#looking at all the 5 star ratings like did we read the same crap or????? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wiypt-writes · 4 years ago

Text

Stark Spangled Banner

Ch 13: On Your Left

Summary: Steve and Katie meet a new friend whilst out jogging, and Steve is sent on a mission to rescue a ship- the Lemurian Star…but it fast becomes apparent that not everyone on his team is pulling in the same direction.

Paring: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

Warnings: Language! Smut (NSFW, 18+)

A/N: We jump forward a couple of months here and slip straight into the Winter Soldier storyline. Credit to @angrybirdcr for another lovely edit, and this re-post contains additional materiel- I’ve written the mission out instead of merely skipping over it.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Chapter 12 Part 2

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

End of March/Beginning of April 2014

“Turn it off,” Katie’s voice was muffled from the pillow she had buried her face into as the alarm rang around the dark bedroom. Steve moved slightly to turn it off, but he wasn’t fast enough for his Girlfriend’s liking. “Steve!”

With a huff he leaned over and slapped the offending item with his palm, hitting the snooze button.

“Why is it even set?” She grumbled “It’s not like you don’t normally wake up at the crack of dawn anyway…and who uses an alarm clock when they have a phone?”

“You know, no one makes you stay here.” Steve teased, with a chuckle moving so that his front was pressed to her back.

“You’ve been away for five days, I never sleep as well when you’re not here.” She mimicked his line from the night before in a baby voice.

“And that’s why the alarm is set, because I do sleep better with you.” His arms circled her waist and he grinned to himself as despite the fact she was grumpy and tired she melted into his arms as he nuzzled at her neck, revelling in her smell, her warmth.

“Jerk.” She grumbled. “I mean what time is it anyway?” There was a pause as he continued to simply breathe her in and she glanced at her phone giving a scoff as she saw the ridiculous time on the screen “5:30? In the morning. Five. Thirty…”

“You said you wanted to go running.” He murmured, his eyes still closed.

“No, you said you were going running and I said I might tag along because I’ve eaten nothing but shit whilst I’ve been in New York, which, by the way is your fault…”

“My fault?” Steve laughed, cracking an eye open “I wasn’t even there.”

“Exactly” she muttered “No one to stop me.” “I wouldn’t stop you anyway. You’re a big girl, you make your own decisions…” “Big girl? You calling me fat?” she teased as she rolled onto her back and turned her head to face his, just about making out his features in the dark room. He rolled his eyes, God she was a pain in the ass at times.

“Yeah, you’re huge.” he deadpanned, his hand travelling over her flat stomach and coming to rest on her hip. “Enormous.”

“Ok, well now that we’ve established I need to run, you know on account of me being a hippo, that still doesn’t answer the question why we have to go so damned early anyway. It’s not like we have to be anywhere…” “It’s less crowded.” he shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s because it’s a ridiculous time.”

“Stop being a fucking brat!” Steve laughed and she huffed out breath again.

“I’m not being a brat, it’s just a stupid time to be getting up.”

“I love how full of sunshine and happiness you are in the morning.” Steve muttered as he dropped his head so his lips could gently trail a few lazy kisses down her neck before landing at her collarbone and giving a quick nip, his hand tightening on her hip.

She sighed, her body already starting to respond to his touch, the way it always did, betraying her.

Damned him and his fucking bastard sex appeal.

“Okay, if you want to actually get up now…” She muttered, as his mouth travelled back up and she rolled her head back to give him access to the spot on her neck that drove her wild every time he found it. “I suggest you stop.” “I hit the snooze button.” he muttered, lips brushing her ear as he spoke. “We got about eight minutes left.”

“Eight minutes? You have a very high opinion of yourself.” Katie replied, tilting her head so she was looking at him, smirking.

Steve said nothing, just cocked a single, mischievous brow at her before his lips met hers, his hand running down from hip to thigh then across, parting her legs slightly. They were still naked from the night before, clothes strewn all over the apartment after he’d been so desperate to get his hands on her.

She moaned gently into his mouth as he slowly sank two fingers into her and her hips instantly bucked upwards, drawing a grin from his mouth.

“Easy, Baby.” He whispered, his mouth returning to her neck.

Four minutes later she lay beneath him, a quivering wreck and he was right behind her, two shallow thrusts later as he tumbled over that edge with a low groan, eyes fluttering shut as he fell forward onto her. He smirked into her neck when she had finally regained her senses enough to quip that he’d beaten his best time by a full sixty seconds. And sixty seemed to be the flavour of the day as it was almost another sixty minutes before they got to his favoured running spot, the National Mal thanks to the fact it had taken Katie half an hour minutes to locate her running shoes which she’d eventually found in her car. Steve had seized the opportunity, as always to lament her for the fact she was messy.

“I’m not messy.” She scoffed indignantly as they walked the seven blocks. “I’m just not as OCD about everything being in its right place, all the time, like a neat-freak Soldier”

The good natured jibing had continued until they reached their destination and walked through the park to the reflecting pool

“How many laps did you do last time?” Katie asked, as Steve stretched his arms upwards, cracking his back.

“Six.” he said.

She looked at him, frowning. “That’s like what? Twenty miles?”

“Nearer twenty-two.” He grinned. “You want me to keep your pace?”

She laughed “No way, you’ll just bitch at me for being slow.”

“I do not bitch…” “You bitch like a 14 year old girl.” Katie lamented, gently shoving him in his back. “Now go, go on!”

He smiled again, jogging backwards for a second before he set off at a rate of knots. Exercise always made him feel good. Running, boxing, sparring…fucking. Pushing away the dirty thoughts that had arisen to the forefront of his mind, he was quick to find a comfortable pace, his trainer clad feet slapping the concrete.

It didn’t take Katie long to find her rhythm either. Despite not being with SHIELD anymore she had kept her fitness training up, sparring three times a week with either Natasha or Steve in the local gym. She was technically still an Avenger after all, Tony having now fashioned her another Supernova suit which was basically a version of his latest Iron Man suit but in Silver and Blue, the Nova shaped star sported in the chest where the mini arc reactor powered it. She’d given it a trial run whilst she had been back in New York and was just as impressed with it now as she had been with the prototype he had blown up.

Her feet gently slapped the ground as she ran, the sun was rising on the last day of March and it was promising to be a sunny, bright spring morning.

"Hi.” A voice greeted her as another jogger she hadn’t seen before caught up with her and fell into step with her.

“Nice day for it!” Katie smiled.

“You normally run this early?” He asked “Haven’t seen you around before.”

“That’s because I don’t normally run here!” She smiled “But I just spent 5 days in New York eating crap so…!”

He laughed and held out his hand. “Sam Wilson.”

She took it and gave it a shake. “Katie Stark.”

“Well I’ll be damned!” Sam grinned “I didn’t recognise you. Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

As Steve was about to lap Katie for the first time he noticed she was running with another jogger, a black man wearing a grey sweater with short, cropped hair. At one time this would have sparked the green eyed monster in his chest, but not now. Not only did he know she wouldn’t stand for it, but he knew she was just sociable in general. She would talk to anyone given the chance and moreover, she was his girl, he knew that. As he approached them he breathed out an “On your left.” as a warning as he sped past into his second lap.

Sam frowned, looking round and Katie smirked, trying not to laugh at the look on his face as Steve’s frame whizzed off into the distance.

“I never tire of looking at these.” She commented a short while later as they rounded the monument.

Again the sound of heavy footsteps came. “On your left.”

“On your left.”

“Uh-huh. On my left. I got it.” Sam called after him as he entered his fifth lap.

Katie didn’t even try to stop herself this time and she laughed at the slight look of frustration on Sam’s face.

Not long after they were making a lap around the pool at the base of the memorial. Sam gritted his teeth at the wholly unwelcomed sound of footsteps behind him once again, he looked over his shoulder “Don’t say it. Don’t you say it!”

“On your left.”

“Come on!” Sam shouted and Steve allowed an amused smile to spread across his face.

Sam tried his hardest to pick up his speed to match that of Steve’s but failed miserably after only a few moments, now completely gassed out.

“Are you alright?” Katie asked laughing as she approached his hunched over figure, catching her own breath.

“Oh, here he comes…Superman himself…” Sam said gesturing to where Steve was now walking towards them, hands on his hips. He paused at his girl’s side and looked down at Sam.

“Need a medic?” he teased.

“I need a new set of lungs.” Sam chuckled breathlessly. “Dude, you just ran like thirteen miles in thirty minutes.”

“Guess I got a late start.” He shrugged, shooting Katie a pointed look. She responded with her best innocent stare, batting her eyelids at him. Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention back to the stranger who began to talk again.

“You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap.” He scolded jokingly. “Did you just take it? I assume you just took it.”

Steve smiled, he couldn’t help but like this man. As he looked at him, he noticed the military symbol on his grey sweater.

“What unit were you with?” Steve asked changing the subject and motioning to the man’s shirt.

“Fifty-eighth, Para-rescue. But now I’m working down at the VA. Sam Wilson.” He said motioning for help up.

“Steve Rogers.” Steve held out his hand and pulled Sam to his feet.

“I kind of put that together.” Sam said as he tried to catch his balance. “Must have freaked you out, coming round after the whole defrosting thing.”

“It takes some getting used to. But I’ve had help.” He smiled, looking at Katie who grinned back. “Good to meet you Sam.”

“Yeah, bye Sam!” Katie smiled as Steve gently placed his hand on her lower back to steer her away.

"It’s your bed right?” Sam called out from behind him.

Steve paused and they both turned back around. “What’s that?”

“Your bed, it’s too soft.” Sam went on to explain. “When I was over there, I’d sleep on the ground and use rocks as pillows. Like cavemen. Now I’m back home, in my own bed, feels like-”

Steve cut him off. “Like lying on a marshmallow, feels like I’m gonna sink right to the floor.”

"How long?” He asked Sam

“Two tours.” Sam responded. “You must miss the good old days huh?”

“Well, things aren’t so bad.” He folded his arms, taking a quick glance at Katie who raised her eyebrow at him, teasingly. “Foods a lot better. We used to boil everything. No polio that’s good.” He paused before making a gesture with his hand. “Internet so helpful, I’ve been reading that a lot tryna’ catch up.”

Sam nodded and then moved his right hand from where it had been folder across his chest and held it, fingers extended. “Marvin Gaye, 1972, ‘Troubleman’ soundtrack.” He said, returning his arm to its resting position “Everything you’ve missed jammed into one album.”

“Ohhh man!” Katie groaned “I love that film.”

Steve nodded, smiling and pulled out the notebook she had bought him the previous year, “I’ll put it on the list.”

“We can download it later.” Katie offered. Steve smiled as he closed his book before he reached into his other pocket for his phone which was going off. It was Natasha.

'Mission Alert. Extraction imminent. Meet you at the curb :)’

He showed the message to Katie who read it whilst he looked over at Sam.

“Well Sam, duty calls. Thanks for the run. If that’s what you wanna call running.” He joked extending his hand.

“Oh that’s how it is?” Sam says amused shaking the offered hand.

“That’s how it is.” Steve responded, laughing slightly.

“Okay, anytime you two wanna stop by the VA. Make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Steve said as Natasha pulled up in her black chevvy sports car.

“Hey guys, anyone know where the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil.” She quipped.

“Hey Nat!” Katie waved at her and she nodded whilst Steve simply shook his head.

“That’s hilarious.” He commented dryly as he turned to Katie. “I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay?” She took a deep breath. “Be careful.” She instructed as she leaned up to give him a kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Steve made his way to the car, opened the passenger side of the car and dropped into the seat.

“How you doing?” Sam called with a smile as he squat down to get a better view of both Natasha and the car.

“Hey.” She responded with a small smile.

“Can’t run everywhere.” Steve joked smugly, looking back at the man.

“No you can’t.” Sam chuckled and Steve shot one last look at Katie who waved as Natasha surged the car forward.

Katie watched them go before she turned to Sam.

“Military girlfriend huh?” He teased and she laughed.

“Something like that.” “Fancy a coffee?” Sam nodded to one of the stands parked over on the square and she smiled.

“Sure, why not?”

Sam insisted on paying, despite Katie’s protests and they took their coffees over to a bench, sitting down in the early morning sun. As they talked, Katie fast realised she really liked this man, and he was pretty damned interesting too. He told Katie about his time serving in Afghanistan and how he had chosen, post the loss of his partner, Riley, to leave active service and focus his attention on helping others through work at the VA.

Katie had never really dug into the VA much, but it seemed like it did some pretty good work, helping those Soldiers who needed help adjusting to life post discharges for medical or mental health reasons. Sam confided in her that the DC branch was under threat due to lack of funding, and she made a mental note to speak to Tony about it being something that maybe the Stark Relief fund could look into partnering.

When they both realised they had been sat on the bench chatting for almost an hour and a half the pair of them both, knowing they had other places to be, exchanged numbers and she promised to pass his onto Steve.

The rest of her day went pretty quick, in a flourish of telephone conferences and various other ad-hoc emails to deal with, talking to the editors and Business Development team about potential authors to target. By the time she logged off for the evening it was gone eight. She leaned back in her chair, glancing up at the photos that decorated her office, her eyes being drawn to the one on the shelf of herself and Steve which had been taken at the New Years Eve gala last year.

Picking up her phone she debated texting him, but she knew better than to bother him. From personal experience, STRIKE missions were heavy going. Instead she decided she was going to break with their usual routine whereby he would come to hers if it wasn’t too late post mission, and she was going to wait for him at his.

******

“The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: The Lemurian Star.” Rumlow spoke, moving images along a screen as they all stood watching as the jet flew over the Indian ocean. “They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them, ninety-three minutes ago.”

“Any demands?” Steve asked.

“A billion and a half.”

“Why so steep?” Steve asked, frowning. That wasn’t so much steep as fucking vertical.

“Because it SHIELD’s.” Rumlow replied and Steve took a deep breath.

“So it’s not off-course, its trespassing.” He said exasperatedly, turning to his left and looking at Natasha.

“I’m sure they have a good reason.” She met his eyes, her face not faltering for a second.

“You know, I’m getting a little tired of being Fury’s janitor.” Steve raised his eyebrows as she looked back at the screen.

“Relax.” She drawled. “It’s not that complicated”

“How many pirates?” Steve looked back at Rumlow.

“Twenty-five.” he replied, once more swiping at the screen. “Top mercs, led by this guy. Georges Batroc” he pulled up a photo of Batroc on the monitor. “Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He’s at the top of Interpol’s Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy’s got a rep for maximum casualties.”

“Hostages?” Steve pressed.

“Uh…mostly techs. One officer, Jasper Sitwell.” Rumlow flashed up Sitwell’s photo and Steve shifted slightly “They’re in the galley.”

“What’s Sitwell doing on a launch ship?” He queried, an air of frustration in his tone as he pulled on his gloves before he took a breath and issued his instructions without waiting for an answer. “Alright, I’m gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you’ll kill the engines and wait for instructions. Rumlow, you sweep up after, find the hostages, get them to the life-pods, get ‘em out. Let’s move.”

“STRIKE, you heard the Cap. Gear up.” Rumlow nodded to his team and they all began to bustle around the jet.

Steve moved towards the back, checking his ear piece, raising his wrist communicator to his mouth. “Secure channel seven.”

“Seven secure.” Nat picked up a few more bits of equipment from the shelves, passing a coms device to Evans as Steve walked behind her to the ramp. “Did you do anything fun Saturday night?”

“Well, seeing as all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, I had to settle for a movie and pizza with my girl.” He shrugged as he fit his ear piece, a smile tugging at his face. “Yeah, it was fun.”

Natasha grinned and Evans gave a chuckle as the pilot spoke into his ear. “Coming up by the drop zone, Cap.”

Steve punched the button to lower the ramp before he grabbed his helmet.

“You know, I think it’s cute. You’re like a regular, normal couple.” Evans said, and Steve turned to him as he fastened the straps on his helmet.

“That’s because we are normal.” He replied, a little louder as the noise of the air blowing through the ramp surrounded them. Steve grabbed his shield and swung it onto his back, the irony of his statement making him smile even more as he walked towards the end of the ramp.

“Yeah, because most people do this type of stuff for a living.” Natasha shot after him and he turned to face her, smirking.

“Well, at least it doesn’t get boring.” He grinned, before he threw himself off the jet.

“Was he wearing a parachute?” Rollins turned to Rumlow who gave a huff of a smile.

“No. No, he wasn’t.”

Steve held his arms and hands out to the side of himself as he was free falling through the air, before he shifted, straightening his legs out below him and crossing his arms over his chest. He speared straight into the ice cold water below and, after a moment to adjust, he started swimming toward the ship, using the anchor chain to climb up onto the deck. He dropped silently over the railings and grabbed the guard who had walked past seconds before in a choke hold, rendering him unconscious as noiselessly as he could. Then he set off at a sprint and it wasn’t long before he encountered two more of the pirates. Using his shield he hit the first one and took him down then sent the vibranium weapon flying once more where it ricocheted off the hull of the boat and took down the second. He caught it and continued running around the side of the deck where he encountered another three. The first one he dispatched with a harsh kick, taking the others down with a quick leg swipe and a harsh punch to the face. The next one he saw wasn’t looking so Steve sped up and used his momentum to shoulder barge him over the side of the ship, before he launched at the next one, taking him down with a swinging choke hold. The one after had a knife, which was slightly more inconvenient, but Steve managed to disarm him and used the dagger he now had possession of to pin one of the other guards hands to the wall as he was reaching up to hit the alarm button, before knocking him out with a kick to the head.

That was how it went for the most of it. Steve ran the entire deck, taking everyone down using his shield, arms, legs, body, any means he had before anyone could raise the alarm. And he was almost home and dry, until he dispatched of what he thought was the final merc, until as he caught his shield, he heard the click of a gun right behind his head.

“Bouge pas!” The man spoke and Steve tilted his head slightly to glance at the man in his peripheral, understanding the words to mean don’t move. So he didn’t, especially not as he had just spotted Rumlow drifting down towards the deck. The STRIKE leader shot at the pirate, taking him down and landed a few feet away.

“Thanks.” Steve nodded to him.

“Yeah. You seemed pretty helpless without me.” Rumlow joked and Steve turned to see Natasha and Evans parachute down onto the deck to join them.

“So you know you said before about things not getting boring?” Natasha asked as they strode across the deck, Steve slinging his shield onto his back. “If you ever need any tips on how to keep it from getting boring in the bedroom, just ask.”

Steve shook his head and let out a groan.

“When you gonna ask her to move in with you?” Nat continued.

“Secure the engine room, then we can talk about my sex life and living arrangements.” Steve deadpanned back

“I’m multitasking” Nat sing-songed as she effortlessly hopped over a set of railings, disappearing onto the lower part of the deck.

Steve set off at a run, vaulting up a few steps, using railings to swing himself onto the higher level of the ship before he stopped just below the bridge, shooting one of Lawson’s listening devices at the windows. He listened in as Batroc instructed his men to fire the engines and then Steve retreated to a spot where he could see Batroc clearly through the window of the control bridge. Crouching down he continued to listen into their conversation, easily able to understand the French they were speaking, one of his many skills picked up in the war. It had come easy post the serum, as with everything it had enhanced his ability to memorise and grasp things like that.

Batroc was being informed by one of his officers about the radio silence from SHIELD and Steve watched carefully before Evans’ voice cut across the jabbers of French.

“Targets acquired”

“STRIKE in position” Rumlow replied.

“Natasha, what’s your status?” Steve whispered into his wrist coms, but there was no reply. “Status, Natasha?”

“Hang on!” She said loudly, and Steve waited as he heard a bit of a struggle before she spoke again twenty or so seconds later. “Engine room secure.”

That was it, they were clear to engage.

“On my mark” Steve whispered “Three. Two. One.”

With that he set off running towards the bridge, leaping up a small set off steps before he flung his shield through the window. He jumped in after it and Batroc caught him with a kick to the chest before sprinting off and kicking his way out of the door. Steve jumped up, wrenched his shield from where it had been wedged in the metal panels at the back of the control room and ran after him.

“Hostages on route to extraction.” Rumlow informed as Steve emerged onto the end of a set of steps. “Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Cap.” The STRIKE leader continued as Steve jumped down onto the main area of the deck. “Hostiles are still in play.”

Steve looked around before he turned on his heels and started walking “Natasha, Batroc’s on the move.” He instructed quietly into his coms. “Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages.”

There was no reply, and Steve was starting to get pissed off at her radio silence.

“Natasha!”

But then, out of nowhere Batroc flew at him with another harsh kick which sent Steve flying, and no sooner had he righted himself, there came another. The two engaged, toe to toe, fists flying, legs kicking, arms blocking and Steve had to hand it to Batroc, even after he knocked him down with his shield, the man was quickly back on his feet. Steve aimed a knee to his gut and flipped him backwards only to see Batroc effortlessly fling himself into several back flips before landing on his feet a short distance away, smirking as he eyed Steve up.

“Je croyais que tu étais plus qu'un bouclier.” He chuckled slightly and Steve cocked his head to one side, chewing over the man’s words… I thought that you were more than just a shield.

The arrogance in Steve won out and he straightened up out of his attack stance. You wanna go, fucker? Fine. Let’s dance.

He took a breath, stashing his shield on the harness round his back, and undid his chin strap, pulling his helmet off. “On va voir.” He said simply, tossing it to the floor, his eyes not once leaving Batroc’s who gave a huge grin.

They dodged for a second or two before they began to fight once more, trading punches, kicks and a few more knees to the gut before Steve threw himself up into the air, twirling his body round into a huge over-head kick, connecting his boot straight with Batroc’s head. Batroc fell to the floor and soon staggered back to his feet, but Steve didn’t give him chance to recover properly. He ran at him, spearing them both through a door, and sitting up slighting, Steve knocked Batroc out with a huge punch to the head.

