#management thinks that if they boil the frog slowly enough it will never notice

[gailynovelry]

Sometimes, living under late-stage capitalism is just like. I'm tired of being asked to spin straw into gold in exchange for a plate of stale, soggy bread crust.

[saintshigaraki]

THESE ARE HARD TIMES FOR DREAMERS

title from bones by ms mr

pairing: yandere nanami kento x f!reader

word count: 2.6k

excerpt: You wish you’d studied the stars more, ingrained them so deeply into your psyche that you’d carry the night sky with you, always. 

You wish they’d never been stolen from you in the first place.

a/n: nanami if ur reading this i’m free thursday night. 

tags: yandere, angst, reader is once again full of rage, nanami love what have you done, overuse of the word hate

warnings: yandere tendencies, obsessive and possessive behavior, slight infantilization, noncon/dubcon, gaslighting (?), kidnapping, slight stockholm syndrome, mention of past suicide attempt 

MDNI!

You can’t exactly pinpoint where it all went south. There’s not a specific date that stands out to you when you actively noticed things taking a turn for the worst. It’s like that fable. About the frog slowly being boiled alive. Except, in this case, the frog is you and the boiling water is Nanami. And in this case, this is not some story your mom used to read to you about the dangers of gradual escalation, it’s your life. If you can even call this monotonous hell you’re living a life. 

You’ve got to hand it to him, you really didn’t see it coming. Nanami’s always been smart like that. Even now, after everything, or maybe even especially now, after everything, you can’t deny that. 

You don’t bother moving from where you lay, sprawled out on the floor, when you hear the first click of many locks signaling that your sweet and doting lover has returned. 

You used to try to rush him, or get the jump on him with the heaviest thing you could find. Once you started to get really desperate, you just screamed over his shoulder before he had time to clamp a large hand over your mouth. 

None of it ever worked, of course. 

It was months ago that you decided hopeless escape attempts simply weren’t worth Nanami’s wrath. He’s faster than you, stronger than you, and far bigger. And he always will be. 

When your relationship with Nanami was still somewhat normal (though looking back you can’t help but notice all the things that weren’t normal, you suppose hindsight really can be quite the bitch in that regard) you never really thought too hard about how much stronger he was compared to you. In some ways, it might’ve even been comforting, instead of just horribly depressing. No one could touch you when your hand was tucked in his. 

It hurts more than you’d like to admit that something you once found such solace in, is now what stands between you and any semblance of normalcy and shred of happiness. 

(And fresh air. God, you miss fresh air so much it hurts, a dull never-ceasing ache deep in your chest. You miss the stars too. Sometimes, when you’re laying on the floor like you are now or in the dead of night when it’s all you can do to swallow down your screams, you try to map out constellations on the ceiling. You’re not very good at it though, and the few constellations you actually remember are starting to slip from your memory like water through fingers, no matter how desperately you try to hold onto them.

You wish you’d studied the stars more, ingrained them so deeply into your psyche that you’d carry the night sky with you, always. 

You wish they’d never been stolen from you in the first place.)

It takes Nanami’s slightly disapproving hum to snap you out of your celestial spiraling. 

You tilt your head back, just enough to find he’s towering over you. His mouth set in a grim line. His glasses, jacket, and tie have already been discarded, his shirt rolled up to his forearms. The sight of him like this use to make your cheeks burn. Now, it’s hard to rein in the urge to spit at his feet and hiss out every seething thought you have about him burning below the surface. 

But the lecture you’d receive after a ‘tantrum’ like that wouldn’t be worth it. He always manages to twist your words, your own feelings, sometimes even your very sense of self, until you can hardly tell what’s up and what’s down. Until you can hardly distinguish your reality from his. Until all you can hear is Nanami’s voice in your ear, reminding you of everything you’ll never be. Of just how helpless you are. 

(It’s like his hands are around your throat, choking and choking and choking.)

And once you’re nothing but a sobbing heap on the floor, he’ll pull you into his lap, tuck your face against the curve of his shoulder, and rub soothing circles into your back while saying something along the lines of ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ll always be here take care of you’ until your sobs have quieted to the occasional hiccup.

You hate it, how he manages to make you feel so dependent on him. He’s so, so good at knowing just what string to pull so that you’ll unravel completely, just so he can put you back together again with his painstakingly gentle hands. 

Nanami’s smart like that. 

So, you’ve learned to bite your tongue. 

“You’re insistence on laying on the dirty floor when we have a perfectly good couch and bed truly astounds me,” he says, monotone. 

You don’t justify his sarcasm with a response, partly to stall what inevitably will come after this and partly to annoy him. Nanami doesn’t like it when you ignore him. It’s one of the few things you have the power to do that manages to get under his skin. 

It’s these little rebellions, you’ve found, that make all the difference. 

You eye the couch warily, it’s plush and huge. The perfect place for an afternoon nap. Nanami had traded out the smaller one he’d had before, for this one, a few months after you’d started dating. He’d wanted one big enough that you two could comfortably lay together as you slept and he read. You spent countless hours there, tucked into his side, with the setting sun warming your skin. 

It’s also where you had told him that you wanted to end things. That he’d gotten too overbearing, too controlling. That you felt suffocated. That you still loved him dearly, but that you couldn’t do this anymore. It’s where you left him as you walked out with only a single bag in hand. 

That night you went to sleep in some shady motel room and woke up back in Nanami’s bed with a padded handcuff chaining you to the frame. 

These memories from before have a way of coming back to haunt you, they pass through the walls, whispering poison in your ears, caressing your skin one moment just to dig their claws in deep the next. 

They mock you as you sit and rot and dream of stars you’ll never see again. 

“You’re stalling.” He always manages to sound so distinctly unimpressed with you whenever you don’t follow one of his unwritten rules (and God even if you were actively trying to follow them, there are so many that keeping track of them is nothing short of an impossible feat).

You finally get to your feet, wringing your hands in a way that you know makes you look weak and pathetic. Just the way Nanami likes you so that he can swoop in and take such good care of his little darling love. 

“Kento, I-” 

“Save it,” he says, already walking towards the bedroom. 

You could put up a fight, but all that’d do is make him angry, and then you’d have to do what he wanted anyway and deal with being tethered back to the bed for a few days while Nanami fusses over you like some sort of deranged mother hen.

You make your way over to the bedroom, already starting to strip, ready to get this over with as soon as possible. 

You’re half-naked by the time you enter his room. 

Even after months and months of this, the humiliation of standing nearly naked in front of him while he stays fully dressed never dulls, it’s still just as sharp and awful as the first time he made you do it. 

(It’s like you’re peeling back your own skin, defenseless as he rubs salt in the wound.) 

You suppose you should feel lucky that he lets you keep on your bra and underwear. Not that the undergarments he bought you really cover all that much, but in these four walls, beggars can’t exactly be choosers. 

He takes off his watch, setting it carefully onto his dresser before walking over to you and starting his nightly inspection for any cuts or bruises you may have received (or given yourself) throughout the day while he was off at work. Off in the world you’ll never see again. Just the thought is enough to make you want to scream. 

You used to be able to wiggle your way out of this, before the incident, as Nanami has dubbed it, but now it’d be a cold day in hell before he doesn’t painstakingly go over (almost) every inch of your skin with a careful eye and calloused hands. 

His thumb always brushes terribly gently over the scar a few centimeters to the right of one of your jugular veins, where you had attempted to slit your throat after you realized that you would probably never escape this place. Never escape him. 

You’d never seen Nanami as scared as when he walked in on you holding a knife to your throat. And you’d never seen him as angry as after he’d wrenched it from your hand using a type of speed that shouldn’t even be humanly possible. 

He took a full month off work after that which coincidently also happened to be the worst fucking month of your life. 

He cups your face in his large hand and presses a kiss to your temple. A sign that he’s deemed you just as pristine as when he left you and that he’s very pleased by it. 

You want to bite his hand. You want to rip his flesh from the bone. You want to hold his heart in your hand and crush it. 

(You want to go home. You want to feel the earth beneath your bare feet. You want to sit on a roof in your childhood neighborhood and watch the sun dip below the horizon and drown the world in golden light. You want to step out on an autumn day with winter just around the corner and smell the crispness in the air, feel it claw its way into your lungs. 

You want to remember what it’s like to be human.)

Nanami’s lips are on yours before you can think, soft and enticing. You could push him away or just say no. He’d listen. Not even he can apparently justifying forcing you. 

(We all have our limits, don’t we?)

But you don’t. You haven’t in a long while. And you hate yourself for it more than you could ever hate him.

He loses his shirt rather quickly and you manage to discard your bra before he lifts you up and tosses you on the bed. You don’t get a second to breathe before he’s over you, monstrous and awful and so terribly beautiful. 

He takes a moment to caress your face, his knuckles brushing over your cheek so tenderly that it nearly makes you sick. You’re thankful when he finally says, “Open up.” 

You do as he says and in the next second two of his fingers are stuffed into your waiting mouth. 

“Suck.” 

And you do, without hesitation, because you know what’s coming next. You know that for the next hour or so, there’ll be no denying the fact that you’re alive, that you’re not some ghost haunting these halls. It’ll prove that it’s blood that flows through your veins instead of stone, that you have not yet started to rot in your own skin. 

He he pulls his fingers from your mouth without a word and leaves a trail of burning kisses down your sternum and stomach. He wastes no time pulling your underwear off and attaching his calloused thumb to your clit, rubbing tight little circles in a way that has you keening almost immediately. 

In an embarrassingly short amount of time you’re wet enough for him to comfortably slip a finger in. Just one of them reaches spots you never quite manage to hit on your own, and you hate how much you love it. It has you moaning, nearly loud enough to drown out the lewd squelching by the time he adds a second finger. 

“You’re so, so good for me,” he murmurs, voice rough. It sends a shiver down your spine.

You hate that the praise has you clenching his fingers in a near vice grip. You hate that he still affects you in any way after what he’s done to you. After what he’s reduced you to. 

You don’t have time to stew in your self-loathing before his fingers find that spongy spot inside of you that has you seeing stars. 

(And this is the reason you don’t push him away. 

You’ll never step foot under the night sky again. But here, with his fingers hitting all the right spots in your cunt, you’ll make your own galaxy and pretend that it holds a candle to the real thing.)

With the pace he sets, his constant low grunts of just how lovely you are creaming around his fingers, and the way his thumb never lets up on your puffy clit, you’re coming within minutes, you spasm around his digits so hard that the stars you so love burst behind your tightly shut eyelids. 

He eases his fingers out of you and licks them clean, his dark eyes half-lidded and nearly glowing in the dimly lit bedroom, burning straight through you. 

You’re the one to look away first. You always are. Shame settling heavily in your gut. Shame that you enjoyed it, shame that you didn’t push him, shame that you’ll do this all over again tomorrow.  

When he finally sinks into you, he does it slowly. Sometimes you wish he wouldn’t, sometimes you wish he’d make it hurt. It’d be easier to hate him instead of yourself if he did. 

When Kento fucks you like this, chest to chest, there’s not a single part of you not swallowed whole by him. 

You hate it. 

You hate yourself more for moaning when he changes the angle and starts fucking you so hard and fast that your hands can’t help but scramble for anything to hang on to, they tear down his back, drawing blood which seems to only spur him on to go harder. 

“Kento I-- I’m-,” but you can’t finish the sentence, not when you can feel your orgasm teetering on the edge, so, so close that it’s painful, you just need- 

“You want to come?” He asks, his voice annoyingly steady.  

It’s unfair of him to expect you to be able to answer when he has you nearly folded in half. You can hardly even think. 

(But when has Kento ever really been fair?)

“Use your words, darling.” His lips are right against your ear, his tone unbearably condescending, and maybe a bit mocking. 

You hate him for asking you to beg. 

You hate yourself more for giving in. 

“Kento, please,” you whine. 

He laughs, low and mean, you feel it in your own chest and for a moment it really is as though you are nothing but an extension of him, a limb left useless without Nanami guiding you. You hate it. You hate it.

Eventually, he relents and brings his thumb back down to your clit, resuming those tight, firm circles, and that’s all you needed to finally push you over the edge.  

This time, when you come, there are no stars to comfort you. Just Kento’s eyes, bright and burning. 

Your cunt clamping down on his cock is all it takes for him to let out a low groan and still completely inside you, the warmth of his cum flooding your cunt is awful in it’s familiarity. 

His eyes finally close as he drops his forehead against yours, breathing your air and forcing you to breathe his. 

He closes the gap between your lips, gently, sweetly. You can almost pretend for a moment that this is the Kento you knew years ago. Who held you so sweetly and smiled when you smiled. 

You don’t realize you’re crying until he kisses your temple tenderly and wipes away your tears. He’s not worried, you cry more often than not after he fucks you. You don’t really want to think about why. 

You let your mind wander as he carries you bridal style to the bathroom, where in a minute he’ll run a warm bath for you two to share, then afterwards he’ll dry you off with the utmost tenderness, then dress you himself before carrying you to the kitchen where he’ll set you on the counter as he makes dinner (you won’t be allowed to help, of course) then he’ll force every last bite down your throat if you refuse to eat (he hasn’t had to do that in a long while though), then he’ll have you curl up on his lap, head tucked into his shoulder, as he reads. After about an hour he’ll bring you back to the bathroom where he’ll brush your teeth for you because you never do it right, and then he’ll drag you into bed no later than 10:30 PM so that you can do it all over again tomorrow. 

“Do you want the lavender or rose soap today?” Nanami asks you. 

You ignore him in favor of trying to remember the details of your galaxy, but it’s already faded away to nothing by the time you close your eyes. 

a/n pt 2: i feel like it was painfully obvious that this was my first attempt ever at smut. i’m so sorry yall. i really did try. 

