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kaeyas-beloved · 3 years

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I Knew You Could Do It

Midoriya Izuku x Sister!Reader (Platonic/She/Her) || BnHA

Summary: Izuku shows his sister how much he’s grown in the years she was absent

Warning(s): None

Note: This is a request I got from AO3 for a part two to this one-shot I did awhile back.

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(Y/N) Midoriya, back from the dead it seems.

Her reappearance was nothing short of a miracle. Aizawa, knowing it was only appropriate, allowed Izuku to go along with his sister and share the groundbreaking news with their mother. The tired teacher did have to make them both promise to be back for the final class of the day though: hero training.

After patching up the elder Midoriya’s wounds, the duo hit the streets of Musutafu, heading to the apartment of Inko Midoriya. Taking this time to catch up a little on the years that were stripped away from them, Izuku began right after she was deemed deceased. He recalled the suffocating feelings of hopelessness both him and their mother felt, how neither would dare go into her room and how it seemed impossible to move forward.

(Y/N), who remained silent throughout the retelling of the past, couldn't bear the thought of her family in such a heartbreaking state. The mere mention of their despair shattered her own heart and she momentarily fell into a dark and depressing mindset: if only she had been stronger back then, maybe then she would have made it home safe and sound... She’s the reason they were--

"But, now that you're back I think things will get better for all of us. We can try and go back to how we used to be!" Izuku smiled, his optimism a truly admirable trait. All (Y/N) could do was nod and pray that that was what was going to happen - that things will go back to some sense of normal one day.

After all, years lost don't heal instantly just because she’s returned.

It wasn't long before a familiar apartment door came into view. Though, with its impending approach, so did a wave of nervousness which bubbled up within the Pro Hero. What would her mother's reaction be? How much has she changed? How mad will she be? Would she actually believe that her daughter is alive or will she turn her away and deny it?

These thoughts swirled within her head and coming home started to appear more and more like a mistake.

“It’ll be alright (Y/N)-chan, there's no need to be afraid. Mom will love to see you again, I just know it,” Izuku grinned, nudging his sister. She wasn’t fully convinced, but it was now or never she guessed. So, urged on by the teens encouragement she straightened up, swallowed the lump and fears she had before knocking on the cold, steel grey door. What felt like ages passed by until the creak of the door filled the silent afternoon air. The world slowed almost agonizingly as the second most important person in her life that she's missed oh so dearly started to come into view.

"Yes? Who is it?" A sweet, feminine voice called out, sounding no different to (Y/N) than it did years ago; that thought alone brought an ounce of comfort with it.

Eyes hot and brimming with unshed tears, the mere sound of her mother’s voice was a lot to take in that first anticipated; what nearly broke the dam was coming face to face with the woman herself - no doubt at any moment she’ll start bawling. It didn't matter how much her mother changed, it never really did, the effect was always going to be the same.

"Mom...?" she struggled to voice out, any and every sound she made broken and with a sob on the tip of her tongue, "I-I'm home..."

Recognition sparked in Ink’s green shaded eyes. (Y/N) could've said nothing at all or a simple few words, this as well didn’t matter, either way Inko would've instantly recognized who was at her door. A mother can always make out the voice and visage of her child no matter the differences there may be.

Tears began to stream down the woman's face, overcome with a multitude of different emotions as she barreled into her long lost daughter. And with the feeling of being able to hug her mother again, (Y/N) too let the tears flow, composure be damned. This was more important. Nothing, absolutely nothing can compare to the feeling of being reunited with one another.

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Afternoon passed by far too fast for the Midoriya family. Inko, hesitant to let her children go after just getting one back, had to gain reassurance from them both (something she definitely needed): they’re only going to the school, and classes end in just a little over two hours - they'd both be back in no time.

Hero training began soon after the pair returned and instructions were given to the class of aspiring heroes, all of which were spread out across Gym Gamma. The exercise for today? Save the civilians and capture the villains. An easy mission for most Pro Heroes who've been out in the field for some time, but definitely challenging to newbies in quite a few ways.

When the bell went off many rushed forward to the front entrance to their respective buildings, some being flashier and more noticeable than others *cough Bakugou cough*. (E/c) eyes stayed on one person and one person only, hellbent on watching her brother. She both wants and needs to know how much he's grown since he was a kid.

Izuku on the other hand was shaking unnoticeably for once; nothing more than a tremor of his hands. He's nervous, obviously, but also ecstatic; the one who kept telling him that he could become a hero even without possessing a quirk, the one who decided to train him and give him a chance - she's here, not too far away from the training grounds. It’s a dream come true.

He’s got to show his favourite hero (other than All Might) that he's grown from the quirkless little boy she knew once upon a time. That all that she gave him didn't go to waste. He has to put his all into this one, more so than ever before - his hero is watching.

"Alright here's the plan-," the coms had a moment of static but (Y/N) could tell that her brother was continuing on with giving orders and guidance to his teammates. From her spot in the observation room she recognized a look in his eye - the analytic look he had when he jotted down notes about other Pro Heroes, their quirks, movements, attack patterns. He was evaluating the situation, choosing the best course of action.

'That's right Izu, know your surroundings. Where is everything, what can you do with what and who you have...'

In the closing minutes of training, Izuku delivered a Full Cowl kick and right then, as he was able to maintain control of his attack, execute it beautifully while still showing off all his progress, it finally hit (Y/N).

All these years, even without her around to give pointers or encourage him, Izuku continued on his own to strive towards his dreams, never fully losing hope. And he’s living those dreams, actually living them: he’s made it to UA, he’s training to be a hero, he even developed a quirk for crying out loud!

As school ended, students changing back into their uniforms and leaving for the day, (Y/N) waited just outside the gates. Izuku called out to her as soon as she came into view, the returned hero perking up. She waited until the greenette stopped right in front of her before pulling the boy into a tight embrace.

“You were pretty cool today Izuku,” she told him, tone soft like he was back to being four again.

“R-really!?” he pulled back from the hug, tears resting at the edge of his eyes. That’s all he’s ever wanted to hear from the person he’s looked up to since he was a kid. (Y/N) nodded, smiling softly as she patted him on the shoulder, eyes softening and almost reminiscent. He truly has grown...

“Yeah… see, you can become a hero. I always knew you could do it…”

The dam of tears bursted for the young hero, his arms wrapping his older sister up in a hug once more, fingers clutching the fabric of her top. She made no move to pry him off, letting him get it all out as the sun set behind the two, casting their shadows on the pavement.

The future was looking pretty bright for them.

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[Masterlist]

[BnHA Masterlist]

#bnha #izuku midoriya #bnha midoriya #midoriya izuku #bnha midoriya izuku #izuku midoriya x reader #izuku x reader #bnha izuku midoriya #platonic x reader #sister reader #midoriya x sister reader #bnha x reader #mha #mha deku #mha izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku x reader

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the-dubstep-strawberry · 4 years

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Blind Betrayal: In Defense of Elder Maxson

(I have no idea what prompted me to go full Elder Maxson Defense Squad late at night, but I’m having thoughts on this that won’t leave me alone, so here goes...)

Picture this.

You are Arthur Maxson.

You’re a member of a famous family line known for leadership, courage, wisdom, survival, tactical genius, accomplishing feats of glory in battle, and so on and so forth.

You are also the last member of that family line.

As a result, you have not only been saddled from birth with Expectations of Greatness, but with the terrible knowledge that if you fuck it up, you have doomed your entire bloodline to extinction and potentially placed the future of your faction - your home, family, friends, comrades, and whole way of life - in severe jeopardy.

No pressure.

You’re also twenty years old.

You were orphaned as a child and were quite shy, but you were also quite bright, creative, maybe a bit of a daydreamer. You liked to write stories and thought Liberty Prime was cool. The Scribe caste might have been a good niche for you. Unfortunately, you are Arthur Maxson, Last of His Line, and any control that you might have had over your own life has already been overridden by people older, wiser and more powerful than you. They’ve decided that you had to learn how to be a Knight and go charging into battle to perpetuate your family’s glorious reputation in combat, but also not to get yourself killed or else Your Whole Faction Is Doomed (again, no pressure).

So you learned to be a Knight, and probably got kicked up the ranks a little faster than most teenagers because not being a child prodigy was not an option for a Maxson. Luckily for you, you were able to live up to at least some of the hype, pulled off some brilliant tactical and diplomatic moves to crush Super Mutant invasions and incidentally reunite a rogue chapter, which became disillusioned on ideological grounds and left years ago, with the rest of your faction.

Nice job. Your fans will probably fill in the gaps with a little extra stardust and hype, so if you flubbed your lines once in a while, it’s probably not going into the Codex.

And now you’re Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. Your entire faction looks to you for leadership and relies upon you for survival. You have quite a large army at your command and have cultivated an impressive reputation, and have now decided to leave your usual stomping grounds; you’ve embarked upon an ambitious campaign to liberate humanity from the sinister clutches of The Institute and the army of synths that they’re hoping to replace actual humans with. People expect nothing but complete and total victory from you. This is no time to screw things up.

(Did I mention that you’re twenty? Most guys your age are still finding their way around their Power Armor, goofing off in the barracks, chasing after girls, getting into hijinks on shore leave, and so on. But you are Arthur Maxson, and you have Responsibilities. No slack whatsoever will be cut here, and failure is not an option. If you go down, the Brotherhood of Steel falls with you and it will be your fault.)

Everything appears to be going well, the new Pre-War recruit is exceeding expectations and even grumpy Knight Rhys appears to merely resent their existence. All is going according to plan...

... until you find out that one of your men, Paladin Danse, a highly respected field officer of many years’ standing, is not what he appears to be.

You have long been impressing upon your crew the need to completely eradicate any and all synths because they are The Enemy and will destroy mankind, but one of them has infiltrated your senior command and knows all kinds of key strategic stuff about your faction, classified stuff, military intelligence, and other things that you really do not want The Enemy to know. If he’s been reporting back to them, they will soon know how to destroy your faction from the inside out.

He has also gone missing in suspicious circumstances and you think your new recruit, who was training under his wing, knows - or can at least find out - where he is. You’ve made efforts to keep this quiet while you tried to verify this intelligence with the rest of your senior officers - checking and double-checking, because holy shit, how could this have happened? This can’t be true. You don’t want it to be true. You trusted this man as a fellow officer and as a friend, and always spoke of his abilities and character in glowing terms. But this is not only a personal betrayal - it’s a professional one, with potentially far-reaching consequences. After all, how can your judgment be trusted if you confided in someone who was sent as an enemy agent to infiltrate and betray the Brotherhood? This could potentially destabilize the Brotherhood of Steel’s entire command structure and spell doom for yourself, your men, and possibly even humanity itself.

So now your faction is unexpectedly in mortal peril and the shit has hit the fan. Word has gotten out about this revelation and people are talking. Whispering, in fact. All the while, looking to you to see what needs to be done about this problem.

It’s clear what has to be done. However much you liked Paladin Danse, he is potentially a traitor with too much important information about your faction, and he cannot be allowed to run loose - or, worse still, report back to the enemy which placed him in your midst in the first place. So you send your new recruit after him, with the strict instruction that he is to be terminated.

You are, naturally, very pissed about all this and want the problem to go away as soon as possible. A threat to the safety and integrity of your faction, which has already splintered off into rival groups once, to disastrous effect, over disagreements with the general direction and trustworthiness of its leadership, is an unacceptable existential threat. You are not about to let the Brotherhood disintegrate on your watch. You can’t. You have no choice but to keep this together.

Unfortunately, there is a problem. Danse is very sincerely professing to know nothing about his true identity and claims to have always served the Brotherhood with unfailing loyalty. Your new recruit is inclined to believe him and is refusing to follow through on their mission objective.

You have no idea if he is telling the truth, or if he has been programmed to say this convincingly - so much so that he possibly even believes it himself. You are most likely incredibly pissed off by this whole situation, but there are greater things at stake here.

Like humanity’s future. And your faction and family legacy not being torn apart by internal division, with great risk of harm and death to the people who rely upon you for protection, justice and their very survival.

You can order that Danse be killed and know, whatever happens, that your faction will be safe from betrayal to its sworn enemy, even if the poor guy didn’t even know that he was being sent to spy on the people he was taught to call his brothers and sisters. You are very aware that this is a horrible outcome if he proves to be an unwitting party and genuinely unaware of his origins, but also acutely aware that if you start recanting your own statements about synths being The Enemy, you run the risk of undermining your entire campaign, losing the trust and respect of your men and your senior command staff, and possibly even being deposed as Elder. You were appointed Elder after a succession of unsuccessful candidates followed in the Lyons’ wake, and it’s very likely that whoever will take over from you will be - at best - a lesser candidate, and at worst, a potentially disastrous choice who will lead the Brotherhood into ruin, despair, madness, death, etc, etc. You know damn well that weak leaders don’t last long in the wasteland, and neither do leaderless factions. This is potentially a choice between Danse’s survival, or the Brotherhood’s - you can sacrifice a single hapless soldier to appease the threat of Scylla, or opt for Charybdis to try to spare him and risk having your whole ship pulled out from underneath you, condemning yourself and countless others to a terrible fate.

Or... you’ve been given a potential out. You can declare the former Paladin dead, but spare him by way of permanent exile, upon pain of death should he ever return. Only the new recruit will know the truth. Danse will still potentially be running around as someone who Knows Too Much about the Brotherhood’s military secrets, which is obviously a less than desirable state of affairs, but he will no longer be in a position to continue to spy and report back, so that aspect of the (perceived or actual) threat has, at least, been permanently removed. This option is merciful and, if you’re really honest with yourself, you probably prefer this one because it lets you off the hook to a degree and you no longer have to kill a trusted officer and friend. However, it also requires you to assume a great deal of personal risk, particularly to your reputation as a leader. What are your men going to say if they see the “dead” guy running around the Commonwealth and it becomes clear that you have not only failed to execute a traitor, but lied about it to everybody in your faction? How are you going to explain why you refused to kill someone who was planted in your organization’s ranks by a sworn enemy?

You have to choose one or the other. You’re the leader of the Brotherhood and this is a particularly shitty dilemma which you would really prefer not to be in, but you were appointed because these kinds of impossible decisions frequently arise in times of war, and you know that effective leaders sometimes have to make deeply unpleasant choices, opting to sacrifice one man in order to protect many more.

Either way, there’s going to be a downside and you’re either going to be regarded as a complete asshole (even if people are forced to reluctantly agree that you didn’t have much choice in the matter and acted out of concern for the safety of the Brotherhood and the success of your mission), or you can risk a great deal - perhaps far too much - all for the sake of a man you’re no longer sure you can trust, because good leaders are merciful and Danse has never steered you wrong before, even though he’s had plenty of opportunity to do so in the past.

It’s a hell of a decision and not one to be made lightly, but you have to make it nonetheless. You may be twenty years old, but the world is depending on you all the same, and there’s no way out of this one. The fates of you, your men, your mission, Danse, and all of humanity are potentially at stake and riding on that one decision.

Choose wisely, Elder.

#Fallout 4 #Blind Betrayal #Elder Maxson #Arthur Maxson #Paladin Danse #Danse #Fallout 4 spoilers #Brotherhood of Steel #Fallout 4 lore #between a rock and a hard place #cut Maxson some slack you guys #there's a lot riding on that decision #sometimes good leaders have to be the asshole #but I suspect that he secretly prefers being persuaded to spare Danse #even if he will never openly admit it #BoS discourse #I expect to get flamed out the ass for this one #but oh well #such is life

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felassan · 3 years

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Zero To Play podcast episode: John Epler, Narrative Director at BioWare

In the most recent episode of Zero To Play podcast the guest was John Epler, Narrative Director on DA4. He talked about narrative games, how they fit inside an industry leaning towards games as a service, his experience being at BioWare for almost 14 years, and advice that he has for aspiring devs who want to create memorable, impactful and transformative moments in games.

The episode summary read as follows:

In this episode John brings his 13+ year experience being at BioWare and working on titles like Mass Effect & Dragon Age: Inquisition to explain how he believes storytelling will evolve and develop through the medium of games.

He shares some of his favorite moments and why he thinks games are the most powerful and interesting medium to be exploring in this generation.

It’s a good and interesting interview, so worth checking out if you can! You can listen to it here or on Spotify.

This post contains some notes on what was talked about in the episode, in case a text format is better for anyone (for example folks that can’t listen to it due to accessibility reasons). It’s under a cut due to length.

A bit of paraphrasing.

The average dev stays with a game company/studio for about 5 years. John joined BioWare right after the EA acquisition happened.

[on going into Trespasser] “Myself and the Lead Writer Patrick Weekes both knew that we needed to wrap up at least this part of the Inquisitor’s story, and set up where we want to go next with the franchise, with the IP. We learned a lot of lessons from DAI itself. DAI was a game with a lot of exploration and open-world content, and while we stand by that (I still think it was the right call for the game), one of the pieces of feedback we got from the fans was that they really wanted some more directed storytelling. Jaws of Hakkon was more of a continuation of open-world, more free-from exploration and free-form design. Trespasser was our opportunity to tell a story in a much more linear and focused way. [this way of telling stories] really does help to be able to create that sense of pacing and emotional escalation. It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re mixing up storybeats with big, wide open-worlds. Trespasser was a project where everyone was kind of in sync, we were all building [towards] the same thing.”

“There were [story]beats [in Trespasser] that I don't think we would have been able to get away with in basegame DAI, one of those being the - quite frankly - incredibly lengthy conversation you have with Solas at the end. Because by this point we knew that if someone is playing this DLC then they are in it - they’ve been in it for the last two DLCs, they’ve played through the entire game, they want something incredibly story-focused. And we were able to really dive deep into that, some of the deep lore, some of the narrative. This was one of the only conversations that I’d worked on which, due to limitations of the engine, we actually had to break into two different conversation styles because it was so massive. We also got opportunities to do some fun callbacks. One of my favorite ones was one Patrick suggested which was, ‘What if I [didn’t like Solas much and] spent the entire basegame telling Solas I didn't want to hear anything he had to say?’ So we had the option that if you never chose ‘Investigate’ or a dialogue option that implied that you wanted to hear him blather on, there was one dialogue option that you could pick which was basically ‘Solas, when have I ever wanted to hear any of the shit you have to say?’ And it just kind of wrapped up the conversation super quickly, and Solas looked exasperated. It was fun because it’s not the kind of thing you can necessarily do in the main game, but in a DLC which is entirely for those core fans, you have a lot more options as to what you can do.”

John has an understanding of games as an interactive medium.

“Choice of combat, choice of mechanics, all of that does have an impact on the storytelling and on the narrative that you’re trying to put through. A lot of storytelling in games is trying to make sure that the - there’s a phrase, ludonarrative dissonance - [for example, say] I’m making a game where I’m trying to make the player feel powerful. How do you [do that?] [...] In games, this is kind of the challenge. Interactivity is so key to it. [...] It’s a lot harder [compared to characters in film] to put the player in a situation that they are going to lose, because as soon as you take away that autonomy, you’re taking away some of that interactivity. [...] If as a player I'm making you feel strong and powerful, and then I pull you into a cutscene and suddenly you’re losing the fight, you’re losing what’s going. That is a much different sensation, that is something movies can get away with that games can’t.”

“What are [players/our audience] actually meaning when they say that they ‘want choice’? I think that in a lot of cases we conflate that with ‘Oh, they want to make a big decision that changes the world’. But in a lot of cases what players want is the game to react to what they’re doing and the choices that they’re making in a way that feels organic and natural. I think this is something CD Projekt Red and the Telltale games did really well - of making it clear when the game is actually going to pay attention to what you said or did, so that when you see it later you’re like ‘Oh right yeah, I made that choice, the game said it was going to remember it, and it remembered, this is cool’.

And it doesn't always mean completely changing the course of events. The Telltale writers, as they got on through the games, they realized that the better way to address choice - and something we’ve done too - is, if we make the game have three endings, four or five - like DAO had an absolute massive amount of ways that it could turn out. How do you pay that off if you want to do a sequel? There's basically two choices. One is that you make an incredibly short game because you have to account for these very different branches, OR you collapse them and say ‘Sorry, this is what we’re going with’. And I don't think either of those are necessarily satisfying. For me it’s about making the players feel like their time and the choices they made have been respected. More than anything else that's the key, it comes down to understanding your fanbase, what it is they’re looking for, what it is they’re asking for, because there is that desire for choice, reactivity, consequences. And it’s something that BioWare, that we’re especially sensitive to because it’s always been a big pillar of the games we make. It’s just about understanding what this actually means from a practical standpoint and how you execute on that in a way that makes your fans feel satisfied, while still not writing yourself an impossible check to cash, because, you know, you can react to anything, but if you have a game that ends in three separate ways, you have to go with one of those two options and neither of them is going to be intensely satisfying to the player.”

“A phrase I’ve been using is, what I'm describing as - the half life of quantum. ‘Quantum’ is what we say when it could be like, one of six different things. The half life of this is how long before you actually resolve that down to a single point. Like, provide the player with that reactivity, but collapse those into a way that you can proceed forward. This is 100% a lesson learned from Dragon Age, for all the games. ‘Ok, what do we do with this? Holy shit, that is huge, how are we actually going to pay that off?’ Reactivity, but without putting yourself in an impossible-to-win situation [from a story/writing standpoint].”

“More than anything else, the advice I would give [to aspiring devs] is, come up with some fundamental pillars of your story and of your design. There's a misunderstanding that we plan out the exact story for years in advance. We know what we want to get to, we kinda know how we’re going to get there, and a lot of it is just making sure that you have those pillars and those razors. So as you go through development and find, ‘Oh this piece is not working, this piece is clunking’, you’ll always have principles that you can go back to. What is important about this story? Does the piece that isn't working satisfy any of those things? If no, then we have to change it or get rid of it.”

[more advice] “Don’t be afraid to fail (I say fail here as a good thing). Don't be afraid to put something out there and have it absolutely torn to shreds. Feedback is your best friend, having people that you trust to provide that feedback. If I were building a big epic narrative, a big epic franchise, [I’d advise that you] start with your principles and the core of what you want to do, and then just start putting out ideas. ‘Here’s my idea for this story’. It’s easier for me, I'm inheriting a lot of work that's already been done, a lot of ground that's already laid - I have a Lead Writer that has been doing this longer than I have, PW is fantastic. But for myself, it’s just been a lot of like, okay, taking this stuff that's already been built, and making sure that I know what we want to do with whatever the next project is. It sounds overly reductive and overly simplistic, but it really is about just having a really strong sense of what is important to your franchise, what’s important to your brand. If you’re coming up with a new IP, it’s a little trickier. You need to spend some time thinking: what’s the tone, what’s the setting, what kind of story do we want to tell.”

