#seriously if you find any mandarins in the story please tell me because that means the part isn't written lol

[jcollinswrites]

If you thought I was joking before about the mandarins... 😆

[goggles-mcgee]

Hi! Three questions! Sorry, I have so many. Can you tell us more about the relationship between Marinette and the batfamily in Wish me away? Can you tell us more class salt and Adrien salt in Ivy’s sampling? And... Can you tell us more about the daminette relationship in Ivy’s sampling? Please and Thank you.

Hi! Don't apologize! That's perfectly fine OuO

Wish Me Away:

It's hard at first for them all because they have never been around a baby, nor have they cared for a baby. The only one capable is Alfred but they all want to help out with her and get to know her, especially after hearing what she went through. Bruce really tries the hardest as he is now her father after the adoption and everything, and this time he really will get to experience one of his child's childhood with them. So he is taking it very seriously, but it means he's kind of a really big hoverparent.

Dick is in love with little Marietta and can't wait for Barbara to meet her. He tries to show her as much love as his parents gave him growing up in the circus, and he definitely takes her on the trapeze and everything just like his parents said they did with him. He just wants to make her happy.

Jason loves her too, but he's like Bruce, he's very protective of her. If he takes her anywhere he always carries her or has her in a stroller or has her on one of those backpack leash things. He will always go running when he hears her scream, even if he thinks it could be a false alarm or something small like she accidentally bumped into the wall again. He just wants her to feel safe. It's why when she has nightmares, he's one of the only ones that can calm her.

Tim liked to teach her things, he caught on that she was already pretty smart for her age so he takes time out of his day to teach her whatever he can think of. She already can count to ten in French, so they're working on doing it in English. He always makes sure to take breaks. If he sees Mari take an interest in something, he already makes a note to teach her a little something about whatever caught her eye. He wants her to know that no matter what catches her interest, he will be there to support her every step of the way.

Damian took awhile to get used to her and get over his feelings of jealousy but when he did, he felt such love for his little sister. There was a respect for her there after knowing what she had survived. He decided he would be the one to teach her to not bottle up her anger or other negative emotions. So everytime he saw her get angry and throw things he would take her to his room or the library to draw out her frustrations or paint them out. Or he would take her to play fetch with Titus. Or let her "spar" with him. He wanted her to know what his family had taught him over the six years he had been there, it was okay to have emotions, to have anger, and you could always find something else to do than resort to violence.

Alfred took to her the fastest. He was probably the most heartbroken about her situation when Tikki and Plagg explained it so he liked to spend time with her and get to know her. So he baked and let her watch or "help" (he really just put water in a bowl and asked her to stir it) he found she really liked to talk. She knew a lot of words, in French, Mandarin, and English but she did babble like any baby did, and she would babble at him like she was telling a story. Which, he guessed, she likely was, so he would listen and he would ask questions or would hum to let her know he was listening. He wanted Marietta to know she would always be heard in the manor, that she would always have someone who would listen to her.

Ivy's Sapling:

The salt. Adrien's salt is he's getting more aggressive in his passive aggressive ways of "dealing" with Marinette, and her "unwillingness to follow direction." Specifically his directions about the high road. He doesn't realize that he is essentially turning into his father with Marinette. He points out all her faults to her at the end of the day when they talk, he says it's to help her but Marinette knows he's doing it because he can finally tell someone they are wrong.

No matter what she does he always tries to get her alone at the end of the day so they can talk, and he always guilt trips her. Basically saying they won't hang out if she continues in her behavior or he won't be by her side anymore if she can't take the high road and just let Lila be. But then Marinette starts to snap because the class step up from the isolation. They start playing "pranks" on her and basically say they'll stop if she apologizes to Lila for bullying her.

Marinette finally tells Adrien no at one of their daily talks and genuinely asks him what she has done wrong. Tells him to tell her specifically what she has done that is wrong or lying or bullying behavior towards her former friends and/or Lila. When he can't say anything he gets mad and grabs her, he has always been a touchy person but when she tells him to let go, he won't. She gets more mad and demands he give her a reason why she is in the wrong.

Then Adrien yells at her, "Why can't you just keep the peace!? This is my escape from home and you're ruining it! Why can't you just fall in line and keep quiet!?"

That's when Marinette truly understands that Lila had turned all her friends in that class against her. Adrien wasn't with her. He never was probably, he just wanted her to pretend everything was fine and continue to let their friends get hurt and manipulated all so he could continue to have a stress free escape. It doesn't stop after that because he starts to visit as Chat Noir and she thinks that Adrien has talked Chat into being on his side. He's basically starts to threaten her as well and says she really will be all alone if she doesn't stop her attitude and go back to the way she used to be.

Unlucky for him Chloe, Sabrina, Aurore and Mireille had all been in the locker room and heard all of it. Aurore had videotaped it too.

That's how Marinette gets her little squad of friends.

Adrien as Chat gets worse in his advances on Ladybug and starts sitting out on fights, keeps trying to kiss her without her permission, has gone to several papers and said they are dating despite what Ladybug has said, and just in general being a slimy guy.

He's basically becomes another Lila in her life.

The class as a whole, like I said pull pranks on Marinette but it's really just bullying her. They spill things on her, her seat seems to always be wet with something in the mornings, she started to laminate her homework since some came up shredded or stained or soggy, nothing gets left in her locker if she can help it, if it is she makes more booby-trapped things to keep them safe since they go missing or are defaced or just utterly destroyed. And of course Mlle Bustier does nothing about it.

Marinette has tried to step down as class president but Lila convinced the class she is trying to do it to punish them for siding with Lila. Mlle Bustier firmly denies Marinette's request and just continues to lecture her about the Marinette's of the world.

Even despite her friends trying to help her anyway they can and collecting evidence to make a case for the Board of Education, Marinette, no Marigold has enough and moves back to Gotham with the help of Bruce Wayne.

When the class comes back from the weekend and Marinette isn't there, they think nothing of it, they just think she's sick but then Mlle Bustier frowns and goes to the principals. When she gets back she announces that Marinette's parents sent her away and that she has moved, is that the wrong information? Yes! Did Mlle Bustier care and check her facts? No!

The whole class is stunned because they did go to Tom and Sabine and tell them about Marinette's behavior, but they didn't think they would send her away!

Lila is also stunned because she also didn't think they would send her away because they seemed to love Marinette so much, no matter what she did (or didn't do.) Now they had no class president and really she had been trying to keep Marinette in that position because as loathe as she was to say it, the girl was good at it.

Adrien is more mad than stunned. He thinks Marinette was just running away from everything.

Marigold met Damian when she was out buying fabric after she finished getting settled at home with Ivy and Harley that week. He was out walking when she accidentally knocked him over with her shopping bags, of course he was originally annoyed at getting knocked over but he had to at least be polite. He noticed she wasn't from there and well, she was a foreigner with a lot of shopping bags, she was small, and a girl, she would run into trouble whether she wanted it or not. So he decided to play tourguide in a sense and went shopping with her and eventually they went out for a bite to eat at the end of it.

Of course they did end up finding trouble and a couple of thugs tried to rob them. Damian had sighed because really, he had seen it coming, what he didn't see coming was Marigold pushing him behind her, her throwing one of her shopping bags at one of the robbers and while he was distracted she took him and his friends down. When it was all said in done she had checked to make sure Damian was okay. And honestly he had to take a minute to ask himself that too.

That was the start of their friendship.

It took awhile for both of them to admit they had feeling for the other, but it was well into their friendship. Damian had had a good meltdown over the fact she was Ivy's daughter, while she had had one over the fact he was The Damian Wayne. She didn't treat him any differently but she had been shocked and even more determined not to let him pay for their outings like he insisted he should.

The more time they spent together the more they fell for each other. The tipping point was when Marigold finally told him everything that happened back in Paris, about the class and Adrien and Lila, and about being Marinette and Ladybug. He in turn told her about the League and about being an Al Ghul and about being Robin. That's when they started dating.

[meichenxi]

For the ask game! 9, 12, and 22?

Yay more askies :D this is going to be likewise long! 

9) What does a week in your language learning routine look like?

- I’m not particularly disciplined in the way that I study, though I do tend to study most days. I’m very good at making plans but less at following them consistently, so this is a more realistic depiction of what I do! 

- Because I’m currently studying with HSK Online and they have two classes a week which cover about 3 chapters, I have a lot of vocabulary and grammar that I need to cover in the app before attending those classes, so most of my studies at the moment are focused on getting that done. So: 

Vocabulary and grammar:

(I do this all most days, depending on what exactly I need to do for the next lesson, but I try to do Quizlet every day)

1) I go through the vocabulary and grammar lessons, and write down the vocab and any example sentences.

2) When I input this into Quizlet, I use Baidu Translate to look at example sentences to get a better feel for how the word is used. I also write a couple of sentences / say a couple of sentences with each word. Baidu Translate is a fantastic tool, much better for Chinese than Google Translate, and it has an example sentences section where you can get the pinyin if you hover over the characters. 

3) After I feel I vaguely know the words for that day, I will go back and actively study them on Quizlet. For any words I forget I’ll write more sentences, or look at more examples. If there are any grammar points, I look them up on Chinese grammar wiki. 

Input and reading

(I don’t do these at any specific time, but luckily I quite enjoy this section so am very happy to Consume Media)

1) Try to read something every day. It doesn’t matter exactly what this is - often it’s Bilibili comments! I also like to skim through my graded reader and try to practice scan-reading.

2) I do dedicated HSK-style reading practice a few times a week as well. Again, I use the HSK Online app for this. It’s terrifying but necessary. This one I do have to motivate myself to do. 

3) I watch a lot of Chinese shows. Some with English subs, some with Chinese subs. My favourites include The Untamed (obviously), Nirvana in Fire (will always need the subs for this rip), Tian Guan Ci Fu (a donghua on Bilibili) and Street Dance of China. I probably watch a good 5-10 hours of TV a week. 

4) I learn other things through Chinese. So I watch lectures or courses on Bilibili or do workout videos. I especially like watching videos teaching beginners Cantonese and Japanese, two languages I am interested in learning, as well as Literary Chinese.

5) I listen to podcasts in Chinese when I’m walking around. My favourites include 聊聊东西, 听故事学中文 and 面包吐司. They are all in Chinese, but all specifically designed for foreigners, though the first and last are not learning podcasts, just podcasts of fairly accessible content where people chat about things like smoking, health, dating and so on. The second one is a podcast where stories are read in Chinese, and then explained sentence-by-sentence in Chinese, so it’s more ‘learning’. 

12 - What tips would you give to people that want to study the language/s you’re studying?

1) It’s an uphill slog, but you’re at the hardest place right now. So if you feel discouraged, if you feel overwhelmed, nobody else got it after one month either! It will take time, but is there anything worthwhile that doesn’t?  

2) Invest in good pronunciation training right from the beginning. If you can’t take classes, watch videos (YoYo Chinese, Outlier Chinese, Mandarin Blueprint etc have good tone series). Practice tone pairs. Tone pairs are your saviours. Practice repeating what the speaker actually says, not what you think they say. Learn a little bit about phonetics. 

3) Listen to Chinese right from the get go, as much as you can. Listening is many people’s weakest area, especially if they are learning it in a non-Chinese speaking environment. Play podcasts all the time. Differentiate between ‘learning’ podcasts (which will mostly be in English at the beginning), and podcasts that just train your ear to the sounds of Chinese. Have Chinese podcasts on all the time, regardless of whether you understand them or not. 

4) Invest in a structured course. I don’t necessarily mean classes with a teacher, though if you can I would recommend italki (feel free to contact me to see which teachers I’d recommend). But consider something like Chinese Zero to Hero, where they have videos explaining HSK1 through to HSK6. It’s about 100 dollars, but even if you have to save up for a few months to get that, I’d recommend it. Why? Because Chinese is overwhelming and there’s so much to learn. Having someone to tell you what you need to learn next is an absolute god-send. Plus, they know more than you what beginners need to tackle. They also have beginner-appropriate audio, which is absolutely crucial to learning to speak. I really would recommend this course. 

5) Learn properly about how characters work from the get go. Learn about phonetic and semantic components. Learn what types of characters there are, learn the most common components, and learn to hand-write them too. 

6) Record yourself speaking as much as you can. Play it back. How does it sound? Record it again. 

7) Practice reading from the moment you have around 150 characters. There are excellent physical graded readers as well as apps like The Chairman’s Bao and Du Chinese. THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE IT OUT. It takes time for you to get used to reading in a second language, especially one with unfamiliar characters. 

8) Decide whether you’re going for traditional or simplified, and stick with it. Do not learn both unless you have a very good reason. If you think you might go to Hong Kong or Taiwan, have family there, want to read literary Chinese, or even understand ‘deeper’ how certain characters have developed, you can learn traditional, but if you’re less than 100% sure, go with simplified. It’s easier for beginners, and if you have a good level of simplified Chinese, traditional isn’t that hard to pick up later down the line - some common characters are completely different, but many are different in very predictable ways. If you are not absolutely sure you are going to need traditional, I’d recommend simplified. 

9) Really, really consider your motivation. Why are you learning? Do you just think it would be cool? It is cool, but that’s not enough of a reason to embark on any language, much less one with extra difficulties like Chinese. In an ideal situation, you’d be intrinsically motivated all the time: but that’s not always going to happen. Do you have Chinese family you’d like to communicate with better? Do you want to travel to a Chinese speaking country? Do you want to read Chinese poetry? Do you just really love Xiao Zhan?? If you’re doing it ‘for your career’, please bear in mind that you won’t get any points for learning half a language. If you’re not willing to engage with the culture and the people, you’re just not going to be successful long term. 

10) Find things you like watching / listening to / reading in Chinese as soon as you can. Bored? Unmotivated? Stick a favourite episode of your favourite drama on. It still technically counts as immersion, and when your language skills are better, you’ll be able to use that as your textbook!! Try and find something that will make you want to read or listen in Chinese, and then it won’t feel like a chore. It’ll also become a motivation, because inevitably the more you explore the Chinese language internet, the more you’ll find things you can’t interact with in translation and need your language skills for. 

22 - How has learning about the culture of the country impacted your language learning?

Hmm, this is a really interesting question!! I'll have to answer in a few ways.

1) I'm interested in a lot of things about Chinese culture, which fuelled my interest for learning Chinese, and also let me learn in a more fun way. I’m a huge tea nerd, I enjoy listening to Chinese traditional music though I know very little about it, and I enjoy calligraphy. I think that some hanfu is just objectively the most gorgeous clothing on the planet and I enjoy Chinese water-and-mountain style landscape art. I also love the karst landscapes of some parts of southern China (OH MY GOD LIMESTONE MY FAVOURITE ROCK) and I’ve had a faded picture of Zhangjiajie on my wall since I was about nine. This is very different from my experience with German: I love the German language, and I have a lot of great friends from German-speaking countries, but I’m not intrinsically interested in the culture the same way I am Chinese-speaking countries. Because there’s so much I want to learn, it gives me a) huge motivation for continuing studying, b) makes it a more holistic, rounded experience, and c) provides me with wonderful study materials. At the intermediate level, I can avoid textbooks if I really want to and just learn about tea. Isn't that just the dream. Also, realistically, if I want to be able to read poetry in literary Chinese, my modern Chinese has to be a lot better. So I’m very motivated because of this. 

2) My interest in martial arts! I originally started learning Chinese because I had gotten interested in Chinese culture via wuxia and martial arts. My dad is a huge martial arts nerd. By that I don’t mean someone who sits on his sofa all day with a nunchuck collection and Bruce Lee pictures, I mean he gets up at 6 every day and trains for about 2-3 hours. He can run a 5:30 minute mile aged 56. I have so much respect for this man, seriously. He used to practice karate, taekwondo and Muay Thai, but after he got sick he started with taiji. He’s practiced taiji and qigong now every day for about twenty years. So I was brought up on a diet of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese martial arts cinema - my dad would regularly show me clips of films because I couldn’t watch the whole ones until I was older, and get into trouble when my mum came back! We spent hours learning forms together and doing push-hands in the kitchen. Even now when we go home our form of affection is trying to kick each other without being kicked back lmao. I discovered the Jin Yong books in English about 15 and was just entranced by the names of the movements, by the action, the galloping across the plains, the sweeping scenery. I have inherited this interest, and am also a huge martial arts nerd and so a large motivation for me learning Chinese is that a) I love the genre of wuxia and want to know more about it, and b) I’d like to spend a few years training at an academy in Wudang and want to be able to understand as much as possible and for that, I obviously need the language to a high level!!! I started jiu jitsu when I was 8, started a southern style of Kung Fu when I was fifteen, studied for a few months in China in an academy, and it’s been my dream to go back since.

3) Different cultural attitudes, the outside park culture, and how people talk to each other. I’m from the UK, alright - we don’t do things in public and we certainly don’t approach strangers!! So when I was in China this was one of the weirdest things to get used to, next to just the sheer amount of people (I grew up in a village of 2000). But though it was tiring at times, I liked it so much. It was so refreshing to have people ask me questions because they were curious, and start talking to me. One of the reasons that I think my accidental immersion-only approach to learning Chinese the first time I was in China worked was because I just couldn’t stay away from the parks. People practicing taiji, playing badminton, chilling with kids, doing calisthenics: isn’t that just so so cool??? And naturally if I was in the parks, people would chat to me. This patience and friendliness (because my Chinese truly was awful) combined with many people’s lack of ability / confidence in English meant that I was able to improve in a way which would have been impossible in, say, Germany or Finland. Can you imagine?? Once an old guy came up to me, peered over my shoulder at my (English) book, then announced loudly, ‘I can’t read it.’ I was like - can you read English?? He shook his head, and then pointed to a small boy: ‘This is my grandson. He’s learning English.’ That kind of interaction repeated daily, as well as being in a second-tier city where I had to speak Chinese, did so much for my language skills. It also made me very motivated to improve. Also, training and exercise is just a great way to meet people: no matter your language skills, if you are dedicated people are going to respect that, and if you’re both there every day, you’re going to get chatting eventually. 

Phew, that got long again (what a surprise). But thank you very much for your questions!! :D 

[excindrela]

12 Days of Demon Ayno -Day 9 (18+)

Supernatural AU

Pairing: demon! Ayno (Noh YoonHo) VAV / Female reader

Genre: Fluff/ Angst/ Smut

Warnings: Cussing, alcohol consumption, fingering, unprotected sex (wrap it before you snap it!)

Word Count: 5031 (...I did not mean to write War & Peace...)

AU: OMG DAY 9 IS FINALLY DONE! (So I guess we’re having Christmas in July)  I’m sorry this one took so long. I knew where we needed to go, I just couldn’t get there. Good news: Day 10 is started, Day 12 is done! (We might skip 11) I have also started NYE & Lunar New Year (I’m writing all of them simultaneously) I love feedback- so if there’s something you like, or something you want to see- tell me!! Thanks to everyone who has stuck around! Special thanks to @quyennie​ for being my editor!!

Demon Ayno: Summoned, Thanksgiving, 12 Days: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11| Day 12 | NYE | Lunar New Year

On the 9th Day of Christmas: You Took Ayno to the Office Holiday Party

It was a little after three thirty when you came through the apartment door wearing baggy sweats, a zip up hoodie with nothing but a tank underneath, fuzzy flip-flop slippers, and no gloves. Even with the calf length down coat on you were freezing, but you couldn’t risk wrecking your once a winter pedi and once a year mani. Even though the heater was on and it hit you like a blast furnace the minute you came in, you were still shivering.

