#kant does NOT come over because as stupid as he is he still has some survival instinct left | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

akimmito · 5 years ago

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They thought they won #2

Well, here is the second part, I think it was weak in comparison, but it is not terrible either. It is acceptable.

Taken from the indications of @chocolate1721.

I hope you like it. If there are errors, at some point I will correct it.

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Tagged: @dawnwave16 @pirats-pizzacanninibles @mochegato @silvergold-swirl

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On Bruce's recommendation, the girls wait four days before showing up at school. Four days that were used to build a case with the French School Board, collect and deliver physical evidence of abuse and bullying. Tim did his fair share by involving every person who could have been harmed by Lila's lies, getting collaboration from many of those affected (being the victims of the teenager's most outrageous lies).

They also took advantage of those four days to think about what they will do when the chaos with the director and their teacher in charge are set, they will be adrift and that will be unfortunate. Neither of them wants to waste time due to the incompetence of a teacher. The safest option is to request an immediate transfer to another class, preferably with a serious teacher who doesn't allow similar situations.

Marinette also took advantage of those four days to better relate to the Wayne boys, although she has a special connection with Tim (she's sure it wasn't hallucination induced by lack of sleep). They talked about many topics, but found brain games and all kinds of riddles in common (she advantage and led him to Ladybug's reasoning to solve a problem with the most random object possible; the fourth day hhe understood the game when he saw the heroin hit to the villain with a bicycle chain). She even had time to drag Damian to Kagami's house to get to know each other (she realized his mistake when she had to prevent them from killing themselves in the middle of the fight and take Damian to the bakery).

Neither Chloe nor Marinette were excited to see their classmates, but they saw it as a necessary evil to deliver the coup de grace. And that does excite Chloe, that morning she woke up eager to see her revenge come true.

The class had already started when Marinette and Chloe entered the classroom, the two families waiting at the door. Only Bruce Wayne went to the Principal's office to have a talk about responsibility and professionalism.

"Good morning, Miss Bustier," Mariette greets with a kindness that, for her smile, it shows that she is not entirely sincere. The surprised look of the woman only manages to generate irritation in the back of the girl's mind.

"Why have they been missing class? It is very irres..."

Chloe almost jumps on Caline, but is stopped by Richard, who sneaks into the classroom to prevent the young woman from attacking the teacher (however deserved it is). In the back, Tom has an arm over Sabine's shoulder to prevent her from attacking too, his calming touch is enough to discourage her from doing so; Damian snorts and Jason swallows his comment. The class is ready to react when Marinette responds, her brow furrowed and a disappointed look she only gives Chat.

"You abandoned us at the mercy of the Joker in Gotham, we were rescued by the Batclan. You didn't worry or look for us, nor did you bother to call the police and you leave the country without us. "Marinette says and her gaze sharpens towards her teacher.

"Marinette, you need to be more responsible. The Joker is very dangerous and trying to protect two criminals was silly. Furthermore, Lila had to return to Paris to help her mother with her next diplomatic trip. "Caline responds.

Chloe almost got free of Dick and Tim must grab Jason to prevent him from taking out the gun he saw him keep before leaving the hotel. Tom helps to contain his wife and avoid any movement from Damian (who considers that someone so stupid would be more beneficial if she was dead and not simply out of sympathy with the girls).

Bruce arrives just in time to hear Caline's wonderful words, the cheap excuse she gives them to leave two students behind. He stands in front of the woman, managing to intimidate her with his mere presence.

"If the student had previous commitments that clash with the itinerary and its possible setbacks, why was she included in the trip? Two students were in danger, with or without the Joker, Gotham is dangerous on its own and leaving them abandoned with no chance of leaving the country is negligent just for prioritizing one student. What if there hadn't been only two? If it was half your class would you still prioritize that one student? ”Bruce is relentless and doesn't allow her to respond. He's furious, burning with hot anger ready to burn her alive.

They all hold their breath when a purple butterfly appears and heads straight for Bruce, but Marinette gets in the way and lets the Akuma into one of her hair bands, the purple mask appears. Sabine and Chloe break free and start talk with her.

"Maribug, you must fight him. You're stronger than him. ”Chloe grabs her shoulders, but Marinette is focused on her thoughts, listening to Hawkmoths speech.

"You can't let him win. "Sabine entreaty.

Tim also approaches, but says nothing. His gaze meets hers, a sign of recognition and that she is nowhere near being manipulated, but no one else realizes it.

"Yes ... but if you give me those powers, I will go after you and no one else." Mariette smiles at Tim when the butterfly leaves her. Everyone is relieved, nobody wanted an Akuma at that time; the class, on the other hand, is surprised by the ease with which it rejected the butterfly and the white color with which it was released.

Adrien smiles, showing misplaced pride.

"You are amazing, Marinette, that's why you are our everyday Ladybug, you even reject Hawkmoth."

Marinette turns to Adrien, her sense of calm withered by the model's comment.

"I may have rejected it, but it would be better if I wasn't forced to do it in the first place." She frowns at the blonde, who is still smiling completely oblivious to the passive-aggressive tone of the young woman.

"We saw that you can handle it and that ..." A slap silences him, everyone looks at Chloe in surprise.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE SO FOOLY! DO YOU KNOW HOW PAINFUL IT IS TO FIGHT AGAINST CONTROL? WHERE HAVE YOUR BRAIN CELLS LEFT, AH? YOU SHOULD GO FOR THEM, YOU'RE UNDERSTANDING NOTHING."

"How dare you, you fucking bitch ?!" Alya gets up ready to hit Chloe, but Jason gets in the way.

"Though it would be amazing to see her take your shit out of you."

"Jason!" Dick scolds him for the choice of words, Jason barely gives him a funny look.

"We have more important matters. "

Tim just denies. Chloe smirks, but returns her attention to what's important.

"When does the School Board arrive?" she smiles an arrogant smile at the teacher, who loses her face color much faster than when Bruce faced her. "What's the matter lawyers of the celebrities abaout Lie-la lied to? They should be here by now. "

"Hah! You're just words, Lila is not a liar and this whole show will explode in your face, Chloe. "Alya answers smugly, sure nothing will happen. She has not even called her father, she has nothing. "Stop wanting to attract attention like that, it's pathetic. "

Lila just frowns, the presence of Bruce Wayne only indicates future problems. Damn to Marinette in her thoughts.

"Wayne's attorneys are here, though, right? "She doesn't need to receive a verbal confirmation, the arrival of the police to the classroom accompanied by two men in suits is enough proof." Yeah, I took so long to convince her to press charges for assault, harassment, and damage to private property, but here we are; They will file lawsuits for destroying Maribug's room and, best of all, we have video evidence and photos of everything destroyed. I appreciate that she's so paranoid that everything important always safeguards her in two layers of security. ”She smirks, after all, the lawyers called the parents of everyone involved first and it's a sight worth appreciating.

The lawyers decide to intervene, unwilling to be part of the girl's delight.

"We regret to inform that the following people should co

"That's a lot, Mari. Don't you think about his parents?"

"Did they think of mine? How much money would it cost to restore my room and all my things? They didn't, I'll not. I'm tired of always turning the other cheek so they hit me too. ”Tim places a hand on her shoulder, before Dick squeezes her into his arms and she laughs, forgetting for a moment the annoyance towards Adrien.

me with us, their parents have already been informed and are waiting: Lila Rossi, Alya Cessaire, Kim Le Chien, Max Kante and Sabrina Raincomprix. We wait for you in the teachers room. "

The officer Raincomprix looks with disappointment at his daughter and only gestures for her to follow them, he will leave his other officers in charge to arrest the teacher for child abuse and neglect.

Everything from there is chaos, the police officers take the teacher after telling her their rights and the class gets out of control, Adrien just watches his friends go towards an inevitable demand. Look at Marinette, she looks indifferent to the facts; He doesn't understand how everything got to the point of involving lawyers.

"Marinette, are you serious?"

"Seriously what, Agreste?" Marinette is hard in her treatment towards him, Chloe won the blow to him, but nobody will gain the words to him. Damian frowns at the blonde, waiting for him to say something that will bury him a thousand meters underground.

Everyone is waiting, the students in the Bustier class don't understand how everything got to that point. They are surprised, but also embarrassed for not noticing Marinette's absence, because despite not being the sweet girl they knew (and she's, but not with them), she would have looked for them and would has confronted whoever it was to find them. They want to say something, but they have a lump in their throats. Knowing that there will be legal problems for the things that they considered insignificant for Marinette, because they believed that the girl was worse ... Actually, it's the logical solution if someone is attacking you, especially if you have real evidence. So why did Lila refuse to stop the problem if she had as much evidence as she claimed?

Of course, even they can say that Adrien's question is totally out of place.

"Are you really going to sue them? They are your f..."

"They are not my friends. They destroyed my room, Agreste, they destroyed my work. Do you know how much the designs cost? Your father is a designer, you should know… I had to do everything again and put the materials that were lost to complete the works FROM MY POCKET. In a week I did a full month's work… ”Marinette replicate Tim's angry expression, making Adrien nervous by the annoyed glances that are directed at him. "And I'll make them give back every penny of the damaged material. "

"That's a lot, Mari. Don't you think about his parents?"

"Look, Adrinkis, if they don't learn that their actions have consequences now, they'll just keep it up and eventually go to prison for something like that. You imagine? It would be wonderful to see it, sure, but that's not the point here."

"But…"

"If you say something that could come out of Bustier's mouth, I'll hit you again, and this time it will be with my fist." Adrien raises his hands and is silent. "And that would be very little, seeing that you knew everything and preferred to remain silent. Although they were not subtle when they attack on Maribug. You validated it and that, darling, is a thousand times worse than having fallen into the clutches of a liar. "

"Did you know?" Nino asks, he is not entirely sure what is true or lie, but if it's true that Lila is a liar (he is already assured that she is a bully) and his best friend has known all that time, oh, the pain. He already feel bad enough in the whole uncertain situation.

At some point, Sabine and Tom go out to meet the parents of the boys who destroyed their daughter's room. They must deal with it.

"I don't understand why you care so much about these ceporros, they are not worth your time." Damian looks deathly at everyone, who seems truly unintelligent if their idiot faces are an indication of their IQ. Dick can't help but snort.

"What?" Nathaniel is the only one who has a verbal reaction to what was said, he didn't understand the word, but he assumes that it was an insult.

"You see?"

"Yeah..." Marinette sighs and smiles at the boy, who walks away from her with an expression of disgust.

"Come on, you like her." Dick doesn't allow him to walk away and hugs him by the shoulders with an amused but affectionate smile. He has noticed his behavior around her, actively looking for her because he considers her nice, in a way; the same way he came to connect with the Teen Titans, so it was with her. He found something in common as an initial union and in four days, a record, he managed to form a linkage (small, but it exists).

"Now. I think we should go for a coffee. ”Tim approaches Marinette and whispers in her ear, she nods in response. "But before, if you are so kind to check twitter, in the @NotAddictedToCoffee account you will find a link to an article in the France International Journal where they express the worrying situation of parental neglect, I think you will find it interesting. Maybe you recognize the case they are exposing... So, coffee?" He turns to Marinette and she smiles. His job is done, pity for Chloe who wanted a true social massacre and they won't even let her be present for she watches the lives of the defendants break in front of them. Oh, but the Wayne boys are sure to be able to access the surveillance cameras in the teacher's lounge. She turns to the only one who knows how to help her, Jason.

"Hey, Todd. I need your help. ”He turns to her with a raised eyebrow, she gestures for him to lean. "I want access to the surveillance cameras in the teachers' room, can you? "

"Do you want to see their teary faces at the lawsuit?"

"Obviously. "

The two smile and as casually as they can after a suspicious conversation, they leave the classroom. Richard follows them to prevent them from causing trouble.

While all the students take out their phones to confirm.

Marinette and Tim also leave, followed by Damian. Only Bruce stays for a moment, but then decides it's best to notify a teacher for review.

Adrien knows from the beginning who the person in the example is, the implication was clear. All the time they read, an awkward silence surrounds them, a teacher arrives while they are busy on their phones.

"Very good. I will be in charge until the Board of Education decides what will happen to the class. "The class pays no real attention. They are focused watching the approach presented in the article, where they explicain how neglect causes children to seek any type of validation going to any extreme, without it being exactly something to justify the person's actions and that should be treated with a psychologist to avoid It gets out of control and affects the lives of those around you.

There is even a cited psychologist and an expert in criminal pathologies. Everyone is livid the more they read, it's an extensive and very detailed article that aims to raise awareness, but above all, expose Lila in a subtle way to avoid repercussions for publicly humiliating her, now it's a shadow that will not go away and will remain in the criminal files of the girl, which is enough to keep an eye on her (especially with the demands of some people who are almost affected by those lies).

"It was Lila, wasn't it?" Someone asks.

"Yes ... how strong.And Marinette, oh God, I'm not surprised that she hates us. "

"Guys, Marinette doesn't hate us. She's too good for that. "Adrien tries to reassure his companions.

"You have no right, Adrien! You knew it, man, you knew it! And did you let him use us like that?" Nino now is experiencing true treason. He feel very hurt.

"I wasn't hurting anyone ..."

"AND WHAT ARE THESE DEMANDS?! JOKES?! REACT, ADRIEN. HE LIED US AND HANDLED TO THE POINT OF ACHIEVING THAT FOUR OF OUR COMPANIONS DID SOMETHING ILLEGAL. THEY COULD GO TO PRISON FOR INVASION AND DAMAGE TO PRIVATE PROPERTY!" Nino has jumped on Adrien by grabbing his shirt, he could cry right now.

"Dammit, Agreste. Were you always so stupid?"

"Youngs, this behavior will lead to a sanction in your school record. The Board of Education will personally take care of you if you continue to display hostile behavior. "

"Whatever. Anyway, we're screwed. We hurt the only person who was always unconditional with us. "Juleka is clear with her words and regrets not having listened to her brother, she should have known, Luka is always right.

Everyone is silent, being aware of the situation more than others times.

"She will forgive us..."

"WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR MIND?! AIR?! Nothing we can offer her could make she forgive us, besides, did you see your new friends? She doesn't need us, least of all with the boyfriend who got herself in just five days. "Alix is realistic, overwhelmingly realistic.

Rose allows herself to cry, she wasn't actively hostile, but she knows she was purposely ignoring her under pressure from others.

"Guys…"

"Look, Agreste, don't speak to us again unless you mature. You're the worst thing in this whole thing… I can't forgive you and I'm sure you're the last person Marinette would forgive, heck, surely one day she could forgive Lila, but you, ha, never. "Alix is scathing in her words breaking Adrien's heart, though he refuses to believe that.

While in the park, Marinette guides Tim to one of her favorite cafes. She tells him about the different embarrassing moments that went through her awkwardness and he, in return, explains uncomfortable moments.

Marinette feels good, she still has to remove Adrien's Plagg ring, but at the moment, she feels good. She can face whatever comes.

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Thanks for reading!

#timari #Timinette #tim x marinette #maribat #Maribat Au #ml x dc #adrien salt

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ddaenggtan · 5 years ago

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hearts on fire | jhs

Hoseok has been in love with you for as long as he can remember, and he’s beyond excited to see you married and glowing.

He just really wishes that he was the groom.

pairing | jhs x reader, knj x reader

word count | 6.5k | cross posted to ao3

genre | angst, light fluff

warnings | angst, mentions of blood, mentions of vomit, lots of choking, lots of angst, this is open ended so like.......potential (?) mcd??, like this is very very very open ended yall there is no happy ending and there is zero satisfaction at the end, like it’s truly just here to hurt you

a/n | part of Outro: Tear, The Angst Now Told, and you should really read all of those fics bc they hurt so good but they’re sO WORTH IT, and i’m shouting out to @personawife not only for betaing this, but also for putting the Outro Tear Angst Collab together, because it’s been so fun!!!!! and yet so painful!!!! in so many good ways!!!!!!! this was honestly really fun to write, mostly because it’s rare that i write angst - unhappy ending angst, at that - so it was nice to stretch my creative muscles.

also go stream ego bc its wonderful and i love it

It starts, as most things do, with a kiss.

It was innocent enough - just a soft peck on his cheek and a sunflower in his hand while he cried about another student kicking him in the shin. To this day he can’t be sure what it was that did it for him. Maybe it was the way the sunlight lit up the barrettes in your hair and made them glint like stars. Maybe it was the way you hadn’t hesitated to smooch him on the cheek and give him the flower you’d picked out of a vase just to cheer him up. Maybe it was the fact that it had worked when nothing else had. Maybe it was none of that, instead something bigger altogether and more complicated than he could ever understand.

Or maybe it was all of it. A simple act that led to a simple reaction - him taking your hand and making you smile with some face he made - that led to this moment.

Either way, Hoseok decides as he watches you walk down the aisle in the off-white dress with the golden sash that perfectly matches the sunflowers in your hands, he doesn’t care. Because it all led to this moment.

[then]

“C’mon, we’re gonna be late!” You call over your shoulder. Hoseok laughs, wrapping his hand around your wrist to slow you down from your sprint.

“We are not going to be late,” He tells you firmly. Your lips form a pout that he wishes he could kiss away, but he resists the urge. Instead, he grins and pulls you into a warm hug. “It’s not like they’re going to start our graduation without us, Starshine. It would be a little conspicuous, don’t you think?”

“Ooh, conspicuous, big word! All that studying paid off, I see.”

Hoseok rolls his eyes; he doesn’t mention that he’s been studying his ass off ever since you started crushing on one of the bookworms in the school. He refuses to acknowledge to himself that he did it in the futile hope that it would make you notice him.

“Hey, it was worth it! Got me into that fancy university, didn’t it?” He wags his brows and lets go of you, and he does his best not to let his arms linger around your waist for longer than they need to be there.

“Yeah, that fancy university that’s a million miles away from here,” You complain. His smile falters a little, and he covers it with a dramatic gasp.

“What’s this? Is my little starshine going to miss me?” He doesn’t tell you about the packet laying on his desk at home, about the scholarships he’s scoured the internet to find, about the decision he has yet to make, despite the looming deadline. He doesn’t mention the sunflower pressed between the pages of a book that sits beside his bed, so he can stare at it each night as he wonders whether it’s stupid to take the harder road just for love.

“You know I will, Hobi,” You tell him. You curl into his side, lacing your fingers with his. “You’re my best friend in the whole world. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. Who’s going to make me study when I don’t want to? Or convince me that getting pancakes at two in the morning is a proper breakfast?”

Hoseok shakes his head. He knows exactly what will happen when you head off to school in a few months. You’ll meet so many new people, make boatloads of friends, create new memories and new jokes and new references, and he’ll be standing off to the side, waiting to hear about all of it.

He can’t wait to watch you flourish.

“Who’s going to help you stop stressing out about your choreography, or your routines?” You ask. Your voice dips into a whisper, and it’s the most scared he’s ever heard you. “Who’s going to be there when I need someone?”

