#maybe one day I’ll make a digital version of this I do love it so much

[devastatedloyallute]

This has most certainly been done before, but it’s to be expected 😂

I am choosing to believe that he doesn’t actually own her soul, she’s just like a stray cat he found that now clings to him, and he just accepted that he’s her dad now

[soongtypehuman]

Boo-hoo update

I’m sorry to say I have an update I was hoping to not ever have to make. Some of you already know that I have some serious health issues, but I've been pretty quiet about the extent of what I'm dealing with.

The gist of it is that I have a rare bone disease called fibrous dysplasia that turned certain bones in my skull into tumors and then those tumors grew inward and started crushing my brain, so I had a craniotomy last year to remove as much as was safe and got a cool new titanium implant in my head to replace the removed bone/tumor. The unfortunate result was encephalomalacia, which is the end stage of liquifying necrosis, and now part of my brain is liquid instead of solid (it’s dead, in a nutshell). Most people don’t survive encephalomalacia, much less remain able to function, and most who survive the initial stage don’t survive the three year mark. Even when you do survive it, it often continues spreading. The last MRI showed it had already taken over about 1/3 of my brain. But I’m a stubborn asshole and am still hanging on.

Unfortunately, things aren’t getting better.

I have to have constant MRIs, EEGs, physical and cognitive therapies, and have been on more meds than I’d like to be in order to control seizures and various cognitive issues. I didn’t mention this before, but I had to go through a series of speech therapies just to learn to talk properly again. And the most unfortunate part of this is that my ability to write has been affected. Since the surgery over a year ago, I’ve only made 10 new posts in the Positronic Rivalry series, totaling around 87k words. For reference, I posted over 200k words in 2022. I’ve posted even less this year, and it’s not improving.

With that said, I have to take a step back. I’m not quitting and I’m not walking away from the fandom. I’d like to think I’ll still be able to post here and there. I just don’t know when and under what circumstances that will happen. I most certainly can’t handle the longer multi-chapter fics I once could. Maybe one day, but not this day. Since I started posting on AO3 back at the end of 2021, I’ve posted every Sunday more often than not. I’m sorry to say I can’t make that happen right now, and can’t say when I’ll post again or what it will be. I won't be able to continue with season 4.

But I’m most definitely not leaving the fandom and the people and the characters I love so much. I’ll still be here interacting and posting when I’m able. This fandom and the people in it are incredible and mean a lot to me. Data and Lore and Star Trek in general are integral to my life and general enjoyment.

But!! I’ve nearly completed compiling seasons 1-3 of Positronic Rivalry as well as 2022/23 Kinktobers into files that will be ready to print in physical book format (completely free, obviously), which I’ll make available for everyone to download in various print sizes, complete with covers, which you can then have printed at various POD sites if you’re so inclined. Digital versions will also be available (you can already download various formats from AO3, but they’re not compiled into seasons, don’t have covers, etc.).

I’m also continuing with the Trek-themed crossword puzzles because those are fun and my therapist thinks making them is good for my cognitive rehab.

This update is a massive bummer for me, but I felt it was better to just admit my limitations instead of constantly trying to convince myself that I could continue the way I had been pre-surgery and beating myself up when I couldn’t.

Lastly, I’ve finally taken the suggestion I’ve gotten repeatedly and set up a KoFi. If you’d like to buy me a coffee or toss a coin to your android porn witcher, you can do so right here and I’d be giggling and kicking my feet in gratitude.

Anyhow, I want to thank all of you for being amazing and coming along on this ride with me for as long as you have, and for as long as it might continue in whatever form it takes.

[genshin-scenarios]

caught! - maid!heizou x reader

Summary: you’re a regular citizen (in a vague royalty-historical AU) who’s recently hired a maid! Heizou is charismatic and dependable, but one day you come home, discovering his real motives and occupation. 

Wordcount: 1.4k+

Adopt a Wanderer: Digital Store / Red String of Fate Prompt List

If it wasn’t for you moving from a small village to Inazuma city, you never would’ve been able to justify hiring a maid. 

You aren’t someone who can afford this in the long-term, after all. But you have to admit that having Heizou’s help with unpacking, settling down, and maintaining the house while you start at your new workplace has been a godsend. 

Most days, you’d be lucky if you returned home with any energy left at all. Heizou would always leave dinner on the table for you after he finishes his shift. He’s been nothing but kind and patient as you peppered him with questions about groceries and how to navigate around, along with your awkward first-meeting where your home was empty save for a few boxes and zero furniture.

All in all, you’re extremely grateful. And now that you’re starting to get used to city-life, it was about time to consider when to end Heizou’s freelance contract; you’d love to keep him around, but your future plans require some savings. As such, today you bought takeout from what you learned is Heizou’s favourite restaurant, hoping to treat him to a better meal by the end of his term. Perhaps you could stay friends after that, but you didn’t want to get ahead of yourself:

“Heizou? I’m back.” You push open the door with your foot, arms occupied with takeout boxes and other belongings. “I brought…”

You’d normally return to a greeting and Heizou busying about, but there’s no-one in sight right now. 

Odd. Maybe he left to throw something out. There’s a sinking feeling in your stomach as you realise he might have left early after finishing his work, since you didn’t tell him about your plans aside from a simple ‘there’s no need to cook today’.

Setting down the food on the dining table, you step around quietly to check the other rooms. The longer you wander in the silence, the more random scenarios fly through your head with burglars or some other incident. There’s one door left—the storage room—but when it swings open with a loud thunk against the wall, you’re dumbfounded at the sight of Heizou changing, halfway through taking off a shirt.

“I—I’m so sorry!” You squeak and immediately slam the door close, dashing away. 

You’ve seen Heizou dressed in casualwear before, but you don’t think he’s ever worn that particular top. It was dark in colour, almost like a uniform for a different job, with a golden crest that…

Heizou exits the storage room, ears dusted with a slight pink as he coughs into his fist. “Master, you’re back early!” He tries to smile, but the ribbon on his maid dress is a little crooked and he looks out of breath. “Is that ramen I smell? I can’t mistake it—you brought back dinner from the tonkotsu place I recommended!”

“Heizou…” Your brow furrows in an effort to remember what he was wearing seconds ago. “Why did you change back into your uniform? It looks like you finished all the chores already.”

“Whaaat? No… I haven’t dusted the windows today!” He steps forward to lead you back to the kitchen, throwing a glance back at the storage room where he’s forgotten to turn off the lights. “I’ll just tidy up before catching up with you—”

“That was a Tenryou Commission crest, wasn’t it?” You finally make the connection, remembering it from when you visited their office earlier in the day. But why would Heizou…

Heizou’s smile strains. “I… suppose it is.” You can tell he’s making a bajillion calculations in his head; a stressed version of the Heizou who’d ramble to you about mysteries and theories. “I can explain.”

“You don’t have to if you can’t.” You raise your palms. “I won’t question what a Tenryou officer is doing.” In your house, though? You highly doubt Heizou would need a side job. Horror washes over you, realising that you might’ve been a subject of investigation. “I’m not in trouble, am I? I swear that anything I might’ve complained about isn’t—”

“It’s not that, but you can’t tell anyone I’m an officer!” Heizou’s grip on your shoulders pulls you back to reality. Seeing his panic, you’re struck by the reminder that secret-officer or not, he’s still the Heizou you’ve known in the past two months. “I’m not exactly here on official business.”

“You can’t tell me you were just considering changing jobs.”

“Not at all—but I’m part of the investigation team and there’s a case that I can’t solve using regular means.” Heizou surmises. “Head Kujou might wring me out for going independent, but I’ve been making progress and I really need to maintain my cover as your maid.”

You maintain eye contact, and it’s awful how Heizou’s desperate expression is enough to disarm you.

“Is there anything I need to know before I agree?” Your shoulders sag, but Heizou lights up at the hints of agreement in your attitude. “No one’s going to get hurt, right?”

“No innocent bystanders, nor you.” He promises easily. Aside from his current maid dress, you can easily imagine Heizou in the Tenryou Headquarters solving crimes. No wonder he’s always had a confident charm. “If you were ever at risk, I’d leave your hair without a trace.”

You notice the pattern in his speech. “But what about yourself?”

“Huh?”

“Are you likely to get hurt?” You frown. And for a moment, Heizou’s capable aura wavers, freezing as he tries to come up with an answer. 

“I’m quite adept in combat, so there’s no need to worry.” His grin is a little less practised now. “It’s part of my job.”

Instead of giving him a direct yes however, you purse your lips and continue into the living room, starting to unpack the food. 

“I’ll overlook your lack of personal-concern if you’ll eat with me.” You say. You’re not close enough to Heizou to start giving him a speech, but he reads your effort to connect and his mouth tugs into a small, gentle smile. 

“How can I refuse my Master?” Heizou gets the cutlery, putting a kettle on the stove to boil tea as he sets the table up quickly. “Let me plate the dishes before they get cold. I’m still being paid for this, after all.”

“Where did you learn to do all this?” You tilt your head curiously. “I didn’t suspect you at all.”

Heizou makes a guilty hum. “I just did regular cleaning like I would at home. I believe the only reason you didn’t notice my blunders was because you were too stressed yourself.” He sets the bowl of premium ramen before you. But surprises you by picking up chopsticks and raising a mouthful of noodles to your lips. “Say aaah.”

You back away in embarrassment. “This isn’t part of—”

“The food is getting cold, Master~”

Helpless against his teasing, you sigh and lean in to let Heizou feed you. When he continues this for another few minutes, you finally reach your limit and demand that he eats with you, earning you a laugh that finally sounds like his usual self.

“Thank you.” Heizou says, calling you by your real name. You feel like a sort of barrier has been lowered with that simple act. “I won’t burden you with my work, so if anything happens I’ll send an actual maid to replace me, however long you need.”

“Would it be childish to say I’d only want you?” You admit, catching Heizou off-guard. “I was actually thinking that I’ll need to end our contract soon, since I can’t afford maids long-term. But I was considering extending it just because the house might feel empty.” And if earlier is anything to go by, you definitely aren’t used to coming back to an empty home anymore. 

“Well… In that case…” Heizou holds his chin. “Part of the reason I’m here is because your location is good for keeping tabs. Maybe we can figure something out.”

Roommates? “I don’t know, what if we get too used to it?” You joke, taking Heizou’s outstretched hand and shaking on it. “Housemates it is, until you fulfil your job for the greater good.”

“Do you think my work is so noble?” He muses. 

Maybe not his work, but certainly him.

“You simply remind me of the heroic type.” You say lightly. “Stopping criminals even with a broom, or while you’re mopping the floor.”

Weeks later, you find out (ironically,) that your statement couldn’t ring more true.

[chthonicgodling]

HI I DONT HAVE A HALLOWEEN POST BUT I JUST DECIDED LAST MINUTE THAT I AMMMM MM GOING TO ATTEMPT HUEVEMBER AGAIN THIS YEAR - abridged though! three colors every third day! i do NOT have time for another 30 drawings! but i realized i would be so sad if i didnt do SOMETHING for the first time in four years sooo an attempt will be made to get ten out!

[however you can see last year's 30 drawings by perusing this tag!]

Maybe next year i'll do all new colors but for now, a repost! just like last year this wheel is free to use for anyone who might want to use it, even though it's. primarily for me fgkkg. Rules AGAIN!

If you do use this wheel, please tag me I’d love to see what you make!! Idk hashtag #AceprilHuevember is what I’ll be using I guess 💕 my username is Acepril11 on all other social medias except here so! lemme see ahhh tag me tag me owowowowo

The full version (30 drawings) and abridged version (10 drawings) are included here! I usually do an abridged version each year. Full: one color every day per number, or abridged: groups of three every third day!

As per usual in Huevember challenges, color does not have to be the ONLY color, just the main color. it can be but whatever! also play with it!! you can lighten it, darken it, overlay it, whateverrr

Doesn’t have to be digital art, traditional is good too! Might be a bit harder cause these colors are slightly wacky but :-) go for it

Draw any subject matter! I’m an ✨OC artist✨ but doesn’t mean you have to be too!

Most importantly just have funnnn if it starts to be a chore then just stop! That’s the number one rule! No homework here

OKAY UHH TIME FOR ME TO SCAMPER AWAY AND START THIS CAUSE I DID NOTTT EXPECT TO COMMIT AFTER ALL AND I HAVE NOOOO BACKLOG. go go go go! [feel free to share this around ofc!!]

[archandshri]

9th feb '24 - [arch] characters, interactions and emotion - making a mini webcomic

Gahhhh Shri this has been an absolutely crazy couple of weeks!!!! Hope you are doing well :)) First of all, WOW! You have a lot of goals, and I’m sure you’ll get them done! I’ve worked a lot on my graphic design during the process of making Winter Wellbeing. If you wanna see a blog post dedicated just to that, I can do so! It would be cool to compare notes on the approaches we take for graphic layouts. If you wanna share your knowledge of camera skills when you build that up that would be awesome 😭😭

It’s been a tough few weeks, art wise. I have been reflecting on my process, motivations to create, the ego and all the baggage that’s lumped into the creative process for me. It turns out there’s a lot. I took some space from my illustration practise (literally for a weekend!) and began to realise how dysfunctional it is. I’ve been writing a lot about that so there may be a larger piece of writing coming about that at some point (no promises!!)