He took a moment to draw his breath when a voice rang out across the room.

“Well, this is awkward.”

He looked up to see Natasha smirking at him from where she was bent over a computer.

“What are you doing?” Steve demanded as he rose to his feet.

“Backing up the hard drive. It’s a good habit to get into.” She retorted.

Steve glanced over his shoulder, happy Batroc was still out cold, before he strode purposefully towards her.

“Rumlow needed your help. What the hell are you doing here?” He drew up behind her and glanced at the screens. As it registered what she was doing he shook his head in exasperation. “You’re saving SHIELD Intel.”

“Whatever I can get my hands on.” She drawled, still tapping at the computer as she looked at him, before turning back to the screen.

“Our mission is to rescue hostages.” Steve glared at her.

“No. That’s your mission.” Natasha corrected as she finished what she was doing and pulled the pen drive out of the slot. She turned towards him and smiled causing Steve’s anger to bubble even more. “And you’ve done it beautifully.” Her tone was almost patronising as she smirked, moving to pass him.

At that, Steve felt his temper snap and he grabbed her arm stopping her in her tracks. “You just jeopardized this whole operation.”

“I think that’s overstating things.” Natasha stated calmly but before Steve had time to reply a movement caught his attention. Batroc stood up and threw a grenade at the two of them as he ran off. Steve deflected the bomb with his shield before he grabbed Natasha round the waist and hopped up onto the desks. Jumping to another one, Natasha shot out one of the glass windows into an internal office and they dived in just as the bomb exploded.

Smoke, ash and debris rained down on them and Steve gave it a second before he looked over his shoulder and out before sitting back down to take a moment. He was beyond pissed off. Pissed at Natasha and pissed at Fury for not bothering to tell him the full story.

“Okay. That one’s on me.” Natasha breathed out.

“You’re damn right.” Steve grit his teeth and pushed himself up, storming out in anger. Of course, Batroc was nowhere to be found.

**** Steve was that angry about the cluster-fuck of a mission that he didn’t speak a word to Natasha all the way home and yes, he knew it was childish, but he was getting seriously pissed off at the secrets and lies that seemed to be part and parcel of any goddamned mission Fury sent him on. Once back at base he stormed off the jet, ignoring pretty much everyone and simply barking out that they would debrief in the morning.

It was just before midnight when he got home, and as he pulled his bike up into the designated space allotted for his apartment, he noticed Katie’s car was in one of the guest spaces that lined the street. He frowned slightly, she never normally waited at his for him. Not for any particular reason other than he normally spent the hours or so after a mission debriefing before heading home to decompress for a few hours and then if it wasn’t too late he would head to hers. But the more he thought about it now he realised that he had no idea why he did it that way. It wasn’t like she didn’t understand what it was like being a SHIELD operative, or that he didn’t want her at his.

Knowing that she was there made him smile for the first time since he’d left the Lemurian Star and, despite his various aches and bruises, he found himself taking the steps to his apartment three at a time, his eagerness to see her wiping all other thoughts from his mind.

She was on the couch, bare denim-short clad legs tucked underneath her, and she looked up from the TV as he walked into the living area and leaned in the doorway, smiling softly at the sight of her, hair tousled slightly from where she had been leaning her head against the arm of the couch.

“What are you doing here?” He asked gently as she sat up.

“Decided I’d wait for you.” She shrugged “You complaining?” “Not at all.” He smiled, turning away as he unzipped his jacket and hung it over the back of one of the stools by the breakfast bar before he crossed the room.

“You had a good day?” He asked.

“Yeah.” She replied as he walked back into the lounge. “Vanity Fair have written the article already, if I’m happy with it tomorrow then it’s going to be published this month.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile at her tone. She was proud, and she had every right to be. So was he. Stark Independent Publishing LTD had taken off like a rocket and the glossy magazines were queuing up to interview the youngest Stark prodigee. She had declined all of them until the board had suggested she do one interview for Vanity Fair, along with a photoshoot in her office. She’d reluctantly agreed, but had confided in Steve she’d actually kind of enjoyed it.

“That’s fast.” he said, heading back into the room.

“Yeah they’re really pushing for it.” She smiled as he dropped besides her with a groan, lifting her legs up so they crossed his lap. As he did so he jostled the bruised ribs and muscles he’d obtained on the Lemurian Star and let out a hiss, rubbing slightly at his torso. Katie spotted this, as always, and frowned, moving her legs so she was sat up, scooting over to where he was and gently tugged at his t-shirt. He didn’t stop her as she examined the large bruise over the side of his ribs and gently ran her fingers over it.

“Ouch.” She mumbled softly, looking up at him and then tilting his face round. He knew there was a small cut on his temple but other than that and the bruise to his side he was uninjured. “Is this it?”

He nodded.

“So how did you do it this time?”

“I got blown through a window.” Because that was a perfectly normal thing for Captain America to do, Katie merely rolled her eyes and dropped a kiss to his cheek as she stood up “I’ll get the arnica and fix you something to eat”

He loved this, the way she just wanted to take care of him, but he was aware of what time it was too, and he didn’t want her to feel like she had to play the dutiful housewife.

“Kitten, you should go to bed, its late.” He grabbed her hand. “Once I’ve patched you up and fed you I will.” She shrugged stubbornly, tugging gently on his hand and he allowed himself to be pulled up “Go take a shower, I’ll sort your dinner.”

This time he didn’t protest, simply smiled, dropped a kiss to her head and headed to the bathroom.

He stepped under the hot water cascading from the shower and let out a groan as it hit his body, allowing it temporarily to soothe his mind and his aches. He still couldn’t shake his annoyance at how the mission was gone. Suddenly, he was distracted by his stomach grumbling and he realised he was actually really hungry. He quickly washed off before cutting the water and stepping out, grabbing a towel. He could hear Katie in the kitchen as he walked down the hall towards his bedroom where he dried himself off and dressed in a pair of loose sweats and a grey T-shirt.

The smell of food hit his nostrils as he walked into the kitchen, making his mouth water. Her food was always good, he had no idea what he was in for tonight but he didn’t care. As he approached where she was stood, both his hands dropped to her hips and he placed a soft kiss on her neck, an easy sign of affection before he let out a heavy sigh and reached into the refrigerator.

“So, you wanna tell me what happened?” She asked, turning to look at him as he downed pretty much an entire bottle of water before he slumped down at the breakfast bar and explained everything to her. She listened, asked questions, shook her head, and when he reached the bit about the ransom she whistled slightly through her teeth, coming to the same conclusion he had when he heard the demand.

“That’s steep.” she frowned and Steve snorted.

“That’s what I said. Turns out its SHIELDS.“

The microwave finished and Katie moved to open the door, stirring whatever was in there before removing it and placing it down in front of him, along with a plate of his favourite bread. He was silent for a moment as he stirred the hot stew, Ghoulash, before taking a small mouthful to test the heat. Damned she could cook. He nodded appreciatively.

“It’s good.” “You sound surprised.”

“Behave.” He admonished, giving her a look. “You know what I think about your cooking.”

He continued to eat as she stood up and fished about in the cupboard he stored the bottle of Arnica gel she insisted he keep to hand. As he ate, she settled next to him and hitched his shirt up, gently and carefully applying the ointment to his side. The bruise extended from the middle of his rib cage to an inch or so beneath the band of his sweats.

It was relaxing, and he relished her touch and her gentle tone as she continued to talk.

“So did you get the hostages?”

“Yeah.” He nodded in between mouthfuls. “That bit was pretty easy all things considered.”

“So what’s wrong, love?”

She could tell there was more to his mood than what he had told her, and her instincts were proven right when he let out a soft sigh as she continued to rub at his side softly.

“I’m just annoyed Sweetheart.” He sighed eventually “At Fury, at Romanoff.”

“At Nat? Why?”

“She was running a separate mission, which meant the task I gave her to back Rumlow up with the hostages wasn’t done.”

“Fury?”

He nodded.

“More secrets” Katie sighed, feeling a flash of anger. “You know this is exactly why I got out…legacy or no legacy.”

“Tell me about it.” He dropped the spoon into the empty bowl. “We were lucky no one was hurt, or worse. I mean, Rumlow was great, got everyone out but, Doll, how can I lead a team when half of them are lying to me?”

“Nat was just doing as she was told.” Katie spoke softly, trying to deal with each issue one at a time.

“Since when is retrieving Intel more important than people’s lives?”

“I’m not saying it is. I’m just saying don’t be so hard on her.” She reasoned, her fingers still tracing shapes on his skin. “She has a job to do, same as you. Its Fury you should be talking to about it.”

“Oh I intend to.” Steve snorted. “I’m going to go see him tomorrow morning after de-brief…”

“Well, at least you’ll get an explanation. I mean it might not be what you wanna hear but…”

She was right, of course. Pushing it from his mind, Steve concentrated on her touch as she was still gently rubbing his side. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of contentment, and was disappointed when she finally finished and let his t-shirt fall down before she stood up to put the ointment away.

“You want any more to eat?” She asked, once she’d washed the arnica off her hands.

“Is there any?” He looked at her hopefully.

She smiled, nodding, and then gave a small yawn which she tried to stifle, but Steve noticed it.

“Okay, I’ll warm some more up and you’re gonna go to bed.” He said, standing up “And that’s an order.”

“Bossy bastard” She retorted. He replied simply with a raised an eyebrow and stern glare as he crossed towards her. She held her hands up, “Okay, I’m going…” She leaned up to kiss to his cheek.

“Won’t be long.” He smiled.

Steve had another bowl of food before he slipped the dishes into the dishwasher and headed to the bathroom to clean his teeth. He turned off the lights, crossed into the dark bedroom and pulled off his T-shirt, sliding into bed behind Katie. His arm curled over her waist, surprise surprise she was in one of his shirts, which did nothing to ebb his growing desire and the twitching in his groin. Hoping she wasn’t asleep, his nose gently nuzzled at her neck, and he was pleased when she responded.

He needed this. Wanted this. Wanted her.

“When you told me to go to bed…” Katie sighed, as his lips gently started their assault on that spot, “I thought you meant to sleep.” “Want me to stop?” Steve practically purred into her neck.

“Didn’t say that.” She replied, rolling her head to catch his lips as his hand crept down her inner thigh. She let out a contented sigh and he smiled against the side of her neck as he traced his fingers over her hip, hand flattening as it crept down and round to the top of her panties, his fingers slipping inside, where he found her hot, wet, ready for him. It was enough to harden him completely as he started to gently tease her, causing her to groan at the pleasure, her back arching whilst his lips continued to kiss and caress her neck.

“Steve.” She moaned softly, her tone pleading. “I want you…”

Fuck, he would never get tired of hearing that. Ever.

“Yeah?” he whispered.

“Yeah. Please Stevie.” He didn’t think he’d ever be able to say no to her. His hand moved up and he gripped at her hip, gently rolling her so she was lay on her back, using his leg to part hers. He guided his shirt over her head, pulled down her panties, before he stripped off his boxers, fingers lacing in between hers, as he crawled over her, pinning both hands above her head as he worked his way into her. They both groaned as he stretched her, and she looked up at him, those eyes locking onto his as he leant down to kiss her, starting up a slow, gentle pace. He moved slowly, again and again, lips caressing hers, then her jaw, then her neck, all the time his hands wrapped around hers, causing her to surrender to him completely.

He kept up that soft, gentle pace, loving her completely. He could tell she was close, he knew the signs well enough now and as she groaned in delight, tightening around him he coaxed her, “That’s it baby girl…” lips soft on her ear.

And then she came, shuddering underneath him, her head tipping back, as she let out a gentle, low, broken moan of his name. It sent shivers down his spine and he continued to thrust through her orgasm, the tale heat spreading across his belly and then he tipped too, jerking and groaning slightly before he fell forward, burying his face in to her neck.

“Love you.” She whispered softly into his ear as her hand ran up his neck, into his hair and he gave a hum of contentment as he regained control of his senses.

“Love you too, so damned much, Sweetheart.” He rubbed his nose up against hers and she chuckled slightly as he rolled off of her. She scooted closer so she could lay her head on his chest and his arm curled round her, large hand tracing shapes on her skin at the bottom of her back as she tossed her leg over his.

“What time are you in tomorrow?” She asked gently, hand rubbing absentmindedly over his chest.

“Half nine.” He gave a sated yawn.

“We can have breakfast together, I made cinnamon rolls.” She muttered through a yawn of her own.

“That so?” “mmmhmmm”

“You know, you’d make a good little housewife.” He grinned, thinking back to his thought before. He knew her response before she had uttered it. “Fuck you.” He chuckled, dropping a kiss to her head and they both fell silent. And his last thought as he drifted off to sleep was just how her being here had made him almost forget his worries.

Katie lay still, listening to the sound of his breathing which grew even as he fell asleep, clearly exhausted. He always needed food and rest after missions, his metabolism drained him. She stole a glance up at him, long eyelashes lay against his cheek as his head lolled to the side slightly, facing her.

“Night soldier.” She whispered softly, placing a peck on his lips before settling down and succumbing to her own tiredness. ********* Katie woke the next morning, tangled in Steve’s arms, his face pressed into her neck as he’d done his usual koala impression. As gently as she could, she moved to check her phone for the time, and found it to be twenty-five past seven, five minutes before her alarm was due to go off. Cancelling it, she glanced back over at Steve who shifted onto his back, the arm that had been thrown around her gently resting on his chest. Smiling, she climbed out of bed deciding to leave him to sleep as long as she could.

Considering what a light sleeper he normally was, Steve didn’t stir when Katie returned following her shower and was still out of it when she finished dressing so she unset the alarm on his bedside clock and headed to the kitchen. She put on a fresh pot of coffee, threw the fresh rolls she had made the previous day into the oven and settled down on his couch, flipping on the TV whilst she quickly scanned through her phone, looking at her schedule for the day. She only had one meeting in the afternoon, and it wasn’t important so she fired an email through to her PA asking her to reschedule.

At about eight-fifteen, there was still no sign of Steve so Katie headed through to the bedroom to wake him up. Any longer and he would be late for his debrief. He was lay side on, facing her side of the bed so she dropped next to him…

Something was tickling his nose, right on the bridge. He gently sniffed, and then soft lips met his. Again, again…Steve made a completely involuntary noise that was halfway between a groan and a sigh as he realised his girl was kissing him awake, before her lips met his and this time he gently responded.

“Hey.” That soft voice greeted him and he smiled, gently cracking an eye open and meeting that emerald green.

“Morning” He said groggily and she smiled.

“It’s almost eight-fifteen.”

He frowned, that was late. “My alarm didn’t wake me?” “I turned it off, sorry-not-sorry” She said with a tone so blasé it made him chuckle “You needed the rest.” She gave him a soft kiss again “There’s coffee in the kitchen and breakfast is ready.” “You know I could get used to this” He rolled over so he was on his back as she rose from the bed. “Coming home to a ready-made dinner, waking up to ready-made breakfast before I go to work. And you.” “Nice to see which one of those is your priority.” She teased over her shoulder as she left him to it.

“Always you, Doll.” he murmured with a smile. But as he lay still for another few minutes, he thought about it more and more. Over the past four months, other than when they were away either on missions or business trips they had spent every night together, either at his or hers but last night, something had felt different to him, more intimate. She’d taken care of his mission injuries, cooked for him, made love to him, and now here she was making him breakfast before she would wave him off to work later on. It was almost normal, what people with mundane nine to five jobs did. And he realised he wanted that all the time, he wanted to come home, find her there, wake up with her, every single day.

“When you gonna ask her to move in?” Natasha’s voice popped back into his head.

If he was honest, he hadn’t given it a lot of thought, it wasn’t something people did back in his time before marriage. But times were different, hell he was different, and as he lay there contemplating it, he realised, it wasn’t such a bad idea.

When he headed through, Katie was sat at the kitchen table, laptop fired up, mobile glued to her ear.

“I know!” Her tone was one of utter excitement. “I mean I didn’t think they would turn out so good…or they’d be done so fast but they’re pushing for this month’s edition…”

He dropped a kiss to her neck and glanced at the screen, pausing when he saw the image. It must have been one of the photos done whilst she was in New York and as he looked at it, he felt his mouth drop open. His girl was stood against a wall in her office in the tower, one leg bent, high heeled foot raised back against the flat surface behind her, palms splayed either side of her thighs as she looked to the right. Her hair was pulled back in a slick, high pony tail, her make-up was heavier than normal and utterly flawless, and she was dressed in a grey charcoal pinstripe suit which cinched in at her waist, with a low cut white blouse underneath.

“Yeah, I know Tony.” She continued speaking into the phone as she glanced up and saw the expression on his face. She pressed a button on the keyboard and it flipped to another picture, this one of her sat in her chair, legs apart, elbows resting on her knees, as she looked beyond the camera, laughing at something. She looked absolutely fucking stunning. His eyes roved the image on the digital copy of the article and he began to read the writing that was next to it.

There are a lot of things you might absolutely hate about Katie Stark. Aged just twenty-nine she has more money than anyone could possibly wish to spend in a life-time, looks and a figure that you would kill for, and a Super Soldier Boyfriend with a jawline that seems to be carved from marble. However, after thirty seconds in her company despite wanting to hate her for all of the above, it was simply impossible not to like her.

Unassuming, accommodating, and with a smile that you simply can’t help but return, she welcomed us into her office and was remarkably humble about the entire thing, admitting that she still wasn’t quite so sure why we were so interested in her. We took the time to grill her on how the first three months of Stark Independent Publishing LTD has gone and what we can look forward to in the future.

Katie stood up and gestured for him to sit down and carry on reading the article. She headed off into the living room, continuing her call, so he read as he ate a hot cinnamon bun. The article ploughed through a load of questions about the book that had launched the business when they published, the fact the company had already registered over fifty-percent first quarter turnover, where she thought the business was going, future pipeline projects, her favourite authors, genre, books, previous role in Stark Industries before she had spent a few years working for a Government Agency following the Battle of New York (no mention of Supernova or SHIELD) and then the final paragraph took a personal turn.

When asked if she would indulge us with a personal question she sighed slightly before grinning and telling us to ask and see if she answered. So we did…

“We know that you’re a notoriously private person, in comparison to your brother anyway, but most of our readers are dying to know…what’s it like dating Captain America?”

“No idea, I’m dating Steve Rogers.” She replied immediately, a faint flush hitting her cheeks as she spoke, all the time fiddling with a delicate yet gorgeous antique looking emerald ring which sits on her right hand, a gift we suspect from the man in question. When asked to elaborate slightly, she bit her lip and simply smiled before explaining; “Steve isn’t just Captain America. There’s more to him than a shield. He’s the kindest, gentlest, most caring man I’ve ever met and he makes me unbelievably happy.” The blush spread from her cheeks to her ears “And that’s not down to the Serum or outfit, it’s just who he is. The fact he’s 6ft2, drop dead gorgeous with a smile I’d happily die for is a bonus.”

Steve felt himself grin as he read the words and glanced at the small photo they had framed the paragraph round. It was the shot of them together that had been taken at the Stark Industry’s New Year’s Gala as they danced. His eyes continued to the final part of the article, this one complete with a picture of Katie and Tony. Katie sat at her desk as Tony leaned over, looking at something on the computer screen.

When asked about the other man in her life, her brother Tony, she smiled again, another genuine smile, the love she has for her elder sibling evident on her face and in her voice.

“I owe everything I have to Tony. He brought me up from the age of seven, gave me absolute, unconditional love and opportunities I know I was extremely fortunate to have. People have a pre-conceived image of what he is like, and sometimes he can play into that, but to me he’s been nothing but loving and supportive, my father and brother rolled into one and I can’t thank him enough for everything he has done and given me. He backed my decision to open SIP from the off and believed in me and has always pushed me to be the best I can be.”

We couldn’t resist another personal question, so we asked her a little cheekily how Tony had reacted to news that she was dating one of his fellow Avengers, who had served alongside their Father Howard in WW2. Hesitating slightly, she flushed before smirking and answering, a grin on her face.

“How he found out wasn’t ideal, but once he realised we were serious, he was fine about it. I think deep down after my last car crash of a relationship, he’s just happy I’m with someone who puts me first.”

“Do they get on?” At that she laughed. “They have a love-hate relationship. In that they hate the fact they love one another. Tony has these ridiculous nicknames for Steve and he can be an absolute nightmare at times, but to be fair Steve’s quite sarcastic himself too but I know full well that they have each other’s six and, even though they would probably deny it, they are quite close and would miss one another if they weren’t around.”

Steve, grudgingly, had to admit she was right. Tony could be a pain in the ass at times, but he would miss the billionaire if he wasn’t there. Underneath all his bravado he knew that he thought the world of his sister and, despite their initial meeting whereby Steve frankly thought the guy was a dick, he’d fast learnt during the Chitauri Battle that underneath that persona he had a heart of gold and was more like his father than he would care to admit. A fact that Steve was even more convinced of having gotten to know him much better on a personal level over the last two years or so.

Whilst the siblings certainly share a lot of attributes, both good looking, tough, hard-working, Katie has a certain softness to her edges and we challenge anyone who spends time in her company not to warm to the youngest Stark. Stark Independent Publishing has, in our opinion, a very bright future ahead of it whilst it is spearheaded by such an astute and shrewd business woman and we wish her all the best.

“What do you think?” Katie watched as Steve read the article, leaning against the wall, nibbling at her thumb, nervous to see his reaction.

