytelling which need to be put in context by the reader/you need to maybe think about it for 10 seconds instead of 2, something I've learned the internet does not like in storytelling. (Or in general, considering how much misinformation is out there.)

I think Kunihiko Ikuhara's works were my first exposure to this element of the internet in full force; they're some of the lowest-rated stories in some of the typical websites where anime is discussed and they're all mostly very reliant on metaphor and visual storytelling.

I've seen 12 episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena and a little bit of Yurikuma Arashi and I think you really need to completely engage with those stories to get what is going on. Almost all of the dialog in those stories seems to matter and to need as much of the context as possible to understand.

And to me a story which asks you to engage and put things together for yourself is what I look for in art and I think is art.

The reason why I have yet to go back to those stories is because they are so very dense and you really just need to be in a certain mindset to watch them.

AoT Chapter 122 and now these new pages are 100% visual storytelling.

AoT Chapter 122 in particular is still one of my favourite manga chapters ever because of how it portrayed a character's perspective with very limited dialog.

The thing with AoT is that I think these moments of visual storytelling are like a less dense and complex version of Ikuhara's storytelling, but they have the same elements.

A lot of context-dependent information in relatively few panels is in 122 and 139, that's why I think people get the sense the story is excusing Eren, for example.

Most of those complaints I've felt are very bad faith, but if I believe in the good and intelligence of humanity for once, maybe it really is that awkward prose that confuses and offends people, not the desire to be morally superior over a comic.

In that sense I think people read the words "thank you" Armin says to Eren and nothing else around it or just find the phrasing to be strange.

They don't go to reread the previous chapter or arc just in case they might've missed something.

Months/years-long breaks between material also assist in not really considering anything else but that one chapter in that one month.

And it just so happens art is also a very individual emotional experience, so "monkey brain" just fully kicks in, too.

To me if you think about it, what the story is saying is pretty obvious the moment Eren became the antagonist. This shift happened in Marley, 40 chapters or so ago.

But this is just what *my* mind leads me to and makes connections with based on the information I have absorbed from the story.

And it's not just that, too. I make connections to what the story was trying to do with Reiner, Kenny, Bert, Erwin or Annie because they were also serial killers/murderers the story took effort in humanising.

The importance of individual perspective and what these characters individually think and how they view themselves seems to be one of the most important aspects of the story.

Because ultimately one of the most important thematic threads of the story seems to be understanding different perspectives.

So why is Eren any different than all of the other mass murderers in the cast?

Because all of the big murderers in the cast get empathy and moments where characters try to understand them, no?

To actually address the pages, here's the general points and my thoughts:

-The whole deal with Mikasa and OG Ymir is that I think Mikasa tries to again, find the good in OG Ymir's suffering.

Her having her children lead to the lives of many people, including hers to be born and Mikasa thanks her for that.

This is a parallel to Eren, whose actions at least gave his friends their lives back. This also ties into Armin's point in chapter 137 about living life for those good moments and Mikasa's promise in chapter 138 to remember Eren for all of the good he did for her.

-Mikasa having a family with probably Jean (which is probably implied with the small scene on the boat) is such a minor thing that I just find hard to care about it at all. The focus on Mikasa really wasn't with it the point to emphasize how she now has kids.

And Mikasa and Historia are still the only characters we see get kids. There really actually isn't anything with anyone else (the spoiler about Armin and Annie doesn't seem to be real at all).

-People visiting the tree is a much more limited panel than the initial leaked images lead on. It's not a tourist attraction, it's something I think the families of Eren's friends ended up visiting. So this also gives it a much more "selfish" vibe.

-Armin's talk with Eren and the scene on the boat with Pieck now gets some pretty nice additional context (makes sense considering Isayama considered it one of the bits to be clumsy himself) because of the panels of Paradis at war in the future.

Those panels don't necessarily say Paradis was completely destroyed by war (we see the black-haired kid), but the alternatives also make the same point: Eren's methods didn't really bring peace.

It sort of gives the promise Armin made to Eren and his words on the boat a more sadder tinge.

Armin tried so hard to make something good out of the mess Eren left everyone. He tried hard for diplomacy to triumph, but war still happened because that's how humanity works.

There's also the layer of violence begetting violence and extremism also hurting your own people. The Jaegerist movement Eren ended up creating probably caused this war on Paradis. I think that's the implied thing with Historia's speech.

The final layer to Eren's actions is the giant Titan tree that literally grew out of his grave: what he did just lead to more cycles and the whole mess might just start again.

But we don't really actually see that happen. It's only a possibility.

Will the kid go in there to get the power and save his people from misery or will he consider the past?

We don't know. It all depends on what he knows of the past and this tree, how his parents presented the past to him, how the world shaped his perspective and yes, also his nature, too.

But the point is, Eren's actions had some good, but mostly bad consequences.

Puts Annie's and Pieck's comments in a stronger perspective, too.

I still maintain this ending is good. Not my favourite material from AoT, but good.

And I'll repeat what I said before that repeating the story's point in more concrete ways gives satisfaction in its own right.

[naralanis]

My first pen was a Pilot Metro Retro. And was promptly broke by an E-2 I let borrow it to sign paperwork (i kept the cap so he would have to give it back, but alas). And then a couple years later I jumped to a TWSBI Vac700 Iris. Anyway, i have a few different pens, but I havent found even a basic instruction on how to tune tines or maintain them besides washing them out with distilled water. And suggestions?

Hi there! Sorry about your Metro, and hope you're happy with the TWSBI! I once let someone borrow my Décimo and they... mangled it. Heartbreaking! I was eventually able to fix it, but it took some doing, and it was also a last ditch effort -- I was already fully prepared to dish out the money for a brand new nib unit, so I figured there was no harm in trying.

I'll get to the easy stuff first: if your fountain pen is writing OK, it doesn't really require more maintenance than a good flush every now and then. You don't even have to use distilled water (unless the water in your area is like, exceedingly mineral-heavy) -- plain tap water and regular dish soap will do just fine.

As for nib tuning/readjustments, they are not part of a pen's general maintenance. Readjustments are done if there's a problem with how your pen is writing, and personally I view nib tuning as something done to improve the experience to the user -- mostly to smooth a scratchy nib.

Here's the short answer as to why info on making these adjustments is a little less widespread (though still relatively easy to find):

1) While often simple, these alterations can be a bit fiddly, and it's very easy to irreparably damage your pen.

2) These alterations, but especially tuning/otherwise modifying your nib/feed, will almost certainly automatically void your pen's warranty.

Keep that in mind if you decide to undertake any tuning -- it is always at your own (and your pen's) risk.

That's the short of it! For the (much, much) longer version, as always, see below the cut!

sorry this one took so long, I got really, really into it and it is stupidly long adalskjadhls

So, first things first. Your pen writes completely fine, you wash it every now and then or whenever you're changing inks, and have an overall pleasurable experience writing with it.

Congrats! Nothing else needs to be done. Enjoy your pen.

Now, let's say your pen isn't writing completely fine. Maybe it's skipping, maybe it feels scratchy, maybe it's laying down too much ink or not enough.

Before you go straight to tuning your nib, the first thing you do is: you clean it.

"But Nara, I already cleaned it." Clean it again. You'd be amazed how often a more thorough flush fixes simple flow problems -- do it with dish soap if you used only water the second time.

The next step? Try a different ink, if you have some. Then, try some different paper. It's good to have a paper/ink combo that you're familiar with to use as a standard. I like to use a Rhodia No. 19 Dot Pad and Waterman Serenity Blue to test all of my pens -- nearly every pen I buy writes an 'inauguration' page with that exact combination.

If your pen is a cartridge/converter, always make sure the cartridge or converter is the right fit and that it's seated properly. It should fit securely without a ton of pressure -- if you can basically bop it off without trying, it's probably the wrong fit. If the converter provided to you by the retailer doesn't fit, contact them -- maybe you got a defective pen.

Alright, so you've done all of the above, but your pen is still writing funky or not at all. Now it's time to take a closer look at the nib.

Enjoy this expertly made reference image I made on my phone before I realized I could just link you to a better one.

Before you start researching how to tune/grind your nib, let's check the nib and feed alignment -- the feed is what allows the ink to travel from reservoir to paper, and if cleaning your pen hasn't solved the problem, there's a good chance it is probably not seated correctly.

Here's what you should check for:

1) Make sure your feed is flush to the underside of your nib

If there's a major gap between the underside of your nib and the top of the feed (where the ink channel is), the ink simply can't get to where it needs to be (i.e. the tip of the nib). I

If there is a major gap, you can check if your nib and feed are seated correctly in the nib section. This depends a little bit on the pen and the model, but most of the time, you can try grasping nib and feed together and gently pushing down. Remember to never grab your nib by the shoulders/tines, as that will most likely ruin it.

2) Make sure your feed is properly centered with the nib.

This is easier to check if your pen has a breather hole, which most of them do. Basically, check to see if the ink channel at the top of your feed (you can see it through the breather hole) lines up with the ink slit. Here's a good example:

And here are... not so good ones. Coincidentally, both on Conklin pens.

This is usually a simple fit -- sometimes you can gently wriggle it back in place. Other times, you need to remove the nib and feed from the collar (basically the plastic thing that holds the nib unit together) or they are friction fit to the section altogether (like in the Lamy AL-Star). Do a bit of research on your pen model before you try disassembling it.

Feed is centered? All good to go? OK, now we move on to checking the metalworks, so to speak. I recommend using a magnifying glass or loupe for this part. Here's the one I use.

4) Check your tines for a) factory oopsies and b) misalignment.

Here's an example of tines that were just... cut very wrong (sorry for poo-poo pic quality, but you should be able to see the tine on the right just... ain't right)

In the case above, contact your retailer. I noticed this one before even inking my pen, but they should cover a replacement regardless.

DISCLAIMER: all adjustments from here on out may void your pen's warranty.

(maybe not a simple realignment, but don't risk it, or ask your retailer before you try anything).

Here's an example of slightly misaligned tines (ON THE SAME PEN AFTER EXCHANGE BTW).

I stupidly didn't get pictures of my Décimo or the Duragraph above looking straight at nib pointing up -- you could actually see one of the tines sloping slightly downward. That causes unbearable (to me) scratchiness and can tear off paper fibers. No fun.

There are better examples from JetPens' Fountain Pen Troubleshooting Guide (which you should absolutely check out!)

You can fix misaligned tines yourself. It requires patience, a little pressure, and a lot of finesse not to overdo it. You can manually bend the tines back into place, but before you try it yourself, I recommend going to YouTube to see how other pen people do it. My method is similar to this one, but there are several others. You can use your fingernail to push it down, just be very careful with how much force you use.

The one method I personally don't recommend is, ironically, the one JetPens recommend on their guide. It might work just fine, but I just think it is way too easy to overdo it and get splayed tines or create a major gap between nib and feed.

OK, seems like the tines on your pen are fine? Time to...

5) Check the distance between your tines.

Your tines should, ideally, be juuust a hair apart-- only enough for the ink and capillary action do their thing. They shouldn't be touching, since that would hinder ink flow, but there should not be a gulf of distance between them either. Let's revisit another Conklin

Yay. Fun.

This is also fairly simple to fix, but again: you have to be delicate about it. I manually manipulate my tines into position and kind of go by feel by now, always testing and checking with my loupe. Here's how PenBoyRoy does it:

Again, there are many different methods, and you will often hear different things from different pen people. It's down to preference and what works for you!

OK, now we've gone through an odyssey of troubleshooting (I AM SO SORRY), let's talk about nib tuning.

Yet another disclaimer: doing anything I describe below will 100% void your pen's warranty.

Tuning your nib isn't necessarily fixing it. It certainly can, if you've done pretty much all of the above and everything looks fine but the pen isn't writing the way you want it to. I use it to smooth down pens that are technically writing OK, but the experience of writing with them isn't entirely pleasant for me.

Essentially, you're using a rougher surface to basically... 'sand down' your nib. There's a wide variety of techniques (from using a rough paper bag all the way to actual fine-grit sanding blocks), but the most important detail you need to remember is you're removing tipping material (however little).

While tuning your nibs isn't necessarily hard, it's very, very easy to overdo it, and that will cause pretty much irreparable damage. If tuning nibs is something you're interested in, practice on inexpensive pens first -- I practiced on ye olde Pilot Varsity.

The Varsity is great to practice tuning because 1) it's super cheap, so even if you fuck it up completely, it's not the end of the world. 2) It has a medium tip.

The bigger the tip = the more tipping material = more room for error.

I mainly use two things to tune my pens: micromesh and mylar paper, which are both super fine abrasives. Goulet (and other pen retailers) sell entire nib-tuning kits with everything you might need to get started, but here's my own (plus a few extras that may look scary, but trust me, you don't need all of this):

In my pen kit above, you can see my newer sheets of micromesh and mylar and the scribbles I use to tune my nibs. I hold the pen the way I normally would when writing with it, and scribble over the abrasive, but I don't do it randomly. Figure 8s are usually the go-to for simple tuning; you can also go a particular direction if you know exactly which area of your nib needs to be smoothed.

Again, even micromesh and mylar paper (particularly the latter) are incredibly fine abrasives, it is still very easy to overdo it. I have fucked up nibs before, mostly on my practice pens, but also on a not-super-cheap pen, and I had to buy a whole new nib unit.

So, like I said, possible? Very! Simple? Sure! Finicky? Hell yeah.

Side note: tuning a nib is mostly just making it write more smoothly. If you'd like to change the shape of the tipping material entirely (and thus create line variation), that is totally something that can be done!

It is called nib grinding, and it is better left to the professionals, but it is super cool!

pOK, I didn't quite mean to go into a full nib troubleshooting post, but I should have known my brain could not be stopped. Hopefully, this (extremely) long-winded, tangent-riddled descent into the rabbit hole was at least a little bit useful!

Thanks for dropping by!

[shimmershae]

My thoughts on Episode 6--On the Inside

Very appropriate title by the way.  Works in a multitude of ways.  

As always, my randomness is going beneath a cut again to spare the eyeballs of those of you that don’t want to see it at all and also?  Help those of you that have somehow stayed spoiler-free in this brand-new age of early release episodes.  It is still so wild to me that I’m a full episode ahead of half the fandom.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when we get to the final episode and they decide to make us all suffer together--because somehow I do feel they will do exactly that after spoiling us for the first 23 episodes.  It is going to be agonizing.  

Anyway.  Without further ado, Shae’s stream of consciousness review (of sorts).  

Not fair, Angela.  Opening the episode with that shot of that big ass spider.  I hate those suckers.  So naturally, they’re an easy sell for setting the horror scene to me, lol.  

Okay.  Who the hell’s chasing Virgil and Connie?  Walker No-See-Ums?

Barely a minute in and the atmosphere for this episode is moody AF.  

What is this?  Tara Jr. The Walking Dead?  LOL.  Where’s the Scarlett for this mini plantation house?  Anyway.  First three minutes of this episode?  Just as attention grabbing as the first five episode openings this season.  I don’t think people out there are giving our writers enough love for that.  Every episode so far has opened like a mini movie.  

With the way the Walking Dead logo keeps crumbling away with each successive episode, somehow it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Carol and Daryl spinoff was eventually titled The Living and had flowers growing out of each letter, lol.  I mean, there would be a certain sort of life-affirming symmetry in a show that’s been promised to be much lighter in tone doing just that.  

More Carol and Aaron?  Yes, please.  I don’t necessarily like Carol staying at home and sitting the sidelines like a figurative happy little homemaker in the B story while the rest of the mains are trying like hell to sell the A story, but if she’s going to be totally prohibited from the main storyline until it’s time to blow shit up?  I’m going to continue enjoy getting to see her do what she should have been doing for seasons--interacting with others in the community, especially Aaron and the ladies.  

Truly.  I really am loving my girl getting some quality Aaron and Rosita time.  It’s so long overdue.  