But for now, let's talk about little successes!

I’ve been playing with some characters for a while but I’d hit a bit of a block with the plot. I realised the expectation of having a finished project of high quality soon is unrealistic, and an unhealthy expectation to put on myself. I rarely give myself time to play with concepts for a long time and let the characters, plot and interactions evolve naturally. Maybe this in part came from sticking to the short university module turnaround. I noticed that that short turnaround was causing a lot of block, so I have decided to bench it as a comic for now and focus on using it as a playground - falling in love with the characters, creating stories and drawing them for fun. Maybe years down the line I’ll make them into a comic - we shall see! 

I *tried* to do hourly comics day this year and it didn’t quite work for me. I think I made 3 comics? And then got distracted with a bigger project that ended up taking a week or so to complete. Let’s have a look at it, shall we?

[you can find the full version here]

First of all, it’s based on an unfinished fanfiction I started a couple of months ago, which was mostly bad, but there was one nice scene that I liked and wanted to expand on. I started by having a look at the script I wrote and thumbnailing on the iPad. I’m away from home at the mo and usually would prefer to do most of my artwork traditionally, but because I don’t have access to a scanner, the whole process was digital this time. A lot of the pages got scrapped because the dialogue wasn’t necessary, and I’m not drawing pages that aren’t necessary.

some more development screenshots

I thought a lot about posing during the process, acting the scenes out in my mind and sometimes physically, really understanding the emotions of the characters, why they’re saying what they’re saying, their tone and how to convey that though their body language and expression (i find grian really annoying normally [affectionate] but I want this grian to step on me).

Pearl was hard with this because she’s quite erratic and unpredictable in this series, so I wanted her to switch from raw explodey anger to playful jabs at Grian. I’m hoping this comes across as somewhat insane, rather than tonally off and inconsistent. I did super enjoy drawing her and her explosive nature though, especially in comparison to Grian’s coldness.

I played with levels and monotone colour too - I’m not working with multiple colours much at the moment so I’m able to focus on things like values composition, characters and backgrounds. My skills limit the kind of stories I can tell currently, so I’m working to improve those foundations. Maybe when I’m back in the riso studio I can play with colours a little more.

Colours - despite the simple pallete it gets a bit nerdy here.I stuck to specific flat percentages for most of it - Pearl’s hair and Grians jumper are 60%, Grian’s hair and Pearl’s cloak are 20%. Then I added a 14% layer for shadows, using a ahrd blend eraser tool for highlights, making the images quite dark. I fill a layer with texture from Forystr’s riso brush for procreate, and turn it into a 40% opacity colour dodge layer. This gives it some much needed texture and makes the lighting feel low and nighttimecore. It also pushes the values to look really nice - I tend to be too scared to push them by myself.

I tried a few different colour layers to get a *vibe* but settled on a low percentage riso blue in a colour layer. All layers besides the riso blue are in a riso black, colour picked from a riso colour pallete. I learnt these tools - using percentages to get good values - from working with risograph. I really recommend having a look at these techniques and doing some monotone work. It's really improved by character designs, page layouts and compositions.

That's all from me today, though I have had MANY other thoughts over the past two weeks about creating, but perhaps we'll dive into them another time. If you (or anyone else) has any questions, hit me up with a reblog or an ask and I will get right to it. Lovely to hear from you! Hope your art is going great too :)) Arch :)

[mostspecialgirl]

another solo ramble post - relicverse, ocs, flg, and 'succeeding as an artist'

one of the first pieces of digital art i’ve tried to do (not counting back when i was a kid on chickensmoothie) was a '100 OC’s Challenge', which, even at the time, little me thought “what? Just 100? bitch i’ve got this in the BAG” (i did in fact, have it in the bag) and so seeing it again made me want to do a redraw of it. y’know throw in their modern updated designs, maybe try to give them a little more expression, switch the order around and whatnot. but i asked myself “Well in that case, why don’t I just redo the whole thing instead of making it a redraw? Stick in some new series since little me got lazy of drawing from a list at like 75, and it can be something nice to refer to.”

(pictured: old ass disgusting FLG page of the 100 oc’s challenge, as well as the infamous Crusty Backup Of An Old Version of the Ancient FLG Pixel Art Sheet)

then i remembered it’s ONLY 100 slots. by now, i’ve got WAY too much going on and i’ve had another “oh. Well shit. I forgot I’m nuts about this shit” because quite honestly I could probably do 300 without having to think too hard. And maybe that’s a bit of an issue. what is a girl doing with 300+ characters floating around her brain. i’ve got tens of stories where NONE have PROPERLY seen the light of day because i’m scared of comitting to a shitty adaptation that interests no one. or i get too overly ambitious in what’s actually possible and blow out my motivation to wanting it down in consumable form at that time. here i am cooped up in my little shack with the same problem i’ve had my whole life:

i’d love to have one or two eyes on my work who care about it, but i’ve never had any knack for attracting an audience. i spent YEARS on instagram to the tune of Only Making A Single Friend I Fell Out Of Touch With. All of the success I’ve had on twitter over the years is directly tied to “well did Friend 1 or Friend 2 Retweet This?” (With an exception i’ll get to) and only QUITE RECENTLY (in the scope of my artist career) have i made friends who LOOK at my ART and press LIKE. i just feel a little suffered! maybe i’m just scarred from instagram cause’ i was shit at drawing back then. maybe i just have to do fanart with the skills i have now and inevitably i’ll have followers of my own who i don’t see through the lens of “borrowed, not earned”. but i’m scared of failure. i’ve long failed, don’t get me wrong, but i’m afraid of falling deeper, despite how insignificant an Online Existence Like This already is.

(pictured: record of existence)

my one success, being twitter’s “GAYRETARDGF” was the first time in my life i received any attention that made me think “oh shit, maybe i’m actually a little bit funny and not just an insane unfunny person”. i spent years playing Jester for My Personal King that i’ve kind of lost any frame of reference pertaining to how i’m perceived by others. i’ve always been terrible at that. despite getting suspended at another Peak Growth Moment and the fact i’ve failed to reclaim that spark, it’s made me realize “Maybe I can succeed creatively”. after all, GAYRETARDGF’s thing was vulgar quips and drawn out nonsensical scenario posts and WELL. not to name names or kick any other artists under the bus, unlike most Crazy Posters “artist careers”, my art, i find, is every bit as unserious, witty, vulgar, and STUPID as my tweets were. (i think the writing in Puzzling Commission is a testament to that)

even if i failed to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was GAYRETARDGF, knowing people find my stupid bits funny is such a candle in the dark i’ve been in my whole life. i’m always telling my friends “i’m trying to be the new henry darger” and even though i’m joking, I’m afraid that maybe i will be to a few souls who stumble on my work. i’ve found my own 'personal dargers' over the years who i bemuse over, wondering where they are now, and if they still care about art. I don’t want to give up. I want to keep pushing. I’m coming up on the 10th anniversary of FLG and finally at this point in my life i’m seeing the signs that potentially I can make ONE person BECOME A DEDICATED FAN of the relicverse. my art’s almost there, my writing’s there, and all i have to do it wait for the wind to catch these sails. (i will however, have to find the right sails for the job)

i’m far from kidding when i say the relicverse is my life’s work. i think i’d like to make it succeed. i hope in this modern landscape it CAN succeed. so i’m going to bust my fucking ASS OFF drawing fanart on tumblr and see where it goes. I’d honestly be satisfied just being a mildly successful fanartist in a fandom i like.

SURPRISE! THIS POST ISN’T DONE YET!

for the second part here, feel free to stop reading, i want to talk a little more about FLG. FLG is the series younger me put my whole SOUL into. even 'sarah' which i’m going by now (due to a strange set of circumstances which i might talk about in a future ramblepost about Gender and Stuff), is taken from 'sa’ara pyrophyte byblis' who at the time was my favourite character. To repeat what i said earlier with a little more information, FLG is in fact coming up on it’s tenth anniversary and that’s HORRIFYING. i’ve been working on this shit since before UNDERTALE. BEFORE UNDERTALE!!!!!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?????

flg’s been sent to the backburner while i recontextualize a ton of lore, but in a lot of ways, it’s the reason the relicverse even exists. sure, these days, DEVIL’S MANNER opens up the gate, but the first series i wrote to acknowledge the planes and the presence of a shared greater universe is from FLG. hell, FLG’s story can be read as a parallel to Demiurge’s story (intentional) though… now that i say that, it’s not like anyone would know what i mean by that.

despite not DIRECTLY touching FLG in any significant way in these recent times, i think it’s only become more important to the greater universe. the kailash clan finds their origins in FLG, and by extension, the outer gods. hastur himself is a direct descendant of the outer gods, and despite being seen as an 'imperfect halfling' by the ancients during FLG, at the end of the story and before the events of sundown, hastur gains his proper respects as 'their greatest child', being half ancient and half elder god, essentially the image of purity they’ve been chasing. an ancient whose blood bears the love of their creators. oh. right. i guess now’s a good time to mention Hastur and by extension Ithaqua are both Kailash, though the two aren’t keen on identifying as such after everything Cass did to their friends family and home.

in the current scape of the relicverse, the Kailash are by far the only clan who has political relevance, both the berezaiti and sinai clans divided and mostly irrelevant in terms of modern planeswalker culture. The Kailash are like, kind of really important.

but, technically, the berezaiti are also from FLG. Ounon Thanast, chief of one of the Tindalosian Clans that find their homeworld in FLG’s Earth, is the parent of Yima Berezaiti, who, if for some reason you know my lore, is the whole reason the Berezaiti clan is a CLAN.

FLG’s earth, GENESIS EARTH, is pretty significantly important to the RELICVERSE. It’s one of the planes lying upon 'The Rim', with the control for influence over it contested by both The Planeswalker Association and the Hundred Nights Guild. Due to the presence of Azathoth’s Canvas Energy Offgassing, within GENESIS EARTH, everyone’s line of fate is rewritten to have them destined to awaken a Power (as in 'Powers' of 'The Five Elements') by lingering around in this plane for long enough, anyone can gain another unique ability JUST by doing fuck all!!!! which OF COURSE has led to the eternal struggle of planeswalkers upon their world.

Even the Trinity and RELIC EARTH aren’t safe, with Angelo Rust of INSIDERS being a Genesis Earth native and brother of the Sinai Clan’s Patriarch Einrich, Gervase Sinai, was condemned to the plane by the King of the Watchers, Samyaza, who is also one of RELIC EARTH’s Outer Gods. AND, SPOILER ALERT, GERVASE IS THE FATHER OF VIRGIL, THE PROTAGONIST OF FLG: SUNDOWN!!!

gaaaasp

There’s so many more little connections like that and yet somehow i never seemed to consider genesis earth as more than a footnote, until now, of course. but i’m not sure what i want to do with flg. the obvious answer is a COMIC, seeing as it’s about SUPERHEROES, but i can’t help but wonder if there’s another path also worth pursuing. Superhero media is everywhere these days, and with the success of works like Invincible’s adaptation, The Boys’s adaptation, and like, the crazy marvel movie explosion that happened with infinity war and endgame, Superhero stuff is back in the public consciousness. There’s a lot of avenues. That’s getting too far ahead though seeing as I’ve had a Big Inevitable Rewrite for it on the schedule… gruygh,,, there’s too much to ramble about today… what was it i was even trying to talk about…

oh. Yeah. Right. I’d love for FLG to find its success somehow, some way, someday, with beautiful 5 active readers, and 20 Asks in my Tumblr Askbox, but i’m a little fearful i might never have the time or power to get to it. I guess I’ll see. I’ll just keep plugging along.

Now shoo!!! Shoo!!!

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #571

Top Ten Things by Daughter #2

So every year I hand over my glorious, shining blog to my progeny to allow them to mucky it all up for their birthdays. And that time has come round again as we celebrate the anniversary of Daughter #2 gracing us with her presence. It was the same day the Mercedes garage near our house installed a giant rotating logo, funnily enough. Put it in your diary.

Anyway, I asked her a while ago what she wanted to write and she just decided to list “everything”. So that’s what this is: a list of everything. It’s basically her top ten everything of all time ever. She wrote it out for me in her little diary, which has a lock on it, and I couldn’t open it, so I’ve had to wait until she allowed me to see the list.

And that’s really that for this week! She obviously hasn’t written great screeds on the subject because, well, she can’t be arsed doing my work for me. I’ve tried to elucidate slightly on the items in her list, because I think with the best will in the world they might need a tiny bit of explaining in some cases. But as is the case with all these lists that I get my brood to contribute too – and also some of the early Top Tens I wrote, flush with the joys of new parenthood – they serve as a nice snapshot of where we all are at this moment. These are the things she likes right now, as she turn eight. Future generations will look back and wonder whether it’s entirely appropriate to show too much Tim Burton to a primary schooler. Or ask just what the hell is up with “lilac”.