Steve jerked his head round and smiled at her. “I think it’s fantastic. The photos are stunning, the article is well written. Are you happy with it?” “Yeah.” she nodded as she walked over to his chair, standing behind it and slipping her arms round his shoulders from behind “They wouldn’t drop the whole So you’re dating Captain America angle though, so our PR department told me to answer a few personal questions to shut them up. Are you ok with it?” Steve smiled and turned side on in his seat, pulling her into his lap. “Seeing as I’m the kindest, gentlest, most caring man you’ve ever met how could I not be?” “I meant every word of that.” She smiled, rubbing her nose against his.

“I know baby.” He gave her a peck on the lips. “Now I need to go or I’m gonna be late.”

Sighing she stood up as he did the same, grabbing a final cinnamon bun from the plate.

“I’ll be back at mine” She informed him as she walked to the door with him, “I have a few calls to do this morning.” “I’ll come over when I’m done.” He smiled. “And maybe we can do something this afternoon?”

“Sounds perfect”

***** Chapter 14

**Original Posting**

#stark spangled banner #steve rogers #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #steve rogers smut #mcu #mcu fanfic #captain america #katie star #chris evans #chris evans characters

93 notes · View notes

the-himawari · 4 years ago

Text

A3! Sakuma Sakuya - Translation [SSR] MANKAI Glitter (3/3)

*Please read disclaimer on blog; default name set as Izumi

---

Sakuya: The bentos look really delicious!

Masumi: I want to hurry up and eat it.

Citron: Before that, we’ll give Sakuya his birthday wishes!

Chikage: Ahh, that’s right.

Itaru: Happy birthday, Sakuya.

Tsuzuru: Happy birthday.

Citron: Happy birthday, Sakuya!

Chikage: Happy birthday.

Masumi: Happy b-day.

Izumi: Have a great birthday, Sakuya-kun!

Sakuya: Thank you very much! I’m really happy you guys are celebrating for me.

Itaru: That’s great then.

Izumi: Alright, shall we eat?

Sakuya: Itadakimasu!

-pause-

Chikage: I enjoyed the meal.

Sakuya: Director, the fried egg you placed on top was really tasty!

Izumi: I’m glad if it suited your taste.

Citron: Sakuya, I brought this!

Sakuya: Ah, the Hello Celestial Sphere! You took it with you, huh?

Citron: Make a wish!

Sakuya: My wish…

*flashback starts*

Sakuya: (At this rate, what should I do if I’ll never be able to see everyone…)

*flashback ends*

Sakuya: My wish is… that I always want to be together with everyone!

Tsuzuru: It’s your long-awaited wish; is that ok with you?

Sakuya: Yes, as I thought, that’s all I can ask for! Hello, Oh, Stars of Pisces… Please let me always be together with everyone in Spring troupe.

-pause-

Sakuya: Mm…

Citron: Good morning, Sakuya!

Sakuya: Wahh, Citron-san!? And everyone from Spring troupe too…

Citron: Let’s all eat breakfast together!

Sakuya: Um, you didn’t have to wait here…

Tsuzuru: We’re always together, you know?

Sakuya: Eh…? Umm, anyways, I’m going to wash my face before I eat!

-pause-

Sakuya: (…Why is everyone following me?) Even though it’s fine for you guys to eat first… did all of you want to wash your faces too?

Chikage: Yeah, that’s it.

Masumi: I’ll wash too.

Itaru: I washed my face and woke up.

Citron: Same here!

Sakuya: T-then, shall we go eat breakfast?

Tsuzuru: Alright, let’s all head over together.

Chikage: We won’t let anyone fall behind. Since we’re always together.

Sakuya: …?

-pause-

Citron: Where are you going, Sakuya?

Masumi: Are you heading out?

Sakuya: Yeah, I’m going to my part-time job.

Citron: In that case, I’ll go with you too!

Tsuzuru: I’m going too.

Masumi: Me too.

Sakuya: EHH!? I’m fine going by myself! Only I can do my job, so…

Tsuzuru: It’s fine if we take you halfway, right? I mean, we can’t let you go alone, Sakuya.

Citron: Everyone will send you off!

Sakuya: T-thank you…? (What’s up with everyone? Could this be because of the wish I made to the Hello Celestial Sphere…?)

-pause-

Sakuya: I’ll be heading out first!

Chikage: Good job, Sakuya.

Itaru: We came to pick you up.

Sakuya: Chikage-san!? And even Itaru-san…! Did you two go out of your way to come here?

Chikage: Well, of course. All of us in Spring troupe are always together.

Itaru: Come on, let’s go home together.

Sakuya: R-right… thank you very much.

-pause-

Citron: Haaah… this is hellish~*.

Tsuzuru: It’s heavenly!

Itaru: Ah, crap. My stamina fully recovers in 5 minutes… Will I get out in time if I start washing my body now?

Citron: I’ll wash your back, Itaru!

Itaru: It’ll be fine in that case. My back is entrusted to you, Citron.

Citron: Leave it to me! I’ll wash Sakuya’s back too!

Sakuya: Eh, thank you very much! Then I’ll be the one to wash Citron-san’s back!

-pause-

Sakuya: Aren’t you guys cramped…?

Chikage: No problems here. Are you alright there, Tsuzuru?

Tsuzuru: I’m fine here too.

Itaru: I’ve got enough space to game.

Masumi: Itaru’s smartphone is in the way.

Citron: It’s fun, just like a training camp!

Sakuya: Ah, well, that’s true! (A lot of strange things happened all day today, but It was fun, and I was happy to be with everyone the entire time.) …Ok, good night.

-pause-

Sakuya: *Yawn*… (Huh? Everyone’s gone… Was yesterday just a dream…?)

-pause-

Sakuya: Good morning!

Chikage: Morning.

Tsuzuru: You’re early, Sakuya. Do you perhaps have your part-time job today?

Sakuya: Yes. Ah, but it’s fine if you don’t send me halfway today! And you don’t need to come pick me up either.

Itaru: Eh, what do you mean?

Sakuya: Citron-san, Masumi-kun and Tsuzuru-kun accompanied me halfway yesterday. And then Chikage-san and Itaru-san came all way the way to the daycare pick me up when it was time to go home!

Tsuzuru: I did…?

Masumi: That never happened.

Citron: I didn’t follow you.

Chikage: I didn’t go pick you up either though.

Itaru: Wouldn’t it be awful if the two of us went all the way to the daycare to pick you up?

Tsuzuru: Sakuya… was that a dream you had?

Sakuya: A dream… T-that’s right! Never mind! (I’m not sure if it was a dream, or if the Hello Celestial Sphere made it happen…) (But I guess... my wish, more or less, came true?)

---

*Citron originally says "極悪" (gokuaku: ~villainous/wicked), which Tsuzuru corrects as "極楽" (gokuraku: ~paradise/heaven on Earth).

Sakuya...

previous |

#a3!#a3! translation #sakuma sakuya #act! addict! actors!#*through tears* im not crying

20 notes · View notes

dappercritter · 4 years ago

Text

Random She-Ra Season 5 Thoughts: THE FINAL RAMBLING

Yep. I finally got all my crazy absurd thoughts about this gay adventure-romance-drama cartoon summarized into one incoherent yet fun to read computer document/article! ...four months after the show itself ended. Oh well, no one’s perfect. Anyways, there are a whole lot more insane observations than ever before, so I had to put it below a link so this thing didn’t back up my blog or any of yours. Hope you enjoy reading through these as much I enjoyed spouting them for no discernible reason other than I felt like it!

-I feel that since is the last season, I ought to talk about an important part of the show that I’ve been putting off: the animation. It’s… okay. It’s definitely smoother than what the original 80’s show and it’s brother series (heheh) looked like, but at the same time it still seems to suffer from similar limitations which causes some distracting moments of stiffness. But other than that, it’s pretty good. It’s no Titmouse or Studio Mir but it looks good and it gets the job done.

-After all, let’s not forget: “Imperfection is beautiful!”

-Even when things are at their lowest, Adora is a jock with a heart of gold.

-Horde Prime and the Galactic Horde’s aesthetic feels like a mixture of Catholicism, Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, and modern Microsoft, and honestly, that just makes him creepier.

-Speaking of Horde Prime, he didn’t waste any time with destroying Bright Moon. …apparently.

-Furthermore, on the topic of his giant holographic messages, WAS THAT A FREAKING MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MOVIE REFERENCE?!

-Boy, Glimmer and Catra sure got along quickly! It’s almost like they magically understand each other because they both assumed leadership roles and screwed up big time! …I guess.

-Either that or this season is going to be a speedrun.

-Wow, the Rebellion sure got used to having a once-thought-dead king as well as a known enemy general/abuser running around their camp awful fast, didn’t they?

-Mara’s got a spaceship, a cyber girlfriend, a magic grandma, a dragon, a tragic backstory, AND a force ghost?! Dang, even in death, the girl’s got it all. No wonder everyone likes her!

-(*me looking at the TV rating at the start of episode*) “Why is language in there? Is there surprise cuss words or something in this season?” (*sees Horde Prime seize control of a clone for the first time*) “HOLY FREAKING SH—oh that’s why.”

-Applause to the crew for making the “dinner with Prime” scene for making a meal between a sparkly princess, a catgirl, and alien cult leader feel even more uncomfortable than it had a right to.

-(*me throughout the season whenever a clone was onscreen*) Is that Hordak? Is that him? Is that him? Is that him right there? Oh it is—oh no wait. … Is that h—

-Extra applause for having Glimmer learn from her grey-area wetwipe phase and refusing to sell out her friends again whilst telling the imperialist cult leader where to stick it.

-I would pay a sizeable portion of my life savings to hear what a Scorpia and Swift Wind duet would sound like.

-In fact, I’d double it if it was just Scorpia singing.

-Ah what the heck. I would triple it for an entire She-Ra musical!

-As happy as I am to see to see Entrapta interacting with the other princesses again, I have to say that their big reunion left me with some mixed feelings. Here’s a quick rundown:

-Entrapta, a grown autistic woman, being led around on a leash by non-neurodivergent teenagers—again: that’s bad.

-The Princesses confronting Entrapta about joining the Horde: that’s good!

-The Princesses blaming all their problems with the Horde bots on Entrapta’s actions and her hyper fixations alone: that’s bad.

-Entrapta explaining herself, admitting that she regrets her mistakes, and getting the Princesses to understand that she thinks and communicates differently, but in spite of that, she really does want help find Glimmer: that’s good!

-Entrapta never gets to call out the Princesses for how poorly they treated her: that’s bad.

-Entrapta saves the day and goes to space: that’s good!

-Scorpia and Entrapta still haven’t interacted even though the former is with the Rebellion in the first place because she went to look for her because she is her best friend: …can I go home now?

-How nice! Michah finally got to shapeshift!

-And he’s rocking that She-Ra outfit to boot!

-So is Darla a back up of Light Hope or do they just run on the same operating system and have the same voice?

-I could watch an entire season of Adora, Bow, and Entrapta going on space adventure in a rundown ship with their custom-made spacesuits, tbh.

-Is anyone else weirded out that Catra’s younger self looked at her in her flashback(?).

-Actually what WAS happening there, anyhow?

-(*watching Bow’s spacewalk to save Glimmer*) “Is that a Gravity reference?” asked the man who never saw Gravity.

-Speaking of spacewalks, how did Glimmer survive those precious few seconds in space? Does the teleporter teleport a breathable atmosphere too?

-Also, Catra, WHY did you think it would be a good idea to teleport Glimmer into space? I know you had a plan and the ship was right there but… Ah, never mind.

-Not that I’m complaining but Glimmer’s apology to the rest of the friend squad for her HORRIBLE plan last season went… surprisingly quickly.

-You know as cool as The Star Siblings are, being a quirky band of space-travelling siblings with cool powers and some trans rep to boot, I only have one small problem with them: weren’t there already Star Sisters on Etheria back in season 1?

-That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about Masters of the Universe characters to dispute it.

-Entrapta confirmed pan, objectum, AND horny on main. Dang girl, you’re gonna have fun whether you got Hordak back or not…

-“The Velvet Glove” is both a menacing and stupid name for a decadent overlord’s mothership.

-Wait, it’s from the 80’s canon? Oh. That kind of explains it, actually.

-Goshdangit, I wanted Catra to face punishment for her crimes, but I didn’t think that would involve going to evil alien conversion therapy!

-Nor did I want her to die! For a second. Actually, since it obviously wasn’t going to last I was… weirdly okay with that part???

-Horde Prime seems awfully okay with Catradora. I mean he’s still super creepy and manipulative about it, but also oddly progressive for an evil brainwashing cult leader.

-(*Adora transforms into a She-Ra through seer will*) First of all, called it. Second of all, WOAH MAMA now that’s a glow up!

-Wrong Hordak did not have to be a thing, and yet, I’m glad that he is.

-Hordak remembers the LUVD crystal and Entrapta… Hordak remembers Entrap—! It’s happening! Oh my gosh, it’s happening! Everybody stay calm!

-Wow, Entrapta didn’t have to be so forgiving of Catra for everything she’s done to her but she did. Only I’m not sure if that was Entrapta taking the high road or the low road.

-Or which road the crew took for that matter.

-I remember when I thought those “Chipped AUs” floating around here on tumblr were just something the fans came up with and that chipping people was not an actual despicable thing Prime does in canon. I miss those days.

-I know it’s not the same as before or the original design, but True She-Ra’s designs and powers? I think they slappin’.

-Hooray, Adora and Catra are finally making up! And it only took four and half seasons worth of communication failures, toxic villainous behaviour, and physical violence for Catra to snap out of it!

-…We can go back to Entrapdak now, right?

-Poor Elberon. First they unknowingly adopt a double agent then get invaded by the Horde and now they’re getting brainwashed and chipped by the Galactic Horde. They might be a cute village, but they got some pretty lousy security.

-You know it’s cute that Micah is doing his best to be friends with Frosta and get back in touch with his dad-side, but look I can’t be the only one worried about how the local King is a less proactive leader than the princesses or the known war criminal/abuser, right?

-“The Perils of Peekablue” or as I like to call it, “You Thought ‘Boys Night Out’ Caught You Emotionally Off-guard? Hah! Watch This.”

-You know I didn’t think Scorpfuma would be a thing aside that one moment of flirting near the end of season 4, but they really pushed for it to be a thing! This is… actually pretty great! Perfuma’s not perfect, and I would have appreciated giving them a little more time to bond and form some real chemistry, but at least she reciprocates Scorpia’s sweetness instead of rebuffing it in increasingly aggressive fashion.

-I’m not sure what’s more concerning: that Mermista set a boat on fire, that it’s worded like she had a fling as part of some experimental phase, or that Sea Hawk is turned on by this.

-Peekablue might not be real, (I think?) but he is one dapper dude! Female-to-male redesigns could learn a thing or two from him.

-It involved them getting stung and seizuring, but that was a heck of a way to reintroduce Double Trouble! I swear I got watching them cycle through their transformations in some sort of physical reaction.

-Or maybe that was just me worrying about their wellbeing…

-Okay, I get the Chips are huge, and actually rather clever threat, but how do these characters get chipped in the first place? I get there are chipped people who spread the chips throught the population but where do they get those from???

-Do one of those Horde Prime drones just sneak behind someone, slap a chip on their nape then hand them a whole bagfull and say, “Beep boop beep, Horde Prime’s Light, blah blah blah. Alright have fun, kiddo”?

-Or is it some sort of Alien: Covenant deal where they’re just floating around and Lord help you if one sticks to you?

-HOLY CRAP THEY ACTUALLY GOT SCORPIA TO SING! AND SHE WAS GREAT!

-Oh shoot. Guess I owe the crew twice my life savings now…

-Entrapdak might be what got me into this show, but it’s Double Trouble that kept me around, so you can imagine how happy I was to see them make their grand reappearance!

-Conversly, you can imagine my disappointment when they just disappeared until the finale.

-And on that note: HOW DID YOU GUYS LOSE DOUBLE TROUBLE?!

-You forgot to cherish them, didn’t you?

-So, Scorpia sacrifices herself just after finding a new girlfriend and gaining some newfound confidence, Mermista and Sea Hawk are split up,and Double Trouble didn’t join the main cast. Why can’t you just have fun like a normal cartoon, show?

-Gosh, I love me some shifting title cards!

-Is it just me or did they sneak in some more Annihilation references on Krytis?

(-Said the guy who was too chicken to watch the movie and just read about it and watched a few clips online.)

-(*audibly sighs*) FINE. I guess I like Catradora now. Are you happy now, SPOP Crew? ARE YOU?!

-Hooray, Catra’s got a emotional support animal! And they’re a shapeshifting magic alien cat. Those are the best kind!

-Is it weird that I knew that weird glowing stuff on Krytis was just magic all along, or was it just not hidden very well. Anyways, I like Krytis. I like that we got to see a truly alien world with its own form of magic.

-Plus, we got a logical advancement of the magic versus science subtheme with magic being Horde Prime’s weakness! Neato!

-Getting back on the “which is worse?” wagon for a second, I don’t know what feels less right: that Wrong Hordak’s big revelation and his resolution to free himself and his brothers and friends from Horde Prime’s control is played humorously, or that Real Hordak should be the one having this moment.

-That bit with Castaspella and Shadow Weaver where she tells Casta about Etheria being a living thing with inherent magical property, or whatever, while we got a peaceful shot of some boar creatures sleeping was actually kind of nice. It would have been nicer though if it wasn’t part of a power hungry abuser’s obvious scheme. If only there was a kindly old witch lady character who was in touch with nature and knew just what to say when someone was feeling downOH WAIT.

-Furthermore… Why did Shadow Weaver and Castaspella need to have romantic tension?

-Seriously though, where’s our Madame Razz quota this season? Where’s my supportive magic grandma timelord at, yo?

-Yup, they speedran this season.

-I’m actually really disappointed we didn’t see more of an intergalactic new rebellion rising up to fight Horde Prime’s forces across the universe. Especially if it meant we got to see more Star Sibling action!

-Again, I adore Wrong Hordak but I keep wondering what was keeping the crew from just bringing in Original Flavour Hordak. (You know, aside from teasing us Entrapdak fans and trying to distract us with a loveable new character in the meantime.) I mean he could have done the whole infiltrating the clone squads and tricking them bit, too.

-Heck, he could have done the wink, too!

-I’d gleefully point out Loo-Kee’s cameo this season but apparently, they already made some several seasons ago. That’s what I get for not rewatching the 80’s show and training my eyes first.

-(*sees Erelandians*) Are those freaking Toads and Toadettes?

-So, what’s keeping them from just hitting Spinerella’s chip again? Besides emotional baggage and gale force winds, I mean.

-Perfuma coming out of a cave scared out of her wits, demanding to know who’s there, clinging to her friends as soon as they come back, and balling her eyes out is a big, BIG mood.

-Frosta absolutely decking Catra in the face was nestled somewhere between cathartic and excessive.

-Netossa spraying her with a bottle of water on the other hand…

-Oh, so Greyskull was the name of a Rebel Squad! I think. Meh, the important thing is we got an explanation and it still sounds cool.

-Leave it to a couple of dads to make a secret message out of a dad joke.

-You know I made fun of Light Hope for being creepy, but I swear that avatar from the Spire is even creepier. I don’t know if it’s her face—those dang blank eyes, man—or just that it she’s less animated than the real thing, but it just felt… off.

-Aww, Noelle made Netossa’s princess weakness illustrations! So cute!

-Forget episodes that deserves Emmys, Keston John deserves one for voicing Hordak, Horde Prime, all the clones, and several minor villains and giving each and every single one a distinct voice! Where my king’s respect, eh?

-Yes, Catra you had a small disagreement with Hordak. …Over sending his girlfriend and your “friend” to DIE IN A LITERAL LIVING HELL.

-Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.

-Why does Perfuma get pressured to get angry and go wild when Entrapta’s the one who’s had it the worst out of all them? Why can’t my gamer girl go berserk, dammit!?

-Okay, but really, how do these fricking chips work??? Are they parasite devices who store Horde Prime’s Baptizing Dew then slowly pump it into their host’s bodies? Do they have their own nervous systems? Are they technorganic? Also, how and why do we need to make these chips are bigger threat then they need to be?

-Horde Prime showing up on Hordak’s throne in grand Killing Joke style and casually throwing shades at his brother’s overblown attempts to impress him is pretty awesome, but it feels strangely underdeveloped. Hordak’s not there to have his hard work insulted and we never got to see Adora have any similar encounter with Hordak here before, so unless you look at it from the perspective of someone who has been here before in the Horde story like Catra it lacks the dramatic weight it should have had.

-Scorpia resisting the chip to save her new friends was pretty great, though.

-I swear, when they got to the scene where Adora and the others figured out that Shadow Weaver was grooming her so she could use her to get to the Heart of Etheria, I was mouthing “You B***H” through the whole thing.

-They really brought back Etherian deep magic just so they had something to make Micah threatening. …okay.

-Okay, the rest of “Failsafe” messed me up, so here’s a rundown on all the other messy thoughts I had while the show ripped my heart and ground it to dog food:

-Entrapta and Hordak reuniting: Yay!

-Swift Wind yanking her away before she can get through to him: Boo.

-Catra encouraging Adora to try and take care of herself for a change: Yay!

-Adora hurts Catra and she runs away: Boo.

-Adora finally calling out Shadow Weaver on what an utterly horrible person she is: Yay!

-Adora resolves to risk sacrificing herself to save the world: Bo—okay, seriously, was all this suffering really necessary, show?

-I know I mentioned in my previous She-Ra random thoughts that I supported Glimmadora, but I am okay with Catradora and Glimbow ending up canon. The only problem I have is how rushed they feel—moreso with Glimbow. With Catradora, the crew had an entire season to make it work again and they took it. Glimbow it feels like they were down to the last few episodes and went, “Oh right, we were gonna do something with these two!” then did their darndest to fit in some chemistry in between all the other stuff going down.