“Ayno? Are you here? I’m home.” The question was rhetorical. You knew your beautiful demon was there somewhere because the TV was set to a music channel playing Christmas standards, and something smelled good.

Ayno came striding out of the kitchen. “Good. I have made you lunch.”, he said as he took your coat. Like a typical human male, he paid no attention to your fancy nails and hair and instead focused on your outfit. “Why are you dressed so inappropriately for the weather?! You will catch a chill and die, and I will have to go back to being a…what was it you called me?”

“Interdimensional hooker. What are we having?”

“Macaroni and cheese. I am told that this food brings comfort, and you seem very agitated today.” He said as he bent down and wrapped his arms around your legs just below your butt and carried you into the kitchen.

“Out of the box?”

“Is what out of what box?” he looked around confused as he deposited you onto a barstool.

“Lunch.”

“Why would macaroni and cheese be in a box? Cheese must be kept cold.”

“You know- the blue box? With the orange powdered cheese? It’s like its own food group.”

Ayno looked horrified. “I do not know what kind of witchcraft would be necessary to turn cheese into an orange powder, but it should not be trusted and I do not know why you would dare to consume it.”

You privately thought he was missing out. Instead, he removed a baking dish from the oven with cavatappi noodles he had baked with some mixture of cream and cheeses and topped with panko breadcrumbs. He dished out a large helping and retrieved a bowl of salad from the fridge and set it next to the mac & cheese. You took a bite…it was creamy and cheesy and delicious…and you were so not hungry.

“It’s delicious, but not exactly cocktail dress friendly.”

Ayno frowned. “You did not eat breakfast. Now you do not want lunch. You are…stressed” he said, happy that he remembered the right word. He moved around behind you, fastening his lips to your neck and slipping a hand inside your jacket to fondle your breast through the thin tank. “You do not smell right…too much cortisol…” he said as his lips worked their way toward your ear. “If you do not do something to relax, then I will have to make you relax.” He gently threatened as his thumb flicked over your erect nipple.

You sighed and closed your eyes, “Ayno, so help me God, if you ruin a $60 hairstyle before I get to that party, I swear I will pour holy water over your head myself!” you gritted out through clenched teeth.

He wisely released you; then reached over and picked up the glass of water above your plate, and poured it out in the sink while muttering something that sounded like “I’d like to see you try it” under his breath, before going to the fridge, grabbing the open bottle of wine, removing the cork with his teeth, filling the glass and setting it in front of you.

He stepped back and looked meaningfully from the glass to your face and back again. You took the hint and drained half the glass in three gulps. Ayno refilled it.

He moved back to your side and picked up a forkful of mac & cheese and held it up to your lips. You obediently opened your mouth and took the bite. “We should not go to this party if it is making you this unhappy”, he said gently rubbing your back.

You placed your forehead carefully against his chest. “Oh Ayno – I don’t mean to be like this to you. Yes, you are right, I am stressed. The Office Christmas Party is one of my least favorite nights of the year. But this is one of those weird human social things that you have to attend even though you don’t want to.”

He continued rubbing your back comfortingly. “I will stay home if it will make you less worried.”

You put your arms around his waist and looked up into his concerned eyes. “Not a chance. Having you as my date is the one thing I’m looking forward to about tonight.”

*          *          *

You came through the doors of your building at 7:41 and the Atrium was already packed with people and the party was in full swing. Ayno slid your coat from your shoulders and went to take it and your bag to the coat check. Meanwhile, you glanced around and saw Tenley & Kara leaning against the wall by the elevator bank and headed straight over.

“Hey!” “There you are!” They called as you trotted over as fast as the slippery soles of your strappy sandals would allow. You all engaged in the typical “girl hug” that involved leaning over with your butt sticking out and the bare minimum of contact while patting the other’s back.

“Cute dress Ten!” you said. “Thanks! I was accused of being boring by Danielle, so I decided to embrace my ethnicity!” she replied, smoothing the peony embroidered satin of her mandarin collared mini-qi pao. “But it’s still black. Festive is Kara’s job.”

“What? It’s still a neutral! Just because I refuse to join the sea of black dresses with you two…” she retorted, giving her hips a little shake that made the silver beaded dress shimmy with her.

“I like it Kara! Perfect for New Year’s Eve too!” you supported.

“Right?! Kill two parties with one dress!” she affirmed.

“I thought Ayno was coming tonight?”, Tenley questioned.

“Oh, he’s here. He’s just dropping my things at coat check.”

Then Kara’s brain caught up with the conversation and she turned to Tenley looking confused “Danielle? From the Data Matrixing dept. called you boring? They only have one ‘Danielle’, right?”

At that, Tenley launched into her story the way only catty girlfriends can about another woman throwing them shade. She was just wrapping it up when you noticed Kara’s attention had been diverted.

“I don’t know what department that belongs in, but whatever it is, I will find out, and then I am transferring there whether I have the requisite skill and experience or not.” Kara said, her gaze never wavering.

You understood. You smiled at the tall, well-built man that had captured her attention, his fire engine red suit tapered from his broad shoulders to nip in at his slender waist and the pants caressed his muscular thighs. A black mesh shirt peeked out from underneath the jacket and was accented with a couple silver chains at his throat. He was stunning – and oblivious to the attention he was garnering: wide eyed open mouth stares from the ladies and looks of undisguised envy from the men. He glanced around and spying your little group he made his way over with four filled champagne flutes tucked between his long fingers. He handed out the champagne, gave a blinding smile and said “Hi!”  

Kara giggled. You just shook your head. Tenley took command of the conversation. “Hi Ayno. It’s good to see you again. I like your suit! It’s a much better look on you than the reindeer sweater.”

“Thank you, I think so too. It itches less. Although, it does not have lights like the sweater, so I think it is unlikely I will win a prize. I think you look better too.”

You laughed. “Kara, this is my boyfriend, Ayno. Ayno, this is Kara- she’s our department assistant.” “Which means she’s the only one who has any idea what’s going on.” Tenley supplied as Ayno, excited to once again be practicing traditional human greetings, extended his hand to Kara.

Kara shook his hand and then downed the whole glass in one gulp. You followed suit, and then handed the glasses back to Ayno. “Will you be a love and go get us 2 more?”, you asked him sweetly. He bent down until his face was even with yours. “Please?” you smiled at him. He smiled back, “Yes Mistress. I am always happy to serve you”, he whispered as he planted a quick kiss on your lips and then turned on his heel and headed to the champagne fountain.

“Ho-lee crap!” Kara said to no one in particular. She looked at Tenley, “You said he was hot, you didn’t say he was the male equivalent of a Victoria’s Secret angel.”

You snickered at the idea of Ayno being an angel of any kind. Kara turned slowly and looked at you. “He’s cute? He’s tall? I love his smile? Seriously??? How about he’s breathtaking and sexy as fuck??”

You laughed. “Sorry Kara. After my last boyfriend…I just sort-of downplay things now. And yes, Ayno is breathtaking…sometimes I think people look at us together and wonder what a man like that is doing with me.”

“Whatever! He’s with you, right? And he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.” She grabbed your arms and turned you to face her, “Please tell me he has a single brother?” she mock pleaded.

“Actually, he has six brothers.”

Both of them stared at you wide eyed. “SIX BROTHERS?” they chorused in unison. “Are they all single and do they all look like him? I just want one.” Kara said. “Yeah, one for you & one for me” Tenley agreed.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen them. But they’re…uh…adopted, so I’m not sure what they look like.”

“Well, you clearly hit the jackpot on this one. He’s gorgeous and seems totally devoted.” Kara said with a touch of envy.

“I know, right? I want a man who follows me around and does whatever I say without question while looking at me adoringly too.” Tenley agreed.

The conversation was halted by the ding of the elevator doors opening to reveal a couple of drunk colleagues from accounting stumbling out tipsy and looking slightly disheveled. They looked around nervously before slipping back into the crowd. “Like we didn’t all know about that…” Tenley said rolling her eyes.

You were glad the conversation shifted away from Ayno. Not only was answering questions about him like walking through a mine field, but something about the champagne or the girl’s words had made you uneasy. You didn’t doubt Ayno truly had feelings for you, but you sometimes wondered if he would stay if he had a choice. Did he only stay with you because he had to? Was this like Stockholm Syndrome where you fall in love with your captor as a coping mechanism?  Was he devoted because he had to be, not because he wanted to?

Your thoughts were interrupted by Ayno’s arrival with more champagne. You took the glass he offered, and then turned away to eye the crowd- causing Ayno to frown slightly. Kara, emboldened by the alcohol now coursing through her veins, pounced on him in full getting-to-know-you mode. Normally you would have jumped in and changed the subject, or answered for him, but you were so edgy you decided to just let him handle it. If he freaked out, transformed into his natural form, and rained hellfire on the building then so be it. You still listened with half an ear, proud that he remembered the answers you had practiced to common personal questions.

Your sudden coolness was not lost on Tenley. Sensing that Ayno might need to be rescued from Kara, and the two of you might need a moment, she nudged you, “Hey. Have you shown Ayno our floor yet?”

You looked at her with something between distain and annoyance. “No. I can’t imagine why Ayno would want to see our cubicle farm.”

“Nope. You don’t get a choice. It’s an unwritten rule that all new significant others must get a tour of the prison cells at their first Christmas Party, so they have a frame of reference for stories of office shenanigans and sympathy for the conditions we are suffering in when we have to work late”, she said matter-of-factly. With that, she punched the elevator button, snagged your champagne glass, and shoved you in when the doors opened, Ayno following right behind you trying not to laugh. The last thing you saw was her giving you a cheesy grin and a wave of her waggled fingers.

The elevator ride to the 9th floor was quick but felt like an eternity with the two of you standing in silence, you just out of Ayno’s reach. You walked at the same speed you did during your workday, lengths ahead of Ayno who strolled along behind you down the hall past the conference and break rooms, eventually arriving at the center of the floor full of cubicles.

“This is it.” You sighed, bored.

Ayno nodded. “I have seen this before.”

“Someone summoned you to their office building?”

“No. Purgatory. There are several levels that look just like this. I recommend avoiding it.” He paused, “Which chamber is yours?”

You started walking and Ayno followed you to your desk. “This is it. This is where I spend most of my day”, you said gesturing to your glass walled box full of pre-fab office furniture.

Ayno stepped inside and sat in your chair. You were surprised how normal he looked sitting there, as though you might have come around the corner and found your handsome coworker at his desk.

While you absentmindedly stared off into space, he took in your workspace, thinking to himself that it was rather like a cage, and feeling sorry that you spent so many hours there. He smiled when he saw that the one truly personal thing on your desk was a small photo of the two of you.

Knowing Ayno would follow, you slowly began strolling out of the maze of cubicles, idly wondering how much longer you’d have to stay at the party for people to consider it an “appearance” and what you needed to do to give the impression that you had had a good time.

“What is this place?” you heard Ayno’s voice behind you as he stuck his head into an open doorway.

“That’s the break room.”

“Ah!”, Ayno said with comprehension, “The domain of Cody the Coffee Snob and Amber the Refrigerator Nazi!” You almost laughed– he always asked how your day was when you came home, and you were impressed he had paid attention to your rambling stories about office drama …but it made you feel even less worthy of him. “Was the identity of the Lean Cuisine thief ever discovered?”, he asked as he continued to follow you.

“Nope. It remains a mystery.”

“What is this place?” he asked stepping into yet another doorway.

You followed him. “This is the conference room. We come in here when we have important things to discuss. That triangle thing in the middle of the table lets us watch Power Points, call other offices, make announcements…or sometimes we just use the table and talk.”

You turned to leave, but the door slammed shut. You didn’t need to ask how. Taking a deep breath, you turned and walked back to your waiting demon.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong- I’m fine.”

“No. Something is very wrong. You have stopped speaking to me. You are not looking at me. You are pushing me away”, he paused looking sad and confused “What did I do wrong? Please tell me, because I do not know.”

You sighed. “Nothing…you haven’t done anything wrong – I swear…I was just thinking about things the girls said to me and about you being with me…it just made me question whether you would be here if you had a choice.”

Ayno slipped a hand around your waist and pulled you against his body, his other hand tipping your chin up to look him in the eyes. “Do you really doubt my feelings for you?” he asked gently.

You looked into his deep eyes and shook your head, “No, I believe your feelings are very real. I just wonder if you would choose to be with me if you had another option.”

Surprisingly, Ayno smiled. He gave a small laugh and a little shake of his head, “How old am I?”

“Uh…Eight hundred and…something…”

“Fourty-four.” He supplied.  “You are not my first patron. I have had so many masters and mistresses in these years that I lost track long ago. You are not the first to want to keep me…but you are the only one I have ever stayed with. I assure you that if I wanted to leave, I could make your life so miserable that you would release me and beg me to be gone.”

Then he threaded his fingers into your fancy hair and pulled your face to his. He kissed you hard, tongue pillaging your mouth as he pressed his body tightly against yours. He backed you up until your butt hit the conference table, and then lifted you slightly so you were sitting on it. He finally released your mouth and dove straight for your neck. “No! Ayno! What are you doing?” He pulled his head up and looked at you with eyes so deep they bordered on maroon, “This is a conference room. We are having a conference. Apparently, I need to explain to you again how much I want you. That I will willingly be your slave until the end of time. That I am wholly yours…not just because you keep me, but because I choose to be. So, I’d start taking notes, Mistress, because I am going to fuck you until you get the memo.”

With that he pushed you down on to the table and resumed his attack on your neck. You could feel the heat of his mouth even as the cold of the glass covering the table penetrated your thin dress. You shivered, unsure if it was from that or Ayno’s sudden aggression.

Ayno put one knee up onto the table and pressed his other thigh against your waiting heat as he continued sucking harshly on your neck and chest working his way ever lower. You felt yourself growing warm and wet as he ground his thigh against your core. “Ayno! You’ve got to stop… someone could come in and find us!” you pleaded. “Let them”, he growled low in your ear, “I don’t actually care.”

“I care! Anyone could just walk in! And one whole wall of this room is glass!!” Making an inhuman sound, Ayno raised his head and held one hand up toward the door. A rope of red energy shot out and zig zagged around the door and frame stitching the door closed. Then he waved his hand in the direction of the windows and you watched as they turned black like magic demon limo tint. “Better?” he hissed. He had that determined look on his face – the same one he’d had when he showed up the night of the Halloween party…and once again you realized there was no escape. Ayno in pure demon mode was a dangerous force that both scared the crap out of you and turned you on in a way you could never have imagined. You suddenly noticed that his shirt and jacket had disappeared from his body and recalled his warning about why conjuring his clothes was a bad idea.

His hands roughly yanked the straps from your dress down and to the side pushing your dress down and causing your breasts to spring free. He brought his other leg up onto the table and pushed your dress up to your waist before he reached down and flipped the crotch of your thong to the side plunging his fingers into your already dripping pussy. “Always so wet for me…”,he hummed, “I know how much you want me, and I am going to show you how much I want you”, he said as he worked his fingers in and out of you rapidly while he sucked on your nipples. Your barely there underwear were finally in his way so he pulled them off and slingshot’d them somewhere unknown in the room- not caring about where they landed or how you were going to find them, before plunging his fingers back in and rubbing at your G spot at a frenetic pace. You could feel the pressure building in your belly. Needing an outlet for your own desires, you consciously willed him naked (enjoying that particular power you had) and once your will was done, you reached down and grabbed his cock and begin stroking it. You knew that you didn’t need to, but feeling his length running up and down in your hand felt so good…and you knew that he enjoyed it. “Do you like that?” You choked out. “Yes”, he whispered. “I like it when you touch me.” His fingers rubbed your G spot in time with the strokes you made to his cock. The tingling sensation you were feeling in your fingers and toes was causing your hips to buck. “Oh! Oh!” you cried as you whimpered his name like a mantra as your walls clenched and your juices ran down onto his hand.

 He lifted your ankles to his shoulders and slid easily between your folds with how worked up you were. He leveraged his weight and trapped you between him and the conference table as he speared into you hot and hard. Every thrust sent you sliding backward across the table. Your nails dug into his biceps as his thrusts gained in strength and speed and the table began to groan in protest. Somewhere around the middle of the table Ayno’s hands finally found a grip and you stopped sliding.  You couldn’t help the loud moans escaping your lips and mixed with the sound of skin on skin as his hips slammed into the back of your thighs, the creak of the table and Ayno’s soft grunts, it was intoxicating - you closed your eyes and let it echo in your head and overtake your senses.

You reached between your legs and firmly pinched your clit, rolling the ball of nerves between your fingers. Your mind was empty as you looked at Ayno’s beautiful lust filled face and saw his ab muscles rippling as he drove himself into you. Robbed of the ability to form coherent words, you settled for the vocal equivalent of a keyboard smash as your legs began to shake and your orgasm overtook you. Ayno continued his thrusts until you had ridden out your high before he lowered your legs and unsheathed himself from your over stimulated body.

You laid there on the table, sweaty and panting. Something gleamed out of the corner of your eye and lolled your head to the left. It was a small red light. The world came back into focus as the realization hit you: Ayno’s hand had finally found purchase on the command console in the center of the table…which was where the red indicator light was coming from…on the “Intercom- all office” button. Oh shit. Oh shit no. That thing over-rode everything else…including the music being piped into the party. Your moans of ecstasy weren’t echoing in your head, they had just been echoing through the entire building – including the party in the atrium and on every single floor. Everyone in this building had just heard you and Ayno going at it on the conference table. You reached over and gently pressed the button again, watching as the light went out.

You were in such a state of shock and horror at the realization of what had just transpired that you almost failed to notice Ayno’s naked body, covered in a light sheen of perspiration, planking over you. His eyes, still burgundy ringed with pink, bored into you. “Have we reached an understanding Mistress? Or would you like me to explain it again?”

“I got the memo, and while I’d love to go over it again, I think this is not the place.”

*          *          *

It had only taken a few moments for you to assess the situation. Your up-do was ruined, you were sweaty and smelled like sex, and you couldn’t find your underwear. You were a hot mess. Worse, the keys to the apartment – and the car- were in your purse that Ayno had politely coat-checked…right by the front doors of the building…so any thoughts of sneaking out an exit door on another floor and just going home without having to see anyone were dashed. You were going to have to do the ultimate walk of shame. The only good thing you could say was that it took only a heartbeat for you to desire Ayno back into the red GQ suit – and there he was- looking like nothing had happened.

As soon as you had finger combed your hair, adjusted your dress, and given up hunting for your thong, Ayno un-tinted the windows and released the door.

The hallway and elevator bank were mercifully empty.

If the elevator ride up had seemed to take forever, the ride down felt like an express. You wanted to just stand in the corner, but Ayno wasn’t having it. He pulled you to his side and wrapped one long arm possessively around your waist.

You took a deep steadying breath, squared your shoulders and lifted your chin as the elevator thumped to a stop. The bell dinged, the doors slid open, and your heart began pounding. Maybe the system was turned off? Maybe everyone was so drunk they wouldn’t notice you?