Bless sweet Kelly.  Riding off to her sister’s rescue.  

Why isn’t Lydia shown as part of these plans?  For someone that could barely read last season, I doubt that big ass map was a piece of cake for her and it’s all just guesswork anyway without her guidance.  I mean, why does it feel like they are cutting some of this stuff that might not seem like much plot-wise but would go a long way toward establishing different character beats?  Personally, I would have loved to see her involved in the search and sharing scenes again with Carol and bonding with Kelly. 

Virgil be having that “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” feeling.  Don’t you hate that, lol?  

“You haven’t slept in days.”  But how many days, Virgil?  I’m going to need a number because I’m confused AF about this timeline at this point.  What we’re seeing and what different pieces of dialogue is telling us is not exactly lining up.  I’m going to find it awful hilarious if it hasn’t even been two weeks since the cave in.  For reasons.  

Connie’s spidey senses are clearly tingling.  

Alrighty, then.  She’s clearly got PTSD.  Understandable.  They’ve all had it.  Some have been treated more sympathetically than others, though.  

I mean, it never seems to cross anybody’s mind how Carol probably sees Henry’s head on that pike, Mika’s pale and bloody body, Lizzie crumpled face down in a bed of yellow flowers, Sophia with a smoking bullet hole through her undead head whenever she closes her eyes but whatever.  

Okay though.  But what if Connie had really shitty, impossible to read handwriting?  AKA doctor’s  handwriting.  What then?  

Leah’s face honestly twists my insides whenever I see it, lol.  It’s quiet a visceral thing.  No, that does not make me a horrible person.  Not everybody wants or has to drink the awesome, great, redeemable villainess Kool-Aid.  IMHO, she’s got a face meant for a Walker.  Perfect makeover idea.  Eh.  Mostly it’s her expression and the deadness of her eyes.  

Anyway.  Why is it always the fingers?  Eff that.  

Listen.  If ya’ll can’t tell Daryl’s conflicted AF with the situation he’s landed in, you don’t know how to read NR’s face and eyes.  He’s not a masterclass like MMB but he’s pretty darn good when he wants to be.  

I honestly feel sorry for Redshirt Frost.  

“You do what you gotta do.”  Frost knows what’s what and he’s willing to walk the walk for Maggie.  Impressive loyalty.  I’m left wondering how the current, colder incarnation of Maggie inspired it because I’m still struggling to see it.  Anywho.  My point is the dude knows the score and just gave Daryl the okay.  

Daryl taking off his angel vest before stepping into the role of torturer/interrogator=him shedding the persona/the man Judith and RJ and Lydia and Carol know him to be.  Pushing away his man of honor status so he can just survive somehow.  

Pope never quits chewing whatever the hell he’s got in his mouth.  It’s kind of distracting.  

Ohhh.  We’re back to the Haunted Mansion.  I mean house.  Where are the Hitchhiking Ghosts?  

All the eyes scratched out of those creepy pictures=spooky.  

The good old fogged up bathroom mirror shot.  Somebody’s been watching and studying their horror movies, lol.  Not gonna lie though.  I’m legit bracing myself for the jump scares I know have to be coming.  

I’m loving the music/score in these scenes.  

Truthfully, I could care less about these Reapers.  But they are hella attractive, lol.  Listen.  Angela knows what she’s doing.  

Kelly’s horse is so pretty.  Prayer chain for that baby.  

More dead horses?  Why?  

Connie’s slingshot?  Sorry.  I maintain, no matter how much I like these two, that they have the lamest weapons ever.  Endless supply of Virginia rocks or not.  

So.  Did Virgil and Connie enjoy a little equine for dinner?  Did they kill it before the Walkers fed?  What monsters!  Yeah, no.  Not if they were starving even if I personally could not have.  The more probable story is they fled the camp in a panic and left the horse behind and then it went down.  Sorry.  I didn’t exactly study the wounds on the poor animal because it is so traumatizing to me to continue to see them meet such dastardly ends on this show.  I don’t know who the hell has such a score to settle with horses but stop it.  

Days.  It’s only been days.  Not weeks.  So many times with all that Daryl and Company have had to contend with since the cave in?  Those do not exist, lol.  They’re just a convenient, appeasing piece of dialogue thrown at a fanbase primed and ready to read everything into not much of anything.  There’s just not been enough time for it to happen unless Daryl has literally been up 24/7 for all of them.  You know, strategizing how to attack the remainders of Alpha’s horde, figuring out how to defend Hilltop before it fell, healing from the wound he sustained at Alpha’s hand, sitting on that log all damn night with Negan waiting on Carol to come home, having a lover’s quarrel with his best damn everything, taking care of the Grimes babies and Lydia, being the reluctant leader.  Kang, why you playing them like that?  Daryl’s a super guy but he’s not a superhuman with clones.  So many times my ass.  

Seriously.  Who been watching Connie and Virgil?  The MIA Oceansiders?  Beta’s Fee Fi Fo Fum Ghost?  

Nice.  A Michonne mention.  Maybe the truth will start to trickle out.  

LMAO at Connie’s “I’m not staying here.”  Me neither, girl.  I would be outta that house so fast.  

They really “Quiet Placing” this episode.  Honestly?  I’m kinda loving it.  

WTF was that?  I know she can’t hear but you telling me all the little hairs on her arms, legs, and neck didn’t stand the fuck up and say fuck this shit, I’m gone?  Pardon my language, lovelies, but that moment had my heart kicking up several beats.  

Okay, okay.  To be fair to Connie, every hair on her body been doing that since the front door closed.  Maybe they’re desensitized.  

Gollum’s chasing Connie!!!  He/She wants their Precious!!!

The knee jerk reactions about this episode sight unseen are OTT, honestly.  And I mean no disrespect by saying that.  I can understand completely where they’re coming from because we’ve been burned so long in this fandom.  But it’s obvious the spoiler source has their particular biases and reads into things in such a way that don’t line up with what’s actually being shown onscreen.  Daryl’s loyalty in this episode and all along quite clearly lies with his family and his community.  He’s been playing Leah since the start and is truly just trying to survive somehow.  

Awful thought.  The Reaper that’s so suspish of Daryl--haven’t quite caught his name or really cared to.  I feel like he might try to get to Daryl somehow.  When he realizes that Daryl cares no more for Leah than any human would care for somebody (they thought) they used to know?  He’s going after Dog.  Or Carol should she finally join this story. 

I refuse to believe Carol isn’t going to be a part of this story.  Because they messing with her mans, lol.  

“You’re ever with us or you’re not.”  Now where have I heard those words before?  I wish I could find that Daryl gif because that had to be one of the funniest things ever, lol.  

Unrealistic suggestion to Daryl, Leah?  Breathing oxygen seems to piss off Carver.  Oh look.  He finally has a name for me, lol.  

I love how all three of the ladies--Carol, Magna, and Rosita--look at Kelly with such indulgent, adoring “little sis, you alright?” eyes.  

They are seriously the most beautiful quartet of characters.  I mean all of them are lovely but Carol and Rosita this season?  Ugh.  The unfairness of the pretty.  

Human bones.  Terminus callback, lovelies.  How it all would have eventually gone down if Gareth and Co. hadn’t met the business end of Rick’s red machete.  

So many horror movie homages in this one.  

Virgil’s like “let’s leave this Texas Chainsaw Massacre behind.”  

Connie and Virgil have obviously bonded, ya’ll.  I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying their scenes together when the character mostly got on my nerves with Michonne.  He’s a good actor and the core of his character is sympathetic, but I’m not going to lie.  I wasn’t super enthused when he was the one that rescued Connie because I didn’t know how their scenes would play out. But there’s a nice synergy there.  

Okay.  Does Carver want Leah for himself?  Because I’m sure Daryl at this point would love to scream “take her, I know where I fucking belong!”  

Daryl’s digging in deep because Carver has shown him Leah’s potential weak spot.  Nuance is truly lost on some people, LMAO.  He cares about Leah as a human being probably.  He’s Daryl, after all.  The sweet one.  But he sees her as his way outta this and he’s going to exploit it.  

It’s nice to have a silent Negan for once, lol.  I can pretend he didn’t take my baby Glenn away from me and enjoy JDM’s pretty.  

So.  These cannibal people were the watchers?  Hmm.  

I’m really digging Virgil 2.0.  Yeah.  Nobody’s surprised more than me.  

Sweet, sweet scene between Virgil and Connie.  His determination to reunite her with her family brings back the sympathy I felt for him when he told Michonne “I promised her flowers.  Every day.”  

Damn.  How many of those creepy crawly cannibals are there?  

How brave of Connie to confront her fears to save someone she’s obviously grown to care about.  

The Kelly/Connie reunion gave me chills and made me cry.  Thank fuck Angela didn’t cheapen that moment by having it focus on literally anybody else.  Kelly is the most important person in the whole world to Connie and vice versa.  Just like Carol is the most important person in the whole world to Daryl and vice versa.  Angela fucking knows.  Everybody does.  Except the people busy building castles out of sand while the waves of Carol’s and Daryl’s converging stories keep crashing closer and closer to shore.  

Such a beautiful moment given to us by Angel Theory and Lauren Ridloff.  So authentic and sweet.  Kelly and Connie are home to each other.  

Poor Frost.  That’s all I gotta say about that.  

WTF, though.  Was Mel just not available or what?  I want to see more of the ASZ characters that I care about, not the Reapers.  Like I’d be fine with the story if all the characters not named Maggie, Negan, or Daryl weren’t surviving on crumbs during it.  Especially the 2nd billed actress on the entire show.  Angela.  Please.  Fix this.  

One last WTF.  Seriously.  WTF has Maggie done to inspire Pope’s obsession?  It better be juicy after all this shit.  

Overall impression of the episode--

One of my favorites of the season so far.  The horror aspects were fantastic, IMHO. I truly didn’t expect to like Connie and Virgil’s scenes as much together so that was a nice surprise.  She got the reunion that felt most true and earned for the character and her story and I thank Angela from the bottom of my heart for that.  

I would have loved more Carol but I always want more Carol.  I’m okay with her taking a backseat because ultimately?  This was Kelly’s moment with her sister.  Carol and Connie will eventually have their time to sit down and talk.  And pick back up their blossoming friendship because I truly do not feel Connie blames Carol at all.  

I do wish Lydia had been included with the girl group.  Last episode felt like it was leading up to that.  

The Reaper storyline continues to be the weakest link because every time we see them the dialogue and interactions feel totally recycled from the time previous.  I feel like it would have totally been helped by a tighter focus and less stretching out because 8 episodes of this is really diluting what I feel like Angela and Co. are going for.  I’m not here for Leah being redeemed or being a bigger focus in any of the episodes because she does nothing of interest for me.  I’m just peeking in on that story for the Daryl of it all.  

Speaking of the Daryl? You lovelies out there gotta stop taking that spoiler source’s recaps at face value because it’s obvious to me at least that there’ some bias at work.  Every action and word coming from Daryl is coming from a place of loyalty to his family and wanting to protect them, no matter how he has to dirty his hands.  Leah is just a means to his ultimate end.  She’s not his future.  She never was.  His future’s already spoken for and 2023 can’t get  here soon enough.  But like Daryl, we have to just survive somehow.  

Oh goodie.  More Maggie and Negan next episode and looks like no real follow up on Connie and the ASZ reunions.  Hopefully, this is yet another instance of the previews being deceiving but I’m not holding my breath.  

Until later, lovelies.  

Hope my word vomit didn’t bore you too much.  

[skz222]

nsfw alphabet (han jisung)

A - Aftercare (after sex treatment)

Jisung would (to much dismay) immediately pull out and grab your designated cum towel and wipe you down first (as always) making extra sure to get everything, and then himself. This has been standard from Day 1 as well as him always getting you a glass of ice water and your favorite snack, most of the time straight up hurriedly running out to the kitchen butt naked and coming back as fast as possible to make sure he can take care of you as fast as possible.

On days where you guys just have a quickie or morning sex a little too early in the morning, he’ll still make sure to wipe you off first but will just wrap you up and rub your head or back until you both fall back asleep together instead.

B - Body Part (his favorites)

On you, he absolutely loves your mouth and your thighs/hips. Your smile is his favorite during the day, but at night he more so loves what you do with your mouth, if you feel me. The duality of your sweet smile and the way you absolutely destroy him by doing the swallow technique while blowing him can never not be in the forefront of his mind whenever you get intimate. Your hips and thighs are self explanatory, he loves the way they looks especially when you’re riding him and when he’s hitting it from the back (especially since he loves to spread them hard).

On himself, his favorite is his hands. He’s not one to brag about it out loud but the way his ego goes through the atmosphere when he makes you cum just from his fingers and hands alone. He loves seeing your facial expressions especially right before you’re about to cum, it makes him dangerously close himself almost immediately. He also really loves being able to hold you down by your hips and your hands and he knows that you love it too. He knows that you love his hands and it makes him really take pride in them all the time not just in the bedroom.

C - Cum 

He loves nothing more than to see you dripping with his cum, especially all over your face. It gets him off on such a deeply psychological level that you’re his entirely and to have you in such an intimate position to want him all over you, gets him off. Jisung prefers when you swallow when giving him head however, because he feels like you’re taking a part of him and it also feeds into him wanting you to be absolutely his. He does like to cum inside you as well though but does so more for pleasure’s sake and to feel the intimacy of it. 

Best believe he is not going to just cum on your back or stomach, he wants it to be meaningful and always intimate when he finishes.  

D - Dirty Secret 

Honestly, he really, really wants (almost needs) to fuck you in the studio. Just straight up on the couch or even on the mixing board just out of nowhere. He thinks about it a lot but doesn’t really know how to go about asking you for something so public. The thought of having spontaneous sex all over the studio and recording it on the audio recording and having the other members be in there later without a clue in the world really satisfies a deep fantasy within Jisung that he only ever wants to do with you.

E - Experience

Jisung has only made out with one girl in middle school for like 20 seconds and it was horribly filled with way too much tongue and hormones. That’s as far as his experience with anything goes besides the standard porn but he almost always prefers using his imagination over actually watching other people, especially ever since he met you. 

He probably won’t admit that he’s inexperienced unless you make it very clear to him that you’d prefer that or until later down the line when he knows he’s gotten you in the bag.

F - Favorite Position

It goes without saying that JIsung wants to look you in the eyes as he pounds into you. He loves holding down your hands or your hips (or both, both hands in one hand, holding down your hips with the other) and making heavy eye contact, if not unbroken eye contact. 

In close second place however is from the back, with you laying down flat on your stomach, legs fully down and him pounding into you from behind. Ever since he heard the way this position makes you moan the loudest and in such a new way the first time you guys tried it out, he can’t stop himself from doing it at least every other time you guys have sex. You love the way he chokes you while holding your head into the mattress with one hand and pull your hair with the other; or the way he holds your hips down/holds both hands down with both hands absolutely is not lost on him and makes him go almost feral for you. It’s also his favorite to fantasize about for these reasons. 

G - Goofy 

Jisung is definitely more serious in the moment and focused on you and the moment, but if something happens that’s a little bit funny or sudden like one of your farts on accident or something he’s absolutely going to laugh a little with you. But best believe he’s getting right back to work afterwards. 

Afterwards though, he’ll want to laugh and talk about it but he’d much rather be in the moment and super involved with you.

H - Hair

Definitely did not do anything until you came into the picture, like it was literally peak amazon rainforest down there and all, dampness included. Now he keeps it trimmed and shaves it down or all for special occasions.

He also doesn’t mind whatever you want to do with your hair, he just prefers it to be at least somewhat maintained and not too too long or unkempt, but otherwise he could not care less.

I - Intimacy 

God there is nothing this man loves more than making each time feel like the first time for you. This doesn’t necessarily mean roses and candles everywhere every time but more so the attention to detail, the time he takes on you first and the passion he keeps during sex to make it very intimate. Even the dirty talk is very personal and sometimes sweeter than what you’d typically expect. 