-As ominous as it was, the music where Horde Prime starts hacking Etheria honestly SLAPS.

-Okay, I know everyone is magic or something, but I am legit surprised getting electrocuted in water didn’t kill the heroes right then and there.

-Sea Hawk tries to flirt with his girl even as she’s trying to kill him. Truly, he is a man of taste.

-What do you know, Shadow Weaver can only do good when she’s (canonically!) punch drunk.

-You know a whole lot of this could have been avoided if Holo-Mara was Adora’s mentor instead of Light Hope.

-When I think about it, it was actually really clever to make Horde Prime the final villain for Adora to face: a domineering decadent man who’s been in power forever against a humble emotionally vulnerable compassionate young woman.

-Not to mention the divide between cult-like oppression and progressive freedom. Or something.

-Holy crap, did the First Ones get a great freaking a Great Old One for a guard dog?!

-So, you guys seriously didn’t bring Angella back to reunite with her family OR mention her all season after the impact her death had on everyone all last season until Glimmer needs a power-up at the last possible minute and then you never bring her up again. That is absolutely a dick move in bird culture.

-Entrapta’s hacker sticker gives me life. Gamer girl gremlin princess forever!

-On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Adora and Catra don’t get to have an awesome couple battle against the security monster and win. On the other hand, Shadow Weaver is finally dead. YAY!

-With apologies to the writers and especially Lorraine Toussaint. She did splendidly bringing this character to life and even if I hated Shadow Weaver, I adored the effort she put into making her one of the most emotionally complex villains I’ve ever seen.

-Words cannot, will not, and will never describe the pure joy that I experienced when I first saw Hordak’s big scene: standing up to and disowning his tyrant brother, saving Entrapta, declaring his love to her (albeit in a nicely lowkey fashion), and then throwing Horde Prime to his apparent doom Disney style with Entrapta cheering him with sheer glee. GOSH, it was everything I could have hoped for from this season!

-Now if only they kept the deleted scene where they got a moment to themselves before Prime body-jacked him again like the creepy sonuvabich he is.

-Horde Prime just wouldn’t be a religious villain if he didn’t tell everyone to burn.

-Bonus points for actually trying to burn the frigging planet.

-Aside from the idea of Adora switching to wearing a She-Ra themed dress everywhere in the future, the future vision was really quite sweet, and seeing Prime step in to ruin it made it all the more impactful.

-Can I just say that it’s absolutely wonderful that the show, for all it’s flaws, said “**** senseless heroic sacrifices”?

-BREAKING: Lesbian cat finally makes up with her jock ex, has a canon kiss so pure it saves the world!

-In other news, Catradora fans are still spoiled rotten.

-Wow, look at all those character comebacks they skipped through! Look, there’s the chefs from Dryl, Double Trouble, Huntara, the Horde Trio, Imp, Madame Razz—are you kidding me?!

-Grumbling aside, I actually find the idea of the Horde Trio and Imp getting involved in a G-rated science-fantasy version of the first Hangover movie quite amusing.

-Oh dang, they pulled a Castle in the Sky with the Velvet Glove!

-As nice as it was to see Aodra save Hordak from Horde Prime and destroy the latter through exorcism via sheer compassion, I’m rather disappointed we never got to see She-Ra go full Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengence on any creepy old cult leaders.

-Yeah, it would have gone against the “love conquers all” set up, but love takes on many forms, does it not? So, why can it not manifest as cleaving your mortal enemies with extreme prejudice to save your loved ones?

-Furthermore, in addition to Holo-Mara being a better mentor, Hordak raising Adora instead Shadow Weaver could have prevented a lot of similar problems. Maybe. Possibly.

-Eh whatever, he has a lifetime’s worth of fanfiction to make up for it.

-ENTRAPDAK IS CANON, ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

-And so is Catradora and Glimbow! That’s nice, too.

-Aww, how sweet of them to skip through Catra and Scorpia, and Glimmer and Micah’s big reunions! It’s not like we’ve been waiting forever for this stuff or anything. HahahahAHAHAHDHAHAHFHAFHKSADJHFKAJHDfine.

-And so it all ends with everyone either friends, in love, or both, as heroes decide to make up for it all with a grandiose sequel promising more exciting space adventures we probably won’t see! HOORAY!

-All snarky ranting aside, I actually really enjoyed the finale. It was exciting, heartwarming, and above all it ended on happy, hopeful note without leaving too many frustrating questions unanswered. (*glares with utmost contempt at Voltron and Star vs. The Forces of Evil*)

-You know, this wasn’t bad for a final season, but I think this might have worked better as two seasons. Not in Netflix’s cheap “split a regular 13-episode season in two 6-7 episode long seasons” strategy, but I mean two full seasons with their own storylines leading up to the grand finale:

-First, one that starts out with Horde Prime’s arrival the downfall of Etheria, focuses on the space adventures, ends with their return to Etheria and gives the characters time to recuperate from season 4.

-Then, we have one final season that focuses on the Best Friend Squad’s Return to Etheria, Horde Prime’s plan, gives everyone more time to properly reconcile before ¾ of the entire cast gets chipped, sets up a new Rebellion made up of Princess Alliance and former Etherian Horde members, maybe even set up a proper Hordak redemption arc or something, and then our big happy ending.

-On a mostly unrelated note, I also feel that the whole show could have turned out even better if it had been either a dedicated science-fantasy war drama with some levity (like the good Star Wars shows or Avatar: The Last Airbender) or a lighthearted yet empowering slice-of-life action-adventure romcom (i.e. basically a well-made remake of the original show in the style of Adventure Time and Parks and Rec or something).

-My final random thought for this whole thing: we really could have used a triumphant end credits song or something. Aside from obviously recommending Fabulous Secret Powers, I would have also recommended the original 4 Non Blondes “What’s Going On,” a reprise of “Warriors,” Gorillaz’s “We Got the Power,” or (my favourite) Talking Head’s “(Nothing But) Flowers” since the ending scenes remind me of it.

Thanks again to the crew for giving me something to live for and/or complain about!

Now, let’s hope the He-Man reboots do as well...

58 notes · View notes

onthevirgeofdestruction · 4 years ago

Text

35 Q’s for Fanfic Writers

From this post

I’m having a shitty, rude alter-y, crap night so I’m just going to answer all of these to distract myself and focus and to not bother anybody just making my own post and putting it under the cut btw, notice to anyone not aware: since I’m moving I won’t likely be updating anything until I’m done doing so.

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!) 3/5? Could use more editing and description and can be weirdly paced.

2. Why do you write fanfiction? Because it’s better than focusing on pain 24/7.

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works? I don’t seem to have a specific narrative voice that people recognize but I’m pretty proud of mostly organic dialogue.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you? as a rule i never look up to anybody for inspiration but there’s some stuff in my ao3 bookmarks I fawn over.

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of? Right now, none of them. It changes normally, anyway. If get too proud then I’d get my ass kicked by RSD if someone didn’t like it so it’s safer this way

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily? Dialogue.

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most? Organic description, poetic language kind of stuff. I can paint a scene but I’m not so great with bring out out a feeling with description alone.

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write? Janus and Virgil are probably tied. They both have things I struggle with but I don’t have to go back and do much adjusting of language and tone with them. Though admittedly my Virgil is signifigantly more foul-mouthed than canon and I tend to prefer pre-AA feral asshole Virgil.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write? Patton. I write him the least, so people can probably tell. I love Patton, I really do, but it’s so hard to keep away from fanon Patton.

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for? Angst w/ H/C obviously. Or if you’re talking about regular book genres, Fantasy. I fucking love fantasy world building.

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most? Trauma. I blame Daeram. As if Ayri isn’t a giant Angst Demon.

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about. Slopes. I’m really into it. I’ve got three one shots running right now. Patrons can read the first part of the unnamed cat remus one, there’s also a coffeeshop au tropey nonsense one like eglantine & lycoris, but Slopes is addiction angst. Mmmmm. Virgil is addicted to coke and alcohol and will listening to his friends even be in time? Who knows, especially not me, but there’s already over 30k.

13. First fandom you ever wrote for? InuYasha. Or was it Harry Potter? Or shit, The Blue Sword? Fuck, I’ve been writing for a long time, I really have no idea.

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for? Sanders Sides. The characters are the perfect dynamic for writing since they exist in balance of each other and the popular, easy to project on archetypes featured are incredibly fun to do basically any scenario with.

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for? Weird storywise? Kingdom Hearts? I can’t even follow the plot anymore. Weird Fandomwise? Sanders Sides. Its simultainiously the fluffiest and angstiest nonsense at the same time.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)? Vampires. Gay ones. Gay Vampires. I also love calm tol and angy smol.

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for. Any tropes that normalize incredibly toxic behaviour or tropes that are inherantly ableist, but I can’t think of any.

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written? Incorrigible continues to be complete nonsense.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between? AUs. I mean closest I even have is canon-divergence other than a single short.

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff? I like it when there is gay nonsense along with a plot that is treated as more important than the relationship the most. But I like both. There’s more shippy stuff in tss so i read more shipping action by default.

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!) Anxceit/Sleepxiety, but in general, give me darksides or give me death/j

22. Do you listen to anything while you write? Almost everything I write has a special playlist I listen to to help me write it, but otherwise I listen to my Nyan playlist, an alter is picking the tunes, or a voidfam playlist. I never have music off. When my internet is down I just listen to the songs I own or Anxiety’s theme on loop.

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas? I’m fine with all of them. I love working with prompts but I tend to deviate. And I’ve never done a challenge since I can’t do deadlines and bad things happen bingo never sent me a card and I applied three times.

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works? I am generally multi-chaptered stuff, but I’ve been working on a few one-shots lately that are much longer than most one shots.

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them! I was originally thinking of doing some little 13-year-old Dreaming!Roman (y’know, the one with a job) shorts but it turns out I just had an alter of that little bastard and that’s why I inexplicably know more about him then I ever even considered. I still might do them after Dreaming is done. But that’s paced so slowly who knows when that might happen. Otherwise I put stuff in my notes and just do shorts of it if I’m like “oh you know what’s cool???” but since I can’t daydream maybe this question doesn’t apply to me.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try? I want to do more autism stuff, and I’ve had it demanded a few times, but I’m scared of being that explict about it for some reason. Possibly because I might be, possibly because I’m scared of doing it wrong even though I’ve accidentally coded multiple characters autistic. I’m scared of explictly tagging them as such, too.

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received? That I can remember off the top of my head? I’m going with one from @a-genz-with-trauma-and-kins. It really helped me out and was just so kind and literally the best christmas gift I got in 2020.

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing? I can handle it alright but Daeram is a little fucking pissbaby about it. Constructive criticism helps people get better, so I appreciate it. I can’t handle critism that is incomplete, though. “i just don’t get it” or “I don’t know I don’t like it” kind of things. If I can’t understand the why to fix it then things get out of control. And then I spiral and RSD for like four days minimum. If it came from an anon or a troll, too, It might not bother me for as long. Things that are just like “this is shit and you should feel bad” just make me laugh. Couldn’t even bother to read it long enough to insult me proper? I don’t care.

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out? I have a few times. Mostly in shorts and prompts, I think. I think they turned out okay. They’re not particularly inspired or anything.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst? Depends on my mood. Am I triggered? give me the fluff. Am I vibin? Angst.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them! Fuck, fam, no, I can’t, I have so many. I have multiple original stories and some of them have very large casts and like holy fuck. Or do you mean in Sanders Sides fandom? Um, Morgan and Thorn in PD. The lesbian and her himbo dynamic. I love them. They’re dorks. Morgan is strong person with sharp tongue and soft romantic heart and Thorn is just so kind and so dumb and so exciteable he’s like a puppy. They were just filler characters and I got attached to them. Felton even gets redemption for being an ass later in PD, like oof i never intended to include so much OC content, especially for names I just picked randomly.

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less. nope I’m doing all of them because these are fun plea for my new self: 2 gay vampires, 4 humans, 1 braincell dreaming while I wake: trauma child needs therapy and so do you break: big oof, oh dragons, oh why, go virgil go rebuild: virgil is so not okay there’s more virgil to deal painful death: gay teens drink themselves into a new religion stargazing: whoops we didn’t realize people actually cared whole castle: everyone will throw down for kid!patton, even you incorrigible: found family with a shot of psychological horror and crack dangerous instincts: wholesome crime syndacite action slopes: addict gets mugged and thinks that’s just fine with him conflagration: logan avoids everything ever like a champ cat!remus: bored fae shifts gay pining from one person to another caffeine cyptids: caffinated gay panic goes faster than regular gay panic eglantine & lycoris: more tropes than you can toss a shoe at storytime: overpowered virgil also overreacts literally always

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process? an alter and I write together and I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen, what I’m writing about, or even what year it is. I often don’t even remember what I wrote. There’s no outline. I have an idea and I pick things at random for it. There’s just notes and an evil gleam in a demon’s eye. The only reason I know more than readers is because I take a long time to edit and some of these stories have fucking alters up in my head who can tell me things. Daeram tells me nothing. The writing demon supposedly has all this knowledge but I have absolutely no clue because he does not talk to me, he just fronts and slams out 9k in a few hours or we cofront to write and I’m like “oh no she didn’t” while typing

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of. i’m fond of the entire painful death series and I tried to find something I really liked without spoilers in stargazing and I couldn’t so here’s a random thing from incorrigble: “So, what do you do with your friends?” Patton continued on with a megawatt smile. “Grand larceny,” Virgil deadpanned and glared at Patton, who was taken aback. Remy and Andy just broke out laughing while Virgil tentatively sipped his still-too-hot-cocoa.

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want! slopes my dudes slopes i have learned so much about cocaine! like wow! I thought for a minute it was going to end with MCD around 30k but it swtiched from whump to hurt/comfort and I still don’t know if it’s going to be MCD but look at that funky little coke/alcohol addict go, it’s a medical wonder he’s alive! It’s not like there’s what seems to be a little talked about interaction between alcohol and cocaine that causes a toxic chemical to build up in the liver which can result in liver failure and sudden death at basically any moment! Which is part of why it may result in MCD but this time no ghosts! maybe it’ll be h/c with whump elements or maybe it’ll be whump with h/c elements we can’t know for sure

#ayri writes #tw drug mention

7 notes · View notes

mediaeval-muse · 5 years ago

Text

Book Review

Unveiled by Courtney Milan. Ontario: HQN Books, 2011.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, #1 of 4 in the Turner Series

Summary: Ash Turner has waited a lifetime to seek revenge on the man who ruined his family - and now the time for justice has arrived. At Parford Manor, he intends to take his place as the rightful heir to the dukedom and settle an old score with the current duke once and for all. But instead he finds himself drawn to a tempting beauty who has the power to undo all his dreams of vengeance…. Lady Margaret knows she should despise the man who's stolen her fortune and her father's legacy - the man she's been ordered to spy on in the guise of a nurse. Yet the more she learns about the new duke, the less she can resist his smoldering appeal. Soon Margaret and Ash find themselves torn between old loyalties - and the tantalizing promise of passion…

***Full review under the cut.***

Trigger Warnings: sexual content; mentions of abuse, homelessness, dubious consent, and bullying

Overview: Surprise, surprise, I’m reading another Courtney Milan book. I previously read Unraveled, which is the last book in the Turner Series, so I’m a bit out of order. BUT I’m going back and reading the books I skipped, so be on the lookout for more reviews. Unveiled is delightful in the way that many of Milan’s books are - complicated social obstacles, characters that feel distinct, and an overall arc about accepting oneself and finding a voice. I had an immensely good time reading it, and my complaints have mostly to do with personal taste.

Writing: I really love the way Milan writes so cleanly and effortlessly. Her prose has that nice quality of seeming plain and straightforward, but when compared to other styles, it’s clear that she puts a lot of effort into her craft. She also strikes a nice balance between showing and telling in Unveiled, holding back on a lot of explanations and instead letting a lot of things come to light through her characters’ actions. At no point did I feel like backstory was just being told to me without there being some way it was also shown to me. The only complaint I really have is the pacing towards the end. My edition is 378 pages long, so I understand not wanting to add any more material, but as a reader, I think I would have enjoyed end to be drawn out a little more so that the level of detail is the same as throughout the rest of the book.

Plot: Unveiled uses some familiar romance tropes: disguised identity, questions of inheritance and legitimacy, enemies to lovers, etc. At no point, however, did I feel like I was uninvested; Milan carefully crafts her story so that nothing felt like it was thrown in arbitrarily. In most of her books, but especially this one, Milan is very good at balancing her tropes to create genuine tension - nothing can be easily solved by characters just talking to one another, and there are consequences for everything. For example, our heroine, Margaret, is disguising her identity, but she can’t just reveal who she is and get her happily ever after. Likewise, our hero, Ash, can’t just cathartically pursue revenge - his actions have consequences that affect innocent people. As a result, I was eager to keep reading to see how the tangle of the plot would play out. Something I also really like about many of Milan’s books is that the plot also revolves around empowering women in ways other than through their desire. In Unveiled, the main arc for Ash and Margaret is about learning to see people for who they truly are and recognize their inherent worth, regardless of social standing. It gives the plot a little more emotional weight and can we woven into the romance or into the other parts of the narrative. I think it’s really smart, and I enjoy reading Milan’s books because of that.

Characters: Our heroine, Margaret, is extremely likable for her take-no-crap attitude and sharp tongue. Part of it stems from her hurt and frustration at her situation - she’s been legally declared illegitimate, so her family’s name has been tarnished - but part of her attitude also comes from an inner strength that I admired. Margaret is also fiercely loyal in a way that is challenged throughout the book, which I found enjoyable because it means she goes through some character evolution, learning who is worth being loyal to and who isn’t, based on character rather than blood. Ash, our hero, is likewise interesting to read because he has some hidden insecurities. At first, he’s all confidence and charisma, and like Margaret, is fiercely loyal to his family. However, there’s a distinct gulf between him and his brothers, which stems from a traumatic past involving his leaving them in the care of a mentally unstable mother. He spends a lot of time grappling with that guilt and trying to make up for it financially, and though his brothers bear him no blame, it was fascinating to see how their experiences caused a rift in the family. Because of this rift, there was an interesting dynamic between Ash and his brother, Mark. Because Ash was so focused on supporting his family financially, he didn’t receive a proper education. Mark, on the other hand, attends school thanks to Ash’s efforts, so there’s an interesting commentary on educated vs “uneducated” members of society, elite vs working class, etc. This dynamic plays out in interactions with other characters, too, from the household staff to the House of Lords, making everything feel purposeful. The main things I didn’t like involved Ash’s possessiveness. When Ash first sees Margaret, he tells his brother that she’s his to seduce, which I found a little aggressive for a first meeting. Luckily, Ash isn’t in it for sex alone, but I still dislike it when heroes see a woman and their first thought is about lust. Towards the end, Ash’s confidence and strength of will also became a little possessive. I was a tad bit uncomfortable in the way he ruthlessly pursued his goals regarding Margaret, though he does make up for it in the end. Other readers might not find it to be a problem - it wasn’t toxic, by any means. I just don’t like possessiveness in my heroes.

Romance: I’m a sucker for a good enemies-to-lovers romance, so I found Ash and Margaret’s story to be just the thing I needed to entertain myself during Covid-19. Despite his goal to seduce her, Ash never pressured Margaret into sleeping with him and allowed Margaret to make choices regarding how intimate their relationship became. I have a hard time being invested in a romance when male heroes are so driven by lust that things like consent and agency go out the window, so it’s always nice when a male love interest acts like a genuinely caring human being. This “lord seduces his subordinate” trope was nicely paralleled with “self-defense” sessions, in which Mark taught the female staff how to fend off unwanted advances, and Mark’s humorous philosophical pamphlet on male chastity - both of which made for moments between Ash and Margaret elsewhere in the book that deepened their emotional connection.

As far as the sex scenes, I found them to be steamy without being gratuitous. Milan has a talent for not including too many intimate scenes in her books, allowing them to enhance the story rather than be the focus itself. The same is true in Unveiled; Ash and Margaret have enough moments where readers looking for graphic content will be satisfied, but doesn’t let them distract from the emotional arcs of her characters, nor the overall, non-romance plot.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in historical romance (especially set in the early-mid 19th century), enemies to lovers, concealed identities, questions of inheritance and legitimacy, and the function of social class.

#book reviews

1 note · View note

elenajohansenreads · 5 years ago

Photo

Books I Read in 2019

#101 - Blackout, by Mira Grant

Virtual Mount TBR (31/48)

Rating: 2/5 stars

[spoiler heavy. heavier than usual for my reviews, anyway. please read at your own risk.]