No such luck. While you were sure it wasn’t really the whole room it felt like everyone turned to stare at the two of you. You felt your face go hot, and you were certain that your cheeks matched Ayno’s suit. Ayno, who wasn’t the least bit embarrassed, kept his arm tightly around you and steered you straight into the crowd. You heard giggles, saw knowing smiles, got some judgmental frowns with accompanying head shakes, and a few hissed “yes girl!”s as you passed people. You saw Kara & Tenley over by the snack table, both sporting giant grins, who as soon as they caught your eye held up a cocktail napkin in each hand like Olympic judges- at least they gave you four 10.00s. You were almost there when Santa, who was in fact Ernie from Accounting, walked by and said “Ooooo! Someone’s on the naughty list now!” …and you could have sworn Brandon from IT high fived Ayno who simply continued strutting along unfazed, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk on his face.

You finally reached the coat check, and Ayno handed the pimple-faced college age clerk the ticket. He returned a moment later with your coat and bag, looked at Ayno and said, “Well at least I don’t have to ask if you two enjoyed the party.” You snatched your bag from him and pushed your way out onto the freezing sidewalk, making a beeline for your car. A moment later, you heard Ayno’s laughter as he ran up behind you and threw your coat around your shoulders before sweeping you up into his arms and carrying you the rest of the way.

 *          *          *

When you got out of the shower, Ayno was lounging on the bed shirtless in a pair of pajama pants. The intense gaze had never left his eyes, so you avoided it by heading to the mirror to comb out your hair. You were about three strokes in when you felt yourself being pulled backwards around the waist. Looking down you saw the red energy rope that was dragging you to your demon’s waiting arms. As soon as you got there, he pulled you against him and the ropes wrapped around the two of you, binding you together. You remembered that struggling would make them tighter, so decided to just enjoy the feeling of being forced against him without escape. The intense look in his eyes was now accompanied by an arched eyebrow. He knew your mind was busy. He was waiting.

You sighed. “I’m sorry about tonight. I know I ruined the party for you…I get so nervous & stressed about things like this… I feel like I keep questioning you Ayno, and it’s not fair. Never once have you not been perfectly clear about your desires, feelings or intentions. So, no more – it’s not your fault I’m being insecure. I apologize for treating you this way, and I will do better.”

Ayno smiled and pressed his lips to your forehead. “I am not upset. I understand. The reality of me challenges everything mortals assume demons to be. We are all supposed to be ugly, deceitful minions of evil, not humanoid in appearance and capable of honesty and feelings. This is not about you or me – it is about whoever damaged your heart before I came. Your questioning comes from fear- the fear that you will experience the same pain again. I am used to this. Do you think I am summoned by people who feel secure and happy and loved? Quite the opposite. I am called to fill a void, and my temporary nature makes me ‘safe’. I told you, I will take good care of you and I will not hurt you. I promise this. You may doubt all you wish. I will just keep explaining it to you over and over and over until you know”, he said kissing your cheeks gently as he finished.

You kissed him deeply before meeting his eyes. “I already know Ayno. But I’m happy to let you remind me as often as possible.”

And with that, Ayno turned out the lights, and reminded you again.

[09yards]

Don’t Call Me Angel / NCT secret agent au | read on ao3 here

pairings: Kun x Ten, Johnny x Taeyong, Doyoung x Jaehyun, Mark x Donghyuck, Lucas x Renjun and small Hendery x Yangyang

note: I changed the pairings from the original ones slightly and apologies for that but I think the story will work a lot better now. Anyways, enjoy (:

“I do not need some six-foot, macho-man, babysitter, Kun. I think I’ve made it perfectly clear I can take care of myself and we both know I work better alone.”

“Ten, when I came over last night I found you crying on the sofa with an almost empty bottle of expensive white wine over Grey’s Anatomy. You cannot take care of yourself.”

“Derek died Kun, gone , dead , never coming back! He left Meredith alone, and she’s pregnant! Think of the babies! Anyone with a heart would find that upsetting.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have a heart then,” Kun tisked, “And seriously, what is your obsession with babies? Can you move on from that soon—you keep mentioning them around Taeyong and he keeps whining about how cute they are too. Babies are weird, squishy things, they are not cute . They cry and scream and you can’t just leave them to their own devices. It’s so irritating .”

“Jesus, you’re such a bitch. You’re my best friend and I love you but god Kun, you can be so mean . But we’re getting off topic—I don’t need a damn bodyguard!”

“He’s not some bodyguard or babysitter Ten, he’s going to be your partner —your equal, if you will.” Kun stood up from his seat and walked around his desk to lean against it, gaze firm and business face on. “The two of you will be working together . He happens to be extremely skilled in the combat side of things and yes, he is much taller than you and appearance-wise he seems more fitting to the role. And his looks match your work a little more than yours do. He’s ex-military, his file says a Navy SEAL if I recall correctly. He will make sure you stay out of trouble while you charm and flirt your way through missions. He will allow me to guarantee—or at least somewhat reassure—your safety.”

“I sincerely apologise that I’m disrupting your usual conduct Ten, but I won’t apologise for wanting to make sure you’re safe. After what happened with Sicheng, neither me nor Taeyong are willing to take any risks when it comes to the safety of our agents. Even Doyoung is being assigned a partner for his field work. Taeyong is letting him know later, and so I give it—” Kun paused to give a quick glance to his watch and then the clock ticking against the wall. “—about forty minutes until the coffee table in the reception is smashed into several hundred thousand pieces, again . Remind me to ask Jungwoo to order a new one when we’re finished.”

Ten let out a soft chuckle, “I’m sorry too, by the way.” Ten took a deep breath, his voice was much quieter than normal, almost as if he was embarrassed. “I get where you’re coming from, I’m just not used to working with any other people aside from Doyoungie or Hendery in my ear, let alone working with anyone in the flesh. The only person I ever had as a partner was you, way back when we were still rookies.” Kun flashed him a small smile in return, an acknowledgement of some sorts of their rookie days. The days before Kun left.

“It’s going to be an adjustment, but I think it’s a good thing. Frankly, even though you probably won’t see it at first, you and Youngho will get along great. He’s coming from a placement in Berlin. He was originally part of the European branch actually, and he’s also bringing three other agents with him—Jung Yoonoh, Lee Donghyuck and Liu Yangyang. I’m not sure what code names they’re being assigned as of yet. Youngho is fluent in both Korean and English, and apparently his Mandarin isn’t terrible so you can pick what you like but keep in mind who your in-ear is. Don’t speak in a language they don't understand. That will remain the rule.”

“You mean if my in-ear is, for some reason, not Hendery or even Mark. You do know that there’s been only one case out of the four hundred and ninety-six missions I’ve worked where my in-ear hasn’t been one of them? And while we’re on that, please never assign Jeno to me again—he was awful but , in all fairness, I think he was just scared of telling me what to do.” Kun rolled his eyes at the fact Ten has memorised his exact number of missions and watches as Ten had visibly relaxed once again, kicking his feet up onto the arm of the sofa he was lounging on. His eyes widened as he tried to remember the information Kun had told him. “Wait, European? Kun did you finally find me the hot British agent of my dreams? I’m ready for my romancing. Okay, that’s a lie, but who knows.” He shrugged.

“No. I don’t know the logistics of how he ended up in Europe but he’s American, from Chicago—the place that, according to him and a quick google search, has really good pizza and is always windy. I wasn’t really interested in his life story, I was more interested in his stats on his transfer application. If it’s any consolation, Irene and Seulgi swear by him—gave him glowing references from their time in Paris and said he’s easy on the eyes, whatever that means.”

“Ah, Kun dearest ,” his voice dripping with sarcasm at the added endearment, “How would you rate his attractiveness?”

“I don’t know, Ten, I don’t pay attention to these things. Besides, I’ve yet to meet him in the flesh. I’ve only seen the pictures from his profile that were provided.”

“Bullshit! Just because you’re all work-focussed and don’t spend time on tinder doesn’t mean you can’t objectively determine if someone is attractive or not. What do our years of friendship get me if you can’t even tell me whether or not he’s ‘future partner with mutually beneficial relations material?’”

The apples of Kun’s cheeks turned rosy at that, a light blush washing over him as he visibly stiffened slightly. Ten always found it amusing that even with their years of friendship and his own distinct lack of a filter, when it came to most discussions—particularly his nonchalant approach to sex and the attractiveness of someone—Kun would flush instantly like you’d just caught him with his pants down. Unfortunately, Ten knew exactly how Kun reacted to being seen with his pants down, a price that comes with having been friends for many years and Ten’s old habit of showing up at Kun’s apartment unannounced. It’s safe to say Ten avoided him for several weeks after the incident, and now he always makes sure to knock or text.

“He—” Kun faltered, “—I guess, objectively speaking of course, I might agree that he’s attractive. Although he seems like a romantic so don’t get your hopes up. God , I need a drink before I talk about this with you and the tantrum Doyoung is going to throw—oh dear.”

“No worries, I can help you with that!” Ten jumped up from his seat, walking over to the large bookshelf filling the length of one of the walls of Kun’s office. He rummaged behind several boxes of files before yelling, “Found it!” and returning with a bottle of soju. Kun doesn’t want to know how or when it ended up in his office, but Ten seems to have gained psychic abilities because he counters that, “It’s a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know. But you never know when you might need a bottle. It’s handy to keep one around.”

“Have you got glasses hidden somewhere too?”

“’Fraid not. We do, however, have mugs so that’ll do. Shot glasses are a pain anyway. You have to keep refilling them and with a mug you don’t.” Ten promptly poured the soju, filling the two mugs and whispering “It’s our little secret,” before sitting down once again (with his feet up on the arm rest again, Kun couldn’t help sneer a little—he was a fan of the no shoes on the furniture policy, but Ten doesn’t agree to it at home, so why would Kun expect him to at the office?).

“Stop glaring at me, Kun. I’m not putting my feet down. Now , finish what you were saying about my partner .”

“I really don’t know much else about him,” Kun sighed, “he requested that two of the other agents also received a transfer and the third was given a non-negotiable transfer. He got into some trouble while in Berlin so they had to pull him immediately, but even I wasn’t given the details. I do know that he speaks Mandarin, so you can have someone else to practice with when you feel like, and I’m sure Xiaojun will be roping him into the Chinese-only nights in no time.”

“Kun, you’re supposed to be the source of all information. How do you know so little? Oh quit it, I know you only know what the profile tells you blah blah blah.”

“You can tease Doyoung about this partner, if that makes you feel any better. I don’t know much about him either but he’s another ex-military poster boy, Yoonoh could pass as a high-end model too. According to Seulgi they call him ‘everyone’s first love’. He has dimples that are apparently ‘ to die for ’ and if the photos on his profile are anything to go by, he has some rather... prominent abs. Taeyong described them as washboard,” when Kun had asked him to explain, Taeyong had patted the younger’s head and told him that it was late and he was going to head home. “I practically had to wipe the drool off of his face after he spent far too long looking at the pictures attached to the profile. Who even attaches multiple shirtless pictures to their profile? We only need one for identification, not multiple for Taeyong to fawn over. Jesus , pass the bottle, would you?”

“Kun it’s not even 5 pm, I think one mug of soju is enough daytime drinking while at work, especially if the new people are arriving today.”

“Need I remind you that I’m your superior, pass the bottle so I can drown out that picture. He kept making jokes about how I never date. I was young and hot once you know? I had fun, I got around, I wasn’t old and boring like I am now.”

“Kun I do not need or want to know how your sex life has deteriorated. I lived next-door to you in college—that’s all I need to know. You’ll find someone when you’re ready. Who knows, maybe you’ve already met them.”

“Have you thought about my offer to live with me or on-base yet? I don’t like the thought of you living alone… not after everything.”

Ten raised his eyebrow at the comment. “I haven’t yet but I’ll think about it. Now , tell me about Yoonoh.”

“The only other thing I was told is that he’s supposedly quite the charmer and sweet talker, however he’s always declined any advances made towards him according to Irene. He seems to have a naturally flirtatious personality, though.”

“Ahh, brilliant! Poor Doie is going to fall in love with him so quickly, I can’t wait . I hope Yoonoh’s going to flirt with him. He isn’t going to have a clue what to do.”

“What you’re saying would sound sympathetic or supportive coming from anyone else's mouth, but from yours it just sounds downright sadistic.”

If Kun hadn’t known Ten as long as he had, the eerie smile Ten is currently adorning would’ve been alarming but alas, once you’d known someone long enough, and you’d risked death together and saved one another’s lives more than a handful of times, and a large part of your job involves killing other people, it takes a lot to creep Kun out these days.

“Hey, your forty minutes are up now and no smashed coffee table yet—“

As if someone of a higher power was listening in, the sound of glass shattering echoed through the ground floor of the building along with several screeches from whoever was milling around at the time. This wouldn’t be the last time Doyoung would throw whatever piece of furniture he could get his hands on off the balcony, launching it to the floor below and consistently nailing the coffee table in particular.

“As you were saying Ten?”

Ten pouted and mumbled, “Never mind.”

There was a sheepish knock on the door and Kun yelled a quick come in as a response.

“Sorry to bother you guys, just thought I’d let you know, Kun, but I’m putting the order for a new coffee table in now and a new office chair. Is there anything else you need?”

“No that’s all, thanks Jungwoo.”

“Wait? An office chair too?” Ten sat up a little, waiting for a response.

“Yes, Ten,” Jungwoo sighed, “That’s what Doyoung threw off the balcony—may need to bring a contractor in to fix the dent in the floor, but I think a new table will cover it enough that it doesn’t need to be done anytime soon.”

“I forgot you’ve never actually witnessed Doyoung throwing various belongings off the balcony. The money he costs me is ridiculous.”

“I’ll leave the two of you to it. I doubt it’ll be long before they make their way down. You know what Doyoung’s like.”

“No worries, thanks Jungwoo.”

Jungwoo had only just made it back to his desk where Xiaojun was waiting with a fresh cup of coffee when Doyoung flung Kun’s office door open, bypassing the now sheepish looking Jungwoo and closely followed by an exasperated looking Taeyong.

“For the last time, Taeyong, no! It’s not happening! I work alone, alone ! Do I need to spell it out for you? It’s a five-letter word, of which the meaning is to be by oneself, or shall we take the definition from the Oxford Dictionary where they define alone to be: one, without any other people or two, without the help of other people or things.” Doyoung took a second to catch his breath in between sentences, “I don’t need someone looking out for me, I look out for me. I’m the quartermaster, I head up our entire technology department.”

He jabbed a finger in Taeyong’s direction, “I’m regarded as one of the best amongst all the branches of NCT. Yes, I hacked my profile again to look. You really should get someone to make it less easy—oh wait, you can’t because I’m the only one who can because it’s my job. I am not some newbie field agent who doesn’t know how to reload a handgun in less than ten seconds. You made me go through the training just like everyone else, I can tell you that I did not engage in hand to hand combat on a daily basis with Lucas for shits and giggles. No one trains with Lucas for fun aside from Renjun but its Renjun. That kid scares me, he may be pint-sized but if Ten has taught me anything, the short ones can bite and they usually have high pain thresholds but not-so high patience and I’m not ready to die just yet. Honestly, I’m getting a tad concerned at the number of people we employ that appear very cute but just happen to be capable of snapping your neck or blowing your head off.”

“Are you done yet?” Taeyong sighed, impatiently tapping his foot against the floor. He was fully aware that Doyoung wasn’t actually angry, he wasn’t death glaring either Taeyong or Kun, and aside from the coffee table no major damage had been caused. It was typical Doyoung, whine until someone gives in.

“No. No, I am not finished. Thank you, Taeyong.”

“Oh my, please continue, Doyoung. Everyone here wants to hear your pathetic complaints.” Ten’s trademark sarcasm dripping from every word.

“Oh Ten, don’t act like you weren’t whining to Kun about this less than an hour ago.”

“At least I haven’t been bitching to Taeyong for an hour and thrown a fucking chair. You can be so dramatic Doyoungie.”

“Dramatic? Me? Have you met yourself?”

“Both of you, be quiet!” It was rare of Kun to yell at someone, to be angry with them—let alone full-fledged shouting in the confines of his office. “Taeyong, please may you check with Jungwoo on when the new agents will be here? Ten and Doyoung can join the meeting as well if they stop insisting on acting like children . Apparently, they seem to have forgotten that we may all be friends here, but while we’re at work, I am their superior and what I say is final.”

“Sorry to interrupt again Kun, but the new agents are here. Xiaojun is with them in the conference room and asked me to get you as soon as possible. He seems to find them rather intimidating.”

“Right, nevermind Taeyong and thank you Jungwoo, we’ll be right there. You and Xiaojun can feel free to head home. I’ll need just one of you to round up whoever’s still hovering and point them in the direction of the dorms—I don’t want to be interrupted when we give them the tour. Have a nice evening, and I will see you tomorrow.”

“Will do, thank you. I’ll be in for the conference with Japan first thing in the morning. See you then!” With a meek half-smile, he hurried out of the office once again. Jungwoo wasn’t a stranger to the tension of the office, so he knew very well that Kun rarely shouted, and he wasn’t for testing his patience.

“Okay then. Do you two still want to act like toddlers with your whining? Or can we all go and introduce ourselves to the new agents with the manners and respect we would expect to receive from anyone else?”

“Yes, Kun. Sorry, Kun.” They both mumbled simultaneously, standing up and straightening their clothes.

“Ready, Yong?”

“After you.”

[matthewko28]

Sharing a short (?) story for today's International Mother Language Day :)

Oh wait no it's already Feb.22 in my timezone

Warning: There are might some words abt language or fact that not used accurate, if there's any wrong please correct me, thanks.

-----

Except for Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien/Minnan/Taiwanese is a language spoken by the most part of people in Taiwan. However, Taiwanese is never an official language. Here's many history facts could tell, including the past education policies,the fading folk art, the gap between generations, the muted this and that and so on.

But today's point is a tv channel, PTS Taigi (公視台語台), the first public tv channel featuring all the shows on it are in Taiwanese.

Unlike the other two public channels, Hakka TV and TITV (Taiwan Indigenous Television) launched in 2000s, broadcast in their mother languages. Although PTS Taigi has its former names Dimo TV (2004-2012) and PTS2 (2012-2019), it's not until last year (2019) that they become a literally public Taiwanese (I mean on linguistic) channel. PTS is the acronym for Public Television Service, while "Taigi" is Taiwanese in Taiwanese. (oh wait why the sentence looks like a tongue twister)

PTS Taigi airs news and non-fiction tv programs, the contents including documentaries, variety shows, nature, history, science, lifestyle, and I think the most important, culture. When the channel broadcasted at the start, many people post on facebook to say they were touched because they saw how glad their grandparents were when the family turned on the tv.

In past, if our (grand)parents (for now they are at least 70 years old in average) want to watch the shows abt animals or world travel, their only choice is Animal Planet or TLC, or National Geographic. Although the shows always have Chinese subtitles and even Mandarin narrators, most of them are still not as quite familiar with Mandarin as their (grand)children, not to mention English, it's totally the other dimension.

But since PTS Taigi airs, these elder people can watch these nature documentaries and entertainment programs without confusion, or just let the tv turn on. Because all the shows have Taiwanese voice-over, or the host and guest on talk show (?) all speak in Taiwanese, our grandparents' mother language.

The public channel shows how highly respect the government give to our cherished local culture. It never happened through the past decades.