For special occasions though, he’s definitely going all out. The rose petals, the chocolates and candies, home cooked dinner courtesy of yours truly, everything. Anything that puts a smile on your face or makes you feel satisfied is all he wants because you do so much for him day to day.

J - Jack Off 

Honestly he prefers to just wait for you or until he can see you again rather than please himself alone. The intimacy and sacredness he views sex together as is way more worth it, but he still does jack off from time to time, more so to remember the routine of it all and if he’s extra bored but not really for sexual gratification. 

Also, at least not until a few years down the line at least, he would stop watching porn entirely or anything like that once you guys got together. More so because he wanted to establish that he didn’t want you to look at other guys to get off and he didn’t want to look at other girls.

K - Kinks 

fingering (giving) - this ties back in to the hands thing from before and pleasing you. It’s also a bit of a power thing honestly. Anything with hands and holding you down is a yes from him. 

spreading (giving) - he loves spreading open your pussy and just teasing you this way, and especially after just cumming inside of you. This also applies to spreading your ass and just playing with it this way to tease you and grab it as much as possible. 

sir (receiving) - of course this man likes to be called sir. Even in regular day to day he loves it.

pinning (giving)  - he just loves to pin you down and feel your every reaction to his movements in and outside of you. Feeling you squirm and unable to move under him is really, really satisfying for him.

L - Location 

Anywhere semi-comfortable honestly, everything from back seat of a car to a couch (even the dorm living room couch) to the floor to the bed or a chair, anything. 

M - Motivation 

Wearing anything even semi-form fitting (especially things that hug your waist/hips) will get him so lowkey horny but he won’t say anything unless you give him a signal that you’re also feeling ready to go. 

What gets him super ready immediately though is seeing you just out of the shower in just a towel or whenever you guys play fight. He most definitely uses play fighting/wrestling and tickling s a form of foreplay (this ties into the pinning/hands kink).

N - NO

Jisung would definitely not want to do anything too painful to you or him (no blood play, no knife play) physically or emotionally. He is also definitely not going to want any form of cuckolding, it’d make hi way too jealous and not in the “oh that makes me want to jealous fuck you” kind of way. 

If you wanted to try anything new though that wasn’t too drastic from what you already do or have suggested then he’d definitely want to try it at least once. If it makes you really happy/gets you really off then he’ll want more.

O - Oral 

He lovessss oral, both giving and receiving. He’s more of a fingering guy for you but he will give oral almost just as much honestly. Having your thighs squeezing his head lightly and wrapping his arms around your thighs is amazing to him. The experience is more satisfying in an intimate level for him but he also finds it amazingly sexy to look up and see your eyes rolling back and see you arching your back from down there.

Receiving of course is always a favorite and he’ll never deny your head. No matter if you switch it up, hands or no hands or anything of the sort, he’s always in love with it and the sensation. It also has to do with loving having you “serve” him in this way that makes him loveeee it no matter what you’re doing because you’ll always make him cum fast from head.

P - Pace

He loves to switch things up depending on the situation, but trust and believe it’s always deep strokes and he’s rarely just jackhammering your shit with no care in the world. It’s always deep and hitting, if you feel me. 

Jisung prefers a bit of a faster pace but even within the same session with slow things down to a longggg drawn out pace just to purposely tease you or stop him from cumming fast.

Q - Quickie 

Now this man loves a good quickie, especially when it’s comeback or tour season and he’s only got 20 minutes to see you and only 10 are for sex - but he usually views quickies as the prologue to a longer, normal sex session later or the next time he sees you.

Definitely prefers normal, longer sex but likes the slight thrill of being on a time crunch/having a time limit. If he doesn’t have enough time to make you cum at least twice though, he won’t even risk it. 

R - Risk 

Jisung is okay with just enough risk to make it exciting and fun/spontaneous but not enough to where a minor or a stranger could walk in on you guys and risk you being exposed like that. 

Anything regarding the members being able to see or where they could possibly intrude is fine by him though since he knows they don’t really care and that you both trust them enough to get down and nasty in the dorm kitchen and have Hyunjin open his door and immediately close it and not even skip a beat.

S - Stamina

Honestly he can go multiple rounds in a day, but not back to back. 2 is the maximum regularly for back to back unless it’s been a little bit then 3 at most. Throughout a whole day though, saying you both have the whole house to yourselves or get lucky enough - definitely 5 to 6 times. 

If he’s ever too tired to have actual full on sex from practice or just from the day, he’ll definitely make sure you cum in replacement until you’re tired out and your legs are literally indisposed and shaking that you can’t even walk to the bathroom and Jisung has to carry you bridal style.

T - Toys

Doesn’t own any for himself, but he likes to keep some of yours or gets identical ones of your personal ones at home in the dorm so he can use them on you from time to time to add some extra fun. Honestly you guys don’t really use them all that often, mainly just sporadically and when Jisung is more tired or it’syour birthday sex.

U - Unfair

Not too much of a tease because he knows how you like to keep things even and how almost unbearable it is for him when you tease him honestly. He loves reciprocity so if he’s just left with a boner until later or without anything else happening at all the rest of the day, it’ll nearly devastate the man. So e tries to be as fair as possible to you and only really teases when he’s letting you know tonight is going to be filled with alone time or he wants to go, right now. 

V - Volume

He tries to be quiet, but honestly he just forgets and gets way caught up in the moment and just ends up being loud anyways even if there are people right next door or nearby. The breathing and moaning are definitely the loudest when he’s about to cum or when you respond back to his dirty talking or moan in response to something he did.

Considering he rarely notices other people around or remembers they’re even there as soon as things kick off even just foreplay, I’d say he’s overall just loud.

W - Wild Card

He instantly gets hard every time you pull your hair up. I’m talking immediately. He doesn’t realize it, but it’s because you always pull your hair up when you’re about to give him head so now he just literally gets this overwhelming need to back you up against a wall, pull your legs up to your ears and pound your shit to oblivion.

X - Xray

A solid 6.75 and it’s thicker in the middle but overall thicker than average girth the whole way down. Somewhere between grower and shower also.

Y - Yearning 

This man could go anywhere, any time if we’re being honest but purely bases how much of this he shows based on how high your sex drive is. If you’re not in the mood, he’s not either. If you want to go 8 rounds, he’s going 8 rounds.

Only sometimes does he obviously need you and makes it known to you, but only once you guys have been together for a while so he knows he’s not making you uncomfortable or feel pressured or anything. 

Z - ZzZ

Likes to sleep after you so he can take care of you and rub your back or play with you hair, etc until you fall asleep so he can take care of you first. He will rarely fall asleep first and that’s really only if he was already exhausted or if you’re planning on staying up way later or aren’t tired at all.

[not-sewell]

i'd had this idea floating in bits and pieces in my mind for weeks now and i've now been able to string it together with some semblance of coherence, so here we go:

[i don't even know what this is classified as but it comes under soft hours, i guess?]

Foiled Date Plans Leading to Time Spent Better.

i imagine that the LI and the detective haven’t been able to hang out, go on a date, for ages because neither of them could find the time for it, both of them being swamped with work. so when the opportunity presented itself, they jumped at it.

only for things to swiftly go downhill at different times on the day of their date

N and the detective found that they both were to get off their duties early one day and quickly made their plans for a nice, evening together. the detective chooses to go big this time: booking a reservation at a fancy restaurant, where they could enjoy good food, sip on some wine and listen to some smooth music. yeah, that’d do. it's all pretty smooth-sailing until their plans are foiled by a pile of unfinished paperwork that they had promised to help Tina get through. as much as they would rather be someplace else, they decide to help. they’re pretty committed to fulfilling their promise. not that they can deny Tina when she’s making those puppy eyes at them anyway. making a quick call to N to let them know what’s up (and promising to be there on time), the detective gets to the paperwork. it is only when N appears at their door that they realise how late it actually is. well, shit. there is no way they'd be able to make it to the restaurant on time. they should've quit while they were ahead. but they didn't, and they may have just ruined their date plans and this day just sucks. and it's all their fault. N finds a way to fix this before the detective spirals further into whatever headspace they were getting into, though. soon, the couple is at the detective's home, cooking a homely (yet fancy, of course) meal, N pulling the detective by their hand to sway to a light melody of jazz music playing in the background, wrapped in each other's arms – whispering sweet nothings, singing softly. well, okay, maybe the day doesn't suck as much anymore.

F is all too excited to finally get to go out with the detective. the detective had a day off, so they thought of showing F around the town: the places that the detective had discovered over the years, places that one wouldn’t necessarily include in their ‘Places to Visit in Wayhaven’ list. it seemed like a cheery day – maybe they could rent bicycles and go biking around town. this was a good idea. it felt nice to be biking again – it had been a while since they’d done it. the wind gently making its way through their hair brought a soft smile to the detective’s face. but it was only a few minutes before F decided they could ride faster, and the detective followed, the Wayhaven tour long abandoned. the wind in their hair getting progressively less gentle seemed to have an effect on the detective. F’s whooping also helped, maybe. soon, the two are speeding past people, laughing, low-key trash-talking each other and— this was not a good idea. the first thing the detective registers is the nearly blinding pain in their arm and F’s extremely concerned eyes staring down at them. any movement that shifts their position sends a searing pain up and down their forearm. well, fuck. soon, they’re at the doctor’s clinic, having received medical attention. F is uncharacteristically quiet, throwing worried glances their way. it obviously takes a lot of reassurance from the detective to quell F’s worries. then a long pause. and then laughter – belly laughter that only seems to get louder. the walk back home is now far lighter and less painful than it would’ve been. F offers to stay the night, of course. what follows is a day full of F fussing over the detective’s condition, and lots of ice-cream, popcorn and trashy Netflix movies. sure, the injury part sucked but it mattered far lesser.

M has probably rolled their eyes for the hundredth time now. the detective refuses to accept that they've fallen sick. it doesn't take M their hypersenses to recognise what is beginning to sound like the start of rales in the detective's breath. it's ridiculous, the way the detective refuses to acknowledge that they're unwell, especially with the amount of effort they've been putting to even sit upright. it takes a big coughing fit from the detective for M to put their foot down and take them back to the detective’s bedroom. yeah, no, M doesn't give a shit about the date anymore. they'd like the detective to be very much alive, instead, thank you very much. glaring the detective to bed, they run their hand more fondly than they expected over the detective’s head before making their way to the kitchen and call F to relay some solid, 'how to care for a sick partner' advice from N: hot and cold compresses, some VapoRub, soup and maybe a warm glass of milk with turmeric in it and lots of care (which they would take care of by snuggling with the detective, should they ask). the detective wakes up early next morning to find M asleep on the bed – seated next to the detective, having leaned their back on the headrest – their hand in the general area of where the detective’s head is. the detective had never really pinned M down as someone who could be so tender but hell, no one’s complaining.

A admits: they were really looking forward to the date. they didn’t know what the detective had planned – they wouldn’t tell them (maybe it involved wine-tasting?) – but it would’ve been nice to finally get to spend some time with the detective. anyway, that doesn’t matter right now, does it? they were here on a stakeout in a hilly area with probably the worst partner ever: the detective. it’s got nothing to do with the detective’s skills or attitude – they’re more skilled and dutiful than most. it’s the effect their presence has on A: their focus on the scene before them is off-kilter and they’re certainly not thinking about their mission as much as they would like to. they chide themself for being so distracted. they really need to learn to maintain their focus regardless of the company they have (just the detective but okay). gah, they need to pull themself together. even as they chide themself, they find their gaze drifting towards the detective. again. this time, they find the detective’s eyes on them too. this has been going on for a while and they both know it needs to stop. and yet, they just cannot seem to. at least the evening’s been very uneventful. it’s close to dawn when N and M join them to take over. the couple is on their way back to the Warehouse when the detective gasps softly, the way they do when they think they've got a great idea (which is usually true, but they don't necessarily need to know that). they turn to A with a bright smile. "i know of a spot," they say, "come with me!" as they pull A by their hand. they're right on time to catch the most beautiful sunrise A has seen in a long, long time. and the detective turns to look at A just in time to see the softest, most carefree smile grace A's beautiful face. they're almost too lost in their thoughts to catch A whisper a small 'thank you', interlacing their little fingers together. the day is instantly brighter.

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

U N P L A N N E D, part seven

By the end of the night at Jeff and Glenne’s, Lexi was nowhere to be found. You didn’t really mind--you didn’t feel as out of place as you’d expected and Harry had been more than happy to bring you around to different friends or familiar faces to say hello. 

A girl with dark brown hair who sang backup on his album listened excitedly as he brought her up to speed on the new plan for release. The album, originally due out in August or September was now being pushed to December. It was strategic really. 

Late summer buzz when the baby announcement came out. Winter album release, promo before and after to tide his fans over until a spring time tour, giving him the perfect span of three or four stationary months in L.A. that aligned with your maternity leave.

Genius, really. It was all thanks to Jeff and his team.

So you smiled at the girl with the dark hair and pretended you didn’t notice the fact that she kept stealing glances down at your belly, as small as it still was. 

This was the risky stage, really, when people got it wrong and asked about someone’s due date, only to be mortified when someone gave the dreaded response, I’m not pregnant. You’d seen it happen to someone else once, a woman in the checkout line at the grocery store. The cashier put her foot in her mouth and you vowed to never ask someone about their due date unless they mentioned it first. 

So you cut Laura some slack. 

“We’ll tour it next spring and summer, so you’ll have to come,” he said to his friend, a smile on his face when he lifted up his sunglasses. The sun had already sunk beneath the horizon, his cheeks were tinged pink from the hot day.

“I’ll bring your youngest audience member ever,” you revealed, letting a hand rub over your belly as you offered a smile in her direction.

“Oh, that’s so sweet! When are you due?”

“January, middle of the month. So--I might need some noise canceling headphones.”

“Hey--I make good music,” Harry pretended to take offense. 

“I didn’t say you don’t--”

“Is it yours?” Laura asked, her eyes pulling up to Harry’s face for a second, wide with shock.

Harry looked down at you, down at the bump. You could tell he was frozen, unsure of what he should say and how he should say it. 

“No--God no,” you said quickly. “It’s our friend, Peter.”

Harry’s lips twitched into a smile. “Yeah--Peter, he’s a good friend. He’s a great guy, a dream, really. Gonna be a great father.”

“He’s okay,” you made a face at Harry. “A lot to learn, probably never changed a diaper in his life.”

“He has too,” Harry defended quickly. “At least five or six.”

“Well he’ll be changing probably five or six a day.”

“That’s fine, he’ll be fine with that. He’s extremely committed to that baby.”

“Yeah, well,” you stifled a laugh. “We’ll see.”

Laura laughed, a skeptical look disappeared from her face when Glenne came up and offered dessert, effectively breaking up the conversation. Harry draped an arm over your shoulder for a split second when most people had started to make their way to the other side of the pool. 

“Just so you know, I’m gonna make you call her and explain that lie once we come out with it.”

“Deal,” you said. “I’ll tell her you had sex with your friend Peter’s girlfriend and we didn’t know who’s it was until it was born..”

“Jesus,” he laughed. “Can’t tell if you’re the funniest person I’ve met or the meanest.”

“I like to think I’m a mix of both.”

**

It was probably a good thing that you didn’t see Harry for another week after that. The onesie and the party at Jeff and Glenne’s and a completely new project at work had you feeling incredibly overwhelmed, left with only enough energy to drive home, take off your bra, and sit on the couch. 

Most nights Lexi was home. There were a few evenings when she’d meet Glenne and Jeff or stay late on set. She’d come home with leftovers or funny stories, and you’d fall asleep before 10pm. 

But you figured it was a good thing, the distance and space. The last two times you’d seen him, you left with a glow. The infatuation kind, not the pregnancy kind. That type of shit was asking for trouble. 