He knows what you mean; he knows all about the anxiety that wracks your body every so often, the way your brain spirals and panics and can’t seem to bring itself down out of red alert. He remembers - in vivid detail - all the nights he’s climbed through your window to help you breathe in that rhythm your school counselor taught you, or just talked at you through the phone about some new song or dancer he found until he eventually heard your soft laugh.

He remembers the nights you called and called and called and eventually just sought him out, not even bothering to knock as you barged into his room because his parents adore you and don’t care to let you in whenever. You’re like a second daughter to them, something his sister gives him no end of grief about. He’ll always remember the way your hands felt against his skin as you tugged him out of his room and into the kitchen to make some kind of monstrosity, just throwing anything and everything into a blender or skillet, only to wind up going out to the corner store to get noodles anyway.

“I’ll be here,” He tells you. His voice is as soft and firm as his fingers as he brings your chin up to face him. He wants you to look at him, wants you to maybe see after all these years just how easy it would be for him to move the earth if you asked him to. “I’ll always be here for you.”

Your eyes search for something in his, and he wonders if you’ll finally realize. If he’s finally told you about every single pang of love that he’s ever felt without even needing words.

You smile, your eyes crinkling at the corners, and playfully shove at his shoulder. “Not when you’re off at your fancy university a million miles away from mine.”

He covers the heartbreak with a deep sigh and slings his arm around your shoulders as you head into the building where your graduation is being held. He wonders what you’ll think of the sunflowers sitting on your chair, waiting for you to find them.

Something tickles his throat, a hint of a cough not ready to be cleared, and he swallows it back.

“About that…”

[then]

Asthma is what he tells you, months and months later while you both sit in your dorm room, curled under blankets.

You’re preparing for your philosophy paper, pages and sheets and everything else strewn about your bed while he sits at your desk. The lamp is focused and bright as it shines on the metal and stone in his hands, glinting as he twists the wire this way and that.

“Aren’t you supposed to be studying for your dance eval?” You ask him. He shoots you that half-smile, a quick glance so that he can finish wrapping the quartz in his palm. He hasn’t told you that he switched majors, that he’s now ‘undecided’ simply because he can’t keep up with the others anymore.

“Aren’t you supposed to telling me who made it their mission to disprove Kant’s entire career?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to,” You pout. He smiles, satisfied, at the stone in his hand; it’s wrapped in wire shaped to look like a tree. He never thought he’d be the jewelry-making kind, but thanks to a randomly-selected elective, he’s discovered he’s got a knack for it.

Besides, he enjoys seeing the collection on your windowsill grow with each new thing he can make you.

He extends the quartz to you - a polished golden one that complements the tarnished brass he’d used to wrap it, the same colors as the flowers you love so much - and the way you light up as you take it makes his heart clench painfully.

Something tickles his throat, too familiar now, and he does what he can to swallow it down, but this one is stubborn. It forces its way up his windpipe, giving him no choice but to try to cough it up.

You watch, worried, as he rushes to the sink in your room, bending as far over it as possible so that you won’t see as much.

It’s small, when it falls. Small and unassuming and spit-slick, he can almost believe it just fell out of the vase of them nearby, and he hopes that’s what you’ll believe as well.

“Hobi?”

He hates how small your voice is, how worried you sound as you listen to the ragged pants of his breathing. So he wipes his mouth, checks in the mirror to make sure there’s no blood, and turns back to you with a wry smile.

“I’m fine,” He says softly. His voice is still hoarse, and you don’t look convinced, but he continues before you can argue. “Just asthma.”

“Asthma? You don’t have asthma, Hoseok-”

“I do,” He says quickly. “Developed recently. Strained myself too hard, weakened my lungs, or something. I don’t remember what the doctor said exactly.”

“But...your dance, how can you-” You cut yourself off with a sharp breath, and he can’t bear to see the heartbreak in your eyes as the realization hits, so he stares down at the scuff in his sneakers instead. “That’s why you aren’t practicing right now. You had to drop out of the dance program?”

You sound like you’re on the verge of tears, so he plasters a smile on his face that’s more convincing than anything else he’s ever done.

“It’s fine, Starshine. Not all dreams come true. Besides, there’s other things I can do.”

“But your scholarship, Hobi, I-”

“Already figured out,” He says quickly. It isn’t, not nearly, because he can’t just call his parents to say ‘hey I lost my scholarship because I’m hopelessly in love but don’t have the guts to say anything about it’ and he hasn’t had time to go visit them, either. The corners of your mouth are turned down, and your lips are pressed together, and it’s obvious you’re upset, and it hurts more than the roots tangling in his lungs.

He crosses the room and slides some of your papers to the side so that he can sit across from you. You’re still holding the quartz in your palm, fingers wrapped gently around it like you’re afraid it’ll break if you squeeze too tight, so he wraps his own hands around that one of yours.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” You ask him. Your voice is small and hurt, and he hates that he made it that way, but he knows it’s better than what would come if he told you the truth.

“Because I didn’t want you to worry,” He replies quietly. “You’ve got exams and studying and papers to worry about. I don’t need to add to that. Besides, you’d just try to help somehow, and you do that enough as it is.”

“How could I possibly be helping you with this, Hoseok?” The look you give him is familiar and humorless and fond and it makes his throat tickle so he looks away. Stares down at the feather-soft blanket in your lap instead.

“Just by being here,” He tells you. “Distracting me from it. It’s not important, that’s all. I can do other things.”

“Like what? Dancing has always been your dream, and now-”

“Like,” Hoseok interrupts, sliding the quartz from your hand and placing it with the other things he’s made you on the windowsill, “Making things, like this. For you. For everyone.”

You’re quiet for a minute. Your eyes linger on the collection of stones he’s decorated for you, that he’s worked on so carefully to make them as beautiful as you deserve, and he wonders if you can tell.

If you can see it in every careful twist of wire, in the way his hands are always so gentle against your own, in the way he can’t bear to look at you for longer than a few moments but can’t bear to be away from you in the same way.

“Well,” You eventually say, blinking back what might be tears. “I suppose we’ll just have to find you a new dream, then, won’t we?”

Your smile is weak and watery and doesn’t reach your eyes, but it’s still a smile. So he returns it, and locks his pinky with yours, and vows to himself to make sure you never cry for him again.

[then]

"What is that?"

Hoseok looks up from the book he's got propped against the table. He hasn't been paying much attention to the conversation, too engrossed in the metalworking book his glassblowing professor gave him while you studied for an upcoming test, so your words surprise him.

"What's what?" He asks, looking around the cafeteria as if he can magically spot whatever it is you're talking about.

" That ," you repeat, stabbing towards him with your pencil. It's reflex that brings his hand up to his chest, and it's realization that has him clutching the pendant tightly, praying you hadn't really seen it.

"Nothing," he says quickly, tucking it back under his shirt where it's supposed to be. "Just a practice thing."

"Why won't you show me?" You pout. "You always show me your practice work."

"Yeah, because you always take it," He quips back with a laugh. You don't even try to argue, because you both know it's true. The collection on your windowsill has grown immeasurably over the last two years, and it makes Hoseok's heart stutter every time he lets himself consider why you keep all of them. Especially when some are so terrible.

"Seriously, Hobi, can I see?"

He starts to say no, because if there's one piece he's ever made that could tell you about his feelings, it's this. He should say no, should insist this once that you can't see it, but before he can, his hands are pulling the chain over his head and setting the entire thing gently in your palm.

He watches your mouth fall open and your eyes grow wide and he wonders.

He wonders what you see among the curl of metal; if the fact that he would do anything for you is obvious in the way it twists and turns on itself, looping around and around. He wonders if you can see, hidden between letters, how just being near you gets him through every day and makes it all worth it. He wonders if you'll be able to tell, between the pressed yellow petals, just how his chest aches; if you've put the pieces together, after so long, now that you're holding his heart so openly in your palm.

"'Remedy,'" You read, and Hoseok's heart jumps into his throat, even when he knows you don't know about it. "And some tulip petals? It's so gorgeous, Hobi, but what does it mean?"

"They're sunflowers," He corrects, almost scandalized that you could confuse the two. The petals are shortened, of course, cut so that they'll fit into the pendant without obstructing the text in the back, but still. "And it doesn't mean anything. Just something I wrote once in high school."

Your eyes light up. "You mean that poem you never let me read?"

"It was a song, actually," He mutters, but your attention is back on the necklace, looking for any hints about the secrets he keeps. Something soft tickles the back of his throat when you glance up at him and smile, the light glinting just right along the stones and casting golden beams along your features.

You look more beautiful than he's ever seen, and his chest aches with more than just the flowers taking root there.

"This is really gorgeous, Hobi," You tell him as you watch the way the light reflects through the amber beads along the edge.

"Yeah," He whispers as he watches you, drinking in the way your eyes widen in awe and the soft smile on your lips. "It is, isn't it?"

He wishes that moment could last forever, that he could tuck it away into a pocket and pull it out whenever he needs it, but he can feel the flower starting to work its way up his throat and he doesn't know how to hide that from you.

The coughs start right as someone calls out your name and his, and he tucks his chin into his elbow in an effort to hide it. He doesn't bother to look yet, just waves a hand as someone sits beside you, and by the time he's got the handful of petals tucked safely away in his pocket, you're deep in conversation with Namjoon about one of the classes the two of you are taking.

[now]

Hoseok decides, looking at you now, that you are happier than ever.

You've said your vows and you've cried several happy tears and you've kissed more times than he can count, but you're still radiant. It's the glow of contentment, the promise of more to come, all coalescing to shine like stars in your eyes.

"May I, Starshine?" He asks, extending a hand and pulling you away from your current dance partner. Yoongi doesn't look too upset about it, just smiles knowingly at you both as your hand folds into Hoseok's.

You move with him as if it's second nature, and Hoseok supposes that it is , at this point. As many times as he held you this way while teaching you the steps, as often as he led you through them before today, you should be able to move out of sheer muscle memory.

"Have I told you yet that you're sparkling, Starshine?" He asks, smiling along with you when you laugh.

"I think that you're confusing me and the ring again, Hobi."

On cue, he looks down at it. He spent so long on it, years of dreaming of what it may look like and months of trial and error and practice runs before he got it right. It was worth it, though; the ring does sparkle, takes the glow of your skin and the joy in your smile and amplifies it.

Crafted to look like a sunflower itself, the ring is easily the most expensive thing he's ever made. Each petal sparkles with the same yellow quartz of that stone he gave you so long ago, and set into the middle is one large chocolate diamond that he spent entirely too much money on because it was already cut exactly the way he needed it. He'll never forget the way you cried when you saw it the first time.

Hoseok's eyes meet yours, and he frowns at the tears he sees there.

"Hey, none of that, Starshine. It's a happy day, remember?" He stops moving in the middle of the dance floor, hands moving to wipe your tears before they can fall.

"I just...I'm so happy Hobi." He grins at your words, resisting the urge to poke fun, because of course you're happy. You just got married.

You look up at him again, eyes still watery and he pulls you into a tight hug.

"I love you so much, Hobi," you mutter against his chest. His heart flutters in his chest as he resists the urge to press his lips to yours right where you stand.

"Yeah," He whispers. "Yeah, I love you too, Starshine."

Someone taps him on the shoulder and he releases you, relinquishing his grasp on you so you can dance with Namjoon. The pendant around your neck sits beautifully, shadowed on either side by the white of the cloth, and he thinks for just a moment, that maybe he made that pendant for you, after all.

He's worn it for years, of course, but the smile on your face when he slid it around your neck was worth it. It was worth being asked if you could have it, not entirely joking, and it was worth every single time you would fiddle with it during movie marathons, and it was worth every single night he held it in his clutched palm as he sat over the sink and coughed up the yellow blooms that you've strung up all over the reception hall.

very day that you bugged him about it, how you asked every day without fail if you could have it. He knew you were kidding - mostly - but the light in your eyes when he finally gave it to you before the wedding today is something he’ll remember for the rest of his life, no matter what the future holds for him.

It ends, as most things do, with a conversation.

It was innocent enough - just a phone ringing in its place on the worktable and his hands covered in clay while he struggled to hit the screen with his elbow. To this day he can’t be sure what it was that he missed, exactly. Maybe it was the way that you’d been calling him less and less in the middle of the night. Maybe it was the way you hadn’t noticed that he’d been spending too much time in the studio, pouring his soul into every shape he crafts and wire he twists while he chokes down petals. Maybe it was the classes the two of you shared and the projects you worked on together, that he assumed was friendly and not anything more. Maybe it was all of that, everything working in tandem in a way that he could never understand.

Or maybe it was none of it. Simple acts that led to simple reactions - being too busy for each other, not talking as often, coughing up sunflower petals - that all led to that moment.

Either way, Hoseok decides as he watches the heart-shaped vase spin aimlessly on its wheel while you cry tears of joy through the phone because he finally - finally - asked you out, he can’t care.

[then]

Asthma? is what Jimin asks him, years later when they’re both locked in Hoseok’s newly renovated store, basically a hole in the wall that he saved and saved for with his online sales. Hoseok is curled over the workbench in the back, doing everything he can to catch the petals before Jimin can see them.

When they eventually subside, long enough for him to gulp down some water and shove the red-tinted petals off to the side in a pile that’s been steadily growing for weeks now, Hoseok shoots Jimin a self-deprecating smile.

He doesn’t even get a chance to lie to him.

“How long?” Jimin asks him. There’s no softness to his tone; it’s all hard edges and naked truths, and for once, the exhaustion overtakes Hoseok. He’s so sick of lying. He’s so sick of carrying an inhaler he doesn’t need, of shoving sunflower petals into every nook and cranny he can find so that no one sees them, and he just wants someone to know.

“Forever,” Hoseok answers simply. “As long as I can remember.”

“And you never said anything? Ever?”

Hoseok sighs, throat scratchy and raw, and he stares down at the ring he’s been fiddling with. “Would you?” He eventually says.

When he looks at Jimin, the other man has a petal of his own in between two fingers and rubs it absently, distractedly, like it’s habit. When he looks up, Hoseok understands, and an understanding passes between them.

Jimin goes back to the laptop perched in front of him while Hoseok continues to work on other orders, things less important than the ring burning a hole in his mind’s eye, begging to be made.

He isn’t ready, he tells himself. He isn’t skilled enough yet. Maybe one day.

“I’m getting the surgery,” Jimin says after a few hours of silence. Hoseok fumbles with the pliers in his hands, twists the wire the wrong way, and it all clatters to the tabletop. He doesn’t bother to catch it, either; he’s too busy staring at his best friend in shock.

“Seriously?” He breathes. Jimin nods, and the air rushes out of Hoseok in the span of a heartbeat.

Everyone knows about the surgery, just like everyone knows about hanahaki disease. It took years to develop and it’s the only known treatment, but there are always side effect. Always. Sometimes they’re minor, just losing your feelings of love for the person you have feelings for, or like the guy that just became allergic to the peonies that he had removed.

But then there are the others.

The people who lose the capacity to love altogether. The ones who never find anyone else, who never learn how to love another person, not like they loved the one that caused the flowers. Or the ones who just lose their emotions completely, and become essentially lifeless. Unable to feel love at all, or sadness, or grief, or joy, or excitement, or remorse, or anything. They just exist.

“But...the side effects-”

“Aren’t guaranteed,” Jimin interrupts. “Plenty of people get the procedure every day and walk away fine.”

“Yeah and some of them turn into lifeless machines!” Hoseok counters. Jimin’s expression hasn’t changed. He looks steadfast, decided, and he’s barely looking away from whatever work he’s doing on the laptop, and it infuriates Hoseok. “You’re gonna sign away any hope that you have, any chance that you have, because it...because it hurts?”

“No,” Jimin says as he closes the laptop and slides it to the side. “Because I’m tired, Hobi. I’m so tired, all the time. I’m tired of keeping it a secret, and I’m tired of puking my guts every time I think about-” Jimin cuts himself off and closes his eyes, tight, as he swallows.

When he opens them, Hoseok can see every emotion he’s ever had in Jimin’s eyes, and it makes his heart ache.

“Aren’t you tired, Hobi?”

Jimin’s voice is small, and weak, but it lingers in the air between them. It curls past Hoseok’s throat and then down to wrap around his chest, growing tighter and tighter with every breath. Neither of them break eye contact, and Hoseok wonders what Jimin sees in his face.

“Yeah,” Hoseok eventually says. With that, the spell is broken, and he can breathe again, and he drags his eyes away from Jimin to look at the piece he’d been working on instead. “But I can’t just...stop, y’know? I’ve loved her for basically my entire life. I can't...I don’t even know who I am without that.”

Jimin’s quiet for a long moment, and Hoseok thinks maybe he’s not going to say anything. Maybe he got through to Jimin, maybe he won’t get that surgery.

“Don’t you think that you should find out?”

[now]

Hoseok watches from across the room as Jimin spins you in a circle, both of you laughing brightly.

Jimin’s suit matches your dress wonderfully; Hoseok doesn’t think anyone else could quite pull off the pattern on it quite like Jimin does in such an effortless way. He looks happier than Hoseok has ever seen him, more content, more at home in his own skin.

He isn’t coughing, and he isn’t struggling, and everything worked out well for him. No more flowers in his lungs, no more lies to his friends, no more unrequited love left heavy in his heart. Just happiness and laughter and joy. Hoseok wonders if he’d be the same.

His thumb rubs absently across the business card in his pocket. It’s been there since Jimin handed it to him, what feels like forever ago now. It’s worn, and faded, and torn, and old, but the doctor is still practicing, just got recognized by the World Health Organization for his work. There’s an appointment reminder dinging in Hoseok’s phone, and a business card in his pocket, and he still doesn’t know if he’s even going to go, because you look so beautiful.

You’re surrounded by your flowers, and you’re glowing like the North Star, and he can’t keep his eyes off of you.

“She’s gorgeous, right?”

Hoseok turns and smiles at Namjoon. The man looks just as good, decked out in the best suit money can buy, with crinkles in the corner of his eyes and a dimple in his cheek as he grins.

“Yeah, she is,” He says. Emotions clog in his throat when he looks back at you only to find you looking his way. There’s love in your eyes and a soft, private smile on your lips, and it makes his chest tighten. “She looks really happy.”

“She does,” Namjoon agrees.

Across the room, you wiggle a finger, and the ring glints in the light. Hoseok stifles a laugh, and shakes his head.

“I can’t dance anymore, so this is all on you, big guy,” He tells Namjoon. The other man looks more than happy to take him up on the offer, grinning sheepishly as he sets his drink down to make his way to you.

You take Namjoon’s hand and pull him close as the music transitions into a slow dance. Namjoon presses his forehead against yours, and both your eyes close, and suddenly, Hoseok feels like he shouldn’t be watching. This feels private, intimate, in a way that he’s never been privy to.

His throat clenches and he can feel it in his throat.