[more advice] Don’t be afraid to heavily reference existing media [as actual razors, internally]. But that's not something you ever want to have go out to the public, because people go like ‘Oh, you’re just being derivative’. It’s like no, we’re just leaning on cultural touchstones that people know, so that when you’re communicating with people outside your discipline, or with people above you like executives, they can at least get a sense like, ‘Oh I kinda get what you’re doing, okay that makes sense’, versus ‘Let me first of all explain the entire history of the world’. My experience with executives is that they don't have time for that and justifiably so. But if I tell them we’re doing X but with Y and Z it’s like, ‘Ok cool, we get that’. [...] It’s a tiered approach. You have levels of detail that you provide to different people based on what they need to know. You yourself may need to know the history of these characters and how they relate to each other and the thousands of years of history for that, but the person building combat probably doesn't need all that detail and just needs to know ‘What am I working with, how do these characters fight.”

“A razor is a statement that you use to slice away what doesn't fit. The narrative razor for Trespasser was, I can’t remember exactly, we were basically trying to go for the Avengers meets Indiana Jones, Winter Soldier. Avengers meets Winter Soldier. [a razor is] a statement that you take all the content [by], ‘Okay, does this actually fit this statement? No? Okay, get rid of it’. It’s about focusing your game. Cutting away the ideas that don't really fit is how you avoid scope-loading and people crunching, and how you keep your project focused.

Trespasser was an intensely-focused DLC, in that it focused on basically two main core things, Solas and the fate of the Inquisition. Everything kind of wrapped into those two razors. As we were going through content, we had stuff like - I said this at a GDC presentation in 2016 - the Qunari are farming lyrium to make Qunari templars. And then we looked at it like, how does that apply to either razor? It doesn't, it doesn't fit either one of them. So we simplified it to, ‘Okay, what actually makes this work in the context of what we’re building?’. [a razor is] a statement that you use to slice off what doesn't fit into the game that you’re building. It can be painful, but having strong razors means that it never comes across as a personal thing.”

Narrative does not mean story.

Two of his least favorite mechanics in games [not including Stalker and DayZ] are weight limits and weapon degradation.

On games as a service:

Interviewer/host: “Talking about games as a service, it’s definitely something that is talked about a lot in gaming in terms of the most successful games. With Dragon Age, putting DLCs out is kind of maybe that same influence, but games that are launched and then iterated on and updated and pushed with content every month, like Fortnite, Riot Games, League of Legends, Valorant etc, that's kind of I feel where the trend of games are trying to go and make the most of those interactions between other people, to make replayability possible and easier. How do you see narrative, do you see it being forgotten with this increase of games as a service? [...] Do you see that as a positive part of narrative in games or do you think there’s still work to be done in that space?”

John: “[...] The place we start to see some confusion, a lot of people think it’s one or the other, but to me, it’s another way, another option for telling stories that by their nature have to be different. I think that's where you need to be, again, very cognizant of what you’re building and of the genre you’re working in, because a story that works for a more traditional box product is not necessarily the kind of story that would work for a games as a service product. [...] Games as a service, understanding what the cadence is that you’re planning to deliver to and what kinds of stories best fit that cadence - some games are better at it than others.

One game that did a pretty decent job of it is Destiny 2, through patches. Final Fantasy 14 is another example, they do a lot of their storytelling between the big expansion releases as part of their free patches. They always know that they have - I think, five big patches? - between each expansion, and they’ve structured their stories to fit into that very specific five-act structure. If they tried to do it weekly or bi-weekly it would be a very different experience. I think there’s always room for narrative. It’s about knowing that there are different lessons to learn and not being afraid to learn those lessons, as opposed to trying to fit the traditional box product square-peg narrative into a live service round hole. And that’s why you need to have a strong vision and why you need to have somebody at the Director level who understands and plays the kinds of games that you’re building, so they kind of understand what works and what doesn't - ‘This type of story worked really well for this game, and I'm not saying you should copy it, but you should at least be willing to learn those lessons and not reinvent the wheel every time.’

We’ve been making games for a long time now, there’s lots of lessons to learn, we should be trying to learn from them and not trying to like, change everything every single time.”

[on length of narrative] “In a lot of cases you know how long your game should be and the hardest part is sticking to that. [...] There is always a worry that fans are going to see a number and be like ‘That’s not big enough or that’s not long enough.’ I do think that there is sometimes a lack of confidence in what you're building, and a desire to make it shorter or longer, but I think at the core, the people building [a] game know how long it’s going to take to tell this story that they want to tell. I say this specifically for narrative, but even stuff like progression, you know how long you want it to take. For myself, I will always take a short but well-executed game over a long game that feels that it has a lot of [useless/boring] padding. It’s about identifying the kind of game you’re building. Open-world games are always going to be bigger and longer than more linear games. Being confident in that number and recognizing when you’re adding time and space for no other purpose than just to make that number on the back of the box longer [is important]. Fans don’t love that, they can see right through that.”

“It was nice to see the amount of hard work that went into DAI rewarded by the press [with the Game of the Year award]. There are definitely parts of it that didn't land that we wish we could have done differently, but it was a project that felt like we were all pulling in the same direction and when we started getting that positive feedback, it was definitely a sense of relief. Especially because a lot of us had been on DA2, and while we were proud of that project, it obviously didn't get the reception that we wanted at that time.

[when they were watching DAI’s release and tracking its reception] We’re keeping a running tally, like ‘Okay, this is really looking like we did something special here’. I’m proud of every project that I’ve worked on but DAI is definitely one that I’m especially proud of.”

“Part of the advantage to being at a company for as long as I have, I've worked with a lot of the other people [responsible for things in other departments like art, writing, audio etc], so while there is that anxiety like ‘I reeeally hope that this works out’, I know it’s going to, because I know that everyone who is doing these roles, like our Animation Director, our Audio Director, Levels, all those other people on the project know what they’re doing and they know their shit better than I could ever hope to. So I’m just kind of standing here like ‘Hey y’all this is what we need’, and it’s coming in. And when it does come in, when you see the pieces together - I think for myself, on DAI, the moment that I first finally started feeling like it was really all coming together was, one of our music designers, going into one of the moments at the end of Redcliffe, doing the music/audio pass, and me finally seeing this scene that I’d been staring at and banging my head against for months - turn into something that actually conveyed emotion, that actually was something that I was excited for our fans to get to see and get to experience. That’s always a special feeling.”

Cinematics is one of the last things to come in, which means that audio is always waiting for them to come in: “They always did an amazing job with very little time, I will never not praise our audio and music designers.”

“Patrick Weekes is the Lead Writer, which means ultimately PW is responsible for the writing side of the game. As Narrative Director, I’m there to offer, to basically take the vision of the project and interpret the part that focuses on narrative and then provide that to my team - because I work with writing, cinematics, level designers and everyone - I’m there to be like ‘Hey this is the narrative we want to achieve’, which sometimes involves getting involved in the story side of things. But a lot of that is PW’s job as Lead Writer, they’ve been doing it for a long time, they’ve been in the industry longer than I have. It’s a really good working relationship. We worked together when I was in cinematics and they were in writing, we worked together on the Iron Bull, then we were both leads on Trespasser, so we have a trust.

I think what’s been really helpful is that they know that if I tell them something’s not working, it’s not coming from ‘I wanna do it my way, you better just do it my way because I’m the boss’, it’s coming from ‘This is something I think we need to do for the project’. And vice versa, if they push back on me about something, I know it’s not coming from ‘Screw you I'm the Lead Writer, I make the decisions’, they’re saying it because this is an actual concern. I do writing, I’m a writer on the project too but I will fully admit PW is a way better writer than I am, so I'm comfortable leaning on them for that stuff, and then I’m the person who can provide that ‘Okay, we know that gameplay is providing this, we know levels is providing this, let’s shift the priorities'.

It’s also about knowing, being able to take that back from any one discipline and say ‘Okay, what is the right decision for the project as a whole’, and sometimes that means telling PW something that they may not think is their favorite thing to do, but they will listen because they trust me and I trust them. I don't know how it works at other studios, there are places where Narrative Director is also the Lead Writer, or where there is Narrative Director and Lead Writer is the highest authority on narrative that exists, but it’s worked for us again because we have that lengthy experience. It would be interesting to see how it would work if we didn’t know each other for a while before this. It’s largely a relationship of trusting each other to know our areas of expertise and also just understanding what’s important to the narrative vision of the project.”

When they did Tevinter Nights it was ‘extracurricular’ work: “It was fun, I got to do some writing, I got published, which was really fun”.

[source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #solas #long post #longpost

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crusherthedoctor · 3 years

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Can you list anything you unironically like in the games (and cartoons and comics) that you don't like?

I won't bother mentioning music, since that goes without saying and is to be expected for a Sonic game... unless you're Chronicles.

Sonic Adventure 2 (mixed gameplay-wise, annoying story-wise) - While I prefer Sonic's SA1 levels for a number of reasons, I still think his and Shadow's gameplay in SA2 is fun on its own merit. I also don't mind the treasure hunting gameplay returning or how big the levels are this time around, since Knuckles and Rouge are still fast and not '06 levels of slow. It's mainly the gimped radar that creates the unfortunate domino effect of making them a problem.

- Introduced Rouge, one of my favourite characters for how playful she is and how she's a lot more nuanced and intelligent than you'd expect.

- Some genuinely good scenes, like Eggman's trap on the A.R.K and Sonic escaping from the G.U.N. helicopter.

- Had some good ideas going for it, like the Pyramid Base and the Biolizard as a scientific monster instead of an ancient one.

- Despite my thoughts on the backstory itself (or rather, its execution), Shadow has enough depth and subtle qualities and occasional unintended hilarity to stand out from the typical dark rival characters you see in media.

- The Last Scene's music in particular is one of my favourite cutscene tracks in the series.

Sonic Heroes (mixed gameplay-wise, loathed story-wise) - The gameplay is fun when you're not being screwed over by repetitive combat, overly long levels and/or ice physics.

- Boasts some of the most consistently Genesis-worthy environments in the 3D games, up there with SA1's and Colours'.

- The in-game dialogue that isn't the same tutorial drivel repeated ad nauseam can be interesting, funny, etc.

- Reintroduced the Chaotix, which provided me with another character I quite like in the form of Vector.

- Bringing Metal Sonic back in full force and front and center in the plot after a long absence (not counting cameos and the like) is a perfectly fine idea. Just... not like this.

Sonic Battle (decent yet repetitive gameplay, mixed story-wise) - Emerl's arc is compelling, and it earns the emotional weight of having to put him down at the end.

- While some characters are iffy (read: Amy), other characters are extremely well-handled. Shadow is probably the prime example.

- Gamma's belly dance healing animation is fucking hilarious.

- When I was young, and the game was first announced, I was really excited about being able to play as Chaos. This proved to be my downfall when it turned out he was arguably one of the worst characters in the game due to being slower than me during the writing process, but I still recall that excitement fondly.

Shadow the Hedgehog (comedy classic) - The sheer amount of legendary stupidity this game has going for it makes it practically impossible to actually hate. It helps that it's not quite as white-knighted on the same level as '06... usually. You know you're in for a unique experience when you hear a gunshot every time you click something in the menu.

- By extension, Black Doom never gained an unironic fanbase like Mephiles/Scourge/Eggman Nega did, which means I'm a lot more willing to take Doom's dumbass brand of villainy in stride. He even has a unique design... a terrible one that rips off Wizeman granted, but alas, even that is a step-up from Fridge Shadow and Bumblebee Eggman.

- Despite being... well, Shadow the Hedgehog, some of the environments would fit right in with any other Sonic game, like with Circus Park, Lava Shelter, and Digital Circuit. Even the Black Comet levels look pretty cool.

- This game understands amnesia better than IDW does.

Sonic '06 (what do you think?) - The obvious one: Shadow's character was handled pretty well, even if it came at the cost of everyone else being a dummy and being forced to interact with Mephiles.

- Like SA2, there are some good moments, like the Last Story ending sequence with Sonic and Elise.

- In the greatest form of irony ever, I like Solaris as a concept and design(s), and its backstory has potential to serve as a parallel with Chaos without being a complete ripoff. Iblis sucks, Mephiles sucks, but I'm fine with Solaris.

- Introduced legendary characters like Sonic Man, Pele the Beloved Dog, Hatsun the Pigeon, and Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove.

The Rivals duology (apathetic outside of Nega-related grumbling) - There were some cool zone ideas in both games that were sadly let down by the restrictive and limiting gameplay. I particularly like Colosseum Highway for thus far being the only full-on Roman level in the series instead of merely having a couple minor hints of Roman, and Meteor Base for the unique scenario of the space station being built into an asteroid. These level concepts and others deserve a second chance IMO. (At least Frontier Canyon got a second chance in the form of Mirage Saloon, amirite?)

- Ifrit has a better design than Iblis. Not saying it's amazing, but the Firebird motif it has going on is a lot more interesting for a fire monster than the Not-Chaos schtick they had with Iblis.

Sonic and the Secret Rings (a very frustrating gaming experience) - Erazor Djinn, A.K.A. Qui-Gon Djinn, A.K.A. Dr. N. Djinn, A.K.A. I'll Take It On The Djinn, A.K.A. Not From The Hairs On My Djinny Djinn Djinn, is one of the best villains not associated with Eggman in the series. He's a Mephiles-type character done right, and there's actual weight and reason to his actions, however sinister or petty.

- I don't have strong opinions either way on Shahra as a character, but the Sonic/Shahra friendship is sweet and well-handled.

- The ending is one of Sonic's greatest moments. The sheer contrast between how ruthlessly he deals with Erazor and how comforting he is towards Shahra speaks volumes... Still gonna make fun of the mountain of handkerchiefs though. (Before anyone lectures me, I understand the significance of it and can even appreciate it from that angle... doesn't mean I'm not allowed to poke fun at it. :P)

- Another game with some redeeming environments. I love the aesthetic of Night Palace, and Sand Oasis looks gorgeous too.

Sonic Chronicles (my personal least favourite game in the series) - Uh...

- Um...

- Er...

- I like Shade's design?

Sonic Unleashed (overrated game and story IMO) - The obvious two: the opening sequence and the Egg Dragoon fight deserve all the praise they get.

- Seeing Eggmanland come to life was an impressive moment to be sure. While part of me does feel it didn't quite measure up to what I had in mind (ironically, the Interstellar Amusement Park ended up being closer to what I had in mind), it still looks badass and works well for what it is. I also don't mind the idea of it being a one-level gauntlet... key word being idea.

- Obviously, the game looks great. Not a fan of the real world focus (real world inspiration is fine, but copy-pasting the real world and shoving loops in it is just unimaginative), but it can't be denied that the environments look good.

- This game pulled off dialogue options a lot better than Chronicles did, since they didn't rely on making Sonic OoC.

Sonic and the Black Knight (just kind of boring all around) - Despite my gripes with the story (Merlina wasn't nearly as fleshed out as her unique anti-villain status deserved, which ends up severely undermining the ambition of the plot in more ways than one, and the other characters go from being useless yes men for King Arthur to being useless yes men for Sonic), I will admit it provides interesting insight into Sonic's character.

- Like '06 and Secret Rings, the ending is very nice... well, aside from Amy being an unreasonable bitch ala Sonic X at the very end.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (apathetic) - The admittedly few new concepts sprinkled within had promise. They may not have been as fleshed out as they could have been, but level concepts like Sylvania Castle and White Park, bosses like Egg Serpentleaf and the Egg Heart, and story beats like the Death Egg mk.II being powered by Little Planet, all could have been brilliant had they been better executed.

SatAM (apathetic outside of SatAM Robotnik-related grumbling) - I'm not a fan of the environments on the whole due to them looking too bland or samey, but there are some exceptions that look pleasant or interesting, like the Void.

Sonic Underground (apathetic) - The character designs make me feel better about myself.

- Does "large quantities of unintentional meme material" count as a positive?

Sonic X (mostly apathetic outside of Eggman's handling) - Helen was a better human character and audience surrogate in her one focus episode than Chris was throughout his entire runtime.

- Actually, most of the human characters not named Chris were legitimately likable. Including everyone in Chris' own family not named Chris. Hilarious.

- Despite arguably having the most Chris in it, I actually don't mind the first season that much, partly due to slight nostalgia from seeing it on TV when it was new, but mostly because Eggman actually acted like a villain for the most part, and certain other characters weren't quite as flanderized yet. It's season 2 and onwards where things started going off the rails IMO. (Incidentally, Helen's episode was part of season 1...)

The Boom franchise (apathetic) - Along with Chronicles, the games provide yet more proof that just because someone isn't SEGA/Sonic Team, that doesn't mean they're automatically more qualified to handle the series.

- The show had some good episodes here and there, and Tails' characterization was probably the most consistently on-point out of the cast.

- Despite not exactly being favourite portrayals for either character, even I'll admit that many of Knuckles and Eggman's lines in the show on their own were genuinely funny.

Archie Sonic (pre-reboot is mostly terrible, post-reboot is mostly... bland) - Whenever I doubt myself as a writer, I think back to Ken Penders, and suddenly I'm filled with a lot more confidence.

Sonic the Comic (apathetic) - Fleetway isn't a comic I tend to recall much of aside from how much of a loathesome cunt Sonic is, but IIRC, Robotnik's portrayal is pretty good. Different, but good.

IDW Sonic (stop pissing me off, comic) - Putting their handling aside (and being too obviously "inspired" by MGS in the latter's case), Tangle and Whisper are good characters IMO.

- Same goes for Starline, before he was killed off-screen and replaced with Toothpaste Snively.

- Execution aside (noticing a pattern?), the zombot virus was a fine concept on its own and an interesting new scheme for Eggman.

- I get to remind myself that I've never drawn scat edits and posted them publicly on Twitter.

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wazafam · 3 years

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While he claims to not be a serial killer, Saw villain Jigsaw is one of the most effective murderers in horror, though there have been a few victims that have escaped his grasp. Of course, were one to ask John Kramer himself, back when he was alive, anyway, he would've insisted that what he did wasn't murder. Instead, John used the Jigsaw identity to help wayward and damaged people reform, learning to have a new appreciation for life by making a sacrifice of blood and flesh to survive.

In reality, Jigsaw's twisted methods are impossible to condone. His games are nothing more than a sick vigilante taking punishment into his own hands. John may have been a decent man once upon a time, but the loss of his unborn son and the dissolution of his marriage, coupled with the terminal cancer eating away at him, eventually sapped every last bit of true humanity from his heart. No decent person could do what he does to people and not go mad.

Related: Is Jigsaw In Spiral? Saw Villain Future Explained

For the Saw fans, though, there's no reason to hate John, as in fiction, the normal bounds of morality don't necessarily apply. Many of the people Jigsaw targets are far from sympathetic characters, and watching them get theirs can be a form of catharsis. Sometimes though, the players of Jigsaw's games have survived to tell the tale. Here are all of the survivors of Jigsaw's games.

Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) was the first known survivor of a Jigsaw trap, in her case the infamous reverse bear trap. To free herself, she had to kill a man and retrieve the key to the device on her face from inside his stomach. As traumatic as it was, Amanda then kicked her drug addiction and ended up joining John as his first confirmed apprentice, designed to help Jigsaw's work continue despite John's failing health. Sadly, she lost her way and began designing inescapable traps. John tested her again, and she failed, dying in the process.

Not everyone who gets mixed up in Jigsaw's games is a particular target of his wrath. In some cases, they're just those close to the main test subject, such as the wife and daughter of Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes). Dr. Gordon, of course, famously survived his test in the first Saw movie by sawing off his own foot. Meanwhile, his wife Alison and daughter Diana survived their own captivity at the hands of Zep, a man forced into working for Jigsaw. Lawrence would go on to survive and become another Jigsaw apprentice, as revealed in Saw 7.

Jeff Ridenhour is a very minor character in Saw lore, but still a memorable one. In Jeff's case, he didn't necessarily deserve to survive his Jigsaw test, but was saved by Detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung). Doing so led to dire consequences for the cops, though – so perhaps the tradeoff wasn't exactly fair.

Related: Saw 2's Venus Fly Trap Mask Was The First Hint At Dr. Gordon Twist

Daniel Matthews was tested much less due to his own petty crimes, and more because he was the son of Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), an explosively violent cop who was Saw 2's primary Jigsaw target. Eric survived being placed in a group of people who had been wrongly convicted of crimes thanks to his father, but was then placed inside a safe to be used as leverage for Eric's test. Daniel survived, but Eric didn't come out intact.

Corbett Denlon and Judge Halden are two minor Saw 3 characters who were pulled into Jigsaw's games with Jeff Denlon in Saw 3. Halden was the man who gave the drunk driver that killed Jeff's son a light sentence. To save Halden, Jeff had to burn cherished mementos connected to his son. Halden later died trying to help Jeff save his son's killer from a trap. Corbett, Jeff's young daughter, was "saved" by Jigsaw apprentice Mark Hoffman after Jeff failed his test.

Easily the most dangerous and sadistic of Jigsaw's apprentices, Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) ended up working for John Kramer after faking a Jigsaw murder in order to kill the man who had taken his sister's life. Seeing Hoffman's potential, but not appreciating being ripped off, John offered him a chance to join the cause. Hoffman continued the games long after John's death but got tested for the first time himself via his own reverse bear trap thanks to John's widow, Jill. Hoffman survived and killed Jill, but later lost for good against Dr. Gordon.

FBI Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson), along with his partner Lindsey Perez, investigated the Jigsaw case, and both ultimately died as a result, but not before escaping at least one of Jigsaw's traps. Strahm instantly suspected Hoffman was in on things, and that didn't change following his own escape from a Jigsaw trap that involved an improvised pen tracheotomy to avoid drowning in a box locked on his head. Still, his dogged pursuit of the truth cost him dearly, as he was later crushed to death by the encroaching walls of a room, while Hoffman smugly escaped the area.

Related: Why Saw Has The Greatest Horror Movie Twist Ending Of All Time

Strahm's partner Agent Perez survived a nasty Jigsaw trap involving an exploding puppet sending shrapnel into her face thanks to the efforts of Strahm himself. The FBI faked her death in order to try and get one over on John's still unidentified Jigsaw accomplice, although Perez eventually resurfaced, only to get stabbed to death by Hoffman when his crimes were revealed.

Art Blank (Justin Louis) was one of the featured Jigsaw test subjects in Saw 4, and was chosen due to his profession. Art was a lawyer, and one with a habit of defending clients who were guilty as sin and helping them escape justice. Art had been John's friend and business partner, but after a falling out, was forced to kill another man in order to survive a trap. He was then forced to help Jigsaw set up another game, only to later be shot by cop Daniel Rigg. Morgan was a related survivor, the wife of an abusive husband and father that Art had gotten off. She had to kill her husband to live and to set herself free in more ways than one.

Brit Stevenson (Julie Benz) was one of the main test subjects in Saw 5, a corrupt corporate executive who hired an arsonist to burn down an apartment building so that she could buy the property it sat on, not realizing people were inside at the time. None of the victims in Saw 5 were without sin, but Brit and Mallick Scott, the arsonist, managed to survive multiple traps on their way to victory and rescue by the FBI.