[noladyme]

The Frog Princess. Chapter 11

She had no wish to be bound down to anyone, but Y/N none the less found herself being dragged across the continent; to marry King Foltest of Temeria.  Instead of pomp and spectacle; she was accompanied by the witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Their travels would bring both monsters, lust, love; and heartache. All sound tracked by an endearing buffoon of a bard, named Jaskier.

TW: Violence, language, sexual themes. Rated M.

11

Geralt made it to the top of the hill and drew his sword, before I even made it half way; Jaskier at my heels. “All this bloody running up and down hills… It’s not good for my voice!”, he panted. “Then stop talking”, I hissed. Once at the top; I saw Geralt standing by an overturned carriage. He looked back at me; chiding me with his eyes for having followed. I raised my eyebrows, and shrugged.

Two horses; having already been ripped apart by scavengers; were still hitched to the carriage. “Stay back”, Geralt snarled. Jaskier and I went to stand behind a tree. The witcher gazed around the area, looking for danger. With bated breath, I watched as he climbed onto the carriage, and opened the door; looking down into the wreck. I saw him sigh; and he met my eyes.

I stepped forward. “Y/N…”, he began. “I’m not sure you want to see this”. He held his hand out to stop me. “My lady”, Jaskier said, and grabbed my arm; pointing towards a piece of cloth laying on the ground. It was a torn purple flag; depicting a Skelliger ship. My breath hitched. “Y/N”, Jaskier said softly. I tore my arm from his grasp; and ran up to the wreck; clambering up one of the wheels to join Geralt. I looked down into the dark carriage; and fell to my knees.

On the bottom of the carriage lay a young woman – near my own age it seemed – with a blade cut across her abdomen, and blood having dried from a gash on her forehead. She was dressed in a black velvet gown, with white lace trim; and a white lily on the front of the skirt. It was my dress. Geralt put his arm around my waist; trying get me to stand, and get of the carriage. “Y/N, you shouldn’t…”. “She’s me…”, I interrupted. “She’s… they sent her as me”. Geralt grunted. “It was probably quick”, he tried. I wrestled myself free from his grasp.

“Don’t!”, I yelled. “This is the carriage Eist sent; to lead Nilfgaard of our tracks. He sent her; to double as me”. I began hyperventilating. He crouched down next to me, and took me in his arms. “Breathe”, he said. “We need to get out of here”. “I can’t…”, I gasped. “She’s… please, no…”. I began sobbing. At that moment all I wanted was to have Thrude – my Tootie – to be there with me; wrap me in her arms. “Fjor barn. Fjor endr…”, I whispered, as she had when I was ill as a child; feeding me broth and chamomile tea, with honey from the bees in our fields. I felt all strength drain from my body; and I went cold all over. It was like there was a string from me to the woman – something unbreakable attaching me to her. And I wanted her to hear me.

“Sshh!”, Geralt hissed suddenly; looking down at the woman. “Her heart is beating”. He looked at me strangely; and then jumped down into the carriage. “Jaskier!”, I called with bated breath. “Get the horses!”. The bard ran down the hill again.

“Y/N”, Geralt said. “Your knife!”. I handed him my sgian-dubh quickly; and he held it to the woman’s nose; seeing the shiny blade fog up. He gave me my knife back; and picked her up carefully; gesturing for me to grab her arms. Working together; we managed to get the woman out of the carriage; and laid her on top of it.

I jumped of the wreck, and spread my cloak on the ground; after which Geralt gently placed the almost lifeless body on top of it. “Please…”, I said. “Do you know her?”, Geralt asked; and held the woman’s eyes open, to check if she was in any way responsive. I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so”. The witcher picked up her slender hand, turning it over in his own; and then sniffed the area around her neck. “She’s half elf…” he said and looked at me.

I lifted her hair from her ears; and saw that they had been trimmed. There was a scar at the top of each one. My eyes welled up. “I’m so sorry…”, I whispered.

Jaskier returned with our horses, and ran up to us; halting in his tracks when he saw what we were doing. “Oh, no…”, he gasped.

“We need to get her out of here”, Geralt growled. “Can we move her?”, I asked. He looked around; as if listening. “We have to”, he said; and wrapped the woman into my cloak; carrying her up to Roach. Jaskier and I held on to her as he saddled up. He took her from us, and sat her in front of him. “We have to hurry”, he said.

I went to saddle up; Jaskier getting on behind me. “Should we go back to Filivandrel?”, I called after the witcher. “Not if we want to keep our heads”, he said. “We’ll find something. Let’s go!”. “Brugge City is more than half a day behind us. Where will we take her?”, Jaskier asked.

It was then I realized that the hills we had been passing the last few hours, had marked the border.

We were in Temeria.

---

We found a small fishing village by the Chotla river. Jaskier managed to charm his way into the cabin of an old widow; just outside of town. “It’s so lovely to have visitors here. Haven’t had much company since my husband died”; she said, as Geralt carried the young half elf through the door. “Is the young lady sick?”.

I rushed in behind Geralt. “Please madam; we need to lay her down somewhere, so we can treat her wounds”. “Madam”, the old woman smiled. “Well I’ve never been called that…”. “Please!”, I interrupted. The woman seemed to begin to understand the urgency, and nodded. “The table”, she said, and removed the mug and plate from where she had been enjoying her supper.

Jaskier found a sheet to cover the tabletop; and Geralt laid the wounded woman on top of it. She was still wrapped in my cloak. Geralt unwrapped her; and I went over to examine the wounds. “Y/N…”, the witcher said. “Shut up. I know what I’m doing”, I said. He grabbed my hand, as I was about to cut open the velvet dress. “She’s part elf”, he reminded me. I looked down and exhaled. “I know what I’m doing”, I repeated - more to myself, than to him. He let go of my hand.

I used my sgian-dubh to slit through the fabric surrounding the cut on the woman’s stomach. Suddenly her eyes opened; and she grabbed my hand. “No!”, she gasped quietly. “No more…”.

Jaskier ran to her head; and put his hands on either side of her face; looking into her eyes. “Shh… It’s alright”, he said softly. “What’s your name?”. “Sao… Saoirsheen”, she whispered. Jaskier smiled. “Saoirsheen. This is… Zaba. She’s going to help you”. Saoirsheen clenched her jaw, and looked fearfully at him. “My name is Jaskier; and the broody bastard over there…”, he nodded his head towards the witcher, “… is Geralt”.

Geralt helped me slowly peel away the fabric from the dress and chemise underneath; and I noticed that the blood in the wound had coagulated; but was full of dirt that would lead to infection if not cleaned. The wound was deep enough to have done serious damage if not checked. “There isn’t a healer anywhere near that will treat her, once they realize what she is”, the witcher whispered.

I sighed. “Saoirsheen, I have to cut into your wound… it will hurt”, I said. The young woman shook her head in panic. “I can try to sedate you… but I’m unsure of how your body will react. Due to your… blood”, I said looking at her meaningfully. Geralt looked from me to Saoirsheen. “You’ll be fine; you can trust her”, he grumbled. Saoirsheens eyes found Jaskiers; and he nodded smilingly at her.

I went to stand by the fire. “Madam...”, I said to the old woman. “Cynnes”, she answered with a smile. I smiled back at her. “Right. I need clean cloth; a pot; water… is there any chance you have wolfs aloe?”, I said. “I have the aloe”, Geralt said from behind me.

The old woman went to get the things I had asked for. Geralt went to stand next to me. My hands where shaking. “Your potion. The one you used for my knee…”. He shook his head. “It wasn’t made for humans; and certainly not for elves. The cut is so deep; it would kill her”. “I might kill her”, I whispered. “Again”. Geralt put his hand on my lower back; soothingly rubbing it. “You didn’t kill her, and you won’t now”. I looked at him with indignance. “This is my fault!”, I hissed. “She wouldn’t be here if not for me…”. Geralt exhaled. “That wasn’t by your choice”. “It wasn’t by hers either!”, I said. “We both know that…”. He grunted.

Jaskier stepped up next to me. “She’s burning up with a fever. What are we going to do?”. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Jaskier; get the mandrake from my satchel. Geralt, I need to boil water”.

Jaskier went to get our bags from the horses; and Geralt helped Cynnes with the bucket of water she’d gathered from the river. I went back to the table, and smiled reassuringly at Saiorsheen. “Your name is lovely, Saoirsheen. Where are you from?”, I asked. “Cintra Capital”, she whispered. “My mother is a seamstress at the court”. “Is she… elf?”, I asked. Saiorsheen nodded slightly. “And your father?”, I said. “He’s from Skellige”, she smiled. “Like you, my lady. I recognize your accent”. I tried to smile. “Your sgian-dubh…”, she said. “I had one just like it. Not as pretty though… My father gave it to me on one of his visits with king Eist”. I frowned slightly. “You don’t have it anymore?”, I asked. She shook her head weakly. “It was taken from me. I’m not allowed to have knives. They don’t trust me with them”. I chuckled. “They hardly trust me with them either”, I smiled.

Jaskier began rummaging through my satchel; and pulled out the now dried pink oleander. “Not that one!”, I said quickly. “Those will kill her. The thin slices; wrapped in leaves”. Jaskier handed me the mandrake; and I went to put them in the now boiling pot of water. I added the wolfs aloe given to me by Geralt, and stirred until I was satisfied with the color of the liquid; pouring all of it into a mug. “Thank you for your sacrifice”, I whispered into it; gazing at Geralt, who was sending me a half smile.

I went back to Saoirsheen. “This will taste like piss mixed with old feet”, I said. “But it’ll relax you; and it might block some of the pain”. Saoirsheens breath hitched. “The boy”, she whispered. “I want the boy”. Geralt turned to Jaskier; and raised his brow. “Me?”, the bard whispered. “Jaskier!”, I hissed. Hurrying over to the young woman’s side; he took her hand. “I’m here”, he said softly, and smiled. I handed him the mug. “She has to drink all of it. No waste; or the mandrake might punish her – and me – by killing us”. Jaskier frowned; but poured all of the liquid into Saoirsheen’s mouth; taking care to wipe her cheek for stray droplets, and pushing them towards her lips.

Cynnes came over to me, holding a candle, and I let my knife touch the flame, to cauterize it. I looked at Geralt. “Hold her down”, I said. Geralt put his hands on Saoirsheens legs; and Jaskier leaned over her – still holding her hand – so she couldn’t see.

I took a deep breath; and slid my knife into the wound. Saoirsheen screamed in pain. “Sshh… it’ll be over soon”, I head Jaskier mutter.

Opening the wound, it was as I had feared. Whatever had cut through her belly had been sharp – but dirty. What the fuck am I doing?, I thought; and clenched my fists to keep from shaking. “Little frog…”, I heard Geralt breathe. I looked at him; and he smiled softly at me. If ever there was a time for magic, it’s now. I sighed; and got back to work.

I poured some boiled water gently into Saoirsheens wound; making her jump a little on the table; and wimper. “You are being very strong”, Jaskier whispered.

I smiled.

---

A while later I was washing up. I’d managed to clean Saoirsheens wound; treat it with a poultrice of healing herbs; and stitched her back up. She was laying on Cynnes bed; washed, and covered in clean sheets. Jaskier was sitting next to her; holding her hand – whispering things I couldn’t hear.

I sat down on a chair tiredly; drying my hands. Geralt crouched down next to me. “I don’t think I did much of a difference for her”, I muttered. “You gave her a chance”, he said quietly. I scoffed. “A chance to go back to Cintra; and be treated like shit with the rest of her kind”, I snarled. Geralt poked at the fire. “When you’re queen you have the power to do something about that”, he muttered.

I chuckled. “Are you giving me advice on being a queen now?”, I smiled. “I thought you weren’t in the habit of meddling in politics”. “What you do when you get to Vizima is up to you”, he grumbled. “But you should probably remember what you’ve seen on your way there”. “Now you sound like Filivandrel”, I smirked. Geralt gave me a crooked smile. “He’s not wrong”.

Geralt put his hand on my knee and squeezed it; making me jolt from pain. “Your knee?”, he asked, frowning. I smiled. “It’s been a long couple of days. And I was tied to a pole in a tent all day, yesterday”, I said. “It’s probably still healing”. The witcher nodded.

Jaskier came to join us by the fire. “She’s asleep”, he said. Geralt grunted. “You should get some sleep too”, he said to me. “We have to move on soon”. I nodded. “I need to make sure she’s all right, first”, I said. The witcher looked at me meaningfully, exhaled; and nodded. “The old woman has offered us her wood shack out back. It’s dry”, he said.

“I think… I think I’m going to be sitting with Saoirsheen tonight”, Jaskier muttered. I looked at him, frowning. “Jaskier; she’s just been cut open and is fighting a fever…”, I said. Jaskier rolled his eyes. “I’m not a necrophiliac!”, he sneered. “And Cynnes will be here with us”. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not going to try anything?”, I said. “That’s not like you”. “She’s already been through too much”, he said earnestly. “Don’t need me mucking up her life more”. He looked at his nails.

“Goodnight, Jaskier”, I smiled, and leant in to kiss his cheek. The bard blushed. Geralt patted his shoulder once; and we left the cabin for the small shack behind it.

Geralt had brought a blanket from the horses, and laid it on the mud floor for us to rest on. I was shivering – not from cold, so I guessed it was from the events of the evening. The witcher stroked my cheek; and sliding his fingers under my chin. Then, he brushed my lips with his thumb, before leaning in to kiss me. I pulled back. “I can’t…”, I said. “Not tonight”. Geralt nodded at me. “I understand”. I looked into his eyes. “Will you hold me?”. He opened his arms, and I slid into his embrace; once again putting my ear to his chest; listening for his slow heartbeat.

“That girl was dead, and you brought her back”, he said suddenly. I frowned. “I just cleaned her wound, and stitched her up”, I said. “We don’t know that she’ll make it”. Geralt sighed. “No”, he said. “When I saw her in the carriage, she had no heartbeat. She was dead”.