He nearly drops his drink, but he gets to a table just in time to put the cup down with shaky hands. He knew, he knew what would happen. He clenches his jaw and heads through the side door of the event space, barely chancing a glance behind him. You don’t seem to have noticed, thankfully, but Hoseok makes eye contact with Jimin. The younger boy taps his wrist, and Hoseok just heads outside.

He doesn’t need Jimin to remind him that time is up.

[then]

“You need what?”

Namjoon’s smile turns shy at Hoseok’s tone. Of all the things that Hoseok could have anticipated Namjoon would ask him for, of all the potential items that he’s been commissioned by the taller man, this was never something he expected.

Though maybe he should have.

“-you know her better than anyone, y’know, and no one can craft like you, Hobi-”

The nickname sounds wrong, suddenly; like poison on Namjoon’s lips, but Hoseok just plasters on his smile again, the one he saves for truly difficult customers who try his patience, and he prays Namjoon doesn’t recognize it.

“No, I get it, yeah.”

“I just...it needs to be perfect. And you’re the only one that I trust to make it perfect.” Hoseok’s heart twinges in his chest, and he can feel the roots moving in his lungs. “I’ll pay you whatever you want, too, cost isn’t a factor, it just needs to be-”

“Perfect,” Hoseok finishes. Namjoon smiles again, sheepish, and nods. “It’s fine, I’ll make it. No charge.”

“Hobi, I can’t ask you to do that, not for free-”

“You didn’t,” Hoseok insists. “I’m offering. Consider it a...gift.” Namjoon’s smile is blinding, and he really must trust Hoseok with this, because he’s heading out just a few minutes after, already on the phone with you because the two of you are meeting for lunch.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. It makes sense. It’s been years. Isn’t that the usual time people start to expect this kind of thing?

A voice in the back of his head, bitter and cruel, tells him that he should have charged Namjoon. Should have made him pay an exorbitant amount, enough to keep the shop running through the months of the slow season, enough to help heal the wound in Hoseok’s heart, but he brushes it off. It wouldn’t have felt right, charging for this.

Not when he’s had the design sitting in his head since he wrapped that first stone with wire, since he first learned how to make this jewelry. Not when he’s had pages upon pages of designs drawn out for years, since before he even owned his own shop.

That was never his to design, though, he reminds himself as he heads into the workshop. He had no right to that design.

Just like he has no right to you.

[then]

Later, weeks and weeks later, In the darkness of his apartment, Hoseok cries.

Hoseok cries for all the things he’s never said, all the things he’ll never do, all of the things that you don’t know. He cries for the late nights together and the impromptu adventures and the panicked phone calls. He’s been so blind, he’s refused to see it, he knows. It’s all been waning, all put on the backburner in favor of him.

He’s the one you call when air can’t make it to your lungs. He’s the one you pull from work in the dead of night to make him sleep. He’s the one that gets to wraps his arms around you while you watch the newest episode of whatever show you’re obsessed with lately. It’s all him, and it will never be Hoseok, no matter how hard he wishes, because he’s too late.

He spent so long obsessed with maybe. Maybe you’ll love him back, maybe it’ll ruin the friendship, maybe you’ll realize. For years and years, he said maybe, and now it’s too late, because you’re going to be saying yes to another man’s question, and Hoseok will be left in the darkness, no longer able to look at the stars in your eyes because you’ll be looking at him.

For the first time in his life, Hoseok hates. He hates you for not realizing that he loves you; he hates Namjoon for taking the chance and asking you out; he hates the flowers growing in his chest that are just further proof that he’s alone in his feelings. Mostly, though…

Mostly, Hoseok hates himself, he realizes as he crumples against the wall of his living room. He hates himself for not taking the risk that Namjoon did, for not putting it all out there so that you could give him whatever kind of closure would come.

And it’s there, sitting on his floor, surrounded by the remains of too many projects that he spent too long on that you’ll now never see, that he first begins to consider it. Everyone knows about the surgery, everyone knows that you can get the flowers removed, but that it comes with a cost. He stares, past his tears, past the colorful crystal remnants at his feet, and he considers.

There’s already a numbness spreading through his body; it follows the same path as the roots of the flowers in his lungs, it runs parallel to the petals and seeds, and it only serves to highlight the painful ache that his feelings have caused. He’s already becoming numb to it, so why not? He may lose the ability to love forever, yes, but he can still be your friend. He can still watch you marry another man, this time without the itch in his throat and the flowers in his bile. So why shouldn’t he?

His phone rings, and he already knows it’s you. Not by the specialized ringtone - the only custom one in his entire contact list - and not by the blinking light that’s sure to wake him up in the middle of the night. No, he knows it’s you, because he knows that there’s no way Namjoon could have resisted the temptation to ask you tonight. He’s pictured what you’d look like a hundred thousand times, knows exactly how bright your smile would be as you said yes, how soft the tears would feel as he wiped them away, he knows.

And now you’re calling him, to tell him the great news, or maybe scold him for not giving you a heads up about it in the first place since he’s the one that made the ring. Either way, you’re on the other end of that ringing, ready to tell him about the happiest night of your life, and Hoseok can’t…

He can’t resist it. It’s autopilot as he drags himself to where his phone is still ringing, and it’s only after a deep and shaky breath that he answers it.

You don’t even give him time to speak for you’re launching into your squeals and happy giggles and how Namjoon did it, and Hoseok feels a reluctant smile cross his features. It only grows when you start to gush about the ring, complimenting his skill, and he can feel a bud trying to make its way up his throat, so he mutes his phone. He doesn’t want you to hear as he rushes to the kitchen sink, as he chokes and coughs and gags and eventually spits out a nearly whole sunflower.

It’s not a big one, maybe an inch or so in diameter, and not fully bloomed, but it’s there, and Hoseok knows it’s more of a death sentence than anything.

“Hobi? Are you there?”

He wipes his mouth and clears his throat and leaves the flower in the sink with its red-stained petals so that he can unmute his phone.

“Yeah, Starshine, I’m here.”

[now]

In the alley beside your wedding, Hoseok coughs. He coughs and he gags and he chokes, until the ground is littered with flower petals that aren’t from your bouquets, and blood drops and tears. He chokes until he can’t breathe anymore, until he has to reach in and pull the flower from his throat before he really does die, and it makes him shudder when he sees that it’s nearly fully formed, almost completely bloomed and everything.

He doesn’t think he’ll make it through the next one.

He stands up, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of the red suit he chose for this exact reason, and he looks through the window, to the space where you should be dancing with Namjoon.

You aren’t, though. You’re watching him, brows drawn together, confused, and you’re saying something that he can’t quite make out through the glass.

Fear strikes his heart. Fear that you saw everything, that you know everything, but directly after it comes relief, because he knows now. He knows what he needs to do, because he doesn’t think he can bear to have you watch him die, but he doesn’t think he can bear not to love you anymore, either; no matter what, he’s lost you, and that knowledge solidifies his decision. He holds a hand over his chest, and you mirror him, your fingers closing around the pendant he made so, so long ago.

You turn, looking for someone - Namjoon, maybe, or Jimin, to ask what’s wrong with him, and he takes the opportunity. He heads out of the alley, as fast as his legs can carry him, because he knows.

When you finally make it into the alley, you don’t understand. Your best friend, your best man, is nowhere to be found. In his wake are flower petals, drawn out by the wind.

One catches your eye, and you pick it up. It’s soft against your fingertips, and you frown when you see the red on it.

You don’t ever see Hoseok again.

#magicshopnet #ficswithluv #btswriterscollective #bangtanscenery #btswritersguild #bts fanfic #bts angst #bts fluff #j-hope fanfic #j-hope angst #hoseok fanfic #hoseok angst #hoseok fluff #hobi fanfic #hobi angst #hobi fluff #ddaenggtan

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seungminity · 4 years ago

Text

Cold Lips | Kim Seungmin

↠ Pairing: Kim Seungmin x Reader (Gender Neutral)

↠ Word Count: 1.8k

↠ Genre: Fluff, Suggestive, Established Relationship Au, hints of College Seungmin

↠ Warnings: Suggestive. Cursing. Mentions of shoving an ice cube down someone's throat, but like, lovingly? There’s a boner in there somewhere.

↠ A/N: i honestly don’t even know what the fonk this is. this is literally just an excuse to write making out with seungmin bc uhmmmmmm, making out with seungmin??? yeah u get it.

The clock reads 2:34 a.m. the third time you glance at it, which gets under your nerves because time seems to move too quickly considering you’re not yet even halfway done with the 6th out of 10 paragraphs you need to write for this philosophy paper. It’s still due two days from now, but you wanted to finish it by tonight (morning) because when in college, you’ve learned that putting aside an assignment will only lead to piles and piles of paperwork, which will lead to nights and nights of breakdowns and acne. Fun.

Your spine cracks when you lean back to stretch, relieving a bit of the tension, but the stingy pain doesn’t fade away when you retreat back to your original position. Your neck and back hurt, and your bum feels numb from how long you’ve been sitting down.

The words glaring back at you seem to blur together, and a wave of sleepiness washes over you. You mentally scold yourself for putting this off, but at the time, you were too busy binging another k-drama series that your boyfriend, Seungmin, pulled you into. Letting out a big yawn, you reach across the piles of notes for your mug.

It seems to be mysteriously empty, which isn’t all that mysterious considering you’ve been chugging its contents like water for the past 3 hours, but you digress.

“Min-ah, I’m out of coffee!” The e’s drag out, and despite all your huffing and puffing, your boyfriend doesn’t look up from his own laptop. He too procrastinated writing this essay and has decided to spend the night at your apartment so the two of you could work on it together.

“Minnie,” You coo, resting your head on his leg from your spot on the floor. Seungmin instinctively runs his fingers through your hair lovingly before he resumes his typing, not once looking away from his screen.

You call out to him again in hopes that he’ll get the message and walk to the kitchen to make you some more of your precious—what he calls—hot bean water, but he ignores you and continues typing. How dare he?

“I need coffee.” You huff, but he still doesn’t move from his position. You’re feeling cranky and sleepy, and this stupid paper is not magically writing itself, which is just offensive, really. Flopping down on the table, you release a drawn-out whine of coffeeeeeeeeee.

“Baby, just get up and make some,” He seems to contemplate before reaching over for his own mug and placing it in front of you. “Make me some too.”

Technically, it’s his turn to refill your mugs since you both have been alternating back and forth to the kitchen for your coffee fills, so what gives? You voice this to him as a complaint, and his answer does nothing to relieve the dull ache in your eyes. God, do you need coffee.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Its silent while you wait for him to elaborate. Because, because what? You slap his outstretched thigh in annoyance and he yelps out, finally looking up from his essay to frown at you.

“What was that for?” He complains.

“It’s your turn, Minnie!”

“I’ll go twice in the next rounds.” He proposes, before leaning over and pressing a kiss to your head. He resumes his typing, which is a good thing because then, he can’t see the heat that spreads across your face.

You get up with both of your mugs, giving up on arguing because you’re whipped for Kim Seungmin and will probably do anything he asks of you as long as he repays it with a forehead kiss.

“Seungmin, we’re fucked.”

The boy looks up from his laptop to see you pouting and holding the two mugs like shopping bags, both empty of his hot bean water—he learned the term from Jisung—which concludes that you either broke the coffee machine again, or you really just wanted him to be the one to fill your coffee mugs, which would make no sense because he already said he’d go twice so-

“Were out of coffee!” You announce it like it’s the most horrible thing, and it startles him a bit. Regaining composure, Seungmin assures you that you guys don’t need coffee anyway, you’ve both already consumed about 4 mugs separately.

“It’s easy for you to stay awake without coffee Minnie, you already stay up late playing with Felix, its why your eye bags have grown—hey don’t look at me like that—but I need coffee! My body isn’t used to staying up without caffeine!”

He decides to ignore your comment about his eye bags, you’ll probably force him to wear some kind of face mask anyway, and proceeds to take the mugs out of your hands before you start crankily swinging them around and breaking all of your furniture.

“Just do what you can tonight and finish up tomorrow morning, babe.” He advises, leading you back to your seat on the floor. He never really understood why you preferred doing all your work on the cold tiles rather than the couch, but you once said something about the coldness keeping you awake.

“But I need to finish this essay.” You whine.

Seungmin only smiles knowingly at you before placing another kiss on the space between your eyebrows.

“Google how to stay awake then.”

This prompts you to do just that, and you scroll through different websites of 5 tips on how to stay awake to even a wikiHow guide with pictures.

You finally stumble on a trick that you think might work, and move to venture back into the kitchen.

When you return to your seat, it’s with a cup that holds bits of crushed ice. Piece by piece, you put a small shard in your mouth and chew. Immediately, you feel more awake than when you were just drinking coffee. With this newfound energy, you continue working on your paper, stopping occasionally to plop another piece into your mouth.

crunch crunch crunch

And it is because of this spec-

crunch crunch crunch

specific factor in Kant’s-

crunch crunch crunch

theory are we able to conclude that-

crunch crunch crunch

oh my fhckign god iuwech fvoiumacxiahscmv

Seungmin stares at the keyboard smash on his screen. It’s been about fifteen minutes since you’ve realized this new hack of yours, and now every five seconds, you loudly chew another ice cube.

He doesn’t usually mind loud chewing, and it doesn’t annoy him as much as it annoys you, but ironically, the situation seems to have switched because now all he wants to do is grab another ice cube and shove it down your throat—lovingly of course, because you are the love of his life, but still-

crunch crunch crunch

Oh my god, he cannot do this anymore. Seungmin rips his laptop off of him, scrambling to get up. It’s almost 3 a.m. at this point, and he just wants to finish this stupid essay without the sound of your obnoxious chewing.

He freezes when his eyes settle on you.

Pouring another cube into your mouth from the cup, Seungmin watches as the ice has formed a permanent layer of sheen over your lips. You don’t notice him staring, which is a good thing because now he can’t seem to take his eyes off your mouth. Over time, the hue of your lips has changed into a brighter shade of red due to the coldness of the ice.

Seungmin knows you don’t have sensitive teeth, because you bite your ice cream and he always judges you for it, but the lack of feeling you have in response to the cold in your mouth has enabled you to eat ice cube after ice cube.

With your impatience, he watches as you reach for the cup and put two more pieces into your mouth, and the sight of your cheeks full and the small drips of water spilling from the corner of your lips has Seungmin shifting in his seat to fix the sudden southwards rush of his blood.

Shit.

You don’t notice the predicament you’ve unknowingly placed your boyfriend in. You’re too busy scanning over the ninth paragraph of your essay and looking for any spelling or grammar mistakes. The ice has worked wonders with keeping you awake.

You pour another ice from the cup and start chewing. From the corner of your eyes, you see Seungmin scramble off his seat and settle beside you, but you don’t think too much of it.

Which is why it comes as a surprise when you feel his hand snake around your jaw and turn your head towards him.

There are no words that can accurately describe the sudden rush of butterflies in your stomach at the sight of your boyfriend staring at your mouth with extreme concentration. The only fitting words seem to be oh fuck, but that doesn't seem romantic enough.

You’re about to ask him what he’s doing when he tilts your head the slightest bit and slants his lips against your own. There’s an overwhelming sensation of warmth that floods your mouth in contrast to the cold bits of chewed up ice. Seungmins hands snake across your jaw to angle your head, while the other one wraps around your thigh and tugs one leg over his lap.

His teeth nip against your lips, causing you to release a sudden whimper that he just swallows. Your hands smooth over his chest before finding home at the nape of his neck, tugging and pulling at the hairs. His tongue maneuvers into the crevices of your mouth, and you seem to forget the melted ice that gathered below your tongue because before you know you it, drips of water spill from the corners of your lips.

Seungmin grunts at the feeling of water dripping out of your mouth and into his, before pressing you closer, chest to chest and thighs wrapped around him. The pressure of your hips against the stiffness in his sweats makes him grip your jaw tighter.

He lets out a low moan that has your stomach twisting at the sound, and just like every other time you’ve made out with your boyfriend, you conclude that Kim Seungmin will definitely be the death of you.

When he pulls away, his eyes are dark and filled with lust. You’re guessing it mirrors your own.

“Fuck.” He groans.

Your lips are dark and bruised, and confusion of where the hell this all came from fly out the window when he grips your hips down to grind on him. The whine that you let out would embarrass you if you weren’t so preoccupied with the way your nails dig into his shoulders.

Seungmin reaches behind you to take another ice cube. The shuffle of movement allows you to breathe, which isn’t enough (it’s never enough when it comes to him) before he’s back in his original place with you straddling him, centered over his hips. He wipes his thumb over your lips with one hand, and he pulls your mouth apart to shove the ice cube in.

“Bite, baby.”

His voice is low and raspy, and it does things to your insides. You chew a few times, enough for the ice to shatter into tiny bits across your mouth. And then he’s angling your head to roughly connect your lips again.

You never do finish your essay that night.

notes♡: ahah so uhmm... yeah 👉👈 also im pretty sure chewing ice is actually bad for your health so probably ᵈᵒⁿᵗ ᵈᵒ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵃʰᵃʰ

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

Text

thehollowprince said: And I also stand by the opinion that they could have just done a solo run of the O5 X-Men starting a new timeline with the information they got from the future.

thehollowprince said: Its not like Marvel doesn’t constantly do AUs and retcons

OMG Josh you have no idea how bad I wanted this. They could’ve done SO MUCH with that concept. Letting the 05 keep their foreknowledge and the world they could have created with that?

They could’ve averted the initial Krakoan mission and saved Darwin, Gabe, Petra and Sway in the first place. They could have all been X-Men from their Day One, Scott and Alex would have actually gotten to KNOW their brother and Gabe quite possibly would never have gone full Dark Side despite the writers apparently now seeming obsessed with the idea there’s just something innately bad within Gabe that’s always destined to bear fruit at some point, ugh, whatever, like who do you think you are, Kant?

They could’ve recruited the Giant Size X-Men lineup earlier, and saved John Proudstar, who side by side with his brother Jamie, are a force to be reckoned with.

They could have convinced Pietro and Wanda to join them instead of the Avengers and been like no but seriously that way lies nothing but shitty storylines and bad decisions that will be blamed on you by your teammates despite the fact that any and all of the bad decisions that were ACTUALLY yours could have been averted if any of your teammates were capable of functioning as an actual support system. Come join us. We have actual support systems, except for the times when we don’t, but we recruited Deadpool to break the fourth wall and he and Logan are currently cutting through the ranks of every writer who would write as hating and fighting each other instead of being a loving fucking family goddammit.

Jean could have faced the Phoenix head-on when the time for that came, using her knowledge of the future not to fear an inevitable death, but rather to know she had nothing TO fear, that the power to not control this force, but just be ONE with it, with no NEED to control it or be controlled by it, a symbiotic union, two beings in harmony deciding on courses of action together. The Phoenix’s innate powers and prerogative of rebirth and destruction tempered by Jean’s mercy, aimed and focused by Jean’s reason, the double-edged sword that is fire capable of warming homes or destroying them completely combined with Jean’s conscience guiding it to use its power for the former rather than the latter.