You'd think, when one of my major complaints about Deadline was that I didn't care for Shaun's narration, the reintroduction of Georgia to the mix would make this a better book, and it does in some ways. But not enough. While this does fix some of my issues with the second book, there are enough new problems that on the whole, I'm pretty damn disappointed. The narrative style, no matter who's talking, remains incredibly repetitive. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't in Feed, only that I probably didn't notice it as much because I was so drawn in by the shiny new world-building so I gulped down every word without complaint. But there's nothing new here in that regard. Some of the rules of the world have changed over the course of the story, because medical research keeps dropping in their laps at every turn, but I didn't find any of it as fascinating at the original setup. This book isn't about zombies, it's about the world that living with zombies created, and the political conspiracies surrounding that, and that just got old after a while. Let me break that down a bit. I was impressed, back in Feed, with Grant's extrapolation of what American government would become in response to the crisis. I saw parallels to the non-zombie surveillance state we're approaching (or are already in, depending on where in the country you live, how much technology you're surrounded by, and how paranoid your perception of your environment is. That's not a argument I want to have through this review, though.) I was impressed. By the end of that book, it's clear that, as with most zombie-based media, the zombies aren't the point. They're a condition of the world that causes other things to happen, and they get progressively less interesting and less important as the story goes on. Blackout doesn't do this differently. The entire plot is a lather, rinse, repeat cycle of Something Important Happens which then gives our heroes information the government doesn't want them to have or share, then the conspiracy engineers a zombie outbreak to put our heroes in harm's way so hopefully they get killed, either by the zombies or by the cleanup to suppress the zombies. Sometimes the outbreak is just a few scientists in a lab, sometimes it takes out a city, sometimes it takes out Florida, because why not? Why not destroy an entire state to prove just how serious this conspiracy is? (Yeah, so that was a mistake in planning on the conspiracy's part, but not on the author's. If the stakes are that huge, why did I not feel more invested, like I did back in Feed?) I won't say the conspiracy itself was fully predictable, though I'd guessed some of its parameters. But the plot structure was incredibly predictable. Coupled with the insane amounts of repetition (Shaun still has to constantly remark on his craziness, the cans of Coke, every blood test has to be shown and always uses the same language to describe it, and so forth) I found myself skimming a lot of the non-dialogue, especially in the second half of the book, especially in Shaun's chapters. If I ever ran into anything that confused me, I paged back until I found what explained it, but I feel like I have a good handle on the story now that I've finished. And I'm just not particularly impressed with the payoff. It felt anticlimactic, honestly. It shouldn't--I understand the importance of the themes involved and the choices made, and in summary, it's a great ending. But I didn't feel it while I was reading. It took too long to get here, and I had to wade through too much crap on the way. I didn't feel much when a character died near the end, because developing side characters has never been a strength of this series, it's all the Shaun and Georgia show. I can appreciate seeing the return of key figures we haven't seen much of since Feed--the Masons, Rick, Ryman--but they're still essentially bit players, and the moral conflicts their appearances create are brushed past really, really quickly. The best parts of the book, to me, were Georgia's chapters in the first half, before her escape from captivity, only I didn't fully appreciate that at the time because I was so impatient for her reunion with Shaun. Which led to the plot twist that I hadn't predicted, because who goes there? Even though I know, intellectually, that it's not incest, and that it explains so much, I couldn't find myself fully on board with them being a couple. Not because of the faux-incest moral quandary I might have been suffering, but because of those very anomalies in their relationship that the story has spent two and a half books skirting around. We've had the pleasure of living inside both Shaun and Georgia's heads for over a thousand pages at that point, and neither of them ever thought about this until now? It's simply not creditable. Yes, they were keeping their relationship secret from those around them. Yes, they never wrote anything pertaining to it down. BUT WE THE READERS HAD ACCESS TO THEIR INNER LIVES AND WE STILL WEREN'T EVER TOLD? Sitting on that for two and a half books just to make it a big reveal was ridiculous. The first book had so little relating to romance or sex in it, I was wondering if Shaun, Georgia, or both weren't intended to be read as asexual (or aromantic, or both.) Shaun's one-night stand with Becks in the second book made me wonder where on earth he'd gotten any sexual experience at all, because as far as I knew he was a virgin, since the narrative had never taken the time to explain that he might have been having casual sex with random women in his younger years or anything similar, but also never hinted he was sleeping with his "sister." Hindsight now shows me all those anomalies were leading to this revelation, but when I look at them together, my brain doesn't go "okay, so it's incest," it still says "these two simply aren't interested in romantic or sexual relationships because their unusual upbringing pair-bonded them as co-dependent siblings instead" and I think I can be forgiven for not spinning that myself into the faux-incest, what Georgia later claims is close to an obvious taboo, when she reflects on how almost no one figured it out. I HAD ACCESS TO YOUR INNER LIVES FOR A THOUSAND PAGES AND I DIDN'T FIGURE IT OUT. HOW COULD YOUR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES POSSIBLY HAVE DONE IT? I honestly think this twist is a real failure of storytelling. Even though I didn't figure it out beforehand, when it was revealed, I didn't smack my forehead and go "Of course!" I was still pretty much, "huh?" about it, and if that's honestly the lay of the land, the story Grant wanted to tell, I would have been much more interested in knowing from the start and watching the two of them struggle to find time for each other while both keeping it a secret under dire circumstances and also trying to save the world from the zombie-government conspiracy. I truly think that would have been a much more engaging story, with another layer of conflict that would make the stakes more personal.

#booklr #book review #blackout #mira grant #newsflesh series #book photography #my photos #my reading challenges #vmtbr 2019

1 note · View note

bookaddict24-7 · 6 years ago

Photo

MUSIC MONDAYS...Negative review?!

A series where I read a book, review it, and create a short playlist to give a sense of what the book is about.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS BOOK: The mention of Sexual Abuse, Physical Abuse, Self-harm, Eating Disorders.

If you don’t have a strong stomach, read this book with caution.

This review contains spoilers.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

I’m not kidding, spoilers.

(Had to remove the keep reading option because it doesn’t show up on my blog 😤)

Hey, look! It’s me! Writing a review. Wow, miracles, huh?

This is both intimidating and exciting (excuse me while I brush off the cobwebs).

Rin, the protagonist, is a war orphan who’s been promised to a much older man of power in her small village, prompting her to find a way out. Through self-torture and dedication, she achieves one of the highest honours a young student can receive: she is accepted into the best school in the country. But her troubles are only just beginning. While facing wealthy bullies and biases based on where she’s come from, Rin has to work just a bit harder than everyone else to be noticed. When war breaks out, Rin is forced to discover that she isn’t who she thought she was and her quest for power over the enemy might just lead her down roads she never thought were possible.

The Poppy War was, in my opinion, one of the most hyped up books of 2018. I was hearing only good things and every time a booktuber mentioned it, it was with a large dose of compliments. While I did, for the most part, enjoy this book, I don’t think it’s particular worth the amount of hype it received. The problem with hype is that it raises the bar for expectations and I am not a fan of raised expectations.

If I absolutely had to hype up a part of this novel, it would be the first part...and half of Part Two. Rin, while not perfect, was someone who strived for success. She saw a goal and reached for it. Though her methods were highly questionable and problematic (...and seemingly forgotten as the rest of the novel continued after Part Three?), her work ethic was commendable. Though Trigger Warning for eating disorders and self-harm.

Part One was her setting herself goals and crushing them. Part One was exciting and I found myself constantly rooting for her. Part One was a thrill because it had so many aspects of what I love about fantasy novels: excitement, kickass characters proving their enemies wrong, and a growth of character that gave the protagonist a reason for me to root for her.

Then came the second half of Part Two.

Okay, Rin changed. Or, better yet, I became aware of the person Rin was. I feel, even now, like I was catfished by part one. I saw the clues that Rin wasn’t who I thought she was, but I paid no attention. I had painted Rin in one way in my mind so really, it’s my fault.

And here’s the thing: this doesn’t make this a bad book. No, this is a really well-written book with a shit ton of setup for the rest of the series (which I will mention in a few paragraphs). I was just...disappointed that Rin wasn’t who I thought she was. Rin has a lot of growing to do and it wasn’t fair for me to expect her to grow to the point of changing her personality in only the first book. But this Rin I didn’t realize existed has made me question whether I want to read the rest of the series or not.

Anti-heroes exist and when done, they’re fantastic. Not every character is supposed to crap out rainbows. But the issue I had with Rin and the way Kuang presented her, which is the major reason why this book doesn’t get a higher star rating from me, is that she just becomes this awful person with such little prodding.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, MY FRIENDS:

There is physical abuse in here and it is basically shrugged off by Rin. Shrugged off. Sure, she says F*ck You, but all is forgotten by the next couple of chapters.

The mention of periods is awesome but Rin makes a choice so quickly that it made me question who this character really was. Everyone has a right to their body, but to make such an incredible choice with barely a thought feels like it’s also an attack on those other female characters who chose not to do the same thing?

The decisions made by Rin have little to no thought behind them and contradict everything that the author had written and introduced beforehand--as if the prior two to three hundred pages of relationship growth meant nothing.

Also, friends who died are hardly mourned or mentioned after the fact. It’s just so heartless to see her be like this towards people we grew attached to (and who we assume she’s grown attached to as well)

Okay, I’m probably going too deep with this right now.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT ENDS, FRIENDS.

One other negative thing I want to discuss is Part Three. To be honest, from the very beginning, The Poppy War was clearly a Fantasy novel with violence and abuse. I didn’t have a problem with that because in Rin’s world, that was just the way of life. But then Part Three happened.

Part Three.

There was gratuitous violence, abuse, and it just read like a completely different book. Look, I’m cool with books that have that sort of thing because war is disgusting and breeds monsters, but when a book suddenly mentions the killing of babies and how they were killed, or the overly descriptive way that women are abused, my stomach is officially done. I will forever refer to Part Three in capital letters when referring to this book. It was disgusting, a poor way of going about the cruelty portrayed in that situation, and honestly, it’s a missed opportunity to show us rather than telling us what the characters saw in such a detailed and detached manner.

To a certain degree, it almost felt like the author was going down a list of the awfully creative ways she could kill off people.

That whole Part made my interest in this book plummet. Not only did Rin become intolerable in this Part of the novel, but it felt like the writing style completely changed. In an attempt to be different, this book basically burned the connection I had previously formed with the story.

Okay, that massive topic of Rin put aside and the horribleness of Part Three behind me, there were things I quite enjoyed about The Poppy War. The plot is actually pretty interesting and well done. The ruling system, though at times confusing, is complex enough to create intrigue. Which leader is against which leader? Who’s kid is that? Which house does what?

The Gods and what they offer is another cool part of this story. I loved reading the mythology and seeing how Kuang drew from Asian history and culture to give her story more life.

Despite Rin and Part Three, the writing is masterful and I can see why there’s so much positive buzz over this book. The world and story is written in such a way that you know the small details in book one will affect the rest of the series. There were a few moments where I geeked out to my friends (who were doing a book club read with me) with my theories and what every little hint meant for Rin’s story.

You might be asking yourself, why did she not rate it lower? You might not be asking yourself that, but I want to explain anyway:

The first two and a half parts of the novel. Also, the foreshadowing was really well done...even if it didn’t really lead anywhere in this book, I have a feeling these hints will pop up in the future.

If the book had ended before Part Three, this would have been a 4-star read, easily. But my disappointment in where the story went just completely shattered this for me. It makes me sad that I can’t dance in the happiness that other readers seem to share for this book. I wish I could just enjoy Rin for who she is and not have formed some warped idea of who I thought she was so early on.

I wish I wasn’t in the unpopular opinions club of thinking this book was just okay, bordering on disturbing near the end.

To be honest, when I sat down to write this review, I didn’t expect to have so many negative things to say. I thought, maybe I’ll say a couple of negative things and continue to the playlist. But wow, no. I apparently had a lot on my mind.

The Poppy War isn’t an awful book. There are good reasons for why people love it. It just wasn’t a book for me and I’m okay with that.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5/5

Age Recommendation: 17+

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Add it to your Goodreads here.

See the playlist on Spotify here.

The Playlist:

Though I wasn’t a fan of the book, I still created a book playlist because I was initially going to write a more positive review. BUT it’s also fun to create playlists for books, whether I enjoyed the book or not.

A Lannister Always Pays His Debts by Ramin Djawadi

Heart of Courage by Thomas Bergersen

Immigration Song by Led Zeppelin

Light of the Seven by Ramin Djawadi

Requiem Mass in D Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I Give You Power--Instrumental by Arcade Fire

Omens in the Clouds by Brad Derrick

Have you read this book yet? Would you recommend it?

Happy reading!

5 notes · View notes

sassycassie-s-writing · 6 years ago

Text

To Be Happy - Optional Epilogue

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC, BatFam, SuperFam - Jason Todd/Red Hood & Conner Kent/Kon-El/Superboy

Rating: PG-11/T-

Original Idea: Part 1 Summer, Part 2 Autumn, Part 3 Winter, Part 4 Spring, Part 5 Summer (Fin)

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) @welovegroot practically begged me to let Starbeam end up with Jason in the end because apparently the relationship drama of the rest of this story wasn’t enough. XD If you liked the ending as it was, you don’t have to consider this “canon.” Also this one is long so there’s a Keep Reading option.

^^^^^

November 14, 4:27PM

Jason put his hand to his side. His glove came away bloody. He swore under his breath. “That's more serious than I thought,” he grumbled. He looked up through blurring vision. Where even was he? Where had the mission spat him out?

Was that...? Was that Mt. Justice?

He stumbled toward the looming mountain, blinking hard and losing consciousness. Before he could drop, he pressed the comm-link on the side of his helmet. “Call Starbeam,” he ordered the voice command AI.

“Calling Starbeam...” It rang for a few moments.

“Hello?”

Oh Hera. It was her.

“Stars,” he rasped. “I... I need your help. I'm close to the mountain. I... I'm losing a lot of blood.”

“Oh my gosh. Jason?!”

“That's me,” he mumbled.

“Oh crap. I'll be right out. Stay on the line. I'll have Robin trace the call. Hold on Jason. I'll be right there!”

“Stars... I still... love you...”

Jason listed forward and fell face-first onto the pavement.

^^^^^

November 16, 8:41AM

He came to in an unfamiliar place. Not the mountain. A small apartment. His wound was bandaged, and the top half of his suit was draped over a nearby armchair, along with his leather jacket and helmet. He felt better. More rested than he’d been in a while. When he’d fallen his nose hit the inside of his helmet and started bleeding. Someone, presumably Starbeam, had cleaned him up.

Thud. Jason froze. He could hear movement—and then talking.

“—he doing here, Stars?” That was Kon's voice.

“He was bleeding out on the pavement, Kon. What did you expect me to do? Leave him there to die?”

“No. But maybe you could have… I dunno… not brought him here? He's a killer, babe. He's not the Jason you remember.”

“He's still Jason,” Stars insisted. “And he's one of my oldest friends!”

“He’s a murderer! Did you hear what he did in Gotham? Eight decapitated heads in a duffel bag!”

“Imagine if you died and got dragged back to life, Conner,” Stars said. “What if he didn’t want to come back? He has plenty of reasons to be angry. But he doesn’t have anyone else to turn to and he needs help.”

“Did it ever occur to you that he came back to help us with the warehouse and then returned now because he’s trying to win you over?”

“Of course it did. But this is Jason we’re talking about, Kon. One of my best friends. He’s not pursuing me.”

“You don’t know that for certain. Who says he’s not trying to tear us apart?”

“Don’t be unreasonable, Conner. You don’t know him as well as I do.”

“As well as you did,” Conner returned sharply. “He’s not the same!”

“I'm not going to stand here and argue with you about the philosophy of coming back to life when neither of us have done that,” Starbeam retorted. “Jason was a good kid who was trying his best with what he had to work with. We’ve all had crappy lives and he’s not the only one to lash out because of it. Very little in this life could be considered worse than dying and coming back to life and digging yourself out of your own grave.”

“Wait,” Conner said. “He’s awake.”

Jason heard Stars take a deep breath and emerge from the bedroom where they’d been arguing.

“Hey Jay,” she greeted, approaching the back of the couch and resting her knuckles on the back cushions. “Gave me a good scare there. I found you bleeding out on the pavement and on the brink of death.”

Conner left the bedroom a moment after, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. He stayed silent.

“How are you feeling?” Starbeam asked quietly. “Does it hurt anywhere?”

“Surprisingly no,” Jason said. “What’d you give me?”

She shrugged. “Nothing special. Some mild painkillers. We don’t keep heavy-duty ones here. Do you mind if I…?” She nodded to his injury.

“Go ahead.” He shifted as she circled the sofa to the front and peeked under the bandaging.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s healing really well. You bats never fail to surprise me.”

Jason grunted and adjusted his position. “It’s a side-effect of the Lazarus Pit. After the Madness faded I still heal pretty fast.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Starbeam remarked, fixing his bandage.

“Long story. Listen. Thank you for helping me. I just… I didn’t know… who else I could turn to. Dunno if you’ve noticed but I don’t have many allies at the moment,” he said.

Kon scoffed. “Whose fault is that?”

“Kon,” Starbeam warned. She gave Jason a soft look. “Ignore him. He’s just worried. And he has every right to be but I know you better than that.”

“You did,” Conner grumbled.

Starbeam straightened up and gave her boyfriend a Look. “We’re not having this conversation anymore, Conner,” she said with her hands on her hips. “It’s rude to argue in front of guests.”

Another scoff from Kon. “He’s not a guest, Starry. He’s a threat.”

“Conner!” Starbeam snapped. “Babe, I love you, but you have got to chill.”

Jason’s wound throbbed as his heart ached hearing her love someone else. That crush from his adolescence never went away, that much was certain. He winced and put his hand over his injury but stayed silent.

Conner’s jaw was set and his arms were still folded, but Starbeam wasn’t at all afraid of him. She’d never been afraid of anyone on the team. Jason had always admired that. Surrounded by dangerous and powerful kids, she’d started shy but unafraid. She stood her ground against all of Kon’s most livid outbursts when Jason was Robin and wasn’t backing down now.

^^^^^

Kon glared at me. “Why can’t you see that he’s dangerous?” he asked sharply.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “We’re all dangerous. You get used to it after a while. And Jason is nothing I can’t handle.” I glanced down at Jason on the couch. He was watching Conner and I talk like it was a tennis match.

“Remember the duffel bag full of heads?” Conner reminded me.

I rolled my eyes. “You won’t let me forget it.”

“Then why are you helping him?”

“Because he’s my friend!”

“Well your friend is tearing this—” He pointed between himself and me. “—apart at the seams. I don’t trust him and I don’t understand why you do.”

“Jason won’t hurt us,” I said quietly. “That’s why I trust him.”

“No,” Kon snapped. “He won’t hurt you and you know it, because he’s still in love with you. The rest of the team, though? I have no doubt that he’d mow them down without a second’s hesitation if he felt threatened by them or thought they were in his way. Even Nightwing. He’d take out his own brother.”

Jason opened his mouth as though to say something, thought for a moment, and closed it again.

Just as well because Kon shot him a glare that could stop a ravenous animal in its tracks. His glares were scary, even if they weren’t as bad as that one time Batman glared at me for being disobedient to something.

Kon took a deep breath and leveled his gaze at me. “So. Choose, Stars. Stay friends with him, or stay with me. I can’t trust him and refuse to expose the team to him.”

“Kon it’s not as simple as choosing sides. Jason is my friend but I still love you. I don’t want to choose between one or the other because you’re paranoid that something bad will happen,” I argued.

“He is a criminal, Starbeam!” Conner exploded. “And if you want to still hang out with him, you’re going to have to choose. Or I’ll choose for you.”

My expression went slack. “Kon. Babe. Think about this. Don’t be irrational. Everything’s fine. I helped him because he called me when he was in the act of dying. And because he’s my friend and has been since we were fifteen. We don’t have to get this extreme because of this. Just… think for a moment.”

“Babe. If you want to keep being friends with a criminal, I can’t… I can’t. I just can’t.” He went over to the living room window and pulled it open. “So. Make a decision. Decide where your loyalties are. I’ll be back later.”

He flew out.

“Yikes. Has he always been like that to you?” Jason asked.

I sighed and plopped onto the loveseat next to the couch, burying my face in my hands. “No,” I said. “We’ve been together for four years, Jason. Four. Years. I know him better than I know myself. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“I do,” Jason said.

I looked up from my hands. “Oh yeah?” I challenged.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me. The thought of me has gotten under his skin. A mixture of somewhat-justified righteousness and jealousy. I heard you two in your room. Asking if I came back to the warehouse and the harbor to win you over. I didn’t, by the way. Thought about it before the warehouse, I’ll admit, but I always just wanted you to be happy. Even if it meant not with me.”

Slowly, he moved to climb off the couch. His movements were ginger and he winced several times.

I got up and helped him to his feet. “Thanks, Stars. For… everything,” he said. Standing so close to me, I could see a ring of green around the pupil of his blue irises. Those weren’t there before. Or if they were I’d never noticed.

My breathing was heavy from pulling him to his feet—he was significantly bigger than he’d been as Robin—and I couldn’t help but stare at him for a moment. He’d grown into a handsome young man. I took a deep breath to steady myself and gave him an awkward grin. “You’re welcome, Jason. I'm… I'm sorry about Kon.”

He shrugged. “Never liked me anyway.” I helped him into the top half of his suit. “Hey, so, listen Stars. How about you come with me? Get away from this town for a little while. Give your big scary boyfriend some time to chill out.” He shrugged into his brown leather jacket and picked up his helmet. “Can’t guarantee it’ll be as exciting as living this close to Mt. Justice and the team but… I guarantee that we can still get into all kinds of shenanigans.”

“Jason I can’t condone the things you’ve done.”

“But I'm done with them. I was bent on revenge but once I got over that I… What I’ve done is inexcusable. I know that. Maybe what I'm really asking is for you to come keep me in check. Because I know I wouldn’t listen to… anyone else.” He gave me a smirk. “You wouldn’t even have to tell Conner that’s where you went. Just say you want to go find yourself or something and meet me in National City.”

“He’ll know,” I said. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t listening to this right now.”

“Doubt it. He’s too frustrated.”

I bit my lip and glanced at the open living room window where Conner had flown out. Then I looked back at Jason, who was giving me the crooked smile he always gave me when convincing me to sneak out of the mountain and make mischief. He pulled his gloves on and offered me his hand.

“Whaddaya say, Stars? Wanna live a little? See who you are away from this team? Away from him?”

I took a deep breath, thinking about it. The glint of playfulness in Jason’s eyes was almost green. It was an inviting look. I almost wanted to grab his hand and run away from everything with him. Get away from whatever was plaguing Kon… try to survive on my own… only come back when I missed the team…

I grabbed his hand. “Let’s go,” I said.