Tara and Brent Abbott were a quite innocent mother and son who got roped into Jigsaw's Saw 6 game, which revolved around heartless insurance executive William Easton. Easton denied their husband/father live-saving care, and after Easton survived his own tests, his fate was left up to them. Tara couldn't bring herself to kill Easton, but Brent did it, instead, in a rage over his father's death.

Related: Why The Most Disturbing Saw Trap Isn't Actually The Needle Pit

The corrupt exec William Easton (Peter Outerbridge) survived his own tests, although not without having to make agonizing decisions along the way, including which of his also mostly corrupt employees he would save. Easton's company had also denied John Kramer potentially life-saving treatment, thus his posthumous vendetta. William opted to save his secretary, Addy, as well as other subordinates, Shelby and Emily. He was also able to save his sister Pamela by completing his game, but couldn't survive the vengeful Abbots.

Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery) became a successful self-help guru on the back of surviving a Jigsaw trap and then writing a book about it, or at least that's his claim. None of it is true, leading him to become the main test subject of Saw 7. Bobby has to watch his wife get roasted alive in a giant oven, although he does manage to escape with his own life. Joan is a very brief character in the franchise, a Jigsaw survivor whose story Bobby uses as inspiration for his lies.

In Saw 7, Bobby Dagen chaired a support group of Jigsaw survivors, although unlike him, their stories were real. Mallick Scott survived alongside Brit Stevenson in Saw 5, losing most of his blood in the process. Simone chopped off her own arm to survive a "pound of flesh" trap in Saw 6. Brad and Ryan had to choose between killing each other, or the girlfriend who had been cheating on them both, and they chose her. Sidney had to send her abusive boyfriend into lawnmower blades. Addy and Emily from Easton's company, were also group members, as were Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and Tara Abbott.

Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore) was an Army veteran and battlefield medic who was tested after his return to civilian life saw him mess up an X-ray and accidentally delay the diagnosis of John's cancer. Logan's trap went wrong, though, and since it was John's fault, he took pity on Logan and freed him. Grateful, Logan became an apprentice and conducted the games seen in 2017's Jigsaw.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw recently continued Jigsaw's legacy, albeit with a new killer and 100 percent less John Kramer. The only test survivor in Spiral is lead protagonist Zeke Banks (Chris Rock), seemingly the one honest cop in a corrupt department full of liars and killers. Granted, he clearly wasn't intended to die, as new killer William Schenk wanted them to join forces and clean up the city. Zeke is able to free himself from a handcuff trap similar to the one in the first Saw movie and ends up getting cut up by glass trying to save his old corrupt partner. Zeke lives, but his former police chief father isn't so lucky.

More: Spiral 2: What To Expect

Saw: Every Character Who Survived A Jigsaw Trap (And What Came Next) from https://ift.tt/3tUCVkh

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worldwidebt7 · 5 years

Text

Hell(L)ing || 02

§ — Pairing: Chimera!Taehyung x Empath!Reader (with mentions of Reader x Other Members)

§ — Genre: SciFi AU, fluff, angst, smut, horror

§ — Wordcount: 3,161

§ — Rating: M

§ — Warnings: My attempt at writing something creepy...? So, I’ll be both sorry and glad if it does scare you a little hahaha

§ — A/N: Chapter 2! Yay! I’m surprised to actually be tagging people for this! I’ve never had anyone want to be tagged in my written stories before... It makes me so happy! Writing and drawing are BOTH great creative passions for me, which is why comics are what I lean towards on most days, but sometimes I want to swiftly move through a story, and drawing takes too much time... I know you guys are here for my art, but I hope you’ll enjoy my writing as well! Again, this was originally for @bang-tan-bitches ‘Monster Mash Challenge’, which I really wish I had entered, but there was so much good writing that you should definitely check out!

Summary: You moved out into the wilderness to live a calm, peaceful life. Your abilities made it impossible to live in crowded places, so even if you wanted to you couldn’t return. But when something happens outside the realm of even your normalcy, you start to think that maybe having everyone else’s emotions bearing down on you isn’t such a bad alternative to being trapped with your own.

You spent the remainder of the afternoon pacing around your kitchen, sending glances at the business card on your counter top, and considering calling Seokjin. ‘Genetic Anthropologist’ is what it said on the card; clearly his job title, but you had no idea what it entailed. You could define the words separately, but together it created a delineation that you couldn’t even fathom. His strange career aside, you couldn’t help but be troubled about the boy you saw earlier.

He had been in the area you were fairly certain was now Seokjin’s property, and the fact that the purple-haired man hadn’t mentioned any relatives or roommates concerned you. It was a biting feeling, rather, that you couldn’t shake off. You were rational— you considered it was a friend or family visiting, but there was something so… off about the boy that you feel like you should check on your new neighbor to make sure he was fine. Or at the very least warn him that there was someone lurking near his home.

Deciding that you wouldn’t be able to calm your nerves otherwise, you pulled your phone from your pocket and dialed his number, making a mental note to save it in your contacts afterwards. It rang; once, twice, three times— and continued to ring. For a moment, you mildly panicked; what if something had happened to him? Sucking in a breath, you pulled the phone away to hang up and try again, when you heard a man’s voice come through your phone.

“Hello?” In an instant, you smashed the phone back against your ear in alacrity.

“S-Seokjin? Kim Seokjin?” You replied, your heart racing. You weren’t sure why you were asking if it was really him, but you wouldn’t put it past yourself to type in the wrong number when you were hastily attempting to contact him.

“…Yes…?” His answer was drawn out, a defensive tone slipping through his words. You let out a breath of relief, placing a hand on your chest as your pulse began to stabilize. You hear him clear his throat. “Uh, who is this…?”

“Oh! Right! Sorry, this is Y/N, your neighbor?” Embarrasses, you laugh at yourself. How was he supposed to know that you were calling? And of course you hadn’t say anything— you were more concerned about making sure he was still among the living.

“Oh! Y/N!” His pitch changed drastically at the mention of your name, and you couldn’t help the little smile and shallow eye-roll produced by this. One conversation with this man and you were already reacting to him as if he were a friend. This, while nice, was also alarming considering the deception that dripped off of his emotions when you had contact with him. “How can I be of service?” You could practically hear the purr in his voice, though the question brought you back to why you originally called.

“Oh, um…” Releasing an exhale through your nose, you pondered at your wording for a moment before continuing. “I, uh… I actually wanted to let you know that I saw someone near your house earlier…” Seokjin was silent, not that there was really much to respond to, but he was so still that you couldn’t even hear his breath.

“…Oh?” His voice broke through the thick quiet, and you swallowed, the defensive quality to his tone returning tenfold and turning his usually cheery voice completely stony.

“Y-yeah.” You stuttered, suddenly feeling pressure building in the conversation. “A boy… w-with black hair… He was down by the lake earlier today….” The palm of your hand rubbed nervously on your sweatpants as you flexed and unflexed your fingers. Normally, you didn’t get much through a phone call, voices were rarely an accurate representation of one’s true thoughts, but the weight of his aura was so severe that you felt a chill throughout your body.

“Oh! Yes, that’s my roommate!” His suddenly chipper voice made your head spin. “He won’t be around much, but don’t mind him if you do see him!” He let out a laugh, which didn’t sound particularly genuine. Your brows furrowed, trying to connect all of the doubts flying around in your mind.

“Ah, I see…” You chewed on your bottom lip. As unable as you were to read the situation, you knew something was up— there were truths, half-truths, and lies being told here, of that you were sure, but you couldn’t decide what pieces of information were which. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have bothered you if I had known.” You forced your voice to sound light, not wanting to come across rude or give away your reservations about the information being given to you.

“It’s no problem, I must have forgotten to mention him before,” And so he was back to, what you assumed, was his usual self. Alarmingly, you felt yourself relax. “Besides, I’ll always take any excuse to talk to you.” You snort, and a very different sounding laugh echoed through the phone— much like a windshield wiper. That, you could tell, was his true laugh, and what an infectious sound it was. Against your better judgment, you laughed as well.

“Are all conversations with you going to be like this?” You asked, attempting to recollect yourself. It terrified you how easily this man made you relax within his denigrations, and you now realized you would have to build a wall between you and Kim Seokjin.

“What are you talking about, I’m a delight!” He let out an indignant gasp— sarcastic, for the most part, but you had a feeling a very small part of him was actually offended. “Such a delight, in fact, that you should invite me over for a dinner date!” This time, you sputtered, a light blush rising to your cheeks. So much for that wall.

“W-we’ll see!” You manage to squeak out, causing another boisterous laugh to come from the other side of the phone.

“I’ll hold you to that Y/N!” And you could practically hear the wink he surly executed at your expense. You sigh and promise to invite him over once your pantry is stocked once more in a week. He hums, “You’d better! Remember, I have your number now, I can call you until you cave!” Another laugh and you assured him that you’d be contacting him again soon. With that, the two of you bid farewells and hung up.

Another heavy sigh left your lips as you placed your phone down on your counter. You were eerily calm after the whirlwind of emotions and doubt you had just over a simple phone call with Seokjin, and you could honestly say you were scared. He knew how to completely tear down your defenses and make you comfortable with him. The scarier part? You wanted to be at ease with him. Looking at your phone once more with a worried glance, you stepped around the peninsula of your counter to begin cooking dinner.

The following evening, your television played some mind-numbing show which you had little investment in, but for you it was a welcomed distraction from your thoughts. You hadn’t been able to work on your book at all— to your great chagrin. Namjoon would be visiting you in less than two days and you still only had four-fifths of a book prepared. You’d give it another go tomorrow, but you were starting to think that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to just ask Namjoon for help. He was an excellent writer and would surly be able to give you some insight into why you were struggling.

You sighed, feeling a bit light-headed from what you assumed was stress. It wasn’t unlike you to become ill from over-exertion, especially with your abilities; it took a lot of energy and mental stamina to hone in and stay connected to others’ feelings the way you did. You had long tried to control it— you wanted to shut the essentially open door you had linking you to other people, but all attempts proved futile. It was draining, and though you did your best to stay away from other people, you still couldn’t help the exhaustion you felt after interacting with those few you did see. A sharp pain on the back of your neck had you groaning and moving a hand to rub the afflicted area. Man, you were tired…

Your phone lit up with an unimportant notification which allowed you to see that it had become quite late; much later than you were usually found awake. Deciding that the nameless show playing on the TV was far less important than sleep, you reached for the remote and pressed the power button, effectively turning off the senseless chattering of the shallow character. You shifted in your seat on the couch, only to immediately freeze in terror.

On your blackened television screen, there was a reflection of everything in front of it, and, in turn, everything behind you. There was the outline of your furniture, and you sitting upon it, but it was none of these things that caused your entire body to break out in a cold sweat. No, it was the secondary figure, the larger figure, the figure standing deathly still behind you.

Your breathing became erratic and your hands shook with how tightly they were gripping the seat cushions of your couch. You could only hope that the figure was separated from you by the thick glass of your window wall and not currently in your living room as your mind reeled trying to remember whether or not you had locked the doors to your house.

How had you not felt him coming? Even now, aware of his presence, you could hardly feel a thing. Just detached curiosity and… hunger… for what, you couldn’t tell. You’d never experienced anything like this, and every bit of your intuition was screaming that he was dangerous.

Your heart beat painfully against your sternum as you realized you had a choice— run, hide, or fight. Running could be eliminated; you had no where to run to, even with your car parked out front, and who knows if you’d even make it there before him. Fighting was out of the question as you had noodle arms and zero self defense knowledge, making you practically useless in any confrontational situation. This left you with one option:

Hide.

You took a couple of unsteady breaths to urge yourself to move, move, just move! Hand shooting out to grab your phone which rested on the coffee table in front of you, you sprung to your feet and immediately took off towards your stairs. Climbing them as quickly as your feet would carry you, your eyes flicked over to the figure hovering outside your house and you regretted the action immediately.

Those eyes. You’d only seen something similar in cats or dogs or birds when light reflected off of them— they were glowing in the dark, the only feature defined in a human figure shrouded in shadow. Not human, you mind screamed at you. Not human, not human. It wasn’t human. You knew, instinctively, it was something else.

The figure didn’t move an inch as you frantically scuttled up the stairs and you tore your gaze away, focusing solely on reaching the safety of your room and immediately throwing yourself into your closet and slamming the door. The only sound in the space was your choked, heavy breathing, but all you could hear was the blood rushing in your ears. You looked at your phone, clutched pathetically in your shaking hands. You had to call someone, anyone. Your friends? No, they wouldn’t get here in time. The police would be the same story, as you were at least a thirty-five-minute drive from town, and even further from the city where your friends lived. A small glimmer of hope registered in your hazed mind as you scrolled through your contacts. Hitting the name immediately, you pressed the phone to your ear and sniffled. You could only hope he would answer, it was so early in the morning so there was no guarantee, but if you still knew him like you once had—

“Hello?” a groggy, sleep-deprived voice floated through the speaker like music to your ears and you let out a choked cry. “…Y/N?” He asked, slightly more alert at your desperate sob.

“…Yoongi…?”

Min Yoongi was the only man in your life that you had allowed yourself to form a relationship with. You had met him as a freshman in college— he had been a resident assistant at your dorm and had taken it upon himself to show you (and a small group of other students, mind you) around the immediate area. You had noticed that his emotions were almost always calm and focused on whatever he was working on, and that made it easy to be physical with, as this was still at the point where your gift was sparked by touch. So, you went out of your way to get to know him.

Over time, your persistence won him over and he tentatively asked you out on a date that started a lovely three-year relationship. Well, rather, the first two-and-a-half years were lovely; the last six months were, as you remember, rather sobering.

He was a year older than you, and, in turn, graduated a year ahead of you despite his double-major (the man was a workaholic, honestly). At first, the two of you did your best to see each other— you skipped out on regular college weekend get-togethers to meet him or spend a few days at his apartment. Besides the distance, you didn’t think much else had changed between you, until he stopped touching you. Quite literally, in fact. If you would try to initiate hand holding, he’d quickly stuff his hands into his pockets. If you tried to kiss him, he’d dodge with a cough or a sneeze. One of the few times you had managed to graze your skin against his, you finally realized:

He cared about you, but he didn’t love you anymore.

It was the first time you had experienced the dissolution of such powerful emotions, and you realized that this would be your life. You would always have to experience your significant other and how they felt about you; you would always have to suffer through them falling out of love with you. Yoongi knew this— he was one of the only people you had spoken to about your abilities at the time, not wanting to ruin a normal university experience with rumors and students coming up to you and asking you for readings. But he knew that you’d be able to tell the difference in his feelings towards you, and tried to hide it.

When you finally asked him to sit down with you to discuss the change, he allowed you to take his hand to get a sense of the totality of the expiry of his love. However, you could also feel his immense sorrow, his guilt over hurting you. He really, truly still cared about you; just not how you wished he did.

Through tears, you let him go with a smile, telling him that you understood— because you did. You knew better than anyone the shift and tides of emotions, but you also knew that he would always care for you; the time spent together had not wasted away into the atmosphere. You remained friends over the years, but rarely ever contacted each other as the two of you had simply grown apart in your growing lives separate from one another.

But tonight, in your panic and fear, his number was the one you pressed. It was logical, of course— you had learned about the lake front homes from him after all, as he lived near-by cabin enjoying peace and quiet in his own solitude. So, in calling him, you knew that he would have the best chance to reach you in a swift manner. You couldn’t, however, say that there wasn’t some emotional aspect to the phone call. He was familiar, and the familiarity was a comfort to you. Just hearing his voice over the phone telling you he would be at your house in ten minutes or less had calmed your nerves significantly.

And so, the two of you stood in the middle of your living room in the early hours of the morning with every sing light in your house turned on. Having him there, standing in front of you in grey plaid pajama bottoms, a white tee, and a pair of PUMA slides, you picked up on the friendly affection he held for you, as well as slight irritation most likely caused by being out at this hour. You had told him everything; the figure, it’s eyes, the fact that you could barely get a read on him, the feeling of non-human you perceived.

“Not human?” Yoongi asked, clearly skeptic about the entire ordeal and if it hadn’t been for your sheer terror in response to it all, you were sure he would have just left immediately. You pouted, knowing how crazy it sounded, but also unable to simply brush aside your instincts.

“Yes, Yoongi, it didn’t feel human.” You were almost offended that he didn’t believe you— what would you gain from lying about this? Except for the obvious fact that your ex-boyfriend, who you found great difficulty moving on from for quite some time after your breakup, was now standing in your house at two-thirty in the morning. Still, as much as you had loved him, you were not interested in rekindling a relationship with a man who clearly was not in love with you anymore.

“Crazy glowing eyes aside, what makes you say that?” He inquired, plopping himself down on your couch, lazily man-spreading as if he’s a frequent visitor to your dwelling. You would have smiled, if it weren’t for the doubt he held in regard to your confession.

“I told you,” you huffed, running your still shaking fingers through your hair. “I couldn’t read him. Not like everyone else. I didn’t even feel him coming!” You tossed your hand in the direction where the figure appeared. Yoongi sighed,

“Maybe your powers are getting weaker?” He suggested, to which you shook your head.

“No, I had no problem detecting you when you arrived, and I can read your emotions as well as ever.” If only your abilities were fading, your life would be so much simpler and you would love nothing more than to move back to the city where your close friends resided. “Exhaustion, irritation, doubt, concern, fondness…” You rattled off all the emotions rolling off of him in waves, though they were still as mellow and manageable as they always were. He dropped his head to rest on the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

“Years of knowing you and I’m still not used to that…” Your heart sank a bit at this even though you knew the comment was not meant to be malicious, your senses telling you he meant it in a teasing way. But it still reminded you that you were not normal. After a moment he pulled himself forward to rest his forearms on his knees and ruffled his bleach-blonde hair. “Alright. I can see you’re seriously freaked out by this…” He looked over at you, his sharp eyes almost trying to read you like you were able to read him. “…I’ll sleep on the couch tonight if that’ll make you feel better.” You released an alleviated sigh before bouncing over to him and wrapping him up in a chaste hug.

“Thank you, Yoongi…” He didn’t exactly return the hug, only reaching up and patting your back reassuringly, but you felt the small spike of comfort and serenity at the friendly action, and that was enough to tell you that your gesture was appreciated.

Afterwards, you gathered spare blankets and a pillow from your linen closet for Yoongi to use for the evening. You had tried to offer him other amenities, such as water or tea, but he politely turned you down, clearly wanting nothing more than to sleep. Thanking him once more, you retired to your own room, leaving your door open and turning the light on your bedside table on to illuminate the darkness. You kept your back towards the window in your room, not wanting to subject yourself to the self-inflicted fear you would surly create from the moving shadows of the trees just outside. You were on the second floor, surly safe from the beings that lurk below and now, with the thought of Yoongi snoozing on our couch, you allowed yourself to slip off into a, thankfully, dreamless sleep.

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96harmony96 · 3 years

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Chapter 2

Her tie was silver and her shirt brilliantly white, the stark absence of color emphasizing those amazing green irises. Standing there with her jacket open and her hands shoved casually into her pants’ pockets, the sight of her was like running smack into a wall I hadn’t known was there.

I jerked to a halt, my gaze riveted to the woman who was even more striking than I’d remembered. I had never seen hair that purely black. It was glossy and slightly long, the ends drifting over her shoulder. That sexy length was the crowning touch of bad boy hotness over the successful businessman, like whipped cream topping on a hot fudge brownie sundae. As my mother would say, only rogues and raiders had hair like that.

My hands clenched against the urge to touch it, to see if it felt like the rich silk it resembled.

The doors began to close. She took an easy step forward and pressed a button on the panel to hold them open. “There’s plenty of room for both of us, Camila.”

The sound of that smoky, implacable voice broke me out of my momentary daze. How did she know my name?

Then I remembered that she’d picked up my ID card when I’d dropped it in the lobby. For a second, I debated telling her I was waiting for someone so I could take another car down, but my brain lurched back into action.

What the hell was wrong with me? Clearly she worked in the Crossfire. I couldn’t avoid her every time I saw her and why should I? If I wanted to get to the point where I could look at her and take her hotness for granted, I needed to see her often enough that she became like furniture.

Ha! If only.

I stepped into the car. “Thank you.”

She released the button and stepped back again. The doors closed and the elevator began its descent.

I immediately regretted my decision to share the car with her.

Awareness of her prickled across my skin. She was a potent force in such a small enclosure, radiating a palpable energy and sexual magnetism that had me shifting restlessly on my feet. My breathing became as ragged as my heartbeat. I felt that inexplicable pull to her again, as if he exuded a silent demand that I was instinctively attuned to answering.

“Enjoy your first day?” she asked, startling me.

Her voice resonated, flowing over me in a seductive rhythm. How the hell did she know it was my first day?

“Yes, actually,” I answered evenly. “How was yours?”

I felt her gaze slide over my profile, but I kept my attention trained on the brushed aluminum elevator doors. My heart was racing in my chest, my stomach quivering madly. I felt jumbled and off my game.

“Well, it wasn’t my first,” she replied with a hint of amusement. “But it was successful. And getting better as it progresses.”

I nodded and managed a smile, having no idea what that was supposed to mean. The car slowed on the twelfth floor and a friendly group of three got on, talking excitedly among themselves. I stepped back to make room for them, retreating into the opposite corner of the elevator from Dark and Dangerous. Except she sidestepped along with me. We were suddenly closer than we’d been before.

she adjusted her perfectly knotted tie, her arm brushing against mine as she did so. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to ignore my acute awareness of her by concentrating on the conversation taking place in front of us. It was impossible. She was just so there. Right there. All perfect and gorgeous and smelling divine. My thoughts ran away from me, fantasizing about how hard her body might be beneath the suit, how it might feel against me, how well-endowed—or not—she might be…

When the car reached the lobby, I almost moaned in relief. I waited impatiently as the elevator emptied and the first chance I got, I took a step forward. Her hand settled firmly at the small of my back and she walked out beside me, steering me. The sensation of her touch on such a vulnerable place rippled through me.

We reached the turnstiles and her hand fell away, leaving me feeling oddly bereft. I glanced at her, trying to read her, but although she was looking at me, her face gave nothing away.

“Camila!”

The sight of Cary lounging casually against a marble column in the lobby shifted everything. He was wearing jeans that showcased his mile-long legs and an oversized sweater in soft green that emphasized his eyes. He easily drew the attention of everyone in the lobby. I slowed as I approached him and the sex god passed us, moving through the revolving door and sliding fluidly into the back of the chauffeured black Bentley SUV I’d seen at the curb the evening before.

Cary whistled as the car pulled away. “Well, well. From the way you were looking at her, that was the girl you told me about, right?”

“Oh, yeah. That was definitely her.”

“You work together?” Linking arms with me, Cary tugged me out to the street through the stationary door.

“No.” I stopped on the sidewalk to change into my walking flats, leaning into him as pedestrians flowed around us. “I don’t know who she is, but she asked me if I’d had a good first day, so I better figure it out.”