They could have stopped the Legacy Virus from getting out and killing millions as well as spared us from migraines induced by an AIDS metaphor so shitty at being a metaphor most people forget it was literally written to be an AIDS metaphor.

The body swap would never have happened and Kwannon could have joined the X-Men as a full member from the time she was introduced, rather than dragged along in the wake of Betsy’s tangled storylines for a couple decades.

They could have stopped Fitzroy from killing the Hellions. Hell, if they train Illyana early enough and have her mentored by Wanda who is perfectly fucking competent when left to her own devices, then like, maybe they can even take a jaunt to the future to save Fitzroy from dying in the first place and being resurrected with no soul. Not gonna lie, ever since then I’ve kinda been seriously interested in what the hell would a hero version of Trevor freaking Fitzroy even BE like, y’know? Call it morbid fascination, but like. I kinda want it, guys. LOL.

Add to that note, they could have taken another jaunt to the future and rescued Rachel from being made into a Hound by Ahab. Through the power of some convoluted plot tangle I just made up for convenience, Scott still ends up in a relationship with Maddy briefly, in one of those self-fulfilling prophecy type things where he went into it with the full intention of just averting the future and saving Maddy from her fate as the Goblyn Queen, but somehow ended up in a love triangle with a very alive Jean and Maddy who is fully informed of Sinister’s shenanigans and quite displeased with that asshole, and look, I don’t know how all of this goes exactly, but let’s cut to the chase, my only real endgame with this is making sure that Nate’s born properly, saved from Apocalypse and the techno-virus by the combined efforts of Scott, Maddy and Jean as well as Uncles Warren, Bobby and Hank, and Jean calls up the Phoenix through some psychic bond or whatever and is like hey girl, can I hit you up for a loan real quick? Got some losers that need toasting.

And in this AU the Phoenix totally has her back, and one brief cosmic power-up and gratuitous Sailor Moon transformation later, Jean glows and intones some epic one-liners with appropriate gravitas, and then just punts both Apocalypse and Sinister to the far side of the universe, never to be seen or heard from again. They like, hit a black hole on the way there I guess. It was very sad. Violin strings may commence with the requiem. Okay that’s enough, they can stop now.

So then through the plot contrivances of fuck you, I said so, Scott and Maddy ultimately part amicably and Scott and Jean get back together and the three of them civilly co-parent both baby Nate and Rachel, as Maddy keeps the healing powers she gained as Anodine and stays with the X-Men for her own reasons.

The telepaths are all better trained by the expertise Jean gained in her powers while in the future, so the next time the Shadow King comes bumming around looking to cause chaos, Betsy, Emma and Jean just look at each other and laugh and say nuh-uh before psychically squishing him into a marble.

Warren never becomes Archangel. Onslaught isn’t a thing. They make nice with Magneto and say okay you may have a couple points, let’s discuss. Bishop arrives in the past for reasons totally unrelated to his original story, has no traitor to seek out among the X-Men, and thus he and Gambit end up besties in complete defiance of that stupid fucking story and because I just think they’re neat together. Yes I said neat. Gambit and Bishop are just neat. Deal with it.

Bishop still hates that Fitzroy guy though, he’s like, I don’t even know what it is about that guy, he just rubs me the wrong way, even though Fitzroy is not evil here and has always done good with his powers, which are channeled through a device Forge made him that lets him just absorb life force from a wide range around him, spread out and diluted enough that its like, the grass feels weird for a second, like whoa what even was that, and then its over. Actually, y’know what, scratch that. Fitzroy’s powers are stupid and unnecessary the way they are now anyway, so fuck it, this Fitzroy doesn’t need life force or whatever, he’s just a dude who makes time portals. He’s like Illyana with green hair and that ugly goatee. Hey I said this Fitzroy was non-evil, not that he was perfect.

Bobby’s out and proud since he was sixteen, and with actual competence and proficiency with his powers, which make him a Literal Unkillable Gay Icon, he’s an inspiration to LGBTQ+ teens everywhere and inspires other gay, bi and trans heroes to come out. He’s a big brother figure to all the baby gays that later join the X-Men, like, Rictor comes to him for advice back during the time equivalent to early X-Factor, when Rictor’s a trying-too-hard sixteen year old who thought college age Bobby was like the coolest, which is valid, because X-Factor Bobby was like A+ Bobby characterization and deserves more reads.

So Rictor comes out earlier as well, and by the time they even meet Shatterstar, instead of a slow burn friends to roommates to lovers scenario, Rictor takes one look at the love of his life and wastes no time coming out swinging with an absolutely terrible pick up line. Look, I said his big brother figure Bobby was out and proud in this AU, not that he magically had a better sense of humor. Some things just don’t change, y’know? Luckily, Shatterstar is a weirdo, and thus he finds terrible pick-up lines charming. At least when its Rictor saying them. They walk off for a first date, already practically hand in hand, voices fading into the distance as Rictor asks “By the way, have you met Dazzler yet? According to Bobby, apparently she’s your mom. That Longshot dude with the mullet over there is your dad I guess. We should go say hi.”

Hank gets an assistant hand-picked by the rest of the original X-Men, and who has one job and one job only. To follow him around and observe all his experiments, and he has veto power over experiments that People With IQs As High As Yours Should Know Better But I Guess You’ve Got Reed Richards Syndrome.

Hank’s like, “Hmm, if I built a time machine I could go back to the Jurassic Period and observe whether my theory of - “

Hank’s assistant: “Veto.”

“Damn. Okay I was also thinking of making a deep space communicator that can reach into the farthest reaches of space beyond any known civilization and just say hi, y’know? See if anyone’s out there.”

“Veto.”

“If I combine these genetically modified antibodies here with this strain of of DNA from - “

“Veto.”

“Well Forge built this device that does this to mutant powers but I think I can make it do - “

“Veto.”

“These nanobots I - “

“VETO,”

“Honestly, at this point I think you’re just saying that just because you like saying it.”

“Dr. McCoy, I promise you, I’m really, really not.”

Logan finds out about his future clan of stabby children, and seeks them out. He rescues Daken from Romulus, somebody stabs that loser with the immortal-killing sword, I don’t even care who, and after a few tense months of Logan trying too hard, he and Daken eventually bond over how hockey just isn’t violent enough. If you’re going to make a sport all about hitting each other, just really go for it or don’t even bother, y’know? Logan claps him on the shoulder and sniffs. That’s my boy. Then they find and rescue Laura and Gabby and take a road trip to Earth 1610 to pick up Jimmy. They have a house on campus, and new students walking by it are used to hearing loud growling and even howls. They were assured during orientation that that’s nothing to worry about, it just means the House of Snikt are watching a game and are rooting for opposing sides.

Emma’s recruited practically the day they get back. She’s only just started at the Hellfire Club and has only done a tiny bit of Evil when Warren schedules an appointment with her, and then he, Scott and Jean make a better pitch than Shaw and his ilk could ever match. They’ve been to the future. Come join with us and we’ll give you an all access pass to memories detailing exactly what’s going to happen in these particular areas and many more. All you have to do is ask. Oh and also please don’t seduce any married teammates. Its bad form. To be honest, I don’t think it’ll be an issue because Deadpool assures us Morrison has been taken care of, and don’t worry if that makes no sense to you, its a head-scratcher for us to. Just roll with it.

Nate ages normally here so its not like he ends up besties with forty year old Wade, but the latter having his own plot-contrived knowledge of the future because He’s Just Like That, decides that he won’t be denied at least SOME kind of bond with The Bestie That Wasn’t. He becomes Nate’s official babysitter. Well, not official, seeing as how Scott, Jean and Maddy don’t hire him and are very clear that their son is not to be left alone with this man at any time, he is a terrible influence and he keeps giving our kid guns. But then Wade just shows up anytime they’re out because he just has a sixth sense for Making Trouble, and he terrifies away whatever babysitter’s there and greets the returning and exasperated parents with a cheery wave.

“I know what you’re going to say, but don’t worry, we didn’t do anything dangerous or against the law. All we did today was I taught him to make bombs, but we were very careful, we wore safety goggles and really, they were very little bombs. Not even anything atomic. I honestly don’t think any of them could have even blown up this whole house, and I’ve been meaning to say, I’m not impressed with the structural integrity of this place. Couldn’t you have picked something with a sturdier foundation? Its like you don’t even expect random space mercenaries to attack your place out of the blue every other month. Have any of you even read a single issue of your own comics?”

Scott’s jaw twitches Ominously. Wade starts gathering up his things. Jean rubs her forehead wearily.

“Wade, what do you even think ‘dangerous’ means?”

Wade pauses and cocks his head. Gives it a solid twenty seconds of thought. Then he shrugs.

“I don’t know actually. Don’t think I’ve ever really thought about it. I always figured it was just one of those things people just say. Like, ‘oh, it looks like rain today,’ even if they’re not a forecaster and have no real meteorological credentials to speak of. ‘Oh, this mission will be dangerous,’ and I don’t even have to use up all my ammo and I only get shot twice. Y’know?”

“Leave,” Scott says. More like intones. House shakes a little bit but that might just be Wade’s imagination. Its very active.

“Leaving!” He says hastily. He jumps through the closed window and then teleports away amid the falling shower of broken glass. Why didn’t he do that while he was still inside the room? No one knows. Not even Wade knows. Why did the chicken cross the road? Who the fuck cares, now is it Original Recipe or Crispy?

Scott, Jean and Maddy search the house while Nate angelically claims they won’t find anything, Wade doesn’t even bring him cool stuff anymore cuz he knows you’ll just take it.

Maddy finds a high-tech laser space gun under a floorboard in the closet. She holds it up with one eyebrow raised pointedly. Scott and Jean flank her and their own eyebrows raise in solidarity. Well Jean’s does. Scott’s probably does but its hard to tell sometimes. Depends on what glasses or visor he’s wearing.

“That was already there,” Nate tries. Most powerful telepath and telekinetic in the world, but the kid can’t lie for shit. There’s not much point in trying when one of your moms is the freaking Phoenix, and that’s a skill that takes practice he just doesn’t have.

The three sets of parental eyebrows make a V, judgingly.

“One month of no video games or TV?” Okay, so terrible liar but quick on his feet. At least he knows when he’s beat and jumps straight to trying to shape his own punishment proactively.

“Two months. And no flying lessons either,” Jean says. “And don’t pout at me, young man. You know the rules. No weapons inside the house unless your grandpa Corsair is visitng and we’re too tired to fight him on keeping knives under his pillow. This is a Do As We Say, Not As We Do house. Deal with it. Now, this is going with the others and you can have it back when you’re eighteen.”

It would have been three months, but Jean and Maddy caught a telepathic sniff from Scott. He’s just so proud of his kid thinking so tactically. He’s growing up so fast. Both women mentally roll their eyes. Why is he like this.

“I don’t see what the big deal is anyway,” Nate sulks. “Its just a stupid laser gun. I mean, Uncle Gabe blew up our last house with his brain.”

“Yes and it was an accident and he feels absolutely terrible about that which is why we’re not going to bring it up when he and Armando come visit this weekend, right?”

“You can have my full compliance for two weeks off my sentence.”

“Or we can have your full compliance or two weeks will be added to your sentence,” Maddy says.

“You guys suck,” declares the ten year old vessel of near unlimited psychic might. He goes to his room, stomping all the way up the stairs so his grievances can be heard even by the House of Snikt next door. Course, they’ve already been listening to the whole thing with their enhanced hearing. There was nothing good on TV. Jimmy made popcorn and chewed with his mouth open just to piss off Daken.

‘The second Father leaves the room, I am going to stab you in such a slow healing place you’ll still be bleeding at bed time.’ Daken mouths at his little brother from another universe. Jimmy scrunches his face in confusion.

‘What?’ He mouths back. He’s terrible at reading lips. Or anything that isn’t skateboarding, really. And yet Father’s so happy that ‘at least one of my kids is content with stupid normal stuff and doesn’t go around drawing cover fire just because a mission is going so well its boring and they haven’t even gotten to pop their claws out yet.’

“That’s only because you’ve coddled him. He’s barely ever even been shot at. Just the one time on vacation in Majipoor and he wasn’t even the target, the assassin was aiming for me. If you would just let me take him on a proper outing to gain some real experience - “

“Not gonna happen.” Logan shuts that down real quick.

“Really Father, just look at him. He has zero situational awareness. I’ve been glaring a hole in the back of his head for a full minute now and he has no idea. That could just as easily be an actual laser scope, you know. He’s a disgrace to the whole family.”

“Daken, we’ve been over this,” Logan says firmly. “You have your sisters to bond with over gratuitous violence. Leave your brother alone. I don’t want anyone traumatizing him until trauma finds him all on its own. It’ll happen sooner or later, he’s as much a part of this family as anyone and that means its as good as done already, so there’s no need to hurry it along. If later on he decides he’s got a taste for it, you can take him on all the outings to get shot at that you want. But he’s gotta figure it out for himself first, and he doesn’t need his big brother being the one who introduces him to all that. He idolizes you, you know.”

Daken scoffs. He can’t even get the brat to chew with his mouth closed.

“He cut his hair from that style he liked so much, just because you hated it so much,” Logan says obliviously. Daken nods like he’s conceding the argument and hastens from the room while he can still keep his mouth shut. It won’t benefit anyone at this point to tell their father that Jimmy really only cut his hair because Daken told him he would set it on fire if he didn’t.

Ugh, families are the worst. Don’t even get him started on Laura stealing some of his clothes to wear without asking. And then has the gall to yell back at him when he yells “Silk! Its the finest cut of silk! Does that mean nothing to you?” at her.

“Oh get over it. Its not like I asked for killer robots to interrupt my date.”

“Of course they were going to interrupt your date with that Julian boy. I keep telling you, he’s a magnet for trouble. I can tell. I’m one too, remember?”

“Fine, whatever, you’re right and I should just expect every date with Julian from now until the end of time to end with fire and disaster.”

“Well now you’re being melodramatic. There’s no way that boy makes it past twenty five. He doesn’t even have a healing factor.”

“Why do you hate him so much anyway? If you’d just give him a chance - “

“What are you talking about? I give him a chance every single time he’s here and I don’t kill him.”

“Ugh, I can’t even talk to you when you’re like this. You always do this, you just decide on something and then you commit to that like the fate of the world depends on you standing firm on what’s usually a completely arbitrary decision in the first place!”

Daken sniffs. “I can assure you, there’s absolutely nothing arbitrary about my disdain for the Keller boy.”

“His name is Julian,” Laura enunciates with a glare.

“I don’t care,” Daken enunciates with an expression of lofty superiority.

“You two are so dumb,” Gabby says from the end of the hallway. They both turn identical glares on her. They’d noticed her arrive several minutes ago but they weren’t about to be distracted from their battle of wills. “Laura, you know Daken isn’t actually going to kill Julian. He doesn’t do that anymore except for really bad people sometimes and he just talks about stabbing people or killing them cuz he thinks he’s funny and then he gets all pissy because nobody ever gets that he doesn’t really mean it. He doesn’t even hate Julian and he used to be fine with him before he started dating you, its just he doesn’t think he’s good enough for you.”

Daken frowns at the petite would-be peacemaker. Meddlesome toddler. “What are you even babbling about? None of that is remotely true.”

Gabby rolls her eyes up at her brother from her much lower height. She taps the side of her nose with emphasis. “You do know we all have the same abilities to smell and analyze scents as you do, right? And you know everything you can tell from peoples’ scent, right? Of course I’m right, I can smell it as clear as anything and so can Jimmy and Dad and we actually all know this and talk about it all the time, and its why Dad never actually gets mad at you for talking about killing people because he can smell you’re saying it just cuz you’re used to saying it but really you’re too marshmallowy on the inside now to do half the stuff you claim you’re gonna do. Hate to break it to you bro, but you’re a closet softie and you’ve been made. The nose doesn’t lie. Only reason Laura doesn’t know it is because you piss her off like its your favorite hobby and its probably impossible for her to smell anything beyond her own scent of Royally Pissed Off.”

Ugh. Meddlesome insightful toddler. Who asked for her intervention anyway? Daken crosses his arms in a way that’s decidedly aloof and not at all sulking.

Laura’s staring at their sister assessingly. “That’s really what you think is going on? And Jimmy and Dad think so too? You’re not just saying all that?”

Gabby bats her eyes up at them. “Would I lie to you?”

“Yes,” Laura says without missing a beat.

“Without a shadow of a doubt,” Daken says dryly, right on her heels.

“For the sake of a candy bar,” Laura adds, because that really did happen.

“Or just boredom, because god forbid you pick up another hobby that isn’t just Chaos.”

“This from the guy who only has fun when there’s blood and bullets flying about,” Gabby fires back from a position of petite petulance.

Daken smirks down at her. “Didn’t you just say I don’t really mean it when I say all of that?”

Gabby narrows her eyes. “Touché. My own words thrown back at me. I am undone.”

“Yes, well - “

Daken’s cut off as Jimmy chooses that moment to walk past them down the hallway to the bathroom. He’s laughing and shaking his head.

“You guys are both so dumb. She plays you like this all the time, and you never see it.”

“Silence, mortal!” Gabby thunders at their brother menacingly. The effect is somewhat diminished by the fact that she can’t hit a baritone note to save her life.

“No, I’m interested in hearing what he has to say,” Daken says coolly. “For once. This is a moment without precedent and one unlikely to occur again, so let’s explore it a bit.”

Jimmy sighs and shakes his head without ever losing that amused smirk. “Had to tack on that last part, didn’t you. Just couldn’t help yourself.”

“I am a faithful student of the Truth,” Daken says, matching his brother smirk for smirk.

“The point, Jimmy?” Laura prods aggressively before that can erupt into a wholly separate thing she wants no part of.

“Oh, right.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Its kinda her thing with you two when you get like this. You pick a fight with Laura, Laura gets pissed off and succumbs to the family curse of Tunnel Vision at the Worst Possible Time, and you both go back and forth endlessly and like you have all the time in the world for your stupid tete a tete, because on account of you both being practically unkillable and immortal, you kinda do and you know it. And then whenever she gets bored of listening to you two, Gabby swoops in and draws both of your attention until you’re both so focused on being annoyed with her you don’t even realize you’re actually side by side agreeing with each other, and she keeps it up just long enough til she’s sure she can just say she’s bored now and just leave the room, leaving you both annoyed and frustrated by a fight you can’t even claim to have won because she really just kinda...left, in the middle of it, and you’re so focused on that, you’ve totally forgotten to be pissed at each other. And by the time you do remember, like, the moment has passed and peace has been returned to the kingdom. Or at least as peaceful as this place ever gets.”

Daken stares at his mistake of a brother in the hopes that if he stalled long enough, his senses would arrive at a different conclusion. But nope. Scents don’t lie, unlike baby sis, apparently. He’s telling the truth. And Daken really does not....care for that conclusion.

Gabby stamps her foot and glares up at their brother.