So you ignored the urge to call or text him. Most days he’d ask how you were feeling, what you were up to. You’d take your time to respond, give short answers and tell him you were too busy to see him. It wasn’t necessarily true, but you were tired. Too tired to drive all the way to his house in the hills and then all the way home. Especially when being around him required the self-control and restraint that it suddenly did.

You answered when he called, talked on the phone for an hour at a time some days. You told yourself it was nothing. It was normal it was normal it was normal. 

On the Wednesday of week twelve, you were scheduled to meet with the same crew: Jeff, Harry, Dave, Emma, Lola, and John. This time, the topic was a bit more hopeful. Some type of strategy meeting to talk about what type of information to release and what to keep private. 

When you woke up and started rifling through your closet, you came to a grim realization. Things weren’t fitting the same. Buttoned shirts now felt tight around the tummy, pants felt a bit snug in the waist. 

It happened overnight, really. You’d heard about the pop--when your belly finally protrudes outward and when you actually start to look pregnant, not just bloated. You didn’t know when it would come, but you certainly weren’t prepared for it to already be here.

Lexi was already gone, otherwise you’d storm into her room and make her promise you didn’t look funny. You weren’t about to FaceTime Glenne--only in fear that Jeff would be around and think you were being ridiculous. You also figured keeping your distance from him wasn’t a bad idea. 

So you settled on a dress, a casual one, and you didn’t even realize that someone might notice until you walked into work. 

Aarav didn’t even seem to look at you twice--he was too busy in his office dealing with a last minute request from Levi. Simone was busy too, and when you met up with them for lunch, you kept your tray and plate in front of you, praying and hoping that they wouldn’t notice the way you looked a bit more round. 

A text came across your phone when Aarav went on about Carson. 

Harry (12:43pm): Twelve week mark! See you at 5pm?

It was almost a relief to walk into the Westwood office building at the end of the day. It was a comfort, really, to be in a room full of people who knew your biggest secret. Harry met you in the lobby, a smile on his face when you offered a hug. 

“Look at me,” you said quietly, a few people passed by on their way out of work. “I look pregnant.”

He looked down, his brows furrowed together and his lips pushed out. He scanned your figure, a wave of relief washed over you when he spoke. “Wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t say anything--but, you do, a bit. You look good.”

“I feel weird,” you said, following him over to the same elevators as you tried to ignore the compliment. “I used to just look bloated, but now it’s like--real.”

Once the doors shut and afforded you both some privacy, he turned to face you. 

“You look beautiful,” he said, voice quiet as the elevator whirred. “Can I--can I feel it?”

“Oh,” you looked down, a hand immediately on your own belly. You’d been doing it plenty, a force of habit, now, really. You found yourself doing it in meetings, on the phone, one hand on the steering wheel and another on the bump. “Yeah, of course you can--here,” you reached for his hand, guiding it towards you, warmth when he made contact. 

It felt a little silly. It was still just your stomach--somewhere deeper in there was a baby the size of a lime. He kept his eyes on the blue fabric of your dress, both of your hands over his until the doors opened. 

Jeff, on the other side, was caught off guard. “Hi--hey, I was just coming to find you.”

“Hi,” you said, a step back from Harry as if there was some sort of rule about proximity. 

He offered an awkward smile, motioned for you to both follow him down the same long hall, past the same rooms and chairs and windows. Harry let out a giggle under his breath, smirked in your direction, another wave of butterflies.

It was the first time you’d seen any of them since the test results, you swore Dave seemed to soften when you sat across from him, this time, Harry was beside you. 

“So,” Dave spoke, a quick glance around the room. “Good to see everyone.”

“Yeah, thanks for coming,” Jeff said, settling into his seat before he reached for a water bottle. “Lola--you’re good to start us off?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, short red hair brushed the tops of her shoulders. She smiled in your direction, much less hesitant than times before. “We’re really here today to start thinking about how we want to share this news. It’s obviously not going to stay a secret forever, so we’re wondering about different options to get in front of it--while still maintaining everyone’s safety and privacy.”

You nodded, a sideways glance in Harry’s direction.

“We have a few options, Harry, about how to do that,” Jeff explained. “We could choose an outlet to inform and let them break it. Or, we could talk about a social media post, a statement from Lola…”

He turned to look at you, caution in his eyes when you offered a small smile. Nothing felt ideal--nothing they said sounded like a good option or like it wouldn’t bring trouble. 

Up until now, really, it had just been the two of you. That was, if you didn’t count the four other people in the room, Lexi, Glenne, your mother, and his family. So, the twelve of you, really. 

Things until now were quiet and private, a small buzz that was stressful enough. You couldn’t even imagine the news spreading, questions, accusations, the ways all of the aforementioned would keep you up at night. 

Harry looked around the room. “Uh--a statement is probably best, yeah?”

“I would think so--your fans will want to hear from you though, too,” Jeff nodded.

Lola smiled, softly, in your direction. “What do you think, Y/N?”

You were shocked, really. Stammered a few things before wishing you could disappear, totally not equipped to respond to that type of question. “Uh, yeah--the statement--I don’t know, whatever you think,” you looked towards Harry, a sudden feeling in your gut that out of everyone in the room, you could trust him the most. 

“We should wait until you’re father along,” Jeff said. “Probably closer to the sixth month mark?”

You nodded--that was something you could get behind. It also gave you some more time to figure out who needed to know before then. As contractual as this had become, there were still some people in your life who’d benefit from finding out that you were pregnant with a celebrity’s baby from you, rather than on TV or online.

Lola went on to say something else, but you were too busy making a list in your brain of who that entailed. 

Levi, Simone, Aarav. Your two aunts in Oregon. Your college roommate, Brie, maybe even your father--if you could track him down. You could feel your heartbeat in your chest, more people to disappoint, more people to make the admission to: I fucked up. I didn’t check all the boxes in the right order.

“Does that sound alright?” Harry turned to get a better look at you, his eyes searched your face.

“What?”

“September,” Lola said. “Make the statement in September.”

“Sure,” you nodded. Two months away. That felt like an eternity. 

“How are you feeling about it?” Her question was directed at you, but it took you a second to realize that. Harry watched you, his eyebrows lifted as he waited for a response. 

“About having a baby?”

“About coming out with it,” Jeff said. 

You shifted in your office chair, hands clasped on your lap. “I don’t really know what to expect, to be fair.”

Jeff looked at Harry, then at Lola. 

Harry cleared his throat and rested his elbows on the table, he spoke directly to you. “I think there’ll be some people who are really upset and some who are really happy.”

“You should make your social media private,” Lola said. “That’s the majority of what comes up when I ran a google search of your name. A few things about your work if you dig really deep.”

“Which they will,” Harry said. 

“Okay,” you nodded. “Should I be, like, worried about my safety?

“No,” Jeff said. “Definitely not. If there’s anything that makes you uncomfortable we’ll assess and just get a security detail.”

Harry made a face at that, one you couldn’t read. He sat back in his chair and listened to Lola say more about the announcement and how important it was for him to set the tone once the news was out. 

You were almost as zoned out as he was, but you heard mention of make them believe you’re excited, and that’s when you decided you’d had enough. So you stared out the window, nodded every few seconds to make them think you were listening and invested and following along so you could follow the rules. 

Sure, maybe accidentally getting pregnant wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but Lola’s insinuation that neither of you were excited felt like a dig. Out of everyone in the room, you were the one who had to deal with the most shit. Not only did you get a baby out of one drunken night, but you also got the body changes, the hormones, and the new relationship with someone who was too famous for his own good. 

But aside from all of that--all the shit that made this stressful and terrifying and overwhelming altogether--there was still a piece of you that was excited. And it was easier to feel that later that night when you sat in the same In N’ Out parking lot as before. 

“You don’t, like, regret deciding to keep it, right?”

Your question caught him off guard. He was mid-bite and let out a bit of a cough, wiping his mouth with the backside of his hand before he looked over at you. 

“No--do you?”

“No. I don’t know. Lola said we have to act excited. As if we aren’t at all or something.”

“I know,” he said, voice quieter. “That was pretty shitty, but I don’t think she meant anything by it.”

You nodded, hoping he was right. 

“I am excited, to be clear.”

“Me too,” a nod. “I’m getting more excited. Next time we see Dr. Weston we might be able to know the sex.”

He smirked. “We already know the sex, Y/N.”

“Where’s your premonition coming from?” You laughed. “What makes you so sure?”

He laughed, a sip from his water bottle. “I think you’re going to be a really good mom no matter what. But I think you’d be especially good with a little girl.”

“You’re going to sound like such an asshole if we have a boy.”

“If we have a boy it’ll be great! He can like sports and princesses, too.”

You took another bite of your dinner, a silent prayer that this pregnancy wouldn’t turn against you and make you hate the smell of In N’ Out. “I think you’ll be a good dad, too.”

And then he did it again. He looked out the window and seemed to be somewhere else. Maybe somewhere not as congested as LA, easier and quieter and somewhere were you didn’t exist and the plum sized baby didn’t either. 

You stuck a french fry in your mouth and chewed--thankful for the fact that the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable. 

“Would you--” he turned to see you suddenly, a sigh escaping his lips. “Hear me out, okay?”

You nodded.

“Would you think I was totally, absolutely mental if I asked you to move in with me?”

Your eyes must have gone wide, maybe the color even drained from your face, because before you could answer, he rolled his eyes and looked back out the window. “I know--okay, s’fine.”

“No--I just, that’s not what I expected. At all.”

He took another breath, his words came out quick this time as if he was nervous. “I know it’s crazy, but, Jeff got me freaked out today. When he talked about getting you a security detail I thought about your apartment and I know it’s in a house and it’s a nice neighborhood but--”

You didn’t say anything. You watched as he pushed his lips to one side and then the other. 

“I could never live with myself if anything happened to you.” A pause. ��Or her.”

You rolled your eyes at that, a small laugh immediately granted levity to the front seat of his car. Dimples appeared on his cheeks when he saw the smile on your face.

“I hear you, but--I’ll be fine.”

He started speaking before you even finished. “Think of it this way, too. When she’s here, we’ll want to be together, right? I mean--don’t you think you’ll want more space than what you’ve got with Lexi? Don’t you think she’ll get sick of dirty nappies and all the crying in the middle of the night? If we live together I can help more and we can go through it together.”

You thought on that for a second. There was no doubt in your mind that Lexi would eventually lose her shit and need a good amount of space from the new roommate you were both about to have. You ignored the thumping in your chest at the thought of it. You, Harry, a tiny baby in that stupid onesie he bought. It sounded perfect.

“Think about it, yeah? I’ve got plenty of room.”

You nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

**

Dave had given you the go ahead to tell your coworkers. It took three phone calls with Jeff and him and Harry, but he eventually relented. When you ended up telling him that he didn’t have to go to work trying not to puke every morning waiting for your coworkers to notice the growing bump, he gave in. 

You were relieved, that is, until Levi called a team meeting, the five of you sat around a conference table on the third floor--also known as the floor with the balance ball chairs. You had no idea how much your back had been bothered by your regular office chair until you settled in to your seat. 

“So,” Levi looked around at the four of you. “Obviously my leaving is bittersweet, I know we’ve all been working hard lately to make the transition as smooth as possible. But we obviously haven’t handled one aspect of that, which is, the new Team Lead.”

You kept a straight face, glanced over to Aarav who suddenly couldn’t take his eyes off of you. You’d been planning on telling them that afternoon, at least Aarav and Simone. Maybe you’d wait until Levi left to fill him in, maybe you’d wait until you left for maternity leave to tell Carson. 

But would Levi still choose you to fill his role if he knew you were pregnant? Bound to take a decent maternity leave right after the holidays? Right when things amped up in the New Year?

“Y/N--you’ve obviously been a huge part of our success this last year, and I spoke with Mike and Tracy about having you fill the role, if you’re interested.”

“Yes--of course I’m interested,” you smiled. “I would love to.”

“Awesome--you’re obviously all in good hands,” he said to the others, a smile in your direction again. “You and I can meet with the rest of the Marketing c-suite--it’ll be painless, I’m sure.”

Now was definitely not a good time to tell them, but, your body decided it was the perfect time for an all encompassing wave of nausea. 

“Okay--yeah, sounds good.” You tried to wrap things up, looked over at Simone, hopeful she’d follow your lead. 

“When’s your last day, again?” Carson closed his laptop, if you weren’t doing your best to keep your lunch down, you’d be more surprised that he wasn’t as bitter as you’d expected him to be.

“August 5th.” 

You stood from the table, beads of sweat on your forehead. Aarav gave you a look, Simone was too busy on her phone. 

Levi started to gather his belongings. “We’ll get everything sorted out, too, about who’s going to take on some of Y/N’s responsibilities. Most things will stay the same, but, I think Mike wants to hire someone else to do some more of the graphic work, too.”

“I’m so sorry--” you said, embarrassed to rush out of a meeting like this. “I have to go--uh, make a phone call, really quick.

Again, Aarav looked at you like you’d started speaking another language. 

“Yeah, go ahead, no worries,” Levi looked suspicious too, but he turned back to Carson.

You bolted for the door, down the hall, no idea where the nearest bathroom was. Water fountain, lounge area, vending machine. Where the fuck was the bathroom?

You found it around the corner, barely making it into a stall before throwing up, desperately trying to pull your sticky hair away from your face when your knees met the floor.

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Simone was behind you--the carpet of the hallway had apparently quieted her footsteps. You reached for toilet paper and wiped your mouth, thankful that no one else had witnessed your close call. The only thing worse than throwing up at work was throwing up on the floor at work.

You flushed, stood back up and offered a smile. “Yeah--sorry--bad lunch, I guess.”

“Are you pregnant?”

“What?” You laughed, waving a hand before wiping at your mouth again. “No--that’s crazy!”

She raised an eyebrow at you.

A sigh. “Fine,” you said. “I am. But--you can’t tell them yet, okay?”

Her lips threatened to curl upwards, but she caught herself. “Are you--was it on purpose?”

“No,” a wave of embarrassment replaced the nausea in your stomach. “It was completely unplanned.”

“Who’s the father?”

Dave had been clear on the phone. If you have to tell them, we’ll prepare NDAs for them to sign. 

“You don’t know him.”

Maybe she did. 

“Is it that guy you’ve been seeing?”

“Yeah--we’re just friends.”

“Who have sex?”

“Just once.”

“Holy shit!”

“I know--I wanted to tell you!”

She pouted, an understanding look on her face. “That’s why you won’t have margaritas with us.”

“Busted.”

“How are you doing with it? Does your mom know?”

You thought on that for a second--it had been a while since someone asked. Harry was inquiring quite frequently, but you were also at the point now where you gave him a daily update about any symptoms. Jeff and Glenne and Lexi would check in, too, of course, but Simone was asking you on a deeper level. 

She was asking if you were losing your shit altogether and having recurring panic attacks when you’d try to fall asleep. 

“I’m okay,” you said, a confident nod. “I was freaked at first, and I am, still, a little--but, it’s been going okay.”

“Are you going to tell Aarav?”

“Yeah, yeah--I was gonna let both of you know today, but then Levi dropped that shit.”

“How dare he promote you,” she teased, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well I couldn’t exactly follow that up with thanks so much, I’ll need three months maternity leave in January.”

“A January baby!” She threw her arms around you. “How far are you?”

“Thirteen weeks.”

She let go, looked you up and down. “You’ll be fine, you can totally handle this. Is the father supportive so far?”

You nodded, ignoring the tiny shred of fear that tried to squeeze it’s way up into your brain. “So far, yeah.”

But how long would that last? How long would Harry be interested in having dinner and hanging out? When would he get sick of you and when would he realize that he didn’t have to do this?

He had more options than either of you had mentioned. Harry was acting like his only option was to be completely, totally, one hundred percent involved, or the exact opposite. 