“Well…” He grinned and supported my elbow as I hopped awkwardly from one foot to the other. “No idea how anyone could get any work done around her. My brain sort of fried for a minute.”

“I’m sure that’s a universal effect.” I straightened. “Let’s go. I need a drink.”

The next morning arrived with a slight throbbing at the back of my skull that mocked me for having one too many glasses of wine. Still, as I rode the elevator up to the twentieth floor, I didn’t regret the hangover as much as I should have. My choices were either too much alcohol or a whirl with my vibrator, and I was damned if I’d have a battery-provided orgasm starring Dark and Dangerous. Not that she’d know or even care that she made me so horny I couldn’t see straight, but I’d know and I didn’t want to give the fantasy of her the satisfaction.

I dropped my stuff in the bottom drawer of my desk and when I saw that Mark wasn’t in yet, I grabbed a cup of coffee and returned to my cubicle to catch up on my new favorite ad-biz blogs.

“Camila!”

I jumped when he appeared beside me, his grin a flash of white against his smooth dark skin. “Good morning, Mark.”

“Is it ever. You’re my lucky charm, I think. Come into my office. Bring your tablet. Can you work late tonight?”

I followed him over, catching on to his excitement. “Sure.”

“I’d hoped you’d say that.” He sank into his chair.

I took the one I’d sat in the day before and quickly opened a notepad program.

“So,” he began, “we’ve received an RFP for Kingsman Vodka and they mentioned me by name. First time that’s ever happened.”

“Congratulations!”

“I appreciate that, but let’s save them for when we’ve actually landed the account. We’ll still have to bid, if we get past the request for proposal stage, and they want to meet with me tomorrow evening.”

“Wow. Is that timeline usual?”

“No. Usually they’d wait until we had the RFP finished before meeting with us, but Cross Industries recently acquired Kingsman and C.I. has dozens of subsidiaries. That’s good business if we can get it. They know it and they’re making us jump through hoops, the first of which is meeting with me.”

“Usually there would be a team, right?”

“Yes, we’d present as a group. But they’re familiar with the drill—they know they’ll get the pitch from a senior executive, then end up working with a junior like me—so they picked me out and now they want to vet me. But to be fair, the RFP provides a lot more information than it asks for in return. It’s as good as a brief, so I really can’t accuse them of being unreasonably demanding, just meticulous. Par for the course when dealing with Cross Industries.”

He ran a hand over his tight curls, betraying the pressure he felt. “What do you think of Kingsman vodka?”

“Uh…well…Honestly, I’ve never heard of it.”

Mark fell back in his chair and laughed. “Thank God. I thought I was the only one. Well, the plus side is there’s no bad press to get over. No news can be good news.”

“What can I do to help? Besides research vodka and stay late?”

His lips pursed a moment as he thought about it. “Jot this down…”

We worked straight through lunch and long after the office had emptied, going over some initial data from the strategists. It was a little after seven when Mark’s smartphone rang, startling me with its abrupt intrusion into the quiet.

Mark activated the speaker and kept working. “Hey, baby.”

“Have you fed that poor girl yet?” demanded a warm masculine voice over the line.

Glancing at me through his glass office wall, Mark said, “Ah…I forgot.”

I looked away quickly, biting my lower lip to hide my smile.

A snort came clearly across the line. “Only two days on the job, and you’re already overworking her and starving her to death. She’s going to quit.”

“Shit. You’re right. Steve, honey—”

“Don’t ‘Steve honey’ me. Does she like Chinese?”

I gave Mark the thumbs-up.

He grinned. “Yes, she does.”

“All right. I’ll be there in twenty. Let security know I’m coming.”

Almost exactly twenty minutes later, I buzzed Steven Ellison through the waiting area doors. He was a juggernaut of a fellow, dressed in dark jeans, scuffed work boots, and a neatly pressed button-down shirt. Red-haired with laughing blue eyes, he was as good-looking as his partner was, just in a very different way. The three of us sat around Mark’s desk and dumped kung pao chicken and broccoli beef onto paper plates, added helpings of sticky white rice, and then dug in with chopsticks.

I discovered that Steven was a contractor, and that he and Mark had been a couple since college. I watched them interact and felt awe and a dash of envy. Their relationship was so beautifully functional that it was a joy to spend time with them.

“Damn, girl,” Steven said with a whistle, as I went for a third helping. “You can put it away. Where does it go?”

I shrugged. “To the gym with me. Maybe that helps…?”

“Don’t mind him,” Mark said, grinning. “Steven’s just jealous. He has to watch his girlish figure.”

“Hell.” Steven shot his partner a wry look. “I might have to take her out to lunch with the crew. I could win money betting on how much she can eat.”

I smiled. “That could be fun.”

“Ha. I knew you had a bit of a wild streak. It’s in your smile.”

Looking down at my food, I refused to let my mind wander into memories of just how wild I’d been in my rebellious, self-destructive phase.

Mark saved me. “Don’t harass my assistant. And what do you know about wild women anyway?”

“I know some of them like hanging out with gay men. They like our perspective.” His grin flashed. “I know a few other things, too. Hey…don’t look so shocked, you two. I wanted to see if hetero sex lived up to the hype.”

Clearly this was news to Mark, but from the twitching of his lips, he was secure enough in their relationship to find the whole exchange amusing. “Oh?”

“How’d that work out for you?” I asked bravely.

Steven shrugged. “I don’t want to say it’s overrated, ’cause clearly I’m the wrong demographic and I had a very limited sampling, but I can do without.”

I thought it was very telling that Steven could relate his story in terms Mark worked with. They shared their careers with each other and listened, even though their chosen fields were miles apart.

“Considering your present living arrangement,” Mark said to him, catching up a stem of broccoli with his chopsticks, “I’d say that’s a very good thing.”

By the time we finished eating, it was eight and the cleaning crew had arrived. Mark insisted on calling me a cab.

“Should I come in early tomorrow?” I asked.

Steven bumped shoulders with Mark. “You must’ve done something good in a past life to score this one.”

“I think putting up with you in this life qualifies,” Mark said dryly.

“Hey,” Steven protested, “I’m housebroken. I put the toilet seat down.”

Mark shot me an exasperated look that was warm with affection for his partner. “And that’s helpful how?”

Mark and I scrambled all day Thursday to get ready for his four o’clock with the team from Kingsman. We grabbed an information-packed lunch with the two creatives who would be participating in the pitch when it got to that point in the process; then we went over the notes on Kingsman’s Web presence and existing social media outreach.

I got a little nervous when three thirty rolled around because I knew traffic would be a bitch, but Mark kept working after I pointed out the time. It was quarter to four before he bounded out of his office with a broad smile, still shrugging into his jacket. “Join me, Camila.”

I blinked up at him from my desk. “Really?”

“Hey, you worked hard on helping me prep. Don't you want to see how it goes?”

“Yes, absolutely.” I pushed to my feet. Knowing my appearance would be a reflection on my boss, I smoothed my black pencil skirt and straightened the cuffs of my long-sleeved silk blouse. By a random twist of fate, my crimson shirt perfectly matched Mark’s tie. “Thank you.”

We headed out to the elevators and I was briefly startled when the car went up instead of down. When we reached the top floor, the waiting area we stepped into was considerably larger and more ornate than the one on the twentieth. Hanging baskets of ferns and lilies fragranced the air and a smoky glass security entrance was sandblasted with Cross Industries in a bold, masculine font.

We were buzzed in, and then asked to wait a moment. Both of us declined an offer of water or coffee, and less than five minutes after we arrived, we were directed to a closed conference room.

Mark looked at me with twinkling eyes as the receptionist reached for the door handle. “Ready?”

I smiled. “Ready.”

The door opened and I gestured in first. I made sure to smile brightly as I stepped inside…a smile that froze on my face at the sight of the woman rising to her feet at my entrance.

My abrupt stop bottlenecked the threshold and Mark ran into my back, sending me stumbling forward. Dark and Dangerous caught me by the waist, hauling me off my feet and directly into her chest. The air left my lungs in a rush, followed immediately by every bit of common sense I possessed. Even through the layers of clothing between us, her biceps were like stone beneath my palms, her stomach a hard slab of muscle against my own. When she sucked in a sharp breath, my nipples tightened, stimulated by the expansion of her chest.

Oh no. I was cursed. A rapid-fire series of images flashed through my mind, showcasing a thousand ways I could stumble, fall, trip, skid, or crash in front of the sex god over the days, weeks, and months ahead.

“Hello again,” she murmured, the vibration of her voice making me ache all over. “Always a pleasure running into you, Camila.”

I flushed with embarrassment and desire, unable to find the will to push away despite the two other people in the room with her. It didn’t help that her attention was solely on me, her hard body radiating that arresting impression of powerful demand.

“Miss, Jauregui,” Mark said behind me. “Sorry about the entrance.”

“Don’t be. It was a memorable one.”

I wobbled on my stilettos when Jauregui set me down, my knees weakened from the full body contact. She was dressed in black again, with both her shirt and tie in a soft gray. As always, she looked too good.

What would it be like to be that amazing looking? There was no way she could go anywhere without causing a disturbance.

Reaching out, Mark steadied me and eased me back gently.

Jauregis' gaze stayed focused on Mark’s hand at my elbow until I was released.

“Right. Okay then.” Mark pulled himself together. “This is my assistant,

Camila Cabello.”

“We’ve met.” Jauregui pulled out the chair next to hers. “Camila.”

I looked to Mark for guidance, still recovering from the moments I’d spent plastered against the sexual superconductor in Fioravante.

Jauregui leaned closer and ordered quietly, “Sit, Camila.”

Mark gave a brief nod, but I was already lowering into the chair at Jauregui’s command, my body obeying instinctively before my mind caught up and objected.

I tried not to fidget for the next hour as Mark was grilled by Jauergui and the two Kingsman directors, both of whom were attractive brunettes in elegant pantsuits. The one in raspberry was especially enthusiastic about garnering Jauregui’s attention, while the one in cream focused intently on my boss. All three seemed impressed by Mark’s ability to articulate how the agency’s work—and his facilitation of it with the client—created provable value for the client’s brand.

I admired how cool Mark remained under pressure—pressure exerted by Jauregui, who easily dominated the meeting.

“Well done, Mr. Garrity,” Jauregui praised lightly as they wrapped things up. “I look forward to going over the RFP when the time comes. What would entice you to try Kingsman, Camila?”

Startled, I blinked. “Excuse me?”

The intensity of her gaze was searing. It felt as if her entire focus was on me, which only reinforced my respect for Mark, who’d had to work under the weight of that stare for an hour.

Jauregui’s chair was set perpendicular to the length of the table, facing me head-on. Her right arm rested on the smooth wooden surface, her long elegant fingers stroking rhythmically along the top. I caught a glimpse of her wrist at the end of her cuff and for some crazy reason the sight of that small expanse of golden skin with its light dusting of dark hair made my clit throb for attention. she was just so…womanly.

“Which of Mark’s suggested concepts do you prefer?” she asked again.

“I think they’re all brilliant.”

Her beautiful face was impassive when she said, “I’ll clear the room to get your honest opinion, if that’s what it takes.”

My fingers curled around the ends of my chair’s armrests. “I just gave you my honest opinion, Miss. Jauregui, but if you must know, I think sexy luxury on a budget will appeal to the largest demographic. But I lack—”

“I agree.” Jauregui stood and buttoned her jacket. “You have a direction, Mr. Garrity. We’ll revisit next week.”

I sat for a moment, stunned by the breakneck pace of events. Then I looked at Mark, who seemed to be wavering between astonished joy and bewilderment.

Rising to my feet, I led the way to the door. I was hyperaware of Jauregui walking beside me. The way she moved, with animal grace and arrogant economy, was a major turn-on. I couldn’t imagine her not fucking well and being aggressive about it, taking what she wanted in a way that made a woman wild to give it to her.

Jauregui stayed with me all the way to the bank of elevators. She said a few things to Mark about sports, I think, but I was too focused on the way I was reacting to her to care about the small talk. When the car arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief and hastily stepped forward with Mark.

“A moment, Camila,” Jauergui said smoothly, holding me back with a hand at my elbow. “She’ll be right down,” she told Mark, as the elevator doors closed on my boss’s astonished face.

Jauregui said nothing until the car was on its way down; then she pushed the call button again and asked, “Are you sleeping with anyone?”

The question was asked so casually it took a second to process what she’d said.

I inhaled sharply. “Why is that any business of yours?”

She looked at me and I saw what I’d seen the first time we’d met—tremendous power and steely control. Both of which had me taking an involuntary step back. Again. At least I didn’t fall this time; I was making progress.

“Because I want to fuck you, Camila. I need to know what’s standing in my way, if anything.”

The sudden ache between my thighs had me reaching for the wall to maintain my balance. She reached out to steady me, but I held her at bay with an uplifted hand. “Maybe I’m just not interested, Miss, Jauregui.”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips and made her impossibly more handsome. Dear God…

The ding that signaled the approaching elevator made me jump, I was strung so tight. I’d never been so aroused. Never been so scorchingly attracted to another human being. Never been so offended by a person I lusted after.

I stepped into the elevator and faced her.

She smiled. “Until next time, Camila.”

The doors closed and I sagged into the brass handrail, trying to regain my bearings. I’d barely pulled myself together when the doors opened and revealed Mark pacing in the waiting area on our floor.

“Jesus, Camila,” Mark muttered, coming to an abrupt halt. “What the hell was that?”

“I have no freakin’ clue.” I exhaled in a rush, wishing I could share the confusing, irritating exchange I’d had with Jauregui, but well aware that my boss wasn’t the appropriate outlet. “Who cares? You know she’s going to give you the account.”

A grin chased away his frown. “I’m thinking she might.”

“As my roommate always says, you should celebrate. Should I make dinner reservations for you and Steven?”

“Why not? Pure Food and Wine at seven, if they can squeeze us in. If not, surprise us.”

We’d barely returned to Mark’s office when he was pounced on by the executives—Michael Waters, the CEO and president, and Christine Field and Walter Leaman, the executive chairman and vice chairman.

I skirted the four of them as quietly as possible and slid into my cubicle.

I called Pure Food and Wine and begged for a table for two. After some serious groveling and pleading, the hostess finally caved.

I left a message on Mark’s voice mail, “It’s definitely your lucky day. You’re booked for dinner at seven. Have fun!”

Then I clocked out, eager to get home.

“She said what?” Cary sat on the opposite end of our white sectional sofa and shook his head.

“I know, right?” I enjoyed another sip of my wine. It was a crisp and nicely chilled sauvignon blanc I’d picked up on the walk home. “That was my reaction, too. I’m still not sure I didn’t hallucinate the conversation while overdosing on her pheromones.”

“So?”

I tucked my legs beneath me on the couch and leaned into the corner. “So what?”

“You know what, Camila.” Grabbing his netbook off the coffee table, Cary propped it on his crossed legs. “Are you going to tap that or what?”

“I don’t even know her. I don’t even know her first name and she threw that curveball at me.”

“She knew yours.” He started typing on his keyboard. “And what about the thing with the vodka? Asking for your boss in particular?”

The hand I was running through my loose hair stilled. “Mark is very talented. If Jauregui has any sort of business sense at all, she’d pick up on that and exploit it.”

“I’d say she knows business.” Cary spun his netbook around and showed me the home page of Cross Industries, which boasted an awesome photo of the Crossfire. “That’s her building, Camila. Lauren jauregui owns it.”

Damn it. My eyes closed. Lauren Jauregui. I thought the name suited her. It was as sexy and elegantly masculine as the woman himself.

“She has people to handle marketing for her subsidiaries. Probably dozens of people to handle it.”

“Stop talking, Cary”

“She’s hot, rich, and wants to jump your bones. What’s the problem?”

I looked at him. “It’s going to be awkward running into her all the time. I’m hoping to hang on to my job for a long while. I really like it. I really like Mark. He’s totally involved me in the process and I’ve learned so much from him already.”

“Remember what Dr. Travis says about calculated risks? When your shrink tells you to take some, you should take some. You can deal with it. You and Jauregui are both adults.” He turned his attention back to his Internet search. “Wow. Did you know she doesn’t turn thirty for another two years? Think of the stamina.”

“Think of the rudeness. I’m offended by how she just threw it out there. I hate feeling like a vagina with legs.”

Cary paused and looked up at me, his eyes softening with sympathy. “I’m sorry, baby girl. You’re so strong, so much stronger than I am. I just don’t see you carrying around the baggage I do.”

“I don’t think I am, most of the time.” I looked away because I didn’t want to talk about what we’d been through in our pasts. “It’s not like I wanted her to ask me out on a date. But there has to be a better way to tell a woman you want to take her to bed.”

“You’re right. She’s an arrogant douche. Let her lust after you until she has blue balls. Serves her right.”

That made me smile. Cary could always do that. “I doubt that woman has ever had blue balls in her life, but it’s a fun fantasy.”

He shut his netbook with a decisive snap. “What should we do tonight?”

“I was thinking I’d like to go check out that Krav Maga studio in Brooklyn.” I’d done a little research after meeting Parker Smith during my workout at Equinox and as the week passed, the thought of having that kind of raw, physical outlet for stress seemed more and more ideal.

I knew it wouldn’t be anything close to banging the hell outta ofLauren jauregui, but I suspected it would be a lot less dangerous to my health.

#camren #camren fanfiction #lauren jauregui #camila cabello #camren shipper #conversion

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dreamcatcherfication · 5 years

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We Were Only Enemies Before We Truly Met

Anon asked: Could you please do a fic of the queens now a days where Anne has a panic attack (it doesn’t have to be that bad if u don’t want it to be) and maybe one of the queens helping? U can decide where!

Hopefully this is what you wanted anon, and I hope y’all enjoy. Asks are always open, and comments are gladly accepted. Apologies for any spelling/grammatical errors. Also, yes, this is a Halloween fic written in the middle of March, I figured we could all use a little spoopy holiday spirit.

Writing Masterpost

Trigger Warnings: Panic attack, bad Halloween costumes, one (1) rabid Kat.

Anne Boleyn did not like to appear weak or helpless, and that was something she had lived by in both this life and her past life. She was known for making jokes about her beheading with the other queens, and she never let any of history’s words deter her from being herself. Anne Boleyn was strong and smart and brave. But she was also human.

It started out simple enough, Anne had gone out to get another pair of heelys after her last pair broke, walking out on some of the more empty streets. She had a light skip in her step as her eyes shined at the prospect of being returned to her gold chariot of turning wheels. It wasn’t quite evening yet, but the sun had started to set and pedestrians started to thin out as they headed home to their families. It was Halloween time and the majority of people she passed were carrying bags of store bought candy, occasionally followed by a whining child begging for sugar. Anne had texted the others where she was going (at least she hoped so, her mind was off on Cloud 9 imagining being reunited with her heelys again), but otherwise she was practically all alone.

Turning the corner of a particularly long street, Anne came up next to an alleyway by a Halloween shop. It was one of those single dollar type stores that popped up for a month and then disappeared, it’s flickering sign more spooky than the actual decorations. Moving past the Halloween shop, Anne suddenly jerked back in surprise when a bloodcurdling scream came from the alley, followed by the sound effect of something being sliced. Someone came stumbling out of the dark corner and when Anne could finally make them out, she had to choke back a scream of terror in her throat. The person was holding their bloody head in their hands, the neck a severed prop above them. The hands holding the head and the neck were obviously cheap plastic, and the paint posing as blood was chipping, but the damage had already been done.

All air had left Anne’s throat as she stared at the costumed person. They had started laughing after seeing Anne’s shock, but the voice faded out in a blur of white noise as Anne’s chest started to clench. Forcibly pulled back in time, Anne could almost feel the executioner’s blade on her neck, burning away at her skin. Grabbing her neck in pain, Anne started to claw at her choker. Vaguely, she could see her aggressor grow concerned and take a step forward, and that was all Anne needed to regain her senses. Instantly hyper aware of everything around her, Anne took off in a sprint, her body taking over her mind.

As she ran, her surroundings morphed into memories that (no matter how fast she tried) she couldn’t outrun. She saw young Elizabeth asking for her, she saw Henry ordering her execution, she saw the crowds of people cheering for her death. It was a miracle her body was getting enough oxygen to function, much less run from the Halloween shop back to the queen’s house. But the next thing she knew, Anne was ripping open the front door and bolting up to the attic, locking the door behind her. Collapsing onto the floor, Anne curled into a ball as her muscles tensed and spasmed. She barely heard the surprised voices of the other queens over her panic, and they faded into a dull roar.

Every breath was painful, as if it went in her mouth and out her neck, never reaching her lungs. She was stuck in the final moment of her death, her scar burning with the most unimaginable pain. So many reminders of the trauma she had endured came boiling to the forefront of her mind, trampling any positive thoughts that may have been able to soothe her.

“Anne? Anne, can you hear me?” It was undoubtedly one of the queens, but in Anne’s state of panic, she couldn’t identify the voice. “Anne, please open the door so I can help you.”

It took a moment for Anne’s mind to process the request, and then another for her to get her body to respond. With shaky movements, Anne’s hand moved up to the door knob and pulled on it weakly, just enough so that the door would open a sliver. Without a second of hesitation, in stepped Catherine of Aragon, a concerned look upon her face. “Anne…” but she trailed off, unsure of what to say to the distressed queen before her. Quickly making a decision, Aragon got down on her knees and pulled Anne into a hug. At first Anne resisted, pushing at the arms, but eventually she relaxed into them and allowed herself to be held.

“Breathe with me,” Aragon said quietly. With her mind in a haze, Anne could only instinctually do as Aragon asked, copying the rising and falling of the other woman’s chest. They stayed like that for a while, both silently breathing and letting the tension of the room dissipate slowly.

As she came back to her senses, Anne couldn’t help but feel ashamed. “I’m sorry,” she told Aragon.

Furrowing her eyebrows, the Spanish princess asked, “What for? It’s okay to have troubles.”

“No it’s not,” Anne shot back. “I’m Anne Boleyn, the jokester. I’m not weak. I can’t be weak.”

Rubbing her hand up and down Anne’s arm in an attempt to be soothing, Aragon struggled to find the right words. For so long she had resented Anne, but seeing her like this made it impossible for Aragon to hold onto her negative feelings. Anne was just as hurt as she was, likely more, and in all honesty, Aragon couldn’t bring herself to hate Anne like she had in the past. “Having emotions is not weak. We all have our traumas. Do you think Kat or Jane are weak?”

“No.”

Smiling, Aragon explained, “And neither are you, Anne Boleyn. Everybody has emotions and you don’t have to suppress them all the time.”

Shrugging, the beheaded queen stood up and moved across the room to her bed. She sat down on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands. “I shouldn’t have freaked out the way I did. It was only some kid playing a joke.”

Aragon stood up as well, but she didn’t step forward. “What did they do?”