My breath hitched. “What do you mean?”, I demanded. “Dead bodies don’t heal. You saw her wound! Her blood…”. “Was coagulated”, he said. “She didn’t begin healing until after you saw her. When her heart began beating again”.

My chest heaved for breath. “What?”, Geralt asked, his eyes worried. I swallowed. “When I saw her…”, I said. “I went cold. It was like all life was drained from me. I was so distraught… I just wanted her to live again. To have the life back that was taken from her…”.

Geralt tensed up, and looked at me pointedly. “What did you say?”, he asked. “You were mumbling something back there; what was it?”. “You have superhuman hearing; you could hear me”, I scoffed. He clenched his jaw. “Yes, but I didn’t understand”, he said. “What does fjor mean?”.

I sat up and wrapped the blanket around me; and he sat up next to me, to look me in the eyes. “It was something my Thrude used to say to me when I was a child… when I was sick”, I answered. “It’s old skelliger. I think it means life”.

Geralt groaned deeply. “What?”, I asked. He looked at me with cold eyes. “You used magic”, he almost snarled. I shook my head. “I didn’t know…”, I muttered.

He stood up, and punched his fist into the wall; making the small building shake. “You could have killed yourself”, he growled. “There is no magic without a sacrifice. You drained yourself to bring her back!”.

I stood up behind him; and put my hand on his back. “But I’m all right, Geralt”, I said. “Nothing happened. It was an accident…”. He turned around and grabbed my wrist, looking at me angrily. “But what about next time?”, he snarled. “What happens when you pass a child’s grave, and will it alive again?”. “Geralt…”. “You were lucky she’d only been dead for such a short time. You would have…”. I pulled at my wrist. “Geralt, you’re hurting me”, I breathed.

He instantly let go of me; and his face dropped. “Y/N”, he whispered. “I’m sorry. I just want to protect you”. My lower lip was quivering. He backed away from me. “I’ll get you some more blankets, so you can sleep”, he said. “I will find somewhere else”.

I sank to the floor. My body just gave in; and I sat there – quivering. “You don’t want me anymore”, I whispered, tears beggining to run down my cheeks. “Because I’m not what you thought I was”. He turned to face me. “No”, he said, sinking down in front of me. “No, that’s not it. You are exactly what I thought you were”, he sighed. “But, don’t you want me away from you now? You said I hurt you. I don’t want that”. “I didn’t mean…”, I said. I rubbed my wrist. “I’m fine”. I tried to smile through the tears.

He put his forehead to mine. “I will always want you”, he muttered. “Even when I’m old; gray, deaf and blind?”, I whispered. He chuckled. “It’ll be easier to win arguments”.

I looked at him and sent him a crooked smile. “You’ll never win an argument with me”, I said. “Is that a promise”, he smiled. I laughed. “If you did; you’d know it was a doppler, and not me”. Geralt laughed along with me. “Can you stop crying now? I would like to kiss you”.

I threw my arms around his neck; and planted my lips on his. He slid his arms around me, and returned my kiss.

“Geralt”, I said; putting my forehead to his again. “What is happening to me? Am I becoming what Nilfgaard wants?”. He laid me down next to him again, and wrapped me in his arms. “I think Nilfgaard wants you to kill, not heal”, he said. I sighed. “This is fucking scary”, I frowned. Geralt chuckled. “Well, you’ve always been rather terrifying”, he said.

I slept deeper than I had in a long time that night.

---

Geralt woke me at dawn. “She’s awake”, he said. “Asking for you”. I took his offered hand to stand, my legs a little wobbly; and followed him back into Cynnes’ cabin.

Saoirsheen was still laying in the bed; her color having improved much since the day before. I checked to see that her fever was down; and was relieved to find that my work on her hadn’t caused more damage – it seemed that I had in fact done exactly what was needed to help her recover.

“Are you feeling better?”, I asked. She nodded. “I’m dizzy, and my stomach hurts. But I am all right, I think”. I smiled and nodded. “You shouldn’t move for a while. You could tear the stitches”. “I know”, she nodded. “The old woman has been very kind. She’s offered me to stay until I feel well enough to travel”. I frowned slightly. “Does she know? About your mother?”. Saoirsheen nodded. “She doesn’t seem to mind”, she said. “She shouldn’t”, I retorted.

We sat for a while; as Jaskier brought the young woman broth, and helped her lift her head to drink it; and then went to get her some more blankets. “He’s a kind boy, that one”, Saoirsheen said. “He is”, I smiled and looked at her. “But…”. “Oh, my lady. I’d never!”, she frowned at me. “Have you heard him sing? It’s like a filingless pie! Not exactly something to make a woman’s loins quiver”. We laughed together; and I took her hand.

“Saoirsheen; we have to leave”, I said. “I know, my lady”, she answered. I looked at her inquiringly. “Why do you call me that? My name is just…”. She stopped me. “I know who you are, my lady”, she said, and looked at me with meaningful eyes. My breath hitched; and I wanted to say something – to somehow apologize.

“What happened back there… it was horrible”, she said, and began crying. Cynnes came to sit by her head, and stroked her cheek. “I was with some guards, that pretended I was you. They stopped us on that hill. They were soldiers; wearing black armor. One of them – a big one – came in to the carriage with me, and began asking me questions that I couldn’t answer. He didn’t like what I was saying; so, he began checking my body for marks”. She sighed. “When he got to my ears…”, she looked down; and dried her eyes. “I don’t really remember anything after that. Not until I was here, on that table”.

I breathed deeply. “I am so sorry”, I whispered. She smiled. “It wasn’t your fault, my lady. You didn’t put me in that carriage. And last night, you saved my life”. I didn’t know how to tell her that she’d actually been dead. That she had died for me.

I pulled out my sgian-dubh, and placed it in her hand. “I want you to have this”, I said. Saoirsheen’s eyes widened. “I could never…”, she began. “Someone took yours from you, without right”, I said. “Please. Keep it. Until we meet again”. She smiled, and nodded. “Until we meet again, my lady Zaba”.

I stood up to take my leave. Jaskier went to Saoirsheens side, and kissed her hand. “I’ll write you a song, my dear”, he said. The young woman frowned. “Please don’t”, she said.

Geralt stifled a chuckle; and we left the cottage.

---

Thanks for reading.

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- no lady

  Tag list:

@ayamenimthiriel��

[queenlokibeth]

I wanted to mention a couple of things about mental health that I think are important.

I'm doing relatively well at the moment. I've managed to go to bed before 2am most days, usually at midnight, and I've gotten 6-7 hours of sleep every night. I've eaten at least 2 full proper meals at reasonable times every day. I haven't turned in any homework late. I have to consciously fight off executive dysfunction but I do manage to win. I'm doing relatively well, which is how I notice just how badly I was doing just a month and a half ago.

What I want to say is that, when you're going through a rough mental health patch (especially if that patch is like a year or more) you might be aware that "sure, yeah, I'm not doing well" but it can also sort of feel like that's just... the way it is.

In December I consciously knew that I was having an awful time, quite probably the deepest hole in terms of mental health in my life, but I had also already been living like that for almost a year, and I transitioned into this hole more or less slowly. So last December I knew that I wasn't feeling or behaving the way that I did a year before that, but it wasn't a drastic change, I eased into that pit. Think about that metaphor about dropping a frog into boiling water and it will jump out, but slowly boil it and it won't notice and die.

I was conscious about the big things: for some reason I physically couldn't get myself to start tasks. I was distracted all the time. My sleeping schedule was something like 4am-10am when I wasn't pulling an all-nighter. I was showering once a week, did laundry every 6 weeks, and lost a lot of weight. I didn't want to do anything and I had no will to go outside. I wanted to read a book but not out of real pursuit of fun, but because I felt like I desperstely needed to catch a break and force myself to do something nice for myself. What I was obviously not conscious of was what was causing all of this.

Being in a pit of terrible mental health feels somehow even worse when you are fully aware that you're completely unhealthy, and you can pinpoint all the things that aren't working right, and you try to do all the correct things to "go back to normal", but you can't, and after a year you don't really remembers what your normal feelings or reactions to things were. In this awful state I was trying to manifest a version of myself who got her shit together and showered regularly and turned homework in on time and did laundry without it taking the same effort as hiking up a mountain, but this version of myself still had the same mental state, numbness, and mental fog, since that's all I knew at the time and I couldn't remember or understand that that's not my default state as a human being. And under that cloud of malfunctioning mental connections and chemicals I was NEVER going to manage to start functioning like a healthy person again.

Why am I pointing out all of this? Because it can be hard to realise how different things can be when you start getting healthier. There are factors of my personality that I hadn't even identified as altered in December.

I'm noticing this now because I did somehow transitioned into recovering extremely quickly. While it took me a few months to fall into a shit state of mental health, and then stayed there for like a year, now in about 3 weeks to a month I flipped my life around and everything is so much... brighter.

I don't mean for this to sound like an ad a la "you can, too, flip your life around!" But as reassurance that getting better is an option, and even a "quick" one, but obviously not without help, and not without PHYSICAL aspecrs. During that month I spent time in warmer weather, seeing sun semi regularly (I had not been outside for longer than 15 minutes at a time every few days in extremely cloudy weather for a few months at that point), I didn't have school so I didn't have to stress about a destroying amount of deadlines, I "recovered" sleep (the first day I slept for 14 hours, then 10 for a few days, and then dropped to 8 consistently), I ate healthy and hearty food, and I had conversations daily with my parents, after having been completely alone for about 7 months of not talking to anyone. During the first 2 weeks I still felt like a mess, the third week was better, and by the end of the month I felt vaguely functional.

By now I'm in no way fully better but Everything Is So Different. Now I'm realising and coming back to the way I always used to behave and feel about things. I find real joy in things and I hadn't even noticed that for a year I had NOT felt joy about ANYTHING I was merely using things to cope! And I hadn't noticed because I could no longer remember that a different feeling beyond "neutral" existed!

I'm excited about going outside now even if it's so so cold, I realised the other day that I needed something from the store and I just... put on my coat and went to the door? And i surprised myself mid step that it was just... that easy. I wanted to go somewhere and I could just... go. I didn't have to psych myself up for 3 days and then end up delaying my departure by 2 hours because that's how long it took me to find the will to put my shoes on.

Anyways I saw a candle and it was only $2 and it smelled really good and I just bought it because I deserve things that make me happy and then I bought some cinnamon flavoured coffee because I WANTED to try it and I also bought this coffee creamer that I saw because suddenly it was easy to just reach into the grocery store fridge and pull it out instead of planning it a week in advance and then overthinking it because do I really need it do I have space in the fridge am I going to finish it or will it expire first only to get overwhelmed and leave the store without it only to immediately regret it and get sad about not getting it once I arrived back to my room. I enjoy drinking my coffee now, I'm not just doing it to stay awake. I can actually get out of bed at the right time even if I'm still a bit tired because the sun is coming up and it looks pretty outside. It snowed yesterday and everyone was out at night playing with it and a stray snowball reached me while I was on my way to get dinner. This poor guy that I'd never seen apologised profusely and it was so funny! There was something about everyone in masks and standing 6 feet apart taking advantage of snowball fights as a way to interact with each other that felt straight out of a Hallmark movie.

Bottomline: at your worst there isn't anything that looks tangibly better, but there is, and you start to realise it afterwards. While you should definitely go to therapy if you can/need to, and that meds can be necessary, there is so much that you can start slowly fixing (with a lot of effort, I know) that will seriously, seeiously help. I know that it might sound like bullshit or like an oversimplification, but it's true and it's stuff that you'll never truly believe will work until you're doing better and you're like "oh shit damn".

Please sleep. Please sleep at night time and have a semi regular sleeping schedule. I know that it sounds like it won't be enough (and true, by itself it probably won't heal you completely but it will sure help a lot). I would always "understand" that sleep was important and "yes mom i know that I need to sleep better" but I never interiorised how DRAMATICALLY sleep affects your entire life. Regular, good, nighttime sleep helps regulate all the hormones and chemicals that we need. If your fucked up sleeping schedule shut down production of serotonin, congratulations now you have all the awful symptoms that come along with lacking an essential component of your functioning. And I know that it's often a terrible vicious cycle of not being able to sleep properly or procrastinating sleep or being unable to just go to bed causing mental health problems which continue to prevent you from being able to fix youe sleep pattern. Please take it from me, someone who a month ago felt like she'd genuinely never be able to function semi properly again, that forcing yourself to fix your sleep is a HUGE MEGA STEP towards fully recovering. I know it now because I can see the contrast, but a month ago I didn't understand it because I was like "well yeah I need to sleep better but what's the point I'm fine it won't change much" yeah well my brain is an asshole and I was not in fact fine but rather completely empty inside and just going the fuck to sleep semi regularly has made me feel like a real person instead of a weird cryptid for the first time in months. Just go the fuck to sleep, PLEASE.

[lady-charinette]

Bakugou the Bodyguard - Kacchako-ish Fic

Prompt: Bakugou knew the girls from his class were no pushovers, he could admit at least that much. So, when they suddenly came to him with a weird request, he decided to sit back and observe.

It was peaceful. Fucking finally after all the chaos the past week.

They had barely escaped with all their limbs intact, Recovery Girl had worked her aging ass off making sure none of them kicked the bucket before they hit the age of fifty. That, and a few days of time out of school, and the class of 1-A felt like they wouldn't collapse when they took more than a few steps outside.

It had been a tough battle, the stupid Nomus had been the worst though, even Bakugou had a tough time dealing with one, when a whole swarm came at them, he was glad the pro heros had gotten there just in the nick of time.

Bakugou rubbed at his forearm, now fully healed, but still feeling the phantom pain after one of the Nomu nearly dislocated it, the only thing preventing him from twisting the bone had been Aizawa kicking the monster away from him. Bakugou wasn't a wimp, but in that moment, with his arm hurting like hell and his body pushed to the brink of exhaustion, he felt a lot weaker than he was used to, like a small ant surrounded by large humans stomping around him.