“Pack your suit. I guarantee you’ll need it.”

^^^^^

Approximately Eight Months Later…

^^^^^

July 7, 10:26AM

Jason took my hand. “Race ya to the rocks!” he said. I laughed. If he was holding my hand then it wasn’t really a race. He just wanted to make it sound like a competition.

We both kicked off our shoes and ran down the beach, hanging onto each other so I didn’t fall behind. I hadn’t grown since before he and I met but he certainly had. He was bigger and taller than Nightwing and his legs were so long there was no way I’d be able to keep up.

Our free hands slammed into the rock at the same time. A wave rushed up the beach and soaked our bare feet. We both laughed.

Then stopped.

I licked the sea salt off my lower lip and glanced up at him to find he was already staring at me.

It felt like the year I crushed on Kon all over again. Charged looks and moments where the atmosphere is so tense I could cut it with a rusty spoon. Kon and I had never officially broken up but… I doubted we could be considered a couple at this point. I hadn’t been back to Mt. Justice in ages and Red Hood and Starbeam had kept out of the news so no one knew where to look for us.

“Jay…” I began. “I…” I shook my head. “Screw it. I'm falling for you. Hard.” I cradled his neck with my hands and brought it down to me. He closed his eyes. I did too. We sealed our lips together.

It only lasted a moment before we were running out of the way of a wave crashing up the beach, squealing and cackling as our trousers got wet.

“Stars?” Jason asked, hand resting on my forearm and sliding down to my hand. “You alright?”

I couldn’t help but snort bitterly. “You always could tell when something was bothering me when no one else could. Not even Conner.” I sighed. “Kon and I talked about getting married once,” I said. “We were together for four and a half years. Figured if we still were together for five, we could make it through anything. We’d be old enough to get married. After you died we never counted on something being able to break us apart. Now I'm falling for my best friend and… I almost feel guilty. Four and a half years.

“For the first month I traveled with you I thought every day of going home to Mt. Justice. Play the ‘kiss and make up’ game with Kon. Maybe get back on track. Apologize for our fight. And then I… I never could. I couldn’t leave you. Then I… I found myself falling for you so intensely that I definitely couldn’t go back to Mt. Justice and I didn’t want to.”

“And now?” Jason prompted.

“Now I want to stay with you through everything. As both my best friend and the current subject of my feelings.”

“Stars, you’ve been the subject of my feelings since I was fifteen. If you’ll have me, I’ll be with you through everything too.”

“I’ll have you, Jason. All of you.”

He bent down and kissed me. I kissed him back enthusiastically. “I love you, Starbeam,” Jason whispered. “I’ve waited years to say that again.”

“And now you can have the feeling returned. I love you, Red Hood,” I replied.

#To Be Happy Epilogue #To Be Happy #Epilogue #Jason Todd #Jason Todd Imagine #Jason Todd FanFiction #Red Hood #Red Hood Imagine #Red Hood FanFiction #DC #DC Imagine #DC FanFiction #Conner Kent #Conner Kent Imagine #Conner Kent FanFiction #Superboy #Superboy Imagine #Superboy FanFiction #Kon-El

17 notes · View notes

weakeninghope · 6 years ago

Text

Kiss me (whispering words of love) chapter 2

Pairing: Ash Lynx/Eiji Okumura

Rating: Teen

AO3 link here

Summary: Eiji and Ash meet to talk about Eiji's pictures and end up talking about everything but Eiji's pictures.Or: their first "date-not-a-date"

Notes: "It'll be up this week" I said, replying a comment todayhahahello I'm back! your local authour is way too anxious and is in love with this project and wants to write as much as possible about it! I'm really excited about sharing it with you guys and I really want to thank you for your support in last chapter, I'm really glad you like this idea <3 and stay tuned, there next open mic night is next chapter! We'll have another round of Sing vs The Stool, make your bets.See you next chapter <3Song referenced is Light your heart up by Aimee Blackschleger! (or Mako's theme from Kill la Kill) I think it really suits Eiji

new chapter under the cut!

Despite having come home late that night -for a good reason though- Eiji woke up at 8AM. He had been taking a lot of naps frequently, going to sleep at 4AM and waking up at noon; but that time he woke up instantly, Ash being the first thing in his mind. That night, he dreamed about his song. He dreamed about the two of them, together, holding each other in a secret place only they knew about.

Get a grip on yourself, Eiji.

Has he texted me yet? Eiji thought as he grabbed his phone from the nightstand, since he was still in the bed.

He hadn't. The last message was from Eiji himself, a reply to Ash's “see you tomorrow at 5PM, Mr.Photographer, don't forget the camera ;)”. It took Eiji a few minutes to prepare himself to write an answer. He had imagined Ash winking and his mind had crashed like his old computer would do every time he wanted to use it. In the end, he settled for a “I sure won't, Mr Fancy Singer.”.

Seconds after hitting the “send” button Eiji had already felt embarrassed. Was that too bold? Ash hadn't answered what if he was angry or if that was a joke and he wasn't interested in meeting Eiji at all? What if-

Ibe's coughs broke the turmoil in Eiji's mind. He was still pretty sick and even though he slept well through the night, he woke up a few times, feeling congested and with a runny nose. Eiji didn't mind taking care of him but the other way around; he liked being useful to his boss and most importantly, his friend.

Ibe had helped him to cope with his feelings. Ibe brought him there.

It was thanks to Ibe that he was going to have a d- to meet with Ash that afternoon.

“Ei-chan, I see you're up.” Ibe-san said in between a few dry coughs. “How was yesterday night?”

“It was nice” Eiji said as he got out of bed, stretched his arms and then yawned a little. “But we can talk about it later, I'll change your towel for now and make breakfast, you just rest, okay?” Eiji gently told his boss as he approached him and replaced the old towel with a new, fresh one. The cool feeling of the towel would make Ibe-san's burning forehead feel better.

“I'd like to see the pictures you've taken.” Ibe-san said, gently smiling at Eiji. A snort escaped the Japanese's lips when he remembered Cain the pop-star, the shorty rivaling a stool, the glaring snake and...

Ash.

He blushed when he came to his mind. He looked at the time. 8:30 in the morning. Still no response.

“What's so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing. It was just a particularly special night. I'll tell you when you're better, now rest.”

After that, Ibe-san complied and didn't say anything else as Eiji went to the kitchen to start preparing some Japanase food they both loved for breakfast. He decided to stick with some natto, but he also cooked a porridge for Ibe-san to eat. He made extra natto for himself, he loved it way too much, and it was healthier than all the greasy American food they sold there.

The morning went by slowly for Eiji, since he was checking the phone every 5 minutes to see if Ash had replied, even if he had the sound on and would notice if someone talked to him anyway.

Until a few hours later, when Eiji was getting ready to cook lunch, he heard the phone.

It was a text from Ash.

Eiji's heart was beating fast in his chest, and it did even more when he read the text.

“Sorry, I crashed into the bed and I've just woken up. See you in a few hours.” it said. Eiji exhaled a sigh of relief. He wasn't angry after all, his anxiety disappeared with one simple text.

Eiji carefully typed his reply “At least you're up now, don't be late!! :D” Eiji wondered if the emoji was too stupid but he would come off as rude or too demanding without it, he just hoped for Ash not to think something weird-

“I certainly won't” was Ash's replying text.

Why was he so smooth even by text? How was Eiji supposed to compete with that?

Never mind. He had to make lunch, to eat, to dress up and to mentally prepare himself about meeting Ash. He felt like a middle-schooler thinking about their first crush.

Okay maybe when he met Ash and when he heard him the world stopped and his heart was beating fast and for a few seconds he couldn't even take a picture because he wanted this memory to be his and his alone and wanted to capture it with his eyes instead of using the camera and-

Okay, he totally had a crush on Ash, but that was okay, people have crushes, it doesn't have to be mutual.

But what if it was mutual?

Eiji combusted again, and time flied until he had to dress himself up for the meeting. He told Ibe-san he was off to show some pictures to one of the singers (which was half true, but he hoped that Ash said that as an excuse to meet him).then grabbed the camera and left the apartment, the cafe was around the corner so he was sure he wouldn't be late.

The Japanese dressed himself up as he usually did, nothing fancy, he didn't want a lit sign in his forehead saying “I'm trying to impress my crush”, but he dressed up pretty okay so he figured out nothing would happen if he didn't choose any special clothing.

He regretted his choices later when he saw Ash. When Eiji arrived, the blond was already there. Ash was sitting at the background of the establishment, and there were only 4 people, so they were pretty much alone. He was wearing a plaid, green shirt which was a little bit oversized, but you could see his lean, noticeable collarbones, a pair of slightly ripped jeans and red Converse-like shoes.

There he was, dressed up like a street kid and looking handsome as hell.

Ash made a sign with his hand as Eiji got closer to the table and then he said “Here, Eiji.” soothingly.

Wait. How did he even know his name?

“Hello, singer who apparently knows my name even though I didn't tell you.” Eiji replied.

“Shorter told me. We're friends, in fact, I sang yesterday because he was pretty insistent about my good singing voice.”

“Well, he is right” More than right

“So you liked my performance?” Ash asked in a sing-song tone. “You asked me that yesterday.” Eiji said, but he didn't mind answering Ash's question again because even if asked a million times, he would always say the same “I loved it.”

“That's good to know.” Ash said “But you didn't throw money in the hat” Ash finished in a fake retort.

Shoot! The hat! In those kind of events, there's always this “pass the hat” thing where you throw donations for the singers if you liked their performance, but Eiji was way too distracted and ended up forgetting about it...

“You're right, I'm so sorry! I was so distracted with taking the pictures that the idea didn't even cross my mind... I can make it up to you by treating you to what you want to drink or eat here, though.” Eiji apologized.

“Well, if you insist, Eiji.” Eiji gulped at how his name sounded in Ash's voice “I won't refuse your offer” He said.

“So what brought you here?” He continued.

“Well... I don't know if Shorter told you, but my boss is sick and I came here in his stead to take the job. Even though I didn't manage it as I thought I would. The kid battling a stool was... beyond my expectations” A muffled laughter accompanied Eiji's response.

“Oh, you mean Sing. It's the first time this place holds this kind of event but every time he comes here with his friends someone has to hold him from kicking the stools near the counter, I figured out this would happen.” Ash explained. God, his voice was amazing, it drew Eiji in, he couldn't stop listening, he couldn't stop staring at his deep, green eyes. He was thoroughly delighted.

“Like what you see?” Ash mockingly asked “Since you staring so much”

“Ah! Sorry, I spaced out hearing you talk... I really like your voice.” Oops. That slipped.

“You like it but you don't give a poor singer like me some money to pay for his expenses, so mean, Eiji...” Ash pouted. Even though Eiji knew it was a joke, Ash's pout was something he wanted to take a picture of. And he had the camera in his bag. God, that was so tempting.

“I told you I forgot!” Eiji half shouted, jockingly.

“Right, right. I know. So why photography?”

Ash looked genuinely interested about Eiji's job and the reasons behind it and Eiji couldn't believe himself. The conversation paused when Shorter came to take note of their orders; Ash ordered a cappuccino and Eiji ordered a green tea. Before leaving, Shorter gave Ash a pat on the back and whispered something to Ash's ear, so Eiji couldn't hear it, and Ash clicked his tongue.

“What was it?” Eiji asked “Do you have to talk to him about something important?” He asked, in spite of Shorter being in the counter already.

“Nah, he was just being a dick. Now tell me.” Ash insisted, a glint of excitement in his beautiful green eyes.

“I used to be a pole-vaulter in Japan but I got injured and everything was over in a second, so my boss took me here with him months ago because he saw I was feeling down. In fact, I got diagnosed with clinical depression after my injury. Pole-vaulting was the only thing I liked, I devoted my life to it, it was the only thing I was useful at and when I was pole-vaulting I felt... like I was flying.” Eiji rambled. Crap! What if Ash got bored?

“I see. I envy you if you know how to fly.”

“I don't anymore. I envy you because you made me fly with your voice. You got rid of my broken wings and I think... I'm stronger now” Eiji gently said. He trusted what he was saying. He meant it. He really meant it and would say it a million times if Ash needed to hear it.

“This wings thing sounds like a song line”

“How did you know it? It isn't even popular. Yes, it's from a song called Light your heart up, it cheered me up a lot when I felt down.”

“You know what?” They paused for a second, Shorter came with their orders and since they were too hot to drink, they continued their little talk “I completely understand what you feel. But I never had wings in the first place. I was born in a cage. My mother left when I was born, my father neglected both myself and my older brother, so when he turned 18, I began living with him. He's a novelist, but he's not having much luck right now with finding an editor so he pretty much does odd jobs, we live in a crappy apartment and I thought I could earn so money if I followed Shorter's idea. I rarely do what Shorter's advises me to, since inside his bald head -I know it surprised you, but yes, he's bald, he shaved his head- there's a lot of ridiculous ideas. But this one was good” Ash explained as one of his hands slipped across the table to clasp Eiji's. “Since I met you.”

Since I met you. Since I met you.

Eiji was left agape, but he intertwined his fingers with Ash's, and at that moment, he decided he wanted to desperately know more about him, he decided that he wanted to listen to his voice without this sad shift in it when he was talking about his past. He had suffered enough already.

“It must have been tough.”

“It was. It is. But I can't do much about it.”

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead”

“Is your real name Ash Lynx?”

“Oh, no. It's a nickname, I actually want to become a singer. I like music, I listen to almost every genre, I like the feeling it conveys and how it makes people feel.” Ash stated with a soft smile. His love for music could be perceived in what Eiji decided was a melody by itself.

“Before you ask me about it” Ash said “It's Aslan. Aslan Jade Callenreese.”

“It sounds like a meaningful name. I like it.”

“Aslan is for “day-break”, it means so in Hebrew, since I was born at dawn. Jade is for the color of my eyes. Nothing special” Ash deadpaned.

“It is more special than Eiji Okumura.” Eiji said, and he added something, feeling bold and rubbing his thumb over Ash- Aslan's hand “And it does you justice, since you're so bright.” However, Eiji couldn't contain the soft blush that appeared in his cheeks, so he turned his head to aside for the other boy not to notice.

“Oh” Aslan raised an eyebrow “Do I light your heart up?” He teasingly asked

“The important question here is if you want me to do so- of if I light yours up” Eiji let go. He didn't know if he wanted an answer. The possibility of a yes set his cheeks ablaze and his heart could be able to beat a mile a minute but the possibility of a no made him feel like something wasn't working; that his wings were, indeed, broken.

“Hey, I'm an amateur singer, not a lightning technician” Ash claimed with a laugh. Another soft sound Eiji would treasure forever.

“Now that you say so, I really worried about your sound technician yesterday, I thought the stool could have hit him”

“Yeah, we all thought so. Shorter too. He started calling him Bones since that moment; Shorter gives nicknames to everyone, you're probably the next in line.” Ash chided while throwing a menacing-not-menacing glare to Shorter, who didn't seem to notice.

“I see.”

“Eiji-”

Ash was interrupted by the loud ring of Eiji's phone. Carefully, he took it out of his bag and answered Ibe-san's phone call. Apparently they had ran out of meds and his fever had gotten a little bit worse and the cafe was already closing and-

Good lord for how many hours had they been talking? It seemed like 5 minutes! They had spent the whole afternoon talking and he discovered a lot of interesting facts about the boy; he was two years younger and was afraid of pumpkins -as ridiculous as it sounded- but that time 5 minutes-likeish was the best time of his last years even though he felt he didn't deserve such a talented angel because Eiji was mediocre and his photos weren't even cool-

“Ei-chan?” He heard Ibe-san weakly ask from the other line of the phone. He had spaced out again. It happened with a lot of frequency, he tended to get lost in his thoughts, intrusive thoughts mostly when something good was happening to him.

Snap out of it, Eiji. Blanca told you that the fact that you even make it out of bed every day is something to be proud of. There's always a path to keep walking on, and you're not alone this time.

“Yes, sorry. I'll be back in a second with what you asked me. Hang in there!” Eiji replied as he hung his phone in a rush.

When he was about to got up from the chair he noticed that he was still holding Aslan's hand and if he wanted to get up he had to let go.

Oh, he didn't want to lot go.

“Got to leave?” Aslan casually asked.

“Yeah. My boss's fever's gotten worse and I've got to go take care for him and Shorter's glaring at us like he wants to kick us out.”

“He's a jerk, don't mind it” Ash said as -unfortunately for Eiji- he let his hand go and got up.

“I'll walk you to the door”.

When they made it out of the cafe they were silent for a minute, neither nothing what to say or what to do. Everything had been so intense; Aslan really felt like Eiji had lit his heart up even if Eiji didn't know it, and Eiji felt so happy he could die.

Or maybe not, because he wanted to meet with Aslan again, so he talked to make up another excuse.

“In the end we spent all the time talking nonsense and I didn't show you the pictures I took of you. Want me to show them to you tomorrow?” Eiji shyly asked. Please say yes. Please say yes.

“Tomorrow is their day off” Aslan pointed at the cafe “But we can meet on Tuesday” He then told Eiji with a soft, gentle, warm smile, as warm as the sun in early autumn's day afternoon, even though they had spent the whole afternoon holed inside a cafe and it was pretty late at that moment.

“And we can keep texting” Eiji said. Ash eyed him curiously “That is, if you don't mind” Eiji said, lowering his head.

Suddenly, he felt Aslan's hand on his head, lifting it. Then his beautiful, soft hand, the ones which holded the mic with grace the night before, traveled around his face and ended up on his hand again.

“Your hand is warm, Eiji.” Aslan whispered. And okay, text me when you get home, so I know you got home safely” He said with a smirk even though he knew Eiji was, in fact, two years older than him and that he lived literally five minutes away from where they were standing.

“Fine, I will.”

And then he let Aslan's hand- he kept calling him Ash in his mind, but he hoped that he can start getting to know the person behind his singing, which was already amazing. He wondered if Aslan composed songs of his own, too.

After a quick walk, Eiji got home, and after a long hour of nursing Ibe-san and watching TV without any text message from Aslan, he received a message from him:

“We left a question unanswered. You light my heart up. Do I light yours?”

Eiji screamed.

Of fucking course the answer was the biggest yes in his entire life.

#writing #myfic #fanfic #bananafish #chapter2 #coffeeshopau #asheiji

3 notes · View notes

niugenskincream-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Niu Gen Skin Care: Repair Your Skin's Natural Moisture Barrier

Did you know that the majority of wrinkles and other signs of aging be derived from underlying damage to your skin or a loss of profits of collagen? Well, now you do, and so you also know you need to treat those issues to truly look younger! Thankfully, that's exactly what Niu Gen Skin Cream does for you! So, you don't have to have to head to the dermatologist's office or anything like that. Instead, this advanced formula works underneath the skin to repair damage, make out missing areas of collagen, restore collagen production, and repair your skin's natural moisture concerns. By doing all of this, you'll look younger as well as having healthier skin at the same time. And, that'll get you that coveted lit-from-within youthful glow we all want!

Many skincare products that say they anti-age don't do that. They're just over-priced moisturizers. Or, some formulas anti-age, but they don't address your skin's health or any underlying damage. Now, the Niu Gen Skin Cream Ingredients both anti-age AND make your skin healthier. They sink in deep to solve underlying damage under your skin. Like a result, the wrinkles, dark marks, various other signs of aging on the the surface of your skin fade away. Plus, Niu Gen Skin Care restores collagen production and repairs your skin's moisture containment system. So, your skin becomes healthier while you're also fighting wrinkles! That's why we know you and your skin will love the results this formula gives a person will.

Niu Gen Advanced Anti Aging Formula Skin Serum Reviews

This formula contains some with the best active ingredients for fighting wrinkles and aging. And, we'll talk about those more under. But, the actives are clearly getting users results. Because, in online Niu Gen Skin Cream Reviews, there have been is rated at nearly 5 out of 5 stars! And, that's because so many users are seeing real, visible changes to their skin thanks for this product. For example, over 79% of users saw tighter and smoother skin within four weeks of use.

And, over 85% of users noticed more hydrated skin that actually held onto its moisture in the daytime. Not to mention, 72% of users reported smoother skin, fewer wrinkles, and brighter under eye circles or marks on their skin! So, when make use of Niu Gen Skin Care, you can treat skin color in more ways than a single. And, you're getting proven results that your friends in order to be asking you about!

Three Main Niu Gen Skin Serum Benefits:

Brightens Under Eyes And Skin - In order to look younger, you must have that beautiful youthful glow. And, this formula does that by increasing radiance and reducing dark marks, the appearance of under eye circles, nicely sunspots in your as well as skin.

Repairs Underlying Damage - To really look younger, you have to treat the underlying damage inside your skin that makes fine lines and wrinkles appear in the first instance. And, Niu Gen Skin Cream does that right away, so you can appear younger in just four quite a few!

Restores Your Skin's Moisture Barrier - Finally, skin tone has a delicate moisture barrier that keeps toxins, free radicals, and other crap out of your pores. But, those things also break it over time. So, to appear younger and have hydrated skin, this formula repairs that barrier!

How Does Niu Gen Skin Cream Work?

So, you just read through 3 of the main benefits of using Niu Gen Face skin cream. But, how exactly will this formula work various other you look smaller? Well, it all comes right down to the way this cream sinks on your skin and treats underlying damage. Like we said, toxins from the sun, pollution, stress, and possibly a whole host of other factors within lives damage the key layers of weed. And, they break down collagen, too. So, you're left with damage under skin color that leads to wrinkles and wrinkles on the surface level.