“They jumped out at me wearing a cheap Halloween costume. Fake blood and a severed head. I panicked and I -” much to Anne’s frustration, she choked up once again. Thinking back to it sent fear that she couldn’t control through her entire body.

“A costume in poor taste I’m sure,” Aragon grumbled. “Anne, please don’t blame yourself for panicking. I mean, remember when Kat nearly punched Anna in the face when she -”

“When she brought that giant dog home without warning. Kat was freaked, but then she refused to let the poor thing go,” Anne smiled fondly at the memory.

“Even the smallest of things can trigger bad memories.” Aragon’s eyes were hopeful, praying that she had gotten through to Anne.

There was a moment of silence as Anne contemplated Aragon’s words. She let her eyes slowly wander upwards until she and Aragon were making eye contact. The Spanish princess’s eyes were nothing if not welcoming, a sight Anne wasn’t expecting. “Why are you helping me of all people?”

Opening her mouth and then closing it, Aragon floundered for a proper answer. Migrating over to Anne’s bed, Aragon sighed and sat down next to the younger queen. “You know Anne… I never truly hated you as much as I thought I did. We’ve had a bad past but… we’ve been reincarnated for some reason, and to keep resenting you for something that happened so long ago is selfish. There’s no reason why I can’t help you, so I will. It might seem hard to believe, but I do care about your wellbeing Anne Boleyn.”

Her words were not what Anne expected to hear. Perhaps something like helping the beheaded queen because it would make her look better, not because she genuinely wanted to. Fiddling with her hands, Anne shyly offered, “For what it’s worth… I’m sorry what happened, happened. I didn’t mean for it all to get so out of hand.”

“The past is the past,” the Spanish princess said. “Right now, I’m here for you Anne. As long as you need me.”

In a moment of impulse, Anne launched herself into Aragon’s arms and hugged her tight. The older queen was surprised at first, but she sunk into the hug. “Thank you Catherine. Just… thank you.”

Aragon said nothing, but she held Anne tightly to her chest. “If anything like this ever happens again, I’m here for you Anne. We’re all here for you. We love you Anne.”

Pausing and pulling back from the hug, Aragon was met with Anne’s trademark mischievous smirk. There were still tear tracks on her face, but the familiar light had returned to Anne’s eyes. “You loooove me?”

Rolling her eyes, Aragon played along with the cheeky queen. “Now now, I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d get all full of yourself.”

Dramatically, Anne pretended to be hurt by Aragon’s words. “How you wound me, Princess Catalina. First a proclamation of love and now an insult to my worldly honor?!” Aragon lightly slapped Anne’s arm, causing the two of them to start giggling like children. Eyes going wide, Anne groaned in annoyance. “Dammit, I forgot my heelys!” She smacked her forehead and made an array of frustrated sounds. “Now I have to wait until tomorrow to get them back. What am I supposed to do without them? I can’t keep walking around like a peasant.”

Slowly, Anne turned her head towards Aragon, a curious glint in her eyes. “No Anne, I’m not going to carry you on my back until you can get your heelys.”

“But you do it with Kitty!” Anne complained.

“Yes, because she’s at least twenty pounds lighter than you and a teenager.” Grumbling good naturedly, Anne shot the older queen a fake glare. But soon enough a grin grew back on her face, revealing her true feelings. “Are you ready to head back down with the others?” Aragon asked with a small smile, a warm and inviting expression Anne would have never imagined seeing before today.

Nodding, the younger queen stood up from the bed. “If I don’t go down there now, who’s going to eat all the chocolates?”

“Anne that’s not what I said -”

“But it’s what I heard ~” Anne replied in a sing-song voice. First wiping the tear tracks from her face, the beheaded queen happily exited the room followed by Aragon. Anne made her way down the stairs, practically taking two at a time. Reaching the bottom of the steps she spread her arms and announced, “Boleyn has returned!”

This was immediately followed by a loud, “Annie!” from Kat across the room. Before she could even register it, Kat had slammed full force into Anne, knocking her back until they were a heap on the floor. Aragon was staring at the cousins in utter shock whilst Jane looked concerned for their safety and Anna simply stifled a laugh.

Grinning broadly, Anne embraced her cousin as they lay on the floor together surrounded by the other queens. Cathy came into Anne’s line of sight, standing over her with a mug of coffee in one hand and a book under her arm. She quirked an eyebrow up and stated, “I guess it isn’t a family reunion without someone almost getting hurt. I’m glad you’re okay, Anne.”

All the Boleyn girl did in response was shoot Cathy a wink.

#six the musical fanfiction #six the musical fanfic #six fanfiction #six fanfic #anne boleyn #catherine of aragon #katherine howard #she's a minor character but #I should probably tag her still #panic attacks #anon ask #oh yeah i forgot to add #its Halloween #in the middle of March #whoops

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rivkahstudies · 5 years

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Hi, i've been having big troubles with wanting to be better at academia and stuff but im not really sure how to get started... i sorta feel like an imposter a lot but im trying to not let it affect me but sometimes i just have moments of excruciating executive dysfunction where i can't move because I want to do so many things and my body is fighting against me... Idk if i even have a question really but it feels better to tell you this... i really look up you a lot and have for a long time...

Hi nonnie! It’s incredibly brave of you to drop this in my inbox. Yes, even anonymously. It takes a lot to even type that kind of honesty out. So thank you, and I hope you take a moment to thank yourself.

Secondly, thank you for touching my heart by your kind words. I hope you realize as you look up to me that I have the same kind of feelings, as do many studyblrs–and I’m dedicated to being honest about it so you don’t feel as if you have to live up to a perfect (and impossible, and fake) standard. I go to therapy regularly despite being in a lot better place than I used to be, because it’s almost like going for a mental check-up or gym session, and my therapist helps me sort through even tiny things so I can build better habits and mindsets. But I still remember feelings of dysfunction well, and I still battle with imposter syndrome!

The most important key ideas here are attainable goals and self talk. Both of these ideas don’t come easily, they do take work, but they’re tools that make other difficult things easier over time, with persistence.

When your body is fighting you (and really, more than anything with executive dysfunction, your mind is fighting you and making your body less functional), even baby steps can be difficult. For you, it could be anything from exercising to studying to eating to showering. Big or small, it’s totally valid that you may or may not struggle with it, and it doesn’t make you desperate for attention, or fake, or pathetic.

Let’s take your desire to “get better at academia.” That could mean a lot of things, so I’m going to latch onto one facet of it as an example. If it doesn’t apply with that exact example, that’s completely okay! Just alter it to apply to what you are struggling with, or desiring.

1. Big, abstract goal: to get better at academia

2. What that means (for this example): developing better study habits

3. What kind of things constitute that? That’s still a big, abstract goal that sounds quite formidable and unattainable. List out as many things as you can that you are striving to do or would want to try. Not everything might work for you!

Managing time better

scheduling study time

being accountable via apps or with family/friends

being efficient or effective (i.e. not getting distracted

Finding study habits that work for you and for the class’ requirements

flashcards

typed computer notes

handwritten computer notes

handwritten paper notes

infographics

youtube videos

interactive online exercises

conversations with classmates, tutors, or professors

podcasts

mind maps

journal entries

presentations

self-made study guides

practice tests (self-made or provided, online or on paper)

Feynman’s technique–writing a summary of what you’re studying, and then comparing it to the actual material. Whatever is missing is what you need to focus on, because my mantra is that it will always appear on the test.

ranking the subjects or topics by what you know most to least and studying from the bottom up. I can post a more detailed guide to this if you want! just hit me up again.

Also changing the way you treat and care for yourself

setting a stable routine

eating better (this means different things for different people–maybe you need more Vitamin C, so you should focus on more fruits in your diet, or iron, so vegetables, etc… consult with a doctor or registered dietician, not a nutritionist since they don’t have to have a degree or certification)

going to bed at a routine time

if you have to choose one, make the wake up time set. that way, if you do go to bed late but wake up at that time, it’ll reset your body clock to be sleepier earlier the next day. it’ll eventually even itself out.

drinking more water

setting up or revising your skin care routine

taking measured and unmeasured breaks away from studying to allow the information to set in your brain and to give your mind and body a much-needed reprieve

setting limits on how much screentime you want yourself to add

Self-talk

This is the big one I want to impart on you before this post is over.

You can’t just try to implement these better habits. You also have to focus on what you’re thinking when you’re doing or not doing them, and how you’re psychologically treating yourself. This isn’t easy! It takes a lot of time. And that’s okay. You aren’t going to be free of this stuff overnight. I’ve been working on this stuff actively since I was about 17 and I’m still struggling with it. But I’m also much better at addressing it than I was almost three years ago.

Be aware

Recognize when you’re treating yourself harshly. Acknowledge those times you say “I’m not good enough” in the very back of your mind. Because a lot of times we aren’t even fully conscious of how much we say “I hate myself” or “I’m stupid” or “I can’t do this.”

Once you’ve done that, start calling attention to it.

Hold yourself accountable. If this were someone hurting a friend of yours, you would likely be calling them out for the whole world to know their cruel behavior isn’t acceptable. It’s the same thing for yourself! Those awful thoughts in your brain might live there from self-doubt, mental illness, or other reasons, but you do get to decide if they pilot your actions and your mentality, even if they’re whispering awful things about how you don’t have a choice but letting them be in control.

I will freely admit on here that I’m attending therapy, because I seek to destigmatize it. I’m not at rock bottom. I’m not pathetic. I just noticed some things about me that I need to change, heal, and/or improve, and I wanted a professional to help me! Much like if I sprained my ankle or got a cold and needed to see a doctor. And one of the things that my therapist told me was as much as my anxiety felt debilitating, I am the one piloting my body and I am the one who gets to decide whether my self-talk is going to change.

And do it gently.

Not “you’re an awful person for saying these things about yourself.” You don’t solve bullying with bullying, and you definitely don’t solve putting yourself down or feeling like an imposter but doing more of the same. Instead, show compassion to yourself.

Have a conversation with yourself.

“Why do I feel like this?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“What makes me say that?”

“What can I say instead?”

“What would make me feel better?”

“What could change my mindset about this problem?”

The choice is up to you how you do it. But pretend you’re pulling someone who is misbehaving or acting cruel aside, and instead of reprimanding them, you just gently put your hand on their shoulder and say, “I’m here. What’s going on? What’s causing this behavior?”

Do the same exact thing with yourself! Offer that compassionate hand. If you’re anything like me, your imposter system is probably coming from undue pressure on yourself, self-doubt, previous bad experiences, fear of failure or rejection, insecurity, anxiety, or any number of other things that could make you doubt your beauty, your talent, your work ethic, your ability to succeed.

And a lot more people have it than you think! Just don’t compare yourself to others when, even if you know them well, you can’t know them 100%. I’m sharing my experiences because I want you to know that you’re not alone. And I also want you to know that you can only fix yourself, you can only control yourself, and the same goes for others–they have no business (and probably aren’t thinking of having any business) judging you or controlling you. If they are, screw them. Your job is to take care of and focus on yourself.

Once you know where it’s coming from, start substituting the language.

You can’t do this. “You may not be able to do this yet, but with some effort, you’ll be able to–or, you’ll be close to being able to.”

You’re a failure. “Everyone makes mistakes or fails. It doesn’t define you.”

It was just luck that got you this far. “It was hard work, passion, and effort. Keep hanging onto those things.”

You’re not good enough. “You are enough, and you don’t exist for others. You exist for yourself.”

People will get bored of you. “You don’t exist to entertain or please others.”

There’s a million more I could go through, but hopefully these examples are enough for you to apply it to your own doubts.

This might be a good exercise to journal. Because then you actually have to get the thoughts out instead of them staying scrambled in your brain. Feel free to do a bulleted guide for yourself like this one!

Etc, etc, etc… Any one of these single bullets could be an entirely distinct post, but I hope this is enough to start you off, nonnie. I want to apologize for taking my sweet time responding, but I really hope you’re still out there, somewhere on tumblr, and you see this post. You are loved, nonnie, especially by me, and I’m always here if you need something. If you message me again, call yourself something, like “self talk nonnie,” so I know I’m still talking to you.

You are all loved! You are all enough! You are all valuable and beautiful as long as you stay true to yourselves.

#anonymous #rivkah answers #my advice #executive dysfunction #studying with mental illness #imposter syndrome #mental illness #studying #student #studyblr

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ceealaina · 5 years

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Title: In My Dreams I Turn You On - Chapter 3 Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A3 - Free Ship: WinterIron Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Alternate Universe - No Powers Summary: Tony’s crushing hard on his new massage therapist, but doesn’t want to be a sleazy businessman. Bucky’s crushing hard on his latest client, but doesn’t want to take advantage of him in a vulnerable position. So they handle it like any sane adults - pretend it’s not happening and refuse to discuss it. At least they both have terrible friends to help them through it. Word Count: 17,235 Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

It had taken some doing, but with a quick rundown to Rhodey — who had fallen off the couch he’d laughed so hard — Sam had managed to talk Bucky into joining them at the gala. Tony was busy making the CEO rounds, hadn’t made his way over to them, or even spotted them, but they’d seen him once or twice. Bucky had sounded like he’d been punched in the gut the first time, eyes focusing in on Tony’s ass like they were laser targeted.

“Oh man,” Rhodey laughed, shaking his head as he sipped on his champagne. He patted Bucky on the back consolingly. “You’ve got it bad, huh?”

Bucky just whined, raking his hands through his hair. “He’s just so handsome,” he sighed, watching as Tony walked across the room.

Sam shook his head, pulling the champagne flute out of Bucky’s hand and knocking the rest of it back himself. “Okay, you’re cut off. Can’t go talk to him if you’re fall-down drunk.”

Bucky stared at him with wide eyes. “I can’t go talk to him!” he hissed.

Sam just shook his head, leaning into the arm Rhodey had around his waist and resting his head on his shoulder. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I can’t believe this is the guy that Tony’s so in love with,” he added, body shaking when Rhodey burst out into loud laughter.

And that made Tony look over, eyes crinkling happily at the familiar sound of Rhodey’s laughter. And then he did a double take, eyes going absolutely enormous as he realized who they were standing with. Rhodey was still snickering as they watched Tony stammer out an excuse to the group of executives and practically stumble his way over to them.

“Hey,” he said, waving vaguely at Sam and Rhodey, sounding breathless. His eyes were trained on Bucky a small smile playing over his lips like he couldn’t believe he was there. “Hi,” he added before staring back and forth between the three of them. “You know each other?”

“Wait…” Bucky’s eyes shot over to where Sam and Rhodey were snickering loudly. “You know each other?”

They both looked utterly lost, and Rhodey took pity on them, elbowing Sam when he was laughing too hard to speak. “Tones, Tones, this--” He gestured dramatically at Bucky. “Is Sam’s best friend, Bucky.”

Tony’s eyes grew impossibly wider. “You’re Bucky??”

Rhodey choked on another snort of laughter. “And Bucky, this is my best friend, Tony. Stark.”

“See?” Tony yelped, turning on Rhodey because his brain couldn’t focus on the real issue at hand right now. “See, I told you to let me throw your wedding. This is what happens when you elope! I would have met him two years ago if you’d just had an actual wedding instead of eloping to Niagara like a couple tacky tourists.”

Bucky looked like he was maybe having a heart attack, it was hard to say for sure. “You said he was a mechanic,” he said, voice sounding strangled. “And then Sam started laughing, but I thought that meant he was a bad mechanic, not, you know… Not a mechanic.”

“Hey!” Tony protested. “I’m a mechanic! Wait, what do you mean, you thought I was a bad mechanic?”

“Oh no!” Bucky’s eyes went wide, mouth twisting into a grimace. “I’m sorry, I mean… I didn’t mean like that, I’m sure you’re a great mechanic.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “You can’t be a worse mechanic than I am massage therapist,” he added.

Tony frowned at him. “What do you mean? You’re a great massage therapist! You’re amazing!”

“Yeah, so amazing that I’m spending half our sessions thinking about how bad I wanna fuck you,” he grumbled, before promptly choking on air as he realized exactly what he’d said. “I mean… Oh god.”

Standing forgotten beside them, Sam snorted again before leaning in close to Rhodey. “I think it’s gonna take awhile,” he told him. “We could probably come back.” He made a show of looking Rhodey up and down, licking his lips as his eyes lingered on Rhodey’s throat. “Wanna go… Refresh our drinks?” he offered, grinning when Rhodey nodded enthusiastically.

Tony was staring at Bucky in shock, still not fully processing what was happening right now, and Bucky immediately went into panic mode.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, not even noticing as Sam and Rhodey snuck off. “I… I’ll hand in my resignation immediately, that’s so inappropriate, oh my god.”

“No!” Tony said quickly, finally snapping back into focus. “No, it’s okay. You don’t have to quit. It’s fine!”

“It’s not fine! That’s such a breach of trust. You’re in a position of vulnerability, and… I mean, I know I didn’t do anything, but that’s still such an abuse of power, and --,”

He cut himself off abruptly as Tony suddenly started laughing, the sound closer to a giggle. Even in the midst of his panic, Bucky had the stray thought that the sound was absolutely adorable. He blinked at him.

“Are you… Are you laughing at me?”

Tony immediately clapped his hand over his mouth, shaking his head. “No!” he insisted, reaching out to grab Bucky’s wrist, like he thought he might try and leave. His hand was warm, fingers calloused, and Bucky nearly shivered at the contact. “I’m not… I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing because I was literally thinking the exact same thing. That it would be an abuse of power because, well… Technically I’m your employer.”

His eyes were trained on Bucky’s, but his thumb was tracing a delicate line over Bucky’s wrist, distracting him, and Bucky shook his head. “No, it’s different. You’re not my direct supervisor, and…” He trailed off as he realized exactly what Tony had said. “Wait, what?”

Tony shrugged, a soft smile playing over his lips. “Uh, surprise? Apparently we’re both a couple of clueless idiots.”

“Holy shit,” Bucky breathed. He twisted his wrist to catch Tony’s hand. “Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath and rubbing his prosthetic hand over his mouth. “Okay. Tony, I’m afraid that, effective immediately, I can no longer be your massage therapist. I’ll be transferring your file back over to Louise on Monday morning.” Then he grinned wide. “Now, can I please buy you a drink?”

Tony grinned, looking absolutely delighted. “You know the drinks are free, right?” he couldn’t resist teasing.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

***

When Rhodey and Sam returned half an hour later, Bucky and Tony were sitting side-by-side at a table, barely-touched glasses between them, talking animatedly about something or other.

“Oh my god,” Sam groaned exaggeratedly, still a little giddy. “You two are still here? You didn’t immediately run off to ravish each other?”

Tony turned to give him a dirty look, and his eyes caught on their mussed clothing, Sam’s tie shoddily tied and crooked, the hickey on Rhodey’s neck. “Oh my god. Really?”

Rhodey just arched his eyebrows back at him. “Not the thing to focus on, Tones,” he returned, giving a pointed glance between the two of them as he curled an arm around Sam’s waist. “Are you two gonna kiss, or should we go... ‘refresh our drinks’ again?”

“God, I hate you,” Tony muttered. But then he looked over at Bucky, his eyes catching on his lips, delighting in the way that Bucky flushed a little and bit at his lower lip. Grinning, Tony shifted forward and curled his hand around Bucky’s neck, leaning in to kiss him gently. The gentleness lasted only a minute before Bucky was making a soft, desperate noise, tongue coming out to trace over the seam of his lips, and then Tony was kicking his chair away to stand up and move closer, tipping Bucky’s head back as his other hand threaded through his hair. Bucky moaned, and his hands moved to grip Tony’s hips, pulling him in close between his legs, neither of them seeming to notice that they were still in the middle of a party.

“There we go,” Rhodey said.

“Annnnd that’s our queue to leave,” Sam added, hauling Rhodey away. “Get a room!” he added over his shoulder.

Neither Bucky nor Tony seemed to actually hear him, but Tony did pull back, grinning down at Bucky while he stared up at him with wide eyes. He scratched his fingers over Bucky’s scalp, and Bucky shivered at the touch. He hands clenched around Tony’s hips again, sliding slightly lower and stopping just shy of squeezing his ass. Tony drew in a shivering breath, and dropped back into his chair only to pull it close and lean into Bucky’s space.

“Does it make me a complete cockhound if I wanna leave with you, like… Right now?” he asked, voice rough. His hand settled high on Bucky’s thigh, thumb tracing over the seam of his pants.

“Oh god,” Bucky muttered, swallowing hard. He huffed out slightly stupid laugh. “Do I look like the kinda guy who cares, Tony? Also, I kinda figured that’s what I was getting into. Your reputation does proceed you, ya know?”

“True, fair, valid, all good points,” Tony was nodding enthusiastically, his thumb moving closer and closer to Bucky’s cock, half hard in his dress pants. “But, uh…” He ducked his head a little. “Don’t believe everything you read,” he added softly, giving Bucky a crooked smile. “I do have a squishy, candy centre.”

Bucky arched a brow, smirking at him. “Now that I know you’re the mechanic that Sam and Rhodey are always talking about, I have a suspicion.” He narrowed his eyes then, tilting his head as he considered Tony. “And what’s the back half of the joke, there?”

Tony smiled serenely back at him, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. “Wanna get out of here and see how many licks it takes to get to said squishy, candy centre?”

Bucky made an involuntary, punched out noise. “Yes. Yes, please.”

Tony beamed back at him, and then seemed to realize there was still a party going on around them. “Shit, okay. I just gotta…” He leaned in and gave Bucky a quick kiss, lingering just a second longer than he’d obviously intended. “Wait right here,” he said, still grinning a little stupidly. “I’ll be right back.”

He was gone before Bucky could say a word, and he took advantage of the moment to take a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He had a glass of ice water on the table, sweating in the warmth of the room, and Bucky sipped at it, his eyes automatically tracking Tony as he maneuvered around people and tables. He watched as Tony tracked down a gorgeous red-headed woman, pulling her in close and murmuring something in her ear. He had half a second to feel jealous before her eyes went wide, and then her gaze landed on Bucky on return, and she smiled wide. Shaking her head, she leaned back to say something to Tony in return and then kissed his cheek. Tony beamed and then he was darting back over to Bucky, bypassing a group of important looking men and fiddling on his cell phone at the same time.

“Okay!” he said, grabbing Bucky’s hand and pulling him out of the chair with surprising strength. “Follow me, quickly, before anybody else decides to try and network.” He gave an exaggerated shudder at the thought and grinned before hauling Bucky around the outside of the room and then out an unnoticed side door, leading him down a back staircase. Bucky couldn’t help laughing, reeling with the excitement of sneaking around.

“You do this often?” he asked, light and teasing.

Tony cast a look at him over his shoulder. “Less often than you might think.” He turned back completely to give him a quick kiss, humming when Bucky’s hands grabbed his hips, pulling him in for a longer one before he could pull away. “But,” he added. “It doesn’t hurt to have an escape route for when those rich old octogenarians start getting a little too handsy.”