It had ben fucking terrifying, he just hoped they've dealt with all those things. He hadn't heard anything from them since, so he assumed the pro heroes were either still investigating or just cleaning up the trash.

Bakugou stiffened, pencil falling onto his open homework when he heard a plethora of footsteps approaching the closed door of the living area.

There were muted whispers from multiple people and Bakugou arched a brow when he heard a squeak and the door flung open, revealing nearly all the girls in his class.

What the fuck?

He grimaced at their pitiful state, everyone sporting bandages or plasters of some kind. Recovery girl could only do so much, while her healing powers were great, some injuries needed time to heal, especially if she'd run out of energy after healing the hundredth patient that week.

It was round face that stepped forward, the girls gathered behind her in a circle, “Um, Bakugou, sorry for barging in here like that but, we…we wanted to ask you something.” She bit her lip, fingers nervously fiddling.

He could practically taste the discomfort in the air, something was giving him a bad feeling, “Yeah, what? Spit it out, round face.“

It was Yaoyozoru who stepped beside Uraraka and spoke up, decidedly more confident but still cautious, “We were wondering if you’d accompany us to the beach today.”

The room fell silent, Bakugou just staring at the girls of his class as if they’d all grown second heads or collectively lost their brains.

What?

“…Huh?” the blond stared, dumbstruck, bling rapidly before he shook his head, “And why would I do that?” he crossed his arms, glaring at the group suspiciously. Why would he go with them to the beach? They generally avoided his company, except for pink cheeks, racoon eyes and earjack.

Yaoyozoru bowed respectfully, “We…we’re still injured from battling the Nomus, Recovery Girl hadn’t been able to fully heal us…” her timid countenance grew more determined, “However! We don’t want to idly sit by and waste our time we have for training! The beach is always full of rival schools, especially boys, we’ve always managed by ourselves, but…I’m afraid we would be too injured if the beach is full of them today.” She swallowed and Bakugou sensed the discomfort in the room increase tenfold, judging by the looks of shame and guilt on the girl’s faces when they looked off to the side.

So, that was it.

They were harassed by rival school guys lounging around on the beach.

He knew the girls from his class were no pushovers nor fragile in any way, fighting Uraraka at the Sports Festival and seeing them fight first-hand proved that. To come ask him for such a favour must have taken a lot out of them.

Still, he was curious, “Why ask me? I bet shitty Deku or Kirishima would help out.” It was odd, he hadn’t seen anyone of the guys today except grapeshit, maybe the others were out training?

Racoon eyes sighed behind Uraraka, “Don’t you know? The boys all either went home to visit or to camp for training and lessons.”

Ah, right, there had been something Kirishima had been telling him last night, but Bakugou had only half listened.

That explained why he was seemingly the only guy here.

Yaoyozoru looked uncomfortable as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, “And uhm…we…we didn’t want to ask Mineta so…”

Bakugou snorted, he could imagine why, the little shit never missed an opportunity to be the first one to spy on the girls. He would have a field day at the beach with them.

Bakugou turned back to stare down at his homework, pencil scraping against the sheet, “Tch, I don’t have time for your shit today.”

Uraraka looked ready to argue but Yaoyozoru shook her head, leading the girls out of the room, Mina, Jirou and Uraraka sending disappointed looks towards Bakugou before they closed the door behind them.

Silence settled into the room again and suddenly, Bakugou felt his blood boil unnaturally.

He glanced at the clock.

It was nearing late afternoon, when the students would be finished with classes or extracurricular activities.

The beach should be crowded by now.

The pencil snapped in two, splintered pieces of wood scattering across his homework.

The girls cautiously moved towards their usual spot, already dreading their decision as the beach was even more crowded than usual, it didn’t go unnoticed how even the girls from other schools generally kept to the farther ends of the beach, away from the rowdy boys who were fighting nearer to their spot.

Uraraka noticed her classmates’ hesitance and steeled herself, moving to the front and cheering loudly, “Hey guys! This is our time to shine! We can finally get stronger and show everyone what we’re made of, I’m sure everything will be fine!” she pumped her fists in the air excitedly, seeing some of their faces brightening.

Mina grinned widely and fist bumped the air too, “Alright! Let’s get started girls!”

The group cheered in unison, catching the attention of several of the males.

The first few minutes had been fine, employing their quirks in small and weaker amounts as much as they were able in their still bruised states while trying to play volleyball at the same time. Uraraka tried using her gravity quirk to her advantage but found the nausea to be too strong, so she refrained from using it, even Yaoyozoru, Jirou and Mina didn’t use their quirks much.

And suddenly, a large shadow covered Uraraka.

The shorter girl turned around curiously, looking up to stare at at least eight towering guys smiling down at them, “Hey, mind if we join in, ladies?”

Uraraka felt her heart speed up in fear, Yaoyozoru beside her stiffening in apprehension, “Excuse me, but this is private practice for our classes.”

The guy that spoke looked at her, a leery grin on his face, “Oh, really? Maybe we can teach you girls a few things, huh? Whatcha say guys?” the other behind him hollered in agreement and suddenly, the group had gotten bigger, now more and more males joining in.

Mina tried to produce her acid slime, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough to scare all of them away. Jirou’s quirk was useless as she couldn’t channel the waves easily in the damp sand from yesterday’s rain.

Tsuyu tried moving slowly to the side, attempting to offer Uraraka leeway by assaulting the first guy, but another one showed up to intercept the frog girl, “And where do you think you’re going, little frog?”

“Ribbit?” Tsuyu frowned, moving back towards Hagakure, Mina and Jirou.

Uraraka swallowed, fingers sweating when the grins on the boys’ faces grew wider, “This isn’t good, none of us are in any condition to fight, especially not all of them! I can’t use my quirk without throwing up my lunch, Momo can’t create anything larger than a ball and the others are in even worse conditions.” Uraraka spread her feet, remembering Gunhead’s training, “I can’t take them all down, but maybe the few I will are enough so the others escape. Come on!”

Mentally giving herself strength, Uraraka shouted what sounded like a battle cry as she attempted to launch at the first guy in her way, however her own shout was vastly overpowered by the booming howl of a very familiar but unexpected voice beside her.

And suddenly, just like that, the group of boys before them blew apart in a earsplitting explosion, cries of pain and shock ringing out from the large amounts of smoke covering the beach.

Uraraka stood frozen, until she slowly turned her head to the side. She didn’t even have to look far because he was standing almost next to her.

It was Bakugou.

“B-Bakugou?” he was dressed in black swimming trunks with an explosive design, sunglasses nestled into his spiky hair, a beach towel wedged in his arm.

The blond looked at her, “Tch, what? Thought I would leave you bunch to get training done alone? Well, forget it pink cheeks.” Uraraka’s face flushed, watching his jaw work as he spotted another group warily watching them, “Oi! What are you looking at?! You want a piece of me, shitty extras?!” almost immediately, the boys turned around and dispersed.

Jirou smiled, “Thanks for the help, spiky!” she grinned in delight when Bakugou gave her a sharp glare before turning on his heel and scaring off a guy from his spot, setting up his own towel on the sand and settling under the parasol, arms crossed behind his head, sunglasses perched on his nose.

“Watcha staring at, huh?! This isn’t the zoo damn it!” Bakugou barked at them in annoyance, nose flaring when the girls started giggling.

Yaoyozoru placed a reassuring hand on Uraraka’s shoulder, “It seems like even someone like Bakugou values friendship more than he lets on, he did come after all.”

True, it even surprised Uraraka a bit. While she knew he respected her, she hadn’t been sure if he would agree to this, especially considering Bakugou wasn’t known to be very social.

Her heart flooded with warmth, hand clenching her chest as a smile played on her lips.

Bakugou glared and barked at anyone in a five mile radius, steam coming out from his palms in warning whenever there were a few dumb daredevils even trying to cross his newly established territory.

Bakugou almost exploded right off his seat when he saw a figure approach, but quickly settled when he realized it was Uraraka, “You’re blocking the sun, pink cheeks.” He was sitting in the shade to begin with, but it never hurt to re-establish his dominance.

Uraraka didn’t seem peeved at all by his comment, instead the smile she directed at him was even brighter than the damn sun itself, “I just wanted to thank you Bakugou, for being here and doing this for us.” She bowed, her cheeks a pink hue and smile as wide as her face, “You can come and train with us anytime, you know! I bet you’ll have a hard time beating us!” she beamed a full on sunshine smile at him, stronger than any of his explosions and jogged off to join the volleyball game.

Bakugou’s eyes scanned the area of the beach he now dubbed as “his”. There were no more vermin around it, everyone giving him a wide berth.

Uraraka had one teammate less on her side of the net.

He was a sporty guy.

He could use more quirk training to develop his skills.

Bakugou grit his teeth.

“Uraraka, on your right!” the gravity manipulator made a move to dive toward the far right, the distance far too great to reach the ball in time.

At this rate, they would lose a point!

If only she could-

A blond blur rushed past her in a rush of explosions, slamming the ball and making it hit the other team’s field without anyone parrying it.

Bakugou grinned at her, a competitive streak in his eyes and wild grin, “Quit it with the snail pace, angel face or we’ll fucking lose!” he used his quirk to cover greater distance, assisting Yaoyozoru with smashing the ball to the other side.

Uraraka smiled, rushing forward to help Bakugou launch the ball over the net.

Thanks for reading everyone! Hope it wasn’t too OOC.

[glcsowy-ed-blog]

HI,  THIS  BITCH  IS  GOING  ON  HIATUS  AND  HERE’S  WHY !

( the funny hat is not related to it whatsoever i just didn’t know what icon to post here so )

LET’S  START  WITH  THE  FACT  THAT  I  SEEM  TO  NOT  LEARN  FROM  MY  MISTAKES.  this  isn’t  the  first  time  this  happens  lmao.  see,  the  thing  with  me  is  that  you  can  easily  assume  that  THE  MORE  ACTIVE  I’M  HERE,  THE  MORE  I’M  TRYING  TO  RUN  FROM  SOME  REAL  LIFE  ISSUES.  and,  yeah,  i  guess  -  aren’t  we  all  ??  but  there  is  a  difference  in  treating  the  rpc  like  a  nice  hobby  to  de-stress  and  in  what  i’m  doing.  

IT’S  FUNNY,  BECAUSE  THIS  IS  EXACTLY  WHAT  I  HAD  TO  POST  ON  ONE  OF  MY  OTHER  RP  BLOGS  LIKE,  A  YEAR  AGO.  i  legit  thought  i  have  things  under  control  and  that  i’ll  be  able  to  keep  everything  in  balance  this  time.  when  i  started  this  blog,  i  was  in  a  pretty  good  mental  state,  actually.  WELL,  MAYBE  NOT,  BUT  -  GETTING  THERE,  DEFINITELY.  i  was  SO  SURE  things  are  going  to  be  different  this  time  around.

i  made  a  mistake  of  completely  hiding  from  the  issues  i  was  doing  a  pretty  good  job  of  fixing  up  until  recently.  it  wasn’t  a  step  back,  but  i  definitely  stopped  moving.  THIS  IS  STILL  PROGRESS,  IN  A  WAY  ??  thinking  back  to  what  i  was  doing  a  year  ago,  to  how  i  single  handedly  fucked  up  multiple  online  friendships,  ( not  to  even  mention  rl  ones,  i’m  not  even  gonna  go  there  )  it’s  still  not  so  bad.  and  i  need  to  step  back  for  a  not  specified  amount  of  time  to  prevent  it  from  getting  bad.

this  is  the  part  where  i  explain  it  further  and  if  somebody  is  sensitive  /  triggered  by  mentions  of  alcohol,  drugs  and  depression,  this  is  your  warning  to  proceed  with  caution.

hi  my  name  is  jay  and  i  have  a  drinking  problem  (  hi  jay  )  and  i  also  have  a  diagnosed  bipolar  disorder  (  bye  jay  )  and  i  have  a  history  of  both  of  those  in  my  close  family.  i’m  nearly  5  months  sober  now  and  i’m  not  going  to  therapy  anymore,  neither  am  i  taking  meds,  which  was  a  personal  choice.  (  i  still  have  my  therapist’s  number  in  case  things  get  bad,  though  and  since  i’m  rly  set  on  getting  healthy,  i’m  not  gonna  be  a  dumbass  and  actually  reach  out  to  her  if  that’s  what  it  comes  to.  but  i  kinda  want  to  try  and  get  by  without  medication.  again,  a  personal  choice,  i  don’t  have  anything  against  meds  ;  the  opposite,  actually,  bcs  wasn’t  it  for  the  stabilizers  i  was  taking  last  year,  i  don’t  think  i’d  manage  to  get  myself  to  the  point  where  i  can  actually  start  working  on  this  on  my  own.  )

i  was  still  drinking  through  the  therapy  and  a  couple  of  months  after  it  ended.  i  took  my  meds  with  booze.  i  never  rly  mentioned  it  to  my  therapist,  either,  which  now  i  realize  was  a  big  red  flag,  since  i  opened  up  about  the  worst  shit.  

i  live  in  a  country  that  enables  drinking.  it’s  WEIRD  not  to  drink  here.  it’s  part  of  the  culture.  i  have  friends  younger  than  me  that  already  have  serious  medical  issues  linked  to  drinking.  (  i’m  only  turning  24  this  year  and  i’m  p  sure  my  liver  is  lowkey  rotting.  )  i  attended  a  wedding  recently  and  had  my  ““date””’s  dad  say  that  he  wished  that  i  gave  them  heads-up  about  the  fact  that  i  don’t  drink.  i  had  somebody  else  jokingly  say  that  i  will  have  to  fight  twice  as  hard  for  the  family’s  acceptance.  this  is  a  regular  functional  family.  it’s  just  the  fucking  culture.  