I thought those language related policies recently are pretty good, and so glad that we have a reliable government now. But I didn't know (and look forward to) how would the channel affect my home, until one day I was watching a show with my Grandma (I'll call her A-Má in the following text, Grandma in Taiwanese, the word I love the most).

The show is called 寶島鼓仔燈, literally translation is Lantern in Treasured Island. It introduces so many things abt Taiwan, such as folk music, cultural symbols, customs…etc., with Taiwanese and Chinese subtitles. And the host is the one of the famous Taiwanese opera actors. His voice is so clear and high and I was shocked when the first time I heard tbh😂

Uh, where was I?

Oh, when I was watching the show with A-Má, "do you know? In my childhood, this thing was called…" she suddenly shared her story, looked like inspired by the show's theme that night. (sorry I forgot the topic…)

I was just like those people shared their touched feelings on facebook, very surprised and happy to find the light in my dearest old lady's eyes.

This is not the first time A-Má talk abt the era she lived, but it's definitely a precious time that I know how rich, important and beautiful the language is. And I'm so lucky to participate in, and understand it.

The only detect of the show is that the content is too rich _(;3_ㄥ)_ The words, grammars, idioms level are higher than daily used. And I don't know why but A-Má's Taiwanese also become higher level than our talk usual. My Taiwanese is not good enough to focus on the show and A-Má's story at the same time😂 Maybe I should watch the replays later. But still, I'm glad to know A-Má likes the show, and willing to share her experience with her granddaughter ;)

It should stop here, but just let me sharing a culture shock (?) example when I was eight haha.

It was in school, an Taiwanese class, the first time I learnt that Apple in Taiwanese is

Phōng-Kó.

I stared at my textbook, and look at my teacher, and was just like "what? Huh? Seriously????"

Because in my home (and maybe in many families in Taiwan), everytime we ask someone to cut some apples in Taiwanese, we always call it

RINGO. (Japanese)

[katiekat1321]

Something Worth Losing

A/N: So this was written for @littledarlinhavefaithinme‘s marvelous writing challenge. I had prompt #18 “How dangerous,” she thought, “to finally have someone worth losing”. I hope everyone enjoys it, I’ve never written for Peter before so this was different for me. I usually write for the Misunderstood Boys (Loki and Bucky), but I have a few other one-shot ideas for Peter X Reader stories in the future!

Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

1523 words

You were a Stark, Tony Stark’s only daughter, to be more specific. And yes, that came with all the glamour, fun, and stress anyone could imagine. But it also meant that you got a front row seat to all of your father’s struggles he never let the public know about, like his anxiety attacks and PTSD. You could see the pain he tried to hide away, you could see it in the other Avengers too. You could see Bruce struggling with his self-worth, thinking he wasn’t as useful as the Hulk was to the team. Steve struggled with fitting into the century he now found himself living in and sometimes you caught him crying softly, in the dead of night, about the simplicity and the life he missed out on. Once you had even had a long and very deep conversation with Thor about his struggles with understanding Loki’s behavior and how his brother was not the monster that the Battle of New York made him seem appear be; he was often wrestling with his thoughts to connect the brother he grew up and loved so dearly with all the chaos Loki had caused in the last couple years.

To any normal person, you would see all that pain and hardship and want to steer clear of such a path. Tony especially didn’t want you involved in Avengers business. He dreamed of you working with Pepper and one day taking over Stark Industries, leading it down a better path than he ever did. But you were a Stark, which meant you were strong-willed and hard to deter once you’ve made up your mind. So when you showed up to a mission in a suit of your own design that you built by hacking your father’s computers for schematics and had F.R.I.D.A.Y. help you to create, he knew there was no stopping you. “I want to help you. You don’t have to carry the weight of the world alone, Dad,” you told him before your mask snapped shut and you blasted an enemy. He was incredibly proud, but was already seeing upgrades he would want to make to your armour.

That mission was hard, they thought they lost Clint there for a minute, so having another set of eyes there was actually a big help. But that night your dad sat you down for a talk. “You’ve got to upgrade that armor,” he started jokingly. It was his style to start light and joking before getting to his real point. “Why on Earth would you think a bulletproof onesie with blasters and a face mask was a good design? You look like a knock-off Mega Man out there, it leaves you too open and vulnerable.”

You snorted at the comparison, but rolled your eyes. “It gives me more mobility. The hand cannons can retract up my arm so I can have my hands free. I tried a suit in your style. I thought it was too clunky for me.”

“Oh, so you’re out here for one day and I’m already the old model?” Tony asks. You nod, but give him a look that tells him that the joking is over and to say what he needs to. “Okay, okay. Enough beating around the bush… I know I can’t stop you from being an Avenger. You’re almost an adult. You’re a genius, you’re welcome for that by the way. That is all thanks to my genes! Plus you already have your own suit so you’ll be out there fighting for the people regardless of what I say. But Honey, I have one piece of advice. D-don’t, don’t fall in love, don’t have a family.” You froze, this was not where you expected this to go. “I know that sounds awful coming from your old man, but with this line of work it just adds more worry and anxiety. Everyday I wake up and check on you and Pepper in the middle of the night, just to make sure you’re still safe. Because of my choice to become Iron Man, I put you two in harm's way. Any day a villain or lunatic could kidnap you or kill you to get to me or just send a message.”

“You mean like what happened with Pepper a few years ago with the Mandarin?” You asked.

“Exactly, and I’ll never forgive myself for letting that happen. Every mission could be my last and I won’t get to say goodbye. I’ll just be leaving you two forever. I do not regret you or Pepper, not even a little, but I imagine it would just be easier to not get attached at all…”

For a long time those words haunted you. It became a rule you lived by. You never got into relationships, for other people’s safety. That was until the “Civil War”, as the media jokingly referred to it, settled. You didn’t see eye to eye with your father. You thought the accords were a mistake brought on by your dad’s fear and guilt. You left the complex with Steve and the others, but you also refused to fight your father and teammates. So you stayed hidden away in Berlin while the chaos ensued at the airport and later stayed in Wakanda to keep watch over Bucky while Steve, Wanda, Natasha, and Sam went on missions. It wasn’t until both sides came to an armistice agreement of sorts a few months later that you met Peter Parker.

You and Peter became fast friends since you about the same age, give or take some months. And you were both working in the same area of the lab on upgrades for everyone’s gear, because as you learned from Shuri, just because something works, doesn’t mean it cannot be improved. That is about when you noticed you were catching feelings for him, and it kind of scared the shit out of you. After all this time, following your father’s advice, seeing the practicality of it, you were crushing on Peter Parker.

You tried your best to push those feelings aside, you buried them deep inside of your heart. All the thoughts of how handsome he looked when he was focusing on an equation and how perfect he was when he would show up for the team movie night with your favorite candy were locked away into the back of your mind. And you thought that it was working just fine until one night, when you and Peter were out on patrol in Queens, you were knocked out of the sky by some asshole with a Chitauri blaster. You were knocked unconscious and started free falling towards the ground. You would have probably been seriously injured, or worse, if Peter hadn’t caught you. Within a couple minutes you jolted awake.

You tried to look around to figure out what exactly happened and reorient yourself, but Peter was holding you too tightly to his chest. He looked like he was on the verge of tears, so even though you almost died, you started sooth him. “I thought I was going to lose you…” He said, “Y/n, I have to tell you something.”

Please don’t say it,  you thought to yourself, don’t make this harder for both of us…

“I like you so much, more than a friend,” Peter admitted. “I don’t care what Mr. Stark thinks, I don’t care what anyone thinks. I love you so much Y/n and I don’t know what I would have done if I lost you. I just needed you to know that, even if you don’t feel that way. I don’t know what I would have done if something happened and you didn’t know because I was too nervous to say anything.”

For a moment you couldn’t reply. This wasn’t the most well-timed or romantic confession, sure. And yeah, Peter kind of rambled and looked so nervous he could puke. But it was Peter, and he loved you, and whatever walls you had built up had been broken down by this adorably handsome dork you knew you loved so much.

“Oh Peter… Let’s talk more about this when we get back to the compound okay? We don’t know where the guy that shot me out of the sky went and I’d rather he not find us, okay?” You knew you both had to get the hell out of there. That area wasn’t safe, it was only logical that you leave now, but the way Peter’s face fell made your heart break. “But um… I feel the same way Peter,” You added. “This is just the wrong time to stop and talk. We need to move, quick.”

Peter’s frown quickly turned into a relieved smile as he pulled his mask back over his face and yours snapped shut over your head again. You took off and hovered a few feet off the ground to watch Peter swing away, just for a moment, before shooting off back towards the pick up point where Happy would be waiting for both of you. How dangerous, you thought to yourself, to finally have something worth losing...

[quicksilversquared]

There’s No Camembert in Tibet: Chapter 19

Being cramped together in a car all day was... well, not a ton of fun.

At least most of them were transformed. They had gotten in to Tenzin's house late the previous night, with no time to shower and would no doubt smell of the trail and sweat if not for the odor-muffling abilities of their suits.

"I'm looking forward to the hotel tonight," Queen Bee said as they pulled out of their first rest stop of the day. The Miraculous holders had had to use and detransform in the family restroom, going one at a time. It slowed down the stop considerably. "Dibs on the shower first."

"I'm not sure that dibs works if the person you're sharing the room with is in the other car," Ladybug said with a laugh. "You'll be with Alya, right?"

"I assume so."

"We may require your assistance in getting flights booked right away," Jade Turtle told Queen Bee. "I know you're looking forward to showering, but making sure that we get the rest of our trip back to Paris set up is important."

Surprisingly, Queen Bee didn't argue. She only made a slight face before she nodded. "Okay. I'll find my wallet."

"We thank you."

The two cars zipped down the highway, over low hills and through straight stretches of road. Chat Noir wound his hand around Ladybug's, resting his head on her shoulder while they watched the scenery go by.

"We might try having the second car detransformed after lunch today," Jade Turtle said after another few minutes. "As long as the cars aren't driving side by side, we should be fine. And I know Wayzz desperately needs a break."

Ladybug nodded, thinking of the little turtle kwami. Wayzz had been looking a bit haggard the last few times that she had seen him, even with the veggies they plied him with and support from the other kwamis. "I can call Lycaena and get them in on the plan, so you can detransform."

Jade Turtle nodded. "An excellent plan! Please do."

It didn't take long for Ladybug to take the call and set up a plan with the others. The car with Mrs. Agreste in it would go behind the other. Both Jade Turtle and Queen Bee would detransform, as the members of the group who had spent the most time transformed. Ladybug and Chat Noir could choose to do the same, or they could stay transformed.

"Do we want to be serenaded by a cheese song? Because that's what's going to happen if Plagg comes out," Chat Noir said as their car passed the other one. "So if anyone was planning on sleeping, then I'll stay transformed."

Queen Bee groaned. "Great. Just what I needed first thing in the morning."

"We can always ask him to hold off on that until later in the day," Jade Turtle said. He said something to the driver in Mandarin and he nodded before blocking the side of his face with his hand. Jade Turtle detransformed in a flash of light, and Queen Bee wasn't far to follow.

"Just warn the driver if you two decide to detransform," Master Fu told them. "He has to briefly close his eyes so that he doesn't get blinded by the light."

Chat Noir looked to Ladybug. "Shall we free the cheese beast, my Lady?"

"Sure." Ladybug waited until they were on a long straight stretch of road and then signaled the driver. There were two "detransform me!"s in unison, and two more kwamis spiraled free.

"Ah, a break," Plagg said happily, curling up on top of Adrien's head. "Fantastic. Can someone pass me some cheese?"

Sighing, Adrien passed a small chunk up. "Just don't get any in my hair, all right?"

Plagg sniffed as he snatched the cheese. "I make no promises."

"Plagg."

"You will be able to take a shower this evening, Adrien," Master Fu pointed out. "So, while it might be unpleasant, you will be able to wash any crumbs out."

"Still! It's gross!" Adrien gave his kwami the best stink eye he could manage. "I don't want to spend all night in the shower just because Plagg couldn't be a neat eater."

Plagg stuck his tongue out, just because he could.

Over in the other car, conversation had gone from "kind of stilted and one-sided" to "very stilted and one-sided". With Mrs. Agreste there, they couldn't discuss anything that would give them away.

And since they were two of Adrien's best friends and his girlfriend's mom, that covered most anything that they might talk about, since they were very likely to talk about the exact same things once they met Mrs. Agreste as themselves. Paon had tried talking about his favorite songs, since that was vague enough to not give himself away, but some of the songs had come out after Mrs. Agreste was trapped and the rest, well...

Mrs. Agreste had a bit of a different taste in music than he did.

"I'd say we could try to play that Telestrations game again, but there aren't enough of us in this car to make it funny and the other car is all detransformed," Rena Rouge said after a half-hearted round of "favorite food" had petered out. "Uh, what else can we do?"

"I Spy?" Paon offered weakly. "Uh, have the driver tell us stories and Mrs. Agreste can translate? Or Lycaena could."

"I can certainly try," Mrs. Agreste said, though she had perked up at the suggestion. "My Mandarin isn't perfect, of course, but it should do."

"I'd be interested in hearing about what life is like over here," Rena Rouge agreed. "Or about his family history, that's quite interesting as well."

"Oh, is he familiar with the temple?" Mrs. Agreste turned and asked Palijor a question. Her face lit up with interest when he responded, and Rena mouthed nice one at Paon. They had gotten Mrs. Agreste included in something. Adrien would be happy.

"He says that his family had the Pig most recently," Mrs. Agreste reported. "And that before, they had had a couple ancestors with other Miraculous- oh, just one other," Mrs. Agreste corrected herself. "It got passed down until recently."

"Yeah, Jade Turtle took it back," Rena Rouge piped up. "Because they didn't need it here."

"And because Palijor has several kids, and he didn't want to have anyone claiming that he was playing favorites," Mrs. Agreste added after a short exchange. "Which I can understand. The culture is changing and it isn't the default for the eldest child- or eldest son, I suppose- to get the big inheritance anymore. And having more than one surviving kid complicates things."

"There's more of that that's not fair feeling when big items are up for grabs in big families," Rena Rouge chimed in. "My siblings were crazy jealous that I was going on a big trip this summer. I can't imagine how much they would whine if our parents had a magical item to give to just one of us."

"At least with the Rat, they knew that there was a responsibility attached to the Miraculous," Paon said. "And since a lot of the family didn't want to deal with the responsibility and with living out in the middle of nowhere, there wasn't that jealousy."

"That's one way to keep people from all clamoring over the Miraculous," Mrs. Agreste agreed. "It's a lovely area, but not an easy life out in the country."

They all nodded in agreement. They had all seen how limited things were out in the rural areas. There was no easy, quick way to get into a city, and it was hard to communicate with no cell phone coverage or internet. Winters would no doubt be really tough, too. Farming was a tough life, too, and it would likely be hard to meet someone to marry in such a small community.

For people who had grown up in a large city, that way of life- doing that for an extended period of time and not just a couple days- was pretty much inconceivable.

"He says that in his family, people took having the Miraculous seriously at first, but when there were no further threats then it was seen as more of having a magical pet," Mrs. Agreste reported after another quick exchange. "That, combined with his kwami's urging, led him to make the decision to return the Miraculous."

"I have to admire that," Rena Rouge said. "Like, I hate to admit it, but I would hate to give up my kwami. I probably wouldn't. If I had Chat Noir's kwami, though..."

"He'd be easier to give up, I think," Paon agreed.

"He grows on you, though!" Lycaena protested. "He's a handful for sure, but he has his own sort of charm under the cheese obsession."

"Is he the one who sometimes sings at night?"

"That's the one."

"He does seem like a character," Mrs. Agreste agreed, laughing. "And probably very hard to keep secret. I can't imagine that any decent parent would miss a singing kwami."

Rena tried not to laugh. Glancing to the side, Paon and Lycaena seemed amused as well. Adrien was lucky that Plagg was only acting up now because he was bored and the kwami didn't behave like that at home. Mrs. Agreste was clearly going to be a much more observant parent than her husband (not that that was a high bar to reach or anything) and Plagg would have to work a little harder to fly under the radar.

"What was the Pig kwami like?" Lycaena asked, steering the conversation back on track. "I mean- I could ask, but..."

"Oh, I like getting the practice using my Mandarin." Mrs. Agreste turned to the driver and repeated the question in Mandarin. Palijor made a bit of a face, shrugging just slightly before answering. Mrs. Agreste nodded in understanding before twisting back to address the back seat.

"He said that the kwami was nice enough. He didn't spend that much time with it, though, because it tended to stay out of sight- out of habit, I suppose?- and then pretty soon after it was passed down to him, he and Tenzin decided to return their Miraculous to Jade Turtle. It's been many years since then."

"Oh, okay." Rena Rouge felt a bit disappointed in that. She wanted to know more about the other kwamis, darn it! The Rat's kwami had kept to himself for the part of the trip that they were together, just like its Chosen had, so she hadn't learned anything there. "Were his kids disappointed that none of them would get a Miraculous?"

Another exchange of words, and Palijor shook his head. Mrs. Agreste nodded in understanding and turned back to them. "He didn't tell them about the Miraculous at all. The family tended to keep the kwami fairly hidden and he asked that his father not tell the grandkids anything. He'll tell them the stories of the temple in the future, but not mention how recently the Miraculous was given up."

"Oh, that's probably smart," Lycaena said. "My Miraculous is definitely going back when I get old. No passing down through the family there."

Rena Rouge tried not to snicker. Of course the Butterfly wasn't going to get passed down. Lycaena only had one child, and she had had a miraculous of her own for much longer.

"Maybe we can go back to the stories?" Paon suggested. "We kind of got derailed there pretty quickly."

"Of course, of course!" Mrs. Agreste turned back to Palijor, and they all settled in to listen. "Okay! So the first of his ancestors to go to the temple, many, many years ago..."

  After lunch, the two cars did a quick shuffle, having Queen Bee switch with Lycaena so that Nooroo could have a break. Paon and Rena Rouge were sure that their kwamis would have liked a break as well, but Ladybug and Chat Noir weren't going to be going over to their car any time soon, and obviously poor Wayzz needed as much rest as he could get.

"Do Ladybug and Chat Noir not like me?" Mrs. Agreste asked anxiously as the two cars pulled out of the stop. "I can't help but notice that they've kept their distance. I mean, I'm not entirely surprised since Gabriel must have inconvenienced them quite a bit with his akumas and now they've given up part of their summer to help save me, but... have I offended them?"

"I think that they're just really looking forward to being normal civilians again for a while," Rena Rouge said hastily. She could understand why Mrs. Agreste would think that, but she doubted that Ladybug and Chat Noir wanted that to be her impression of them. "And they can detransform in that car, and of course their kwamis have been working the hardest over the last year. They need the break more than ours do."

Mrs. Agreste didn't look convinced.

"They like talking about what they're going to do with the rest of their summer," Paon chimed in quickly. "What's left of it, I mean. To remind themselves that they can be normal again. They've gotten tired of having to police what they say so much. They've had to do it all year, with all of their interviews with reporters and whatnot and just talking to people in general."

"I can understand that, I suppose," Mrs. Agreste said. "But really, is it necessary to be so secretive? What are the chances that I would actually know them? Or you guys, I suppose."