He grinned when Bucky barked out a surprised laugh, then gave his hand another tug.

“Come on, baby. I promise I’ve got somewhere much more comfortable than a dingy stairwell to make out in.”

Bucky grinned right back at him and then they were hurrying back down the stairs, coming out into a side street where there was a limo waiting. Tony shooed him into the backseat first, climbing in so close behind that he was practically on top of him.

“Home please,” he called, eyes locked on Bucky’s. “And, uh, Happy? Don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going to be closing the partition.”

“I’d prefer it, boss!” the driver tossed back cheerfully.

The second they were underway, Tony turned to face Bucky expectantly, waiting less than a second before he was leaning in to kiss him. He pressed in so close he was half on him, and in the relative privacy of the car, Bucky didn’t hesitate to grab his ass, gripping tight and hauling him in closer. He felt Tony’s lips curl into a smile against his own, and then he shifted so he was on top of Bucky, straddling his thighs. He rocked down against him, half hard cocks grinding together, and Bucky had to break away from the kiss to tip his head back against the seat, trying to catch his breath. This didn’t deter Tony at all, who took advantage of the new position to leave little nipping bites on Bucky’s throat.

“Good Christ,” Bucky breathed, shivering when Tony’s teeth dragged over his adam’s apple.

Tony did pull back then, looking entirely too smug. “Everything you thought it would be?” he asked, batting his eyelashes a little ridiculously and fuck, Bucky was maybe in love with him.

“Better,” he promised fervently. His voice was little more than a hoarse growl, and he didn’t miss the way that Tony’s eyes darkened with interest at the sound.

“Well.” Tony’s eyes were caught on his lips again, tongue flicking out like all he could think about was tasting them. “I do my best.”

“Fuck, come here,” Bucky groaned, squeezing his ass again and pulling at him until they were pressed together, chest to chest. He wrapped his arms tight around him, using his strength to rock Tony in his lap, and the other man seemed to melt against him.

“Oh fuck,” Tony moaned. “I’ve been dreaming about you doing that for months.”

“Yeah?” Bucky moved him again, this time grinding his hips up against Tony in the process. “Like that?”

Tony keened, loud enough that Bucky legitimately worried that the driver — Happy — might have heard. “Fuck. Your goddamn arms, James.”

“Oh god,” It was less sexy, this time, and Bucky pulled back, shaking his head with a grin around his lips. “Don’t call me James. Please don’t call me James. Nobody calls me James, not even my ma.”

Tony leaned back too, grinning when Bucky’s hands held his weight so he didn’t tip off his lap completely. He gave him a perplexed look. “What else am I supposed to call you?” Then he made an exaggerated face. “Oh. Oh no. Tell me I’m not supposed to call you Bucky.”

Bucky just gave him a half shrug and a crooked smile. “‘S my name, sweetheart. James just feels weird.”

“It’s how you introduced yourself to me!”

“I was being professional! Nobody’s gonna take me seriously in my job if I’m going by Bucky.”

“But they’ll take you seriously in bed? Your logic is flawed, Barnes.” Tony was laughing though, a twinkle in his eyes, and he gave a heavy sigh. “Fine. But I can’t be held responsible for any slip ups. I’ve been imagining calling your name in bed for quite some time now.”

“God, you’re a menace.”

Bucky wasn’t even sure how he made it back to Stark Tower without him completely losing it in the back seat, but the next thing he knew, the car was pulling to a stop in the garage. Tony pulled away from him with dazed eyes, blinking like he’d forgotten where they were entirely. It was a good look on him.

“Right,” Tony said. “We’re here.” He shook his head then, trying to get his bearings. “God, you make me stupid,” he said, laughing. “Come on, let’s go.”

He pulled Bucky out of the car. There was no sign of Happy, and Bucky had a brief moment to wonder if he’d run away that quickly, or was just hiding out in the driver’s seat until the coast was clear, before Tony was practically shoving him into a small elevator.

“Private elevator,” he explained when it started to move without any buttons or voice commands. “Goes straight to the penthouse.” He was blatantly looking Bucky up and down, practically vibrating, like he was itching to touch but knew if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop himself again.

Bucky could relate.

The elevator shot to the top of the building in what was probably record time, and Bucky stepped out into a living room area. He’d known who Tony was, obviously, but he still couldn’t help the way his jaw dropped at the wall of glass looking out over the city.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “What an incredible view.”

“Yeah,” Tony said from just behind him, and Bucky could hear the smirk in his voice. “View’s incredible.”

Bucky glanced over to find Tony blatantly checking out his ass. He lifted his eyes, arching a brow at Bucky with a wicked grin on his lips, and Bucky shook his head.

“Menace,” he repeated, moving closer to back Tony against the wall. He shoved a thick thigh between Tony’s legs, rocking it against his hard cock and smirking at the way his eyes rolled black, breath escaping in a shuddering exhale. “You got a bedroom in this fancy-ass joint?” he asked, leaning in close enough that his lips were almost pressing against Tony’s with every word.

Tony shivered, but then he was grinning right back. “You sure you don’t want a drink or something first?”

Bucky groaned, dropping his forehead to rest against Tony’s shoulder. “You make me wait much longer and I might start to cry.”

“Well that certainly wouldn’t be sexy,” he agreed with a stupid little giggle, even though that barely qualified as a joke.

Bucky adored him.

“Follow me, handsome,” he said, catching Bucky’s hand and pulling him down a hall and through a doorway.

The view from the bedroom was no less spectacular, but Bucky was more stuck on Tony’s ass as he moved down the hall in front of him, and then the frankly ridiculously enormous bed sitting in front of them.

He felt a little thrill go through his stomach, the idea that they were actually doing this, after months of pining and thinking that it would never happen. “Jesus, okay,” he said, feeling just the slightest hint of overwhelmed. “How, uh. How do you want to do this?”

Tony smiled at him, like he could tell how Bucky was feeling. “Well I, for one, have been itching to see you naked, hot stuff. Seems only fair, really, after all the times you’ve seen me in nothing but my skivvies.”

Bucky flushed a little, thinking of the time that Tony’s ‘skivvies’ had consisted of nothing but a bright red thong. “That’s different,” he protested. ‘I was working.”

“Uh huh.” Tony sat on the end of the bed, legs spread wide, and Bucky’s mouth went dry as his eyes were drawn to the bulge of his cock, marring the line of his dress pants. “Except you already told me about all the dirty thoughts you were having while ‘working,’ so you want to try that excuse again?” He shifted his hips a little, moving a hand to stroke himself through the fabric. “Come on, handsome. Give me a little show?”

Bucky felt flushed and hot all over, but Tony was looking at him so hungrily that he couldn’t help the surge of confidence that went through him. He took a couple steps back until he was just out Tony’s reach and then met his gaze steadily, slipping out of his suit jacket. It came off easily, despite his tendency to get stuck in the arm even when he wasn’t nervous as all hell, and he couldn’t help being relieved. Dropping the fabric to pool on the ground, he dragged his hands up his sides before moving to undo the buttons of his shirt. He could feel his nipples peaked against the silky fabric, and he made a point of dragging his thumbs over them, choking off a moan at the sensation that spiked through him.

“Oh yeah,” Tony breathed, his voice rough. “You like that, huh?”

Bucky nodded, pinched until his eyes rolled back. “Yeah,” he admitted, voice breathier than he’d intended. “A lot.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m going to have fun with you.” is

Bucky felt a jolt of desire go through him at that thought, his cock jerking in his boxers, and he moved back to the buttons, unfastening them quickly now, until he was shrugging off his shirt and left in just his tank top and dress pants. Tony looked him over, leaning back a little on the bed, right hand rubbing over his clothed cock.

“I like this,” he told him. “It’s a good look on you. Like you’re right out of the thirties, or something.”

Bucky couldn’t help grinning at that, let his hand slide over his hip and tease the bottom of his shirt up. He liked working out, he knew how nice the cut of his hips looked. Sure enough, Tony’s tongue flicked out of his lip before he chewed at it, swallowing hard.

“Come on. Don’t be a tease.”

Bucky snorted, but his dick was aching and he just wanted Tony to touch him. He tugged the shirt up hastily over his head, shaking out his hair as he was left bare chested. Before Tony could say another word, he was moving to undo his pants with slightly fumbling fingers. He kicked them off quickly, toeing off his socks in the process. Then, when he was left in nothing more than his boxer briefs, he finally looked back up at Tony with a crooked grin.

He was expecting more teasing, another snarky comment, but the look on Tony’s face sent a shiver up his spine. Tony was staring at him, slack jawed, eyes running up and down Bucky’s body like he couldn’t figure out where he should look first. His hand squeezed around his dick and he gave a low moan, hips jerking up at the touch.

“Oh fuck,” he muttered, swallowing hard. “Sweetheart, come here.” Then he was reaching out, making grabby hands in Bucky’s direction, and Bucky was helpless to resist.

He moved towards him, letting his hips swagger just a little, and his grin grew wider when he saw Tony’s eyes zero in the on the movement. But the second he was close enough, Tony’s hands were closing tight over his hips, yanking him in between his spread legs. Tony moaned softly, leaning in and scraping his teeth over Bucky’s lower abdomen, and Bucky groaned, felt his abs clench as he tipped his back and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“Gotta…” Tony’s voice cracked, and he cleared it, tried again. “Gotta let me blow you, honey, please. You have any idea how badly I… Every time you were giving me a massage, when you came up around the head of the table, all I could think was how easily I could suck you off, how much I wanted to.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky swore. “Good thing I already fired you as my client. I’d never be able to get through another session, now that I know that.”

Tony grinned up at him, eyes crinkling in delight, and then his smile turned wicked and he mouthed his way lower down Bucky’s stomach, until his chin was bumping the tip of his cock.

“Come on, Bucky,” he purred, teasing over his skin. “Tell me I can.”

“Yes,” Bucky said quickly. “Yes, fuck, ‘course you can.”

Tony positively beamed, and then Bucky was whining as he pulled away entirely, tipping forward without Tony’s grip keeping himself upright. He caught himself on the edge of the bed, watching as Tony turned around to crawl up the length of the mattress and dig through the bedside table. Bucky’s gaze caught on his ass, perfectly framed in his dress pants, and he groaned again.

“Oh my god,” he muttered, moving to sit on the side of the bed before his legs gave out entirely. “I’m gonna die.”

Tony huffed out a laugh, and then he came back over, condoms in one hand, lube in the other. “Well,” he said, stepping off the bed to loom over him, tossing the items on the mattress beside Bucky. “At least try and hold out for the fun stuff.”

Then he was dropping to his knees, shoving his way between Bucky’s spread thighs, and leaning forward to mouth at him through his boxers. His mouth was warm and wet, the sensation dampened through the material, and Bucky cursed again. Something about Tony on his knees, still fully dressed was especially appealing to some primal part of Bucky, and his cock jerked. He could feel a drop of pre-come sliding down his length and then further, following the seam of his balls. Tony leaned back again, looking extremely pleased with himself, and then he was tugging at the waistband of his shorts, poking at Bucky until he lifted his hips so Tony could pull them down his legs.

For just a minute Tony sat back on his heels, staring. “God, look at you,” he breathed. Normally Bucky would have felt self conscious under the heat of his gaze, but instead he found himself almost preening, body heating deliciously under the weight of Tony’s stare. His cock twitched again, and he could tell Tony had noticed by the way his lips curled at the corners. “Eager are we?” he teased, but there was a soft tone to his voice, and an instant later he was reaching for one of the condoms on the bed, opening it and then sliding it down Bucky’s length with efficient, practiced movements.

God, Bucky couldn’t wait until they could do this without anything at all.

The moment Tony’s mouth was closing around the tip of his cock, Bucky was practically wailing. Fuck, he was so good at this, all hot pressure and perfect suction. The muscles in his thighs tightened as he fought the urge to thrust up into Tony’s mouth, his fingers twisting into the sheets so he’d remember to keep his hands to himself. He couldn’t help the way his eyes rolled back, falling shut as Tony pulled back a little, flicking his tongue out to tease at his frenulum, but a second later he was snapping them open again, not wanting to miss this.

Tony was looking up at him, eyes dark and heavy and a hint of a smile playing around the corners of them. He pulled off again with an obscene sound. “God, you’re big,” he hummed, half to himself, and Bucky felt his cock twitch again. Then Tony was smirking up at him. “It’s okay, you know,” he said, voice hoarse and rough already.

Bucky blinked back at him, uncomprehending, and Tony’s grin grew a little more self-satisfied. He picked up Bucky’s hands in each of his, prying them free of the sheets and then moving them to the back of his head, biting down on his lip when the cool metal brushed against the back of his neck. Bucky swallowed hard.

“I like it,” Tony told him. He leaned back in, licked a line down the length of Bucky’s cock, showy and a bit desperate. “Pull my hair, a little. Whatever you want.”

Before Bucky could say another word, he was sucking him down again, steadily, methodically working his way to taking all of Bucky. The tip of his head slid into Tony’s throat and he swallowed around him, and Bucky gasped, twining his fingers in Tony’s hair and tugging reflexively. He had half a second to feel guilty before Tony was groaning around him, sounding so obviously hungry for it even with his mouth full of cock.

“Christ,” Bucky bit out. His hips hitched up despite his best efforts, pushing himself just the slightest bit deeper, and Tony groaned around him again. He had one hand curled around the base of Bucky’s cock, but the other he used to grip at his thigh, pawing needily at the sensitive skin until Bucky rocked up into him again. “Oh fuck me,” Bucky moaned as they settled into a steady rhythm, Tony swallowing greedily around him. “You’re so fucking good, Tony. ‘m not gonna last long.”

Tony hummed encouragingly around him, and Bucky thought he was going to pass out at the rush of pleasure that shot through him. Then Tony’s free hand was slipping off his thigh, sliding between his legs to rub at his own dick, like he was so turned on by sucking Bucky off that he couldn’t wait, and Bucky was gone.

With a slew of curses, he was coming, fingers tangling further in Tony’s hair as the other man teased him through it. Bucky shivered his way through the aftershocks, breath coming in sharp, heavy gasps, until he was oversensitive and twitching and Tony was pulling back, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.

“Holy shit,” Bucky gasped, flopping back on the mattress to stare dazedly up at the ceiling. “That was… Holy shit.”

There was a soft, delighted laugh from Tony, before he crawled up beside him, nuzzling into Bucky’s neck. “Good?” he asked.

“Good doesn’t begin to cover it,” Bucky assured him. “Jus… Jus give me a minute. ‘M all about reciprocation, I swear.”

Tony giggled into his skin, leaning further into him. He shifted so his cock was pressed against Bucky’s hip, rocking into him shamelessly. “Won’t take long,” he admitted, panting against Bucky’s skin. “Christ, you’re gorgeous when you come.” He sucked a mark into the underside of Bucky’s neck. “Want you so bad.”

Bucky grinned at that, and with a carefully placed shove he had Tony on his back, looming over him. Tony went wide eyed at that particular move, and Bucky smirked down at him. A second later though, his face turned distraught. “Good Christ, how are you still dressed?” he asked, not even caring how plaintive he sounded.

Tony just groaned, arching his hips up against him. “Later, baby,” he groaned. “I promise, later I will strip naked, and lay on the bed, and you can stare at me for six hours straight, if you want. But honey, I’ve gotta come like five hours ago.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at him, like Tony being so desperate wasn’t making his own cock give a valiant attempt at getting hard again. “Yeah, alright,” he purred, sliding his hand down Tony’s body to work his pants open. The second he got his hand around him, Tony was melting into the mattress. “Oh fuck,” Bucky murmured. “Look at you, sweetheart.” He closed his hand firmly around him, mouth watering at how thick he was, and the desperate noise Tony made as he started jerking him off with quick, steady motions. “Can’t wait to take my time with you. Lay you out, spread you out on the bed…” He dipped his head, kissing over Tony’s neck. “Take my time with you, drag it out, tease you until you’re screaming for it, can’t remember your own name.”

Tony’s hands grabbed at Bucky’s sides, gripping tight enough to bruise as his back arched in pleasure, head tipping back. “Yes,” he choked out. “Yes, fuck, Bucky please. All of that, I want… I want…”

His words trailed off with a low groan, and when Bucky shifted his weight so he could tease metal fingers up his length, Tony came. He clung tight to Bucky’s body as he did, back arching, eyes squeezing shut, breath coming in thick heavy gasps for air, mixing in with a desperate whine. Bucky stroked him through it, kissing him sweetly in the process.

“Oh fuck,” Tony moaned as the aftershocks finally stopped going through him. Bucky pulled away enough to flop down beside him, and Tony turned his head to beam at him, giving him a slow, lazy kiss. Then he shifted, and his nose wrinkled up in distaste. “Oh fuck,” he said again. “Well, these pants are ruined.”

Bucky burst out laughing at that, and Tony’s smile turned soft and sweet again.

“So, I definitely need a shower. But, uh… Maybe you wanna join me? And uh… I know it’s not usually the done thing after a first date — Does this even count as a first date? I mean, it was more of a right place right time kind of thing, not something that was actually planned. Although, knowing Rhodey and Sam, it actually was completely, totally planned, because they’re assholes like that. Which, hi. You already know that, obviously, because you’re friends with them, and that’s kind of a trip, really. Now I’m trying to think of everything I may have said about you and how embarrassing it was on a scale of one to that time at MIT I was simultaneously drunk and sleep deprived and kind of accidentally robbed the bookstore in nothing but a red thong and the permanent moustache marker that Rhodey drew on my face.” He suddenly clapped both hands over his eyes.”Oh God. I have this thing, when I get nervous, I kind of talk incessantly… Please, why aren’t you saying something? Save me from myself.”

Bucky had been watching his diatribe with a bigger and bigger smile on his face, but at Tony’s desperate plea he leaned in and kissed him quiet, not stopping until they were both out of breath and Tony was giving him that wide-eyed, dazed stare again.

“I would love to stay the night,” he told him, just a little shy. “Uh. That is what you were asking, right?”

Tony’s gave him a bright, open grin. “Yeah, it was. And the fact that you followed that through that entire fucking monologue I gave? I think I lo… like you. A lot.”

“Yeah?” Bucky bit his lip and grinned back. “I think I like you a lot too.” He leaned in, kissing Tony one last time before hauling himself off the bed and pulling Tony along after him. “Come on. I’m looking forward to seeing what fancy rich people’s showers look like. And by the way?” he added, blatantly ogling Tony as he finally stripped out of his clothes. “You’re going to have to tell me how you managed to accidentally rob the bookstore, I kind of insist on it.”

“Aw come on, handsome,” Tony teased, waggling his eyebrows as he sauntered off to the bathroom, blatantly wiggling his hips as he went. “Gotta keep the mystery alive!”

***

A week later, Tony was heading into his favourite open air cafe for a lunchtime date with Bucky when he spotted a familiar blond head.

“Oh hey!” he chirped, sliding easily into the seat opposite to Steve. “I forgot. Thursdays are your day to awkwardly flirt with the waitress, right?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Eat my entire ass,” he returned, just as cheerfully. “We can’t all hook up with our massage therapists.” He gave Tony a fond smile then. “How’s it going with your new boytoy, anyway?”

Tony couldn’t help grinning at just the thought of Bucky; he knew he looked sappy, and he didn’t even care. “Amazing,” he sighed. “He’s meeting me here for lunch, actually, if you want me to introduce you.”

Right on cue -- because they were in sync like that -- Tony spotted said boyfriend walking up the sidewalk toward him.

“Hey baby!” he called, hopping up and waving Bucky over. “Come meet my friend Steve.”

Because he couldn’t resist, he met Bucky halfway, giving him a soft kiss hello before practically dragging him over to Steve’s table.

“Steve, this is --,”

Steve looked up at them and grinned. “Oh! Hey, Buck!”

Tony stared back and forth between the two of them, Steve smiling obliviously and Bucky looking more and more pained.

“You two know each other?” Tony asked faintly.

“Yeah!” Steve told him. “It’s Bucky. You know, my paintball friend? I know I’ve told you about him before. We grew up together? And now we meet up every couple months? Go paintballing or axe throwing or whatever, and -- Ow!” He ducked and winced as both Tony and Bucky simultaneously whacked him on the shoulder.

“What the fuck, Rogers?” Tony demanded. He gestured wildly at Bucky. “This is James, my hot massage therapist! You knew him the entire time?”

Steve offered up his most innocent smile. “Whoops?”

@tonystarkbingo

#tonystarkbingo2020 #tsb2020 #winteriron #tony stark #james barnes #warfalcon #sam/rhodey #sam wilson #james rhodes #mutual pining #fluff #fic #my fic

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mad-madam-m · 5 years

Note

Can you please, please write a full length fic of the extended tags you did for the ‘you didn’t have a trial’ Aziraphale/Crowley piece?

I have enough other stuff to write, so I was going to say no, but 1) this is the second request I’ve gotten for a full(er) fic based on these tags and 2) let’s be real, the amount of prompting I need right now to write a Good Omens fic is approximately zero. So here you go!

“You know, I’ve been meaning toask, what was my trial like?�� Aziraphale asked out of the blue after threebottles of wine.

Crowley fumbled his glass and nearlydropped it, and only a minor demonic miracle kept the wine from splattering allover the sofa. “Er, what?”

“My trial. You know.”Aziraphale pointed upward at the bookshop ceiling and then poured them bothsome more wine. “Up there. I mean, you did say they won’t leave us aloneforever, and much as I want you to be wrong about that, I don’tthink you are. If Gabriel or one of the others mentions something to me, Ishouldn’t like to give the game away if I don’t know what they’re talkingabout.”

Crowley’s throat went suddenly dry,and he drank most of his wine in one swallow. “I mean, I could bewrong. It’s been a few weeks. They may be leaving us alone forgood.”

“Crowley, I know you don’tactually believe that,” Aziraphale said in a manner that meant he wouldn’tbe budged on this topic, and then his face softened into concern. “Mydear, what is it? Was it really that awful?”

There was no way to hide it. And he shouldn’t behiding it, but the instinct he had to protect Aziraphale was strong. Theyboth knew how awful the angels could be, but Aziraphale seemed to cling stubbornlyto the idea that there was still good up there, somehow. And Crowleyhated being put in the position to remind him otherwise.

He sighed and pulled off hissunglasses. The least he could do was do this without any barriers betweenthem. “You didn’t have a trial, angel.”

Aziraphale stared at him, eyes goingever-so-slightly wider than normal. “What?”

Crowley rubbed the bridge of hisnose and looked down at his wine glass. “There wasn’t a trial. They justtied me up in a chair until the demon got there with the hellfire. And thenthey only untied me to tell me to walk into it. No prosecution, no defense, nonothing.” He cleared his throat and finished off the last of his wine.“It was just an execution.”

He looked back up from the glass toAziraphale, who had gone uncharacteristically still. The disbelief on his facefaded as the words sank in, and he looked…

Shattered. Shattered and hollow andmore than a little betrayed.