when  you’re  a  daily  drinker,  even  the  people  closest  to  you  don’t  really  notice.  it’s  like  the  boiling  frog  fable.  if  the  frog  is  put  into  boiling  water,  it  will  immediately  jump  out,  but  if  the  water  is  tepid  and  then  brought  to  boil  slowly,  the  frog  stays.  i  was  surrounded  by  frogs.  the  drinking  got  worse  gradually,  not  all  at  once.  i  hid  it  without  even  realizing  i’m  doing  it.  YOU  DON’T  REALIZE  YOU  DO  IT.  it  is  an  instinct.  throwing  the  bottles  out  into  the  bins  outside,  not  the  ones  at  home.  saying  you’ve  had  2,  when  you’ve  had  5.

it’s  not  an  edgy  thing,  even  though  if  you  talked  to  me  a  mere  year  ago,  i'd  meme  the  fuck  out  of  it.  ��  whiskey  is  cheaper  than  therapy  !!  ’  and  all  that.  it’s  ugly,  it’s  sad,  it’s  toxic,  it’s  nothing  you  want  to  go  through.  you  don’t  want  that  killer  headache,  you  don’t  want  to  look  at  pictures  from  last  night’s  party  and  not  recognize  yourself,  you  don’t  want  to  throw  the  trash  out  and  have  it  make  clinking  glass  noises,  and  look  down  as  you  are  passing  people  with  it.  you  don’t  want  your  first  bf  to  tell  you  he  hates  you  when  you’re  drunk,  you  don’t  want  to  live  with  all  those  times  you  hurt  people  that  care  for  you.  alcohol  is  not  a  truth  serum,  it’s  an  asshole  serum.  it’s  fucking  gross.  you  don’t  want  to  not  be  able  to  talk  with  certain  people  without  having  a  drink  first,  you  don’t  want  to  look  at  them  and  wonder  if  that’s  going  to  be  you  in  +10  years.  (  is  it  a  good  time  to  gently  nudge  anyone  who  might  be  reading  this  and  having  similar  issues  ??  don’t  drink  to  feel  better,  the  older  you’ll  get,  the  less  edgy  and  romanticized,  and  more  pathetic  and  terrible  you’ll  feel.  )

last  december  i  managed  to  binge  drink  a  whole  month  away.  i’d  go  without  food  for  weeks,  drink  at  work,  it  was  the  worst  mania  case  of  my  entire  life.  i  let  my  guards  down  and  had  a  person  i  trusted  the  most  and  loved  with  all  my  heart  take  advantage  of  me.  it  was  new  years  eve.  i  was  in  denial  up  until  half  of  january,  still  keeping  in  touch  with  them  -  and  then  one  day  i  made  a  bet  with  a  friend  to  quit  drinking  for  a  month.  after  the  month  passed,  i  just  kept  on  going  with  it.  it’s  a  wip.  it’s  good, but  it’s  still  a  wip.  i’m  not  planning  to  get  back  to  it,  ever.

literally  nobody: me:  this  fucking  trainwreck  of  a  post

if  i  was  capable  of  talking  about  this  in  a  chill  personal  way,  this  post  wouldn’t  exist,  i’d  just  announce  the  hiatus  due  to  personal  reasons  and  be  done  with  it.  but  i  have  people  reaching  out  to  me,  friends  reaching  out  to  me  and  i’m  in  no  state  to  explain  shit  personally.  i’m  the  worst  at  this,  i  can’t  do  it,  so  i  decided  to  just  scream  into  the  void  and  hope  whoever  needs  to  read  this,  will.  lmao.

last  year  i  just  deleted  tf  out  of  all  my  blogs  and  burned  all  the  bridges  down,  but  since  i’m  doing  way  better  now  and  i’m  a  bit  more  reasonable  about  the  whole  thing,  i’ll  ghost  until  i  feel  ACTUALLY  GOOD  ENOUGH  to  maybe  treat  this  as  a  fucking  hobby  and  keep  things  in  balance.

i  love  you,  guys.  take  care  <3      

[anthropologicalhands]

ceg fic: keeping it light

summary: During one of their late-night conversations, Rebecca tells Nathaniel about her first makeover attempt. During the 8 months. notes: I am easily amused by the idea of people catching Nathaniel up on what he missed in the months before he came to West Covina. Ao3 link

Nathaniel’s question catches Rebecca mid-stretch, arching back in her chair until it bends, her arms over her head with her palms interlaced and reaching towards the ceiling. She finishes it out, feeling her spine realign before lowering her hands to her lap as she regards him, one eyebrow raised in question.

“Hm? Sorry, what was that?”

He repeats himself.

“Did you do something to your hair?” he asks, gesturing towards his own head with a flick of the wrist.

Her initial assumption is that Nathaniel is setting up a segue towards the supply closet. That’s usually how it starts, a casual request,  even when, like now, it is late and no one else is with them in the office. Rebecca studies him and discerns that, no, there’s nothing particularly flirtatious about his expression, his tone merely curious, and his laptop screen is still up.

Her late-night calm dips very, very briefly under some unidentified weight, and she mentally files the moment away as something to be annoyed about later.

“No, not really. I mean, I recolored,” she says, instead, her hand coming up to fiddle at the ends. “Wait, is it noticeable? Is it all patchy? Have I been walking around all day looking like an ocelot?”

Nathaniel is already shaking his head, holding up his hands as if he can catch the sudden concerns as quickly as she conjures them. A slight smile plays around the corners of his mouth, easy to miss if she wasn’t looking. “No, nothing like that. You look good.”

Her mood hitches back up to calm again at the compliment, bouncing the weight right off, and that’s also annoying. She makes a second mental note for later.

“Well, you know how it is,” she says, settling back in her chair and crossing her legs. “The senior partner can’t exactly walk around with exposed roots for too long before it looks sloppy. I did consider a nice ombré, but that isn’t exactly something I’m confident to DIY with a box in the sink.”

“Of course,” he agrees, a touch sardonically. “So the dark-haired vixen look is here to stay?”

“For now. I’ll go back eventually, but yeah, I’m liking the espresso. Gives a little extra oomph to my eyes and keeps everyone else on their toes for some reason. It’s great.”

“Mhm-hm.” Nathaniel hums, still smiling.

They settle back into companionable silence. The minutes tick by. Rebecca stares at her notes, drumming her fingers against the desk, less interested in proofreading now.

“This is a new record for me, actually,” she says casually, eyes still on her screen, definitely not tracking his movements around the neatly rounded corners of her laptop. “The last time I dyed my hair I only kept it for a couple days.”

His tapping against the keyboard stutters slightly.

“Last time?”

Rebecca looks up properly, smiling as she meets his bemused stare. “Yep. Tried going blonde.”

“…what?”

“Yup.”

She meets his disbelieving expression steadily, letting her smile sharpen to a smirk as his own expression morphs from vaguely suspicious to incredulous, his eyebrows shooting high up his forehead.

“Wait, seriously?”

She nods, feeling a small nip of satisfaction when Nathaniel puts down his laptop and pushes it away.

“What for? Did you just get a sudden surge to bleach it or something?”

“Please, it was so much more than a simple bleach job,” Rebecca scoffs, leaning back in her own chair, elbows draped casually over the armrests. “What do you take me for? I believe the actual shade was ‘sun-kissed’. I also had highlights. And extensions.”

Nathaniel blinks. “…huh. What was all of that for?”

“A contest for the face of Miss Douche. And that’s not even all of it. It was part of this whole super relaxed SoCal sun-soaker persona I was trying out, which also included a spray tan and way too much fringe. And a unicorn sparkle tattoo,” she added as an afterthought.

The expression on Nathaniel’s face is somewhere between being threatened with a pen and that time he walked in on Karen recounting for the arcane benefits of her new batch of sex toys.

“…wow,” he manages at last. “That is…I can’t actually picture that.”

“Well, it’s all on Instagram, hashtag ‘who will be the next Miss Douche’—you can look up the pictures, if you want. I don’t mind.”

When he doesn’t immediately make a move for his phone, still staring at her, she shrugs.

“Okay then. Look it up or don’t, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m gonna get back to work. Gotta do a lot of very important work.”

She rolls her chair back towards her desk and starts tapping on her keyboard, writing without really seeing the words. In her peripheral vision, she sees Nathaniel hesitate before reaching for his phone.

She finds three lines to cut before she sees him start visibly in his seat.

“Oh my god.”

Rebecca looks up from her screen, frowning.

“Oh, come on, don’t sound so disgusted, it wasn’t that bad.”

“I’m not disgusted,” protests Nathaniel, holding the phone at arm’s length, as if the image will make more sense further away from his face. “But this isn’t you. This is a completely different human being.”

“Yeah, I got a makeover, that was kind of the point. And it worked: I was a finalist.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Well, I mean, there were bots involved,” she admits. “And Heather ended up winning, despite not having actually entered, so it was kind of a wash.”

“Huh.” Nathaniel is still looking at his phone. “This is just…”

“Tacky?” she prompts, eyebrows raised.

“Well, a little, but that wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“What did you want to say, then?”

He clears his throat.

“Nothing interesting. Why were you trying to be a representative for Miss Douche? You hate their products; you have a whole speech against douching. Which you have given in the office. Multiple times.”

“Yeah, it’s not great for your lady parts. And when I entered the contest...” Rebecca hesitates, briefly unsettled by phantom impressions of hurt and loss that originally led to that particular impulse but pushes forward anyways. “I…wasn’t in a great place. I had had two consecutive breakups and nearly burned down my house—"

“Wait, what?”

“Didn’t I tell you this before?” she asks. “Nope, wait, I told you I pooped in a shoe on Youtube when we first met, but I never gave any context. Right, that was related and we’ll circle back to that some other time if you ever want to hear it. Don’t look up the video on Youtube—I mean, I think Paula got it taken down, but you know how the internet is.”

“Noted.”

“All you need to know is that I was vulnerable and…impressionable to the appeal of being someone new.” She shakes her head. “I think I just needed to be the first choice for anything, at that point.”

“Yeah?” His voice is soft. “For someone to choose you?”

“For someone to choose me,” she confirms, not looking away. The look on his face is not unfamiliar to her—it tends to surface when they talk like this, like they are the only two people in the world, and Nathaniel’s eyes go weird and sparks something prickly and warm under her ribcage that shoots right through to her toes and up through her vertebrae, making her light-headed.

It’s not arousal; arousal is easy to act upon and then it’s over and she can fix her skirt and swear it won’t happen again. This kind of warmth is something dangerous.

Boiling frog, she thinks to herself. Turn the heat up slowly enough and it doesn’t feel it in time.

Nathaniel’s phone gives a small beep and he glances back down at the screen, breaking the moment and letting her breathe again. His expression hardens, eyebrows creasing sharply and his mouth tightening to a thin line.

“Something wrong?” she asks, because she just can’t help herself.

“Huh?” His head jerks back up and he blinks at her, discombobulated, before composing himself. “Oh, no. It’s just my dad—additional information for the client we’re meeting tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Rebecca grimaces – she has gotten a better idea of Plimpton Senior’s penchant for micromanaging over the last few months and it would not be hyperbole to say that during stressful periods she occasionally imagines dropping an anvil on his head should he show his face in the office. “You mean the meeting he insisted we overprepare for?”

“He likes to be thorough. I’ll send you the details.”

Minus a few choice comments, she’s willing to bet.

“Very thoughtful of him,” she mutters. “What’s he even doing up right now? Isn’t it past his bedtime?”

She’s pushing it a little–she’s never sure which way Nathaniel will react about jabs at Plimpton Senior. But it’s late, and Nathaniel at night is a different creature than Nathaniel in the daytime. His collar doesn’t seem to cut into his throat as sharply when he turns his head, and his hair is more inclined to flop over his forehead, usually from having run his hands through his hair enough that the product gives out.

Late-night Nathaniel wins out; the lines in Nathaniel’s forehead smooth out when he laughs, releasing Rebecca’s tension like a sigh. Even better, he sets his phone facedown on the stack of manila folders to his left.

“Not gonna respond?”

“I’ll confirm with him once we’re done here.”

Rebecca bites back a smile.

“Oh?” She leans forward, cupping her face on her palm, just restraining herself from batting her eyelashes at him. “Done doing…what, exactly? Making fun of my slightly questionable past life choices?”

“I wouldn’t call it making fun,” he says lightly, mirroring her gesture. “But, please, do tell me if there are others. What other colors have you dyed your hair? Did you have a goth phase?”

Rebecca clucks her tongue. “Hey, if we do that, it can’t just be me—you need to give something, too. I’ll bet even Perfect Plimpton wasn’t immune to fashion disasters.”

“Nice try. I went to private school: it’s pretty hard to mess up a polo shirt and slacks.”

“But what about college?” presses Rebecca. “Did you ever get involved with No-Shave November? Like, stubble works really well with your jawline, and you should seriously think about bringing it back, but I can’t imagine you with a full beard.”

Nathaniel pulls a face. “Never.”

“Good, because seriously, now that I think about it, you would be terrifying with a full beard. Did you ever shave your head, then? Have a rat’s tail? Any school spirit ensembles that went horribly, horribly wrong?”

“Now you’re just reaching.”

“You think so? I don’t, and if you’ve got something you might as well tell me now, because I will go digging, and you know I don’t care about getting my hands dirty.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

He’s laughing again and she grins reflexively, already feeling a little lighter, feeling the tension she had been trying to work out of her neck and shoulders earlier that evening seep away. Late nights at the office does this to her. It’s easier to be loose and silly. To be a little more open, a little more honest, when the horizon has been enveloped by the same darkness that presses right up against the windows and nothing else quite exists.