“You are such a tattletale. I am providing a service, by keeping this family free of these two constantly at each others throats, and how is that service repaid? With betrayal! I hate you, you’re dead to me. Never speak to me again or at least not until I’ve stopped being mad at you, but that could be like ten years or something, I don’t even know right now.”

She draws up to her full height and squares her shoulders as she thunders this Mighty Mouse style at the still laughing Jimmy. Then, seeing she’d yet to make a dent in his armor of amusement and he was failing to take her pronouncement seriously, she punctuated her declaration by spitting on their brother’s shoe. Daken’s eyebrows shoot up again, this time in amusement of his own. Gabby then spins around on her heel and stalks off down the hallway, muttering more dire threats under her breath as she goes, the sound of them nonetheless carrying clearly to three siblings with enhanced hearing of their own. And apparently, little sis could be quite creative. Who knew she’d been hiding such talent?

Jimmy barely even notices; he’s still staring down at his shoe.

“Dude, you spit on me! That’s so not cool.”

“Some things need to be expressed so strongly, mere words will not suffice,” Daken says loftily, savoring a slightly renewed sense of superiority.

One quickly dashed, of course, because apparently he just can’t have anything.

“Bold words from the seventy year old who needed the sixteen year old to clue him in he’s being regularly manipulated by the twelve year old,” Jimmy fires back. As a return volley, its obnoxiously effective, and Daken’s still grinding his teeth and searching for an adequate rejoinder as Jimmy just grins even wider and then strolls off down the hallway as well. Whistling either an absolutely hideous song or else proof that he’s absolutely hideous at whistling. Tough call. With him it could be either.

Daken and Laura both stare after him in silence as he rounds the corner and disappears, leaving only the lingering scent of smugness in his wake. Daken hates the scent of smugness. It has a particularly....cloying feel to it. Well not his of course. But everyone else’s, especially little brothers? Acrid is the only word adequate for that.

“Sometimes I really do want to stab him. Just a little bit. And I’m not even lying,” Daken says. Laura just nods, her own nose scrunched up in distaste as well.

“Honestly? Me too.”

Brother and sister enjoy the rare moment of solidarity.

“You know what’s really bugging me?” Laura says suddenly, still staring off down the hallway. Daken turns an inquiring eye on her, prompting elucidation. She frowns.

“Where the hell did he learn a phrase like tete a tete? I mean. Its Jimmy.”

Daken does know what she means, and frowns as the nagging awareness of that leaps from his sister to himself like memetic chain lightning.

“And he used it correctly. That’s....unexpected.”

“Sometimes I wonder if maybe he’s not as completely airheaded as he pretends, and the fact that he’s got everyone so convinced of that actually means he’s running circles around the rest of us,” Laura says. She shrugs. “Of course, then I have to question everything and who has that kind of time and also the very idea of genius mastermind Jimmy disturbs me on a deeply visceral level. So then I just. Stop doing that.”

Daken nods and sighs. “Sometimes, that’s all you can do.”

“Okay, this is annoying. I kinda still want to fight, but now fighting with you feels kinda anticlimactic. Ugh, siblings are the worst,” Laura declares with a glower. “They ruin everything.”

“On that, we can agree. With allowances for temporary occasions of some of them being bearable,” Daken says. “Some.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve never said to me, big brother,” Laura says lightly. Daken swiftly scowls but she holds up a hand to forestall any rebuttal. “Sorry, don’t mean to ruin the moment. I’m thinking about how else we can put all that frustrated energy to good use. Wanna go pick a fight with the Summers’ kids?”

A slow smile spreads across Daken’s face. “Well now. Finally, a family outing I can get behind. I believe that’s precisely what we need right now. Care to lead the way?”

He still hates her boyfriend, of course, but he supposes he can let that be.

For now, at least.

16 notes · View notes

awrldalone · 4 years ago

Text

17th May 2021, 10.47am

I feel like a spinning top. Going round and round, moving everywhere, dizzy like when you spin on yourself and the world begins to shift.

Saturday was full. Mass was peaceful when I could turn off my brain and neglect the alarms that screamed “hypocrisy” at every word. I discovered Pope Francis changed some of the words to the Padre Nostro, and I wonder why he focused on that rather than actual problems within the church.

Afterwards, we had lunch. My aunt - I had not seen her in a little over a year – said I am too skinny. While I was eating. I have always been told I am too fat, obese, overweight, disgusting. Every family function has been a reminder that I need to lose weight, and now that I have, I’m still not good enough.

Besides, I hate it when people acknowledge my body, or the fact that I am eating. It was fish. A lot of fish. Very tasty, might I add, but my favourite part was the cake.

We got home at around 6pm. I changed, made iced tea and risked to stain my white jeans - they used to be my father’s, but I got them fitted to my waist – and finally I left the house. My little cousin came over, since I was headed to Venice. Yesterday it was C.’s birthday, so she invited a few people at her house, to sleep over (but not to celebrate, since she does not want to recognise that she is of age now.)

On the way, I bought a roll of film. A few days ago, I tried taking out the already-shot film but my camera did not roll it up like it should have. It all got exposed to light. Rendered unusable. Undevelopable. It was sad.

I also bought a cake. An overpriced, over-sweet chocolate mousse. I’m not into that kind of stuff, I’d rather eat something lighter, brighter, fruitier. It almost fell on the ground while I was carrying it. It was cold on my lap, on the bus.

I went to a café-bar near my school, we often go there to study, but in recent times we’ve also got a spritz or two, and I found everyone sitting near the canal. I was late, but I had already told them, so they were already done with whatever they were eating and drinking.

C.’s house is near the Hospital, I have learnt the way now, despite the fact Venice always feels similar, every little street blends with the other and it is easy to get lost, or not remember where to go even if the destination is known.

We had fun. Some vodka, a soap-tasting Japanese gin with “delicate layers of yuzu lemon, sake, and a hint of cherry blossom flavour”. I hope no one remembers what was said, because I know that what I said are things I ought to have kept to myself. Things I usually never open up about.

There comes a point in the night when you get the urge to smoke. I’m not a smoker, but the idea of a grey cloud and a cigarette seem a thousand times more appealing when you’re drunk. So we went on the tiny balcony where C.’s mother growths flowers, and we smoked and talked about smoke, and feelings. There also comes a point in the night when talking in a foreign language comes natural. French, English, tous les deux. Slurred Italian words, and a bit of dialect.

I told C. I cut. She told me she does too. I told her to stop. She told me she won’t. I told her I won’t either. I burnt my hand in three places, tiny red spots still linger like bug bites. That girl who kissed me last summer told me she finds me attractive. She said she likes the veins of my arms and I feel like an asshole writing this.

I almost passed out with my cheek on the toilet seat, trying to purge but unable to think completely straight, more because of how sleepy I was. I threw my body on the bed.

Sunday I woke up okay. Dehydrated, rotten inside, but okay.

We planned to study Philosophy. Locke, Hume, Kant. So we went out for breakfast, I tried eating a French Toast but it was too sweet. It looked pretty, sometimes I eat food because of its color colorful (for example, red berries; I like reds and greens).

I could focus on the words of the book, but Cl. and Ca. were revising out loud, which was distracting. I drunk an americano, it tasted very bad, and I started listening to music. I need to get to know new people. I probably was still a little bit drunk, everything was still in my system.

At two pm I got up from my chair, the wind was getting colder and I wanted to go home. I said goodbye, they said they were going to leave with me, so we walked. Cl. was not feeling her best because she got vaccinated recently, since she’s diabetic. Thinking about vaccines angers me. A British friend of mine always has to rub in the fact he is fully vaccinated, that he does not need to wear masks in school anymore, and all that shit. It makes me feel black with envy.

At home I studied too. I made myself tea, it tastes like the rose perfume my grandma used to use, in a good way. When my sister and my father left, my mother came into my room to talk to me.

And my heart dropped. Shattered. All the pieces scattered on the floor. She said my sister cried, yesterday night, while I was away. Dangerous shards that can cut flesh. She said it’s because I like boys. She said my older cousin told my younger cousin about a stupid TikTok I made, where I joked about liking men, and my younger cousin told my sister. And she cried.

Was she ashamed? How can a ten-year-old be so crude? Wrong inside? It still hurts that she would feel that way.

After dinner, I talked to her. I am grown, old enough to face anything. I asked her about it and I explained that I have nothing to be sorry about, nothing to be scared of, nothing to be ashamed of, and so does she not.

I think everything is okay now, but it still hurts. Broken glass stuck to my feet. I would have told my sister, eventually, I just did not want it to be like this. If my cousins step foot into this house again, I might get violent.

-c.

#diary

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saintheartwing · 5 years ago

Text

So Why Should A Hero Be Moral?

The idea of a guy with super powers doing incredible things wasn’t invented by either Japanese anime, western comics, or some obscure 1920′s writer somewhere. No, no, it goes as far back, at least in terms of written record, to Plato’s work known as “Republic”. We find it beginning with the description of an “ancestor of Gyges”. And if you know that name...you know about Gyges’s Ring.

See, this ring makes you invisible if you slip it on. Using the ring, this man got into the king’s palace, seduced the king’s wife, killed the king with her help, and became the new ruler. This story is told to pose a question to us. “Do people actually love justice and goodness for its own sake, or do they do it because they realize if they’re unjust, there’ll be consequences for their actions?

Glaucon, the narrator, takes an “Immoralist” viewpoint. If ANY such person had that kinda magic ring, they’d behave in the same way. NOBODY would ��refrain his hands from the possession of others and not touch them”. Well, this is quite the question. Would you do that? Should you do that? But it goes further. Glaucon also claims that if there were any people with special powers so committed to doing good that they’d still seek to be just, the rest of us would despise them and regard them with contempt. Why? Because if anyone who had a license to do whatever the hell they thought refused to do wrong or lay their hands on others things, the reaction would be “What the hell are you, stupid? You moron! You can do f--king anything and you’re not doing it?”

So Glaucon challenges Socrates in “Republic”. If you want to make a really convincing argument for why people should seek to BE good and not just APPEAR good, well, then show that the life of a person who is truly just but thought by others not to be so is superior to the life of someone who is ACTUALLY unjust, but has a good reputation. We have to compare the lives of people who are genuinely good vs the people who pretend to be so, but are thought of, outwardly, as good.

This is quite the challenge. So then...why SHOULD someone with superpowers or powers of any kind be good at all? Why should people, in general, be good? Not just appear good...BE good? Well, Plato presented a person, in Republic, as being someone who was thought of as unjust and suffered accordingly despite being good...and that person maaaaay have come from personal experience. After all, his beloved teacher was Socrates, a wise, brilliant and formerly well-known and cherished philosopher...who people turned on thanks to trumped up legal charges by claiming he was “corrupting the youth” and other BS claims. So a real, genuine, actual good person DID get thought of as being a stupid ignorant fool and let’s all boo and hiss him and then execute him via the state.

But we’re not in Ancient Greece, so let’s try to call on someone a LITTLE more modern. Kierkegaard the German Philosopher! He said that humans are called upon in life to, well, live a live of universal love. We are called by God to love our neighbors as ourselves, and nobody really falls outside that category of “neighbor”. It’s kinda like the idea of “We’re all brothers in Christ”.

OBVIOUSLY this isn’t even close to being an easy task, Kierkegaard says we need to overcome natural selfishness, and the inertia that pushes us toward the satisfaction of our own desires when those desires conflict with the good of others. This is the “first danger”. The first obstacle to goodness, justice and love. If you CAN overcome this, you can then face the external issue...a “double danger”. What is that?

Kierkegaard says that the big struggle involves first the person’s inner being struggling with themselves, then with the world outside. Because we don’t live in a world where it’s easy to love one another and to be just, after all.

So a moral person has to engage in a certain amount of self-denial. Only THEN can you overcome the firm pull of selfish desire. But then we have to contend with the world because the world isn’t gonna be so nice to us. We may admire sainthood from a distance but facing real, actual virtue can be...disturbing to folks. Think of, say, figures like Gandhi or Dr. King or Harvey Milk or Nelson Mandela. Oh sure, people may ADORE them now but at the time they were alive, folks severely hated them in a lot of places. They were controversial figures who incurred a lot of criticism and in many cases for many beloved figures today...they got murdered for their efforts.

And the temptation of double danger and the like isn’t necessarily the temptation to be a supervillain. Take Spider-Man. Peter’s on his way to see MJ perform. He promised he’d see her. But...uh oh. Some guys are robbing an unfortunate in an alleyway. And...well, he’s Spider-Man! He’s got to help them! So he ends up missing her performance because he had to save people. This wasn’t a temptation to use his powers for financial gain or anything. It was a choice between using your powers for good or...well, just having a normal, private kinda life. He’s tempted to be ORDINARY, not evil. A lot of us kind of experience this. Most of us aren’t tempted to be villains. We wanna be free to pursue our own individual happiness is all.

However Peter also experiences the second danger because J Jonah Jameson, head of the biggest paper in the city, is ALWAYS shouting how Spidey is a menace. Menace! MENACE! Despite Spider-Man saving his life multiple times, AND his son, AND NYC, AND the World over and over...

But no. MENACE!

The good news is the average NYC person doesn’t seem to fear Spider-Man. Unless Joe f--kin’ Quesada is writing the story or the episode because yeah, THAT isn’t tired and played out. But such a thing is a good example of the double danger. Either they cynically refuse to believe in his goodness...or they call him a chump behind his back. Just as Glaucon said they would.

But what does Plato say in response? Well, Plato says that in the long run we’ll be happier both in life and in death, if we live in accordance with justice by turning our attention to the good. Morality reflects the true, deep character of the universe. Those who are committed to the good are committed to what is profoundly and eternally true. It’s no accident this viewpoint’s seen as religious, writers from St. Augustine to C.S Lewis have viewed his metaphysical version of the world as very much congruent to their own faith.

It’s also a matter of mutual responsibilities. Tobe a parent or a son or daughter or husband or wife or a citizen of a state means you have duties to the other. Certain obligations are just part of those kinds of relationships. It doesn’t just merely become grounds to love doing good but to enforce morality across wider stretches and turn it into duty.

For example, driving at a moderate speed is a good thing to do, but we also further enforce this as a legal obligation with speed limits. We don’t just have a moral duty to do the right thing, but a legal one at that. And that’s before we get into any kind of open religious reason for being good. Ultimately, Kierkegaard makes the argument, much like Plato, that humans have a simple reason to behave good. Because our own deepest and ultimate happiness is found by following the path of neighbor love.

But of course, now we get to an opposing viewpoint that has sprung up a lot. The concern of UTILITARIANISM. Let me paint a picture for you of a comic featuring Batman. The Joker is on trial for poisoning stamps. People lick them and they die. This time...the Joker’s found guilty and is going to death row. He is, in fact, going to DIE. And nobody could really argue that he doesn’t deserve it. Even though I’m almost completely against the death penalty...

It’s the goddamn JOKER. There are SOME exceptions to the rule. Some people who, absolutely, one hundred percent, would be too, TOO dangerous to let live and whom everyone else in the world would be better off if they were dead, who’ve proven, even if they were unarmed and had nothing but a glass of water...would smash that glass of water, cut the throats of everyone around them and then grab your gun and shoot you.

But...here’s the thing. THIS time...the Joker’s innocent. Batman knows he didn’t do it.

So...what should he do? A lot of us, and I’m tempted myself, would say, well, “Let the motherf--ker fry in the chair”.

Let’s think up another possibility. The Green Goblin has lasso’d an irritated dishwasher. He’s soaring on his Goblin Glider, the poor guy being dragged behind him, screaming all the way, he gets broken ribs and everything. Luckily, Spider-Man saves him. Now, what nobody knows is the guy was a disgrunted employee who had a gun in his pocket. He was gonna unload it into the first asshole in the diner he worked at because he was sick and tired of being underpaid by a cruel boss, picked on at work, and he just one day has decided he’s had enough. With what he WENT through now though, he gives up on his plan, destroys his gun, and signs up for an anger management course.

So was what the Green Goblin did the right thing? Well, a UTILITARIAN would argue yes, it was. But surely that’s not correct, dragging a rando around Fifth and Main with the intention of traumatizing the guy and maybe even killing him just to use him as bait for his nemesis is CLEARLY an evil act, even if it UNINTENTIONALLY produces a greater good.

So who do we turn to now? Let’s try Immanuel Kant. Kant maintained our fundamental duty is to act in a way that satisfies what’s called the “categorical imperative”. A formulation that states we should ALWAYS treat people as an ends in themselves, not MERELY as means. This comes down to treating people as always having intrinsic value, and never just using them for our own purposes as if they just had INSTRUMENTAL value. But remember, performing an action in accordance with the categorical imperative alone isn’t enough to make it good. You have to do it because it is your duty to do it! If an action treats an individual as an ends in and of themselves and the person performs the action regarding such individuals in way that indicates they’re following their duty of treating people appropriately, then their action is good. So treat others first as people, not as means to an end, and do it for the right reasons, not for selfish ones. It’s your duty to yourself, to others in Kant’s eyes.

So what are these “duties” though? Now we get into the weeds. There’s positive and negative duties. Positive is stuff like tending to the sick. Feeding and clothing the poor. Negative duties are obligations to REFRAIN from doing things that harm people, like assaulting an innocent person or maliciously lying to them. By doing our positive duties, we treat people as ends in and of themselves by showing them respect, and we’re fulfilling our negative duties by avoid treating them as merely a means.

Spider-Man dives into this sort of thinking a lot. It’s classic line “with great power comes great responsibility” is an admonishment for people to be careful with the powers they have. Those who have power have a duty and an obligation to help those in need. Boiled down simply, its answering the question of “But why be moral at all?” For one, if you fail to do your duty, there will be negative consequences that affect you, directly or indirectly. But then again, this can be questionable. Sometimes reason one isn’t convincing in a world where evil can easily bring profit and virtue none at all. So what’s the second reason?

Because it’s right.

People like Kant and FH. Bradley, another philosopher, have brought this up. Appealing to someone’s self-interest in the name of getting them to do a moral duty is basically missing the point. Them doing it for pragmatic or selfish reasons means they’re not behaving morally at all. You have to do the right thing BECAUSE it’s right. Not for some self-interested reward. But what if we’re given very strong reasons to do the wrong thing? Then doing the right thing would be irrational. So we have to make sure we’re not being irrational in doing the right thing.

So if reason one and reason two don’t work...is there a third reason? Well, yes. Let’s go back to Plato. Plato says “It’s the only way you’ll really have piece of mind”. According to Plato, a person’s soul consists of reason, of appetites, and the “spirited element”. Reason includes the conscience, and reason MUST govern the soul or the soul is discordant, lacking in harmony. But there’s plenty of people who don’t approach life from a dominantly moral perspective, so does this idea work? After all, even many morally upright people face temptation at some point, or give in occasionally.

Artistole had another answer. Virtue is its own reward. Being moral is a greater benefit to you than any benefit you might obtain at the expense of your good moral character. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem necessarily true,, the rewards of perfect virtue do not always compensate compared to the rewards for wrongdoing. So then what’s next?