Crowley hated himself for puttingthat look on his angel’s face, even if he was only the messenger.

Aziraphale blinked quickly andsmiled, but it was only a faint echo of his usual one. “Oh. Well. I reallyshouldn’t be surprised, all things considered. Gabriel isn’t one to let thingslike facts get in the way of his decisions. And it does make thingsa bit easier on me, I suppose. Not much at all to remember, is there?” Hegestured with his glass. “Thank you for telling me, my dear.”

No, Crowley didn’t hate himself. Hehated Gabriel, and if that bastard of an archangel came within a hundredfeet of Aziraphale, Crowley was going to burn him where he stood. He’d do it now ifhe thought it would wipe the broken look off Aziraphale’s face. He’d yank themall out of Heaven in a heartbeat.

But he’d known Aziraphale too long.Revenge wouldn’t fix anything, and Aziraphale would probably be upset with himfor even trying it.

Crowley cast about for an idea,something that would help. “Why don’t we go see a movie? It’sFriday. There’s loads of new ones.”

Aziraphale laughed, although itwasn’t so much of a laugh as a sharp exhale through a smile that was breakingapart. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling much for a movie.”

“Concert?” Crowley suggested.“I think there’s one you’d really love.”

Aziraphale shook his head.

“Opera? They’re doing Carmentonight.” Somebody somewhere would be doing Carmen tonight; Crowleycould find a way to get them there. “Or Hamlet?”

Fuck, he would sit through a hundred performancesof Hamlet if it just meant Aziraphale would smile like normal again.

Aziraphale’s smile trembled, and hestood up from his chair and joined Crowley on the couch. “I think,”he said very softly, “I would just like you to sit with me for abit.”

It was both the simplest thing to doand the hardest thing to do. Crowley switched his glass to his other hand so hecould put his arm on the back of the couch, behind Aziraphale. “Of course,angel.”

Aziraphale shifted closer, andCrowley took the invitation to drop his arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. Hisangel let out a shuddering sigh and leaned fully against him, resting his headon Crowley’s shoulder.

Crowley held him close and pretendedhe didn’t hear it when Aziraphale sniffled. He did, however, mentally catalogall the ways he knew to kill an angel because he would only get the chance touse one of them on Gabriel and he had to pick the best one. Mightas well get started on deciding now, so when the time came, he would be ready.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat together,quiet but for Aziraphale’s shaky breaths. It had to have been awhile, becauseCrowley had finished going through every way he knew of to completely andutterly destroy Gabriel, and had moved on through Uriel and Sandalphon and was workingon Michael just for the hell of it (Michael hadn’t been there, but Michael wasa wanker of the highest order and Crowley would dearly love toshove them into a pillar of fire) when Aziraphale sat up and patted Crowley’sshoulder.

“I’m afraid I’ve made quite amess of your shirt,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Crowley saidquickly. He could not give less of a shit about his shirt. “It’llclean.”

The smile Aziraphale gave him wasstill small, but much closer to his usual one, and the knot of anxiety inCrowley’s chest finally began to loosen. “Well, thank you very much, mydear.”

“Of course.” Crowleyrubbed his thumb along Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Whatever you need.”

It scared him sometimes, the depthwith which he meant that. He wasn’t sure if Aziraphale evenunderstood the true lengths to which he’d go.

Then again, Aziraphale had threatenednever to talk to him again and Crowley’s immediate response had been to stoptime, so maybe he did.

Aziraphale stared at the floor ofthe bookshop, looking not quite as shattered as he had before but stillimpossibly sad. Crowley was torn between wrapping him in a blanket andgetting a head start on his revenge plans.

He compromised on attempting morecomfort. “You’re better than all of them, you know. Bunch ofself-righteous, hypocritical—”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Crowley.”

“What? I’m not wrong. I’ma demon, I can spot self-righteous hypocrisy from several miles away. They’reawful, angel. You aren’t. You’re what they should be.”

Aziraphale did not look at him, butCrowley saw the corner of his lips turn up. “Will you be irritated if Isay that’s very kind of you?”

“Only if you say it loudly,”Crowley muttered. He still had something of a reputation to uphold.

“Hm. Then I shall say this nextpart very quietly.” Aziraphale sat up a little straighter and linked hishands in his lap. “You are my oldest and dearest friend, and your opinionmatters more to me than anyone else’s. It always has, even when I was toofrightened to admit it.”

Crowley gaped at him and scrambledto find a coherent thought, as his entire conscious mind was hung up on oldestand dearest friend. “Hang on, I’m supposed to be the one saying thingsto make you feel better.”

Aziraphale turned to him, and nowhis smile was much closer to normal. “Interesting. It seems like saying nicethings to you helps immensely. I’ll have to do it some more.”

The very air in the bookshop had tobe consecrated. That was the only explanation for why his cheeks were suddenly burning.“You do not.”

“Oh, I really think I do.”Aziraphale patted his knee. “In fact, I think I need to doit.”

The sly look in his eyes told Crowleythat the word choice had absolutely been deliberate. He groaned and dropped hishead back on the couch. “Just keep it quiet, will you?”

“As a mouse,” Aziraphalepromised, but he was practically glowing with the prospect.

The sight of it loosened the knot inCrowley’s chest the rest of the way.

He groaned again, but it was onlyfor effect. He had meant what he’d said, after all.

Whatever his angel needed.

#numenoreanrockopera #M answers #Good Omens #Aziraphale x Crowley #ineffable husbands #M writes fic #M writes Good Omens #angst with a happy ending #emotional hurt comfort #okay back to the Camp NaNo word mines

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stained-glass-fragments · 4 years

Text

[ Stained Glass (Fragments): The Only Path (pt. 2) ]

"Whatever you say, darling," he responded in that ever-teasing way of his. And for just the briefest of moments, she could almost see him like he was before---sunglasses, ridiculous bunny ears, and that silly grin, poking fun at her.

Her heart ached within her chest.

"By the way, Farona..."

With the smallest of pauses, she cautiously looked back up at him, eyes guarded. "...What?"

Yune stared at her---or at least she assumed that's what he was doing. When he was wearing those thick black sunglasses, it was impossible to tell. His lips quirked. "What do you plan to do now? Are you going to draw your sword and try to bring me to the authorities? I'm still unarmed."

He held his hands out, showing that there was no weapon on him. Farona shook her head with an incomprehensible noise under her breath. He was toying with her again. He knew as well as she did that there was no way that could be accomplished. And she would be eaten away by guilt if she considered even the thought of sending him back to where they barely escaped with their lives as children, no matter what he had done in the years after.

"But you're not running away, either," he mused, shifting from one foot to the other. His smile curled up a little further. "I might get the idea that you still enjoy my company."

She turned away from the high priest, unable to face him when she spoke her next words. "Wherever you're going... I'm going with you."

He was silent for a moment that seemed to last far too long. What was he thinking? Did her answer actually take him by surprise? She could never tell. And she wasn't going to turn around and try. "Is that so?" Amusement was dripping freely from his voice in waves. "Hm, I suppose you did say that you wouldn't let me kill anyone else, didn't you. Funny how the tables have turned with you tagging along after me. But..."

She stiffened as his footsteps slowly crept up from behind her and bit into her bottom lip. He stopped just behind the knight, the edges of his robes brushing against the back of her skirt. Yune leaned down and she could feel his breath on the nape of her neck, but she still stubbornly refused to move from the spot or react.

She had to show him that he couldn't intimidate her.

"Is that really wise?" he whispered in a low, deep tone that made her nerves jump.

Her heart skipped a beat and she swallowed. She couldn't let this---let him---get to her. She had to stand her ground---firmly. "I'll do whatever it takes to keep you from taking any more innocent lives."

"Hmm," he squeezed her once, and then, to her astonishment, disengaged from her entirely. "Well, I'll be sure to remember that."

Farona definitely didn't like the sound of those cryptic words. And she was in way over her head with this, but... it was the only path she could take now. Her days as a knight and protector with the Pronterean knights had come to an abrupt end. She couldn't stand guard or patrol dungeons anymore. People wouldn't want her near them or their loved ones. There was a price on her head. She couldn't freely roam any longer or raise her sword in the public eye.

This was the only way she could protect anyone now.

"This works out for the best," he informed her lightly, patting her shoulder once. "This way you'll come along quietly. Just imagine if I had to tie you up and drag you out of here kicking and screaming! My, wouldn't that be a sight?"

Farona suppressed a shudder. She couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but at this point, she wouldn't put it past him. He probably had some sort of twisted plan regardless of what she said or did. Yune always had a plan.

"Come along then, my dear," Yune piped up cheerfully, heading for the back exit of the chapel. "Looks like we'll be traveling together, just like old times."

This was anything but "like old times", she thought dismally, sighing as she followed reluctantly after him. He wasn't just a mysterious priest with a bad penchant for jokes and impeccably adept with support magic. Behind that smile was a darkness that ran deep through his heart. And she didn't even have the slightest inkling of what she could say or do to convince him not to disappear and continue down his bloody path of revenge.

But she had to try. She couldn't give up. Maybe he didn't believe in his own humanity or even acknowledge its existence, but she was certain that there was a piece of it buried deep down inside of him.

And if she could find it...

She was thinking too far ahead, but any little light of hope was welcome at this point. Farona didn't want to think about how she was ill-equipped to stop this man should he decide to take off or murder someone else. He had the cloaking skill and he could vanish if he wanted to. And he was clearly much more powerful than her and very in-touch with his demon blood. He embraced the abnormalities injected into him instead of suppressing them like she had. And his silver tongue and facade had already fooled her effortlessly since the day they met.

The odds were against her, stacked so high that she couldn't even see beyond them.

However, there was one single thing in her favor -- one unexpected wild card.

For reasons she still couldn't even fathom the depths and reaches of, Yune was interested in her to a high degree. Furthermore, in their travels together, he rarely strayed. It was possible that he had not killed anyone in quite some time. She didn't know for certain, but... the possibility alone was uplifting.

Her presence had an effect on him. To what extent and how, she still wasn't entirely certain, but it was the only weapon she had at this point.

Farona wasn't good at putting on a mask. How many close calls had she gone through with her ear muffs? Hidden agendas and fooling others was not an easy thing for her to do. And Yune would see right through her like clear glass if she tried. Straightforward was the only approach she could take. And even then, what could she do to stop him? What could she say to put his bloodlust to rest?

The thoughts weighed heavily on her mind as she followed Yune out into the back of the church courtyard. He stopped near the towering stone wall that barred from outside the city of Prontera and dipped a hand into the pocket of his robes, pulling out a gem.

A blue gem---a small crystal used by priests and magicians to execute some spells.

Holding the sapphire out, he chanted, "Warp portal!"

A mere few feet in front of him, a circle of light swirled and erupted into a column of blinding blue and white, several feet high. Yune gestured toward it with the hand which had previously been holding the gem and was now empty.

"After you, my dear."

Farona's eyes darted from the portal to the light reflecting off of his shades and back again. There was no telling where it led and she doubted that he would tell her even if she asked. Plus, portals only closed after the magic ran out or when the caster themself stepped into it. She couldn't wait for him to go in first.

She had no choice but to trust him.

Hand settled on the hilt of her sword, she briskly strode forward, giving the high priest one more look into his unreadable expression before she stepped into the light and was promptly whisked away.

This road ahead of her now was narrow, rocky, unpredictable, and could likely crumble beneath her feet upon the first misstep. But it was the first step upon the new path she had decided for herself, no matter what was to come.

#ragnarok online #lord knight #high priest #ro high priest #ro lord knight #stained glass writing #farona #yune hiraze #farona is fun to write because unlike the oblivious gals i usually wrote in fandoms #she's VERY perceptive when it comes to emotions #and while she's not a strategist like yune she knows how to use advantages and note disadvantages #anyway enough of my rambling #enjoyyyyy #if you have questions or comments about anything thus far feel free to tell me!

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modestlyabsurd · 6 years

Text

Nightmare (Loki x Reader)

"Foolish woman." The air remains silent, a terrible friend but the only listener. It's moments like these that no one witnesses. Moments he prefers make as few and short as possible so that he can convince himself they never happen at all.

Pity. How he hated it.

How dare he allow a mortal envoke such things! A mere speck of dust in the wind. Nothing. No one. Holding enough power to make him feel sorry for himself? Hah!

Just one bit of weakness - one bit of softness, an act of kindness or two, and then here it is. Loki, left alone with the evanescent echo of the door slamming. Questioning what he could've done differently to lessen the impact. Stained by the betrayal twisting her face, and absolutely loathing how it twisted his heart into knots.

Everything was fine without you.

His afflictions only burdened himself - albeit after 2012. Loki'd finally came to a place inside where he was comfortable; where no one else was haunted by the influence he had succumbed to and knew he'd be doomed by. Comfort enveloped him in a warm embrace for the first time in a very, very long time.

The people or Asgard were happy. Warriors were able to return home to their families after Loki, in disguise as Odin, made the executive decision as King to establish treaties with countries in which the ongoing wars were fruitless. Stemming from old scuffles that Odin, centuries before, picked irrational battles with. Nothing was to be gained now. The Asgardians were secure, satisfied, and open-minded to his refreshing ordinances. The poor were given employment and food. Economic balance was restored. And then, of course.

Thor comes in and throws Mjolnir through everything. One thing leads to another - Odin dies, a new hidden sibling is revealed, a mortal somehow passes through the Sorcerer's mystic portal and ends up in Sakaar with Loki.

His mind pulls to how you've kept him company during this bizarre situation. He nearly misses it; nearly.

In truth, if Loki were in less of a pit of shame, he would admit that you'd been more tolerable than he expected. Maybe even a bit humorous. But now as he stares from wall to wall, pacing, raking clenched fingers through his hair repeatedly, he's consumed by the thought of your fear.

Landing on a "foreign garbage planet", to quote your terminology, with little to no signs of returning home anytime soon took its effects on you. The constant look in your eyes; out of place, unknowing, on the brink of tears. How you jumped at anyone's touch. Your unsteady movements. Yet somehow you attempted to conceal this - for Loki's sake.

He noticed.

He noticed your fear, he even considered for a moment using it against you. To see what made you tick, to pick your brain. But he chose to ignore that mischievous instinct and instead he let you make your jokes, tell your stories, speak your mind. He let you feel important, by assuring you that he'd get you back home to earth, since that was the source of your fear all along.

Until the night before.

Resting seperately in the two rooms provided by the Grandmaster per Loki's kind request, he lay awake, not unlike any given night. The sounds of tipsy socializing muffled outside the door made it easy. He assumed you'd be asleep in the adjacent room connecting to his through a doorway, as mortals require so much rest so often.

He counts the imperfections on the ceiling above him, lit by a soft green glow emanating from his palm. He's growing dull.

And then, he hears the gasping.

The screams through gritted teeth. The rustling of blankets. The words. Muffled by the door in the corner of his room.

But he can hear exactly what you're saying. It's his own name. You're crying it, as well as the word "no", over and over.

His fists tighten upon hearing. Of all the time you've been on this planet and all the nights he's listened to your gentle snoring and padding around, this was the first time he's heard anything like this. He hadn't imagined what you sound like writhing in despair; nor had he anticipated how such a sound would unnerve him so.

He can hear you thrashing against the bed and sheets while straining your voice severely. It pains him as he relates to it. His own horrible terrors had only recently given him a break. Stiff as a stick, he lays in his bed, conflicted, wanting to help. Not knowing how to.

Painful, guttural roars. Whimpers. Asking why. Begging for it to stop. His name, repeated like a mantra.

Then it stops.

And the quiet is just as sharp as the crying terror.

Loki's heart dives into his abdomen somewhere. His eyes widen to the ceiling, now desperately wanting to hear something. All he can hear is his heart thumping against his sternum. No rustling of sheets, no snoring or even breathing.

The worst comes to mind; has your dream somehow taken you? Paralyzed with dread, Loki considers how he may have to muster up the nerve to enter your room to find you, gone. Impossible, unthinkable, unbearable -

... tap ... tap tap ... tap ...

He huffs out tension from his shoulders. Lips hanging open, inhaling relief. Thank the Nine, he thinks.

The door in the corner of the room clicks, then slowly, creaking softly, opens. A hand holds the knob tightly, as if it holds life itself. When Loki sees your head beginning to scan the room, he slams his eyes shut.

Your scattered, gentle footfalls hesitate. He hears your clothes rustling as the footfalls get closer and closer. Heavy, but gentle. He remains disguised as asleep.

When you near the bedside, Loki can sense your erratic breathing. A rustle next to his ear. He can almost see your hand reaching out to rouse him.

"There's this courteous thing called knocking."

You hiccup, jumping what felt like three feet off the floor. Your outstretched fingers curl into themselves, your hand still hovering above Loki's shoulder.

He could chuckle at your reaction. If only the circumstance weren't so dreadful.

"I -- I'm so sorry, I -- I didn't mean to wake you up -- I'm so, so sorry," you babble. As if your hands weren't already shaking; now your whole body is.

"I never said you woke me."

"Oh. Well, I just -- ah, right, sorry."

"There's no need to apologize. But there is a need, however," Loki grunts and sits up on his elbows, "to explain why you're in my chambers at such an hour."

You swallow. The pressure of tears goes down hard. You hadn't expected to feel so vulnerable, fidgeting with your hands for comfort. Although it is softly illuminated by flashing neon party lights through a window, you can't bring yourself to look him in the face. Of course, the obvious fact that his unclothed chest is only covered halfway by the blue sheets isn't helping matters either.

"I ah," an itch on your neck distracts you, "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

Loki smiles one of those charming, know-it-all smiles. "The thought is appreciated. Other than the bit of stiffness in my neck, I'm quite well," he rolls his head. "Though, it isn't strong enough to bring my shoulders to my ears."

Huh. You hadn't felt that.

You sink even farther into your turtle shell underneath his observing eyes. The tension in your upper body was painful, but you were stuck its tight submission. You stare at your hands, still trembling from head to toe.

He notices.

"What truly brings you here?"

"Now that I've had a few minutes it seems really stupid," lights dot your vision as you press the heels of your hands into your eyes. "But I still don't wanna go back."

"Go back to where?"

"To bed."

He mulls over this. You're being irritatingly vague, but you're obviously scared of whatever you dreamt. How was he supposed to help in that case? Let you sleep in his bed with him?

...

Hm.

That actually doesn't sound too terrible.

Loki's pride kicks him for thinking that. He doesn't let anyone in his bed - not for this reason, at least.

He sighs dramatically, feigning discontent. "I sense a deeper reasoning behind this. If you won't tell me what that is, with all due respect, you're wasting my time."

Speaking is becoming more and more difficult, with your eyes stinging and your throat constricting under pressure. You shouldn't have bothered him. Of course he's okay; you're still on Sakaar, still alive, it was all just a dream.

A nightmare, really. The worst nightmare you've had in your entire life.

"I'm --" terrified of going back to sleep? Feeling things about you that I've never felt for anyone? Afraid for your life? " -- sorry for wasting your time. ... G'night, Loki."

You awkwardly turn away, hating the feeling of not knowing what to do with yourself. Loneliness washes over you; you'd figured maybe Loki would be of some help. Now you're not sure what you expected.

One step toward the door, two steps, and then a startled yelp.

A cold hand latched onto your wrist. Tight, almost tight enough to hurt.

"Tell me."

Those stone cold serious words were enough to break the dam.

Suddenly breath was unattainable. Tears flowed freely but silently. Loki watches your trembling lips. He loosens his grip and slides his hand from above your wrist to under your fingers, cradling them. From an angry man's grasp to a loving mother's hold.

He gently tugs your arm closer, swinging his legs off the bedside and urging you to sit.

"Tell me," he murmurs, squeezing your hand.

"I had a nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare. I don't even know if I should speak what happened ..." you shake your head quickly, but soon begin revelling in the comfort of Loki's thumb brushing your knuckles.

"If you don't, it could consume you."

"I know," you sigh. "A giant, purple Hulk-sized person was taking over the world," a dry laugh escapes you as you hear how ridiculous it sounds when put into words. "So scary, right? Well, him and his crew of gross, disfigured people came - I'm not sure where it was, but people's bodies we're everywhere. It was like a massacre, and I was restricted or something because I couldn't do anything to help -- and then, and then -- " you breathe. It hurts to.

Loki is on edge. His hold on your hand is getting tighter. He'd squeeze anything right now he was so nervous. He knows, he knows exactly what is happening.

"And then ... he murdered you. Right in front of me." your voice is scratched from tears. "He suffocated you and ... then he snapped your -- "

"Enough!" He snatches himself away from you.

Your crying immediately pauses. It's replaced with shock.

"I -- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -- "

"Stop!"

He's now all the way across the unlit room. As far away from you as possible. His face had gone mad, his bare muscles rippling under his skin. His eyes are wild, horrifying -- horrified. Because your dream wasn't just any dream.

It was a prophecy.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

"I didn't mean to upset you, Loki -- "

"You know, I knew this was a mistake. Protecting you. Leading you here to safety. Speaking for you to these people?!"

Caring about you.

"I should've left you in the waste pile."

No matter how much anger or anxiety he was feeling, he was filled with regret as soon as he made that statement. He didn't mean it. But that's how he's always dealt with problems that affect the ones he cares about. It's been so long since such things have confronted him that now, he knew not how to handle it.

So what does the God of Mischief and Lies do? He lies.

Only he's used to his lashings being taken by the thickened skins of his people. Those who have always dealt with his temperament and know the source of his actions. He hadn't considered how the cruel defense mechanism he uses would hurt you.

Half-heartedly, Loki expected you to feel for him. As others have done.

But you didn't.

Every ounce of fear, every trace of being threatened, every bit of weakness was gone. No, you weren't crying like a child now. Now, they were tears of red, bitter betrayal.

You feel like you're floating. Your face became hot. Filled with angry blood pressure. It clouded your mind -- you find it hard to compile words, to choose whether to stay quiet and leave, or give him all you've got and knock his goose loose.

"I didn't make any of this happen, none of this is my fault! I didn't ask to be stuck here with you! What have I done? I've been nothing but good to you! So you can go fuck yourself -- while you still have time, by the looks of it."

"Leave," he says, gathering up his emotions to try and sound cold, but it comes out in pathetically broken.

He feels the chill of air on his chest as you wisk by him to the door. Bitter. Uncomfortable.

"That's fine," you face the door, not willing him a last look. "You've got some shit coming. I saw it. If you can drop something that quick, so can I. I never want to see you again."

Slam.

That's what he's left with. Along with the knowledge of what is to come from the mad titan. He knows what he's done. It was deliberate. He'd already let you in too far, so much that your life could be in danger.

Severing all feelings to save you. That was his only hope and there was a problem with that.