[rootnetwork-ex]

Request

Se-Hyeon had made it a habit to turn up at the dorm uninvited. How he even bypassed all the security was as good a mystery to anybody, but he’d be there, lounging in their couch as if he owned the place. It was an odd feeling to turn back, after activating the lock, and feeling one ought to apologise for letting oneself in. He was currently splayed on the couch, legs crossed over one end as if he was waiting for his therapist in some soap opera’s interpretation of what a Freudian consultation would look like. Only he looked utterly comfortable, even taken to smoking inside which Kobe did not at all appreciate. He had come to terms with this strange factor sauntering into their lives at times. The foremost priority was to find Shunran, after all. But sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t been baited into it and was just like the frog in the pan, unaware of the water slowly reaching a boiling point. Would he notice once he bothered to look at his hands and see the flesh fall neatly from his bones?

‘Right on schedule, soldier’ the older man perked up, swinging his legs around to sit upright as per greeting. ‘At rest, now. How are you managing?’

Kobe pointedly stared at the end of his guest’s cigarette, if the man noticed he didn’t acknowledge his displeased expression. The silence went on for awhile until the bud had swallowed up most of its leverage and broken off into ash twirling down on the hard wooden floor. Se-hyeon’s expression didn’t change as if he was waiting for his partner to say the next line.

He broke off his gaze with some annoyance, it was no use. The man had never looked at him as if he was another human being with his own thoughts to the matter of his presence. In fact, he always had this look as if he was making banter with a stuffed animal of sorts. Something adorable, designed to foster affection but which, deep down, was just another item to keep or discard as one sees fit.

‘What brings you here?’ He couldn’t help himself preparing some coffee and tea for the both of them. He had long foregone the effort to make the man feel unwelcome by ignoring his usual politeness, tried to salvage whatever he could as he had to deal with his intrusions. When he placed down the coffee in front of the man he merely received an arched eyebrow.

‘None of us both drink so I’m afraid this is what I have to offer,’ it was mildly rude to presume any of the other man’s drinking habits. Granted he had a good idea of what he saw him knock back whenever they were in his territory but he didn’t feel accommodating enough to ask what he wanted. A slight surge of lingering pettiness, surely. He sat back in the armchair perpendicular to the sofa.

‘Oh you know, visiting my favourite holster in the neighbourhood,’ Se-hyeon replied as he curiously eyed the coffee. He didn’t take a sip but merely looked up to grin as if it was all so very funny.

‘If it is about your [gift], I’m afraid he has it and he’s not here at present,’ Kobe took his mug and blew on it before taking a sip. His eyes darted evenly over the rim to look at the other man’s expression which gave nothing away.

‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ he smiled, ‘don’t sell yourself short, cadet. I came specially to ask you for a tiny favour.’ He emphasised his request by picking up his cup in good nature. However, he did not drink any of it and put it back down again.

‘What kind of favour?’ Kobe tensed. He didn’t trust the man. Even without his training as a law-enforcer it was blatantly obvious that deals with him were never as simple. In his entire life, he had never ignored his instincts on this and now he had to, it left him utterly unprepared to deal with it.

‘It’s teensy tiny, I assure you,’ Se-Hyeon might have noticed his doubts or was merely playing along to it. ‘You see, I am not in a position to enter Root that easily,’ he started.

Kobe’s felt his suspicions confirmed, anything involving this man and Root did not abide well.

‘I presume there is a proper reason for this,’ he enquired, allowing his voice to generously drip the suspicion he felt into his tone.

‘Oh yes, reasons, many reasons, undoubtedly,’ Se-Hyeon gestured with his hand, picking his coffee up again and putting it back down as if it were some kind of ritual. ‘I don’t want to bore you with them, no. The idea is that I get to borrow your access pass over there for hm... about an hour. And then I’ll be off again. No funny business, pinky promise.’ His face looked innocent as if he were asking for donations to some sort of charity fund instead.

‘And this is helpful to our case,’ he asked, folding his arms. Yuki said it made him look like a disappointed mother, but he couldn’t care much for what he looked like when he actually felt rather put off.

‘Of course,’ Se-Hyeon’s eyes widened at the implication it was not. ‘Day and night, I think about your missing friend, Junichi, every waking moment!’ It was in his repertoire to play around with names. Surely, he could remember one name or two after he had been corrected many times now. Shunran, it was Shunran. And the man did not look as if he had been agonising over his disappearance when he saw him draped over their couch smoking out the scent and clean air of their apartment disperser right a moment ago.

‘Root has been acting a little strange, right. So I had to look into it, of course. Figured it could be a lead. The only problem we have over there, in our land yonder, is that the connection is a wee bit unreliable. So we do not get as much of the main city-frame of Root as we’d like,’ he settled back in the sofa, hanging his arms from the back to stretch his neck and shoulder muscles.

‘What do you need to look into with my ID?’ Kobe asked unmoving. He felt more and more as if it was no coincidence the man had come to him in the small gap of time that neither his housemate nor his other dorm mates were around to hear.

‘It could be anybody’s ID, really. But yours happens to have some extra benefits, does it not?’

That’s correct, it did. And he had felt that had been Se-Hyeon’s aim for awhile now. Kobe’s status on Root. Aiming for a seat as a member of the special forces meant he was already in possession of various licenses that allowed him access to parts of Root shielded from the general public. But what did not fit right was that the man facing him had, somehow or another, always had his hands on intel way before he had as much the chance of hearing of it. Whatever his status was on Root, it was far more advanced compared to Kobe’s.

‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ he replied carefully. His tone kept even to imply no hostility nor eagerness. It was factual. They needed the man’s help but none of his trouble.

‘I see,’ he frowned down regretfully, ‘in that case, I’ll be off again.’ He had gotten up which surprised Kobe. He was certain he would have to oblige to more of the other’s persistence. Even negotiate some, an unfurling coil of nerves. But, in reality, none of that had happened.

‘Alas,’ he said as he picked up his suit jacket which he had dropped lazily falling half over their coffee table and half on the floor. After he swung it over his shoulder he turned so the toes of his black suede shoes were pointed to the still seated Kobe’s. The steaming mug in his hand oozed a comfortable warmth in his hands which he could not feel penetrate the rest of him as calculating eyes stared somewhere under his cheekbone.

‘Thank you for having me regardless,’ he stuck out his hand which he automatically answered with a firm grip of his own. The man’s smile was back, white teeth gleaming under the light positioned above him. ‘It was a pleasure, soldier boy. Bye, bye.’ And he walked off.

In a sense, it was odd to see him physically walk out of the door. A silly part of his mind had expected him to teleport or some other sort of supernatural ways of transportation. It was far less uncanny than to watch him walk out of the door as any other person would and hear the weight of his footsteps and faint whistling of some old song leave the corridor. The sounds, so visual, he could still see in his mind’s eye where and in what fashion he was walking the corridor to what he presumed must be in the direction of the lift at the end of the hall.

His vision became sharper again, pulled back to the present. He now noticed how the man had left and had easily disabled the lock. How the house had not acknowledged his leaving as if it was all just in his mind. How his mug had cooled down to the colder temperature of his body, how the man had waved with gloveless hands.

Finally, his eyes fell on the coffee, grown cold, on the table. He tilted his head not knowing what to think of it and decidedly allowed the confusion to dissipate by occupying his mind with more domestic business and homework due.

He wouldn’t be able to figure it out anyways, he reasoned, taking another sip of his soothing camomile tea.

—

It was not until later that he understood what had transpired. Nacht had come back to their apartment, their intercom announcing his arrival and welcoming him inside. His hair looked slightly blown away likely due to the weather outside. Autumn had picked up its pace and even though the city’s weather regulators worked to maintain a certain temperature in the city, it did not quite manage to block out the wind travelling in between the skyscrapers and the city’s Crown.

‘I’m back,’ Nacht greeted as he put his coat away in the hallway dresser. The dresser accepted the coat and the hanger, quickly scanning the ID of his coat, automatically travelled to its usual spot and activated a program to steam it back into shape.

‘Welcome back,’ Kobe walked up to Nacht and hovered, thinking how to tell him about their unexpected visitor earlier. ‘He came by again.’

‘Who did?’ Nacht was taking his boots off to put them in the bottom compartment of the same dresser. Another confirmation came from the dresser and his shoes were pulled back to find their place inside.

‘The man from Old Town,’ Kobe said. ‘He asked for my ROOT ID.’ Nacht stilled.

‘What did he need it for?’ He asked, turning around with a slight frown.

‘I was hoping you could enlighten me on that, actually,’ Kobe had his arms crossed now and was walking back towards his seat. A displeased expression had manifested itself on his face ever since the sudden surreal visit he had been subjected to. ‘He said he needed it for an hour because he could not obtain certain information ... supposedly ... relating to finding Shunran by his usual means.’

Nacht nodded as he followed, his bag slung over his shoulder. Unknowingly, he sat down right where Se-Hyeon had been seated prior to his arrival. His eyebrows raised at the untouched cup of cold coffee in front of him.

‘Listen,’ Kobe started with some frustration laced in his tone.

‘This entire ... thing,’ he gestured,’I have never approved of it and I still find it too suspicious. He essentially breaks into our living quarters whenever he pleases. We do not know what his intentions are and whether he is actually helping us find Shunran or not.’

‘I understand,’ Nacht nodded carefully, ‘but he knows about the code. He is able to obtain information faster than we have up till now and ... I think ... I think we can trust him.’

[jungnoir]

college boyfriend!hyungwon;

somehow, someway... the frog prince has become a new lowkey bias of mine,,,, totally on accident

no accidents here we stan like men

so this post is for this request!! i feel like all i ever do is college boyfriend aus but they’re like... so much fun

now, hyungwon... no one knows what he does in college

honestly even his friends take turns guessing what his major is

hyungwon has so many different interests and he bounces from studying history to reading up on fashion to trying out his newest concoctions in the kitchen

everyone knows he isn’t majoring in culinary or anything bc boy cannot cook for his life

but who knowS??? chae hyenigma

but no matter what he does, he always ends up, somehow, near the art school of the uni

he finds himself strolling around, watching students with paint splattered shoes and graphite stained hands furiously drawing in their notebooks or taking pictures of the sky

maybe it’s because whenever he does walk by, students beg him for a pic

hyungwon, in his best gucci cream sweater and styling a louis vuitton backpack: oh,,, you want to photgraph me??? i wasn’t expecting this!! :)))

tbh he loves modeling

he loves people admiring him and he’s definitely aware of how handsome he is so he doesn’t mind it at all

but like, it’s usually nothing new

he’ll do a few unenthusiastic poses and the students eat it up like sunday dinner

part of him just kind of grows apathetic to the whole deal, going as far as avoiding the art school on days when he can’t be bothered to make the same two faces at their cameras anymore

but then he’s running late for a class and the fastest way to get to it is to cut through the art campus, so he knows he’s gotta hightail it out of there

he’s running as fast as his legs can take him, coincidentally, right past you

you’re a photography student tasked with the project of putting together a photo collage based off the word “warmth”

for the most part, you had taken a few pictures of the autumn trees and stuff but nothing really hit you with inspo

right as you’re posing on the ground to take a break, hyungwon flies by, the air he kicks up rustling your hair into your eyes and taking you by surprise

when you look up, all you see is this tall guy sprinting, a long white blouse billowing behind him and before you know it you’re snapping a picture

it’s beautifully hasty and actually kind of good, and you start to smile to yourself, looking up to where the guy has disappeared, but he’s running so fast that he’s around the corner before you can call him back for his permission

you decide that maybe it was just a fleeting glance, and the university is pretty big so you doubt you’ll see him again

wrong

it’s a few hours later when you’re in your dorm studying that you happen across him again

there’s commotion outside and you recognize a few voices yelling over each other so you decide you’ll get a peek on the #drama and maybe yell at them to keep it down

but when you peek out of the door of your dorm, you see

the back

it’s the guy you photographed earlier!!! maybe now you can ask for his permission to use the pic

there are two art students fighting over him, one grabbing his left arm and the other his right, complaining that they saw him first and they wanna use him as their muse

you feel kind of bad for him so you hope that maybe interrupting him won’t bother him too much

you gently tap on his shoulder and for a moment, you think he hasn’t noticed you, until he suddenly turns and

oh

oh no

not this bastard

your hopeful expression falls as soon as you realize that the guy you photographed was chae hyungwon, and flashbacks of freshman year, a spilled coffee and a singed eyebrow come to the forefront of your mind

“you” he huffs, finding the strength to pull himself free

“you” you huff back, folding your arms across your chest, “what are you doing here?”

“i can be anywhere i damn well please!!” the two students are so frightened at the sudden hostility in both of your voices that they just slowly start slinking away, hoping that whatever they walked into they can safely walk out of

you had almost completely forgotten the asshole who had drenched your entire outfit in boiling hot coffee freshman year

and he had almost forgotten the klutz who had mixed up the wrong chemicals for a project and burned off half his eyebrow

he couldn’t leave the dorm for days. his friend hyunwoo had to hold an intervention about external beauty standards for a full three hours just to get him to get out of bed

and i mean it was bad enough for you that most people in your art school raved about how handsome he was and how he had specially picked them to model for and yada yada yada

all you could do was glare at each other, the tension growing thicker and thicker until hyungwon looks down toward your hands and... shit

you had your camera out, and the picture of him displayed on the screen

all too soon he’s smirking at you and plucking the camera out of your hands, effectively holding it out of your reach as he grins, “ohhhhhhh~ to think miss ice queen admires me too??? who would’ve known? were you coming over to gush about how handsome my backside is?”

you manage to snatch the camera from him while he looks at you all smug, “actually, i came to ask the stranger i snapped for permission to use the picture but due to unforseen circumstances i think i’ll just delete it”

your finger is literally hovering over the delete button, and while you have all the strength to do so, a feeling in the pit of your stomach make you think twice

bc this is the first time you’ve actually had inspiration for this damned project, and now you had to delete it bc of this damn guy

suddenly hyungwon is grabbing your wrist and yelling for you not to delete it at all

at first, you’re stunned by his sudden change in tone

he looks actually kind of remorseful as he holds your wrist, and part of you thinks he’s actually gonna apologize for being such a douche-

“that’s a really amazing photo of me, it’d be a sin to delete it”

growling, you rip your hand back, but he’s,,,, really latched on there,,, you didn’t know he had such a grip holy hell

and his eyes are swirling with... determination

“wait,” he actually pleads, “you can use it. how about an exchange, hm?”