Thankfully, Niu Gen Cream is created specifically with fast-acting ingredients to sink in deep and address this problem. Basically, it uses Ceramides to repair your skin's moisture barrier, so your skin can keep out future damage. Second, it uses Retinol, one of incredibly best collagen repairing ingredients on the business. And, this ingredient repairs underlying damage in the root, so wrinkles, fine lines, different signs of aging disappear! That's why you'll love to some degree!

1 note · View note

justasmallbloginabigklainefandom · 6 years ago

Text

Rec This Thing: Interactive Introverts

Interactive Introverts in Amsterdam RAI, evening show on June 2nd

Story: Dan and Phil decided to give the people what they want.

My Story: Okay, fun fact, I bought my ticket on June 1st. When they first announced their tour, my friend Sammy immediately bought tickets for her and her sister and she asked me to come along.

I declined.

After all, I wasn’t that big of a fan of Dan and Phil and I decided that people who are actual fans of them could have my possible ticket. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I became fan of them and both shows were sold out. Yup. Bummer. Instant regret. Total sadness. So Sammy promised to tell me everything yada yada since I couldn’t go. Then just over 24 hours before the show, Sammy sent me a message that there were five seats left for €55.

Crap.

Okay, I decided to do it. Fuck work the day after. Let’s go. And boy, am I glad I did.

Rating (1 to 10): 9

Why?: QUITE DETAILED SHOW SUMMARY UNDER CUT, SPOILERS!

Alright, yup, I’m just going to write down everything, including the entire show. Or at least what I remember cause holla, this is done from memory.

Basically, we arrived in Amsterdam after a lot of panic because my bus didn’t drive so we were about to miss our train. I ran back home and yelled to mum to grab the car (called Snuit) cause HOLY FUCK MY BUS IS 6 MINUTES LATE AND WITH THE NEXT BUS I WILL MISS MY TRAIN FOR SURE.

But okay, Amsterdam. We got there around four? First we checked out the venue, which wasn’t hard to find because their matinee show had just ended, so we just had to follow the stream of fans who were leaving, and then we had dinner at this Japanese place. Then around 18:30 we were back at the venue. Only VIP was allowed to go in already, so we decided to buy merch. The place was packed, so they decided to already open the merch stand. Good thing we got merch (I got a poster) before the show, because other merch was sold during intermission and after the show. Almost no one got merch during intermission, because it was only 20 minutes long, and after the show the line was insane. Probably 2,5+ hours wait time.

We found our seats. We got split up. Sammy and her sister had a great seat (row 9) and I sat on the other side of the theatre in a balcony seat which was fucking great as well. They put on Dan’s playlist and that playlist was banging. Sometimes, Dan’s Siri interrupted. I mean, they were playing Hard Times when I entered the theatre- great start.

And of course they came on stage after Welcome To The Black Parade.

First we had a video kinda introducing danis not on fire and AmazingPhil and then they came in on a moving plaform. Like, their set was so minimalistic but also so great?

After the “Hello! Hi!” stuff they talked about being in Amsterdam (”Amsterdamn” - Phil) and how Phil is feeling a bit sick because he decided to eat tons of stroopwafels (strupwaffles, they called it). Dan called him out, because when you buy a pack of stroopwafels, they are obviously not supposed to be eaten at the same time.

Oh, and those poor foreigners aren’t used to shit ton of bikes in Amsterdam (or in the entire Netherlands tbh) so they were talking about how they almost got killed by bikers while crossing the road.

They were obviously telling us what to expect and all of that.

Then first, What are we not going to do. They acted out everything they were not going to do. I only remember the erotic roleplay, because they did cop roleplay and it was fucking hilarious (”Please be gentle with those handcuffs, I have sensitive skin” - Dan), and the part where they dressed up as their cute pastel versions.

Truth Bombs came next. Phil got asked something among the lines of: “What Olympic sport would Phil excel in?”

Keeping houseplants alive

I forgot.

SPORTS??? LMFAO!

(If anyone’s reading this… if you happen to know the missing parts cause you were at the same show, hit me up.)

Phil said something about how avoiding bikes in Amsterdam is a sport and then he procceeded to jump over the small hexagon on stage. He chose the houseplants.

Dan’s question was: “What is in Dan’s browser history?”

Fursuits (I think???)

I also forgot.

Something with Shrek

Which was ironic, because Shrek the Musical played at the RAI. I don’t remember what Dan chose.

Then, “How will they die?”

Demonetization

They fall off stage in a few minutes

I forgot….

Honestly, they kept talking about demonetization during the entire show. Every time they said something too raunchy, they’d say something like “We’re getting demonetized.”

I think the Simulator came next? Anyway Phil started out with ordering a unicorn frappuchino and he ended up being killed by Satan cause he tried make a deal with him to restore his twitter account after accidentally posting a sexy photo of himself in his pants. We cheered for Satan, and they kept reminding us of that during the entire show.

Dan was outside for once and got approached by a furry, did body shots of an otter, and ended up dying in an underground furry rave after he decided to use the ladies’ restroom.

After that, Phil synced us all as Linda, so hooray, we were all Linda. Now as Linda, we could continue to the magic trick and the audience participation. What is hidden in the mysterious box that Dan hid under his bed? Our three answers were: cereal, a panda, a fursuit.

I still don’t know how they did this trick. The box was unopened on stage all the time. Sammy and I first came up with this special electronic paper, but then we realised Phil gave it to audience members to rip it up and fight about it.

I only remember three questions asked during the Survey. There was apart about their favourite content and Dan was very happy to present it as a pie chart. Also “Do you think you know Dan and Phil?”

Yes

Who is Dan and Phil?

After joking about how all the parents answered the last answer, they noticed a small percent still answered no, and they talked about authenticity on YouTube and sure, they put themselves out there because they want to entertain people, but that they are still genuinely themselves and that they’re not faking it. But if you wanted to see the non-entertaining version of them, you’d be bored. (”On my sofa, with an overheated laptop on my crotch and a bag of crisps under my chin and me trying to eat them with my tongue cause I’m lazy” - Dan).

Then, of course the “Dan or Phil?” question and they presented the wheel and they made the most dramatic act one exit I’ve ever seen, and I am a Broadway fan.

During intermission, the two women next to me were talking about merch and I told them where to find it. Then I exited the theatre. Sammy’s sister bought Pringles and I bought M&Ms and the three of us were kinda shocked to see the queue for the merch stand. Those poor fuckers.

We went back to the theatre and I talked about the merch again, because I happened to know the whole merch stand and its prices by heart after looking at it for 45 minutes (hoodie €40, sweater €30, wristband €5, poster €10, Dan and Phil plushies €25, denim jacket €65, two t-shirts €20 and €25, keycord or whatever it is called €10, cap €15, woops I still know it).

Back to the show! Phil was on the wheel and Dan used a slingshot, a bow and arrow, and a bazooka. And afterwards Phil was showing off his ass while taking off that white body suit. He said he was dizzy and Dan dared him to jump over the hexagon again, but Phil refused.

Okay anyway the next thing I remember is the wholesome Daniel and X-Rated Lester part (”I’m already feeling naughty” - Phil). In the beginning they had this whole talk about authenticity and how they are still humans bla which was really cool. Since I am a recent fan, I completely missed the actual wholesome Daniel craze, but yeah, they talked about how they are actual people and sometimes, they don’t meet certain expectations of fans.

Also, at one point in the show, Dan was talking about God and he yelled “Spite me, daddy!” and I think it was around this moment. The entire crowd yelled.

Alright Dan had to sweet talk disturbing fan fiction, Hello Internet, and another thing uuuuhm. I don’t remember. Anyway, he kept saying “Oh for God’s sake!”, especially at the Hello Internet one.

Phil had to bad mouth cute animals, endless kittens (he failed), and ugh I have also forgotten his last one. The person who sent in cute animals sat in front of me and it was just absolutely amazing to see how happy she was to see her submission on screen.

Then the Dan vs. Phil friendship game. There was a lot of stuff, but I remember some. I can’t believe they shocked each other, but maybe that is because I’d read the Milgram Experminent earlier that week.

First, psychic connection. They both had to name the same number between 1 to 20 and they failed.

Then a dilemma. Dan got the dilemma: “Guest star in Infinity War 4 or Phil gets thrown in a pool of cheese?”

Phil had to choose between: “A billion dollars or Dan will never be able to see dogs again?” According to Phil, he’d buy two big airplanes and then merge them together for an ever bigger airplane.

Then the Dan or Phil or Rat. They both got it right. Phil just got a photo of something white, but he guessed that it was his own pale skin and Dan got some hairs and he guessed that it was a rat.

Trivia. Dan needed to name 3 pre-2008 Phil videos and succeeded. Dan thanked Phil for uploading his newest video about his his old deleted stuff. Phil needed to recall the kind of cake that Colin ruined and failed.

There was probably more to Dan vs. Phil but I am blanking. Phil got the big shock (”I’m Phil trash no. 1!″ - Dan).

Then the intimate moment. Or personal. Phil called it intimate and Dan just went “PERSONAL? DON’T CALL IT INTIMATE, IT’S PERSONAL” and then proceeded to point out that Phil has a degree in English language.

It was just so down to earth. There were three questions, and I remember two. The first person asked for an appropriate name for their zoo animal YouTube channel. I forgot the name they recommended, but they said it was great that this person had a clear theme.

I remember one person saying that she wants to be a singer but her parents want her to go into medicine and well first they were like “hey singing doctor!”. But they talked about how passion is important and how they both didn’t do what was expected and how they are much happier now (“Lawyer Dan is as awful as a singing doctor!” - Dan) but I unfortunately forgot the other two questions. It was just a really nice moment where both Dan and Phil just sat down to have a chat. Oh and they also talked about Phil’s apparent awful handwriting.

Then the power came back on and I think that is when the Awards happened? Glitter jackets af and a self-made statue (”Two naked men in bondage really represents Dan and Phil” - Phil, or something like that.)

The first category was: Best dressed pet as Dan and Phil.

A lizard wearing a flower crown while watching the video of Black Parade won.

A cat wearing Dan’s merch.

I don’t even know but it looked like Dan was riding Phil so that was that. I suppose it was a dog.

And then Most inaccurate expectation of the show

I fucking forgot first place.

Two hour long Hamilton reenaction with Chris Evans.

Them giving birth on stage.

Also the most annoyed parent was just incredibly funny. I remember the winners but hey I don’t feel comfortable just sharing their names cause… privacy. I know the winner sat on the second row and all kids were pointing at her and I guess Dan and Phil saw her and said: “This was probably the worst day of your life, thank you for sharing it with us!” “You probably thought you were seeing Shrek the Musical.”

And then back to the scripted part, aka the Big Finale. A dog video that has nothing to do with the show, PHIL’S DISS TRACK, Dan at the piano, and them singing a duet. This ain’t Broadway, but it was still kinda nice and just sweet.

And well, that is it. They runned around on stage, waving at everyone, saying goodbye. Then they stepped on their moving platform and they disappeared.

Some random things:

Phil kept calling a part of the set a “flap” which annoyed Dan.

Dan… just… couldn’t… stop… dabbing…

They hinted at a new gaming video that involves a lot of Dan’s screaming - coming next week.

So many pride flags in the crowd.

Phil and Dan sounds wrong.

There was one moment where a picture of Dan’s had pasted on a horse from My Horse Prince appeared with a text bulb saying “Ride me, senpai” but I don’t remember when that happened. I think before the Simulator?

Interactive Introverts kind of reminded me of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. There’s clearly a format and a script, but thanks to audience participation, no shows are the same.

But in all seriousness, as my friend Rowan @rothetree pointed out, the entire message of this show was about how Dan and Phil are just human. As Ro put it: “On a serious note, there’s a whole underlying theme to this show, which was them basically going “Hey, we’re real people, stop objectifying us"”. This felt so in line with what the three of us were talking about. Me, Sammy and Sammy’s sister had to endure a two hour train ride and we talked a lot about fandom’s perception on real life people they stan and how they sometimes reduce those people to the image they have in their minds.

Cause we were talking about stuff like real life shipping, and about how celebrities are being seen, and how the moment they do something the fans don’t like, you get all those moments of “X is not real anymore!”

Newsflash asshole, they are people with feelings, and just because you don’t want to see those feelings, doesn’t mean they don’t have them. For example, Sammy was talking about how one K-POP star basically got stalked at an airport and when he clearly showed his dislike of it, people were all “OH MY GOD HE DOESN’T LIKE HIS FANS HE IS SO RUDE HE’S NOT WHO WE THOUGHT HE WAS” and I gave the example of people saying Darren is “no longer himself” after he called out the people who are seriously threatening his fiancée and all that stuff.

Before the show started, we overheard two other fans talking about how they should come out bla bla bla, and just… no? That is so personal and we are not entitled to that at all?

To quote Ghostly, they are not our dolls. We can’t dress them up in whatever way we want.

I recently read I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman, which follows a band from the fans’ POV and through the band’s POV and how sometimes those things clash, and I feel like with Interactive Introverts, Dan and Phil wanted to show people who they are to avoid a clash like that. That’s why they kept talking about how they value authenticity, while they are aware of the fact that they are also putting on a show. Or how, when people have certain images of them, how unrealistic those images can be and that they cannot live up to the expectations, and therefore it is important for fans to realise that. The tagline is: “Giving the people what they want!” and they did that without having to change for the fans’ sake.

As Rowan (rothetree, not Rowan from the book I Was Born For This) said: "we don’t own their image or expect too much from them. Something about their interactions with us is changing in a really good way."

Because that exactly.

Since I am a recent fan and I got my ticket one day before the show, I wasn’t aware of the questions, but in the “Do you think you know Dan or Phil?” (as they said: or do you think we’re people putting up a whole show) I would’ve answered a solid “no”, because I always think it’s dangerous to say that you know a celebrity, but after this show, I’d vote “yes”, because the way they acted on stage and the way they conveyed their message of “yes, we’re putting on a show right now because we want to entertain you guys, but we still care about authenticity” was well done.

And that is what made this show so great and enjoyable. Yes, it was a show and there were scripted parts, but it was still very genuine.

Recommend?: Yes, please, just like TATINOF, put it online for sale!

#interactive introverts #ii spoilers #rec this thing #rtt: theatre show #dan and phil #dnp adam

12 notes · View notes

huntypastellance · 7 years ago

Note

hi its me @keithkog on twitter and since you so conveniently forget to mention all the times i’ve apologized and when i deleted the video or any of my explanation, let me tell you about it. there was no excuse for me to post videos without the parent’s consent. that i agree with. it was stupid and wrong, and i genuinely regret that. once i realized my mistake, i deleted the videos. there is NO EXCUSE FOR THAT. but the “sexual assault” thing was unprompted. i never talked about that with her (1/)

and i also never said anything about it. obviously she doesn’t know what that means, since as an anti i still dont think “sexual assault” is a correct term for sheith, its more statutory rape if you’re going to put it into that category w the age of consent. but of course she wouldn’t understand that, and i only laughed in the video bc i was taken aback by her knowledge of that word. regardless, i didn’t press the issue further because you’re right, i have no right to talk about that with a (2/)

a child im babysitting. so i just left it at that. look, i understand if you’re upset by it because you’re a shaladin but you’re making me seem like some huge monster. voltron is literally made for kids their age, and the term “force” was a joke. we’ve watched it together before, and they only protested bc they’re stubborn but they actually rlly enjoyed it after i showed them more. the point i was making about them being mature was in response to someone saying “she’s only 9 she shouldn’t be(3/)

watching voltron” which i disagreed with because both of the girls are mature for their age and can understand it. the only reason they thought it was confusing was bc when we watched episode 1 we were making cookies and they werent paying attention the whole time. i would appreciate if you would take down your posts or at least remove some things because in no way did i force them to talk about sex or bring it up in the first place. thank you.

ps, you have no proof that i fed anyone lines about sexual assault and i promise you i DID NOT. the kid’s parents let them watch a lot of older shows and they have older sibblings and thats how they know about it im guessing. i was surprised to but please don’t accuse me of feeding them lines about sexual assault because thats absolutely disgusting and you have no proof of that

do you exist purely to ignore people’s apologies? Bc my friend the one y'all keep talking about from Twitter, yeah she’s apologized multiple times so could y'all maybe just leave her alone? Bc she had literally 0 intentions for what happened to happen and the fact you all ignore her constant apologies here y'all are being petty and I’m honestly sick of it. Grow the FUCK up y'all she’s a minor too CHRIST. You think it’s ok to harass a minor? Bc if so y'all are even worse than my abuser lmao :/

Okay, I’m going to answer this seriously & without the whole “We, the Great & Glorious Lord Pastel Lance” schtick even though I don’t think you actually deserve it. I’m just trying to prove my point here.

> If you were so shocked that a 9 year old said the phrase “sexual assault”, why did you POST IT ONLINE AS A VIDEO TWEET?

>Oh boohoo, you took it down. What, do you want a gold star for that? Well newsflash asshole, if you had bothered to read through my post, you’d know that someone archived your entire tweet thread before you took down the videos. So now there are PERMANENT screenshots of the kids’ faces that were put online WITHOUT PARENTAL PERMISSION because of YOU, you illiterate jackass.

> Why would you EVER laugh at a child, who you’ve claimed to know & babysat for YEARS, having ANY knowledge of what sexual assault is?

> Nice try deflecting dumbass, I’m a Klance shipper AND a Sheith shipper, not just some gross shallie.

> Again, you don’t MAKE kids like the stuff you like. My brothers don’t like Ben 10 after the first 5 minutes of showing them it, (& without me trying to convince them by telling them that gets “really good” later & spoiling shit for them), so I switch the channel to Paw Patrol or search up a Youtube about Minecraft for them instead. I don’t MAKE them continue to marathon Ben 10 with me. You are a shit babysitter.

> Why do you keep suddenly being surprised when people get mad at your own freaking words when you are the one leaving out information & context?

> It’s still really creepy that you keep saying that the kids are “mature for their age”. That’s literally fucking pedo logic right there, I don’t care about the fucking context, that’s a skeevy thing to say about kids.

> Seriously, what the fuck is stopping you from using the phrase “they’re old enough to watch Voltron, see the TV rating for it?” That is literally so much less creepier.

> You can’t just fucking ASSUME that the kids learned the phrase “sexual assault” from watching TV shows for older kids! That is something you NEED to tell the parents about!

> And you’re not even worried about those older siblings casually talking about sexual assault in front of their baby siblings? At all? Bitch, there are some things that SHOULDN’T be talked about in front of kids!!

> Well, you’re right in that I don’t have actual proof. But given how you & your friends constantly lie & refuse to provide any proof, I don’t give a shit. At this rate, a freaking ANON comment is more trustworthy than your own words.

> Her apologies don’t mean SHIT because as I’ve pointed out before: they’re not real apologies. There was no notion to make amends, to promise to not do the same thing again, etc. Her apologies are HOLLOW. And, frankly, so are your’s. Especially with your friends commenting below about the “nasty shallies” forcing you to apologize. You didn’t “TECHNICALLY” do something wrong, you ACTUALLY did something wrong & fucking illegal, jackass!

> I don’t give a shit if she or you are minors. That doesn’t fucking excuse your behavior. You both can still be arrested or legally punished for this kind of crap.

> When you say shit like that, that I, some random asshole on the Internet documenting your own freaking words, am WORSE than your abuser…..

that just proves to me that you’ve never actually been abused before.

That you don’t give a shit about real abuse & don’t know what it’s like.

No abuse victim would ever make such a flippant comparison to their trauma like that.

You’re the one who’s sick here, not me.

Disclaimer: This response is entirely the opinion of Lord Pastel Lance & NOT of anyone else. Just me. If you have problems with it, criticize me, not other people.

#k1ance #she1th #vld discourse #anti-shaladin #pro-shaladin #lpln #anonymous

352 notes · View notes

kimtaehyungrykim · 7 years ago

Text

Doctor I Need You: Chapter 6

a/n: I know it’s been a while since I’ve last updated, I sincerely apologize for that. School has really been holding me back on updating and it didn’t help that I had writers’ block. But I finally finished Chapter 6! YAY! And this chapter is a little longer than the older chapters so enjoy!

Chapter Summary: Son Soojin’s execution date is in 2 days, but she’s refusing to have surgery and might as well die “on Taeyong’s watch”. Jisoo and Xiumin have a 10 year old patient that needs a new liver and intestine. What choices will the doctors make when the 10 year old boy down the hall is dying and the only organs that match are those of a murderer who wants out of her execution?

Prologue / Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / to be determined

Warnings: *Taeyong’s backstory is very dark*, mentions of murder, surgery

Rating: M

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Smut, Romance

Characters and their roles:

Attendings:

You (Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery)

Dr. Kim Jisoo (Head of General Surgery)

Dr. Kim Seokjin (Jin) (Attending Anesthesiologist)

Dr. Lee Taeyong (Head of Trauma Surgery)

Dr. Kim Taeyeon (Head of Neurosurgery)

Dr. Kim Xiumin (Head of Pediatric surgery)

Dr. Park Leeteuk (Chief of Surgery)

Residents:

Dr. Jeon Wonwoo (5th year Surgical Resident)

Dr. Nakamoto Yuta (5th year Surgical Resident)

Dr. Park Rosé (5th year Surgical Resident)

Dr. Park Joy (5th year Surgical Resident)

Dr. Kim Mingyu (5th year Surgical Resident)

Songs to play while reading, I’ll point out where:

Dream - BolBBalgan4

The Funeral - Band of Horses

Lost Stars - BTS Jungkook (cover)

I Love You - BTS Jin (cover)

“Compassion is an action word with no boundaries” - Prince

------------

(Play Dream)

Taeyong got a page at 3:30 in the morning, he rushed down to the hospital and ran to Soojin’s room.