Anyway, here you go. Have at it, and happy birthday.

Baby Betsy: so, this is her little dog, Betsy; I’m not allowed to say plush dog or toy dog, she’s just a dog, okay? It’s “Baby” Betsy because it’s the small, baby form of her Nanna’s dog, “Big” Betsy (who is, herself, pretty small). Does that make sense? So Betsy at number one totally tracks, because this is her “Woody” (god I wish that character had a different name), her little friend who she takes everywhere.

Mummy: yeah, okay, this makes sense too. Who doesn’t love their mum? And Daughter #2 has such a sense of feminine style that she requires a role model to, well, do her hair. Coz I can’t do plaits. Sorry.

Daddy: honestly surprised I’m this high. I’ll take it.

Puppies: like, in general; all puppies. She’s dog-mad. All she wants in life is a ton of puppies. Everything is canine-related. Might buy her Cujo for her birthday.

Dumbo (2019): yes, I double-checked, and this isn’t the character, she really does mean the 2019 live-action film by Tim Burton. It’s better than the other one, she says. I’m not sure I agree, although it is less racist. Also, it’s worth highlighting that Dumbo is (low bar here) one of the best live-action Disney “reimaginings”, succeeding by focusing on Dumbo (the character) as being an adjunct to the human family drama that’s unfolding. It also does well by continuing for a good 45 minutes after the point where the initial film ended, having Michael Keaton play – well – a villainous, fictionalised version of Walt Disney but with better hair. It manages to be a sweet, Paddington-esque drama but also lean into some Burton wackiness, and completes his trilogy of Films With Danny DeVito That Have A Circus In Them. Also: two Penguins.

Art: like, art. I think she means, y’know, drawing and painting. Not specifically the concept of art – including everything from song to prose to Candy Crush Saga – and nor does she refer to the 1994 play by Yasmina Reza. Just, like, painting and whatnot.

Lasagne: like her father and his messiah (Garfield), she loves lasagne. Nothing more to say here. It’s delicious. I want some now.

Books: yeah, she’s being a bit all-encompassing with some of these isn’t she? “All books”. Books are great and all, but despite being a very advanced reader for her age, I guess she’s not really that well-read in the grand scheme of things. Maybe she’ll think less of books by the time she gets round to Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.

Lilac (the colour): your guess is as good as mine.

Wednesday (2022): no, not the day, nor even the character; she means the show. She might be putting the cart before the horse a little bit coz we’ve only watched two or three episodes so far; maybe it falls off a cliff. Maybe it becomes less like the good Barry Sonnenfeld movies, and more like the ropey, middle-of-the-road animated movies. Anyway, I’m pleased that she likes Wednesday, for three reasons: (1) I wanted to watch it anyway; (2) it’s a proper TV programme that we can all enjoy, unlike some of the other stuff she makes us watch; and (3) maybe this and Dumbo will be a gateway drug to more Tim Burton and we can watch Batman and Batman Returns this year. Remember: a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it!

[corbosieu]

The WoW case study

I’m a wow player, I’m also a product designer. As such, I have a tendency to over study everything I encounter. In these posts, I’ll try to explain why world of Warcraft is, in my opinion, one of the best UX case study one can imagine and how it’s story is questioning what makes a good cultural product.

Lets dive in.

Wow is one of a few games that you can play as « vanilla » or with the latest expansion, allowing us to try, test, and spot things that differentiate these two versions to a point where they’re not quite the same game anymore.

On Aug. 27th 2019, Classic world of Warcraft (a reboot of the game as it was in 2004) finally came live in America, Europe, Oceania and Asia. This event happened after many years of lobbying from Blizzard’s fans – that for many of them had quit the game long ago – asking them to re release the game in its early stage. For a long period of time, Blizzard executives and creative team in general were not very fond of that idea, arguing that players didn’t know what they were looking for in the first place (« You think you do, but you don’t »).

This brings an important question, and that question will guide this entire thread : is it possible for a more evolved product to be *less* attractive than an older version of itself?

Of course, looking at this now, the answer feels obvious : products evolves, it should be trivial to say people can like their first iterations more than their current state. But we must remember we’re talking about a digital product, something that can be seen as (and that mainly is) a software. A software that get updates that are supposed to fix what couldn’t be fixed before. Updates that are supposed to enhance, bring more details to stuffs that weren’t implemented for various reasons (lack of time is a big one).

Is it possible that updates were changing the very nature of what they were supposed to enhance to a point were the game wasn’t the game anymore (Theseus ship)? Was Blizzard right when saying people *thought* they would love to play vanilla wow again but, as they would start to play, they would quickly realize how broken the game is, how it is lacking essential features?

« You think you do, but you don’t » is, to this day, the symbol of a huge judgment mistake, of an entire team thinking they knew what their users were looking for, yet they were mistaken.

Blizzard was wrong, Classic wow launch has been a major timeframe in the afterlife of world of Warcraft, bringing hundreds of thousands of players to play the game once again. Sure enough, the executive team acknowledged that. Maybe vanilla wasn’t a relique from the past after all? Maybe the game created years after years, expansion after expansion, wasn’t suited for all players, and those players were legions. Maybe it wasn’t only nostalgia but real game features that made vanilla wow so unique.

Maybe the life of a product isn’t as limited as we think it is. Take expansions for example, new content is always enjoyed by players, it brings cycling in the gaming experience, new frontiers, new challenges, the feeling of empowering. But the story has told us it wasn’t sufficient to make people stay. Everybody knows how Blizzard stopped sharing subscribers figures to the public after Wrath of the Lich King. And as many are pointing the next expansion – Cataclysm – as the culprit, I personally think we have more to learn by looking at Wrath.

Despite being known as the players all time best expansion, Wrath is also the first expansion to implement *many* modern wow features, such as heirlooms, heroic raiding difficulty, achievements, dailies progression, battlegrounds and pvp rework, leveling rework, etc. Looking at the list, vanilla wow was already put on the side when Wrath came out. After The burning crusade had brought flying mount into the world, after the tendency to forget “old” world content was introduced, Wrath was, in my opinion, the angular stone that set the game in its current development state : another year, another expansion, another zone that instantly outshines the rest, new daily mechanics that brings artificial engagement, new PVE content. In that, with such a method, the game was set to last long – and it did, but not as the same product. The game that players were looking for on Aug. 27th stopped existing in 2008, between The burning crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.

This is the first of many posts I will make about this topic. In the followings I’ll go more in depth about game mechanics and how they conflicted with the game’s original design principles (a design method that Blizzard seems to have used again recently around Classic development, but that’s a story for another post).

[raphyart]

BURST LDN Have invited me to exhibit on February 1st at the Amersham Arms [@theamershamarmsofficial] I will both be exhibiting and selling Art. All of which will be new and original Art not posted and/or shown before Tickets in BURST LDN’s Instagram bio

Alternative poster created by Me

Deets: Wed, February 1, 2023, 7:30 PM – 11:00 PM GMT Amersham Arms 388 New Cross Road London SE14 6TY

About Raph:

What's something that inspired you in your creative journey?

“I would like to say i have one single source of inspiration because it would make writing this a lot easier so to help myself, i think “culture and cultures” would be what inspired and continues to inspire me on my creative journey. As a British born Jamaican/Congolese North Londoner i have expierenced and lived within and around many cultures and the knowledge and inspiration shared between them leads to both such a love for the simliarities and differences between them. I have a love for all things Sci Fi, Anime and Gaming, none of which are inheritantly related my personal background.”

How would you describe your art?

“As of recently i would like to say it definitely all over the place, But i would like to hope there is a consistency within it. My favourite colours to use are always my staple hot pinks and sometimes purple. I don’t advertise my art to be one single style but i do think my recent HeroPuke project is my most consistent group of work as it is solely 3d and the character designs are set. My uploads range from digital illustrations to actual illustration, 3d work followed by maybe a vhs video edit then by some photography back to a cover art then on a good day a collab with another creative. I like to create first and forth-most and hence why there is so much variation within my work. I always want to know whats hot and be able to do that, If i don’t know how to do it i’ll go learn it and be somewhat good at it. I’d just like to hope if you see my work, you would think “i know Raph did that.” and that it was done well.”

Short Versions

What's something that inspired you in your creative journey?

“I have a love for all things Sci Fi, Anime and Gaming, none of which are inheritantly related my personal background so i would think i think “culture and cultures” would be what inspired and continues to inspire me on my creative journey."

How would you describe your art?"

As of recently i would like to say it definitely all over the place, But i would like to hope there is a consistency within it. My favourite colours to use are always my staple hot pinks. I’d just like to hope if you see my work, you would think “i know Raph did that.” and that it was done well.

As BURST LDN we welcome EVERYONE to our events, and strive for an all-inclusive environment with NO tolerance to racism, homophobia, sexism, violence and oppression of any form.

[rissarants]

The Return of Rissa

Like so many others, I have once again returned to Tumblr after watching Twitter turn into more of a dumpster fire than usual. Do I believe that Twitter will actually die? I doubt it, but the general atmosphere is changing and I’m not sure that I will always want to be a part of it. Besides, I have fond memories associated with Tumblr (although not as fond as Xanga.) This was a simple site that let me mindlessly reblog content that was related to my many hyper fixations at the time and, more excitingly, one of the ways I consistently flirted with my now-husband. One would think that coming back would be simple... 

I intended to private all of my old content on my primary blog and start a secondary one, but I could not easily do so (Note: of course, I found the mass post editor after I manually went through everything.) Once upon a time, I reveled in keeping my digital footprint intact like some sort of a personal Time Capsule that I could open up and review when I was feeling nostalgic. However, I no longer get that urge and have become accustomed to simply deleting the parts of my life that I no longer identify with… and, good lord, there’s a lot. I routinely purge my tweets from over a couple of years ago and have taken to removing old posts that make me cringe as they pop up in my Facebook memories. Perhaps it’s just a result of the wisdom that comes with age, paranoia after seeing people’s shitty takes resurface after ten years go by, or that I’m just a happier person now. I may have finally found a version of myself that I am proud of… let’s see if that sticks ten years from now.

So here I am, going through what were some of the strangest years of my life here on Tumblr as if it were a dating app: swiping right on posts that still resonate and dumping the rest into the digital bonfire. It’s mildly amusing to see some of the topics I obsessed over and even more fascinating to see how my mindset has changed over the years. For example:

The Fault in Our Stars - Dear lord, the absolute chokehold this book and movie had on me at the time. Perhaps it was because I was struggling in my love life and craving that all-consuming romance that I believed the story conveyed at the time. I don’t hate the story nowadays, but some of the lines I reblogged so smugly back in the day make me cringe. 

The Drama - I was brutal. The moment I felt someone had crossed me, all bets were off and I skewered them with my words on Tumblr. Did they all deserve my virtual beatdowns? Probably not. As I matured, I learned that hurt people hurt people. I was one of the wounded, lashing out to cause similar pain simply because I could. There are exceptions to the rule and some of them earned my retaliation, but at the end of the day, it didn’t do much for other people’s perceptions of me. It never made me feel better. It wasn’t healthy.

The Thinspo - Every once in a blue moon I decided I wasn’t good enough and strived for drastic weight loss. I reblogged things associated with a specific ED community, hoping it would motivate me. It never stuck, because I always had an absolute love of food and disdain for working out. I’m grateful now that things weren’t different for me at the time. Had I gotten deeper into that ED community, who knows what could have happened? I regret ever looking at those posts as something to admire and reblog. I should have never contributed to spreading that message around. 

So what will I be posting here moving forward? You can expect musings about games and my experiences as a Twitch streamer. I may share my thoughts about paganism as I continue my spiritual journey. And maybe, if I’m feeling brave, I’ll share some of my creative writing. Basically, I want to start thinking, writing, and creating more. Too much of my online life has become passive, where I am only mindlessly ingesting content without putting anything of my own out into the world. It’s time to shake things up and get back in touch with my creative side. Let’s see how long this lasts.

[therubymuse]

Cobwebs

I haven’t written for awhile. Not anything beyond a couple paragraphs on various content I’ve shared on Facebook. And I think that has a lot to do with how cluttered my internal workspace has been. The words have not been flowing. However, since purchasing a writing program a couple months ago, what I have done in the interim is collect all of my past and sort it into working files where I can call past work up very easily, I can make edits to it and keep track of revisions, and I can export collections of work in an automated way, all things a basic word processor can’t really do. And I’m finding that’s helping my brain a lot. 

One of the subjects I’ve broken out into it’s own library is my poetry. For a number of years I was enamoured with writing poems, it probably started when I was 15 or so, and I wrote significant quantities of it. Back in 2018, I came across an old backed up hard drive, which contained all this work that I thought had been lost to time. I converted it all into more modern formats, and have kept it with me since, but rarely looked through or at it in any thoughtful way. 