But you felt like the more realistic option was somewhere in the middle, right? He’d visit and have the baby for weekends, go off on tour and you’d FaceTime him every so often to make sure they didn’t lose touch. You’d be the one to handle the skinned knees and all of the tears, but he’d be the fun dad that would swoop in and get to take them for ice cream or out to dinner. 

He’d send a check, eventually. After things died down and he realized that it didn’t make sense for you to live together or be more than co-parents or anything like that. He’d help financially and you’d have to get a nanny if you were going to keep your job--which, as a single mom, you’d have to.

Simone brought you back to your office, smiling excitedly when you told Aarav the news, making them both promise to keep it quiet for now. You didn’t tell them who, you didn’t disclose the name of the guy who had suddenly lodged himself in a strange space in your heart and your head. Because if you did, you’d have to tell them you were also afraid he’d leave. And speaking that out loud was too much to handle.

**

Harry was a regular at Dr. Weston’s office, so much so that you found it a bit embarrassing how he knew the nurses by name and proclaimed proudly in the waiting room that he’d read every pamphlet they had. 

For someone who has to keep this pregnancy low-key, shouting excitedly in the waiting room is the opposite of that, you told him.

So he followed you back into the exam room yet again, but this time with a pout on his face after the nurse left you alone. 

“What’s your problem?”

He held a hand over his eyes to offer you privacy when you changed, the gown in his outstretched hand. “You don’t even care that I’m extremely well read.”

“One of those was a pamphlet about gestational diabetes--which I don’t even have.” You took the gown and stepped into it, tying it in the back before climbing up on the table. 

He took his hands away without even asking if you were clothed, rolling his eyes and making a face. “I’m just trying to care, okay? However will you forgive me?” 

You fought back the laugh that tried to crawl up from your belly. “I appreciate your caring. And your reading.”

“Good,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he sat back in his seat. “You should. Where do you want to go to dinner tonight?”

You thought on it for a second. “Know any good barbeque places? Some ribs sound so good.”

His eyebrows lifted, he watched you for a second. 

“What?” You asked, a sudden nervousness in your chest. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He broke eye contact for a second, let out a tiny laugh and then looked back up at you, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Just didn’t know it’d be that easy to get you to hang out with me.”

“Oh shut up,” you said with a laugh, adjusting on top of the sanitary paper. “I’m hungry. It’s almost dinnertime anyway.”

“The only bad news is that I don’t know a good barbeque place.”

“That is bad news,” you said. “There’s one near my house. We can just go there. Or--get take out,” you corrected. 

Okay, so maybe it bothered you a little bit. At this point, feeling like you were a secret and the baby inside of you was a secret was a recipe for feeling like a big, old, shameful one night stand that he probably regretted. But you weren’t about to tell him that. 

“Is Lexi home tonight?”

You nodded.

“We could invite Glenne and Jeff, too, if you want. Or it could be just us, that’s fine.”

You didn’t have a chance to answer, though you wanted to say either would be fine. Dr. Weston knocked and offered a smile, how are both parents feeling? 

She asked the same questions: new symptoms? Any bleeding? Mood? Appetite? Headaches? You answered and nodded along, listening to the advice she gave about any lower back soreness as you started to really gain some weight. 

When she had the ultrasound machine on and when you had laid back and assumed the position, Harry pulled his chair up to be right next to you.

“Definitely growing in there,” Dr. Weston smiled, reaching up to point at the screen. 

“Wow--she actually looks like a baby now.”

“Yeah,” Dr. Weston laughed a bit. “Less of a plum and more a baby.” But she turned, after that, her eyebrows furrowing at the screen before she looked at Harry again. “How did you know it’s a girl?”

“It’s a girl?” you asked, lifting yourself on your elbows to look at the screen closer. “How do you know?”

She turned the screen to show you better, moved the probe along your lower tummy. “Well--if she weren’t, we’d see something right there between her legs.”

“So I’m right?” He looked at you with wide eyes, a smug look of excitement on his face. “We’re having a girl?”

“You are,” Dr. Weston nodded. “I hope it’s okay that you know now.”

Harry clapped his hands together and stood from his seat. “I knew it, Y/N. I totally called it.”

“It’s fine that we know, we wanted to,” you assured her. Harry had already grabbed his phone, likely bragging to Jeff and Glenne that he’d been right. “Now I just have to deal with this know it all, now.”

“Well congratulations,” she removed the probe and clicked a few things on the screen. “Fourteen weeks and everything looks great.”

You smiled, sat up and looked over at Harry, he looked up from his phone and smiled at you. “S’a girl.”

“I know,” you nodded, voice quiet. 

Dr. Weston ducked out of the room quietly, saying she’d see you soon before shutting the door to offer privacy.

“Did you already tell everyone we know?”

“No,” he laughed, letting his phone call into his pocket. “Just my mum and sister.”

You hopped down from the table and he handed you your clothes. 

“Are you happy it’s a girl?”

“I’m happy she’s healthy, and that I’m healthy,” you laughed. “But yes--a girl will be fun.”

“We’d make anything fun,” he said, stepping forward to wrap his arms around your shoulders, the fabric of the gown was scratchy on your skin. You looked up at him, and for a second, you wondered how it would feel to kiss him.

**

Jeff’s mouth was wide open, he was still, a look of shock on his face as Glenne let out a laugh loud enough that the neighbor’s might complain.

“Don’t,” Harry groaned, his eyes pleading with you to not embarrass him any further. 

“They were expired?!” Lexi’s eyes were wide, she looked between the two of you from her spot on the floor, take out on her lap. “That’s fucked man.”

“I didn’t know they were, obviously!” He defended.

Glenne shrugged her shoulders. “Just getting laid that infrequently.” 

“Alright, s’not my primary residence.”

“So wait,” Jeff said. “When did you find this out?”

A drop in your stomach, the nervous kind like you’d said the wrong thing. 

“When she was over once for dinner. Gave her the grand tour and we obviously had to stop by the scene of the crime,” Harry borrowed the language you once used to describe his sprawling bedroom. 

“He can definitely cook but apparently he doesn’t read expiration dates,” you laughed.

“So it’s all your fault,” Lexi laughed, reaching for another drink. “Bet that was tough news.”

Your eyes flashed over to Jeff, curious to see his reaction. In a way, Lexi wasn’t wrong. Sure--you’d fed Harry the response that it’s no one’s fault, and yeah, okay, you could live with that being the agreement everyone settled on. 

But it was also nice to know that it wasn’t anything you did. 

Harry rolled his eyes and pushed himself up off the couch when his phone rang. “One day you’re all going to feel terrible for saying that when you’re in love with our baby. It’s John--I’ll take it outside.”

Jeff followed behind him when Harry signaled for him to, the back door to the patio and small yard slid shut behind them.

“How ya been doin’ lately?” Glenne asked, leaning forward to grab the glass of wine she’d been nursing. 

“Fine,” you said. 

“Yeah?” She eyed you skeptically, Lexi dunked her fork into her green curry. 

“I’m handling the stress and constant anxiety as best as I can,” you admitted.

Glenne pouted. “What are you anxious about?” 

You let out a sigh, hesitant to say anything that would make her feel in the middle. “I just feel like Jeff thinks I fucked everything up or did this on purpose.”

Lexi sipped at her glass of wine. “What makes you think that?”

“I dunno--every time we’re all together I feel like he wants me to maintain a six foot distance or something.”

“He can’t tell you what to do or how to interact with him, Y/N,” Glenned tried to reassure you. “All he can do is give advice or give his input.”

“What if his input to Harry is that he shouldn’t ever talk to me or see me?”

“Bitch, you outrank him!” Lexi sat up straight and looked at you like you were losing your mind. “He’s his manager, he’s a friend. You are the mother of that man’s child. You are going to push his baby through your coochie!”

You let out a laugh, threw her a sideways glance. “I mean, I don’t know if outrank is fair.”

Glenne held up a hand, trying to get her two cents in before Lexi went off again. “He’s not mad--I don’t know why you think he’s mad.”

“Okay--fine, he’s not mad. But do you really want to try to convince me that I’m his favorite person on the planet right now?”

She rolled her eyes at that. “Y/N--he’s stressed. His client got his girlfriend’s friend knocked up. This is all going to explode into a thousand crazy headlines and he’s trying to keep it all somewhat contained. He loves you.”

You let out a long sigh at that, looked through the sliding door and watched as Harry gestured wildly, the phone sat on the small patio table between them. Jeff laughed at something he said and sipped at the beer that Harry was undoubtedly jealous of. 

Jeff had always thought you were funny. You knew that. When you got a good amount of tequila in you, you were no stranger to comedy or outrageous accents with Lexi and Glenne. Jeff would laugh his head off and there was even one time he made you drunkenly take obnoxious snapchat selfies with the stupid filters. It was probably the highlight of your relationship. 

So that night, after dinner was eaten and Netflix was watched, you tried to harness the courage that Lexi and Glenne had instilled in you. 

When Jeff came out of the bathroom, Glenne pulled herself up from a couch, a dramatic groan escaped her mouth when she smiled over at you and stretched. “Alright, my dear. Eat well, sleep well, take care of that sweet little muffin.”

“Okay,” you nodded. “So far, so good.”

Lexi had already retreated to her room, beauty sleep, y’all. Jeff waited as Glenne put her wine glass in the sink, hands on his hips. “Are you hitting the road too?”

His question was directed at Harry. He shifted on the couch. “Uh--might stay for a bit, if that’s alright?” 

Now he looked at you, and once again, you wondered if this sort of thing was allowed. An awkward look in Jeff’s direction, Glenne’s eyes were a bit wide, a smirk threatened to twist her lips into a full blown smile. 

“Yeah,” you said, looking around at all of them. “S’fine.”

You were all for following the rules and doing what you needed to do to protect everyone. But something about watching another episode of The Office on Netflix with the father of your child felt pretty safe. And maybe Glenne was right. Maybe you did outrank him. And if you didn’t, maybe one day you would. 

“Alright, well, we’ll see you both at some point in the next week, I’m sure.”

“Are we on for Saturday night still? With Tom?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said, watching as Glenne grabbed her purse from the counter. “I’ll text you.”

They said their goodbyes and headed out the front door, when it clicked into place you looked over at Harry. 

“Would you actually tell me if Jeff hated me?”

“Why would he hate you?”

“Because you got me pregnant.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” he shook his head, a smile tugged at his lips. “S’my fault, remember?”

“He might not see it that way.”

He rolled his eyes at you. “I just know.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, I would know if he hated you. He’s a terrible liar. He’d never be able to hang out with you if he didn’t like you.”

You were quiet, looked back down at the remote in your hands and picked at the skin around your thumb. 

He turned himself towards you on the couch, his voice quiet in the living room. “Why are you nervous about that?”

You shrugged, trying to fight back a smile. “I’m still trying to get over the whole fear about ruining your life.”

He rolled his eyes at that, a laugh escaping his lips when his arm reached up to the back of the couch. “You’re ridiculous! I can tell you a thousand times and you won’t believe me.”

“Probably not.”

“You didn’t ruin my life.”

“Okay.” You stood from the couch and moved towards the kitchen, bringing the glass that Lexi had left behind over to the dishwasher. 

He followed behind, watched with narrowed eyes as you tried to tidy. “I mean it,” he laughed. 

You turned around, hands on the counter as you looked at him. It was late, the light in Lexi’s room was off, you hoped she didn’t have her ear pressed up against the door. Mostly because you didn’t want her to hear what you said next. 

“I just don’t want you to leave.”

He took a step forward, brows furrowed. “Tonight?”

“No--like, in general.”

His lips parted at that, a pause before he sighed, another step forward. 

“Sorry,” you said quickly. “I didn’t mean to be weird. I’m just--scared sometimes.”

“I know,” he was close now, his chest almost pressed against yours. His fingers reached up and tugged at the hem of your shirt, “I’m not going anywhere.”

You nodded, stared down at the floor now as if looking up in his eyes would somehow make it more risky. As if ignoring the fear and the doubt and everything that bubbled inside of you when you tried to get your mind off of it would keep you safe, keep her safe. 

His hand nudged at your chin, lifted it up so you had to look at him. Something in his eyes felt promising--or maybe it was the way you felt his lips curl into a smile once they were pressed against yours.

table of contents | talk to me + join the tag list

**author’s note: **FINALLY!!!!! No but really, thank god. It’s been tough to wait to share that with you. Things are finally heating up in here! You know I’m a fucking sucker for a slow burn.

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[reneesi]

i never would have thought // CH.07

WRITTEN PORTION

The clock on the sleek mint green wall of the train station read 10:15. Only 2 minutes had passed since (y/n) had last checked it, never the less at 10:18 her eyes where shifting to read the time once more. (Y/n) wrung her hands together, gaze falling to her feet for what felt like the millionth time. She wasn’t nervous, or more like she wasn’t nervous because of Tsukishima, she was just in a hurry! At least that (y/n) told herself as another wave of fluttering washed through her stomach and up her throat. Her breathing had been weirdly staggered all morning, and though she’d never admit it (y/n) had spent a little too long picking out her outfit. Eventually she had settled on a pastel pink tank top and light wash overalls along with low white socks that had cute lace trimming along the edge. It was simple enough, nothing that seemed as though she had necessarily tried but enough of a difference to elicit an exited “You look really cute today!” from her little cousin Natsu as she was leaving the house.

(Y/n) went through her mental checklist, again, attempting to calm her nerves. If she had forgotten anything she’d have to walk all the way back home to grab it and would probably loose too many daylight hours. Speaking of which she was already falling behind schedule given the fact that Tsukishima had yet to arrive. (Y/n) pulled out her cellphone, reviewing her last three text messages again. It had been nearly half an hour since Tsukishima had sent his simple “Im on my way.” And yet he was no where to be seen.

Sighing, (Y/n) sat on the nearest bench, frustration threatening to consume her. She tried sending another text. She checked the clock once more, 10:20. She sighed.

“This fucker…” she mumbled under her breath, staring at the time on her lock screen. They had agreed on 10 o’clock sharp. Well maybe not “sharp” but it had still been 10-ish as in around 10, not 10 fricking 30. (Y/n) calmed herself yet again, wanting to maintain a positive attitude for the long day that was certainly to come. Five more minutes, she thought. Five more minutes and if he didn’t show she’d call Tsukishima until he picked up the fucking phone.

Five excruciatingly long minutes later, (Y/n) was holding her cellphone to her ear, dial tone ringing its mechanical melody. (Y/n) bit her lip.

“Idiot.” A familiar voice scoffed from behind, as a sideways palm came over her head, hitting her hard enough to elicit an ouch of compliant.

“Why would you call me when I’m right behind you?” He asked, voice even and monotonous as always.

(Y/n) turned to look back at Tsukishima, sending him a glare as she stood.

“Because you’re 25 minutes late!” She accused, pointing an enraged finger at his chest.

“I told you somewhere around 10.” He shrugged, moving past her as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Yeah well I thought that meant maybe 10:05 at the latest? What kind of idiot thinks 10:25 is around 10?! Thats around 10:30 more than anything!” (Y/n)’s voice was rising with every word, “And where are you going?!”

Tsukishima stopped and looked back over his shoulder, not an ounce of readable emotion across his face.

“We’re going to miss our train.” He said evenly, before turning back to walk onwards. (Y/n)’s eyes widened and in a scramble she picked up her backpack and stumbled to catch up, boarding the train just after Tsukishima. Once they had settled into seats right by each other he mumbled quietly.

“You wanted to go to the city right? The train leaves at 10:30 so as long as I was here before then everything is okay, right?”

Rosy pink bloomed over (Y/n)’s cheekbones, her head dropping slightly to hide her face. Suddenly she was too close to Tsukishima.

“Y..yeah.” (Y/n) uttered, embarrassment pricking at the tips of her ears as the nerves in her stomach flared.