There was a muffled snort-cough from the front, and they all glanced forward to see Queen Bee covering her mouth. She looked mightily unimpressed by the attention.

"Sorry," she said, not sounding particularly sorry at all. "Water went down the wrong way."

"Are you okay now?"

"Just fine." Queen Bee brushed off the completely dry front of her suit. "It surprised me, that's all."

"I see."

"So, we were listening to some of the old stories from Palijor's family before the stop," Paon said, perhaps a bit too loudly in his haste to change the subject to literally anything else. "They were pretty interesting. Maybe we can listen to more?"

"I'll ask," Mrs. Agreste told them. "It's a good way to include the drivers, too. We were hearing about what his ancestors did with their Miraculous, dear," she added to Queen Bee. "They had the Pig."

Queen Bee wrinkled her nose. "A pig? Ew." She yelped. "Ow!"

Rena Rouge and Paon snickered. Apparently Pollen could actually pay attention to what her holder was saying while transformed, at least a bit.

"A pig-shaped kwami, dear, not a farm hog."

"Oh." Queen Bee considered that. "I suppose that could be cute."

"So do you want to hear about that, to help pass the time?"

Queen Bee thought about it. "I guess that could be cool."

Over in the other car, they were already enjoying a much different form of entertainment, courtesy of one recently-fed kwami.

"Cheese! Some cheese! Some tasty cheese! Someone, get me some Provolone!"

"I suddenly regret taking this car," Sabine said with a laugh, glancing across the backseat to where Plagg was dancing around. "I'm all for music, but this is, uh..."

"Quality entertainment?" Plagg supplied, still spinning around. "A fantastic ode to the magic that is cheese? The best thing you've ever heard?"

"Not quite what I was going to say, but sure," Sabine sighed. "If that's what makes you happy."

"He's been doing this all day," Adrien said, sounding exasperated. "He's excited to get into town, because Master Fu said that we would be stopping by a store and picking up more supplies. Which means fresh cheese, apparently."

"Yes, it was a mistake," Master Fu admitted. "I should have kept it a secret. But we had to discuss plans. We've been trying to decide how far we want to get each day, or if we can shave a day off by driving overnight."

"Not tonight," Sabine said immediately. "We're all too tired, and I think there'll be a riot if people don't get to sleep in a bed tonight. We need to stock up on groceries. People want to shower."

"I think it entirely depends on when there are flights available," Tikki pointed out. "If there's nothing for a few days, there's no point in hurrying. If we can get a flight in two days, then we need to hurry."

"And we can check on that and get tickets tonight, at the hotel," Sabine finished. "I'd prefer to get home sooner, but if it's easier on the drivers, we can adjust that."

"I'd also prefer to get everyone home sooner. The longer we're together, the more likely it is that something will happen and someone's identity will be compromised. And if one is compromised, that means that all of us are at risk. That was the main problem with me selecting people that are close to Adrien."

Sabine nodded, glancing back at Adrien. She was of the opinion that it was better for them to have taken that risk in the long run, really. Adrien had needed the support on their trip, even if he had done his best to put on a brave face. There was also the fact that their current group was properly motivated to get the spell to work on the first try, whereas there might be others who... well, who might want to do what Mr. and Mrs. Agreste had done, where their route got figured out over the course of several smaller trips rather than one large one. It would have taken longer that way, which easily could have impacted Adrien's performance at school.

There was also the fact that it just felt better to have familiar faces along with them on the trip. Sabine thought that Master Fu had chosen well.

Plagg had started singing again in the back seat, and Sabine did her best to ignore it and focus on the conversation. "So basically the plans are a bit up in the air and subject to change right now, but we just want to get back to Paris as soon as possible."

Master Fu made a bit of a face. "That's about as far as we've gotten with the planning, yes."

"So we need to figure that out as soon as we get to the hotel, so that people can be prepared." Sabine had to raise her voice as Plagg swung into the chorus of his song. "Do both drivers know about the potential driving overnight thing?"

"Yes, I ran it by them over lunch. They're fine with it. I think they're eager to have the trip over and their cars back."

Sabine could understand that. Road trips weren't fun, even when the driver and all of the passengers could actually communicate and when there were no singing, dancing kwamis in the back seat.

How Plagg had managed to come up with cheese-related lyrics to the tune of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Sabine did not know. Nor did she particularly want to know. It wasn't exactly a crowning achievement or anything.

When it became clear that there wasn't much more conversation happening, Tenzin reached over and turned the radio on, drowning out Plagg's warbling. It stayed on for the rest of the afternoon, and eventually Plagg attempted to add his cheese-related lyrics to the unfamiliar music before his silence was bought with a large chunk of Cheddar.

The silence was very much appreciated.

They pulled off into a hotel parking lot before the sun even set. All of the younger Miraculous holders and Mrs. Agreste blinked in confusion and then turned to Master Fu and their respective drivers for clarification.

"The next city is far enough away that it would be difficult to get there and get everything done that we need to do," Master Fu explained. "We need to get plane tickets and Mrs. Agreste needs to call home and get her passport sorted out, and we need to be at a hotel in a larger city such as this one to do that. Otherwise we would keep going and then camp next to the road once it gets dark."

"Oh, okay." Adrien glanced towards the other car, which was parked a bit behind them so that Mrs. Agreste couldn't see into their car. "So, uh, how are we going to do this? Who is going in first? I assume that we don't want the locals to pick up on the fact that Miraculous holders are here."

"Well, Queen Bee will have to come over to our car and detransform. She and our drivers will go in and get our rooms. Palijor and Tenzin will lead Mrs. Agreste to her room, and then we can all detransform and go in safely. We'll try to get her and maybe Palijor and Tenzin on a different floor from us." Master Fu waved the drivers over and repeated the plan to them. "Queen Bee should wear a hoodie. That way, she can hide her hair. Is her bag in this car, or the other one?"

"In ours, and hers is the top bag, but if we turn around we might be visible from the other car." Adrien glanced backwards and then ducked down in his seat. "Should we transform again? I don't want to attract a ton of attention with lights going off in our cars."

"No, Tenzin can find it." Master Fu turned back to Tenzin and asked, and the driver immediately nodded, popping the trunk and hopping out of the car. "I'm not sure how to get around the lights problem, though."

"I have an idea," Sabine spoke up. "Our car can drive to the grocery store and pick up what we need once the drivers return, so that there won't be any accidental reveals from her glancing over here. And once Mrs. Agreste gets into the hotel and situated, the other car can go on a short drive around town and Paon and Rena can detransform under a towel or something to muffle the flash. It's unlikely that anyone would be curious enough to follow the car back to the hotel."

Master Fu laughed. "It's a bit like a spy movie now. But I think that's very smart. We can get our errands done and try to make sure that no one is paying us any attention all at once. We'll be less obvious that way, too."

Tenzin interrupted with a shout of victory and they turned around to see him holding Chloe's yellow hoodie. He hurried towards the other car and handed it to Queen Bee, gesturing for her to put it on and follow him. Thankfully, Queen Bee seemed to catch on and she pulled it on before hopping out of the car, even remembering to grab her backpack, which held her wallet.

"Detransform in here," Master Fu called through the open driver's door. "Then pull your hood up and you can go get rooms. Come, come, and we'll tell you the plan."

It took no time at all to get Chloe caught up and then they watched as the she vanished into the hotel with their two drivers. There were a few other people milling around the lot, but they paid the foreigners no attention.

The clerk in the lobby might raise a brow at a blond teenage girl getting six rooms for the night, but hopefully they would forget about it soon enough.

The rest of their plan got pulled off just as flawlessly. They got their errands done and the last members of their group detransformed as inconspicuously as possible before returning to the hotel and getting settled in, all without getting any unwanted attention.

The group had opted to stay in their rooms as much as possible, just so Mrs. Agreste wouldn't step out and run into any of them. Alya, Nino, Adrien and Marinette had all holed themselves up in one of the rooms, watching some TV show while Adrien did his best to translate. Since Chloe was the one with the credit cards, she was the one to accompany Master Fu and Sabine to the hotel lobby to use the computer there. Fu had dressed down in a less obnoxious shirt, and Chloe's distinctive blond hair was tucked under a hooded sweatshirt, just in case.

While Emilie Agreste seemed trustworthy and the kwamis had confirmed her good nature, that didn't necessarily mean things would stay that way forever- and they didn't want her accidentally mentioning who any of the new Miraculous holders were to Mr. Agreste, who would likely take advantage of that information somehow.

Sabine didn't trust that man not to try to attack the city again to turn back time and change things so that he wouldn't end up in jail with a ruined reputation. Emilie had seemed none too pleased with her husband, and it would be right in character for Mr. Agreste to try to turn to magic to fix that.

"I'm going to have to keep an eye on this card after this," Chloe grumbled as she pulled up an internet window. "I don't trust this connection, not at all. But I don't think there's any other option."

"I think other places would be pretty similar," Sabine agreed, pleased to know that Chloe did have a bit of sense when it came to credit cards and money. From what she had seen and heard before the trip (and a bit during the trip), she had rather wondered. "Make sure that all cookies and login stuff is cleared at the end for sure."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Yeah, duh. I know that." There was a pause, and then Chloe winced and rubbed her shoulder. "Uh, I mean- thanks for the reminder, I'll do that for sure?"

Sabine hid a smile. Somehow she suspected that Pollen might have stung her Chosen.

It took no time at all for Chloe to pull up a list of flights, and Sabine and Fu scanned the flight schedule over Chloe's shoulder. There were two flights per day from the closest airport to Paris, just over four hours apart. Both stopped in Chengdu instead of Beijing like their flight out had, which would shorten their travel time somewhat.

"So Adrien has to go first," Chloe announced. "So that he gets home before his mom. But there's only two seats left on the earlier flight two days out. Maybe we can do Mrs. Cheng and Adrien?"

"No, let's put Adrien and Marinette on the early flight," Sabine told her. "We need to spread out the people who speak Mandarin."

"And I think that we should put Sabine on the same flight as Mrs. Agreste, the second flight of the day," Master Fu chimed in. "Just to keep an eye on her to make sure she gets back safely. Out of all of us, she's the least likely to stand out among the crowd. And normally I wouldn't do flights on such a quick turnaround, especially since Mrs. Agreste doesn't have any paperwork with her, but she assured me that Nathalie would be able to figure something out."

Chloe nodded, checking the seats on that flight. "Five seats left there."

"Good. I'll try to get a seat where I can see Mrs. Agreste, but she wouldn't be staring at me for the whole flight." Sabine glanced over at Master Fu. "And then the four of you can return the next day on the same flight."

Chloe's fingers were flying as she reserved the seats, triple-checking the dates as she did. Adrien and Marinette's reservations were first, followed by Sabine and Mrs. Agreste's. They spent a couple minutes looking over the remaining seats available on the two legs of the flight, figuring out which ones would be best. They settled on two seats that weren't too close together, but that would allow Sabine not to lose Mrs. Agreste when they were getting off of the plane.

"Got 'em," Chloe announced. "Now I need to get ours, but that's not as big of a deal."

"Well, you don't want to miss your flight and have to go back even later," Sabine pointed out. "If there's too much time between when we get back and when you get back, someone is bound to notice."

"My dad won't," Chloe said matter-of-factly. She winced and rubbed her side- Pollen had apparently bitten her again- and then corrected herself. "But I suppose Nino and Alya's parents might, so I'll get our tickets right away."

Sabine glanced around the lobby as Chloe made the last of the reservations. Mrs. Agreste hadn't emerged, it would seem; there was no hint of her distinctive blond hair among the sea of dark-haired locals. That was good, though Sabine was sure that the other woman was probably either bored out of her mind or incredibly anxious. She hoped that Mrs. Agreste wasn't calling home quite yet. It would be best if Adrien could call and update Nathalie first on his return home, just as to not completely freak the poor Agreste family secretary out.

With a few more clicks of a button, Chloe printed out the confirmations for all of the flights. Emilie's reservation confirmation got trimmed down to remove anything that could identify Chloe or Mr. Bourgeois, and then Chloe cleared the computer of all of her credit card and email info before logging out.

"Well, that went well," Master Fu commented as they headed back upstairs. They got off on Emilie's floor and slid the paper with the flight information on it under. Wayzz popped under for a moment to make sure that she got it, and then they were on their way upstairs to update the rest of the group on the plans. "We'll have to drive overnight, though. I'm not sure how people will feel about that."

"Well, we have the hotel to enjoy tonight," Sabine pointed out. "And some time to get out and about if we need. That'll have to balance tomorrow out."

"Would they have a hairdresser in this town?" Chloe asked immediately. "I just want to get my hair evened out, so it's not immediately apparent that it was a home job. It won't be up to the standards of my favorite salon, of course, but it'll do until we get home."

"Probably. I can send Tenzin out with you to look around town," Master Fu told her. "Would you like to shower before, or just go right away?"

"Oh, god." Chloe made a face. "I don't want anyone touching my hair when it's in this state. I don't want to be touching my hair when it's like this. I'll shower first and then go out after I'm done."

"That sounds like a plan."

"But won't you have little bits of hair from the cut then?" Sabine pointed out. "That'll be itchy."

"I'll take another shower when we get back, no problem."

Sabine supposed that she should have expected that, honestly.

They reached their floor, and the first room that they visited was Adrien and Marinette's. To their surprise, Nino and Alya had apparently headed over to another room, leaving Adrien and Marinette alone with a TV program playing quietly in the background as they lay flopped across the beds.

"Oh, we'll get to go back really soon, then," Adrien commented, pushing himself up as he scanned the flight details. "I thought we might have to wait a few days to get spots to open up! This is fantastic. Good work, Chloe."

"Just promise me that you won't let my father see you until I've texted that I'm back, promise," Chloe told Adrien. "Since I'll be getting back a day later, and so will Alya and Nino. Stay inside. I won't make a big deal about it when I come back so my father might be a little blurry on the return date after the first couple days, but..."

"Of course," Adrien promised. "I'll probably be spending the time with my mom, after all. And I'm sure we'll probably spend that time inside." He sighed. "Like usual."

"You think she'll be as overprotective as before, with things with the Rat all ironed out?" Chloe asked. She frowned. "Maybe if my dad talks to him-"

Adrien shook his head. "He wouldn't have the right approach, I don't think. I'll have Nathalie talk to her, and get her to see sense."

Sabine frowned and made a mental note to talk to Adrien's mother as well once they were back- or maybe she could even start working on her as a neutral third party while they were on the road. If she asked what Emilie's plans were once she got back to Paris, just all interested-like, and do a bit of fishing, then she could figure out how overprotective she was planning on being. She could point out that the Rat wasn't going to harm her or Adrien and there were no further threats. Sabine was sure that some basic security was going to stay, and Adrien seemed to enjoy having a driver, but he could be let out on his own more often, and particularly on outings with his friends.

After tasting freedom, Adrien would not easily accept going back to his sheltered, confined life from before. And Sabine would do everything she could to help him.

Chloe just shrugged, apparently accepting Adrien's words without argument. "We'll figure it out. But, speaking of Nathalie-" her lips stretched into a smirk- "Your mom'll probably call her as soon as she finishes reading over the flight information. How much do you think she'll freak out?"

[theoneandonlyocelot]

CA: CW - or, Why I Don’t Trust Tony Stark

Okay, so I’ve read a lot of MCU and CACW stuff, and I noticed a couple of things that nobody else has addressed, so here goes:

I’ll say right up front, I LOVED Iron Man 1, okay? Like, I STILL think it’s one of THE BEST superhero movies ever made. The fact that they took what could have been a very fluff  character, and took the time to take him back to square one, hold him responsible, make his transformation MEAN SOMETHING to him, I was, and still AM, VERY VERY IMPRESSED. RDJ’s performance on top of that just made that character MATTER, when by all accounts he’s not much in the comic books. When he tells Pepper he needs her help because “You’re all I have,” and a few minutes later in the conversation she reminds him to be careful because “You’re all I have too, you know,” that kills me. Be still my heart!!

BUT.

And this is a big, painful “but.”

Throughout the first movie, Tony has two or three basic character flaws that he DOES NOT address:

1) He is reckless and impulsive and DOES NOT THINK THINGS THROUGH. He is also breathtakingly egotistical. Driving 90+ mph through twisty canyon roads in a sports car when he could end up over a cliff? Not a thought. I cringed in the theater, knowing how easily that could have ended in disaster. I don’t care how good a driver you are, you are not immune to unforeseen road conditions. When he discovers, on the battle field, that he’s being shot at by his own weapons, is kidnapped, and eventually decides to make the Iron Man Prototype, he LITERALLY does not stop to think that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, the bad guys are going to want this piece of tech, too? Like, he LITERALLY makes zero plans to make sure that his designs for the suit won’t end up in the wrong hands?? And I completely CANNOT believe that he couldn’t rig up a fail-safe mechanism to destroy everything should they have been discovered or their escape plan had failed.

And the company dealing under the table? It never seems to have occurred to him “Hmm, maybe I should go home, lay low, and do some quiet snooping UNTIL I FIND OUT WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?” No. He goes home, IMMEDIATELY ANNOUNCES TO THE WORLD THAT HE’S HALTING ALL WEAPONS PRODUCTION, and tells Obadiah what he knows. Not only does he not seem to realize that this level of double-dealing probably goes VERY, VERY HIGH up in his organization, he never takes steps to protect himself from the possible backlash. That is a level of naivete and self-absorption that would have been drilled out of most people upon being kidnapped, but one Tony clings to throughout the series.

On top of that, he never gives a thought to the people who work for him (who are now temporarily laid off until his plants can be converted). He never gives a heads-up to Rhodey, his military liason and best friend. And no matter what you might think about the military and their involvement, Stark Ind. was still under contract, and could have been sued up one side and down the other for halting production and failing to deliver, putting even more people out of work for even longer and potentially endangering soldiers. It very likely boiled down to Rhodey’s personal friendship with him that kept the military off his back for as long as it was.

And this complete failure to think things through leaves him so shockingly vulnerable that even after Oby admits “I’m the one who locked you out [of the board],” Tony never bothered to lock Oby out of his house. It leaves him so frighteningly vulnerable that he sends Pepper into the office to get evidence without giving a second thought to what Oby might do to her - and with no plan at all to keep her safe.

And this carries over into IM2, when he sees that other scientist’s name on the blueprints and doesn’t stop to think that maybe this other guy deserves some credit? Like, maybe he has family or something that Tony at least owes royalties to, because hey, THIS GUY HELPED INVENT THE THING TOO??

It carries even further in IM3, when he gives Mandarin his home address and dares him to come get him. And then he seems so baffled when his home is attacked. Like??? What did you think would happen, Tony?? This guy showed you he was a major badass, and you called his bluff cuz... why?? You thought you just had to look tough at the cameras and he would back down? (MCU’s treatment of Mandarin later in the story is another rant for another time.) And you did it when Pepper was home too. Cuz you forgot the lessons of IM1 and you didn’t think far enough ahead to ask yourself what you would do to protect her if he DID attack.

Like, I get why Pepper was pissed at you, man.

2) Tony wallows in guilt and self-pity. Like, bathes in it. Takes long, hot soaks in it like it’s a friggin’ therapeutic spa.