Reason five! Doing good pays off in the long run. Now, if you’re a religious person, you may already know about this answer. It’s very similar to reason one. But we don’t have to accept it. It calls for some strong metaphysical positions about the nature of reality.

But then again, maybe it’s not a singular answer that IS the answer. Maybe the multitude of reasons given here are good enough. Maybe it’s a little of them all that explains WHY heroes should behave in a moral way. Why people should be moral and good. Ultimately, how you choose to answer the question”Why be moral”...that’s up to you, and hopefully, you can be proud of the answer you give.

#ethics #morality #philosophy #superheroes #heroism #heroes #good and evil #right and wrong

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starrystarrybabe · 6 years ago

Text

Oh, How the Mighty Fall [In Love] CHAPTER TEN (Ben Hardy x OC)

Lily Anne Mercury is brought in to help with Bohemian Rhapsody at the request of her Uncle Bri and Uncle Rog, and along the way, she might meet someone to share her life with. The only problem with this is that while their friends and the world can see that they’re perfect for each other, they’re going to be fully blind to this for a while.

DISCLAIMER: I’m fully aware that it would’ve been physically impossible for Jim and Freddie to have a child even with this method during the time they were alive, but the idea of Freddie as a dad and the idea of how his child would turn out to be was just too sweet for me to not write.

CHAPTER ONE, CHAPTER TWO, CHAPTER THREE, CHAPTER FOUR, CHAPTER FIVE, CHAPTER SIX, CHAPTER SEVEN, CHAPTER EIGHT, CHAPTER NINE

Triggers: discussions of pregnancy

FACECLAIMS:

Kelly Gale as Lily Anne Mercury

Sira P. Kante as Ezichi Adebayo

Erika Linder as Bronwyn Ryan-Hughes

Bree Kish as Madigan Ryan-Hughes

Sonakshi Sinha as Anusha Laghari

Lily gets backstage after a performance with her band and sits down in her chair, taking out a makeup wipe and beginning to take off her foundation. She’s exhausted, emotionally drained, and ready to drink a cup of chamomile tea with lemon and go to bed on the tour bus as they haul the band and their instruments to a new city.

It was hard to leave home after spending a few blissful weeks with Ben, going to the animal shelter, walking their dogs, and taking long, relaxing baths. However, he left to go work on another project, and their few weeks of paradise had to come to an end. She drove him to the airport and kissed him goodbye, and went back home to their pups. It has now been a month and a half on tour, and she misses him dearly.

Her assistant Katie comes inside with a styrofoam cup of tea and Lily takes it gratefully, sipping the beverage and sighing. “Thank you, Katie.”

Katie nods, but unlike her usual smile, she only looks nervous. “You’re welcome, Lily.” She bites her lip, shaking her head. “The Daily Mail came out with something on you, and normally I wouldn’t bring this up, but… this, in particular, is more than petty drama.”

Lily looks up at her. “I’ll take a look. Show me what it is.”

Katie passes Lily her phone, and on the snapchat story for the Daily Mail, there’s a picture of her in a tight leotard, with the headline “FREDDIE’S GONNA BE A GRANDDAD? LILY ANNE MERCURY MAY BE EXPECTING WITH NEW BOYFRIEND BEN HARDY.”

Lily scoffs and shakes her head, handing Katie back the phone. “That’s bloody ridiculous. Also impossible. I’m on birth control. I can’t be pregnant.”

Katie lets out a noise of doubt. “Not exactly. Birth control is only 91% effective. So it may not be all speculation.”

Lily purses her lips, nodding. “Alright. I didn’t know that, but thank you for the information.”

Katie hesitates before asking, “Do you want me to get you a pregnancy test? Just to make sure?”

Lily shakes her head, waving a hand dismissively. “No. It’s alright, Katie. You can go back to the bus.”

Katie nods, smiling. “Got it. If you need anything, just call.”

Lily smiles at her and nods. “Of course. You’re an angel, Katie. Thank you for the tea!”

Katie waves goodbye, and after taking off her lipstick, Lily gets a FaceTime call from Ben on her own cell phone. She answers, and Ben’s worried face greets her.

“Hello, love! Are you done shooting for the day?” She props up the phone against the mirror, scrubbing away the powder in her eyebrows.

Ben nods, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. We ended early. I couldn’t focus.”

Lily looks back at him and sighs. “You saw the article?”

Ben nods, looking down. “I did, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I know you haven’t gotten the chance to take a test yet, but could you at least answer one question for me?”

She nods, standing up to take off her costume. “Of course, darling. Anything to make you sleep easier.”

Ben stumbles over his words before asking, “Do you think you’re pregnant?”

Lily shakes her head as she pulls on a silk robe. “I’m on birth control, Ben. It’s 91% effective, as Katie has informed me, and I’ve been on it for years. I don’t think it’s possible for me to be pregnant. Perhaps I was just bloated that night. I did happen to eat a lot more than usual before the show.”

Ben nods, biting his lip and taking in the information. “Okay. Alright. Because I just remembered that we didn’t use protection after you danced, and the thought is still nagging at me.”

She pauses and her eyes go wide. Oh, shit. She forgot about that. She places a hand over her mouth and sucks in a breath.

“Lily? Did I just scare you?” Ben looks nervous.

Lily takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “No, I just forgot about that minor detail, that’s all. It doesn’t change my opinion. It is highly unlikely that I’m pregnant.”

Ben sighs in relief, leaning back against the couch in his trailer. “Good. Great. That’s amazing. I think I’ll sleep tonight.” He smiles at her. “I just wanted to make sure. I got really scared.” He laughs, his eyes crinkling. “I can tell you’re exhausted. Sleep well, sweetheart.”

She smiles and blows him a kiss. “You too, lovie. I miss you and I love you.”

Ben grins at her. “I do too. Kick ass and take care of yourself. Goodnight, love.”

She ends the call and the band piles into the large bus, and immediately Lily falls asleep. However, when she has a nightmare about being heavily pregnant and going into labor at a gig, she wakes up sweating, and the frantic googling begins.

How effective is birth control? Can birth control kill an embryo? Signs of early pregnancy First two months of pregnancy

After that, she goes into the bathroom and stands on her toes, examining her stomach to see if it’s bigger than usual. She sees that it is, and a wave of anxiety washes over her. She calls Katie, who’s in a second bus, and does not get an answer because she’s sleeping and it’s 3:30 a.m. Shaking, she lays down in her bed, and when they get to a rest stop near a drug store at five to refuel, she shakes Ezichi awake.

“Zichi, I need your help,” she whispers to the groaning woman.

“Why? Jesus, what time is it?” She turns to look at her friend, adjusting her bonnet. “What’s wrong?”

Lily sighs, her hands shaking. “So I’m sure you saw this Daily Mail article.”

“I didn’t.”

Lily thrusts her phone in Ezichi’s face, and the sudden light makes her hiss. “I can’t bloody read this, give me one moment.” She reads it and raises a brow. “Lily.”

“Yeah?”

“You do realize how low the likelihood of you being pregnant is, correct?”

“Yes!” Lily hisses, trying to stay quiet. “But Ben and I had unprotected sex--”

Ezichi groans. “Why?”

“Because I danced for him and I don’t know if it was the costume or--”

Ezichi shakes her head, covering her ears. “I don’t need details!”

Lily sighs. “Sorry. But anyways, it was a spur of the moment thing, and we didn’t think about protection.”

Ezichi sits up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “Do you need me to get a pregnancy test for you?”

Lily nods, turning red.

Ezichi groans and gets out of bed, and the door opens to reveal a disgruntled couple of lesbians.

“Mate, it’s five in the morning. What’s going on?” Bron says, running a hand through her messy hair.

Lily sits on Ezichi’s bed, ready to cry, and Ezichi pats her shoulder. “Benjamin may have knocked up our lovely friend here, and I need to go get the pregnancy test for her.”

Lily whines. “Don’t call it that, Zichi! It makes him sound like an irresponsible man whore and me sound like a stupid little girl.”

Madi comes over to her and rubs her back, and Lily hugs her, burying her face in her shoulder.

Madi looks up at Bron and Ezichi and sighs. “Go to the drug store. Get five pregnancy tests and a few other things to make it look less suspicious.”

“Can I get a pint of ice cream?” Lily asks, her voice breaking.

Madigan nods and pets her friend’s hair. “Ben and Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie?”

Lily nods against Madi’s shoulder. “Please.”

Ezichi nods, and Bron gets her wallet and phone. “I’ll get myself some snacks. You just stay here and comfort Lily.” Bron goes over to Lily and pats her head. “We’ll take care of you, mate. Just sit tight and relax.”

Bronwyn and Ezichi get off the bus to go get their goods and Madi holds her friend as she breaks down crying, babbling about how she wouldn’t be a good mother and doesn’t want to lose Ben because of this. Madigan just listens to her, and by the time Ezichi and Madi get back with water, ice cream, pregnancy tests, and sour cream and onion potato chips, Lily is sitting up, brown eyes rimmed red.

She chugs the water and takes the tests into the bathroom, where she pees into a cup and puts a bit of it on each test, and sets a timer for the tests. She comes out and digs into her ice cream, laying her head in Ezichi’s lap. She sits quietly and her friends sit around her.

“God, I’ve put you all through so much. I’m so sorry…” Lily begins.

Bron shrugs, taking out a chip and pops it in her mouth. “It’s alright. We know you’d do the same for us.”

Ezichi smiles, taking a chip from the bag. “Remember when we had to wait in the health center for hours for my STD test results at one in the morning after a gig?”

Lily lets out a little laugh. “Yeah… I don’t think the workers appreciated that we brought popsicles with us.”

Madi grins. “They still let us use their freezer, though.”

The group laughs, and Lily closes her eyes. “I appreciate all your support very much. I love you all more than words can describe.”

“We love you too, Lily,” Ezichi says, looking down at her friend. “We always have and always will.”

Madi smiles at Lily. “You’re one of the few people I’d do this for.”

Bron grins at her wife and wraps an arm around her. “Aren’t you glad we’re lesbians and don’t have to deal with this?”

Lily pouts at them, and Madi snorts. “Of course I am.”

The timer goes off and Lily sits up, taking a deep breath.

Madi looks over at her friend. “Do you want any of us to go in there with you?”

Lily shakes her head. “No thanks, Mads. I’ve got to do this by myself.”

She stands up on shaky legs and puts down her ice cream, heading over to the bathroom.

Positive.

Lily sits on the floor of the bathroom and places a hand on her stomach.

Holy shit.

There’s a tiny person in there.

She and Ben made a new life together.

In nine months, that tiny person will be pushed out of her vagina.

She’s going to be a mama.

Ezichi looks into the bathroom, and sees Lily sitting on the floor with a hand on her stomach and a far off look in her eyes. “Lily? Is everything alright?” Lily looks up at her slowly, eyes wide. Ezichi puts her hand over her mouth. “Oh my god.” Lily nods, looking terrified. “Do you need a few moments to yourself?”

“Can you help me up? I might faint,” Lily hoarsely whispers.

Ezichi guides her to the couch and Bron and Madi take one look at the hand on Lily’s stomach and gasp.

Bron grins. “I’m gonna be the best aunt. I fully plan on corrupting your child.”

Lily looks up at her and smiles, laughing. Bron has a talent for diffusing tension with a well-timed comment.

Madi smiles and laughs with her friends, squeezing her wife. “If you ever need a pair of chaotic babysitters, we’ll take the little one for the night.”

Lily grins. “I have Roger for that.” She gasps, eyes wide. “Oh my god. This will be Roger’s first grandchild.”

Ezichi raises a brow. “Or grandchildren.”

Lily waves her arms around, shaking her head. “No! I will spiral if you even say that again, so help me God!”

Ezichi raises her arms in surrender. “I’m sorry! But you do realize Roger will spoil this child rotten, don’t you?”

Lily nods, laughing. “He’s going to lose his mind! He’ll be so excited!”

Madi smiles at Lily. “What about you?”

Lily looks at her, confused. “What about me?”

Madi gestures to her stomach. “Are you excited?”

Lily goes quiet, before smiling and stroking her stomach. “I mean… I’m scared shitless, not gonna lie. I don’t know if Ben wants this, and I feel completely unprepared for a child that’s not an animal, but I know I want to keep it and love it, and… and…” She looks at her friends with a warm smile. “I want my baby to have his eyes. Imagine it. Beautiful green eyes with tan skin and a thick mane of dark hair. It would be beautiful.” She shakes her head. “This all feels unreal. I’m going to be a mum. My child will grow up in my childhood home, and I’ll teach them to garden and play piano, and Brian will show them all the constellations in the sky, and Roger will give them a drum kit to give Ben and me migraines.” She smiles at her friends, tearing up. “And you’ll all be there with Gwil and Joe and Rami and Lucy, just showering them in love. They’ll have all the family they could ever want.”

Everyone is now teary, and Bron wipes away a tear before saying something that makes Lily’s heart melt. “Freddie and Jim would be so excited to be grandparents.”

Lily nods, smiling. “They’d be so happy.”

---

Dinosaur Boy: hey can you talk right now? this is important.

Lily Anne: sure thing!

Lily picks up the phone when Joe calls her, and sits back in her dressing room couch in M. “What’s up, Joe?”

Joe gets right to business. “It’s Ben. He called me last night freaking out.”

Lily nods. “About the article? I told him that it was highly unlikely that I was pregnant. He seemed alright after calling me about it.”

Joe lets out an affirmative noise before beginning to explain what he was told. “He was alright until he dreamed that you were pregnant, and nearly had a panic attack on the phone with me.”

She frowns. “Oh, no! Is he alright now?”

Joe takes a moment. “Kind of. I kept him from spiraling, but he had a lot to say over the phone in his panic.”

Lily bites her nail. “What did he tell you?”

Joe sighs. “Well, from what I could make out, he’s super nervous because he feels unqualified to be a dad, and he’s worried that it could tear you two apart after pining after one another for so long and not being officially dating for a long time. He wants so badly for this to work, because he’s so in love with you. He went on a five-minute rant about how wonderful you are.”

“That’s flattering. He’s very sweet.” Lily smiles, her heart warming at the statement.

Joe continues. “He’s scared out of his mind, but he made it very clear that he wants to be a father.”

Lily releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Alright. Did he say anything else?”

“Not really. That’s the jist of what he told me.” Joe hesitates for a moment. “But if you are pregnant, which would be great, I’m a fucking amazing babysitter and will be in London more often.”

She raises her brows. “I’m assuming that it’s going well with Anusha, then.”

Joe laughs. “Yeah! She’s amazing, Lily. We have a great time together and she’s so funny and willing to put up with me. She even decorates Cardy B.”

Lily snorts. “You have him up in your apartment?”

Joe scoffs. “Of course I do! It’s a constant reminder of our lovely Benny.”

“Our? You assume that I’m sharing him with you?”

Joe laughs again. “You may have him now, but I stole his heart first and we both know it.”

Lily shakes her head. “I can’t deny that.” She looks at the clock on the wall. “I have to go soon, but is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

Joe nods. “I think you should tell Ben whether or not you’re actually pregnant, because it would ease a lot of his worries.”

She nods. “Duly noted. I’ll do that.”

“So… are you or are you not pregnant? Or do you not know? Because I need to know if I have to buy a set of toy velociraptors.”

Lily laughs. “I’m not saying anything, Joe. I have to go now.”

He lets out a small groan and nods. “Alright. Break a leg, Lily! Anusha and I can’t be there tonight since we have Beetlejuice tickets, but have fun!”

“I will.” She smiles. “Have a great time, Joe.”

“Sure thing. Bye!”

When Joe hangs up, she moves to the makeup chair and begins putting down her base, and the rest of the band, which has been notably absent today, files into the room. She turns around and sees Ezichi holding a box, and raises a brow. “Did you go shopping today and only buy one thing? I should’ve been there to help you do some serious damage.”

Ezichi shakes her head. “We only needed this one thing. It’s for you.” She hands over the box from F.A.O. Schwarz and Lily opens it, awwing as she pulls out a plush, dark brown teddy bear with a small red bow tie.

Madi shrugs. “It’s really for Little Baby Jones, but we thought you’d love it as well.”

Bron grins. “I picked out the bow tie. Isn’t it classy?”

Lily holds the bear to her chest, smiling at her friends. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much, ladies!” She stands up and hugs her friends before looking more closely at the bear.

It has gold button eyes and a black nose, and it is by far one of the most adorable teddy bears she’s ever seen. She can imagine Little Baby Jones hugging this toy in their crib, and she wants to cry.

Ezichi smiles at Lily. “You’re going to be an amazing mom, Lily. We can’t wait to be aunts to your baby, and we’re so happy for you and Ben. You deserve this family, and for you to finally get it makes us so excited.”

Lily fans her eyes. “Jesus, Zichi! You’re going to make me cry.” She dabs her eyes and smiles. “I cannot thank you all enough. I know Little Baby Jones will love that bear.”

The girls all hug, and after a fantastic performance, go their separate ways to unwind and undress.

When Lily enters her room, she sees a vase of lilies and daisies that wasn’t there before. She goes over and plucks a note from the vase, smiling at the note.

Break a leg, love! I can’t wait to be home with you.-- Ben

“I figured you’d like those.”

Lily turns to see Ben standing in the doorway of her changing room, and puts a hand on her chest. “Ben! Aren’t you supposed to be in London working? If I knew you were coming to New York I would’ve made sure you had a seat at the concert.”

Ben rubs the back of his neck, letting out a nervous laugh. “I got here ten minutes ago from the airport. I couldn’t work well when I was thinking about… everything. I took a red-eye here.”

Lily looks down. “That makes sense.” There’s a tense silence in the room before she smiles at Ben. “You can come on inside, you know. Don’t be getting all shy on me, Hardy.”

Ben walks inside and hugs her, and she melts into his arms, closing her eyes. When he pulls away and looks down at her, his eyes are filled with anxiety.

“I need to know, Lily. I’m sure Joe called you and told you what I said--”

Lily nods, wrapping her arms around his waist. “He did.” She lets out a nervous laugh of her own. “I must admit, I did have my own bout of panic on the bus. I had a nightmare that I went into labor on stage, and when I woke up, I couldn’t stop thinking. Once the bus stopped, I woke up Ezichi, and the rest of the band, and…” She sighs. “We got five tests and a few snacks from a convenience store.”

Ben’s breath hitches in his throat. “What did the tests say?”

‘Please, please, please be positive.’

Lily smiles up at him tearily. “Positive, all five.”

Ben’s eyes well up with tears of joy. “Oh my god…” He can only manage a whisper.

She nods, and when she speaks, her voice cracks. “You certainly got past the birth control, darling.”

He picks her up, holding her tightly and kissing her. She can taste the salt of his tears and knows that her own are joining his when they pull away and laugh, crying at the same time. Her arms are wrapped tightly around his neck, and his hands hold her tightly to him. They’re both shaking.