The two rode in silence for the remainder of the trip, Tsukishima tilting his head to stare away from (y/n) while listening to music though his headphones, and (y/n) sneaking glances every so often at Tsukishima. She argued internally that she was just doing pre-shoot mental plotting. Deciding what poses she’d put him in, what kind of lighting would look good and so on. But it was during these reticent glances that (y/n) noticed Tsukishima’s hair was still damp. A single droplet of water rolled off a strand of shimmering blonde every so often, and with the early light each bead shone like a crystal. Upon further inspection (y/n) concluded he must have taken a shower not long before his departure given the fresh glow of his creamy light skin and the hint of shampoo that hung in the air between them. It was a scent close to laundry detergent and something else she couldn’t quite place, something sharp and intriguing.

(Y/n) felt something strange bubble in her chest, similar to nervousness but different enough to be foreign, and realized she had yet to pull her eyes away. Mentally she thanked the higher powers that Tsukishima had settled down facing away from her and leaned her head back, moving to stare at the ceiling. If not for his position he would have otherwise noticed not only her staring but the hints of pink and red that had failed to leave her face since the beginning of the train ride.

They arrived at the city around 12 PM, (Y/n) complaining loudly at the sheer amount of time “wasted” on the train. She quickly declared their first order of business to be finding a spot with some sort of decent lighting and taking a few preliminary shots to determine the best angles for the shoot. The pair walked around for a while, passing sarcastic jokes and small retorts back and forth. Every time they’d pass a window, on of them would make some sort of judgment call about whatever was being displayed and in the turn the other would jump in to defend said item.

“I just don’t see how you could hate a hat so much! It’s got flowers!” (Y/n) explained, mouth wide and aghast

“It looks tacky.” Tsukishima shrugged, (y/n) shook her head tragically

“Oh Sucky-shima, when will you learn the true beauties of this world.” She sighed drastically, Tsukishima snorted in response

“You’re the one who said that strawberry shortcake looked soggy, which was just factually incorrect.” He threw back, side eyeing (y/n) with a raised brow

“It did not look appetizing.”

“You just have no taste.”

“I don’t dislike strawberry shortcake! There’s just better out there, and I am a person of taste” (Y/n) defended.

“Plus I could probably make a better one.” She finally added, after a long beat of silence. Tsukishima looked like he had something to say but ultimatley didn’t reply, instead he simply rolled his eyes and continued in silence.

Eventually the two came across a fairly empty park and settled into a well lit corner of the greenery. (Y/n)’s camera flickered on and after some button pushes and general adjustments she looked up, half expecting Tsukishima to be in some sort of position. But to nobodies surprise but her own, Tsukishima only stood a couple feet away looking around awkwardly. (Y/n)’s breath caught in her throat as she considered going over and positioning him herself, only to realize that would require touching him which might make things even more awkward than they already where. Because even for all the friendly banter they’d grown to take comfort in, they were still barely good friends and a thick layer of discomfort was very much present between the two.

“H-how do you want me to stand?” Tsukishima asked after one two many moments of silence had passed. It was difficult to tell due to the harsh light and hot weather but (Y/n) could have almost sworn Tsukishima was beginning to develop a soft blush atop his cheeks.

“U-um, why don’t we start with some sitting one! Like on that bench!” (Y/n) pointed, giggling forcibly at the end of her sentence. She cringed inwardly. Tsukishima only nodded, walking over and taking a seat on the bench she had selected.

(Y/n) took a deep breath, it was always weird in the beginning. She always felt awkward at first, so this was no different. All she had to do was get into a groove and she’d be in her element in no time. Then everything would stop feeling so suffocatingly weird.

“Okay, um, don’t move just maybe rest your arms on the top behind you and put that leg over the other, wait not like that I mean-“ (Y/n) blushed, resisting the urge to cover up her face with her hands. Tsukishima looked up at her, confused.

“Just, sorry, just sit however makes you comfortable and try to um relax.” (Y/n) finally sputtered out, sighing as she brought the lens up and squinted. This was going to be harder than she thought.

The first couples shots were tense and really REALLY awkwardly positioned. Tsukishima looked like a broken store mannequin that was being held at gunpoint. But once he noticed (y/n) had started to relax, Tsukishima began joking around again, throwing insults and light criticisms at her in a playful way that felt comforting to their dynamic. Once (Y/n) started laughing again, the ice began to melt and Tsukishima was able to produce a much more normal looking pose. After a half hour of shooting like this (Y/n) stopped and plopped down beside Tsukishima, leaning back into the bench. She began to swiftly click through the images, deleting most of them.

“What was the point of that if you’re just gonna delete them?” Tsukishima asked, furrowing his brows in annoyance “Now I’m gonna have to do all that work again.”

“Relax, that wasn’t the actual shoot. I was getting some test shots to see what exactly I wanted and also what you’d be comfortable doing.” (Y/n) explained, pausing on an image of Tsukishima with his head back, a smile barely visible but never the less present. She smiled to herself, moving on to the next picture without deleting it.

“Since clearly you don’t like to smile for the camera we’re gonna do a stylized phtoshoot so your facial expression doesn’t hinder the process.” She continued, emphasizing the last bit in a sarcastic tone.

Tsukishima rolled his eyes,

“Whatever, let’s just get this over with.” He sighed, melting back to lay against the bench in a half seated half slipping off sort of way.

The next couple hours were long, to say the least. (Y/n) barked orders from afar at an increasingly annoyed Tsukishima, as the day grew hotter and brighter forcing the pair to change the spot they had settled into. The stances Tsukishima took only really worked half the time, since he was mostly too tense or couldn’t figure out the desired posing from (y/n)’s words alone. Regardless, (Y/n) refused to go over and physically put him in position in fear of accidentally ruining the easy atmosphere they had finally achieved. And as they trudged on, the heat began to wear them down, gathering sticky sweat across their foreheads which dripped down to their chests which fueled their matching exhaustion.

Eventually Tsukishima came to a halt

“Okay, enough.” He ran a hand across his forehead “We need to take a break.”

(Y/n) considered arguing but as she felt another bead of sweat roll down the back of neck she decided that maybe just this once, she’d have to listen to Tsukishima.

“This shit is no joke, now I understand why people get payed to do it.” Tsukishima huffed, collapsing back onto the bench they had initially sat in, which had now come to be in the shade. (Y/n) tossed him a water bottle from her backpack and sat beside him, popping the cap off and guzzling the cold down her throat. The refreshment of the cool liquid was unparalleled, and as she drank (Y/n) felt streams of water slipping down her chin. She exhaled, wiping at the wetness with the back of her hand.

“Yeah, it usually isn’t this hot though.” She remarked, shooting Tsukishima a look of apology before leaning back to let her head fall off the edge of the bench.

“Had Tsukishima been blushing just now? No, it had to be the heat.” She pondered internally, staring up and enjoying the way the tree’s leaves moved in soft tandem with the wind, streams of light breaking through the shrubbery.

“You said you needed something interesting, right?” Tsukishima asked a few minutes later

“For the photoshoot?” (Y/n) asked, pulling herself back up to sit upright while turning to look over at Tsukishima

“Yeah, I had an idea.” He began

(Y/n) tilted her head expectantly.

“What if we used the water, from the water bottle? You could probably create a cool effect with that right?” He suggested, holding up his half empty water bottle. (Y/n) narrowed her eyes, thinking for a moment

“That… could actually work.” She pipped up, energy returning in a burst “Wait! I think I have an idea.”

(Y/n) scooped up her camera, fiddling with the settings as she looked around for a spot to shoot. In the blur of excitement she took a hold of Tsukishima’s wrist and dragged him into position.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, jeez.” He grumbled clearly annoyed, not attempting to pull his hand away despite this. (Y/n) released his hand and began adjusting his shirt, and it was then that she realized just how touchy she’d suddenly become. She peeked up at him and this time he was definitely blushing. Her own cheeks flared and (Y/n) jumped back, vision hazy with embarrassment.

“S-sorry! I didn’t even-“

“It’s fine.” Tsukishima scoffed, looking away to avoiding her eyes “It’s just part of the job right?” He shrugged, feigning indifference that was clearly contradicted by the red on his face.

(Y/n) bonked herself internally, he was probably so embarrassed and uncomfortable. She stood farther away but positioned him physically none the less, making sure to only touch him if absolutely necessary. As she set up the exact shot she wanted, (Y/n) mumbled little apologies in between, biting her cheek to calm the raging nervousness at the pit of her stomach that only worsened with every touch.

Eventually they were able to get a picture that (y/n) deemed presentable and the pair moved on to the rest of the portfolio, since the major piece had been accomplished. The two first years ended up staying out until the sun began to set, partially because they kept pausing to banter in between each click of the shutter but mostly because (y/n) couldn’t help but to stop and stare through the lens every so often, making some snarky remark to hide the way her breath caught behind the camera.

Orange light swallowed the tile and columns all around, painting the empty train station (Y/n) and Tsukishima had come sit in in a soft gold hue. The sound of wind and far away trains whirred in the distance and the weather had cooled to a comfortable warmth, the kind felt by a fireplace in the dead of winter when snow falls on eyelashes and the air smells like sugar cookies. A gentle warm, like that of a blanket.

The sticky sweet vanilla dripped onto the floor beneath her and (y/n) licked at her ice cream bar, hoping to catch the next drop with her tongue instead.

“Thanks for helping me out today.” (Y/n) finally mumbled, eyes fixated on the barely visable pink tinted clouds that lay in the far away sky. She could feel Tsukishima next to her, radiating subtle warmth which was sort of strange since he was always so cold, not just to her but to everyone. It was hard not to think so much about him, when he was only centimeters away.

(Y/n)’s mind wandered back to her slip up and suddenly she remembered the feel of his wrist in her hand, and another wave of hot brushed over her face. His skin had been… soft. She peeked over at his hand, the free one that lay in the space between them and wasn’t holding up an ice cream bar. She’d never really been one to pay attention to such trivial details, but now that she knew what his skin felt like, (y/n) couldn’t help but wonder if his hands were just as soft.. how his long slender fingers would feel wrapped around her own.. what his palm would feel like against her cheek-

“Yeah, no problem.” His response was like a snap back to reality, and although Tsukishima hadn���t noticed the way (y/n) had been staring longingly at his hand her blush still deepened as she lowered her gaze back to her feet.

In the end, (y/n) got ice cream on her overalls and a pestering poke to the cheek from Tsukishima.

“Don’t zone out while you’re eating ice cream, idiot.” He’d sneered, causing (y/n) to slap his hand away in protest. The two had argued back and forth before eventually boarding the train and much like that morning, had rode home in silence. When they had arrived back home, there had been only a slight pause on Tsukishima’s part before the two had exchanged goodbyes and parted ways. In that moment before their departures, Tsukishima had looked confused, almost as if he’d been trying to figure out his next play in a long game of chess, but a look like that only had a lifespan of about 5 seconds on a face like Tsukishima’s. (Y/n) sighed in exasperation, throwing her head back to stare at the stars as she walked, she never could read Tsukishima… So what the hell had he been thinking?

CH.07 II you owe me

A/N: Hi, i am SO SORRY! I really was trying to stick to the uploading schedule and then i just got absolutely hit by life. Last weekend was kind of really crazy and i knew i had a big chapter planned so i didn’t wanna sacrifice the chapter in order to release something earlier :/ Then yesterday I was still trying to finish up this chapter and it kind of all snowballed together. To stay on schedule Im gonna double upload wednesday since i still owe you guys another chapter. I hope this one sort of makes up for the lateness, since this is the first REALLY long one in terms of ss and writing! Again, i’m really REALLY SORRY :(( But i hope you guys enjoy!!! 

The picture of Tsukishima from the photoshoot with the water bottle is FANART and nOT MINE, it belongs to @unico_ts on twitter!! All credit is her’s!! Go check her out, her fanart is DIVINE <3

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[kiara-carrera]

[ COMFORT ] - noticing that the receiver has received terrible news, sender offers them a hug as a means of comforting them during this difficult time. + your choice!!!

took the prompt as a loose suggestion because it’s not necessarily bad news, but it’s a hug of comfort soooo

comfort: abby + kiara

The Kook Academy was a vicious jungle, but Kiara had learned too late that Sarah Cameron was an apex predator.

Top of the food chain, she was the untouchable, the princess of the Kooks. The Kook Academy lived and breathed as a hierarchy of power and Sarah was at the top. They weren’t even seniors yet and still, the will of the people around them always seemed to undoubtedly bend in her favor. It wasn’t hard to see why. Sarah was gorgeous, effortlessly beautiful even on her worst days. And she knew how to fake a smile, how to play the perfect student, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend.

The perfect best friend.

But it was all a lie and Kiara had found herself stuck in the middle of all of it, like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

Kie had been a fish out of water when freshman year had started. She didn’t fit in. She’d gone to the public elementary and middle schools, away from the elitism of the schools where Figure Eight residents sent their kids. But when it came down to it, she’d always been different than her friends, no matter how badly she wanted to just be a Pogue. She’d always be in the middle, a foot in both worlds, a rich kid who “slummed it” on the south side of the island. But that was how she liked it and in hindsight that was how she should have kept it.

But her parents had shipped her off to the private high school and she’d been off balance ever since. Sarah Cameron had been a life preserver when she had been drowning and next to Sarah, Kiara’s life had shifted. She’d isolated herself from her old friends, but she had Sarah.

She had the popularity, the friends, the parties, the never ending stream of feeling like she was on top of the world.

Until Sarah promptly kicked her off the very same pedestal she’d allowed her to perch on for all those months.

As she finished up in the bathroom, alone during her free period, she was reminded of just what kind of a fucking pathetic 2000′s teen movie nightmare she was living in.

Kiara Carrera's a rat! was scribbled on the stall door in bright pink sharpie, alongside multiple crude drawings, a few phone numbers whose owners probably had no idea they were there, and a mention of some guy in the grade above her having crabs. 

TMI, Kiara thought, nose scrunched in disgust.

But mostly, her eyes kept straying back to that one word, that one name that had been tacked onto her name since Sarah’s birthday. 

She figured there were worse things she could be called, but it was the principle of the situation. It had been months now. Kiara had figured that in a school like the Kook Academy, a party being broken up by the cops would have been old news by now. But when fingers had been pointed and she’d been labeled as the snitch, apparently the situation blowing over hadn’t been in the cards. 

Like, okay, sure, she technically was the one who called the cops. But no one knew that and she’d just had the crime pinned on her anyways because Sarah fucking Cameron refused to do anything about it. And what was she supposed to do? It was bad enough that Sarah had already iced her out. Kiara had been ghosted for weeks before her birthday and then the rager unfolding at Tannyhill had been all over Instagram. It was just more salt in the wound and Kiara’s jealousy had won over.

And now, she supposed, she was paying the price.

Sophomore year was like a wound that refused to heal, aching over and over again. Her distance from her newfound friends was colossal and her “Kook year” was one for the books. It was still technically ongoing, but she was back to being a fish out of water in this callous fucking school, her only reprieve coming at night and on weekends when she could fall back into the fold of Pogue life now that she’d finally gotten her old friends, her real friends, to forgive her.

But the incessant name calling, the writing on the walls, the near total isolation for eight hours a day, five days a week? A couple hours with the Pogues wasn’t enough to combat that and Kiara felt bitter, hot, angry tears stinging the back of her eyes as she shouldered her way out of the stall.

“Stupid fucking Kooks,” she muttered under her breath as she reached the sinks. Annoyance flooding through her, she aggressively began washing her hands, glancing up to look in the mirror after a few moments.

She could finally recognize herself again, the way she hadn’t been able to all those months playing make believe with Sarah and her fake friends, but she wasn’t happy here. Nothing at this godforsaken, elitist, fascist school made her happy except —

In the mirror behind her, the bathroom door burst open. “Oh, Kie, hey!”