So imagine my surprise then when I began sifting through these documents, to find not only some striking lyricism and images, but also some positively sapphic passages about prior crushes and loves, things I never shared with them because I had learned by that point in my life that my “sensitive nature” was not in keeping with my presumed gender identity. I am elated to find out that I’d never deleted any of these works, even the ones that make me cringe. The earliest work in the pile goes back to 2002, a whole two decades ago now. 

It’s also curious to note the change in tone and style as my life progressed. In my earliest works, I see a vividness that belied the use of exacting or efficient language, and instead revelled in the flowery and the awkward. When I went to university and took writing classes in 2011 and 2012, they appear to have sapped a lot of that latent joy and individuality from my voice. My focus became efficiency, there was a drive to remove all unnecessary articles and non-descriptive language. Whenever I’ve attempted to go back to writing poetry, I’ve returned to that secondary style that supplanted my earlier work, and I think moving past that and really examining my prior work will help me find my real voice again. 

So while I haven’t made any progress on the now-passed Nanowrimo, I think I’m getting myself into a space where I could have a chance at it next year. I’ve created collections for my poetry, blogs, short stories, and film reviews, creating what are essentially the digital version of binders full of writing, much like I used to keep when I was working mostly with a typewriter. And hey, maybe I’ll even bust out the typewriter again for some inspiration when I feel inclined. While I wait for the flow to resume, I can at least rearrange my workspace to help me find and inspire the right words. 

One day, where all that stood here was grass, I intend there to be a cottagecore village full of laughter and inspiration. I can't wait to see it take shape.

[gallavichcoloringbook]

Happy Saturday Babies!

Goodmorning, my loves💜 Today is an great day because I’ve decided to make a blog to share these coloring pages so they’re neatly sorted here and you guys won’t have to search through my main blog to find the links and what not 🥰

But anyway, for those of you who don’t know me I’ll introduce myself. My name is Cheyanne, though most here know me as Chey or @takeyourpillsbitchh. I’m 23 and though I mainly write I’ve started making fanart recently and had the idea to make coloring pages for our little fandom family.

I want to say that this is of course free of charge, and I’m doing this for anyone and everyone to take part in, I only ask that you please not remove my watermark from the pages!

Second, all color pages will be made available to color digitally on apps like procreate or as a printable.

Third, if you partake please, please, please post and tag this page or #gallavich coloring book, so I can see what you’ve created and show it some love!!!

SURPRISE!!! New Coloring Pages!

There are currently 3 coloring pages! With 2 coming soon!

1. Wedding Kiss “Plain” - AVAILABLE

2. Wedding Kiss “Gallavich” - AVAILABLE

3. Wedding Kiss “End Game!” - AVAILABLE

4. Ian Gallagher - NEW - Coming Monday 9/19

5. Mickey Milkovich - NEW - Coming Monday 9/19

The three wedding kiss versions can be found and downloaded HERE!

Preview of the new pages: 🥰

I’m not sure yet how often I’ll be sharing pages, ideally it would be pretty frequently but realistically maybe 2-3 a month, so maybe 1 every other week. But you know, life, work, kids, and lack of inspiration can always change things or on the positive side there could be more one month if inspiration hits! 🥰

Also, as I said I want to make this as accessible as possible to everyone, however, please be advised that I will be sharing a few NSFW coloring pages this ranges from curse words to nudity. If you are underage, please just don’t download the pages labeled “NSFW” there will be plenty of other pages you can color I promise!

[honeypiehotchner]

Version of You (Hotch x Fem!Reader) — one shot

Call 1-800-799-7233 if you think you are in danger/a victim of domestic violence, or visit this website for resources, live chat, and more (for the USA). This is a link to the wikipedia page that has international resources. 

(I wanted to put that first because this fic deals with an abusive relationship and some scenes show the abuse. If you relate to any this, please seek help via the resources above. I want desperately to say my DMs are open, but for my own mental wellbeing, I have to let you know that the resources that I give above are about all I can do to help. You’re welcome to DM me if needed, but please know that it might take me a minute to reply, and I still will point you in the direction of resources that can better help you. I love and support and am with every single one of you, but I can only do so much through a screen xx.)

This is 100% a comfort fic, but I am safe and okay, I promise 💛 (Truthfully, this was really therapeutic to write.)

Small note: mental and verbal abuse is depicted here, not physical (though it does come close), but I wanted to remind you that just because abuse isn’t physical doesn’t mean it’s not harmful or real. Mental and verbal abuse is still abuse.

Summary: Hotch helps you find the courage within you to end your abusive relationship for good.

Warnings: depiction of an abusive relationship, verbal/mental abuse, violence (domestic and otherwise), angst, happy ending

Hotch Masterlist

Aaron is stunned and disappointed to find you’re still at your desk when he walks out of his office at the grand hour of 8 p.m.

You don’t even hear his office door open or close, but you do hear his footsteps on the stairs. By the time he reaches your desk to say goodnight, you’re already attempting to cover up any traces of emotion on your cheeks.

But Aaron is a profiler. On top of that, though, he’s one of your best friends. He’s known you for six years now, and given how much time the BAU members spend together on cases, he’d argue he knows every single person here better than they know themselves.

You’d agree. You hardly know who you are anymore. But somehow, Aaron knows. Aaron can see.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, already setting his bag down, already pulling a chair over, already sitting next to you.

You’re ready to tell him it’s nothing, to tell him to get home to Jack, that it isn’t important — but it is.

You’ve been with your current partner for almost eight years. Anyone would hear that and ask if marriage is on the horizon, or children, or something of the sort. But not Aaron. Because Aaron can see the pain in your eyes.

Truthfully, he’s seen that pain in your eyes for the past two years. Maybe more.

But recently, it’s gotten worse. A lot worse.

You’re on a “break” with your partner. Whatever a “break” even means, because you still receive phone calls and texts from them all day. You send the calls to voicemail unless you absolutely aren’t doing anything, and the texts you reply to with one word.

Going home is fine because your partner is gone — for now. Work called them away, so you’re home alone for at least another three days, but you expect they’ll want you to pick them up from the airport.

You’ve never longed for a case the way you’re longing for one right now.

This “break” has been easiest because your partner has been gone. You know if they were here, it wouldn’t have been a break at all.

“It’s made me realize that I...I want a break. A real break.”

“You want to break up,” Aaron says it for you, knowing you’re too afraid.

Your hesitant nod confirms this for him. “I do. I think I really do.”

Aaron has known the relationship hasn’t been the healthiest. You don’t open up about your personal life that much at work — you never have — but it has always been telling that you never go out for drinks with the team. And when you did, you’d have to answer texts every ten minutes. Your partner never accepted an invite to join the team for drinks or dinner, but would often get angry at you for being out, as if you hadn’t tried to invite them.

Raised voices, broken glass. Not a single hand was ever laid on you. No, instead, it was a wine glass your mom gifted to you when you graduated college when your partner was angry that you had gone out for drinks with the team after a difficult case. A coffee mug you gifted your partner for their birthday faced the brunt of their anger when you didn’t reply to a text message fast enough — because you were parking your car in the garage. Plates, picture frames. A coffee table once, three years ago. It had been a house warming present.

But they’ve never hurt me, you always argue — only with yourself. No one knows the truth, that you clean up after their outbursts, that you’re grateful to have some knowledge of first aid so you can tend to your cuts from the broken glass, or so that you could stitch up your partner’s hand with ease, because hospitals are expensive and the excuses you’d have to fabricate even more so.

They always apologize. Which is true. Apologies are frequent in your house. Sometimes verbal, sometimes in the form of flowers either on your desk at the BAU (that only Hotch seems to notice with a sad smile) or left on the counter at home. Sometimes, rarely, a fancy dinner and some gift, usually a necklace.

“If you need any help at all,” Aaron says, looking you in your eyes, carefully, intently. “I’m here. For anything.”

“Thanks,” you murmur. Your stomach rumbles loudly in the silence, making you chuckle awkwardly.

“Hungry?” He jokes, but is half serious. “I was planning to get something on the way home, if you’d like to join.”

You think it over for a moment. Your mind immediately jumps to say no because you think your partner is home...but they aren’t.

“Sure,” you say. “Why not. What’s on the menu?”

You gather your things and Hotch waits patiently, rattling off some ideas for food to eat until one grabs your attention.

Your phone buzzes with a text. Where are you?

Aaron notices your change in posture with a sigh. “Is that them?”

You nod slowly. “Asking where I am.” You quickly type back, Still at the BAU.

The reply is almost immediate, as always. Just checking. Love you.

Relief washes over you as you type back, Love you too.

Aaron doesn’t like what he sees. The panic that surges through you just from a text message, making you stand up straight, hold your breath, clench your jaw. Then the relief that relinquishes you when a reply comes and it isn’t negative for once. The sudden changes, the way your emotions are yanked back and forth. He hates it.

But he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he says, “Ready?” And waits for you to smile.

+++

Hotch really doesn’t mean for dinner with you to turn into somewhat of a routine. But it does.

It’s brought more smiles to your face than Hotch thinks he has ever seen in the past six years. And for that, he doesn’t regret the dinners.

Neither do you, until the worst thing that could possibly happen ends up happening one night, three weeks since the first dinner.

Your partner is going out with friends, so you think you’re in the clear to get dinner with Aaron. And when your partner asks where you are again, you say you’re still at the BAU. You were, but you and Aaron were in the elevator to leave when you sent that message.

The two of you grab dinner at one of your favorite spots, at a table outside because the weather is perfect, the sky is clear, and stars are beginning to show. It’s magical. Until it’s a nightmare.

“Well, well, well.”

The voice sends shivers down your spine. They’re supposed to be out with friends.

Aaron automatically stands, shoulders squared and face set. He’s wearing his gun, and you are, too, but you’d never use it on your partner. You can’t say the same about Hotch, though, and that terrifies you.

“Babe,” you say with a smile, and Hotch tenses, hearing the pet name fall so easily form your lips. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going out with your friends?”

Your partner crosses their arms over their chest. “And I thought you were still at work.”

“We are,” Hotch speaks up, startling you. “We’re discussing a case.”

Your partner looks around, raising their eyebrows. “I don’t see any papers.”

“Because we went digital five years ago,” Hotch replies coolly. “But aside from that, a federal investigation is none of your business.”

You swallow thickly, waiting for your partner’s reply.

But to your surprise, they only nod. “I understand, sir. I was only checking.”

Hotch holds back a scoff, but instead returns the nod. “If you’ll excuse us.”

Your partner holds their hands up in surrender. “Of course.”

“I’ll see you at home,” you say quickly. “Love you.”

“See you at home,” they reply, making you frown as they turn and walk away.

When you look back at Hotch, you nearly scream. It takes everything in you not to make the hugest scene right there, outside this nice restaurant, underneath these stars.

Your phone buzzes. One hour. Do not be late.

“Y/N—”

“Don’t,” you say quietly. “Just. Don’t, Hotch.”

+++

The next day, you knock on Hotch’s office door, twenty dollar bill in hand to pay him back for your dinner last night. You left in a hurry and didn’t get to pay. Thankfully, at least, arriving home with forty minutes to spare saved you from an even worse reaction from your partner.

“For dinner last night,” you mumble, sliding the twenty across Hotch’s desk. “Thank you.”

As you turn on your heel to leave, Hotch calls out to you. “I’m sorry.”

You sigh. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Aaron says, making you turn back around. “I hope you’re...alright.”

You’re so very far from being “alright” that you almost laugh. Instead, you shrug. “It’s been worse.”

“Did they hit you?”

You’re too shocked to move. “What? No! Why the hell would you even say that?”

“Because I’ve been worried about you.”

“They have never laid a hand on me,” you snap. “Ever.”

“But they’ve come close,” Aaron says gently. “You know they have.”

You only scoff. You feel hurt. Insulted, even, that he would assume something like that. Your relationship with your partner is rocky, of course, but never physical abuse rocky. Never that bad.

But has it come close?

Sure, maybe you’ve felt the wind off a beer bottle when it grazed by your head on its way to the wall. Maybe you have had to duck to avoid getting glass to the face. Maybe.

Maybe they have come close. Closer than you want to admit.

But they’ve also loved you. Held you while you cried. Rewarded you after you cleaned up the broken glass. Left you flowers and jewelry and love notes.

They love you. Don’t they?

“It’s fine,” you whisper, blinking back the stubborn tears that have jumped to the front of your eyes. “They love me.”

“Love isn’t violent,” Aaron replies gently. “Love shouldn’t make you as terrified as I saw you when you left last night.”

“I know,” you choke out. “But I don’t know what to do.”

Hotch is rounding his desk and gathering you in his arms before the first tear slips down your cheeks. He holds you while you cry, letting you get it all out.

“We’ll figure it out,” he whispers, resting his chin on top of your head. “Don’t worry.”

+++

It all comes to a head a few nights later when your partner springs a question on you. The question.

There, standing in the bathroom, you’re too stunned to speak.

“What d’you say, baby? Let’s get married, you and me.”

You don’t reply. You toss the makeup wipe in your trash can, flick the light in the bathroom off, and walk out into the bedroom.

“Baby?” They ask.