“exchange for what?” your eyebrows furrow and the options going through your head do not sound pleasant. pleasurable, maybe, but-

“you take surprisingly nice photos of me. why don’t you take some more?” “what makes you think i want to take more photos of you? you don’t even know what i wanted to use this one for” “then tell me”

and to your shock, he’s actually looking pretty interested in what you have to say

so, very very reluctantly, you start to indulge him on the photo project you’re up to and its theme

you even tell him that the pic had been your first piece of real inspo in days

his eyes seem to light up a lil and he laughs, “perfect. then i can be your inspo, and you can take amazing pictures of me. sounds like a fair deal”

i mean... it kinda was

but this was also chae hyungwon we were talking about, the guy who hated your guts for really no good reason (the chemistry project was an accident, though no one really believed you with your wrists still healing from the coffee burns)

“why do you want me to photograph you? you literally just had two people fighting over that very right a few minutes ago” 

but all he does is smile, shrugging, “call it a cease-fire. i was getting a little tired ignoring you on campus all the time”

and i mean, it’s not like you really have a lot of options at this point for inspiration, so damning your inner muse, you accept his offer

your cooperation starts off slow, with you two being extremely awkward around each other

the inspiration is there but you’re so used to the negative energy that encompassed you both that now that you have to be nice, it’s kind of weird

hyungwon can tell how stiff you are, because he’s just as stiff too

he’s never really seen you as anything but the person that almost blinded him tbh

but after he had seen the picture you had taken of him, he realized you truly had a talent with a camera

even the pictures you took that you didn’t like were still beautiful

you two would meet up at random places, take a few dozen photos, and then you’d scrap them all before you even got back to your dorm

after a while, he could tell you were coming close to your wit’s end, so he decided the only fix was familiarity

he showed up to your dorm one morning with two coffees and a big, fluffy red scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose

as soon as you opened the door, he was hissing and brushing past you, mumbling something like “i’m gonna freeze my balls off out there, why don’t you answer your phone?”

it’s only then do you realize what that faint buzzing sound was under your pillow

he’s just shoving the coffee into your hand, pulling his scarf off and going “get as warm as possible. we’re going outside”

after you’ve dressed up in something warm, you’re about to grab your camera but hyungwon stops you, and for once, he actually, genuinely smiles at you, “I don’t think you need that”

it’s cold outside for sure, but the view of bare trees and the ground covered in leaves of all colors is a sight to see with your own two eyes

your hands itch, wanting to capture it with your camera, but hyungwon is insistent that for now, you just need a break

he talks to you on your walk, indulging about himself and tugging info from you about your life and your passions

you even find out that hyungwon’s major is chemical science!! which makes a lot of sense after seeing how distraught he was that year when you had burned off his eyebrow mixing the wrong chemicals

he tells you that not many people expect it of him, and he never indulges because people tend to chalk him up to his pretty face and he’s just kind of accepted that no one expects anything more of him than that

but he also tells you how much he loves calculation and precision, and how beautifully interesting science and nature are to him

he ends up talking your ear off for a good hour about it, and you barely notice time has passed until you can’t feel your toes and hyungwon is walking you to a nearby café to warm up

he orders his drink and while he’s looking away you can’t seem to stop staring at the side of his face, his attention drawn to his phone when his friend kihyun texts him “how the hell are you awake this early???”

you take out your phone, and quietly snap this picture

as you look down at it, a lightbulb seems to flip on in your mind

“I got it!!!” you yell, startling a few customers and hyungwon

“got what???” he asks, placing his hands on your shoulders

“my inspiration... i know what i want to shoot now. come outside with me”

and you proceed to pose him, taking pictures of him kicking up leaves and laughing, taking blurry photos of him sprinting past trees and looking through shop windows

each has its own warm, simple quality

they’re not perfectly clear, but they remind you of the warmth of having someone to be in love with in the autumn cold

you even take a few faceless pictures with him, arms wrapped around the other or your hands holding cups of hot drinks

by the end, you’re so satisfied with the aesthetic of it that you feel a need to tell him

“hyungwon... thank you so much, you have no idea how slumped i was with this project until you came along”

and for the first time, hyungwon b l u s h e s

like... red as a cherry

as soon as you notice you point it out with a laugh, but he’s hiding his face behind his hand and blaming it on the cold weather

he ends up sticking around and watching you put the pictures together and it looks really great afterward

the sun has since gone down and hyungwon has quite literally spent the whole day with you

as you both sit on your bed, laptop burning your legs, you turn to him once you see the time, “oh, hyungwon, you should probably head home before it gets too dark”

and he just nods, unable to look away from you for even a moment

you notice his change in behavior but offer to walk him to his dorm, of that which he accepts

while you’re walking with him, he suddenly jolts out of his quiet reverie, “wait, if you walk me home, who’s gonna walk you home?”

and you just giggle, “i can walk myself home, hyungwon. i don’t know if you noticed but i have killer reflexes and an amazing swing”

and hyungwon is just like “:O glad i’m not an enemy anymore”

you two joke and bump each other until you’re about halfway to his dorm when he stops, looking over at you “how about we part here? then i’ll know you didn’t walk super far to get back home”

but before you can even put a filter on your mouth you’re like “why don’t we just exchange numbers and we can text each other when we get home?”

his eyes widen but he accepts, and you two exchange numbers

and maybe it’s the way you pick one of the photos from your “photoshoot” that day as his contact photo, or the way you giggle at the nickname you give him in your phone as “hyunnie”, or maybe it’s just the cool air playing with your hair as you giggle at the name

but he kisses you on the cheek

and doesn’t move

his lips are the only source of warmth on your cheek

and he’s got his eyes shut tight and he’s thinking “omg why did i do this why why why why i made it weird why why why why”

when he comes to his senses he pulls back with a grimace and grips his hair hard and just kind of curses the very moment he was born

until you hook your fingers with his and tug him into you, catching him off guard and making him stumble into you

he catches his balance right as you pull him in for a kiss on his cheek, giggling to yourself, “now we’re even”

all too soon you’re unfolding your fingers from his and he’s losing your warmth, but you’re waving at him over your shoulder and glancing at him every few feet until you turn the corner

and you text him when you get home first because he’s still standing with his hand on his cheek that you kissed like a fool in puppy love

even though you both have class the next morning, you’re texting well into the early hours of the morning, and you ask him on a date after he proves pretty shy about doing so

when you two start officially dating, hyungwon makes the café you two went to that fateful day your prime dating spot

you two even become friends with the nice lady who runs the place and she always makes sure to make your coffees at exactly the right time, because either you or hyungwon will come through that door with flushed cheeks, texting the other that their coffee is on the way

to hyungwon’s friends’ surprise, he’s actually a big fluff in a relationship

he acts kind of cool on the surface but you’ve managed to break that pretty easily

you’re kind of used as a defense whenever they need something from hyungwon

jooheon: *using you as a shield* hyungwon please help me with my homework please i love you!!!!

and you don’t really mind bc honestly his friends are adorable, you have no idea why hyungwon pretends he doesn’t know them in public

until you’ve been dating for two months and now you’re both coming up with strategies on how to avoid them at all costs

if you’re walking to class and see one of them in the hallways you both split up and hide in different classrooms until they pass by

if one of you gets caught.... well it’s every man for themselves lmao

though it’s pretty obvious hyungwon cares about his friends, because whenever they’re in need, he’s always there to help

even when it’s for the smallest things, hyungwon is always helping you

that doesn’t mean he’s void of scolding you tho :)

“really y/n? how could you not bring a jacket in this weather? here, use mine” “you’re sick because you left the house with wet hair, like i’ve told you not to a billion times... anyway, i’m coming over with homemade soup and cough medicine. i got the flavor you like so you better not spit it up this time” “i’m not wikipedia, y/n. you can’t just use me when you don’t listen in class. now turn to page 93″

he scolds you because he loves you, and because he wants you to be the best you can be in life

best believe that no matter what you do, he’s always going to be on the sidelines, cheering you on

he’s the first to tell you good job when you get a good grade, the first to hug you when you get accepted for the job you want, etc etc

hyungwon sometimes closes himself off tho, and it’s common for you to go a few hours, maybe even a few days not being as close as usual

but when he learns that he can trust you completely, you’re the first person he talks to

about anything

he becomes less shy indulging his emotions to you, and he lets you know you always have a clear, logical support system in him as well

you love his intelligence and you’re always the first to see past the superficial with him

but you’re also the first to get him to get him to do things he wouldn’t even do with his friends

even with the smallest things

like texting him this

you: hyungwon...... if you had to assemble a zombie survival team out of pop idols alone, who’s going first on your list?

hyungwon: it is 3 am.

you: i picked gdragon 

hyungwon: jesus christ y/n, are you blind?? everyone knows you should pick taecyeon from 2pm

and it’s like.... kind of funny to you how he notices things about you that you don’t even notice

like even the slightest change in the part of your hair?? noticed. he’s probably going to give you his thoughts about it too

he’s always admiring you even when you aren’t looking, because he’s really fascinated with how he got someone like you

and he thinks fondly back on when you singed his eyebrow, even brings it up as a joke in conversation instead of what he considered “the worst month of my life”

sometimes tho, you’ll catch him staring and you’ll just laugh, “what? is something wrong?”

but he shrugs, unable to contain his fondness as he brushes his thumb over your hand in his, “no... not a thing”

[juliefederico]

Why Women Stay in Domestic Violence Relationships

Why Women Stay In Domestic Violence Relationships:

I want to uncover why women stay in domestic violence situations.  I think this is a great question. I think every woman who has lived with violence has asked themselves this question many times. “Why am I staying? What am I doing here? Why is none of this making sense to me?” So you are asking this question, women living with abuse are also asking this question.  Once one begins to ask questions change is possible. I like questions.  Email me any of your domestic violence questions.

In a counseling training I heard this story.  It is powerful.  One day a frog was put in boiling hot water and he immediately died. Another frog was put in a cold pan of water and the heat was slowly turned up on his pan until he was at the same boiling point that the other frog was when he died. However,  the second frog didn't die immediately because the heat in his pan was turned up slowly.  He had time to adjust to the heat with each increasing temperature spike.  This describes domestic violence the heat in domestic violence relationships is turned up slowly, women develop a tolerance for their abusers behavior,  women begin to accept the abusers behavior and then it goes up another level, they adjust, and then it goes up another level. In domestic violence relationships no one is typically beaten up and abused the first time they go out to dinner with the perpetrator.  This would be too easy.

The victim acclimates and is slowly being taken into a burning pan of water over time. You did not immediately one day walk into a relationship where someone was beating your head against the wall.  It starts slowly with a shovel or push and then there's much remorse and a valley of regret. Many conversations and convincing sentences that this is never going to happen again.  This is a trap, it will not end.  Abuse just doesn’t end one day.  One shining day women gather a great deal of courage and leave.  This is the beginning of healing not waiting for the abuser to change.

Secondly women stay for financial reasons. I don't know if you've tried to finance an apartment with security deposit, and the first and last month's rent on a salary that might be minimum wage.  The math on this doesn't work unless you're earning a fairly decent salary. Women cannot afford to leave their abuser unless they want to live on the streets with their children. Women have nowhere else to go, many times families side with the abuser not the victim. Families will not understand your reality and that you are in danger. They will frequently side with the abuser as someone who is;  outgoing, fun-loving, a nice guy who would do anything for you.  He is always happy, smiling, and goes out of his way to help you.  So when you show up at your mother's door you are not welcomed or are welcomed but judged for your harsh treatment and critique of the abuser. Extended family at times do not support the women because they don't see the inside of the abuser. The woman and her children only see his behavior. This is calculated, the abuser does this to make sure that her friends/family know he's prince charming. So that she doesn't have a leg to stand on when she goes to ask for help. This is done to make the victim stay with the abuser because no one will really believe her. After so many years of living with someone who is abusive to you you don't believe that you deserve to be happy. You believe you are the author of my own life, this is what I signed up for. So now I will just stay. There is a lot of self-talk that women need to do to talk themselves out of this. And it takes many years sometimes to understand that you deserve to be happy, you deserve not to walk on eggshells, you deserve to have your birthday celebrated and your Mother's Day honored. After you've lived for so long with chaos you tell yourself it  just doesn't matter. Then you learn to maintain and you learn to put up with it.  As the heat is turned up in your pan to almost a boiling point you don’t even notice the extreme heat. At this point you can pretty much withstand anything. I think women who have lived in domestic violence situations are the strongest people out there and they should be given awards. I don't know what type of award you should give someone for staying in domestic violence but I think they need to be honored. I work with Speaker Match and I see a lot of postings for breakfasts honoring survivors and I think that's a wonderful idea to have a breakfast for the survivors and start the dialogue around domestic violence.  A lot of times  people stay in domestic violence situations because they can't dialogue with their friends. Additionally, family does not understand your situation. And they don't understand your situation because your abuser has made your private life such a nightmare it is difficult to describe. The abuser has created their public life to be so squeaky clean that no one can believe the truths women are telling.  Left without a lot of resources they will frequently just stay and maintain. Or they will leave without the support of their extended family and friends.  Their financial resources will be cut in half if not more than what they're currently living on and I'm not even going to talk about what happens in court with a domestic violence situation. This is a post for a whole different day.  I can give you a snapshots on why women will not leave domestic violence.  Another reason is emotional abuse creates the false belief  that you can't do anything right, that you're not strong enough to be on your own, that you're not worth anything, you're not valued, your thoughts are not valued, your needs are not valued, you're not valued at all.  This does not make it easy to gather the self-esteem to go out and create a fabulous new life for themselves.  No one ever tells an abused woman she's right, they are so used to hearing “You're wrong, you're doing it wrong, this is wrong, I need this from you and you're not doing this, you're not doing that, you're not doing the other.” No one ever tells them they do anything right and if you hear that negative language for so long you will start to believe it.  I can't do anything right, I can't go and support myself, I can't pull my family out of this,  again this is another method the abuser uses to keep you from leaving. Make no mistake, this is all calculated none of this is by chance. So just keep that in the back of your mind, everything they're doing is calculated for you to stay and maintain the dysfunction. The time that you leave an abuser is the most dangerous time in your relationship. Which I find shocking to hear that you are safer at your house getting the crap beat out of you every night then when you are finally leaving.  This doesn't seem fair, but this is what the statistics and research says. Keep yourself safe, know that you matter, know that you're important, know that you will have many future birthdays away from the abuser. Please just start to think about leaving today.  By now the pan of water you are sitting in is boiling.  Reach your hand up and turn down the burner.  You deserve this!