He was in captivity for how long? clutching the car battery to his chest and feeling sorry for himself before Yensin convinced him to fight back. It was three months total before he escaped - I get that he needed time to build the suit, and time to recover from the injuries he sustained in the attack. I give him a full six weeks, the standard recovery time for open heart surgery and a full half of the time he was gone. But the movie makes it pretty damn clear he didn’t even THINK of fighting back until WELL AFTER he was healed physically. Yensin’s pep-talk amounted to “You’re Tony Freakin’ Stark! At this point you’re only in captivity cuz you want to be, so get off your ass and DO SOMETHING!!”

And this carries over into the rest of the movie, leading partly to his instant halt in weapons production (see above), and to his whole broody-in-the-basement montages in both the first and second halves. It’s why he abandons Pepper at the party (thanks, reporter with photos!), why he takes on the Ten Rings by himself, and why, again, he didn’t see Oby coming.

It carries over into IM2, when he spends the entire, what, first third-to-half of the movie wallowing in self-pity because the arc reactor is poisoning him and it doesn’t occur to him that Nick Fury of friggin’ SHIELD might know somebody or something that could help? (That’s some next-level self-absorption right there, my friends, to believe that you are so damn smart that NOBODY could possibly know ANYTHING more than you.) And we know most of his “creative block” was self-pity, because the moment Coulson takes his toys, alcohol, and friends away, grounds him, and forces him to go looking at his stuff, and his father’s old SHIELD stuff, logically, he finds the solution rather quickly.

But he doesn’t learn the lesson in this movie either, apparently, because there he goes again in IM3, wallowing in self-pity again. Pepper’s mad at him at the start of the movie because he tries to sidle out of responsibility for stuff, and rather than own up to it, he pouts and buys her a giant teddy bear (Seriously, Tony? How old is she, four?). And when she calls him on it again, he keeps wallowing. He wallows through his fights with Mandarin and the other dude. And when he goes on the run, hiding out in the kid’s garage, he spends most of that time wallowing in self-pity as well. I really don’t think it would’ve have taken him that long to fix the suit and find Pepper, if he hadn’t been enjoying feeling sorry for himself. I give this movie credit, though: like IM2, it gave him a villain who mirrored his self-pity - both Whiplash and whats-his-name felt that Tony owed them something (in Whiplash’s case, rightly so; in the other guy’s it was pure self-pity and bruised ego, same as Tony’s).

And this is why I can’t get behind him in CA:CW:

Viola Davis’ character has ALWAYS felt sketchy to me. She showed up at Tony’s speech, giving him a story about her son who died in Sokovia (or Africa, I forget which) helping refugees when he was killed by a falling piece of debris during an Avengers fight. But she lets it slip that she works for a US Senator. That, right there, was a huge red flag for me. WHAT SENATOR? That’s the first question Tony should have asked. Why? Because we know there are Senators who’d do anything to bring him, and the Avengers, down.

Tony doesn’t ask that question, though. Why? Because he doesn’t think that through. And he doesn’t think it through because he’s too busy wallowing in self-pity that he might - MIGHT - have caused that kid’s death.

Look, I GET IT. I GET that him and the rest of the Avengers should be more careful. I GET that Tony has been through a lot - he has trauma, PTSD, etc, etc.

But look at it this way: Tony has more resources available to him THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THE TEAM - to get therapy for his PTSD, to get surgery on his chest (which he FINALLY got in the end of IM3). But I think it’s telling that the traumatic situation he recreated during his speech, showing off his holo-tech, wasn’t any of that. He didn’t show being attacked in Afghanistan and held prisoner. He didn’t show the Battle of New York. He didn’t show catching the nuke and going through the portal. He didn’t show his battles with Whiplash, when Mandarin destroyed his house, or when he fought Guy Pierce on the ship.

He showed his last argument with his parents.

Let that sink in. 

The implication at the end of IM3 is that he dealt with his physical trauma by getting the shrapnel, and the arc reactor, removed from his chest. The post-credits scene, where he’s talking to Bruce, implies that he’s willing to get treatment for his PTSD. There’s NO REASON to believe in later movies that he HASN’T DEALT WITH HIS PTSD, or is at least getting therapy for it on an ongoing basis.

Let that sink in, please.

It means he’s not reacting to everything in CA:CW because of battle fatigue.

I GET that he looked up to his dad, he loved his mom, he felt guilty cuz their last conversation was a fight. This is all very normal, guilt-inducing stuff.

But tech he was marketing for recovering soldiers did not show a military fight.

And to equate the two is, once again, some next-level self-absorption.

It also means he carries blithely on in his lack of tactical thinking and self-pity for the whole rest of the movie BECAUSE HE CHOOSES TO.

Sokovia Accords? He is wallowing so deeply in self-pity that he MIGHT have caused V. Davis’ son’s death that he never asks if she’s telling the truth. He never asks if he’s being manipulated. He never asks if the Avengers are being manipulated. He never asks if there’s another way to handle the chain-of-command, the who’s responsible and holding-them-accountable questions.

These are all questions that Steve DOES ASK.

Steve who, DESPITE HAVING GONE THROUGH JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE, personal trauma, JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE BATTLE TRAUMA, who has JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE PTSD, WITH FAR FEWER RESOURCES TO COMBAT IT, DOES STOP TO ASK WHY THIS IS HAPPENING SO FAST.

You’re tellin’ me Wanda genuinely had to be under house arrest “for everybody’s safekeeping” rather than going upstate to the Avenger’s compound and practicing with live ammo and explosives until she could safely contain an explosive AND keep it away from humans? You’re tellin’ me Tony couldn’t rig up a skeet-shooter to fire at her, and a safe-room where she could practice without hurting anybody? I don’t believe it. If he’d stopped wallowing for two minutes, it probably would have occurred to him, too.

But, unfortunately for the entire team, Tony continues to wallow for the rest of the movie - he wallows in grief over his parents, guilt over V. Davis’ son (tho he never seemed to show that level of care over Wanda’s and Pietro’s parents), fails to question whether or not Bucky MIGHT be innocent (what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? guess that doesn’t count if you’ve been brainwashed by Hydra, so maybe Nat should have seen that coming too?), wallows in his anger at Bucky during the finale (iirc, he doesn’t get any proof of, or make any connection between, Bucky and his parent’s deaths until deep into the finale), and then, during the finale fight with Steve, wallows in self-pity that Steve turned on him, like Tony’s somehow not responsible for anything.

Like, I GET that you LIKE the guy. But give him the consequences of his choices. TONY CHOSE, at every possible moment, to wallow in self-pity, to take on blind faith what he should have questioned, to doubt where he should’ve trusted, and failed to consider the consequences of his actions.

He completely fails at all three, and has throughout most of the MCU.

I find it horribly, horribly telling, to compare Tony with T’Challa, whose father was also freshly murdered in the last three days and before his very eyes. Both men raised in privilege, both men crazy smart, both men react, at first, with gut-level rage. But T’Challa eventually has the presence of mind to step back and ask himself “Is my rage justified? Is my rage directed at the right target?” And when the answer is “No,” he backs off. Tony never reaches that level of awareness. He is hit, he hits back, without thought. Even when Cap’s got him on the ground beating the crap out of him, Tony never stops to ask “Did I maybe contribute to any of this? Is my rage justified? Is Cap’s?” Even when he lashes out at Cap - ”He’s my friend.” “So was I.” - it’s as if, for Tony, it’s all about himself, as if there’s no possible room for two victims, or even three (counting Steve).

Look, I LIKE the guy. The way RDJ plays him he’s charming, and brilliant, and I think most of the time he’s at least trying to keep his heart in the right place. RDJ’s portrayal is, quite frankly, the only thing keeping me from hating Tony right now. But I don’t TRUST Tony farther than I can spit because HE IS so easy to manipulate.

And with the brain, and weapons, at his disposal, that is truly terrifying.

[kittenshift-17]

Hey Kitten! I was wondering if you're majoring in writing? I'm a high school student who's applying to college right now and am also really interested in writing (potentially to the point of considering it as a career), and was wondering if you had any tips ^^

Goodness.... How do I answer this without sounding terribly cynical and crushing your hopes and dreams and ideals about the world?

I’m actually already finished studying, myself. I graduated with a BA majoring in Writing and Publishing 3 years ago. And without blowing holes in all of your plans, I’ve got to be honest as I tell you about how useful I’ve found my degree.... which is to say that it was completely useless and a waste of money. 

Maybe it’s my country’s outlook, but having a BA isn’t really the big deal it used to be and everyone I know who got an Art Degree basically wasted their money. I mean, those in productive arts and theatre and such find them handy due to the practical classes, but a writing degree is..... Well, it’s a lot like high school English/Literature classes. You get given texts and articles and asked to dissect them and write essays about them. It’s.... god, it’s boring. The books are about as interesting in college as there were in high school and the teachers aren’t that much more competent on the grasp of what they want in the essay, and tend to have a biased and ridiculous analysis of the stories. Sometimes the author writes the curtains as being blue just because we like blue, not because the character is depressed, ya know?

When you say you want to consider writing for a career, I assume you mean that you’d like to be an author, and if so then my advice to you would definitely be to forget about majoring in writing for a university level degree. They don’t teach you how to write in those classes. They teach you how to draft essays, and unless you want to take after George Orwell, you don’t want an essay style of writing if you’ve aspirations to be an author. 

If, on the other hand, you mean you want to look at writing as a career option for other fields than fiction or non-fiction writing, then it can definitely be useful. If you wanted to get into writing as someone who drafts up those silly example stories you see in school textbooks (you know the ones, where Sally has five apples and sells Billy three before turning purple) then they come in handy because the classes teach your how to dissect such a story for meaning and the language tool you’re focusing on, and you work backwards (which is why those things rarely makes sense).

The point is, college is expensive. And so you have to weight the options of how much you’ll get out of a degree against how much money goes into paying for it and how much real-world use it will be to you once you’ve graduated. 

Me? I have a Bachelor of Media and Communication, majoring in Writing and Publishing. 

Do you know what I use it for?  Nothing. I don’t use my degree at all. I work as an Administration Manager for a Commercial Laundry and spend my days inputting data and trading polite, yet curt emails with clients regarding their linen hire. The only useful part of my degree is my grasp on the English language that allows me to very professionally tell someone to go fuck themselves without once cursing, or even crossing the line into being rude.

Look, of everyone I know who went to college that got a BA, do you know which ones are doing well? The ones who did a double major, one is business, law, or science, and the other in languages. Seriously, if you can major in languages, do it. Pick a core language and study it like your life depends on it. Two of my friends who studied language (both of them studied Mandarin) now have some super cool jobs. One is a high level special intelligence officer for the military. The other is a financial advisor for a Chinese conglomerate and, I believe, is currently living the high life in China. 

Everyone else I know who got an Art degree, either in writing, music, communication, advertising, history, social studies or anything else pretty much had to go back to uni after they graduated, do a Diploma in education, and use their skills to become school teachers. Seriously, all of them. I know talented musicians, talented writers, history-buffs, and more, and they’re all teachers now. Teachers, or doing what I’m doing and wasting their degree by working in a job where the degree has no meaning beyond showing an ability to commit to something for 3 years. 

At the risk of sounding condescending, and potentially confusing you all the more when you’re already at a place where all of life’s big decisions seem laid at your door, I’m going to give you a list of the things I wish I’d known when I was in high school.

TIPS:

1. Be single. Seriously, if you’re currently in a relationship, I urge you to end it. I don’t care how in love you think you are, or how painful the idea of breaking up might be, you WILL regret being in a relationship when you’re in college. And I don’t just mean because you’ll be meeting new people and could be bouncing into bed with some sexy stranger(s). There are so many things that I didn’t do in college because I was too busy trying to make things work with my boyfriend (whom I dated for 6 years before we broke up, by the way). I mean, I missed out on a bunch of college events because instead of being on campus, I was driving home to my small-town to see him. I missed out on so many life experiences, ranging from skinny dipping with strangers, to wild parties, to experiencing life WITHOUT worrying about someone else and how they would react to my actions. I cannot tell you how much I regret not just ending things with him and figuring out who the hell I was because I was too busy focusing on who WE were. 

2. If you’re going to study something, pick something that will give you practical experience, not just theoretical experience. Pick something that will give you life experiences. Study a language - hell, spend a semester abroad if you can. Study something that has a real-world use. If I could go back to being in high school, do you know what I’d do rather than studying a BA? I’d become a Veterinarian. Or a doctor. Or maybe a scientist of some kind. Hell, I might even forgo college and get an apprenticeship as an electrician or a hairdresser, or maybe even a builder. I reckon I’d have made a kick ass engineer, actually.

3. Push yourself. Don’t rest on your laurels and coast through the course. Go to every class. If you go, and you consistently find it boring, or awful, then you’re probably in the wrong course and should drop it for something else. I mean it. I have a BA. I spent 3 years studying it. Do you know how much actual course-work I engaged with? Roughly 50 hours worth. Total. I never went to class. I holed up in my dorm writing fanfic whenever I wasn’t partying, hungover, or feasting. I literally went to about 5 classes throughout my final year, despite having been enrolled in courses that asked for 10 hours a week minimum face-time in the classroom and living on campus. And I still graduated. It was way too easy and I wish I could go back and pick a different course - one that would make me WANT to go to class every day.

4. Recognize the fact that, no matter how it seems like you’ve got to figure everything out RIGHT NOW, you really don’t. Be decisive, and if you have a career goal in mind, work toward it, but please, PLEASE approach a company that offers that career and ask them if you can observe for the day. They might say no, but they might not. Tell them you’re in high school and you’re thinking about angling toward a career in that field and you’d like to get a look into what that career is like. Ask if you can shadow them for a day, or a week, or even a month. Ask them questions. Don’t just tag along if they let you observe. Ask for their motivations. Ask how it all works. Ask if they’re happy. Find out what the drawbacks of that career are. You’re at the age where you can find out who you are and who you want to be. 

Me? When I first enrolled in college I was training to become a Registered Nurse. I spent a buttload of money on books and uniforms and courses to be a Nurse and then I did a practical-training stint and do you know what happened? I found out I fucking HATED it. I couldn’t deal with all the bodily fluids, and showering old people, and being coughed on and struggled against, and bossed around by doctors. And I quit. I called my parents and I told them how studying it was exciting in theory, and that I enjoyed the course-work for my essays, but I couldn’t stand the practical part. And I told them that it was fucking me up and that I’d stick it out if they wanted me to, because they were paying my accommodation for living on campus. But I found out what it was like, and I hated it. And if I’d gone to my local hospital and volunteered BEFORE applying to be a nurse, I’d have known it wasn’t for me. You haven’t got to get it right the first time, you know? You can make a mistake. But they’re expensive. If you can do things BEFORE money gets involved and figure out what you like and don’t like, do it. Always do it. Go to you local hospital and ask if they need an AIN for the week. Go to your local shelter and volunteer. Volunteer in a soup kitchen, or at your local library or youth centre. Ask companies if you can help them out for a few days and be willing to do it WITHOUT being paid. If you expect money, most will turn you down, but if you paint it as them helping you figure out who the hell you’re going to be and saving you from making potentially the worst mistake of your life if you pick the wrong course, most people are decent enough to give you a go.

5. Travel. I mean it. If you can afford to travel, and it won’t cost you a scholarship, take a year off between high school and college, and travel. See the world. Take a bestie, or go alone, but travel. I would be a completely different person if I’d travelled before college, and gone alone, rather than waiting until the summer between my 2nd and 3rd year and going with a boyfriend. Your perspective on life will change, I guarantee it. Hell, take a working holiday and work bar-jobs or cafe-jobs, or anything to pay the bills while you see the world, but for the love of god, get out of your home-town or your city. Meet new people. See new things. Learn how things work in another country by experiencing it first hand. I can’t stress this one enough because my number one biggest regret in life is that when I was in high school, I was offered a place in an exchange program to live and study in a country of my choice for a year, and I turned it down because I was in a relationship that was “going to last forever”. It didn’t last, and I was an idiot, and I insist that anyone who can travel MUST do so. I don’t care if you’ve got to backpack your way across Europe on $10 a day, if you can do it, PLEASE do it.

6. Learn how to take advice and criticism without seeing it as a challenge and without immediately being spiteful and doing the opposite. Listen to people who know better. If I’d listened to my parents, I’d have ditched the boyfriend, travelled, seen the world, and been a whole different person. If I’d listened to my Aunt, I’d have known that nursing was going to be horrible and that I’d hate it and quit. If I’d listened to family friends who ran local businesses in my town, I’d have been able to take them up on offers of things that, at the time, sounded awful, but things I’d have likely really enjoyed. 

7. Don’t listen to your friends. They don’t know what’s best for you, no matter how well they know you or how close you are. If they’re your age, then they’re as clueless as you right now and they don’t have any idea how to offer you actual advice that will help change your life for the better. If you want to try something, and your friends disagree, do it anyway. Learn to be independent of them. One day, all too soon, that bestie you’re so close with will be someone you see or speak to once or twice a year and - here’s the kicker - you’ll be okay with that. You might even PREFER that. The point is, you need to grow as a person and you need to figure out exactly who you are. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and it’s not always as rewarding as you might hope, but it’s important that you do it. And I know that being told to figure out who you are tends to bamboozle teens. Hell, it confused the hell outta me because I was all, “I know exactly who I am.”

I didn’t.

Ask yourself the hard questions. Figure out where you stand politically. Figure out what matters to you. Do you care about religion? Current Events? Does the opinion of your peers matter to you? Does it really? At the end of the day, when you go to bed, do you CARE if you offended someone who deserved it? Do you prefer chicken or beef or vegetarian? What would you look like with a nose ring? A shaved head? A tattoo you can regret later? Do you like boys, or girls, or something in between? Both? Neither? Are you a wool sweaters girl, or velvet jumpsuit girl? Sneakers or scuffs? Dyed hair or natural? Tea of Coffee? Boy or girl? Do you want to help the environment or end world hunger or fix the economy? Do you want to hide under a rock and never talk to anyone again? Do you want to make a name for yourself? It’s all relevant and it sounds silly, but if you’re aspiring to be a writer, find a character questionnaire of all the things you’d want or need to know about a character to write about them in a book. Fill it out about you. You might be shocked by what you learn. 

8. Don’t give terribly long winded answers like this one.

9. Never settle. You’re more than settling. Don’t settle for a partner, don’t settle for a job, don’t settle for a town, or a city, or a friend, or a life that you’re not happy with. If you aren’t happy, figure out why and make changes. You’re allowed. No one is going to stop you, and if they try, direct them to me so I can lecture them on how to be a better person. *winks*

10. Use your imagination. If you want to be an author, you’re not going to learn how in a classroom. You’ll learn by diving into a book and entering a whole new world. Practice your writing. Write fanfiction and share it to see what people make of it. Listen to the suggestions of those offering constructive criticism. PRACTICE. Read. For the love of god, read everything. Push yourself to learn how to write better, not in the classroom, but in the real world. Write whenever you can. Every day. I mean it. Literally, every day. If you don’t write, you won’t improve. You’ve got to do it. Set a goal. Tell yourself you’ll write 100 words a day, build on it from there. Be like me and write thousands of words a day, when you’re up for it. If you don’t keep your imagination alive and trying to think of new ways to tell the same story, you’ll struggle and you’ll fizzle. 

xx-Kitten

[blschaos3000-blog]

Its 6:55 pm sunny/cool/writing

Welcome to ‘8 Questions with…..”