“Aw man, I told them not to call you here,” Soojin groaned, “Whatever it is could’ve waited till morning, Dr. Taeyong needs his beauty sleep doesn’t he?”

Taeyong ignored her, “Your head CT’s show that your brain contusions are expanding. I need to get you in the OR right away.”

“This brain thing, could it kill me?”

“If we don’t treat it, yes.”

Soojin bursted out in laughter.

“You think that’s funny?” Taeyong scoffed.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that they’re gonna execute me in 2 days. Might as well take my chances with the brain thing am I right?” Soojin smirked, “I mean, it’s a nice way to go. With a nice attractive doctor next to me, all the jello I want-”

“Are you refusing surgery?” Taeyong cut her off.

“Either way, I’m going to die. Might as well do it on your watch.”

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

Jisoo stood outside her patient’s room waiting for Dr. Xiumin.

“I’m here! I’m here! What’s wrong?” Dr Xiumin ran up to her.

“Woojin’s B.P, it’s a little down from yesterday. If we make a few calls, get a little pushy, maybe could we get him bumped a few spots up the transplant list-”

“Dr. Jisoo, you paged me 9-1-1 at 3:30 in the morning to what? To chat?” Xiumin scoffed.

“You like to chat, you’re chatty-”

“Not at 3:30 in the morning! Look, he’s only 10, he’s very close to the top of the list, we’ll find him his organs when we find him his organs but staying up all night chatting about this will not help,” Xiumin started walking away, “I’m gonna go back to sleep, I suggest you do the same.”

Jisoo stopped him, “He’s running out of time!”

“They always are, welcome to pediatrics.”

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

You were going over Soojins charts when Taeyong spotted you, the two of you walked into Soojin’s room.

“The swelling in your brain is increasing rapidly, the longer we wait the worse it gets,” Taeyong informed her.

She smiled, “Excellent. Go team.”

“I strongly suggest you reconsider surgery.”

“Have you ever seen the inside of a maximum security prison?”

Taeyong shook his head.

“Believe me, if you had to die, this is the place to do it.”

Taeyong turned to you, “Vigilantly monitor Ms. Soojin’s elevating I.C.P.s, hourly neuro exams, when she goes unconscious which she will, we’ll rush her to surgery-”

“You can’t do that,” Soojin interrupted, “Can he do that?”

“When you’re unconscious and can’t make sound medical decisions, a 2-doctor consent is all we need to treat you”

“My god!” Soojin groaned, “I’m gonna be dead as a doornail in 2 days, Dr. Y/n you’re a reasonable-”

“We’re done here!” Taeyong cut her off.

“Do you fix your broken television before you throw it out?” Soojin called out.

“She’s got a point,” You said.

Taeyong left the room.

You started wheeling Soojin out of the room for her neuro exam.

There was a long silence between you two before she spoke, “You’re upset.”

“I don’t get upset with patients.”

“You’re mad at me for killing all those people, I get that,” Soojin sighed, “Would it help if you knew I was abused as a kid? Every day, it’s how I learned to read. I used to hide under the sink and sound out the letters in the detergent bottles.”

“Is that true?”

“Did it make you feel better?”

Jisoo was wheeling her patient Woojin to the elevator as well, his eyes lit up when he saw the handcuffs attached to Soojin.

“Cool!” He exclaimed, “Did you do something bad?”

Soojin smirked at the kid, “Traffic violation.”

You gestured Jisoo to take the elevator first.

“What’s wrong with you kid?” Soojin asked.

“I need a new liver and intestine.”

“Really? You want mine?”

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

Jisoo spotted Xiumin in the attending’s lounge where he was having his lunch. She walked over and slammed a piece of paper in front of him.

“What the-”

“I’ve made a list of the best pediatric G.I.’s in the country. If we can get one of these guys to come down and do a TIPS procedure on Woojin.”

“A TIPS procedure on a kid that needs a new liver?” Xiumin scoffed, “That’s like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Waiting for that call, trust the process. Why can’t you do that-”

“Because!” Jisoo snapped, “I’m tired. I’m so damn tired of waiting for that call when this kid is getting worse! Woojin’s tired, his mother’s tired, the only person who’s happy to sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs and wait is you!”

“Whoa. I’ve been patient with you. But you know what, I am really over you constantly telling me how I should do my job-”

Wonwoo knocked on the door.

“Someone has to!”

“Hey,” Wonwoo said.

Xiumin scoffed, “I have 20 other kids in this hospital!”

“Hey,” Wonwoo repeated.

“I’m concerned about this one child-”

“SHUT UP!” Wonwoo shouted, “Respectfully. Respectfully shut up. Because we’ve got organs.”

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

(Play The Funeral)

Wonwoo and Xiumin left to pick picked up the organs.

“I wished you could get organs delivered or something, I hate flying,” Xiumin complained, “I feel a lot closer to death flying than in the O.R. don’t you?”

“I do now.”

“So, Taeyong and Y/n. I never thought they’d even make eye contact let alone get together. But hey, that’s like movie love isn’t it? If they do get together, that’s gonna be one hell of a story, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well we’re at that age right? Crushes, dating, marriage, babies, that’s the plan right?”

“I don’t know!” Wonwoo snapped, “I’m sorry. I don’t make plans okay? If there’s a future there great, if not, whatever.”

“I heard that there’s this heat between Jisoo and Jin. I don’t know both of them very well but I think that it would be interesting to see more of them-”

“What is wrong with you?” Wonwoo blurted out.

“What?”

“We just took a liver and an intestine from a little kid- A dead little kid- and you don’t even care. You’re talking about rainbows and relationships and gossiping and crap. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You don’t think I know that they just pulled the plug on a kid? Do you not think that I get that? You don’t think I know about the tiny, tiny coffin they’re gonna stick them in? I know about the tiny coffins. I see them everywhere, in my sleep. So, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna continue talking rainbows and relationships and gossiping and crap. And I’m gonna make plans for tomorrow, because that’s what you do Wonwoo. Make plans. Turn your back on the tiny coffins and face forward...to the next kid.”

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

You went to check up on Soojin. As always, there was that long moment of silence between the two of you as the sounds of the monitor beeps filled the air. Soojin spoke first.

“Did you know they let you choose?” Soojin asked, “Hanging, or lethal, you get to pick your poison. Which one would you choose? Medically speaking, which one’s...better?”

The sounds of the monitor hums filled the silence, you grabbed all the charts and headed towards the door. You stopped and turned around.

“With hanging, your neck breaks, which severs your spinal cord and causes your blood pressure to drop to nothing and lose consciousness. You don’t actually die until after several minutes. With lethal injection, they inject an anesthetic and put you to sleep. Then a paralytic which stops your diaphragm and lungs, then potassium, which stops your heart.”

Soojin nodded, “Was, um...was I a match for the boy?”

“Yes.”

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

Xiumin and Wonwoo returned to the hospital and were in the O.R. finishing the surgery on Woojin. Joy sat up in the gallery looking over the whole thing, bummed out that all she can do today is watch over surgeries.

Joy sat there crossed armed, she looked at the monitor filming the surgery when she saw something odd. Joy stood up from her chair and looked at the screen a little closer.

“Oh shit,” Joy whispered, she pressed on the intercom but it wasn’t working, “No no no no!”

She bolted out of the gallery and into the O.R., Jisoo and Xiumin were about finished when Joy came running in.

“Wait! There’s a spot on the duodenum!”

Xiumin and Jisoo’s eyes averted back to the patient on the table.

Jisoo spotted it too, “What the hell is that?”

Jisoo and Xiumin were in a state of panic.

“He’s clotting and clotting and clotting!” Jisoo yelled out in frustration.

“Is there a source?” Xiumin asked.

“This can’t be happening,” Jisoo muttered under her breath, “This cannot be happening, not to this little boy. This is not happening. This is not happening.”

“These organs are dead Dr. Jisoo,” Xiumin said the words no one wanted to hear, “Keeping them in him is making him sicker. This is doing more harm than good.”

“NO! I can just-”

“He’ll die if you leave them in-”

“He’ll die if I take them out!”

Joy raised her hand, “Maybe you guys could try a Portacaval Shunt. It’ll keep the circulation going and bypass the liver.”

Jisoo shook her head, “That’s just a temporary fix.”

“Anybody got any better ideas?” Xiumin asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

“Then I don’t see what choice we have, Dr. Jisoo.”

“How much time do we have to find him new organs?” Wonwoo asked.

“24 hours,” Jisoo replied.

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

A code came from Son Soojin’s room, you ran as fast as you could.

“I don’t feel so good,” Soojin cried.

“I.C.P is critical, we can’t wait anymore we need to get her down to the OR-”

“NO!”

“We need to get you down to surgery,” You said.

“I’m not scared to die. I just don’t want to do it strapped down to a table like an animal,” Soojin begged, “Please, please, please, Dr. Y/n. Let me go.”

Taeyong and Taeyeon ran into the room.

“Push the paralytics! Start bagging her, intubate and get her into the OR. I need another doctor signature on the form,” Taeyong handed you the papers, “Here sign. Sign the form.”

But you couldn’t, you stood there, frozen.

“Y/n, sign the form.”

You stared at the papers but your hands wouldn’t move.

“Y/N! SIGN THE FUCKING FORM!”

Taeyeon grabbed the pen and signed it for you.

“Don’t scrub in,” Taeyong told you.

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

“You two are on Woojin all day today,” Jisoo ordered Wonwoo and Joy, “He has no liver or intestine, that means toxins are building up and his brain is gonna swell. We can’t stop it but we’re gonna try like hell to slow it down.”

Joy’s eyelids were fluttering up and down, she hadn’t had much sleep the past few days.

“Joy I need a nod or a yawn or even a burp, something that lets me know that you’re awake and capable of taking care of this child.”

“Yes, sorry, I’m all yours.”

Xiumin walked up to Jisoo.

“Jisoo, how much time do we have left?”

“16 hours at most.”

Wonwoo spoke up, “There’s a liver dialysis machine downstairs, G.I.’s using it for a clinical trial.”

“That may give Woojin a few more hours...maybe,” Xiumin shook his head and left

“Alright then, Joy, put in the I.C.P. monitor and start tracking his intracranial pressures. Wonwoo, get the machine,” Jisoo ordered.

“What is it’s already hooked up to somebody?”

“If that somebody has more than 16 hours to live then we can unhook them,” Joy said.

“I want off this case,” Jisoo said under her breath.

“Dr. Jisoo?” Wonwoo was concerned.

“I want off this case. I want off of- this little boy is gonna die and I don’t want to be there to see it. I don’t want to- I cannot see this. I want off. I want off.”

“Dr. Jisoo, when was the last time you slept?”

Jisoo took a deep breath and shook her head, “No, no, no. I’m okay, really.”

“I think you need 1 or 2 hours of rest.”

“I’m fine. I’m good. Just go get the machine.”

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

Son Soojin had just gotten out of surgery, Taeyong started doing post-op checkups.

“How are you feeling Ms. Soojin?” Taeyong asked.

“Why didn’t you just let me go?”

“You’re not dying here.”

“What are you so scared of Dr. Taeyong?”

Taeyong ignored her, “I.C.P’s are stable, continue neuro exams-”

“Or maybe you know deep down, you’re no better than I am,” Soojin said, “You decide who lives and who dies all the time. For you they call it medicine, not a capital offense.”

“You know what? I don’t get to choose,” Taeyong snapped, “Not me, not you, and certainly not the 7 people you slaughtered. So if I say you’re not gonna die in this hospital, then there is no way in hell I will let you die in this hospital. I am nothing like you.”

He slammed the door behind him.

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

Xiumin paged Wonwoo, he was waiting for him in the hallway.

“Hey, Dr. Xiumin, you paged me-”

“I need you to talk to the nurses,” Xiumin whispered, “Find out if any of their patients on life support are O-positive or brain dead, then crossmatch those folks against Woojin. The kid’s running out of time.”

“Okay.”

“And Wonwoo, be sensitive to their families. We need organs for this boy, but we can only ask. We do not pressure, we do not coerce. Understand?”

“Yes sir.”

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

“It’s getting a little harder to breathe,” Soojin gasped.

“You can stop doing this Soojin,” You said.

“I know. I know.”

“Would you like me to page Dr. Taeyong?”

“He’s your boyfriend isn’t he?”

You didn’t answer.

“He is,” She answered for you, “I had a feeling.”

You turned your back to her and continued with the check up.

“The man has very good taste.”

You gathered up the charts and started heading towards the door.

“Right now, all I can think about are lemons.”

You stopped and turned around, “Lemons?” You ask.

“When my mother was dying, she said she smelled lemons. All she could talk about for 3 day were lemons. I keep waiting to smell them but I don’t,” Soojin sighed, “Then again, she was a compulsive liar.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to page Dr. Taeyong?”

“I’m sure.”

You left the room and continued working on the charts from outside, Taeyeon came up to you with her own charts.

“How’s our serial killer?” She asked, “Are you monitoring her?”

“Yeah. I’ve got it covered.”

Taeyeon stopped writing. Both of you made eye contact, she dropped her pen and ran to Soojin’s room.

“I said I’ve got it covered!”

She opened the door and ran to Soojin, she checked her pupil responses.

“Tell me you paged Taeyong.”

“She gonna die in a few days anyways. If she dies here we can donate her organs to the 10 year old who’s gonna die down the hall. And I know Taeyong wouldn’t let me do this. So no, I didn’t page Taeyong and I hope you won’t too. Please just...let me do this.”

Soojin gasped, “Please….help...I don’t want to die….I want...to live.”

Taeyeon shook her head, “Page Dr. Taeyong right now! Code Blue 4th floor!”

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

Xiumin got a page from Wonwoo.

“Talk to me Wonwoo.”

Wonwoo handed him charts and papers. Xiumin started reading them.

“Oh my god,” he said.

“The guy’s not a donor and they’re about to unplug him.”

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

Soojin was stabilized by the three of you. Taeyong was looking over her scans.

“Prep her, I want her in the O.R. in 20 minutes,” He ordered Taeyeon, he turned to you, “You should’ve paged me a long time ago.”

“I was following the patient’s wishes-”

“Patient’s wishes? She doesn’t get wishes. She killed 7 people. She’s been manipulating you ever since she’s got here. She preys on young people.”

“I made a decision as her doctor.”

“It was a bad decision. The wrong decision. You’re gonna scrub in, and you’re gonna try like hell to undo what you did.”

“Why are you so adamant on having her executed?”

Taeyong pulled you out of the room, he pulled you into the elevator and pulled the alarm, stopping it.

“You wanna know why I so pro punishment?”

You nodded.

“When I was 5 years old I watched from under the kitchen counter as some man barged into my house and shot my dad for his watch. I couldn’t go and help him, all I could do is watch. Watch as my dad fell to the ground and the man took and his watch and left. They never caught him. I hope that someday they will, and he will receive the punishment he deserves. But Son Soojin is in here right now, and I hope she gets her punishment for killing those 7 innocent people.”

He pressed the alarm again and the doors opened, he walked out.

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

(Play Lost Stars)

“I’m sorry, what do you want?”

Xiumin sighed, “I’m know this is excruciating, but what I want...what I need...are your husband’s organs- his livers and his bowels. He’s a match for--”

“Go away,” the woman said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Please go away. I can’t take anymore. He was healthy, two day ago, he was healthy. He’s my love. And he put his head through a windshield and I have to unplug him. He’s the man who’s supposed to hold my hand when things go bad, he is supposed to be there to help. But he gets to go to heaven, and I can’t take anymore. So please...go away. No more people cutting into him.”

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

You, Taeyong, and Taeyeon were in the O.R. trying the repair the damages to Soojin’s brain. The door opened and Jisoo came in with tears.

“Dr. Taeyong,” Jisoo’s voice cracked.

“Dr. Jisoo.”

“I need y-you...t-to...stop,” She stuttered, “I need you to put down your scalpel. This woman is trying to kill herself and god forgive me, I need you to let her.”

“You need to leave my O.R. Dr. Jisoo.”

“1 day. In 1 day, she going to die, and her organs are going to go with her. They’ll be buried with her body and they’ll rot in the ground and that is a crime. A crime against life. It’s only 1 day. That’s all we’re taking from her and she doesn’t want it anyways.”

“We took an oath Jisoo.”

“I know…” Jisoo voice quivered, “I know we took an oath. But right now that oath makes no sense. So just stop. Just stop. Please. Don’t do anything else for this woman.”

“If I stop this surgery, it’s the equivalent of me sticking this scalpel into her brain, is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

Taeyeon looked at the brain, “She’s hemorrhaging through her craniectomy. Should I at least put in a subdural drain?”

“That’s up to Dr. Jisoo,” Taeyong said.

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

“Dr. Jisoo, should I put in a drain?” Taeyeon asked.

“No.”

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

Taeyeon shook her head, “There’s too much bleeding we should do something-”

“I am aware of that, Dr. Taeyeon,” Taeyong put down his scalpel, “It’s your call Jisoo. Am I an executioner or am I a surgeon?”

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

“Pick up the scalpel,” Jisoo left the room.

You, Taeyong, and Taeyeon continued with the surgery.

“Do you see any bleeders?” He asked you.

“The field is clear.”

He looked at you, you did the same.

“Good job, Dr. Y/n,” He said.

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

Xiumin walked back to the room.

“He can’t take his liver with him to heaven, or his bowels or his kidneys. His brain is gone, but those organs are probably good because he’s a young man,” Xiumin said, “I know this is not what you want to think about, it’s more than anyone should ever have to think about. But he can’t take his organs with him So please. Please. Please let us have his organs, so that he can give someone their life.”

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

“I’m alive,” Soojin whispered.

“Yes, you are,” You said.

“I was playing you, your boyfriend was right,” She admitted, “I wanted to destroy your career. And I wanted to be here to see the fallout.”

“You were scared Soojin. Death is scary.”

“It would be really good to have a friendly face in the crowd, you know...when they kill me.”

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

Jisoo sat in Woojin’s room, monitoring everything. Joy walked in and crouched down next to her.

“You need to get some sleep Dr. Jisoo, you’re exhausted, you’re worn out. Get some rest, please,” Joy whispered, “I think it’s time Dr. Jisoo.”

Tears started forming in her eyes, “Call her in here.”

Joy left the room and brought back Woojin’s mother.

“It’s time to hold him,” Jisoo sighed, “He’s going, Soojung, and you need to help him go. Peacefully, in his mother’s arms.”

She walked over to the bed where Woojin layed there, she embraced him.

“It’s okay baby. You can go,” She stroked his head, “Mommy will be okay, you can go. It’s okay, I won’t be mad. Woojin, you can go. It’s okay. You can go. It’s okay.”

Xiumin and Wonwoo ran into the room.

“WE HAVE ORGANS!” They both yell.

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

Everyone’s head turned towards them.

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

“We have organs! Get him to O.R. 3, NOW!” Xiumin yelled.

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

Jisoo ran to Woojin, prying his mother off him, “Starting C.P.R now.”

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

Xiumin grabbed the crash cart, “Push .35 of epi!”

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

“Get me a bicarb!” Joy yelled.

They all rushed Woojin to the O.R.

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

It’s time, Son Soojin’s execution date was today. The sound of chains clanking against ground filled the dark room. The guards guided her to the table, she took a look around the audience until her eyes met yours. She slightly smiled at you before being pushed and strapped down onto the table, chains still wrapped around her limbs.

Needles were stuck into her arms as her head turned to look at the crowd. The buzzers start blaring, Soojin turned her head back to see the ceiling.

“Huh, lemons. My mother wasn’t lying after all,” Soojin whispered to herself.

The drugs were pushed into Soojin’s body, her limbs becoming relaxed, her eyelids fluttering up and down. He soul was slowly leaving her body, leaving her eyes. You’ve seen that look far too many times before. You couldn’t take it anymore.

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

Woojin had just gotten out of surgery, everyone’s waiting for him to wake up, unsure if they got the organs in time.

Jisoo and Xiumin stood outside, looking at Woojin’s mother alseep next to her son.

“I crossed a line today,” Jisoo said.

“I did too.” Xiumin sighed.

“Woojin?”

Jisoo and Xiumin looked into the room. Woojin’s eyes started slowly opening.

“Can I have some water?” He asked.

His mother smiled at Jisoo and Xiumin and pulled her son into an embrace.

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

(Play I Love You)

The guards opened the gates for you. Across the street, you spot Taeyong next to his car, his arms in his pockets, waiting for you. You walked over to him, puffy eyed, as if you’ve been crying for months. You crossed your arms, he looked at you, and you him.

You sighed, “I know you probably think I’m crazy for doing this. Hell, I think I’m crazy for doing this. But I just wanted to show her compassion, that’s why I went,” Tears fell down your face, “But it was so horrible. It was so fucking horrible!”

Taeyong pulled you into his arms and embraced you, “It’s okay.”

He drove you back to your house, the ride there was mostly silent. You looked at the outside the window, the sky tonight was not beautiful, it was not full of stars, today it was cloudy, as if it were going to rain.

You spoke first, “I can’t…”

“What?”

“I can’t seem to remember our last kiss.”

He didn’t talk to you the rest of the car ride. The two of you reached your house. He opened the door for you and started walking you to the door. You opened your door and walked inside, he started walking back towards his car when he turned around.

He looked at you and smiled, “Last Wednesday, in the elevator.”

“What?”

“You and I both just got out of surgery, it was 4:30 in the morning and we hadn’t been able to see each other for 2 days. We were both exhausted because we had back-to-back surgeries. And I just couldn’t bear another 7 hours without kissing you, so in that moment, I pulled the elevator alarm, and we both had 5 minutes of weakness. That was our last kiss. Last Wednesday, in the elevator.”

------------

“The secret to remembering someone, is to care” - Keith Ferrazzi

99 notes · View notes