#verbal abuse, verbal abuse, #domestic violence, domestic violence, ways to control anger, #ways to control anger,

anger issues, #anger issues,

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[startup-wisdom]

Paul Buchheit on his early Google days

How did you find Google? What was the hiring process like back then? So, I was really into Linux. I actually got into Linux even before college, in '93 or around then. I'd installed the Yggdrasil Linux distribution on a partially broken hard drive I found, on which I could partition off 60MB that worked. That was enough to fit a small Linux install, but it wasn't enough room for Emacs which is why I'm a vi person.

I would spend a lot of time reading Slashdot for all the latest Linux news. That was where I read about Google, which was this little startup building clusters of Linux machines! To me, what could possibly be more exciting than clusters of Linux machines? And they had a special Linux search so they would show up on Slashdot relatively often. And they had more than just the color gray—they had four colors, so I applied for a job!

Amusingly, my resume email actually bounced because their mail server was misconfigured! But I sent it again the next day, and by then they had fixed the MX record or whatever was wrong, and someone got back to me to setup a phone call. I did a phone screen, and then they invited me in for a day of interviews.

Why did you decide to take the Google offer? Well it was the only one I got, so that made it easy!

Also, it was exciting, and I thought they were doing cool stuff. I didn't believe in the business or think the company would be a huge success, though. I thought they were going to be roadkill and would get squashed by one of the big internet companies. By then, Yahoo was already a behemoth, and Alta Vista had so much money. I didn't understand how this little startup would be able to compete. But I decided I didn't care. I wanted to go work on Linux stuff and figured I'd at least meet some smart people there, and maybe they'd later start a company that would actually be successful.

In hindsight, I realize the early team at Google was actually quite remarkable. I think they made a real point of hiring smart people. In part, that was because they were working on really interesting problems and smart people want to work on interesting problems. I remember Jeff Dean had gone to work at another startup before Google and immediately fixed all of their problems. When he asked, “Now what do I do?,” it turned out that they had nothing else interesting to work on, so he left. He was drawn into Google because of the interesting systems problems there.

It became a cycle. These smart people would bring more smart people with them and so on. I think we got the whole systems department at UCSB because Urs was a professor there. It was like pulling on a string of talent and getting all the talent attached to it.

So, you thought Google would fail and be “roadkill.” When did you change your mind? After I had been there for about a week, I was like, “Oh this company is going to be big.” I actually went back and asked for more stock options, but they said you could only negotiate for that before accepting the offer!

I didn't realize that Google was really taking off, though, until we did the Yahoo deal, which was after I'd been there a year or so. We took the Yahoo deal away from Inktomi, which at the time was a huge high flying company. I think they were worth many billions of dollars at the time, and it was exciting to beat them. I remember they tried to downplay the loss and announced something publicly like, “This 'search thing' isn't really great. The real money is in internet caching.” After that I thought, “wow, these people are idiots, and we're going to roll over them.” From then on, we just kept winning deals and squashing other companies. That was exciting.

How did they decide what you got to work on at Google? Marissa and I were actually given two projects to work on when we started. One was to build product search, and the other one was to build an ad system. I ended up focusing more on product search because that seemed more interesting than building an ad system. I was later part of a group called Onebox, which was basically the idea that you should be able to type in anything and get an answer, even if it isn't a regular web search.

I generally had product tendencies and was always hacking things on the side and adding features to things. I actually built the first version of the “did you mean?” feature after looking through our search query logs and discovering that I'm not the only person who can't spell. The quality team was working on these obscure things to improve search quality by .1% and I'm thinking, “at least 20% of our queries are misspelled. If we fix the spelling, I can improve 20% of the queries!” So I hacked that together. I would hack a lot of things together like that.

As Google grew, did you keep the freedom to hack on things you found interesting? Was creating Gmail part of that? Around 2001, Larry got frustrated that each group was setting their own priorities and not working on what he thought were the most strategically important things for the company. His fix was to eliminate management and organize engineering around specific projects. He and Wayne Rosing, who was the VP of Engineering at the time, would sit down with engineers and give them projects. When they sat down with me they said, “we want you to build an email something.” That was all the specification I got! So I went off to build something with email, which became Gmail.

How did you manage your personal career progression at Google? I've never really been into the whole “career” thing. It just feels horribly big-company. I was always very allergic to things that I perceived as big company. I just didn't want to be tucked away in a corner working on something irrelevant. I interned at Microsoft after my freshman year of college. On my last day, one of the smartest engineers in my group gave me this piece of advice, “Make sure they don't stick you off in a corner working on something unimportant.” I've always remembered it as good advice. My ambition at Google was just to launch a cool product or create something important.

Why did you decide to leave Google? My daughter, our first child, was born unexpectedly—100 days early. There was a lot of medical trauma surrounding her birth, and we were in the hospital for months. When it was all over, I was really excited to get back to work because I loved working at Google. I liked it so much that I couldn't sleep the night before—I was just thinking over and over, “Oh man, I can't wait to get back—I'm going to do all this stuff!”

But when I went in the next day, the energy drained out of me. I suddenly felt like I used to feel working at Intel. Partially I think Google had grown so much in my absence, but it was also partly a “boiling the frog” effect: before I spent time away, I hadn't noticed things slowly changing, but when I got back I realized, “Oh wow, here I am in a meeting with a bunch of people I don't know who are telling me to do stuff that I don't care about.” I knew immediately that if I stayed at Google, and wanted to be successful and influential, I would have to become more of a big company person. I knew that I had the capacity to do that, but I didn't want to. I wanted to do something else, so I left.

Source: https://triplebyte.com/blog/interview-with-gmail-creator-and-y-combinator-partner-paul-buchheit

[awkore]

none

Hi, it’s me.

I’m not entirely sure why I am typing this out, it’s not something I normally do, if at all, but this is something I’ve wanted to try and do for a while now, just to get ideas and thoughts out. I have much to say….at least I think so. However I don’t know if I can even get it all out, or work out what it even is I want to say.

 Pretty much the TL;DR of this can be summed up with: My life is shit, a lot of my problems are cus of how my job has killed me inside and I’m trying to get out.

 Friends

I have friends, and I am incredibly grateful for who I know, at times I don’t know what I’d do without them, even if I don’t see them, or talk to them very often, the times I do are always nice, and help me in ways I can’t’ even really describe…for the most part at least.

I don’t know if they do or not, but it seems like it at times that some of them will go out of there way for me, or change plans to fit my incredibly shit schedules.

When this happens, I am filled with so much love and gratitude for them and what they are doing, but I struggle to really say how much this means to me. I don’t know how to say thanks for it, for keeping me going, stopping me from falling into some dark depths of depression.

Saying “thank you” would never be enough, so I don’t. I can’t. It doesn’t seem enough or even like it would come close to how much it helps.

I feel bad at this, that I can’t show how much I appreciate them.

I don’t know how to get across some of the things I feel, I suppose this is a cause for a lot of my problems, and why I’m probably going thru what I am right now.

But all of this is for the most part. Other times, when the world can’t revolve around me. I get lost in dark thoughts, and start to hate everyone around me, such as my friends, because they are free to go out and do as they like, go on adventures, go out and do things I can hardly do because my free time doesn’t line up with there’s.

I don’t like being angry at them over this, I shouldn’t’ be getting upset at my friends for doing their own thing.

I try not to talk to anyone when that happens, because I don’t want to become hostile towards the people I care about.

 Family

Slowly running out of them, people are dying.

I don’t deal well with this, so I try not to think much about it, or mention it, or even grieve in ways that people notice.

 Money

It’s not good, but it’s never been good, I’ve always managed, never truly comfortable, but never in a bad state. Until recent. Changes at work are going to cause a big drop in my income for the most part now. So…that’s shit for me for the time being.

 Love

Still with Sayre, things are ok I guess. I’m not very good at showing him a lot of the love he needs. Specially in the last few years. Just been getting harder to really do much. I don’t have time, motivation, money or even…anything to show or give him. Just to worn out from my issues to do much at all.

When no one’s about, there is very little between us, I just sit at my computer, trying to get things done. But in public, or when being noticed, there is certainly more happening. It’s not for show, it’s just. It’s something different, my mood lifts, I can do things I want to do. On our own, I’m back to my ways of doing nothing and just existing. If I can improve my life, this will certainly improve again. It needs to, it’s not really fair on him at this point.

 Health

I think its…ok, not much to really say, I’ve not really changed weight which is better than just getting fat I guess.

I do try and work out, at least make myself feel more fit. It works, until I get to demotivated to continue, and then just stop for a while until my mood improves and I can pick it back up again.

 Home

Home is home, it could be better, nothing has changed, maybe I should move out. Cant’ really do that right now though, money won’t allow it. Need a better job. Trying….trying….trying…

 Work

This is pretty much the entire problem, and it wasn’t’ until recently that I finally worked this out.

I have wasted so many years of my life at my current place. Wasting my life, wasting my time, missing opportunities, becoming increasingly more and more depressed, despondent, angry, bitter at everyone and everything around me who seems to have everything much better sorted in their lives (even if they don’t think it).  

It is like that frog slowly being boiled in water and not noticing the change as it’s so slow.

Everything which I thought was a good counter to having a crap work rotor was slowly getting ripped from me without me noticing, and every time I said “well I have all this free time to do this stuff” was just me lying to myself to ignore the fact of how shit it was, how much it was destroying everything about me.

I know longer have the ability compassion or time to do anything with all my free time, expect sit at home and become dark and sully about my friends and people I know, jealous about everything they have, wishing I could have something like that, angry that I can’t seem to get out and find something that would improve my life no end.

It took me 2 years of trying before I was able to get a CV, the first big step in trying to improve my life.

Just before Christmas, I broke down, I’d had enough, I finally snapped, everything went to shit, and I asked for help, something I struggle with constantly.

And….finally after a while, had my own CV, the first time I’ve ever had one. My ticket out into a better life…at least I thought. I hoped.

 I started to apply for things. I had no idea what I was doing, what I am aiming for, what I can do, anything helpful.

So tried going after things that my friends have, which they talk about, which they moan about being a bit shit. But that didn’t’ matter to me, all I saw was “wow, that’s a mon-fri job, they get the weekends free, I could have a normal social life. I could do that stuff, that’s the kind of job that people on Job Seekers get forced into doing, if people that don’t want to work can get that line of work, surely I can get that too”

 Time went on, applications went out…and nothing ever came back, so I started to feel worse than before, why is it that I can’t get a job that people that don’t want to work are forced into?

I started to feel like why should I bother, this pain from getting nothing back was worse than what I was feeling being stuck in my work with no social life. I wanted to give up and just accept that this is my life, and I’ll always be like it.

Then, I noticed something different, so I applied for it, a job that maybe I could do, it’s something I have a bit of experience in, something I do in my free time for fun, something which I would probably enjoy doing as work. AV Tech.

I got a reply

I got an interview

….but then spent two weeks chasing up the guy as he kept missing deadlines for when he’d tell me if I had the job or not.

I got a no

That hurt

This is all new to me, I have no idea what to do, or how to act, or what to expect, this is something that I’ve never come across before.

I was a bit upset.

 But kept on trying, until I reached a point where I’d exhausted all of the jobs like that.

So new thoughts crept into my head, maybe I’m being lazy now, maybe I’m being picky, should I be applying for everything? Should I just apply for all the other shit jobs too?

 I don’t know, but I’ve decided that. I currently have work. I don’t have to apply for everything. What is the point of moving from one crap job I hate into another crap job I will probably dislike too?

Am I wrong in thinking this?

So…just keep looking, it’s not bad that I’m not throwing myself at everything, I have a goal I want to reach…but…none of these thoughts are sticking, I just feel like I’m wasting time, being too picky, should just give up here too and get my head into endless crap nowhere jobs.

 Another email, no interview date yet, but short listed for one.

This was a good moment.

Now it’s bitter, it’s been almost 2 weeks with no update. I’m going to call this a flop and get back to searching.

I need to mess with my CV a bit first I think before I try. I need to do that soon.

 Me

 Overall not good. I have so many plans, ideas, wants, needs. But just can’t do them. I keep saying “I’d love to do that” Or “Oh, I’ll add that to my idea list” but cus of how I currently am, nothing gets done, or it goes so slowly.

When’s the last time I did any DJing?

When’s the last time I made a video?

When is the last time I did something I enjoyed?

What do I even enjoy?

I’ve lost my sense of self, I don’t know what I like any more, cus my thoughts are dirtied with the thought of “oh so and so likes that, I think I like that too” but I’m unsure if it’s actually something I do like, or if I’m just coping everyone else because I feel so empty and it’s something to fill a gap.

  I don’t know the purpose of this, other than I just wanted to do something.