You’re facing the dresser, halfway to setting out a pair of pants for work tomorrow. “I...I can’t.”

“What?” Their reply is immediate and angry. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t,” you repeat, refusing to change your answer. “No.”

By the time you turn around, they’re standing up from the bed, arms crossed over their chest. “What did you just say to me?”

“I said no,” you say firmly. “I’m not marrying you.”

“And why not?”

“I—”

“Are you seeing someone else?”

“What?”

“Your boss? Are you fuckin’ him?”

“No!”

“Then why won’t you marry me?”

“Because I don’t want to!”

You’ve never raised your voice back at your partner. They’ve always been the one to raise their voice, and you stayed silent, tried to talk them down, be the quiet voice of reason.

But not anymore. You’ve had enough.

“You don’t want to?” They scream. “It’s been eight years and now you don’t want to. You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”

“I’m not,” you say through gritted teeth. “But I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

“Baby…” They sigh, stepping closer, lowering their arms. “Why not?”

“Because,” you reply slowly, backing up. “Just because.”

“That’s not a good enough reason and you know it.”

“It’s good enough for me,” you say. You step to the side and keep backing out into the hallway, getting ready to run if need be.

“Where are you going?” They all but growl. “What’s wrong with you?”

You’re scaring me, you want to scream, but you don’t. “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine? Well I’m for damn sure not fine, I’m heartbroken,” they seethe. You see the tell-tale signs that they’re about to get angry — angry enough to start throwing things. You realize in a moment of horror that a paperweight is within their reach.

And they reach for it.

“Don’t,” you murmur, freezing when their fingers wrap around the glass. “Put it down.”

“Why?” They ask, calm as ever. “Don’t you want to see what you’ve just done to my heart?”

You shake your head slowly. “No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, no!” Your reflexes have gotten better since being at the FBI, and you duck right in time. The paperweight crashes against the wall behind you, shattering, denting the wall, and covering the couch in fine pieces of broken glass.

“See what you’ve done!” Your partner screams. “This could’ve been easy! You could’ve said yes!”

You spot your car keys on the counter next to you, and when they turn their back to you to grip at their hair, you slide the keys off and into your pocket.

I have to get out of here. It’s a thought that you never have. Normally by now you’d be vacuuming up the glass on the couch, apologizing every five seconds, pouring them a glass of whiskey or a beer or something. But not now. Not anymore.

You’re a few steps from the door when your partner notices. “Where the fuck are you going?”

“Nowhere,” you freeze. “Go take a shower. Cool off. I’ll clean up this mess and then we can talk about this again, okay?”

They almost don’t accept your offer, but after a second, they nod. “There better be a beer waiting on me when I get out.”

“Of course,” you smile.

Your smile makes them suspicious, but they turn and head into the bedroom without another word.

Shaking, you turn to the closet to grab the vacuum, turning it on and beginning to suck up the glass off the couch.

But when you hear the shower curtain pull closed, you escape, leaving the vacuum running.

+++

It’s pouring down rain, you aren’t wearing any shoes, and you’re knocking on your boss’s front door. Can your life get any more pathetic?

When Aaron opens the door, he’s practically hauling you inside and out of the rain.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron asks, already leading you down the hall toward the bathroom. “You’re shivering, we need to get you out of these clothes — you aren’t wearing shoes, fuck, Y/N, what happened?”

“They asked me to marry them,” you choke out. You aren’t even crying. You haven’t cried yet at all. “I said no. They almost hit me.”

Aaron feels a dangerous surge of anger course through his body. “Did they hit you?”

You shake your head, and it turns into a full-body shiver.

“Okay,” Aaron says, taking a deep breath to ground himself. “Okay, let me get some clothes for you. Do you want to take a shower?”

You shake your head again.

“Okay, that’s okay. I’ll be right back.”

You sit, shivering, on your boss’s toilet for a few minutes before he returns with clothes. A t-shirt and pair of sweatpants of his. Old ones, he says, they don’t fit him anymore. You smile slightly when you realize the shirt is from his college, the sweatpants from his law school. No wonder they don’t fit him anymore.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” you say. “I—I think I left my phone there.”

“It’s okay,” Aaron shakes his head. “Don’t worry about that. Just get changed and get warm. Do you want some tea? Anything?”

“Just some water, please,” you murmur. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he smiles.

After he leaves, you change out of your wet clothes and into his shirt and sweatpants. You carefully hang your wet shirt and shorts over the edge of the bathtub, hoping that’s okay.

You venture out of the bathroom and follow the noise into the kitchen where you find Aaron putting up dishes.

“Hey,” he murmurs, straightening up. “Do you want ice with your water?”

“Um, sure.”

The sound of ice clinking into the glass makes you flinch, and you’re grateful Aaron’s back is turned away from you.

“There you go,” he hands you the glass.

“Thank you.”

You sip it quietly while he goes back to putting up the rest of the clean dishes in the dishwasher. Once he finishes, your heart is still racing, now with guilt from coming here unannounced. What if he was on a date? What if Jack was here?

“The guest room is all yours,” Aaron says softly. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

You nod slowly. “I don’t know what to do.” You pause, rubbing your thumb over the condensation on the glass. “But I told them I’m not marrying them. But I...I didn’t tell them I was leaving. Or where I was going.”

“Good, that’s good.”

“No,” you shake your head. “It’s not. They’re gonna be mad. I can’t— Oh my god, I can’t go back. Not alone, they’ll—”

“Hey,” Aaron shushes you, walking around the counter to get to you. “Don’t worry about it right now. We’ll figure it out. I’ll go with you. You won’t be alone.”

“Thank you.”

+++

The next morning, you and Aaron head into the office early so you have time to grab your go-bag and change into your work clothes that you left in there.

Thank God for having a job like this where it’s normal to have a few changes of clothes, a toothbrush, deodorant, and anything else you need in a duffle bag under your desk.

You and Aaron are the first people in the BAU, so you’re able to grab your bag and head to the bathroom to change without any questions. Once you return, you stuff the bag back under your desk and sit down, ready to bury yourself in reports for the day.

But before you can, Hotch calls you into his office.

“What’s up?” You ask when you step into the doorway.

“We didn’t eat breakfast,” he says, and that’s when you notice the two coffees and muffins sitting on his desk.

“Oh,” you chuckle. “I completely forgot.”

“Me too,” he smiles. “Here, sit.”

The two of you eat the breakfast in silence, but somehow you don’t mind it. You’re not in much of a talking mood, anyway.

Rossi arrives next and stops by Hotch’s office, not at all surprised to find the two of you eating together, though he does join with his coffee a few minutes later. The silence vanishes with Rossi, leaving laughter in its wake as he tells old stories about Hotch.

When the rest of the team arrives, they follow the noise to Hotch’s office, and soon you’re surrounded by your family. Your real family.

Once eight-thirty rolls around, you all begin to disperse, back to your respective spaces to start working for the day, and everything feels normal.

And then, in a matter of seconds, it isn’t.

The second your eyes land on your partner standing down in the bullpen, you fall to your knees, scaring the shit out of Hotch.

“What happened?” He blurts, kneeling down to you. “Are you okay?”

“No,” you shake your head. “No, no, no...No, Hotch, they’re out there.”

Hotch doesn’t need their name. The fear on your face is enough.

About this time, you hear Derek’s voice growing in volume. The most you can make out is, “Put...down…!” And that’s when your blood runs ice cold.

You pat your right hip, hoping, praying, your weapon is magically there, even though you know it’s not. You put it in the safe when you got home last night. You didn’t have time to grab it before you ran out and drove to Hotch’s place. You left it there, in the safe, because you never think twice about it since it’s locked away.

But now…

“Don’t do this, man,” Derek yells. “Put. It. Down.”

“Where is she?” Your partner yells. “Tell me where she is!”

“I’m not telling you shit until you put the gun down,” Derek says, firmly. You’re frozen in place, on the floor next to Hotch’s desk as you listen.

“They have my gun,” you whisper to Hotch. “I didn’t think they— I don’t know how they knew the code, I change it every week, I thought—”

“Hey, hey, don’t worry,” Hotch shushes you. “You stay here. Do not move. Try to get under my desk if you can.” He pauses. “There’s an extra pistol underneath. I want you to grab it just in case.”

You nod, but then a memory of last night grips you. “No! You can’t go out there!” You hiss, gripping Hotch’s arm.

Outside, you hear Emily’s voice adding to Derek’s, trying to talk your partner down. It’s a scene out of a horror movie. Straight from your worst nightmare.

“They already feel threatened by you, they’ll just shoot you the second they see you.”

“Not when they already have five guns on them.”

“Let me come with you,” you offer.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Aaron, I have eight years of experience talking them down. I know what I’m doing.”

Hotch doesn’t like that you’re right.

“Are you sure?” He asks.

You nod. You’re shaking all over, but you still nod.

“Okay. Crawl over and grab the pistol from my desk. Tuck it in your waistband, on your back. Go now.”

You stay low as you crawl over, finding the pistol strapped underneath his desk on the right side. Once it’s tucked in your waistband, you stand, facing the window. Hotch stands too, with his back to the blinds, and thank God they’re closed.

“Is she in there?” You hear your partner scream. “Is she with him?”

“Shit,” you mutter. “Shit, shit, shit, they’re gonna fucking kill me.” You hate that the possibility is very real. They have your gun. They could shoot you the second they see you. You’re not wearing any protective gear.

“No,” Hotch replies. “I’m not letting that happen.”

“Come out here, you lying bitch!”

Hotch looks ready to kill your partner himself.

“Babe?” You call out, putting on a false tone, the same one you always use when talking them down. “Babe, what are you doing here?”

You step into the doorway, feeling another frozen chill of fear shoot straight down your spine. They look crazed. Insane, even. Worse than you’ve ever seen, worse than last night, worse than the last eight years.

“Don’t babe me,” your partner seethes, but the gun is still trained on Derek.

You know it makes no sense, but you want them to turn the gun on you. Not Derek. Derek can’t be hurt because of you, not like this.

“Put the gun down,” you say, trying to stay calm and sweet, the way you usually have to be at home.

“I’m not listening to a damn thing you say,” your partner yells, and then the gun turns on you. “There he is.” The gun isn’t aimed at you. It’s on Aaron.

“Put it down,” Aaron’s level voice floats through the terror roaring in your ears. “I won’t ask again.” He shifts and you realize then that he has his own weapon trained on your partner.

“You won’t need to. Come out from behind my fiancé you coward.”

“She’s not your fiancé,” Hotch says. “And you won’t shoot her.”

“Want to bet on it?” Your partner lowers the gun slightly, now pointing it straight at your chest. Strangely, you don’t feel any panic surge through you. It’s telling. That even now, your head is telling you, they won’t hurt me, they never hurt me before.

“Don’t do it,” Derek yells. “I will shoot you, man. Don’t do it. You have six guns pointed at you right now. Do you really want to do this?”

The metal of Aaron’s pistol bites into your lower back when you shift on your heels. Your arms are frozen by your side, too afraid to reach for the gun.

“Put it down,” Rossi yells.

“You’ve got five seconds,” Derek adds. “Don’t make me get to one. Five. Four.”

Your partner’s fingers twitch on the trigger. Aaron catches the movement. Nods once when Derek says three. And on two, Derek pulls the trigger before your partner can do it first.

A broken scream rips from your chest when the bullet lodges itself in your partner’s side, your gun clattering to the ground. Derek steps forward and kicks the gun further away, out of reach.

Hotch lifts you around your waist and pulls you back into his office, kicking the door closed with his foot.

You’re numb to everything as he sits you down on the couch, wrapping his arms around you as you finally sob, letting out every scream that you’ve been holding in.

+++

Your partner is taken to the hospital to be treated for the gunshot wound.

Hotch tells you they won’t stand a chance at being acquitted, too many charges looming over their head already without the addition of domestic violence. You hardly hear his words, but you nod like you do.

He takes care of you while the commotion outside struggles to calm down. A blanket is wrapped around your shoulders, you hug a pillow to your chest, sniffling every few minutes as fresh tears cascade down your cheeks. Spencer brings you a mug of steaming tea that you barely manage to thank him for. Hotch thanks him properly for you before softly shutting his office door.

For months, you’ve been thinking about leaving them. For so long, you’ve wondered what life might be like without them. Now, you don’t know a thing.

You don’t know what to do. Where to go. Will you have to testify in court? If you do, will you have to talk about the...abuse? The abuse that you can barely bring yourself to label blatantly as abuse even though Aaron, your brain, everyone screams at you that that’s what it is — abusive behavior.

When you were a teenager, and even in your early twenties, learning about signs of abusive, unhealthy relationships, you never thought you’d end up in one. You thought surely you’d recognize the first signs and get out of there.

But instead, you did exactly what they said most people do. You brushed them off. You thought, oh, they just love me deeply, that’s all. They want what’s best for me, that’s all. They want me to be safe and protected, that’s all.

And that’s lovely, but there’s a difference. Between caring and controlling.

You never thought the difference would be so hard to see.

“Come on,” Aaron’s soft voice pierces through your thoughts. “Let’s get you out of here.”