When she’s put on the ground, he wipes away his tears, sitting down. “Oh my god, we’re going to be parents! My mum is going to freak out. She’s been waiting for this for ages.”

Lily grins. “Roger will lose his mind.”

Ben gasps. “It’s his first grandchild!” She nods, laughing. “He’s going to have a heart attack. We need to catch his reaction on video.”

Ben nods, pulling her into his lap. “Of course! Holy shit, we get to name our own child!”

Lily turns towards the doorway to see Madi recording them, and smiles. “How much of that did you get?”

Bron wipes away a tear. “All of it. That shit was breathtaking, mate.”

Ezichi appears, a black tear streaming down her face. “It really was.”

“You two are going to be the best parents,” Madi says, her voice cracking.

“Thanks, Madi,” Ben replies, crying himself.

Lily sniffles, wiping her nose. “Come in here so I can hug you all.”

The friends get out all their tears before the girls take off their makeup, and Katie brings Lily’s things back to her hotel room.

---

Lily is curled up in the large bed, and she feels Ben come up behind her, his chest pressed up against her back. She closes her eyes, enjoying the warmth he provides. His hand moves to her stomach and under her tee shirt (his tee shirt), and she smiles.

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” She asks, placing her hand over his.

Ben sighs, resting his head in the crook of her neck. “As long as our baby is healthy, I don’t care.”

Lily scoffs. “That’s a bullshit answer. You have a preference.”

Ben lets out a little laugh, his warm breath on her skin. “I really don’t. Do you?”

Lily smiles. “I think I’d like a little girl, but I’d be fine with a boy as well. There’s only one thing I really want.”

Ben kisses her cheek. “What would that be?”

She turns to look at him, smiling. “I want them to have your eyes.”

Ben’s lips turn up into a smile. “I think I’d like that.”

She curls up into his chest, her stomach slightly pressing into his. She’s quiet for awhile. “I don’t think any of that really matters, though, because I know one thing for sure.”

Ben opens one eye, looking over at her. “Hm?”

Lily grins. “Our child is going to be gorgeous no matter what.”

TAGLIST: @andtheytoldustotellyouhello @plethora-of-things @borhap-socials @everybodyplaythegame @i-the-fangirl @deakydeakydeaky @shisterfackisback @samanthadegaro @lv7867 @fatbottomedcurls @redspecialty @haisimsim @peterparkeroos @teenwolflover28 @ixchel-9275 @alessandra-elle @onexlittlespark @queenficarchive @leah-halliwell92 @rrrogah-tayluhh @maddistudiess @queen-fam @evrsncnewyork @reddiefreddieee @babebenhardy @toms-irish-girl @bensrhapsody @good-old-fashioned-rogerina

#starry writes #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy #joe mazzello #gwilym lee #lucy boynton #rami malek #borhap fics

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kdtheghostwriter · 6 years ago

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SNK 115 - “OMW”

I mean...

Let’s be real. As far as Deus Ex goes, I’ve seen more preposterous this week.

If any of you are wondering why this post took so long, it isn’t for lack of time I assure you. This chapter was…a lot. And god damn, Isayama, I wasn’t expecting to dig up my Junior Year debate notes for this one blog post but here we are lads. Quick recap before we get into writers’ mumbo-jumbo.

Flashback

Deus EX

#HeelFloch

Sad Hange

RESURRECTION

We all know Isa loves his religious imagery. He isn’t quite as egregious as Zack Snyder (who is, tbh?) but it’s definitely a thing. He also loves mythology of all types. And while Norse mythology seems to be his area of expertise, it isn’t mine - which is why seeing Stupid Sexy Zeke emerge from his Titan Incubator made me think of another Stupid Sexy God from the Ancient Greek Canon.

I speak of the Goddess Aphrodite, who has dominion over love, beauty and its various trappings. Admittedly, this comparison is drawn in relation to aesthetics only. Zeke’s aloof temperament doesn’t really mirror that of the Greek goddess. Even though Aphrodite did technically help start the Trojan War but that’s neither here nor there.

Zeke’s appearance from the steam of the felled Titan is nearly identical to the foam that appeared during Aphrodite’s spontaneous conception in the Ionian Sea. For the sake of transparency, I must point out that long ago, a fanfic author by the name of Homer relayed to us that Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. This is not technically wrong but it is quite boring. And it was also pre-dated (shout-out to Hesiod). Uranus, the primordial god of the sky, got into a spat with his children as deities are wont to do. This particular dust-up ended in Uranus being castrated by his son – the Titan, Cronus – who usurped the throne. The disembodied testicles fell into the sea like a pair of primordial bath bombs and out of the resulting effervescence appeared a full-grown Aphrodite in all of her Tumblr-banned glory.

Zeke, with nothing left of him after the explosion than a head and torso, was taken into the gut of a waiting Titan. Let me clarify, here. He was not eaten, no. The mindless titan scooted itself along the river banks and inserted the dying Zeke into its stomach cavity. Then OG Ymir with her trademark PATHS Magiks, crafts the golden boy a brand new body and sends him on his merry way.

Like I said up top: of all the examples of Deus Ex, this isn’t even the third-most severe I’ve seen. The implications of it are…a lot. And it actually makes sense if you consider what we know about Titan Biology.

Back to the beginning. Once upon a time, the Founder Ymir Fritz made a deal with the Devil of All Earth that gave her untold power after coming into contact with the “source of all living matter.” With that power, Ymir became the Progenitor of Titan Power. Upon her death 13 years later, her soul was split into nine pieces and connected via a metaphysical system known only as PATHS. These PATHS transcend space and time and bind together every subject of Ymir, even those who have been long dead.

We also know that the Titans themselves are a conundrum of theoretical physics. Their mass and energy are created from nothing. They generate massive amounts of heat, but don’t appear to need fuel. They have no digestive system and regurgitate the contents of their stomach when it becomes full. Even though they are huge creatures, their actual limbs and body parts are incredibly light. Even though Zeke has little recollection of what happened to him post-explosion, he’s likely smart enough to infer, as we can, exactly how and why he emerged from the carcass of a Titan with a brand new body.

This is all before we mention that Zeke Jaeger is a part of the Fritz family tree. The Royal Family line that descends directly from Ymir herself.

I also thought about Lazarus of Bethany while reading this section. Lazarus was a good friend of Jesus, the lad from Bethlehem. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Jesus was told that Lazarus had fallen ill, but has business and doesn’t set out until a few days later. Jesus and his crew arrive in Bethany only to discover that Lazarus has already passed away. This leads to the Gospel’s shortest verse.

Jesus wept. [John 11:35, KJV]

Perhaps the better comparison for her is to Abraham (with the whole “making a great nation” stipulation). But! I’m trying to do something pithy here, so bear with me.

The story of Lazarus might be the Good Book’s most well-known resurrection (besides that other one). The idea here is that the world’s most Holy Figure decided that this man’s time on Earth wasn’t done. Jesus was too late to heal Lazarus and felt so guilty as to weep. Lazarus was then called forth from his tomb, still wrapped in his death robes.

For the Eldian Empire, no figure is more Holy than Ymir Fritz. She’s the Founding Titan and, if this chapter is to be inferred upon, her spirit still influences the will of her subjects to the day. An entire cult has formed with the sole purpose of returning her to her former glory. I should also point out that Zeke essentially committed suicide.

Like, yeah, maybe the injuries were a bit too extreme for an old shifter to be able to regenerate from, but even if that’s the case there would have been the telltale signs of an attempt to do so, like Pieck in Liberio. There wasn’t even that. He was so tired of the fight – so done with Levi torturing him – that he was willing to abandon his years-long plan entirely and sacrifice his powers to the shadows of death. He chose to die; the Founder chose differently.

The rainstorm clearing to make way for the sun. The beautification of Zeke Jaeger. The visage of his tall, strong frame standing firm as his hated rival lays broken and mutilated at his feet. It’s all very hard to miss. Who knows where his head is at following this? I do, however, finally know why I get so many Spidey Sense tingles whenever Zeke opens his mouth.

The name is Immanuel Kant: German scholar and one of the godfathers of modern philosophy. I first learned of Kant and his teachings as a teenager on my high school debate team as I prepared my cases for the Lincoln-Douglas competition. It was my first tournament and I placed second out of dozens of students. After I was done for the day, a girl came up to me and gave me congratulations for understanding Kant. I thanked her, but the truth was that I didn’t fully grasp Kantian philosophy until I got home that night and studied a bit more. Kantian ethics can be hard to grasp because they are often in conflict with each other. (Gee, that sounds familiar.)

Kant’s ethics are deontological in principal. This is a fancy way of saying that the main concern is the Deed That Must Be Done. It is a separation of morals from emotion. Kant rejected the Utilitarians of the day and their schools of thought regarding the inherent “goodness” of an action. Specifically, he had a big problem with Determinism, saying that things like free will were inherently unknowable; also, basing the morality of a decision around perceived outcomes was impossible, because consequences existed outside of physical existence and therefore could not be quantified. Kant set out to quantify the question of moral relativism with his most famous work: The Categorical Imperative.

This is a terribly complex system that has been repurposed and reinterpreted countless times over the past two centuries so I’ll spare you any ballywho. Basically, CI is the inverse of Consequentialism where everything but the consequences matter. Saving a person from drowning isn’t inherently a good action unless there is a logical reason for doing so. This is admittedly a very simplified summation, but even the expanded version leads to some dissonance of reason.

If we look at the Abstract of Categorical Imperative, it tells us: “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.” This line is very similar to the Golden Rule, which Kant famously opposed. The American scholar Peter Corning pointed this out, saying, “Kant’s objection is especially suspect because the Categorical Imperative sounds a lot like a paraphrase…of the same fundamental idea. Calling it a universal law does not materially improve on the basic concept.” To borrow an idea myself, it’s like playing the Super Mario theme in a minor key. It’ll sound more dour than usual, but it’s still the Mario theme. Joking aside, what’s important here is that the whole point of CI is to quantify the question of morality and it appears to do that in part by using the qualitative philosophy of the Golden Rule.

Another big beef came from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. He felt that Kantian autonomy was insufficient in holding people to the standards of CI’s universal truths. In his words: “Kant was of the opinion that man is his own law – that is, he binds himself under the law which he himself gives himself. Actually, in a profounder sense, this is how lawlessness or experimentation are established.” In other words, if the only thing that matters is reasoning, you can justify almost anything to serve your immediate reasoning.

EXAMPLE

Here is where the dubious nature of the Categorical Imperative fully rears its head, as it displays BOTH the morality and immorality of Zeke’s plan.

On one hand, this plan is fucking awful. There are numerous and many arguments to be made against it; working solely in the context of Kantianism, it is irrational to presume that sterilizing the Eldian people will lead to a more peaceful world. It relies on a ludicrous number of assumptions – the least of which isn’t that Marley will one day stop being a total bell end. Besides that shit, it violates the nature of Kantian philosophy by attempting to foresee the outcome of the situation.

The other hand? It actually makes sense. CI says that only reason matters. It’s ethics through the lens of rational thought. No matter your thoughts about the Great Titan War, how it started and ended, whether or not the Eldians’ preceding subjugation was just or not, it’s a fact that the Titans have caused a great deal of suffering for many people. Only one race of people can transform into these beasts, so the idea of stripping their ability to reproduce isn’t a great leap to make. It is rational specifically in the context of this universe.

(Apologies for any details missed. I haven’t read any Kant in several years and this is a very condensed version of a concept I would encourage you to look into further. Thinking about this all now, the fact that I ever made it to out-rounds while arguing any of this is frankly absurd.)

It makes sense then, finally, why Yelena is so devoted to Zeke’s plan. Titans destroyed her home and slaughtered her people. The rational course of action is to remove this weapon from the hands of those (Marley) that would abuse them. And if those same perpetrators get screwed over during the course of this plan then…[Shrug Emoji]. She claims what she wants is justice. What she really wants, of course, is revenge. Just like her sensei, Jaeger-san, who wants revenge still. Which Jaeger, you ask? The answer is yes.

Situations have been reversed. The volunteers (and Onyankopon) are seated at the head of the table while the officers of the Garrison and Military Police that held them captive are under their thumb. Color-coded armbands are divvied out to the Eldian forces, juuuuust in case you forgot which period of history we’re sending up here. Armbands are assigned based upon when a person surrendered to the Jaegerists. Those higher ups (and Falco) that partook of the wine get their own special armband, because Everything Is Awesome!!

Then there’s this fucking guy. Before I revisited the world of epistemology, I had a much less astute take prepared about character psychology and the concept of the “Double Turn.” I may still write that as a separate post; it won’t do any good here. Reiner didn’t appear, firstly (even though it appears that he and the Warrior Unit are on Paradis), and the visage of a disembodied child using Titan Magiks to bring Zeke back from the precipice of death brings up some very real questions about how real the Curse really is. We don’t know how Ymir Fritz died originally. Given the way mythology tends to work, I’d say patricide is highly plausible.

As usual, all we can do is speculate. One thing that doesn’t need speculation is Pieck. As usual, she’s right on time. As expected, she’s exactly right.

Stray Thoughts

- As I noted last time, Levi was sent flying into the river. Evidently, he had enough strength to make it back to shore, just not much more than that. I suspect he’s alive for now but, goddamn did he get messed up. Levi underestimated Zeke’s suicidal tendencies, just as Zeke underestimated Levi’s tenacity. For two fellas that spent months in direct contact with each other, they have almost no clue.

- Not to stir the pot here but, here’s an in-story example of Kantian Ethics in case you’re still not quite sure. On the roof in Shiganshina – if Kant had been there (lol) – he would have disputed Levi giving the serum to Armin. Not for the reason you think. Categorical Imperative is all about reason. The reason Levi chose to save Armin is because he refused to rob his loved one of their humanity and instead chose to let him rest as opposed to reviving him for the sake of continuing a senseless, endless war. As Momtaku has said before: Levi chose Erwin over Armin. This was a choice made on emotional, borderline selfish, grounds and thereby irrational, which in Kant’s eyes makes it immoral. Just a little extra nugget for you. Discuss, friends!

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pomegranate-salad · 6 years ago

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Seeds of thought : DIE #2

Hey everyone ! So many works I need to be SOTing right now. I decided to prioritize this, because well, new comic, needs all the attention. Plus, everytime an issue gets sold out, we get a new cover from Stephanie Hans. I live for them now. Anyway, spoilers of course, enjoy my thoughts and opinion under the cut.

HINDSIGHT IS D20/D20

When I was a kid, I had this French comic in which they had a page that asked : “what happens after a movie ends ?” and there were a series of vignettes that answered that question in a proper humorous fashion. For example, one of these vignettes showed the last scene of a movie where a car of the heroic lovers drove in the middle of the road into the sunset onto their bright future. The next panel showed the two lovers in court, and the judge saying : “bright future or not, you crossed the lane line and I’m revoking your licence”.

When I was seven, as most things do when you’re seven, it blew my mind. Nevertheless, this silly comic highlighted the universal, unbreakable truth of all stories : when it’s over, it’s over. There’s no more. And even today, as fanfiction has become its own genre, as no comedy is complete without a fourth wall break, when you close a book, when you turn off the TV, nothing can happen anymore. There is what the story implies will or might happen next, but sooner or later, you reach the point where you exhaust whatever the story contains of foreseeing. Each story writes its own last will ; but whatever happens after that, the story is dead : it still exist, but it won’t move forward, it won’t go back, it won’t do anything at all because it has stopped being able to do anything with itself. The only way for more to happen is for the author to write more. But that inevitably means writing a different story.

And that’s why, as sad as I could have been to leave a story I loved behind, for me there was always a sort of relief that came with reaching the end of a story : the relief that came from complete stillness. Because there’s no more, there’s no more pain, there’s no more stress, there’s no more excitement even, there’s no more reason to be alarmed at all. No reason be involved at all. Only when we reach the end of a story, can we be free from it. Outside of the contraption of the story, the characters’ actions don’t exist. THEY don’t exist. And you definitely know where I’m going with this.

The genius of DIE is not to take us to an elaborate gritty deconstructive fantasy RPG world. The genius of DIE is to take us back to it. Back to the story that’s already ended. Yes, I know I said in my last SOT that I didn’t think the characters were over their first visit in DIE by any means. The story of Ash and the gang is not over (by the way, I’m just going to call him Ash and use he/him pronouns until we get more on this issue, if needed I’ll edit accordingly). But functionally, narratively, the story of DIE the world, DIE the tabletop campaign, is over. The heroes arrived, the heroes did some shit, the heroes left. The story welcomed them and then the story ended. More than that, the story ended and nothing came to replace it. Sol’s speech is not the only thing that happens when thoughts curl up. The entire DIE world the gang is now in is nothing but a giant curl up. A new story did not emerge from the same setup. Sol just dug up the corpse of the old one and smeared make-up all over it.

The return of the heroes in a fantasy world they once knew is not a ground-breaking idea in fantasy by any means – I mean, Narnia did it. But in the usual take on this plot, the trigger element to the world the heroes return to is their leaving the world, not their being there in the first place – or in Sol’s case, staying. The second Narnia book showed us a world in shambles because the heroes saved it then left it, not because the heroes saved themselves and one of them was left behind. And maybe what I’m about to say will be disproved by future issues, but I’m not under the impression that the characters were particularly anything to the world of DIE, least of all heroes. They seem to mostly have been there. Some parts they barely set foot in, and the way they talk about the supposed “big bad” of the first game, the main reason they came after him seems to have been that they prevented them from going home. As a setup, the world of DIE seems to have been a bit underexploited. But come to think of it, was it really that great a setup ? Ash’s narration goes back and forth on the issue. Sol’s imagined world is either described as brilliant or the exact kind of pretentious overwritten stuff you’d expect from that particular breed of teenager (Elves but written by William Gibson is complicated… But is it, Ash ? Is it really ?)

But all of that maybe-not-that-great world, all that hammered fantasy stuff, are rendered new and interesting in context. I’m not the first one to point out that this setting allows characters to offer perpetual commentary on their younger selves. My shots at teenage pretentiousness are fucking text. If nothing else, this is a genius move to deflect any and all criticism of the comic’s take on the RPG genre : if it’s overdone, if it’s overwritten, you’re not smart for pointing that out, that characters are way ahead of you. But more interestingly, this moves every single “big idea” of the “transported in a fantasy world” plot further up the road. The main example is the reality vs fantasy ethical debate. Think how many pages in how many books were dedicated to exploring the ethical ramifications of being in a fantasy world without knowing if what you did was “real” or not. Do you have to be ethical when you play a game ? Would Kant play Grand Theft Auto ? This is a massive debate. In DIE, it’s addressed in issue #2 on one page. But it would be a mistake to think DIE is selling this question short, or “getting it out of the way” : like often with Gillen, the form is the point. The underhandedness of this debate among the characters is what makes it interesting. Because it’s a debate they had before. This is something they decided on. They set rules. They built an ethics system. They also saw the limits of it. Because no matter how lawful good they decided to play that thing, there’s always one player to just do what they want, or there’s always not even that same player doing some stupid wordbinding spell because that’s just a throwaway romance secondary plot, and who hasn’t fucked with one of those before. All the time it would have taken the comic to establish the characters coming to terms with this debate, disagreeing, coming to a solution, is time that can be used to see this solution unfold in glorious consequences. And you know what ? I’m willing to bet that the characters weren’t even that bad the first time around. But they were there, and that’s really all consequences need. Another thing to think about ? Maybe the reason the characters came to having this debate was that at some point, they didn’t think they would ever go home. Maybe the world they moulded the first time around, was the world they thought they would spend their lives in. You’re welcome.