He still cares.

tag list: @arttasticgreatnessoftheawesome77 @afinedilemma @fire-in-her-veinz

#loki x reader #loki imagine #loki x reader angst #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki #tom hiddleston #thor #thor odinson #thor ragnarok #avengers #the avengers #avengers endgame #avengers imagine #avengers x reader #marvel #mcu #marvel imagine

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itsbenedict · 5 years

Text

Kingdoms and Koopas: Ep. 8

K&K is a Fate Accelerated campaign set in the Mario universe, which I’m running for three players:

Bee @thebeeskneesocks, playing Kandace Koopa

Jovian @jovian12, playing Cozmo Naut

Malky @sleepdepravity, playing Dr. Chevy Chain

Last time | Archive | Next time

Previously on Kingdoms and Koopas, the party won a go-kart race on Rainbow Road, foiling Rawk Hawk and Dr. Moneybags’ nefarious plans to fix the competition. The problem was what happened immediately after their victory- the prize was brought out, and turned out not to be the Music Key they were after. Kandace then checked in the direction the real deal’s magical signature was coming from...

...and bumped into a giant invisible spaceship that promptly started invading the planet. Which they will now be infiltrating.

As soon as Opal dispels the UFO’s invisibility, a whole lot of things happen. First is, as mentioned previously, a bunch of people in the audience take off their Toad disguises, revealing themselves as alien bunnies and X-Nauts. Who start taking hostages. But then, well- the main thing they do with the hostages is force them to face the UFO, as if it weren’t attention-getting enough.

A screen shows up, broadcasting a swirly pattern, beginning to mass-hypnotize everyone. This could be quite bad, but thankfully, Princess Opal knows a spell to make people immune to hypnosis. Less thankfully, the spell takes the form of a cone that emits from her broom-staff-wand thing, and so she isn’t caught in the effect of her own spell. (Neither is Chevy, who’s still separated from the other two.)

Chevy, thankfully, makes a very good roll to resist- so good, in fact, that not only does she not get hypnotized, but she hears the orders being hypnotically transmitted to her, without having to obey them. (She’s supposed to report to the ship and assist “the wounded” somewhere on the ship, and has a codephrase, “Hail Tatanga”, to prove she’s brainwashed so she can get inside.)

Princess Opal, however, is caught in the hypnosis, and immediately flies into the ship, to be used for some nefarious purpose!

So, okay- in a rare fit of heroism, Chevy decides that, yes, she is going to actually get involved on purpose, taking advantage of the failed hypnotism to sneak aboard. The party works out and then executes on a plan.

While Chevy rides a handy-dandy X-Naut claw drone up to the ship (they’re being deployed everywhere to carry newly-hypnotized help on board), Cozmo and Kandace take a different route up. Cozmo, see, is already an X-Naut, so he doesn’t actually need a disguise or anything to get aboard. He pretends to take Kandace hostage, pretending to fly her broom up to the ship while Kandace secretly pilots the broom backwards. It’s a tricky roll, but they pull it off. Cozmo is able to bluff past the airlock security, and they’re in.

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The problem, is, they’re both “in” at two different points. Let me give you a rundown on the layout of this ship.

The Orbital Doom Casa is divided into eleven distinct sections- two floors of five rooms each, plus a lower floor containing a single chamber. The two floors are each laid out sort of like a Simon game. Like, uh, this:

Four rooms around the edge, plus a central hub. In this case, Chevy has been taken up to the lower floor’s Simon Yellow, and Kandace and Cozmo entered a different airlock at Simon Blue.

Kandace and Cozmo have arrived at Space Storage Space, a general-purpose supply depot for the ship. Everything’s locked behind alarmed glass cases, though, so they’ll need a passcode to get in. Cozmo might know the passcode, but it’s possible- indeed, likely- that they’ve changed it since the moon fortress days, and getting it wrong could set off an alarm. Since there’s nothing in there they need right now, they decide to go to the yellow area to meet up with Chevy.

Simon Yellow is the X-Production Chamber. Cozmo recognizes a lot of the equipment in the room- this is where new X-Nauts are decanted from mysterious chemical space soup. However, the X-Tubes are currently lying empty, and new equipment has been set up along the far wall (the same wall containing a door to Simon Green, marked “Bunny Ranch”.) This new equipment... it seems to be an array of brainwashing helmets, and a line of hypnotized racing fans are queuing up to be more permanently brainwashed. As victims come out from under the brainwashing helmets, they put on X-Naut uniforms and proceed to whatever their next task is.

Chevy has been taken to the back of the line, but like shell she’s gonna stick around to get helmeted. Instead, Cozmo and Kandace provide a distraction- Cozmo, after all, hasn’t been in the organization in years, and so the X-Scientists on duty have some pointed questions about where in the heck he’s been. This causes trouble for his lies- for instance, this ship doesn’t have brig (why would they need a brig when they have a brainwashing room?) and how come he doesn’t know that? He manages to string together some excuses about doing reconnaissance planetside, and he bluffs well enough that they forget the holes in his story.

The team, finally reunited, heads upstairs to the BarraX (a feat which is difficult but not impossible for Chevy, who is no fan of stairs.) There, they find “the wounded” Chevy was supposed to be treating- which amounts to one X-Naut (Wipe Naut, pronounced Wipe Nowt) who broke his leg skateboarding. Chevy plays it straight and attempts to set his leg using a skateboard as a splint, but, uh, fails. Because skateboards aren’t very good splints. As a stopgap measure to cover her failure, she uses a tongue depressor as a splint, which isn’t great but should at least stop the bone from setting wrong.

Anyway, they don’t have time to mess around with medicine- they need to find the Music Key and rescue Princess Opal! Kandace cajoles her shadow, Carbonado, into sneaking around and gathering some intel- apparently, the ship’s hypnotist is at the lowest level of the ship. Before they can do that, though... it’s getting tiresome having to bluff past every X-Naut they meet, so they decide to go downstairs and get some disguises.

Chevy acts as an obstruction for Kandace to hide behind as she filches an X-Naut uniform from the X-Production Chamber, and then the party is sent to the Space Storage Space to get some X-Naut logo stickers for Chevy- since, well, they don’t exactly have uniforms that fit chain chomps.

At the SSS, they meet the attendant on duty- one Nauti Naut, who both talks like a pirate and is very naughty. As Kandace fights Chevy to see how many stickers she can stick to her, Nauti interrogates Cozmo about where he’s been- Nauti, after all, is one of the old generation, moonbase survivors. Her thing was... constant attempts at mutiny. Which she’s still up to, not having yet been fired because she’s a decent employee when she’s not actively executing said ineffectual mutinies.

From Nauti, they learn that this ship is run by an alliance of three leaders: The Supreme Leader (that’s the severed head of Grodus, still up and kicking), the Supreme Master (some weirdo), and the Supreme Hypnotist (some mysterious weirdo)- plus the new supercomputer, TEC-CC, who’s helping coordinate them.

The plan, currently, is to track down the Supreme Hypnotist first, to cancel the hypnotism and release Princess Opal. The problem with that is that the Hypno-chamber is only accessible via an elevator from the bridge or the power core, and those two areas can only be accessed with a keycard. Their plan to get a keycard is to talk to (and bluff past) TEC-CC, who can print them.

So they head through the X-Production chamber, upstairs to the BarraX, and then into Simon-Green-2, the TEC-CC Server Room. And as they enter- and before they’re noticed- they overhear an incriminating conversation between TEC-CC and... someone. Someone with an unmistakable voice.

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This nefarious bowling pin is unsubtly plotting with TEC-CC to get rid of the Supreme Leader and Supreme Hypnotist, ensuring the spoils of the invasion are a two-way split instead of a four-way split.

Unfortunately, after this, Chevy crit-fails her stealth roll, and unstealth-rolls into a server rack, causing a loud noise that gets Orbulon’s attention.

Chevy, cornered, decides to come clean to Orbulon, mostly: they’re here to sabotage the Supreme Hypnotist and get rid of his influence, which is just fine by Orbulon. In fact, he gives them a codephrase they can use to command the Alien Bunnies on his authority, and a keycard they can use to access the power core (and through there, the hypno-chamber)!

The cost of this, of course, is that now Orbulon knows they’re there and it’ll make it that much harder to stop the entire invasion, even if they can deal with Grodus and whoever the hypnotist is.

Still! No matter! They head straight to the power core, where...

Well, there are several things in the power core.

There’s a couple Yux guards, for one thing- but there’s also the power core itself, which happens to be the Music Key! They’re using it to power the ship!

Princess Opal is also there. She’s there because she’s draped over the shoulder of a giant robot, being piloted by a small (and highly mysterious) purple spaceman.

Now, there’s no reason a fight needs to happen- after all, the party is there to obtain the Music Key, right? Tatanga is about to install the new, more powerful power core he just hypnotized, and he doesn’t need that old thing anymore. They can just have it! Wow, that was easy.

...But, yeah, no, they’re going to rescue the princess. FIGHT!

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Cozmo starts off by firing a firework at one of the Yux guards- but that just breaks its Mini-Yux shield, of course. Kandace follows up with a fireball to the Pagosu’s legs- yeah, it’s got legs now, it was inefficient to use flaming thruster jets to get about a spaceship with a limited oxygen supply and flammable components. It’s a good hit, but then the Pagosu fires a couple missiles that blast Kandace and Cozmo real good.

Conveniently, Nauti Naut is there and manages to finish off the undefended Yux, leaving just the one plus Tatanga. Chevy, meanwhile, anchors herself to the central stalactite-spike thingy of the power core, gearing up to start swinging around the room like a wrecking ball.

The remaining Yux attacks, but Kandace and Cozmo team up with another firework and one of them standard Magikoopa playstation-button blasts to clear it out of the way. It’s just the main boss, now! The party take a few more missile hits, but Chevy manages to huck a scalpel at one of the leg joints, restricting the Pagosu’s movement.

Cozmo tries to capitalize by firing a firework right at the cockpit- but Tatanga uses Opal as a human shield, and he’s forced to let the attack go wide. Kandace decides that’s enough of that- she weaves past his defenses and snags Opal right off his shoulder.

Unfortunately, Opal is still hypnotized. Tatanga simply orders her to return to his side, and she starts floating back to him. That said, he’s momentarily deprived of his meatshield, which gives Chevy an opening to set up a combo attack with Nauti Naut. Nauti throws an anchor up into the air, and Chevy smacks it full-force with her built-up momentum, straight into the Pagosu’s armor. It cracks it, leaving Tatanga off-balance.

Meanwhile, Cozmo is setting up- he’s running up the walls of this cool twisted-gravity chamber, and kicking off to do a flying drop-kick! He goes, not for Tatanga, but for the scalpel Chevy drove into his leg joint earlier!

With a successful kick, Cozmo severs the leg entirely, toppling the Pagosu.

Rather than attack, Kandace now tries to cure Opal. She just saw the spell Opal used to make her immune to hypnosis- surely, she can make it work! It’s a tough roll, and she spends all the boosts she can to make it work, and... she succeeds! She can now counter hypnosis! (With, as is specified in her magic-learning stunt, some kind of troublesome side-effect I have yet to inform anyone of.)

Finally, with Pagosu on the floor, Chevy lets loose, flinging herself off the spike and colliding with the cockpit full-force. The Pagosu is destroyed, and it doesn’t take much after that for the team to gang up on the mysterious spaceman within. He’s knocked right out!

So hey, they’re done, right? They rescued the princess, and the Music Key is right there, and...

...well, they’re still inside a spaceship that’s currently full of aliens invading the planet, and they can’t take the Music Key without making it fall out of the sky and crushing the innocents beneath, and Orbulon knows they’re there, and...

Yeah, this one’s gonna be tough.

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#kingdoms and koopas #mario #benedict art

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lord-arlen · 5 years

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Thoughts inspired by looking at the archives of this blog, which basically turned into a lengthy account of the last 3 years of my life.

Why did I originally stop using this blog? I originally stopped using this blog not long after starting my studies in Edinburgh when I was in a really bad condition mentally. I had intended Edinburgh to be a new start where I would try to be a different person and it just completely failed; I didn’t have the willpower. So the first few months I was beating myself up over having failed to do any activities or talk to anybody. I got really depressed and I felt like I had to stop posting here, because I was worried that contemplating the situation too much was exacerbating it, and I was worried that I would spread too much of a negative mood to my readers.

But not long after I made this blog private a magical thing happened. I was on a pretty small Master’s course, and everybody on it was talking to each other via a group chat and going out together and stuff like that---except me, because I hadn’t spoken to anybody and didn’t know any of this was going on. But since the course was that small, it was impossible for them not to notice this. So they took pity on me, I guess---I think it was actually mostly the initiative of one person, a Greek called Olga. She started kind of aggressively socializing with me in class, asking me questions and so on, and soon enough I was in their group chat and being invited to outings to pubs and films and so on. There also ended up being a fair amount of group project work on the course, so I got to know a lot of them that way. Although I was a very quiet member of the group normally, I could actually make significant contributions to discussions when I was working together with them on a group project. All sorts of things happened! We all watched Arrival together! I went to somebody’s house to talk to them about research! I celebrated Chinese New Year with people! I went to a sushi party! At one point I was even going semi-regularly to the common room to have lunch with these people and just chat with them relaxedly---this is the kind of Holy Grail of social life that I’ve never previously or since attained. One of my regrets is that I never went with them with them to an academic conference in (IIRC) the Netherlands---I’m not very confident about travelling because I’ve basically never travelled anywhere far from home before, but that would have been an ideal opportunity to get that experience.

So I was pretty happy from like November 2016 to May 2017. And I think some of the highest-quality output on my WordPress blog and main Tumblr account comes from that time.

It wasn’t to last, however. In the end, I still didn’t manage to make any proper connections with people. I never initiated conversations with anybody, because I didn’t know what to talk to them about. I never really got any idea of what they were like as a person, what they would like or wouldn’t like to talk about, because I’m bad at paying attention to such things. My presence in that social group was only really maintained by the common social context of the Master’s course bringing us together. So by the time teaching ended and I started working on my dissertation, all the social events dried up as everybody had to get to work. I was still in their group chat, and some people asked me for help proofreading their essays or with writing code for their projects, so I did have some contact still, but it was all slowing down and I realized it wasn’t going to last.

The dissertation was an interesting experience. It was probably the most significant thing I’ve ever achieved. I had been worried about whether I would be able to come up with something to do it on, given that I’m not particularly creative and more comfortable with learning what’s already known than doing original research. But one of my lecturers had been talking about an approach to doing linguistics research that I had never come across before: having people learn artificial “mini-languages” in an experimental setting and seeing what sort of errors they made, in the hope that this would tell us about the language transmission process in general. It was pretty easy to generate a novel experiment in this vein formulaically: just pick a Greenbergian universal of the form “A implies B”, design the artificial language training data to exhibit A but be ambiguous about whether it has B, see if the experiment subjects generalize to B or ¬B when their knowledge of the mini-language is tested subsequent to training. So I picked Universal 38 and my dissertation was the resulting experiment.

Designing and carrying out the experiment was quite fun. There was a bit of an issue where I took a while designing the experiment and my supervisor got worried. But eventually I was done, and when I was done it had been designed carefully. I put out an ad offering to pay £5 to all of my subjects (all funded by a grant from the department) and I got my desired 40 subjects quite quickly. Setting up the experiment, contacting all 40 of these people, scheduling a place to meet them, instructing them on what to do, all of these were things I never thought I’d have the executive function to pull off, and yet I did them all with actual ease. The effort of doing all this basically distracted me from the emerging collapse of my social life.

Then I got to the stage of actually writing the dissertation. And that was pretty tough. One issue was that my parents wanted me to go on holiday with them to Greece, because by this time it was July. I had a kind of emotional conversation with them where I had to refuse, because I knew I was pressed for time and taking a week off from writing would probably result in failure. They didn’t really accept this and kept saying things like, “but if you work hard enough, you can finish the dissertation in time and still go on holiday with us”, and I had to convince them I wasn’t capable of working that hard. After repeatedly keeping my stance firm they finally relented. (This is a fairly significant milestone in my mind because my parents still kind of have the mindset where I’m their child and they determine what activities I’m doing, and I’m generally bad at saying “no” to them.)

But writing the dissertation was a fairly lonely and stressful endeavour, and by the time I finished, I had kind of lost all faith in my experiment. I doubted whether an artificial “mini-language” could really tell us anything about a real natural language. I also realized I had no real understanding of statistical inference, and so I couldn’t really talk about what my results meant. I did a very basic statistical analysis on the data, which may not have been the appropriate one for the data, and got a nearly-but-not-quite significant p-value. My results and conclusion sections ended up being very short.

It was this disillusionment that led to me deciding to not bother to apply for a PhD and just try to get a job. I knew it would be difficult, because I had no idea what sort of job to do, or how to effectively decide what sort of job to do. But I figured it was what I had to do. And in the end I’d probably get it done, I thought. Even though I was disillusioned with what I had done, 2017 gave me a lot more confidence in my ability to do things.

In September my accommodation contract ended and I was living with my parents again. I had one idea for what job to do that had come to me at that point (via a suggestion from my mother, not from my own searching): to get a job as a copy editor at a fairly well-known UK secondary educational textbook company. That seemed like a reasonably interesting thing to do and the company seemed like a nice place to work it. They had a pretty gruelling application process. I did get invited to an on-site interview + round of tests at an “Assessment Centre” in December. Although this happened in September, I basically avoided job searching until this interview happened months later, because I was kind of riding all my hopes on this one job and because searching for jobs was hard.

Their Assessment Centre experience was actually quite fun. Apart from the job interview, my first ever, where I was extremely awkward, as one would expect from my personality. But the tests were fun, and they seemed easy enough. There were also several people doing the tests with me who I talked to a bit throughout the day. There was an extremely posh guy called Rupert who was writing a sci-fi novel and making a conlang for it---he’s the only other person I’ve ever met IRL who does conlanging. There was a girl who I talked to about birds (I had gotten into birdwatching [solitarily] in mid-2017 at Edinburgh once social events with my course mates became less frequent.) But I didn’t get any of these people’s emails or phone numbers or Facebook accounts or anything, so nothing lasting came of that.

In the end, that job went to one of the other people. So then I had to continue my job search. My graduation from Edinburgh happened around this time, at the end of December. I ended up feeling pretty sad throughout the ceremony because I felt like the good part of my life was ending. My parents tried to get pictures of me smiling, which was really annoying at the time. In the end they didn’t get any. Obviously I think it’s a pity now that there are no photos of me smiling at my graduation from Edinburgh, but it was necessary with my feelings at the time.

Although I’ve just realized that there is a photo of me smiling at my graduation... just not one my parents took. Obviously I saw my coursemates again at graduation. But I really didn’t know how to deal with this, given that it would probably be the last time I ever saw them again. I don’t know how to handle saying goodbye to people. So naturally I handled it in the worst possible way by trying to avoid them. I chatted a bit to the people I was sitting next to during the ceremony, but then afterwards when we all went outside, and everybody gathered together to do some more chatting, I just slunk off back to my parents. But before I could get to them, I heard somebody calling my name, and it turned out that one of them---a Bulgarian girl called Zlati---wanted to take a picture of me, to remember me by. I was quite touched by this and so at that point, I did smile. OK, it wasn’t really a genuine smile, I was too depressed for that, but I did make my best effort to smile. Here is the picture (she sent it to me on Facebook afterwards):

She works in Oxford now, or at least that’s where she went immediately after Edinburgh. She told me that if I’m ever in Oxford I should let her know. I haven’t spoken to her ever since. I would like to, but I don’t know how to. (The same goes for all of my Edinburgh coursemates, of course.) If I did go to Oxford I probably would be able to contact her because she explicitly permitted that, but until that happens I probably won’t do it. Maybe I could go to Oxford once I have my own place and am more confident about travelling. Hopefully she would still be happy to meet me now that over a year has passed.

In any case---although I would definitely like to meet my Edinburgh friends again, ultimately I am not going to have my social needs met until I have friends where I live, who I can meet on a regular basis.

Anyway, that was 2017. And then in 2018, I just... kind of faffed around for the first half of the year. I couldn’t make any decisions. It was just very exhausting to think about what I should do. I could do programing, but it wasn’t something that really appealed to me very much. I did contemplate becoming a teacher, because trying to convey information to people is something I do enjoy very much... but teaching involves a lot more than that, and it is probably something that would be pretty tough on somebody with as poor social skills as me. So while I did contact some recruiters about teaching jobs I ended up chickening out on following up on any of the opportunities they brought up. By February I was thinking I should definitely consider doing a PhD as well. But the application process for a PhD is a lot more demanding, and it’s more difficult to find information on how it should be done. If I had still been in Edinburgh I could have asked my coursemates for help, maybe, but at home it seemed impossible. The biggest obstacles are the need to pick a supervisor, and the need to have a research proposal (if I’m looking to do a PhD in linguistics in the UK, at least). I still would like to do a PhD more than anything else but I can’t make any progress towards it until I have some idea what I would do my PhD about.

In March my parents made me sign up for a free course offered by the local council for jobseekers. That actually had the effect of me not doing any jobseeking while the course was running, because as long as I was attending the course I felt like I was Doing Something. The classes for the course were not particularly bothersome because they were only from 10am to 3pm, and they didn’t require much work---all we were doing was getting told basic information about how to write CVs, how to use Microsoft Excel, etc. I did talk to the other course attendees, one of whom happened to actually be someone I knew from high school. So that was a reasonably fun experience. But it was just procrastination really.

After that course I had to just suck it up and get a programming job. I couldn’t think of anything else; although I wasn’t really into programming, I had been in the past and had acquired basic fluency with coding that way. Since programmers are in high demand, and employers are also used to them being socially awkward types who don’t do well in behavioural interviews, I figured I’d be able to get a job without too much trouble.

And that’s what happened. I applied for a few jobs, got a few interviews, and said yes to the first company that gave me an offer. And that’s how we got to the current situation. What I didn’t really realize at the time was how unpleasant the experience of having a job I’m not enthusiastic about would be. I obviously wasn’t looking forward too it, but I figured it would just be a bit dull and I’d be able to deal with it and maybe think in a relaxed way about how to achieve greater ambitions over several years. Instead it turns out that it’s actively, significantly unpleasant and leaves me in a state of sort of perpetual panic.

So I am pretty depressed again, just like I was when I stopped this blog. But not depressed in a hopeless way. I mean, things could get better, and I am trying to make them better. Right now, the most important change I think I can make is moving out of my parent’s house. One thing that’s apparent from this review of the last 3 years is that although I managed to Do Things at Edinburgh to some extent, I pretty much lost that ability once I moved back in with my parents. I guess this is the place where I spent two decades growing up as a more or less completely passive person, so naturally it’s hard to maintain agency here. Maybe moving will help, maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t help, I have more options, like trying to get a new job or doing serious dedicated work towards coming up with a PhD research proposal or trying to find fulfilment from hobbies or something. I will never be out of options; there are always new things to try; there is always hope. The good part of my life may be over but we won’t know for certain until the day that I die, which is hopefully a long way away.

#about me #my life

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