You blink. “Where?”

“Wherever you want to go,” he replies gently. “Your apartment?”

Immediately, you shake your head. But then you pause. Because aside from your apartment and the BAU, you have nowhere else to go.

“Would you be comfortable going back to my apartment?” He asks. “I understand if it’s uncomfortable. I’m sure Garcia or Prentiss would be happy to let you stay with them, and I’ll gladly send them home with you.”

As much as you love Garcia and Prentiss, you strangely feel more comfortable with Aaron. After all, Pen and Emily don’t— or didn’t know about your partner’s behavior. Only Hotch knew.

“If you don’t mind, I’m...I’m okay with your place.”

“I don’t mind at all,” he smiles. “The guest room is yours for as long as you need.”

That makes you smile, though the expression feels foreign on your lips. “Don’t you have to stay?”

“It can be dealt with tomorrow,” he replies. “The paperwork will still exist tomorrow at eight a.m.”

“Okay,” you accept defeat. “Can I take this blanket?” You don’t like the idea of this weight leaving your shoulders.

“Of course,” he says.

You fall asleep in the car.

You didn’t mean to, but you were exhausted. And by the time you woke, Aaron had already carried you into his apartment. Startled, you gripped his arm a little too tight, but he shushed you carefully, letting you know you’re safe, he just didn’t want to wake you because you were sleeping so soundly.

He set you down on the guest bed where you tried and failed to get some rest last night, but now, you sleep like a baby.

+++

Months after the incident, the guest room at Aaron’s apartment has become your temporary home.

You still haven’t been back to the apartment you owned with your partner — even though their name is on the lease, not yours. You went once with Aaron to pick up your clothes and anything else important, but it was a quick trip. You were desperate to get out of there.

Aaron didn’t like what he saw. The broken glass, the dents in the walls. The way your body language changed immediately. Your unwillingness to return there is fine by him.

It’s a slow, uphill battle as you begin to heal. Your partner still sits in jail, awaiting their trial date. You know you might have to testify, but you know your team might have to be there as well, so that makes you feel better.

Aaron has been incredibly respectful of your space. You were the one who brought up the idea of carpooling to work, one of you driving every other day, to save on gas for the both of you. He had assumed you wanted to drive on your own and always have your car — which is true, but you didn’t mind riding with him.

He’s the only one your terrified brain doesn’t seem to be scared of.

And you’re not complaining. You’re grateful to feel a small ounce of safety after feeling every sense of unsafe for the past eight years.

+++

Your ex-partner’s trial comes and goes in the following three months. You did testify, along with the rest of your team, the verdict is guilty. Life in prison.

You wept on the steps of the courthouse from the sheer relief of it all.

“They’ll never hurt you again,” Aaron had told you and you didn’t believe him for one second.

Still now, as you know for a fact they are sitting in a prison cell, you have a small fear. But you think you always will.

You continue “rooming” with Aaron — that’s the best way you can think to put it — and you’ve come to really enjoy the weekends when Jack comes over. At the start, Aaron would try to take Jack out to the park to give you time alone, or you’d go spend some time with Penelope, but after a while, you started staying. And after a little while longer, Jack started warming up to you, and expecting your presence.

One weekend, you hear Jack and Aaron playing in the living room while you’re in Aaron’s office, trying to get some work done. And halfway through signing your name on a piece of paperwork, you hear Jack “whispering” to Aaron about you.

“Do you like her?” Jack whispers, but it definitely comes across as more of a soft shout.

Aaron’s eyes widen, and he presses his index finger to his lips. “A lot,” he says, but you don’t hear him — though you were straining pretty hard.

“Me too,” Jack giggles. “Is she your girlfriend?” He teases, poking his dad with his Lego sculpture.

Aaron pokes his son back with his own design. “No, buddy, she isn’t.” Again, you can’t hear him, but Jack’s question made your heart hammer in your chest.

You know you’ve had some feelings begin to develop because truthfully, they were blooming months ago, back when you began having dinner with Aaron. But then everything happened, and you still loved your ex, and things got too complicated.

Now, though, seven months out from the start of it all, the feelings are still there.

Aaron hasn’t made any moves, so you’ve kept silent. You don’t know how much of his good deeds are simply out of his own kindness. And you certainly don’t want to mistake it for something it’s not.

But kids pick up on things adults try hardest to hide.

You continue with your paperwork, listening to them continue to play.

It’s not until after Jack goes home to Hailey that his question is brought up, and it’s only because Aaron asked what was bothering you.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to talk about it,” he says. “But I’m here if you do.”

He’s always here. That’s what made you have a crush on him in the first place, years ago. He’s always there for anyone who needs him.

“I heard you and Jack earlier,” you start. “When he asked if I’m your girlfriend.”

Aaron sighs. “I’m sorry. I think it’s just confusing for him because to him, living together equals relationship since all he’s known is me and Hailey—”

“I’d like to be,” you interrupt his nervous rambling. “If that’s something you’d like, too.”

He blinks a few times, then smiles. “You…” He pauses. “Are you sure?”

“Aaron, I’ve liked you for so long and never said anything—”

“I’ve liked you for so long and never said anything,” he counters. “You’re serious?”

“Very,” you whisper.

When he kisses you, it’s what you’ve longed for all this time. It’s exactly what you’ve been yearning for. It’s exactly the kind of love you know now that you deserve.

Recovery has been messy, and will continue to be messy for some time, but you’ll have Aaron next to you every step of the way. Always.

[profoundtyrantharmony]

Title : A Touch of Affection

Pairing : Modern!Ivar x Reader

Words : 3279

Chapter Warning : Fluff

Notes : Roommate to Bestfriend to Lover. I made it Soft!Ivar because this is my favorite. Slow burn for the first few chapters.

General Plot : Y/n a young journalist decide to quit to pursue her ambitions of travel vlogger/blogger. Ivar works for the familly business and wants to leave the familly house. They’ll have to share an appartment and maybe mre than friendship will arise.

Chapter Plot : Y/n meets Ivar threw the real estate mistake.

Masterlist // Request Serie Masterlist

Chapter 1 : First Meet

Y/N POV

I work as a journalist for a local magazine from Trondheim in Norway since I finish studying a year ago. Being a journalist is my dream job, interviewing people and making others discover new things and kind of learn from it is what I consider being the heart of the job. Unfortunately not for my boss.

At the beginning everything was interesting, I could choose mostly what I will write about. I would wrote about cultural escapade and trip, new open restaurants and all from all over Norway. I took great pleasure in doing those and people reading them were really satisfied with it, I got many positive comments on the digital version on our website. Despite being one of the few favored journalist my boss still decided I should do more local articles and only about “more girly” events. I love my job so I still do it with a lot of profesionnalism but at the end of the day I’m not that satisfied with myself anymore. 

Today I have to finish writing an article about the teenage’s new trend in the fashion department, not really what I’m looking for in my work but apparently it’s my new editing line and I can’t do anything about it, except maybe quit. I think about it more and more these days. This job is making me duller and duller each passing day. I think of myself as a bubbly, tactile and touchy feely kind of girl, a ray of light according to my friends and former professors. Since working there I didn’t make any friends amongs my colleagues, the atmosphere is heavy and my boss won’t let me express my interest in some more diverse subjects. I’m interested in many things but officially I can’t show it, I have to stay bland and it’s becoming difficult, that’s why I started a blog called “Y/n/n’s Journey” -5 months ago- where I write exclusively about subjetcts I find interesting like the differents spots to go when you’re new in Trondheim, culinary specialties...I also write it in an English version so more people can read it. I consider it like my baby project.

After ending my day I go back to my official apartment to work on my blog and the new articles I could write about in the near future. I’d like to do more, going in another countries to discover new things, exploring different cities, developping new concepts. 

“Y/n/n’s Journey” stars to get known in the blogging world to the point where each of my articles are read over 300 000 times and I even start to earn money from it thanks to sponsors and labels -only local ones for now-, it’s crazy, at least for me. 

I’m currently sitting on my couch, a glass of orange juice in hand, thinking of what I could possibly do with my actual job. I’m so invested in my blog and so little to my work in comparison. I don’t know what to do ! 

I turn the TV on to some talk show, I'm listening to it without really caring about what they talk about. That’s until I see someone taking about something, I don’t listen to what he’s saying honestly, I’m more focus on what’s written below him : “Freelance Journalist”. A light bulb pop up in my head, that’s it !! If I become a freelance journalist for the “Adresseavisen” I could move out to a bigger city to cover bigger and more interesting events -among other things- as well as working on my blog more regularly. This way I won’t quit but I’ll still be away doing what I like ! It’s a great compromise. I’ll just need to talk to my boss about it...

The next morning I prepare myself to annonce the news to my boss Mr Bakken. I’m a bit stressed cause I don’t know how he will react, he has never been mean to me but he has never been overly nice neither. Either way I made up my mind, whatever happened, at the end of the day he will know.

I enter in the magazine’s place and search for Mr Bakken. I see him in his office and decide to tell him right away ! No need to wait any longer. I go in front of the door and knock softy on it.

“Come in !”

"Hello Mr Bakken may I have a word ?" My bubbly nature comes naturally to the surface as a genuine smile adorned my morning face.

“Ah y/n how are you this fine morning ? Of course, close the door behind you and have a sit.” He says in a rather good mood tone which surprise me a little but do as he says.

“I’m fine really !! Actually I wanted to talk to you about something work related.” My voice became slighty wary at the end probably an anticipation reaction to his possible rejection. I’m surprised when it doesn’t happen.

“I had the feelling it would happened one day !” He says with playfullness.

“How come ?! You don’t even know what I’m gonna say ?"

“You’re right but I got an idea. I’m aware that what I’m asking you to write about is not really exciting for you. I was gonna say something when he prevent me from it. Don’t interrupt me Miss I’m not antagonizing you, this is called being objective and pragmatic. I’ve read what you wrote on your blog and it’s awesome ! But as you know our readership is basically composed of...lets say mature people that don’t buy our magazine for the type of articles you want to write. They want mainly events happening in the city and all, you are the feminine touch of Adresseavisen and trust me it saddened me.” He seems really honest in his answer. I might be the boss here but there is someone above me that is very conservative."

“I understand and actually come to a compromise that I hope will favored both parts.” I know I sound disgustingly hopefull !! Bubbly personnality remember !

“With who ?”

“With me and...myself...” I bow my head in uneasyness and scratch the back of my neck when I suddenly hear him laugh.

“A compromise with yourself ? Wasn’t it too complicate to come to an agreement ?”

“Actually no ! I smile brightly. It’s easier than with others.”

“Tell me about it see if I’d agree.”

“I thought about becoming a freelance journalist for the Adresseavisen. This way I could move out and cover bigger events for you and work on my blog on the side.” Silence. He says nothing for about 5 minutes. I’m starting to feel weird.

“So you-you’re not quitting ?” I think I see some kind of hope in his eyes ?

“No, I’d still write for you when you need me but not from here. I explain him as much as I can. Will it be something you would consider ?”

“Of course ! As I already told you you’re great and if this allow you to improve your natural talent then so be it, maybe someday in the future you will create your own magazine/journal based on things that you like, I have no doubt you’ll succeed !” My eyes become watery at his admission. I was going to hug him but remember we're in workplace so I can't be this tactile especially with my boss.

“Thanks a lot sir, I didn’t know you had this high opinion on me.”

“Sorry about that, as I said before the ones above me are highly conservative and don't accept me being nice to employee. That's why I cover and help all of you from the shadow. Let's change subjects where do you think you’ll go if you don’t mind me asking ?”

“Oslo is my go to right now ! I’ll search for an appartment as soon as I go home.”

“If you want to leave before and search directly there, just tell me I know someone from the “Aftenposten”, she could lend you an official apartment unti you find yours.” It’s so nice of him I can’t refuse, it’s a big oportunity.

“I agree !! When will you...ask her ?”

“Right after you go back to work !” He smiles playfully saying this, I’m so gratefull I could cry from happiness right now. I decided against all reason to hug my boss and give him a "thank you" kiss on both his cheeks.

“Thanks you so much !! I won’t bother you again.”

“You didn’t bother me don’t worry. I'll tell you when it’s done.”

The morning continues like usual, typing articles, brief talk with the colleagues... I finish writing my articles and go to warn Mr Bakken. He’s noting it on his notebook and then look at me with a tooth eating grin before saying “It’s done !”

A week later I'm finally in Oslo in my new official appartment. Since arriving I'm going to the best rated real estate and take an appointment with them to talk about what I want and is my budget.

I'm not that picky but I know what I want. I'd like a loft, rather modern with a high internet connection, no matter the neighborhood and if possible close to public transports but this one is just an added bonus. Once the appointment comes to an end, the woman -her name is Astrid- tells me she will call me once she got the perfect appartment for me.

It's been almost a month and a half since I went to the real estate and still no news. I did my research by myself in case they find nothing.

We're in the middle of the afternoon when a phone call awakes me from my nap. I check the phone number and I recognise it immediatly. Astrid is finally calling me !!