Finding my interviews is always a challenge. As I type this,I am looking at my list of interviews that are out and awaiting for them to be returned. Out of 13,only 5 have been returned and two people simply just declined because “The Inner Circle” isn’t People Magazine or TMZ and I can respect that. So when artists approach me about doing a interview,its actually pretty exciting,it means that someone likes what I’m doing and wants to be part of it. Someone like our next guest,actor and martial artist Sky Patterson. Sky sent me a friend request and a very nice note asking if I would be willing to do a interview with him. Well after taking a look at his background,this was one of the easiest calls I had to make.  Sky is one of the most interesting human beings I have met,a top notch martial artist,a international traveler,a man of books and education and a hard working actor. So what has led to Sky’s journey to all these various interests and paths that he walked on,well that is what I wondered as well and I found my normal 8-10 questions weren’t going to be enough and that I was going to ask a few more. I was glad when Sky was open to this and welcomed the added questions…the truth was I could have asked another 15 but we’ll save those for another round in the future. But for now,I am going to get out of the way and let Sky answer his first 8 Questions ………

 Please introduce yourself and tell us what you’re currently working on.

I’m an actor and writer in Los Angeles. With the stay at home order, I’ve been writing a lot recently, and I’m currently working on two feature scripts. One is an 80s zombie comedy, and the other is a story about a collegiate wrestler.

  How are you dealing with the Covid-19 lockdown,how are you staying busy?

There has definitely been a lot of Zoom. I’ve done several table reads, improv meetups, and done self tapes with friends reading for me virtually, and vice versa. Many casting directors have had open calls so I found every one of those I could and submitted to them all. I’ve also recorded some monologues on my own for fun. The rest of my time has been spent writing, reading, watching movies, and staying in shape. Needless to say this is an unprecedented situation for us all, but it’s really admirable how some people have found ways to lift each other up and collaborate.

 What was it like grwoing up in your home? What were your three favorite memories as a youngster?

   I grew up in Portland, OR. The city has changed a lot since I lived there. Since elementary school I was involved in theater, but my life definitely changed when I started martial arts. One of my most formative memories was watching John Carpenter’s Escape From New York for the first time, which is still one of my favorite films to this day. The morning after I put on a black tank top and walked around my house acting like Kurt Russell. Another great memory was getting to introduce special effects legend Ray Harryhausen at a screening and Q&A for the Northwest Film Center when I was in third grade – my dad told the organizer how big of a fan I was and they offered me the opportunity. And one of the greatest times I had growing up was getting an apprenticeship in high school at an arts magnet summer camp co-sponsored by Nike and Weiden+Kennedy. We basically got to live in the woods down in central Oregon for two months and make a short film with all the equipment they had. I learned a ton about filmmaking and had a total blast.

 What led you into the martial arts? Can you explain what your style of martial arts is?

   I started on a total whim – the summer after 8th grade I was feeling like I needed a hobby to keep me occupied, so I decided to try martial arts. I watched Enter the Dragon with my brother and he told me I had to study Chinese Kung Fu, because that’s what Bruce Lee did and he was the best. So I found a local Kung Fu school and signed up. It turned out they did Shaolin style, as well as Wushu, which I had never heard of. It’s basically a style created for solo competition that is very flashy and exciting to watch – Jet Li was the Chinese national champion in Wushu. It places a high demand on flexibility and explosiveness, and I ended up training seriously and competing in that style for about 10 years.

 What three things have you learned and taken away from being involved with martial arts?

   The biggest lesson I learned competing was when I got back from China. I placed as the runner up in several championships, and I asked my coach what I could do to take it to the next level. He said “when you’re on the mat, it’s your time. The judges have to pay attention to you, and no one else is allowed on, so enjoy it.” After that, instead of trying to block everyone out before my routines, I would look at the entire crowd and think “I’m going to show them something they’ve never seen before.” And I started winning.    I also learned early on to place a premium on nonviolence and to avoid confrontation any way possible, which is a quality all great martial artists value. And to give back – my first instructor made us clean up the studio every day and help him teach kids classes because he said when you get something from martial arts, you have to give back to the martial arts.

Why is education important to you? What led you to choose USC for your college education?

   Growing up education was seen as the most important thing in our household. My dad had the dream of me getting a scholarship to a good university and there was some conflict when I started doing martial arts classes 5-6 days a week, but I never let my grades slip. USC was my dream school for the film program, and for the opportunity to come to California. When I applied I made a mistake on my film school application and actually got denied, but they let me in as an undeclared major. A couple weeks into the semester I got a call from someone from the film office who had seen my essay and wanted to offer me admission there on the spot, so I took the opportunity.

 Where did your love of China and its culture come from?    How hard was it to learn the language?

   The summer before college my mom gave me a book called American Shaolin by Matthew Polly (who has also just written the greatest ever biography on Bruce Lee). It was a story about an American college student who dropped out and went to live at the Shaolin Temple for two years. I was incredibly inspired and wanted to live my own version of that story – I felt like I had an advantage since I had already been training in Wushu seriously for four years, but I didn’t have the money to go to Shaolin so I felt the only way I could get to China was through study abroad at USC. They had a minimum requirement of 3 semesters of Mandarin in order to be eligible so first semester of freshman year I signed up, and I ended up eventually switching my major to Chinese. The written part is a little challenging but the words and grammar aren’t actually that hard, as long as you can differentiate the tones (Chinese is a tonal language so the same word in a different inflection has a completely different meaning). As I went along I saw it as another example of giving back after you’d received something – I had gotten so much out of martial arts that I wanted to pay my respects by learning more about the language and culture.

What was it like living in Beijing like? What were some of biggest cultural differences to you as an American?

   Living in Beijing had a lot of ups and downs. After I graduated from college I got a scholarship from the Chinese government to do martial arts full time at a sports university there. It was actually the same sports university I had trained at in my free time when I studied abroad in Beijing during undrgrad, so I thought the adjustment would be smooth. I was wrong. I was living on my own for the first time, at a school with no other Americans, and I definitely felt alienated many times. I’m a pretty outgoing and outspoken person, but Chinese often take a lot longer to form friendships. By the end of my year there I had made some really deep and loyal friends, but there were also times when I was kind of discriminated against for being a foreigner. It wasn’t anything at the level of what is faced by many nonwhite people, but it does give you a perspective on even how something like not being allowed to sit with everyone else, or not being allowed in certain buildings can affect your psyche.    At the same time there are a lot of opportunities there for someone like me. I did voiceover work, a little modeling, and acted in two feature films, so I was really fortunate to have that experience.

 When did you know you wanted to be a actor?  What was your first experience on a film like?

   I did my first performance in 3rd grade, which was a scene from Tom Sawyer, and it was so thrilling to be alive in front of an audience. Growing up, and still to this day, I’ve been deeply affected by movies – movies that have changed my views on things, and even movies that I believe have saved my life. And those same movies can mean the same things to people all over the world. It’s a huge responsibility and privilege, and I am awestruck how telling a story – not just in written or spoken form, but with a real human being, can be such a powerful cathartic experience to watch and live through vicariously. And that’s what I believe I can help to bring to audiences.     The first movie I ever shot was in Beijing called Tai Chi Zero. It was a pretty big film, and I got to work with the legendary Sammo Hung, who was the action director, and Angelababy, who was an up-and-coming star. I had a fight scene with her that we shot for 6 nights, but it ended up getting cut. The conditions on that set were challenging, it was so cold that if you left water or food out it would freeze over by the end of the night, and we were outside the whole time with no heaters. It was a great experience though and I wouldn’t trade any part of it now.

 Which is more fun for you to play and why,a good guy or a bad guy?

  You know, it’s funny, my dream is to be the good guy in a major feature film. But I have to say… playing a bad guy is REALLY fun. There’s something liberating about doing things that you’d normally never do, letting the id totally run wild. So I’d say that would probably be more fun, aside from maybe playing an antihero like Snake Plissken.

 Who are your three favorite martial arts actors and what makes them so good?

   Growing up my favorite was Jean Claude Van Damme. I loved his look, his aura, he felt like the total package, and his techniques were really smooth. These days I actually find myself going back way more to Bruce Lee, because he was such a trendsetter, and he did things that were unabashedly him, which is what really made the difference in his career, and in the lives of people all over the world.

How do you prepare for each role? What was it like shooting a soap opera like “The Young & the Restless”?

   When they shoot soap operas they work very fast, to the point where ideally they get everything in one or two takes. I had a very small part as an assistant to one of the leads selling sunscreen, and in one scene I was going to be in the center of the frame, and the AD told me “ok this is your scene, so really sell yourself.” Well the way I interpreted that was my character was going to seize the moment and make it all about me… I did the take where I was really goofing off and kind of stealing the spotlight. After they cut the AD ran up to me and asked what the hell I was doing, I told him I was following his direction. It turned out that was NOT what he intended, and to just do a very normal and unassuming take. About thirty seconds later he came back and said “forget everything I just told you, the producers saw that take and they loved it – do it again!” I guess it just kind of shows that doing something authentic can be welcomed even when it may be out of the box.     Typically to prepare for roles I take everything the script gives me (both textual and subtextual) and then fill in any gaps and backstory with my imagination, spending time creating memories in that life. If the role is more substantial I’ll talk to my acting teacher about it and sometimes do some coaching together.

 What do you look for in a role before accepting it?

To be honest I try to stay active and I believe any experience on set can help you be a better actor. Back when I was competing I would do every tournament I could, from international level competitions to local tournaments in high school gymnasiums. So I enjoy playing on set whenever I can, as long as it’s professional and the role isn’t demeaning.

 The cheetah and I are flying over to watch your latest film but we are a day early and now you are playing tour guide,what are we doing?

Well I’m not a foodie by any stretch, but the one cuisine I feel fairly knowledgeable about is Chinese, so after taking you guys to The California African American Museum in Exposition Park (in my opinion one of the most slept on museums in LA), we’d go a few minutes down the street to Chinatown, where I’d show you the best hole-in-the-wall spots (San Gabriel has slightly better Chinese food but it’s not walkable). After checking out the Tien Hau Temple and saying hi to Sifu Lee’s statue in Central Plaza, we’d head to Redondo to get some fresh seafood (Quality Seafood is my favorite) and walk along the strand.

I like to thank Sky for taking the time to doing this interview. I am sure that once this lock down is over,we’ll be seeing Sky back hard at work and we’ll be looking forward to see what results from that work.

To keep up with Sky and his journey you can follow him by the various methods:

His personal website which you can find here. You can follow him on InstaGram. Keep up with his career by following his IMDb page.

If you are new to the blog and our interview series,you can catch up by clicking here.

8 Questions with……..actor/martial artist Sky Patterson Its 6:55 pm sunny/cool/writing Welcome to '8 Questions with....." Finding my interviews is always a challenge. As I type this,I am looking at my list of interviews that are out and awaiting for them to be returned.

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Military Life

1. What motivated you to join the military?

I must confess that the answer to this question is quite complicated.

First, I grew up as an Army brat, so I was surrounded by military life for the first 12 years of my life.  Living as the son of a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, we lived in many different places.  From my birth, until my father retired, we lived in a total of 7 different states, and 10 different houses.  My father drilled into us the need for order and discipline. He would often tell of his missions, which seemed to me as a kid to be a lot like “adventures”.  I do not denigrate the seriousness of war, and the frightening consequences of raising arms against an enemy, but the tales of his trips to Vietnam, and Korea would capture my attention. But all in all, I was not exposed to the very negative feelings that the rest of the country had towards Military service in the 70’s and early 80’s.  I even recall an incident as a child, that left me perplexed as to the reasoning of why these people were behaving, the way they were.  I was in 5th grade, attending an elementary school located on Sandia Airforce Base, New Mexico (It’s another story as to why an Army family was stationed at an Airforce Base).  The school was just inside the main gate, perhaps about 300 yards.  One day we were abruptly released early from school.  As we were leaving the school headed back to our homes across a long field (we walked to school instead of being bused), we noticed that at the gate there was smoke, and a large gathering of people, as well as police lights.  Later we found out that a group of what my mother referred to as “hippies” were demonstrating.  They had set a Volkswagen bug on fire, and the police ended up having to disperse them using tear gas. I recall that the area smell of tear gas for days. But my siblings and I were just amazed and confused as to why anyone would demonstrate against the armed services. Second, I had a great sense of competitiveness in my drive as an individual.  And part of me wanted to show my dad that I could do better than he did in the service. So I had a great desire to become an office so that I could show my dad my accomplishments.

And Third, I had a great sense of patriotism in my soul, and wanted to serve my country, and be willing to lay down my life for my fellow American citizens.

 2. Tell me a little about your time in boot camp.

Bootcamp was one of the most interesting sets of events that occurred in my life.  I learned the importance of when to speak up, and when not too.  After initial in the processing of gathering our basic uniforms, instead of being immediately transported to my training unit, I had to undergo security clearance review.  I and about 20 others were sent to a holding area to fill out paperwork and have an interview with a security investigator. We were taken to a barracks, and since it was already too late to start the security review, we were instead given jobs to do in cleaning and working for the staff in the processing section.  The next day we found food (by asking other soldiers where the mess hall was), and at one of the musters our names were called out and we went off to our security interviews.  Later that day we returned to the holding area and were given jobs again to clean and assist. I found out that we were not sent directly to training units, because in the event that the security interview lead to a denying a person a clearance, that recruit usually had to be shipped to a different installation. I actually saw this happen, as one of the people I arrived with, had to be reclassified and sent to Fort Benning, Georgia.  So I spent another full day at the holding facility doing odds and ends. The next day again I reported to the standard muster for instructions and noticed that all the people I had arrived with, were now gone.  So, I decided I’d better speak up and risk being screamed at by the sergeants in charge.  When I approached the sergeant in charge and asked him “What was the status of my processing?”, he couldn’t find my name on the roster.  The U.S. Army had lost me!! He quickly consulted some forms from the previous day and found that I was supposed to report to my training unit the day before.  If I had not spoken up that day, I would have been in holding for another month, because the next rotation didn’t start for another 4 weeks.  So, by speaking up, I was able to get to my unit in the nick of time to make it with my original rotation.  Other memorable experiences where being one of the company drivers because I had a driver’s license, being involved in an Article 15 investigation against another drill sergeant from a different unit that was being abusive to his recruits, and waking up in my pup-tent with the canvas inches from my nose because there were 6 inches of snow had fallen on us overnight.

3. What was (is) your primary job after training (MOS)?

I have the unique history of having been both enlisted and commissioned.  As an enlisted man, I was classified a 98G – Voice Interceptor, Chinese Mandarin.  This job, during wartime, took soldiers and either put them in a helicopter or other airplanes, or in remote designations, and had them listen to radio traffic, trying to identify what the enemy was saying, and give this intelligence to people higher up.  The training was intense intellectually.  After basic training, I spend 1 year in Monterey, California at the Defense Language Institute, learning how to speak Chinese.  Then after graduation from that school, we went to Goodfellow Airforce Base to learn specific military lingo for the job: like how do you say “tank” or “bomb” or “artillery” in Chinese As a commissioned officer, I was part of the Chemical Corps, where I was assigned to Battalions to assist them in whatever tasks where required, but to be the resident expert in how to handle Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical attacks in the time of war.

4 Where did you serve the majority of time in service?

I spent the majority of my service in Fort Ord, California, just outside of Monterey, CA.

5 What rank are you most proud to have earned, and why?

I made it all the way to Captain just prior to ending my military career.  I could have stayed in and served longer, but felt it was time to move on to other professions. But I was very proud to become a Captain just prior to my resignation.

6 Which medals or citations are you most honored to have received, and why?

I received a couple of Army Achievement Medals,  one as an officer and one as an enlisted man.  My favorite was the one I earned as an enlisted man.  It had a very tough set of standards that I had to achieve.  During my AIT, we had to opportunity to earn this medal, if we maintained a 98% or higher level in our course work, got a perfect score on the PT test, and passed the same interview test that sergeants had to go through for review.  I was able to achieve all the requirements and was very pleased to have earned this reward.

7 Tell me about some of the special people you met.

I’ve met some various people while in the service. In basic training, I met a guy that came from a place in Florida that I had lived in for a few years before joining the military. When he showed me his driver’s license, we realized that our pictures looked almost identical. My favorite person was a major that worked with me, he wanted to stay in the service but got passed over for promotion to LTC, so was forced to resign.  He gave me a unique view on life and taught me how to deal with those commanders that used poor command style.  

8 What was the best and worst 'military' food you were served, and why?

I’m not really sure any of the food could have been considered “best.”  I did however rather enjoy the breakfasts that were offered while I was stationed at the Defense Language School at the Presidio of Monterey.  Some of the worst food had to be the MREs, especially those that oriented around breakfast themes:  MRE eggs are definitely not worth the calories!!

 9 Tell me a funny story you experienced that could only happen in the military.

There are only two stories that I find worthy of retelling:

1)  My unit had been deployed to the National Training Center (NTC) in southern California. The process of getting the unit there was quite arduous. Because of the sheer amount of people involved in the training, instead of swamping the highways from Ft Ord, California to Southern California, the Army decided to use “rail” to transport most of the vehicles.  As we arrived by plane, helicopter, bus or truck we had to send some of our units to go over and help unload the vehicles off the train.  My unit had just finished a long 4-hour shift helping unload the vehicles and had just returned to the temporary barracks area, where we would wait for another day until we deployed to the desert.  My Company commander was away at the time, and I was the next highest-ranking officer in the area.  Suddenly, a major ride up in his HMMWV and jumps out yelling: “Who’s in charge here?”  I quickly look around to make sure the CO hadn’t returned and said: “I believe I am sir”.  The major starts shouting at the top of lungs: “I’m in charge, I’m in charge, I’m in charge”.   It was all I could do to keep a straight face and not laugh at him.   He ordered us to send troops back to the train unloading and then he left.  I think he was having a bad day.  Probably other troops didn’t show up to unload the train.  We ignored him and went on with getting ready for the next day.

2) My second story was also when we had been deployed to the field for practice.  I had experienced some strange things, like the night the hoard of a dozen raccoons had run through our camp (only adult male raccoons are solitary), and the time a private decided to prove to us that you could flip an HMMWV, but my most memorable was the time it started to rain, and I mean rain hard.  In my many years of going to the field, I had discovered a means to stay fairly dry and warm when we deployed to the field.  I was given a “Shelter Half”, and a poncho, and I discovered a way of putting my sleeping bag on the ground, then putting my shelter half over it and then my poncho on top, and simply hiding under the whole thing.  Worked great! Snow, or rain, I kept warm and dry.  But one day it started to rain hard, and the Battalion Commander decided it would be best if all soldiers were moved into the back of trucks or other areas to keep warm and dry. So, this poor sergeant is sent out in the rain to tell everybody to move to drier places.  Now the problem here is that it was raining so hard that anybody that came out into the rain, would be drenched, and all of the stuff they had with them.  So, this sergeant comes looking for me, and he finds me under all of my stuff and says that we are supposed to move to the trucks or tents. I tell him to go away.  I am not about to come out from under my dry spot and get soaked. He says one more time that I am too move, and again I tell him that I’m alright.  Finally, in exasperation he yells out: “Then you are going to f**k’ in drown!!”  and he goes away.  The next morning, I get up and I’m the only dry person in the whole camp!