So does that mean DIE is going to leapfrog every single of these important questions to simply present us with the consequences of the characters’ choices ? Probably not. But every single decision and facet of this new story is going to come with its own asterisk : this isn’t the first time around. Everything is loaded. Nothing is ever innocent. This is the Monty Hall problem halfway through : one door has been opened, will you change your choice ? And for us, who didn’t get to see which doors our heroes picked in the first place, that’s going to be a hell of a ride.

WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUE

The idea of this section was for me to get a bit more personal about my thoughts, without feeling like I needed to make a big point. So let’s get personal : I do not like Ash. By which I don’t mean I think he’s badly written, I mean I don’t like him as a person. As in, we would not be friends. I already had that feeling when issue #1 came out, but I tried to be generous because we’d seen so little of everyone, but now we’re two issues in, let me confirm : I do not like Ash. I do not like his fake self-flagellation hiding some very real condescension, I do not like his teenage angst with a twenty years old aging flavour, I do not like that he’s introspective in the least interesting way possible, and for someone who boasts that he learned to “tell stories”, good god is he an annoying narrator. Yes part of it is intentional. And no, I do not particularly like any of the other characters either. And you have to take into account protagonist bias, meaning that the character you spend the more time with is the one you have the biggest chance to like, but also the biggest chance to hate instead of simply dislike. But hey, I never claimed to be the perfect reader. And for now, Ash is annoying the shit out of me. To me, he feels as if you’d taken Laura from Wicdiv, kept her just as laborious and self-hating, but removed all the parts that actually made her likeable. Which leads me to ask the question : can I be honest about the quality of an issue if I’m that bothered by who’s telling it ? The answer, as always, is that I can be honest with myself : I’m probably not as high on this issue as many people are. And the principal reason for that is definitely the main character and narration. Don’t get me wrong, this issue is a thrill : the scene with Sol is chilling – I think he might be my favourite character, actually – the combat scene is narratively masterful, the ending is a bit of cheap shot (I’m fairly certain I’ve seen this eyes plotpoint in several other stories) but god damn if it isn’t effective. Oh, and let’s take a moment to praise the art, Lord knows Stephanie Hans needs me, whose stick figures make the Monkey Christ lady look like Michelangelo, to praise her. But jokes aside, I want to give credit to how Hans resisted the appeal of painting the classic huge detailed fantasy world first chance she got. Instead, her vision of DIE is one of a weirdly deserted, bright yet gloom world, which fits the mood perfectly. To borrow from the issue, her use of colour looks like fantasy feels, without feeling the need to overbear on the raw emotions of this issue with more detailed pencils (Ash’s digression about Maria is also probably incidentally the most I’ve ever liked his narration). Best panels for me are of course the ones where you can see the sides of the DIE. Probably because it manages to feel so small and so huge at the same time. I’m a sucker for intimate fantasy.

So, this issue, minus Ash, is nothing I don’t love. But on the other hand, this issue doesn’t really exist without Ash. Try as I may, I cannot deny that part of the appeal of the issue comes from his narration and his personality. Yeah, he’s a whiny controlling drama queen, but I put up with an entire issue of Woden monologuing and this was one of the best things I’ve ever read, so you know what, I can put up with a little bullshit. I don’t think Ash has to be a good person, or even someone I like, for DIE to be good. I guess at this point my problem with him is that I don’t find him interestingly unlikeable, as was the case with Woden. Maybe it’s because unlike Woden, there are several people in my life who remind me a lot of Ash, and since they’re not necessarily assholes, they’re not people I have an excuse to outright avoid and thus with whom I’m much more familiar with. So who knows, maybe I’ll make peace with Ash. Comic’s still young. Meanwhile, my opinion on issue #2 is pretty much the same as for issue #1 : this is remarkable work, brilliant in some aspects, almost irritating in how proficient it is at doing its own thing, and maybe just a touch overconfident in its ability to walk the line between profound and navel-gazing. But when DIE keeps it simple, when it just wants to touch you instead of punching you in the gut, then it’s fucking unstoppable. If you’re not on the DIE train yet – well first, I admire and fear the way you powered through this post, but also, jump in, like now. You won’t regret it.

#diecomic #seeds of thought

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years ago

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YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

For less demanding problems, the availability of libraries can outweigh the intrinsic power of the language. Startup investors know that every investment is a bet, and against pretty long odds. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense something is going on. But pausing first to convince yourself will do more than save you from wasting your time. There are many advantages of launching quickly, but the difficulty of coming up with new ideas. They're saying He invested in Google.1 There are a handful of angels who'd be interested in a company with a high probability of being moderately successful.2

We usually advise startups to pick an optimal round size in advance, because that depends on the application. Is unconscious.3 You have to be a big deal, and Microsoft both executed well and got lucky. And the only real test, if you were to compete with the whole world. And anyone who has tried optimizing code knows how wonderfully effective that sort of environment is to join one and climb to the top.4 The intersection is the sweet spot for startups. If you look at a list of all the parts, as ITA presumably does, you can get in Java: public interface Inttoint public int call int i s s i; return s;; This falls short of the spec because it only works on the newest phones, that's probably a big enough beachhead. It doesn't sound obviously mistaken. The problem is not finding startups, exactly, but finding a stream of reasonably high quality ones.5

Wufoo seem to have a stateless algorithm. If you do that? One reason is that you may not get any reward in the forseeable future. It's that death is the default for startups, and in particular the most successful founders tend to work on them, and why startups do things that ordinary companies don't, like raising money and getting acquired. If your terms force startups to do things that make you stupid, and if not it doesn't matter whether you fund them, because with our help they could make money. They really seemed to believe this, and it will save you if anything can. And you know, when it comes to avoiding errands. Wealth When I was in grad school, one of their fellow students was on the receiving end of a question from their faculty advisor that we still quote today. To anyone who knows Mark Zuckerberg that is the reductio ad absurdum of the initial idea is the meta-fact that these are hard to solve, and the noise stops.

Nothing will teach you about angel investing like experience.6 Restrictiveness I think most hackers know what it means for a language to feel restrictive.7 Most investors decide in the first stage of a startup's life, when you have a thesis about what everyone else in it is overlooking. Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. I'm not proposing this is a serious idea. It's even the answer to questions that seem unrelated, like how to convince investors. In Lisp, functions are a data type just like integers or strings.8

But as long as they still have to show up for work every day, they care more about what they do at home. What it means, roughly, is don't do anything weird.9 And if you weren't rich, you took the omnibus or walked.10 That sounds like a joke, but it seems to be c, that people will pay them for. I've read that Java has just overtaken Cobol as the most popular language.11 Whereas a two year old company raising a series A round from Sequoia.12 Good hackers can always get some kind of job. And it is a tradeoff that you'd want to make. 3% of your net worth. Countries worried about their competitiveness are right to be concerned about the number of elements, where an element is anything that would be the ones to look to for new ideas: Forth, Joy, Icon.

I suppose that's bound to yield an alarming book. All the unfun kinds of wealth creation slow dramatically in a society that confiscates private fortunes. Notice I've been careful to talk about their previous startup idea while they were working at their day jobs.13 Are there walkable neighborhoods? Lisp. It would hurt YC's brand at least among the innumerate if we invested in huge numbers of risky startups that flamed out.14 I know the afternoon is going to invest. Or don't take any extra classes, and just build things. Along with good tools, hackers want interesting projects.15 If they can realize before other investors that some apparently unpromising startup isn't, they can make a difference.16

Notes

Which means if the company than you meant to. In a series A termsheet with a toothbrush. Some want to lead.

Similarly, don't destroy the startup is rare. A knowledge of human anatomy. His critical invention was a kid, this is not merely blurry versions of great things were created mainly to make software incompatible.

I didn't realize it till I started using it, there were no strong central governments. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality is a list of where to see the apples, they tend to notice them. CEOs were J. Founders are often compared to what you write has a word meaning how one feels when that partner re-tells it to steal a few months later Google paid 1.

A investor has a sharp drop in utility. But he got there by another path.

And while they think are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug. There's a sort of love is as blind as the web have sucked—9. Even in English, our contact at Sequoia, was no more than make them want you.

Incidentally, the effort that would appeal to investors.

Enterprise software.

We're delighted to have moments of adversity before they ultimately choose not to make you expend as much the effect of this essay, but its inspiration; the critical path that they create rather than insufficient effort to make money, then work on Wall Street were in 2000, because for times over a hundred years or so, even in their heads a giant house of cards is tottering. So it is probably no accident that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than making the things you're taught.

Even Samuel Johnson seems to have been a time. IBM.

Our founder meant a photograph of a more general rule: focus on their ability but women based on revenues of 1. Managers are presumably wondering, how much effort on sales. When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation reaches a certain field, it's probably a real poet.

Kant. In this context, issues basically means things we're going to have to give you term sheets.

All you have a standard piece of casuistry for this essay, I have so far. As a friend with small children, or want tenure, avoid the topic. I'm compressing the story a bit more complicated, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that does.

That may require asking, because she liked the outdoors? Imagine the reaction might be a founder, more people you can skip the first version would offend.

Pliny Hist.

Different people win at that game. Unfortunately these times are a handful of VCs even have positive returns. None at all. It does at least should make the fund by succeeding spectacularly.

In fact since 2 1. Learning for Text Categorization. The first version was mostly Lisp, because time seems to be doctors? We care about.

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futbolusa · 7 years ago

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EPL Preview 2017-18

The 2017-2018 Premier League Season is less than 6 hours away and this season is going to be a doozy. Boosted by the richest broadcasting deals in the world, even the shittiest of returning Prem club's made in excess of 100million pounds. That's stupid money. With that money, these clubs have been able to stockpile even more talent. We'll break down this preview into five groups, that are not ranked in any particular order within each group.

The Contenders:

Chelsea - As the the defending Champions and as the only team with N'Golo Kante on their roster, Chelsea have every right to be in the conversation...until their lack of depth catches up with them as Antonio Conte tries to guide Chelsea back from their brief Champions League hiatus. Chelsea have brought in Alvaro Morata (Juventus/Real Madrid), Tiemoue Bakayoko (Monaco) and Antonio Rudiger (Roma), who will come in and compete for starting spots. They also brought back Andreas Christensen who was on loan at Gladbach. He's going to develop into one of the best defenders in the Premier League. Diego Costa isn't out yet, but he's on the way out and I think they will struggle to replace him. Morata is off to a rocky start with some subpar preseason performances and he's just not the strong target man this club is used to playing with. Chelsea undoubtedly have the talent to defend their crown, and the defense to grind out 1-0 wins, but I don’t know if they'll have the depth to survive injury spells and the added fixtures.

Manchester City: The bookies favorites. The Citizens were favorites going into last season and did not disappoint by winning 10/10. Then they fell off dramatically and meandered through the rest of the season with inconsistent performances. Gabriel Jesus came in and looked to be their savior, but an injury early into his City career put a dent in City's title hopes. In the close season, Pep unloaded a lot of slow and old players and retooled with a new keeper in Ederson, a new leftback in Ben Mendy (Monaco), and two new right backs in Kyle Walker (Spurs) and Danilo (Real Madrid) to help a sluggish backline. Pep also brought in Bernardo Silva (Monaco) and Ilkay Gundogan should be back from injury after missing most of last year. I think its safe to say that if you finish above City this season, you're likely hoisting the trophy.

Manchester United: Jose Jose Jose. Effff him, but he has some talent at his disposal. They brought in Lukaku to replaced the injured Zlatan, Lindelof to anchor the backline, and Nemanja Matic is reuniting with Jose to protect the back line. They also importantly unloaded Wayne Rooney removing the unnecessary locker room drama of the captain being stripped of any meaningful role at the club. With guys like Rashford, Martial, Mata and our very own Mickey at his disposal, Jose could very well lead this team to a return to their Fergie glory days. But as always with Jose, as soon as they get their first poor result you never know who hes going to throw under the bus and how they're going to respond. I honestly think they have a chance at winning the title, but will more likely finish 4th. Lukaku scores goals in bunches, but doesn’t really show up against top teams. The Pretenders: All three of these clubs will posture that their goal is the title, but that is bullshit. All three of them will take 4th place if you offered it to them today.

Arsenal: Arsenal have only added Lacazette and while he is a great buy, I don’t think he's a enough to sustain any title challenge. With the added fixtures that come with the Europa League, Arsenal will once again find their squad too thin to sustain a title challenge and will drop off. Come March they will be fighting fourth if they're lucky. If they're unlucky, Alexis forces a move late in the window and Arsene sits on the cash, because that’s what he does and they struggle to finish 6th.

Liverpool: Liverpool were one of the most exciting teams to watch last year. With new boy Sadio Mane leading the line and Roberto Firmino finding his feet, Coutinho was left to dazzle instead of carry the load and they were electric when they were on the front foot. But Liverpool continue to be plagued by the same two problems year after year, inability to grind out results against shitty teams and a leaky defense. They added Mo Salah from Roma who should help break defenses down, but he's a lot like the other players Liverpool already have, except faster. Dominic Solanke might develop into the target forward they need, but he's not there yet. Jordan Henderson's return should help on both sides of the ball. Also coming back from long spells out are Joe Gomez (CB/LB) and possibly Danny Ings, whose energetic play is perfect for Klopp's style. All these returns from injury should help, but they still need more first team quality to compete over 38 matches, two cup competitions and a return to the Champions League. They a true defensive midfielder and a upgrade at CB. Their attack is good enough to make them the only one of these three clubs that could make a serious run at the title, but also most likely to drop out of the top 6. Unless they make the necessary additions and can stay healthy (two near impossibilities for this club) they're going to have to settle for a shot at 4th. ***all of this changes if this morning’s news that Coutinho handed in a transfer request is true. He's the only player who, in the span of two touches, can win a match for the reds. At this stage in the game there aren't too many realistic options for replacements***

Tottenham: Tottenham finished second last year, and their fans hoped they would improve on that position, but their notoriously stingy ownership group has thrown away the checkbook. They have brought nobody in and are hoping to finance their new stadium deal by continuing to promote from a very good academy class. The crop of youth standouts is highlighted by Harry Kane and Dele Alli who look to score another 35 goals between them. Also included in that class is American defender Cameron Carter Vickers, who should get increased minutes in all the cup competitions and after come Champions League matches. Tottenham will have their noses up here for most of the season, but considering how much the top three teams improved through acquisitions and how terribly they perform at Wembley (their temporary home), I have a hard time seeing them break into the top 3. Fitness is going to determine which of these three clubs rounds out the top 4. Can We Sit at the Big Kids' Table?:

Everton: The Prodigal Son, Wayne Rooney, returns to Merseyside! Everton are always there in the shadows...they make a host of pundits' top 4 lists, but always disappoint. The sale of Lukaku to United will not help, but they've added a number of talented midfield and attacking players to help make them a more attractive pick, but I dont see them breaking into the top 6. Jordan Pickford looks to be the longtime keeper they've lacked since Tim Howard's form dropped off after the 2014 World Cup. They also added young attacking talent in Davy Klassen from Ajax who will look to contribute right away, while also adding Sandro Ramirez from Malaga and exciting Nigerian winger Onyekuru who they will hope to develop over the course of the season.

West Ham: The Bastards in Claret and Blue. They were ambitious but realistic in their transfers by going out and buying proven Premier League experience in Chicharito, Marko Arnautivic and the Joe Hart. All three are top quality players with a lot to prove. West Ham will win most of their matches, but they'll drop too many unexpected points and take too many ass kickings from top 6.

Leicester City: They will never replicate their form from that magical season, but the Foxes look to have added three important pieces to strengthen the spine of their team, including super exciting superfast Machester City reject Kelechi Iheanacho.

Southampton: Welcome the 2018 Liverpool Transfer Targets...just kidding. Southampton were able to fend off most suitors this off season, but their success is going to live and die by the form and fitness of Manolo Gabbiadini. He was a great January acquisition, but injuries kept him out for too long. No transfers of note until Virgil Van Dijk makes the overpriced move to Chelsea or Liverpool.

Bridge to Nowhere:

Stoke City: Yes yes, a rainy night in Stoke. Not good enough to break through to the next level, but always good enough to stay away from the Relegation Zone.

West Brom: Tony Pulis has never been relegated and he's not about to start now.

Newcastle United: Any soccer fan should be excited to see Newcastle back in the top flight, where they belong. With Rafa Benitez at the helm, people were excited about the prospect of seeing him build a team and see what they could do in their first season back. But historically dickish owner has locked up the check book and forced Benitez to buy a bunch of shitty players. They still have DeAndre Yedlin, so I'll be keeping close eye on them all season.

Bournemouth: They added Asmir Begovic and Nathan Ake from Chelsea and Jermain Defoe, who is just the best. Defoe his 34 years old but he'll win a few points for the Cherries. Eddie Howe did just enough to keep them up last year and I think he'll do well to consolidate their position as they look to stay in the Premier League for another season. Unless their offense just goes cold, they shouldnt have any problems staying up.

DangerZone:

Crystal Palace: They have a new fancy dutch coach who wants them to play like fancy dutch players from the 1970s and 80s. Its not going to work. They've added a couple promising loanees, but this is isnt the Eredivisie and I don’t think de Boer's players are ready to handle this type of system. They should be a lot of fund to watch though.

Huddersfield Town: The Prem new boys lead by American coach David Wagner. They're a great story and tough to root against, but they simply don't score enough goals. The front office has had more money than ever before to buy, but their success is going to be based on their defense staying as organized as it was all of last year and knicking goals here and there.

Brighton and Hove Albion: I know nothing about this team, except that they dominated most of their competition in the Championship last season.

Swansea City: Efff them and Paul Clement. They barely escaped relegation last year. They added exciting British prospect Tammy Abraham on loan from Chelsea, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough to push them out of this dogfight. They're also on the verge of selling Gylfi Sigurdsson, which would be a huge blow to their attack.

Watford: Watford started strong last year, then faded. They added some pieces, but they're all pretty meh. Unless last season newbies start to click better than they did last year, i dont see them moving to far out of the bottom three.

Burnley: The little engine that could. They don’t score enough goals to do too much damage, but they play hard every match and make it tough to break them down. They're going to be a tough out for any side, but they just don’t have it in them to be one of the safe teams.

#EPL #EPL7 #EPLpreview #soccer #futbol #europa

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