"Hello Mrs Y/l/n, this is Astrid the real estate agent, I'm calling you because the perfect appartment for you with all your requirements checked. Will you come here so we can talk more and eventually visit it ?"

"I'm coming right away !! Be there in 30 minutes."

Ivar POV

It’s a beautiful post rainy day in the small town of Kattegat, my hometown. Since I was born I only knew one city, this one and this is becoming frustrating. I’d like to see more of the world, but with my overprotective mother, my job and general family it’s not easy to actually go out of town. I love my family, some members more than others but they’re still my blood. I just wish they’ll start see me as an adult and not as a child anymore.

Anyway, I come outside to take some pictures of the landscape, photography is really something that sooth my mind and help me think in a more calmly way. As soon as I got some free time I take my camera and go explore the city. Despite me having brace and walking with a crutch, I still manage most of my “trip” on my own, but there are days where I need someone to help me or at least it will take me more time to go where I want to go. I don’t usually ask for help cause I see it as a weakness confession. No need to inform you that my mother is the one helping me in this days, it probably explains why she is relctant to let me go.

After I’m done with my hobby, I have to go work in the family business. It’s the biggest boat builder company whether it be a yacht, a cruise ship or else, it’s obvious then that money is not a problem to any of us. My father Ragnar and his best friend Floki are both the CEO. As the last child I don’t have many responsibilities yet -which suit me fine- but I still held a good position as a conselor, basically I help them in resolving ponctual problem as well as analyzing the strategies from the lower company and advise clients. I really enjoy doing this...but it’s not my dream job that’s for sure.

This day is longer than I would have thought, the clients are so rude and the fact that I can’t defend myself because “we have to make great impression at all time !” Bullshit !! Seriously is it my fault if what you want to make us build is pointless because impossible with your actual budget and the composite materials that you required. Unbelievable !! Morons !! This day’s can’t be worse, norns tell me it can’t be worse...

I just arrived home from the most awful day at work that ever exist. I wallow myself in the family couch an think about my future really seriously. There’s no way I will stay in the family house all my life as much as I love my mother and father I can’t. Bjorn is now working for us from the Sicily branch of the company with Halfdan a friend and a colleague. Sigurd, Ubbe and Hvitserk are sharing an appartment in Kattegat as well as sharing girls but it’s not the point. Sigurd works as a communication manager, his role is to facilitate the internal and external company’s communication for a better functionning, as muh as I hate to admit, he’s really good at it ! Ubbe and Hvitserk have the same role in the development and production department. They have to assess the cmpany’s peformance and suggest new “products” to please the clients and the genera business. Again they’re both great at it. The more I think about it an the more I just want to leave...but in the same time I quite like what I do...

“You seem thoughtful, what’s going on ?”

“Mother ! Nothing just the usual I guess...”

“ Do you want to talk about it ? I’m right here if you need.” She tells him with such softness in her voice I couldn’t lie to her.

“I was just thinking about moving out, what I would do in the future, those kind of things actually, an before you say something about the fact that living alone is dangerous for me just remember I’m a big guy, I can deal with it.” I say with as much seriousness I could muster to try and convince her.

“I know I have a tendency to overprotect you -I roll my eyes at her obviousness- and that I need to make more effort to cut the rope with you. I’ll try -I raise my eyebrow at this- I promise you Ivar I’ll try for real...but you have to prove me that you can deal with all of this on your own, I’m talking about finding somewhere else to live, the moving et cetera. Concerning your job I’m sure you could do it from home so no worry, unless you also wanna quit it ?”

“No no no !! Working from him is great, I’ll talk to father about it when I’ll see him tonight.”

“Do you know where you want to move ?” Ask Aslaug, her tone a bit sad.

“Oslo is my go to for now ! As you said I can still work from home, plus it’s a bigger city than here so the probability I find what’s best for me is clearly superior to the ones I have here. Don’t cry mother, I’m not gone yet.” I say trying to lift the mood.

“Maybe you could be gone sooner than expected. A friend of mine -Siggy- is renting a studio in Oslo, it’s usually for students but it’s empty for now so if you want it it’s yours until you find better.”

“You’re really gonna let me go ?!” I’m surprise by her sudden change.

“I know it’s unavoidable, it better be on good terms than not. Plus I’m still your mother I expect at the very least one phone call a week.” I laugh so much at this, typical mother.

Three days is all it takes to pack my things to go to Oslo. Once moved in I directly called the best real estate in town to ask them for an appointment. Being a Lothbrock alows me one this afternoon. Perfect ! The appointment  is great, I explain to Magnus -the real estate agent- what I’m looking for.

“I’m actually looking for a modern loft in a calm neighborhood with a high phone and internet connection.” After discussing a bit more about my moving motivation he tels me that he will put me on top of his priority. I’m just gonna have to wait for a phone call.

It’s been one week and two days and still no news from Magnus, maybe I was too demanding. Whatever, I take advantage of this time to visit the town and take picture of eveything that surround me.

Back at the studio I hear my phone ringing, Magnus nubers lighting the screen.

“Hi Mr Lothbrock, the real estate agent Magnus here, I’ve found what you’re looking for, come by the agency and we’ll talk more and even visit it if you’re interested.”

“Thanks, I’ll be there in 10 minutes !” Thanks the norns I don’t live too far away.

Neutral POV

“Hi, I’m y/n I come to see Astrid she called me for a loft !”

I’m the only one in the lobby, waiting for my gardian angel to arrive and provide me with the perfect housing. I’m already daydreaming my future life when a young man ome into the lobby.

“Hi, I’m Ivar Lothbrock I’m here cause Magnus called me !”

We are both waiting together, occasionaly looking and smilling at each other. Astrid and Magnus arrived both at the same time with defeated face. They ask the both of us to enter the same room. We looked at each other, not understanding what’s happening.

“There’s been a mistake...” Starts Astrid.

“We’re really sorry...” Continues Magnus.

“Just spill it out !! You are stressing me out !”

It appears that none of them consult the other regarding the required loft. Now the both of them have the same loft for two different people. How is this even possible ?! What are we gonna do ?!

“So what now ! What do you suggest ?” 

“If you can’t find a solution maybe you’ll just have to share it ?!” Suggest Astrid with her eyes full of hope.

“I can’t believe I’m going to ask that but...”

“Y/n”

“Yes, y/n would you be willing to share this perfect loft with me until we find an other one for one of us because to be honest I don’t think I’m gallant enough to let you have it.”

His honesty is really impressive, he seems like a decent guy, I’ve got good vibes and I’m never wrong when it comes to them. 

“I accept...my little bunny !” I love using nicknames, I consider them a form a affection. Right after saying this I hug him and kiss his left cheek. He seems surprised and flustered by my antics. 

“Now that this is done maybe you’ll want to see some pictures before signing.” Says Magnus visibly less tense.

We are gonna be roommates and we don’t even know each other...

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This is the end of the first chapter, hope you enjoyed reading it. If you want to be tagged tell me !!

Like, Comment and Reblog are highly appreciated.

English is not my mother tongue.

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Next Chapter

[sunshineandcybertronians]

Make Your Choice - Megatron x reader x Starscream (TFP)

Word count: 2,621 Warnings: angst, conflicting feelings, major character death A/n:  Finished this in one day 9/21/19 at 11:01 PM (holy heck, that was a long time ago). I read pages 140-144 in Transformers Exodus. I never thought I’d write something that’s even slightly Megatron x reader, but here I am. But this oneshot turned out good.

"Where is he?" You searched the dark corridor of Nemesis for a friend.

As a Decepticon you served under Megatron, and Starscream at times. You were lucky enough to be close to both of them. Although Decepticons would never admit to having friends, you called them this secretly.

You were kind to everyone, even those you didn't know. It hurt you to think of anyone in pain. The majority of the Decepticons knew this, and it was miraculously pardoned thus you were given tasks that required no violence. Perhaps it was your soft words and consideration that made this so, finding a soft spot in the seemingly merciless Megatron. Starscream also respected this when he was in control for about three years.

It was very possible someone would question why you were a Decepticon with your nature being closer to an Autobot. This had occurred to you before, but you hoped to change the Decepticons. If everyone who was good left the Decepticons, there would be no chance of changing it to good in the future. Plus, most of your friends were on that side.

You looked through a doorway, he wasn't there either. "Where are you, Starscream?" You whispered to yourself. Well, you said friend earlier, but recently your feelings for him were becoming a little... different.

Since you finished some work sooner than you presumed, you now had free time that you intended to spend it with Starscream. Upon coming to a T in the halls, you paused to think of a plan. Snapping your fingers, you rushed in the direction of the medbay, to not waste another second of your time. Maybe Knockout knew where he was. Out of everyone he was the second closest to the second in command. While jogging, you remembered when you first started to develop feely for him.

Despite the fact you were kind-sparked, this didn't mean that you were not immune to frustration. At the point of time Megatron had just left on his journey through space, Starscream attacked a vehicon because he was dissatisfied with their lack of progress. For no good reason, out of anger.

"Hey!" You had barked at him, startling both him and the vehicons. "Don't do that. They did nothing to you."

He examined you with his red optics. A snarl and an un-amused expression decorated his faceplate as his tilted his helm back. Releasing the vehicon whilst shoving him away, he shifted his attention to you. He approached you, in attempt to intimidate you.

Your held your ground.

"And I believe you should be reminded of your place. You are a subordinate, who doesn't even have the fuel tank to draw energon. You don't tell me what to do."

"No! You listen!" When his servos flinched, you stepped forward to grab them to prevent him from attacking you. You shoved your faceplate near his, with barely any space apart. "They're on the same side as you. Don't hurt people for no reason. It's not nice." After your anger faded, you realized how close your face was. Energon rushed through you.

He smirked, which didn't help your flustered look. "Are you blushing, little femme?"

"No!" You stepped away.

You thought a little more and decided you wanted to clear something up before you left. "But you are a good leader. You just need to avoid letting your anger get the best of you. If you make emotional decisions, you might mess up your chance to succeed, like I know you can."

Shock filled his expression, his optics widening and eyebrows lifting at the thought you actually believed in him. He quickly regained his senses. "You mean like you did just now?" He showed teeth while displaying the irony.

You pursed your lips and averted your gaze to the ground. "Yes. Just like that," you mumbled.

And strangely enough, after that you had become very good friends with him and would have many conversations with him. Knockout would occasionally tease you for it.

Another example was before leaving Cybertron, when Megatron first learned of Dark Energon (unbeknownst to you and Megatron at the time, Starscream already knew of it long before and was attempting to learn more). He privately admitted to you, something you found shocking at the time, that he knew it was unwise to use the Dark Energon due to its unknown and most likely dangerous properties. Yet he felt it necessary to end the war. He, the gladiator, was tired of fighting. It nearly melted your spark and made you want to hug him in order to make him feel better. Then he said that maybe he would finally defeat the "treacherous Optimus Prime," which then caused you to want to call him an idiot since you knew Optimus never betrayed Megatron.

You had mixed emotions like that. If you wanted someone to be the best version of themselves and to be their friend, their flaws and evil mistakes made you upset for that same reason. This mostly fell under your emotions about Megatron or Starscream.

Your thoughts were put to an end when you reached your destination. Without missing a beat, you opened the door and marched right in.

"(Y/n)! Did you need repairs?" Knockout picked up one of the tools he was organizing.

"Hey, Knockout! No. I was wondering if you knew where Starscream was," you explained.

He chuckled, his finish reflecting what little light there was in the room. "Of course you came here to ask where your boyfriend was."

You stiffened. "He's not my boyfriend, we're just friends."

"You could've fooled me." The mech lifted his optic ridge, clearly not convinced.

"Do you know where he is?" You cut to the point again, wanting to leave the awkward conversation.

"I may," he answered wistfully, "but you may have to give me some more buffing solution as payment."

"But I just gave you some yesterday. In fact, I think you almost always get it from me, and I never ask for anything in return. By the time I get you more I'll have to go back to work."

"Just joking. He's heading to the energon supplies to check inventory." Knockout didn't even give you a glance as he picked up a buffer in the corner and spun the correct pad onto it. "Make sure you remember to propose to him."

"Knockout," you drew out his name in annoyance, almost out the door.

"Just kidding."

You rolled your eyes, mentally forgave him, and bolted to the direction of the energon stock. The clanging of your pedes hitting the floor slowed and came to a halt when the entrance was just on your right.

"Starscream?" You stuck your helm in and searched. Finally, your optics locked onto the thin seeker, with sharp features and expressive wings. He looked to you with surprise, his long digit hovering over the control panel that contained information on how much energon there was, how much was used in the previous month, and the chart of how much energon was found compared to other points throughout time on Earth.

"(Y/n)? Aren't you supposed to be organizing files right now?" He inquired.

"I was done early." You hopped into the room as the door slid closed behind you. It was now dark, except for the illumination from the energon. The way it dimly shown on him and cast shadows on the edges of his figure made him look even more attractive. You shifted and swatted away the thoughts in your head.

"So, what are you up to?"