Abigail Mitchell practically floated into the room with ease, a smile on her lips. She was in the middle of pulling her dark hair back with a brightly colored scrunchie, the red color matching the strawberry earrings dangling from her ears. Her eyes, those impossibly blue eyes that always reminded Kie of the ocean, only seemed to brighten at the sight of her friend.

Friend.

Where Sarah had been a momentary life preserver, Abigail Mitchell had been a saving grace, waltzing into Kiara’s life at the Kook Academy in the eleventh hour, right when she’d gone from top of the heap to team reject. Kiara had been hesitant, resistant even, to making another friend on this side of the island but  Abby was ... different, to say the least.

Like most of Figure Eight residents, she came from old money and she was on friendly-ish terms with some of the Kooks but the difference was all in the perspective. Despite the outward appearance and the obnoxiously large mansion she lived in, Abby had lived on the Cut for seven years before her mother died and she was shipped off to live with her grandparents. For seven years, she had known the world that Kiara had one foot in.

And although it had been years since her grandparents gained custody of her, most of Figure Eight still saw Abby as the outsider with the flighty mom. Good enough to converse with at school and at functions because of her status as a Mitchell, but not good enough for anything else, apparently. She learned how to play the part, to look the part, to make paper thin “friendships” with those around her, but Kie had been lucky enough to actually get to know the real Abby — the girl that Abby was and longed to be.

Even though they hadn’t been friends long, Kie just knew that Abby fully got what it was like to be on the outside, never truly fitting in, and not having a desire to fit in. From the picture Abby had painted for Kie, she’d never really had any real friends here, had never been able to see eye to eye with any of the facades the people around them liked to meticulously maintain.

And when Kiara had been kicked to the curb, Abby had been the only one show her actual, real kindness. Abby just ... got her, and after what Kiara had gone through, there was nothing more comforting than someone who just understood.

“Hey yourself,” Kiara mumbled, forcing a smile on her face as she finished washing hands, shaking them dry into the sink. She tried to make the expression look genuine as she turned to face Abby, although the effort was in vain.

Her lack of a good mood was apparently noticeable at the drop of a hat, a frown working its way onto Abby’s face. “Are you okay?”

Unconsciously, Kiara’s eyes flickered to the stall.

Abby caught Kiara’s glance at the stall, her brows knitting together in confusion. Her gaze shifted between the door and Kie for a moment, wheels turning in her mind, putting the pieces together. 

“Oh, come on,” she mumbled under her breath, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder as she marched over.

“Abby —”

Before Kiara could even finish her sentence, Abby had the door open, eyes locked on the words defacing it.

“This shit’s still going on?” Abby cursed, turning around on her heel to look at Kie in question. But her annoyance wasn’t directed at her, Abby’s eyes flitting to the ceiling as she continued, “I swear to God, everyone at this school has the mentality of a badly written teen soap villain.”

Kiara shrugged, rolling her eyes. “I’m used to it, everyone here hates me, I’ve gotten the memo.”

She wasn’t fine, but there was no way she was about to sob in the bathroom like a three year old just because a bunch of assholes who flaunted daddy’s credit card everywhere wanted to have her name in their mouths constantly. And not in front of Abby, especially not in front of her.

Kiara wasn’t really sure what it was about Abby that made her so comfortable and on her toes all at once. Sarah had royally fucked with her view of friendship outside of John B, JJ, and Pope, and she spent most days waiting for the other shoe to drop, to become the punchline of another joke, for Abby to ghost her too.

But then Abby would give her that look, that soft little look like the one she wore right now and the world would seem slightly less bad. Abby took short, quick steps over to the sinks, holding out an almost hesitant hand to Kiara. She looked nervous almost, like Kiara was going to bat it away, but the tension in her shoulders dropped when Kiara accepted.

Two warm, soft palms met in the middle, a jingle of multiple bracelets on either wrist as soft expressions were on either face. Their eyes locked for a moment before Abby was gently tugging her in, wrapping her arms around Kiara in a comforting embrace. Kiara’s eyes squeezed shut as the sting of tears bit at the edges of her sight as the shorter girl tightened the hug just a little more.

“Hey, look,” Abby said after a moment. She slipped loose from the hug, hands drifting up to hold onto Kiara’s shoulders, giving her a stern look. “Fuck ‘em. No one at this school is worth your time, okay?”

You are, Kie thought absentmindedly. She didn’t say that, though, the words stationary on the tip of her tongue. It was a bold statement, a heavy statement, not one for a newly blossoming friendship. But it was the truth, whether she said it out loud or not.

A small, yet vibrant smile broke out on Kiara’s face as she repeated, “Fuck ‘em.”

“That’s my girl!”

[atendersun-archived]

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬

FULL NAME. Mason Uri Thompson

NICKNAME. Muu 

GENDER. Male.

HEIGHT. 5′9″

AGE. 25

ZODIAC. Pisces

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. English is his primary language. Japan is secondary and verse dependent.

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬

HAIR COLOR. Blond

EYE COLOR.  Brown-Green hazel

SKIN TONE. Fair, but with a pink, rosy undertone.

BODY TYPE. Mesomorph. His legs, back, and chest are the most muscular, while his arms trail behind as the leanest parts of his body.

VOICE. Is of average deepness at his normal speaking level, but raises when he’s nervous, or sad. His defense mechanism in stressful situations is to make himself appear smaller for safety purposes, but he’s working on being more aware of it.

DOMINANT HAND. Left

POSTURE. Somewhat arched. Having spent a lengthy amount of his time hunched over in an effort to take up less space as a person has had some life term effects on his posture. He does wear a bright blue brace for about thirty minutes a couple times a week to train his back to stay more upright, but he still finds himself slouching in the presence of people that unknowingly intimated him.

SCARS. He has a round shaped scar on his left arm from an incident with a colleague nearly from about five years earlier, so it has a lot time to heal to the point of being far less noticeable than it was when he first acquired it. There are also some very, very faded scars along his lower back from being unintentionally attacked by a dog as a child. He’d startled it when trying to retrieve a toy from a neighbor’s yard, and instigated a chase when he ran away. It was a small poodle.

TATTOOS. On the inside of his right arm is a tattoo is of very cartoony version of the character Oh from the movie Home. When he was very lonely, and down on himself, it became it his comfort film. He related a lot to the alien character of the film. When on a whim, he decided to get a tattoo, he knew he wanted it to be of something with a lot of meaning to him, but also something that would strike a sense of familiarity to those who also felt like they were an Oh in the world too.

BIRTHMARKS. On the side of his upper left leg, quite close to his butt in fact, is a small, circular mark with tiny, darker colored dots within it. If looked at the right angle, it almost appears to a smiley face. As kind of odd as it is, he really likes his birthmark, and the location it resides on. For a very long time, he held a lot hatred for his lower body for things that took a lot of counseling to come to terms with. Nowadays, he’s far too comfortable pulling down the back of pants just enough to flash his birthmark to people.

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). In the sunny, warm seasons of the year, he tends to get freckles that scatter primarily across his nose and his arms. They cease to be noticeable come late fall only to reappear after the rainy parts of spring.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝

PLACE OF BIRTH. From what he’d been told by his grandparents, he had been born while his father and mother still resided on a military base somewhere within the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. After circumstances leading to the questioning of his mother’s parenting abilities, both him and his brother were relocated states away to live with their paternal grandparents once their father released custody to them in order for him to join the Navy.

HOMETOWN. Verse Dependent

SIBLINGS. An older brother named Matthew who is about two years older than himself.

PARENTS. His mother is entirely absent from his life after a string of broken promises that she’d gotten her life together enough to be a good mom to him, while his father and him are just distant from having very little in common with another. They can hold civil conversations with one another when they interact for brief moments at family get togethers, but he still is far closer to his grandmother than he is with any other parental figure in his life.

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

OCCUPATION. Preschool teacher at a daycare center for children between the ages of 6 weeks old to 6 years old. He never imagined himself as ever working with children, because quite frankly they kind of scared him at one point, but he loves his job more than he would have ever expected.

CURRENT RESIDENCE. He lives alone in a very spacious home that was actually leased to him when the man knew the younger was seeking out a place to live after an end to a relationship. His favorite thing in all of his home is the very large bath tub. It is far more comparable to a pool than a tub, but he has not yet had anything occur where he questioned downsizing it.

CLOSE FRIENDS. All of ‘em. Every last one of them. He has been especially grateful for the opportunities to reconnect with Hisao @angstiism, Hannah @kannojo, Alex @dis--parity, Pchan @nvrcmplt​, and Yukio @silvxcs. Someday, when he grows the guts to meet with and check up on some old, familiar faces, such as Archer at @sonderrow, and Nicole @gamenu, he’d like to just listen intently in regards to where life has led them. He also is blossoming in the new friendships he is forming with new people.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS. Verse Dependent.

FINANCIAL STATUS. He falls somewhere on the back end of middle class, yet he doesn’t really mind. It is familiar for him enough that he has learned how to make do without having a lot of money left over. It is for the best, really, because he still remembers very much so the ridiculous amount of money he’d spent only on pudding and snacks many years ago.

DRIVER’S LICENSE. No. He’s terrified to learn how to drive, so he just makes do with either walking, riding the bus, and sometimes even riding his bike if he has the energy to do so.

CRIMINAL RECORD. Clean. He’d like to say he’s done some wild things that have gone untraced, but the most adventurous he’s ever gotten was the time he stole a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal from a store in the mall. He later went back to pay for it out of guilt, so even that one doesn’t particularly count.

VICES. The constant need to be busy doing something to give his brain far less of a chance to dwell on things he is not satisfied with dwelling on. Maintaining an active and creative lifestyle are very important to him. Otherwise, in the event he does sink to an unexpected low, he tends to build himself back up by indulging in activities that brought him peace as a child. Doodling, watching cartoons, buying random things online from things he watched a kid to boost serotonin. His latest thing is to actually read poetry. He finds it really enjoyable to see something on a page that artistically expresses thoughts he can relate to, and has since started to collect an abundance of poetry books.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. He identifies under the queer label. He doesn’t really know for certain where he falls in terms of sexual attraction, since frankly he went years without even getting close to it, but he does know that he has deep feelings for all kinds of people underneath other categories of attraction. A more descriptive way of describing himself would be to say demisexual panromantic, but he prefers to use queer.

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. Honestly, he really just thrives on fulfilling whatever role his partners request. He loves to care for people to immeasurable bounds, while shifting to a relaxed, or sometimes needier side of himself when the roles are reversed.

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. He’ll tell you he’s a switch with a preference for topping, but in reality he is a switch with a preference for literally doing whatever the person he feels comfort and admiration for enough to get to that level with them in the first place. He does get a tad bitter when people make suggestions that he doesn’t have the assertiveness to be the dominant partner in those types of relations, and is therefore trying to education himself as much as he can on the overall process before he can even consider taking the reigns like that in real time.

LIBIDO. For the most part, very low. In his main timelines, he has gone seven years without going completely all the way with another person out of a fear of what could follow after that level of intimacy. He doesn’t necessarily have those same fears, but he does feel completely out of the loop in comparison to peers of his who have far more experience than he does. He is at least putting a lot of effort and thoughtfulness into being a more sex positive person, so in time he believes he will reach a point where he will have an average adult male libido.

TURN ON’S. Words of encouragement and affirmation, undivided attention, and playfulness are the primarily ones. Even if it doesn’t always sound exciting in its application, Mason actually finds it really helpful when a partner either verbally describes why and where they are touching him, or how they want him to touch them instead, because it gives a complete sense of clarity and consent. He’s admittedly very inexperienced and clueless, so being shown AND told are clearer in his mind than just being left to try and plan out his next move with limited reference.

TURN OFF’S. Dirty talk. Being called things like whore, slut, or other demeaning names while having sex not only turns him off, but it also really hurts his feelings even when it is jokingly implied that he is being labeled something bad. He also does not really like being referred to things such as little boy, bitch, baby boy. He doesn’t mind being called Baby when it is used to be an affectionate pet name, and he is so much of a sucker for being complimented on, that he’d probably not even bat an eye if someone playfully called him Princess. Just not around other people, because he takes his pride in being a top-man very seriously.

IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. His main two love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch, while the others typically fall not too far behind. He also really just loves the ability to spend time with another person where both people are doing their own thing together. Those moments when he can just glance over to see the twitch of his partner’s lips, or the squinting of their eyes when they get seriously invested in their passion are very meaningful to him. He is also aware that he comes with things that are not always the easiest to love, such as heavy subjects spoken only about in serious conversations, and in the days that are harder to get out of bed than others, so he tries to actively make up for it in the ways he knows how. He’ll often take over the bulk of the work around the house and yard. As a man with a little bit of knowledge about a lot of topics, and a lot of love to give around to make up the difference, he seeks to love and be loved unconditionally by putting in all of his effort to doing whatever he knows will bring the people he is dating complete happiness. 

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.  Here I am Alive, by Yellowcard and Way Less Sad, by AJR.

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. Learning how to play the ukulele, drawing, listening to music, playing videogames from time to time, and texting his friends.

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Right.

PHOBIAS. He really doesn’t have any of the same intense, yet irrational fears as he did as a young man, so it is a lot more difficult for him to pinpoint whether or not he has any remaining phobias. In some ways, the fears of rejection and abandonment still linger at the back of his mind from time to time. Otherwise, he would likely only become of just how terrifyingly ingrained something was to him at the exact moment he was face to face with it. Additionally, he does not hold any trust towards demons, and would scream profusely if he was locked in a room with one, but he refuses to admit that he finds them scary out of spite.

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. For the most part, it is pretty comparable to the self confidence level he had as an innocent, wildly curious teenager, and is a thousand percent better than when he was experiencing the complete lack of self esteem that came with the depression of his very early twenties. He still wrangles with moments of issues of self worth and blaming himself for things that he is slowly becoming to terms with being the result of other people’s problems instead of his own, but they are at least only on very few occasions. Saying he necessarily loves himself would really likely come down to who he is present with at the time, because in some circumstances he believes saying such a thing would lead to him being punished for reasons he might not be able to explain.

VULNERABILITIES. Expressing his feelings to people. He spends a lot of energy dreading the possibilities that can occur by him being anything but kind and happy around the people in his life. He takes no pride in thinking that he’d some way be passing on his troubles onto another person, thus making them take on part of his low as they go about their own day. Logically, he knows that the likelihood of someone physically striking him for expressing his emotions are low, but internally he knows why that sense of fear is there in the first place. He’d rather be a person who is openly loved and feels internally than be someone who feels openly and is not loved at all. It is very telling of his complete trust in another person when he cries around them.

[smilepal]

👹🍊 🏀 🐟 ❤ :3c

Character ask meme for @billlybutcher ☺️

👹--How does you OC act around different people and how does their personality change to match the environment they’re in? How do they act with: friends, family, strangers, children or their lover(s)?

Hiro's personality/how he comes off is very dependent on who he's around. He takes pride in being adaptable to most situations, and being able to keep up a mask, or have people perceive him a certain way. It's easy to act--put on a show, let people see what you want them to see. This, in combination with a lack of fear, and the ability to be charming, at least with his mouth shut--has allowed him to bullshit his way out of situations he maybe shouldn't have been able to. If it seems like you're supposed to be there, and you know what you're doing, you can usually get away with quite a bit? He's quick to put on a front around strangers, depending on what he wants from them. Clients will usually perceive him as someone who's there to get the job done, quickly and without a whole lot of bullshit. He's to the point, often to the extent of being a bit abrupt/and wants to get the whole ordeal over with so he can get paid. If he wants something/is off-work though, he can be pretty charming--especially in the right context/if someone's caught his eye. He's still pretty direct in that regard, albeit less abrasive. He still has a mouth on him though, and that never changes much.