"Nothing much," he groaned, waving his servo. "I was simply accessing the inventory to find if we had enough and needed to lower rations."

"Hmm. From what I read in reports, it's getting harder to find energon, but we found a good stock recently."

"Yes. I saw that on the chart." He nodded to the glowing screen.

Before you could stop yourself, you began admiring his wings. Then your gaze shifted to a part that wasn't quite as smooth as the rest.

"What's that scratch on your wing?" You exclaimed when you finally noticed it.

He bit his lip, looked to it, and shrugged. "I flew too low and my wing got clipped by a tree."

Studying the scrapes, you delicately traced your fingers on it. He winced in pain and reached to shove it away, but stopped when you flinched away on your own after seeing his reaction.

Letting, your servo fall softly onto the undamaged surface. His wings relaxed in please and a smile crept onto his face. You gently rubbed the spot below it and held his jaw with your other servo. He seemed to melt at your touch and closed his optics. His arms snaked their way around your waist.

His optics flickered open again and stared at you with an emotion you had never seen present in them before... love. Without thinking or even considering the consequences of it, you began to close the distance between your lips and his. However you were cut off when light filled the room coming from the door.

You both turned your heads to see who it was. The expectation was that it was just a vehicon, however it was anyone but a simple minion. It was Megatron himself.

You both stepped back. What was he doing there? He was probably either looking for you or Starscream. You passed some vehicons on the way, so he could have definitely inquired where you were from them, if you were indeed the one he was seeking to find.

When he noticed you and Starscream together, and not just that, but that you were having... erm, a moment, his face twisted from a hurt shocked to anger.

"What have we here?" He marched in, servos behind his back. The door closed, blocking the light once more. You weren't exactly sure why he was so furious, he had never been that mad at you before.

"Well," Starscream stumbled on his words and shrunk back. "You see-"

"Trying to steal yet another thing from me!" He exploded at the seeker. He took the second in command's neck in his hand and held him in the air.

"Megatron! What are you doing?!" It made no sense, why he was just suddenly deciding to kill Starscream. Had he tried to kill him recently? What did he mean 'steal'?

"What are you... Talking... About?" Starscream gasped with his legs dangling.

"(Y/n)," he turned to you. You flinched back, yet noticed how his voice was softer. "Be my sparkmate."

This thoroughly confused you and sent a chill through your frame. "What?! No."

A mix of despair, anger, and desperation showed on his faceplate.

Deciding to elaborate you started carefully, "Why? I thought we were just friends. I thought of us as just friends." You had nothing against him. You cared about him, but never thought of it in a different way. Perhaps you could have explained more, although in your baffled state, you couldn't get out much.

"Those years in space," the leader of the Decepticons began, "it was so lonely I once thought I would lose my mind. The only two things that kept me going and what made me able to live after every near-death experience are my desire to extinguish Optimus and to be with you. You somehow make everything better and chase away darkness and solitude." A blade launched from above his hand and he aimed it for the dangling Cybertronian in his hand. "I want you to always be by my side. Be my sparkmate, or Starscream dies."

You couldn't believe it, well, maybe you could considering how violent he was and how many other times he came close to killing Starscream. The Decepticon leader had even expressed fear you'd leave him for someone else before. Yet, you had assumed that it was platonic and never guessed this would happen.

"Please," you pleaded, "Don't terminate him. I know you have kindness in your spark, and it is not weakness, it is a virtue. Please. Starscream has always been useful to you. For me?" You held your servos together, your sad optics sparkled.

This seemed to make him consider, as he started to reflect your sadness then shook it away. Replaced with anger of how greatly you cared for his second in command that seemed to undermine everything he did. "No. Only if you become my sparkmate."

The seeker decided to take matters into his own servos and aimed the red missile on his arm while distracted. Megatron noticed and tore it and the other off and let then drop to the floor with Starscream wailing in pain.

You shook your head in horror, still in disbelief of what was happening. "Why are you doi-"

"I CAN'T LOSE YOU TO STARSCREAM!" He raised the sword. "And now he won't keep you from me anymore!"

"NO!" You screamed. Panic surged through you. This couldn't happen, you couldn't lose Starscream. You just couldn't. You didn't want him to die. If he were to die, you would never see or talk to him again, and it was something you could never afford.

Without thinking, you lunged forward and converted your servo to a blade. Only focusing on saving Starscream, you slashed at the one threatening his well-being.

Then time slowed. Your optics widened. You stumbled back with energon stained on the sharp edge. Megatron opened his mouth, yet nothing came out as his grip loosened and he fell to the ground. His helm nearly falling off of his body, with almost all severed off. Your mouth hung open watching the glowing blue liquid puddle onto the floor, seeming to form a lake. He gave the saddest look you've ever seen, making you want to scream as he seemed to stare right into your spark, before his scarlet optics flickered and the life faded from them.

Then the gravity of what you did. You stared at the blade, then your dead friend.

"NO! What am I doing? Why did I want to hurt you?!" You screamed. Switching back to your hand, feeling the energon drip into your parts, as you ran forward and held Megatron. You answered your own questioned, "It was to save Starscream, but why did you make me do that?! I didn't wanna hurt you. I'm supposed to be a friend, be nice. I just wanna... wanted to be your friend." You changed the word since Megatron was now no more. You wrapped your armed around him in a hug. Overcome by grief. Then anger resurfaced.

"Stupid head! Why do you have to be like this? Why do you have to be an evil overlord? I wanted to be friends. I care about you!" Then you sank back into sadness.

With a sigh, you attempt to pull yourself together. He was set to the side and you stood up, energon dripping off of you.

This whole time, Starscream, who had crawled away when he was first released, watched you. He really had no idea what to do or how to help you. All he knew was that you probably needed to be left alone at that moment, thus he stood there. Although he was flattered that you, as a pacifist, would kill to save him, he hated that you were unhappy. He waited until a few nanoklicks after you stood in silence.

"All hail Starscream?" He hesitantly questioned, his wings giving a shrug. He clearly didn't want to bother you in such an emotional state, although still desired to know if he'd be leading the Decepticons.

With a small smile creeping to your lips, you nodded while trying to move on from what happened. "Yes. All hail Starscream."

[smoochkooks]

—chapter one: the beginning of an end

this is a part of my an ode to a broken heart drabble series.

pairing: jeon jungkook/reader

genre: unrequited love, best friends to (?), heavy angst, future smut

word count: 1.4k words

summary: loving jeon jungkook is, above all, the beginning of an end.

previous || next

You’re positive your favourite sound in the whole world is the rhythmic, repetitive sound of your fingers tapping on the keyboard.

Everyone has a different approach when it comes to coping with stress and anxiety. Some people drink away their unwanted emotions, some drown themselves in work, some watch yet another, mediocre Netflix show. But your solution, your little panacea has always been writing.

You’re not the best when it comes to expressing your true feelings. You can struggle with saying ‘I love you’ to your mother and then write a long, affectionate letter for her birthday that makes her eyes turn glossy. You may stutter and tumble on your own words while trying to order coffee and then complete academic essays with ease.  

Whenever you feel like you’re overwhelmed, boiled up with mixed emotions, you do exactly what your school counselor told you many years ago: you let it out. She never mentioned any specifics, simply encouraging you to find your own way. And that’s exactly what you did – you picked it up yourself. First, it was writing a diary. No less than two weeks into it, you got bored. Turns out describing in detail every single mundane day of your life was never your forté. You threw away your old notebook, bought a new one and decided to write there whenever you felt like you really wanted to, not out of obligation.  

And you continue to do so, these days you opt for a use of modern technology often. You open your laptop and pour your feelings onto a digital sheet of paper. It’s cathartic, in a way. Getting rid of what you feel like is weighing you down.  

Jungkook however, your dearest best friend, has always been on the other side of the spectrum. Loud, obnoxious, a life and soul of the party who happened to miraculously befriend the most quiet introvert in class. Sometimes you still wonder how your friendship has managed to survive almost twenty years. You’re two polar opposites. Fire and water. Storm and chilly breeze. A confession screamed in the middle of the night and handwritten love letter.  

You’re a dichotomy. Made of the same atoms, pulling in and pulling away. And if the phrase ‘opposites attract’ held any significance, maybe you would’ve ended up together. But in your case, it’s yet another platitude. Something that seems to work out only in books and movies. Because, if that was true, he would never fell in love with a female version of him, just graced with a sprinkle of pure sweetenes Jungkook sometimes lacks.

Soojin is everything you will never be. Polite, outgoing, sociable and so likeable you hate yourself for despising her. Truthfully, there’s nothing bad you could say about her. No wonder he’s fallen head over heels for her, not you.

What’s there to love about you, if you willing chose to pin for a boy that’s so out of your league? It’s actually hilarious to even dream about him returning your feelings.

You stare at the screen with half-lidded eyes. The clock reads quarter past midnight, letters start to blur into nothingness. Yet another chapter of your miserable life is completed as you save the document and slam your laptop shut. You don’t bother to shower or take off your clothes. Sleepiness hits you right when you close your eyes.  

You dream of wedding halls and never spoken love confessions.

You read once on Twitter that being an adult means checking your e-mail as a part of your morning social media routine and since then, you haven’t quite related to anything more in your life.  

At the very top of your inbox there’s yet another e-mail from your Creative Writing proffesor, Kim Namjoon. He’s a very stubborn man, you decide, as you scroll through the contents of his message. He still wants you to consider what he told you a few days ago after class, it seems.  

“Miss ___? Can I talk to you for a second?” 

“Sure.” you replied and awkwardly walked up to his podium.  

You might have been madly (and miserablely) in love with your best friend, but Kim Namjoon has never failed to make you feel like a silly teenager with a crush on her older teacher. To say Kim Namjoon was intimidating was an misunderstanding. His presence was thoroughly electrifying. You remembered a very disappointed sigh the girl sitting next you let out when she noticed a ring on his right hand. You couldn’t judge her. His wife had scored probably the finest man on this damn planet.  

“I read your latest assignment and I must say, your novelette was outstanding as always. Dare I say the best among others,” Namjoon said. You bowed your head in acknowledgement, praying he wouldn’t notice your rose-colored cheeks. “Regarding that, I actually have a proposition for you.”  

At that, your eyes widened. “What kind of proposition, sir?” you asked.  

He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and handed it to you. It was a flyer, you realised, and read it through quickly. VARIETÉ Publishing was organising an annual contest for young poets, which you had heard about before. Your English Literature proffesor mentioned it during her lecture a week ago. However, poetry had never been your strong suit. As much as you enjoyed reading it, you weren’t really fond of creating your own poems. So why did Kim Namjoon decide to tell you about this all of a sudden?

“I know what you might be thinking right now, but I’m not actually encouraging you to take part in this competition,” As he smiled, two dimples appeared on each side of his mouth. “Do you know anything about VARIETÉ Publishing?”  

Slightly confused, you gave him a nod. “It’s one if the biggest publishing companies in the country.” 

“That’s very much true,” Namjoon agreed. “VARIETÉ's vice-chairman, Lee Jongi, is actually my old friend. We used to study together here, at this university. When I chose a teaching career, he got a job in a foreign publishing company, climbed up the ladder until the very top and now he’s vice-chairman and I’m a simple college professor,” He chuckled. You were too stunned to form a coherent response let alone laugh along with him. Lee Jongi and Kim Namjoon being buddies? It was a small world, after all. “Jongi has always been very fond of young, aspiring writers. When I discover a student with huge potential, I send him their works. If he finds them interesting enough, he might even take a risk and propose a publishing deal. This doesn’t happen quite often, but I want you to know that you have a pretty big chance to impress him.”

You stared at him, wide-eyed because holy fucking shit, did he just say he can help you publish your first book?  

“I don’t know what to say, sir. I’m shocked.” you responded truthfully. You had heard people complimenting your skills before but this was extraordinary. “Let me just process all of this: you know personally VARIETÉ'S vice-chairman and you want to show him my works?” Even said out loud, it still sounded surreal to you.  

“Correct. But of course, I won’t do anything without your consent.” Namjoon said. “That novelette you sent me recently was amazing. I’d love to show it to Lee Jongi one day.”

The task was to incorporate a hidden, symbolic message into a story. You decided to use your favorite flowers, magnolias, and its meaning. They represent eternity, because once they bloom they will continue to bloom for a long time. In your story, a girl gave her best friend magnolia's seeds, wishing her love for him to be everlasting. A day later, she received a pack of seeds from the boy as well. She happily planted them in her garden and when they bloomed, she discovered they were yellow tulips. A symbol of love that will never be reciprocated.

“You make people feel things with your words, ___, and that’s a very rare gift,” You heard Namjoon add. “Promise me you’ll consider my proposition.”  

There was thousand thoughts per hour running in your head, but you gave him a curt nod. “I’ll think about it.”  

As you’re staring now at the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, you think about the girl whose only dream was to be loved by her best friend. Maybe it’s finally time for you to move on. Bury the past and plant a seed of new life. Because, loving Jeon Jungkook is, above all, the beginning of an end.

With shaky hands, you start writing a response to your proffesor.