With friends he tends to let his guard down a bit, if they're very close to him--and with family as well. He still holds back a bit though, and it's something he still struggles with sometimes even if he has gotten better over time. Close friends/family are treated to a rare glimpse of a softer side, one that is strangely sentimental, and remembers the tiny details about people--a favorite flower, or song they like--stuff that makes them happy. He's a little hesitant around children, and honestly they scare him a bit. They're small, and have so much energy, and are just all over the place and he's the one to look back at their guardians for help. Despite this, he tries to be nice to them and makes a genuine effort not to seem too scary, and just hopes that none of them think he makes a good role model--something he hasn't been entirely successful with. With his lovers/people who've managed to get beyond the initial instinct to keep people at a distance (at least emotionally) he's a very dedicated, loyal partner. He might not always know how to convey something verbally, or get tripped up and have it come out less gracefully than he'd like, but he's not afraid to show affection through actions and gestures, and is always trying to find new ways to do so--whether that's spending quality time with them, or finding out how to cook their favorite meal for them.

🍊--Does your OC have any triggers? Why do these things trigger them? What are they like when triggered and how do they calm down after?

Hiro has a couple, not that he'd ever be forthcoming about that to others, or honestly, to himself. He's very reliant on his senses, and being deprived of any of them is something that deeply unsettles him/can push him into a spiral if it goes too far--the sense of being unmoored or untethered is enough to make him panic, especially if it's deliberate. He...doesn't do great with feeling helpless, and being cut off from his senses just amplifies that. Even in day-to-day life, he doesn't like complete silence. Being alone with his thoughts is something he genuinely tries to avoid, and dead silence exacerbates it. He tries to maintain at least some small level of background noise--usually the bustle of Night City/ambient sounds are enough, but if he's at home or driving, he likes to have the radio on in the background or music playing quietly.

In general, Hiro rarely lets his guard down, always keeping an eye out, both for his own safety and for others--and if someone manages to take him by surprise, even if it's on accident, he usually doesn't respond great. At the very best, he's fairly defensive or prickly/and if they're not someone he cares about maintaining a relationship with/if was done maliciously there could be a fight. His fight or flight response is strong, and it's just determined by how much he values a relationship. If there's a way out, he'll take it rather than risk an argument, but if pushed far enough, he'd snap at someone, loved one or not. That would usually take deliberate goading on their part though--usually by prying into his business more closely than he'd like or trying to get answers out of him he isn't comfortable giving.

Hiro takes a while to calm down/wind himself down after. He responds pretty strongly, and tries to remove himself from the situation as fast as possible. Typically if it’s really bad, he’s not going to want to talk about it and might just disappear for a bit—he’ll either get on his bike and go for a ride, or go clubbing/dancing. If it’s bad, and he feels like he can’t be around people, he might go spar with a training bag, and try to get some of his agitation out that way. Most of his coping skills are typically very physical—and all things considered, usually fairly healthy outlets. He tries to wear himself out enough that he doesn’t have to think very hard, or just surround himself with so much noise/stimulation he literally can’t focus on anything else.

🏀--Does your OC have any skills that people wouldn’t expect them to have? Do they have a hobby or pass time that others would consider strange or weird? How did they learn this particular skill or pick up this hobby?

Hiro is a surprisingly talented baker. He obviously never had much time for it before he left the Tyger Claws, or the opportunity to do something he’d consider so frivolous, but he picked it up from Mama Welles after he met Jackie. For the fact that he’s still pretty nervous cooking, he’s actually a decent baker, and enjoys how much he can tune everything else out while he’s doing it. He rarely bakes for himself, seeing it as something that isn’t necessarily worth the cost of supplies/the time commitment, but if there was even an inkling that someone else would appreciate it—they’d be quick to find some sort of homemade treat waiting for them when they least expect it—and as he’d be quick to point out—he looks damn cute in an apron. Most of his hobbies are pretty normal—dancing, boxing, rock climbing, and usually fairly physical. He’s been dancing for a long time, but the boxing he picked up from Jackie/Viktor, and the rock climbing from Victory. He also loves to race bikes and this is a definitely a hold-over from his TC days. It’s not necessarily a weird hobby, but people usually don’t expect him to like clothing/shopping as much as he does—and it’s usually where a lot of his extra income disappears to (well that and expensive stuff for his hair.)

🐟--What was your OC like as a baby? What were they like as a child? A teenager? An adult? How do you think they’ll develop ten years into their future? Twenty years? Will they live to old age?

Hiro was a really quiet child—and desperate for any sort of guidance/attention. His role models growing up weren’t good ones, and they definitely used this as an opportunity to manipulate him. He was very approval-seeking, and would take that wherever he could find it, even if meant trusting people he probably shouldn’t have. Granted, he didn’t know much better, but the lesson stuck with him, and it left him a much warier adult. Hiro was a god-awful shit as a teenager. He was still in the Tyger Claws at the time, and there was a lot of repressed anger/trauma there with almost zero outlets. There are a few relationships he maintains from before he cut ties with TC, but they are few and far between, Judy and Viktor being the biggest ones—and even those went through rocky periods.

Ten years into the future, it really depends if he can stay clear of the gangs or not. The likelihood of him allying himself with a corporation is slim to none, but enough bad choices/impulsive decisions might still lead him down a not-so-good path. Twenty years—he’d either be the healthiest he’s ever been, with strong relationships with others, and a circle of people he’s truly grown to trust, or what he absolutely used to dread/fear becoming. It all depends on whether he puts personal relationships/growth over what’s easier for him/seems to come a little too easily, and lets himself get consumed by the darker side of Night City. Regardless, he’d probably survive to old age—honestly out of sheer spite. He’s always been driven by survival/keeping himself alive, and would honestly do so even if only to outlive his enemies. Even into older age though, he’d still try to keep himself sharp. Whatever the case, the likelihood of a peaceful retirement somewhere seems far-fetched. He’d still manage to find his way into the middle of things, even if only unintentionally.

❤️--What inspired you to make this OC? How long have you had them? How have they changed in the time you’ve been developing them?

Oh boy, I’ll try not to get too long-winded with this. Hiro started as an OC for an unnamed futuristic story—probably about two-ish years ago? I’d just seen Bladerunner (as well as the more recent sequel) for the first time, and I’d never gotten too deeply into the genre before. But I realized I wanted to create a character that would fit into one one these universes—someone scrappy, a survivor at heart, and who wasn’t afraid to risk his own safety for his found family. He didn’t have a lot of depth when I first created him (although the name stuck—he was always Hiro, and it never felt right changing it). He initially was a lot less sympathetic, and honestly—even aggravated me a bit. I tried to create a character that was a little more balanced, and someone who had flaws but wasn’t completely unlikeable, and who’s impulsive actions led to actual, lasting consequences. His initial character (even before I fit him into the CP universe) began as a sort of android, who could almost, but not quite pass as human. He still has fairly extensive cybernetics, and relies on them heavily, but not as much as he had previously.

Even when I was first developing him as a Cyberpunk OC, he was more focused on guns/ranged weapons/stealth. It was only after playing cyberpunk, that my play-style began to influence his character and he became much more strength/melee based. And honestly? I’m really happy he did. He’s not my usual type of character, at least in that regard and it’s been fun leaning into it—and making him this character who’d rather punch first and think later. (Also not at all influenced by the fact that I’m impatient as hell and net hacking/stealth just takes so long.) He developed along-side Vic, and her character really helped me to realize how Hiro would interact with other characters—especially ones who have such different backstories/upbringing, and the process of creating him, and being able to bounce ideas off someone else (“hey wouldn’t it be cool if this happened?”) was a huge part in inspiring me, and was so helpful, having someone to respond to that character and provide their own feedback (and vice-versa). Also honestly, Hiro was created after a long period of me not being super creative/artistically motivated. It was the middle of COVID and I was so fucking bored, and not doing much outside of work and classes. So he was an amazing creative outlet for me—helped to get me to start writing again, and eventually led me to tumblr/discord and a lot of really fantastic people, and the sort of community I’d needed.

Wow, uh sorry this got so long. But man, thanks for asking--was really, really fun 😍💖

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Do you have any Riju headcanons? Both romantic and general

I honestly don’t have a lot of romantic head canons for Riju, but recently I was doing what I always do, analyzing the crap out of the world. So why not have some

Patricia the Prophet, Riju’s Sand Seal Obsession, and the Most Honorable Job in Gerudo Town

...Headcanons

Warning: Long post, way too much research, and I won’t shut up about business practices, animal fur, and textiles. TL;DR at the end

She is beauty

She is grace

She got a battle scar on her face

Patricia the sand seal, one of the most important members of Gerudo Town, providing guidance as a wise and experienced walrus, moral support in the form of her cute red bow and companionship with Riju, as well as assisting in the plush sand seal business ventures, which we will get into later. 

Canonically, Patricia was a gift from Riju’s mother, it would be her first and last gift to her before she died. I see this as the reason why Riju is so obsessed with sand seals, not only because she is a child and loves cute animals, but because it is one of her only links to her mother. 

More under the cut:

We can see how clearly Riju loves not just Patricia, but sand seals in general just by looking around town. 

Here is her seat at Patricia’s pen (which we will come back to later) 

Her room 

The booster seat on her throne, along with pillows have sand seals

Her skirt even has a sand seal

Now wait a moment...I think I’ve also seen that logo elsewhere...

Sand seal rental booths, a business that thrives on using domesticated sand seals in order to help people travel swiftly across the desert. 

While the existence of sand seal racing might factor into it, it’s still a bit weird that this rental business is able to survive so well even in a time where travel was dangerous and most people just stayed within their city states. Although, I guess is could also be argued that it is a necessity considering Gerudo women must eventually venture out and find husbands, but that’s still a generational, niche market. And consider that there are really only three places that a Gerudo might need to travel to in the desert, the gate way out of the desert, the outpost, and the ice house, with those last two only being accessible by royal guards. 

So how is a business being funded so well as to have gold plated signs, and enough space to take up large portions of town? I’ll tell you how, it’s because it’s also being financially assisted by Riju

Hear me out, let’s first look at a map of all of Gerudo Town

The red indicates areas accessible to the immediate public, and the gold being areas accessed only by royal guards/the Chief. The blue is areas associated with sand seals. So not only do sand seals take up a third of the general public market, but they also take of a third of the space within the palace, essentially making up over a third of the space within all of Gerudo Town.

Even leaving out Patricia’s personal pen, businesses can’t just go around taking up that much space without profits to back it up, there’s a ratio that businesses have to account for like “profit for square foot” and even general foot/customer traffic costs massive rent. Buying these areas, much less maintaining them, is gonna cost a pretty rupee. 

There’s no way these businesses are surviving all on their own. So that’s why I believe Riju has some influence with these businesses. Now, other than her great love for sand seals, you might ask, “why would she?” I mean sure, everyone loves sand seals, but is she really giving away budget just to fund her hobbies?”

And to that I say, maybe, bUT there is actually a logical conclusion as to why she would do this, as it might not necessarily just be her giving away money, but investing it towards another goal. 

Returning to Patricia’s pen, let us observe the gal for a moment. 

[Side note: I just find it interesting that Patricia has so many battle scars, interesting considering it is only Riju who rides her. The scars are mostly healed, so it’s fascinating to think about what kind of battle Riju and Patricia encountered even years before Link woke up! I mean, Riju is still only 13 in the game...so she was even younger whenever some event happened with her and Patricia. That’s actually pretty crazy when you think about it]

Anyhow, not only do we see further evidence of Riju’s love for Patricia in the fact that she has a special, royal harness, along with a ruby on her bow, but we see that sand seals have fur. 

[In fact sand seals are probably more closely related to walruses, rather than seals, given their tusks and hardened flippers, but walruses still don’t have fur to the same extent. Which is why I’ll be comparing sand seals to desert mammals, cause I doubt they will share much else with their more aquatic counterparts.]

Now fur for desert creatures serve several purposes, whether for climate conditions, protection, and even retaining the loss of water for the body. 

At least that’s how it works for another popular, real life, counter part that is also famous for transporting people across the desert, the camel. (Cause they have similar thick fur, along with the same smaller eyes and thick eyelashes, which is similar to the sand seals thick fur on their face) BUT, I’m getting ahead of myself here 

Looking further through Patricia’s pen, you will eventually find this room next to the stairs.

In this room there is a lot to unpack, much to me delight because yay! Analysis!

This room

is the key to it all.

Firstly, given the proximity to Patricia’s outdoor pen, along with the special royal harnesses, I’d say this room is specifically meant to tend to her. The room also serves to hold a variety of labeled fruits, including hydromelons and mighty bananas, most likely to feed sand seals.

Then, there is a bath area, again, most likely to tend to Patricia, which has a brush, which can be assumed to be used to brush her fur. In addition there is a spear by a bedside, which most likely just indicates that the guard outside who translates Patricia is also the one who comes into this room. 

Finally, and most importantly, there is this desk area, with sewing equipment, and felts, someone was in the process of crafting a sand seal plushie. 

A plushie, that is very familiar...

If you take this all in, a picture starts to form. 

Riju, a young Gerudo Chief, with an unrivaled love and passion for sand seals, finding interest in areas like sand seal businesses. With her power, wealth, and authority, she allows for large sections to be set aside for sand seal rentals, as well and helping to financially fund them, going so far as to even wear a logo on her skirt, or perhaps the businesses took on the logo in honor of her. 

With sand seal rentals thriving, Riju also turns her attention to plushies, pillows, and blankets. Already knowledgeable on sand seal fur, she might use her new found access to several domesticated sand seals in order to commission these items. Notice how Riju is the only one in all of Gerudo Town, nay, all of Hyrule that has any of these special sand seal stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows. All of these, made with sand seal shed fur. 

Which, as we previously established, has very similar properties to camel fur/hair! So their shedding rate, consistency, and usage must also be similar which is important because there are already camels being kept for the purposes of their fur in real life.

And before you tell me something like “sand seal fur and/or camel fur wouldn’t make for good textiles” let me side track turn your attention to my research regarding that. 

Time wise, this is a very reasonable rate for which sand seals could shed in order to hash out the several products that Riju owns. 

Sand seal fur is the only logical way the Gerudo could even craft textiles, as unlike real countries like Egypt or India, there is no cotton plant (and also no British imperialism forcing people to go through the laborious task of harvesting cotton) or alternative plant in order to produce anything else of the sort. 

Before you tell me that the Gerudo trade for such materials, first, this is still post-Calamity so it would be impossible to rely soley on imports while Hyrule is still in such an uncertain state and most city states are more isolated. Secondly, Gerudo specialize in exports, with all their fruits, meats, arrows, and such. Travelers typically come to then to trade, not the other way around. 

And on top of that, after pouring through several articles online on stuffed animal manufacturing for a few hours, I came across this Guide to Textiles which included several sections on felts, inner lining, stitches, and stuffing

And amoung the pages, I found sEVERAL mentions of camel fur and hair, proving that it if camels can, then sand seal fur can be used for the purposes of stuffed animals 

So yeah, sand seal fur is collected in order to make sand seal items. Patricia in particular, given special care, perhaps because we already know she is unique to the other seals so her fur might be more exceptional. We all know the secret ingredient to anything is love. So Patricia even has a special handeler who takes care of her, translates, and uses her fur to custom make sand seal plushies all in that same, preciously mentioned room

(Who might I add, is one of the only people capable of translating the sand seal language, has the honor of living alongside the Chief’s treasured pet who is one of the only links to her mother, as WELL as helping to take Patricia’s fur to craft custom made sand seal plushies for Riju herself? Perhaps only rivaled by Bularia, this guard has one of the most important jobs in the palace and probably gets paid accordingly since Riju values her so much.)

TL;DR, Riju has cornered the sand seal fur market with her power and money, helping the rental business to keep afloat, in order to get access to custom made sand seal fur items, all derived of a love from sand seals that she got from her mother. 

In conclusion, Nintendo, I would like my pay check now.