10 How did (does) your military experience affect your life today?

The biggest thing that being in the military did for me was teaching me how to analyze the situation and make decisions efficiently and quickly.  The solutions we came up with were not always the most optimal, but they worked!  That ability to look at all the information, and then take a few moments to analyze and make decisions has been a major ability that I rely upon.  The other thing that has affected me is the drive to know that if we put enough effort into a problem, we will most likely overcome it.

11 What was the hardest part of becoming a civilian again?

The hardest thing to deal with as a civilian is the total lack of respect for authority and command structure.  I’ve gotten used to it after 26 years, but the first 10 were quite difficult, as you’d tell people to do things, and expect them to do it, only to find out later that they didn’t do anything and suffered no consequences!!  At least I didn’t yell “I’m in charge, I’m in charge, I’m in charge”,  LOL

12 Do you have any recommendations or advice for those who are transitioning to civilian life?

Remember that civilians dance to a different drum beat.  They are not in a hurry, they don’t always care if objectives are met or that tasks are done, and this can be frustrating to people that are used to things getting done.  My other advice is to try to keep up with daily exercise,  we don’t have mandatory PT to drive us each day, but we need to make sure that we take good care of our bodies.

[hydtrash-blog]

Meteor Garden 2018 Episode 1 Recap

As promised, here I am, recapping Meteor Garden 2018 (arriving ever so slightly late to the game…by 25 episodes).

Since I’m starting halfway through the drama’s run, I’ll try to churn these late recaps out as quickly as possible, and then peter off if/when we catch up to the current episodes. This is the plan… I’ll try my best to stick to it.

I mentioned before that, in an ideal world, I would have recapped both Hana Yori Dango (Japan, 2005) and Meteor Garden (Taiwan, 2001) first, in order to contextualize the story, particularly the changes that have been made to the premise. However, since the story seems not to deviate too much from the source material once we’re out of the gates, this is probably not necessary. Suffice to say that the story has been updated for a new generation, but is largely untouched once we get into the thick of it.

I’ll be referring to this drama as Meteor Garden 2018 in order to differentiate it from the earlier Taiwanese drama. Please also note that any quotes are being taken from subtitles, as I do not speak Mandarin! If anything is incorrect, please let me know, and I’ll be sure to make it right!

And with all those notes out of the way…onward, to the recap!

Episode 1

A black screen. A narrator asks the audience, “Have you ever wondered what will happen to you in the future?”

Fade in on a freeze frame: a girl, launched fully in the air, legs outstretched, foot making contact with a boy full on in the face. We’re treated to an extended 360 degree shot of the scene, taking in the boy’s horrified face, the bystanders behind the girl, and the floating debris from their bags, including a transparent Joker card.

The narration continues: “At least the 18-year-old me never thought something like this would happen in real life.”

The narrator is Dong Shancai, who introduces herself as an ordinary 18 year old girl. We backtrack a little in order to properly meet Shancai and her family. Mrs. Dong runs her own catering business, making specialty meals at home, while Mr. Dong is a logistics manager at a company. They are a close, loving family who scold and support each other. Awww.

It’s because of her mother’s catering business that Shancai has decided to get into the Nutrition Department at Ming De University, a prestigious school. She works all summer at a tea shop with her high school best friend Xiaoyou, and they adorably check each other’s college entrance exams results, cheering that they both got into their chosen schools and departments. Shancai is indeed off to Ming De, and Xiaoyou goes to another university to study tea culture.

Soon enough it’s Shancai’s first day at school, and we get beautiful shots of the campus, and of Shancai walking around, taking it all in. She’s soon joined by Chen Qing He, another classmate of hers from high school. Qing He expresses his excitement at being able to attend the same university as Shancai, saying it’s better than winning the lottery. Oooh, boy’s got it bad for Shancai, but she remains blissfully unaware, saying she’s happy to be his classmate once more as well.

Someone calls her name, and a girl runs up to the pair. Shancai identifies her as Li Zhen, another one of their high school classmates, although she was in a different classroom from them. They’re all studying nutrition together, and Li Zhen tells Shancai she’s grateful to know someone in her class. The three agree that they’ll all be best friends for the next four years.

It’s all off to a perfect start, and Shancai tells us in voiceover that she’s now ready to start this new chapter in her life. The next shot is of her, running across campus dressed in a formal skirt and blouse to attend a special lecture. She makes it to the classroom just in time, tripping into Qing He. Two girls snark at her to sit down quickly just as the lecture begins. The guest lecturer, a professor from the University of Pennsylvania, takes the stage. Apparently he’s quite well-known, and after the lecture, Shancai shows Li Zhen and Qing He the photos she took of him. Li Zhen requests that Shancai send her one of them so she can make birthday emojis. The other two are quick to wish her a happy birthday, but Li Zhen corrects them: her birthday is two days from now.

As they walk away from the lecture, still looking through Shancai’s photos, cries of admiration can be heard down the hall, and other students rush past them, their own phones withdrawn to snap some pictures. But it’s not the guest lecturer that they’re running to see. Instead, the students flock around a group of four boys, who stride down the halls, bringing their entourage of squealing fangirls with them. As the group collides with Shancai and her friends, her phone flies out of her hand and lands amongst the clamouring admirers. She drops on hand and knee, crawling after her phone as it’s kicked about the mass of students. She pops up, trying to get a better vantage point to see where her phone’s gone, and one of the girls from the lecture grabs her arm, squealing that “It’s F4!” She shoves past Shancai, who dives back down and crawls towards her phone. There’s a break in the swarm of legs, and Shancai spots her chance, reaching her hand out to grab ahold of her phone…

Which is when an expensive green man’s shoe comes stomping down on the poor phone, leaving the screen cracked.

The group passes, and Shancai swipes up her damaged phone, which now won’t turn back on. Outraged, she follows the group down the escalator and out of the building, determined to confront the owner of the green shoes. She finally catches up to the group, shoving her way to the centre. But the arm she grabs is that of the guest lecturer, and she is immediately pulled off of him by his security detail, who twist her arm and pin her to the ground. Realizing her mistake, Shancai glances around, only to see the expensive green shoes standing right behind her.

Cut to: Shancai being dismissed from an office, having been told to go home and think about what she’s done. She goes to gather her things from her locker; around her, students are whispering about how she tried to assault the special lecturer. Li Zhen and Qing He run up, asking if she’s okay and why she attacked the lecturer. Shancai explains that she didn’t mean to attack him, but that she was trying to find the owner of the green shoes, one of those F4 boys. Li Zhen asks, “Who’s F4?”, and Qing He notes that they seemed very popular.

A voice behind them pipes up, “The F4 members are very popular seniors.” Another student, Guo Caijie, a junior journalism student, approaches them, identifying them as new students. Shancai asks her about F4, and Caijie is only too happy to give them the rundown.

F4 is made up of four senior students, all incredibly handsome, talented, and among the best in their respective fields. They are Daoming Si; Huaze Lei; Fang Meizuo; and Yan Ximen. Lei is a music student, and the other three all study business administration. They have been close friends since childhood, and are so close knit that others have a hard time getting close to them, so they are also something of a mystery at Ming De. Basically, all the girls want them, and all the boys want to be them… or prove that they’re better than them. As a result, F4 issues challenges to prove that they are the top dogs ‘round these parts.

Shancai asks what the challenge is, and Caijie answers simply, “Bridge.” As in, the card game.

In fact, F4 are world-renowned bridge players, and founded the Bridge Club on campus…made up entirely of F4 members, and no one else. So far, no one has beat them. Caijie explains that they each have strengths that they use to their advantage.

Meizuo, for example, is artistic and good at design. He has a good sense of humour that he uses to lower the guard of his opponent, so that they take the game less seriously. He also has an incredible memory for which cards have been played.

Ximen is described as “subtle and cautious”, and comes from tea-loving family. His strength is strategy; he’s good at mind games to distract his opponents, and has earned the nickname “Battle God.”

Lei is a musical genius, with perfect pitch and a mastery of several instruments. He is described as being poised and calm, with a fantastic poker face and the ability to see through other’s attempts at trickery.

And finally, Daoming Si, the leader of F4. He’s primary interest is finance, and is said to have made a million yuan by trading on the stock market. He’s an aggressive bridge player, intimidating his opponents into making mistakes.

(He also has the wildest hair of the bunch, twisted and spiky... and maybe culturally appropriative? It’s meant to be an homage to Domyouji’s curly hair, but jeez… it’s kind of a lot.)

The four of them have won many awards for Bridge, and are a source of pride for the school as a result. But Shancai points out that they still ought to apologize for having broken her phone, regardless of how popular and talented they are. Qing He quickly agrees, and says they ought to go challenge them to a game of bridge right here and now, if they won’t apologize. But Caijie cuts in that it’s not as simple as all that to challenge F4; you have to be issued a Joker card first. It’s their official invitation; due to a large volume of challenges they receive, F4 only issues a Joker card to those they deem qualified enough to play against. They also require a wager to be set prior to the game.

Caijie explains that there are many rumours about what is wagered at the card table: having to clean up the school campus for an entire semester; squatting in the school fountain for half a day; spending a night in the biology lab; and, most ridiculous of all, being made to eat a pair of slippers. “So? Do you still want to challenge them?” Caijie asks, coming to a stop in front of F4’s club room. Shancai, Li Zhen, and Qing He all look on in shock at the story they’ve just heard. With that, Caijie leaves them standing outside of the classroom.

Shancai is not cowed for long; she tells the other two that the guy with the green shoes is in the wrong, and that she’s not afraid. So they march up to the door, and Shancai begins calling for F4 to come out and buy her a new phone. Qing He, her loyal hype man, repeats her demands loudly. Li Zhen looks on, slightly horrified.

There’s no answer, and Li Zhen stutters that they’re probably not in. Qing He suggests that they go off to find them; they shouldn’t be that difficult to find, if they’re surrounded by fangirls, right? “That’s right. If we see some long-legged arrogantly handsome boys, that should be them, right?” Shancai says. Qing He cringes as he catches sight of something over Shancai’s shoulder. “Is that them?” he asks. “I think so. I can feel their presence,” Li Zhen whispers. They turn to find F4 striding towards them, in all their arrogantly handsome glory.

Shancai, for one, does not look impressed, and she steps out in front of Daoming Si, who she sees is the owner of the expensive green shoes. “Hey. Green shoe guy.” She holds up her phone. “What’s this?”

“A broken phone,” he says, unfazed. The other F4 members snicker.

“Do you know why it’s broken?” Shancai asks.

Daoming Si replies that it’s none of his business, to which Shancai responds that actually, yeah it is, as he’s the one that broke it. She explains that he stepped on it when he was swarmed by his fangirls after the lecture.

There’s silence for a moment, in which Li Zhen looks embarrassed, Ximen and Meizuo look amused, and Daoming Si looks bored. Then, without a word, he steps forward and brushes past her, shouldering her on the way by. Shancai goes to storm after them, and is barely held back by Qing He.

The three freshmen head to their first lecture, where the professor warns the class that most of them won’t pass, and he won’t go easy on them. He then asks them to form groups of four. Shancai and Li Zhen join up with the two snotty girls from the special lecture earlier, while Qing He gets stuck in a group with three other guys. Poor boy.

At home, Shancai bakes a cake for Li Zhen’s birthday the next day. When she presents it to Li Zhen the next morning, her friend is touched, and suggests that they take a picture with the cake. They determine that the area they’re in is too crowded, so they head up an outdoor stairwell to take the picture in peace. They snap a selfie together, and then Shancai offers to take a picture of Li Zhen holding the cake. Li Zhen goes to stand by the stairs, but steps back to far and almost slips. The cake flies from her hands as Shancai rushes forward to save her friend. And just their luck: the cake explodes spectacularly over the curley, twisty head of none other than Daoming Si.

The two girls turn to see Si glaring at them. He recognizes them immediately, and grits out a furious, “You!”

Li Zhen immediately apologizes, but Si spits back, “If apologies worked, we wouldn’t need the police!” Ahh, that famous line. Li Zhen attempts to wipe some of the cake off of him, but he shoves her away, and she lands on the ground.

Shancai picks her friend up, and then immediately gets in Si’s face, telling him it was an accident, that Li Zhen apologized, so why does he have to be so mean?

She continues:

You’re an arrogant, green-shoe wearing pineapple head. You think you’re popular at school so you can do whatever you want. You didn’t apologize for breaking my phone. You’re just a jerk!

Si reaches out and pulls her in close, eyes blazing. Quietly, he tells her, “You. You’ve got guts.” And just like that, he pushes away from her again and walks away. Meizuo and Ximen follow without a word. Lei, however, bends to pick up the card that Shancai had written for Li Zhen, and silently hands it to her, before he also follows the rest of F4.

Later that day, Shancai opens her locker to find a Joker card, curtesy of F4. Qing He and Li Zhen are both worried, but Shancai quickly recovers, saying that she doesn’t have time to play card games. She slams the locker door shut and storms away, ending up on a rooftop. Once there, she unleashes a cry of frustration, and then immediately launches into a rant about F4.

Those stupid people. All I want to do is study! I didn’t want a Joker card! They broke my phone and embarrassed me in front of everyone! F4. You’re all jerks. I hope that from tomorrow, your phone signals will be blocked by aliens. No calls, no texts, no games, no internet! No phone in your life. You’ll step on your own foot and fall. You’ll dream of zombies that eat your faces. Your nostril hair will grow until it penetrates your head and becomes your hair!

And just as she finishes her rant, a quiet voice pipes up from behind her, “And then?”

She turns to find Huaze Lei sitting on a bench behind her, having heard her entire rant. He comes up to her and repeats the question: what happens to them next? Will she be happy then?

Shancai asks if he’s also trying to bully her, but Lei asks why he would do that. Isn’t he a member of F4? Shancai replies. Lei confirms that he is, but says that he isn’t interested in other people’s business. And with that, he turns and walks away, leaving Shancai staring after him.

On a basketball court, Daoming Si plays with some other boys, dominating the game. Girls cheer from the sidelines. One of the mean girls from Shancai’s class spots her walking across the court and calls her over. Pointing out Si, she confides in Shancai that he’s the boy that she likes, and asks Shancai to film her giving him a drink. Shancai demures, but her classmate insists, so she reluctantly takes the phone and begins filming as the other girl approaches her crush.

Except that Si notices Shancai first, and he walks by the girl, grabbing the drink without sparing her a glance as he walks right up to Shancai. He asks if she’s filming him, and then takes the phone away from her, not caring (or realizing) that it’s her classmate’s phone. Whoops.

We jump to a new day. Shancai is studying at home when her mother asks her to make a food delivery. Loading up her bike, she sets out to the address given. But when she arrives with an armload of food, she encounters one very familiar hairstyle. Daoming Si turns around, surprising Shancai: he orders takeout? He smirks and says that she should be grateful that he’s supporting her family by giving them the business.

Shancai is already sick of his shit, so she tells him to enjoy the food and makes to leave. Unfortunately, Si isn’t having it. He tells her to wait while he checks over the delivery to make sure the order is right. When he opens up one of the takeout boxes, he sniffs disparagingly at the food inside. This is what her family serves to their customers?

But Shancai merely tells him not to eat it then, and snatches the box out of his hands, offering to take it back. He grabs the box back, saying that he’s paid for the order, so he’ll do what he pleases with them. This irks Shancai. She tells him that she knows he’s trying to bully her, but that he shouldn’t be wasting food, and adding that her mother spent a great deal of time preparing the order.

But that’s not Si’s problem, he retorts, and admonishes her for being rude to her customers. Shancai replies that she’s nice to customers who are nice to her; he doesn’t deserve it. She continues that she understands that only elite students get into Ming De, but looking at him, she feels ashamed for him. He doesn’t understand how hard other people work, and finishes by calling him a parasite on society.

That does it for Si. He yells at her to shut up and swings the takeout box at her. It explodes over her, staining her clothes and flying all over the place. Shancai stumbles back a step, and looks up at him with anger and hurt.

For his part, Si has the grace to look ashamed of himself. Unable to meet her eyes, he looks away and tells her that it’s what she deserves for insulting him. Without a word, Shancai turns and runs out of the building; Si turns to watch her go, his expression regretful.

Shancai pushes her bike up to an outdoor tap and begins to try and wash away the food that still clings to her clothes. As she washes herself off, two boys approach her from behind, crowding her and preventing her from fleeing. Shancai is already pretty shaken up, and she tries to push them off, but they latch on, refusing to leave her alone.

Then, a voice offscreen asks, “What are you doing?” All three turn to see Huaze Lei standing there, watching the whole thing. He tells the boys to get lost, and the scram, leaving Shancai shaken and close to tears. She sits for a while and tries to hold back tears while Lei stands nearby, a silent presence. Tearfully, Shancai asks why Si acted the way he did, but Lei has no answer. Instead, he holds out a handkerchief, instructing her gently to use it to clean herself up a bit. And then, without warning, he goes into handstand against a wall. He tells her that when she’s sad, she should do a handstand so that her tears won’t fall down. They stay that way for a while, without speaking again.

That night, Shancai dreams of F4 telling her to eat slippers, and she wakes up gasping. At breakfast, she is quiet and contemplative, thinking over her encounters with F4, and Daoming Si in particular, over the last few days. With every memory, every bite, she becomes more enraged, more focused, more determined. Slamming down her empty bowl, she stands up from the table and announces that she’s going to fight back. She dresses with purpose and strides to campus, passing Qing He without a word, laser focused on only one person: Daoming Si. She calls his name, and he looks up. Their eyes lock.

Tossing her bag over her shoulder, Shancai takes off running right at him at full speed. She leaps into the air, leg outstretched, and her sole connects with his cheek. And with that, we find ourselves back where we started, in a freeze-frame of Shancai kicking Daoming Si right in his perfect face.

We watch the culmination of the scene in slow-motion: Si flies through the air with the force of the kick, past the rest of F4 (who watch the scene unfold with shock) and lands facedown on the ground, out cold. Shancai comes to stand over him. The rest of F4 look back at her, a definite note of fear in their eyes.

Brandishing the Joker card, Shancai says, “Who wants to play cards with you? I, Dong Shancai, won’t be bullied by anyone.” And she tosses the card down beside Si’s prone figure, before turning around and striding away without a single glance backwards.

What a badass.

After Thoughts:

For a 40 minute episode, we managed to fit a lot in, both plot-wise and character-wise. There’s a great sense of energy in this episode: the plot moves along briskly, and though there is a fair bit of exposition, it doesn’t feel like it bogs the story down (maybe because all of the F4 expo is paired with shots of four rather pretty boys showing off card shuffling. I dunno. It kept my attention).

The premise, as mentioned before, is a pretty big departure from the original HYD story. We’ve dropped the red card game in favour of the bridge competitions, which I think is a smart move: it keeps F4 generally inaccessible to the rest of the student body without making them into complete monsters. Daoming Si is still a jerk, obviously, but at least he’s not a psychopathic jerk.

I also like that Shancai and F4 are given more to do school-wise. The Makino character has never been a particularly studious character, and is pretty aimless throughout her education, at least for the first bit. I love that Shancai has a tangible goal that’s connected to her reason for choosing an elite school, instead of just going to the school because it’s an elite one. Similarly, I like that F4, and in particular, Daoming Si, are being set up as hardworking and intelligent students. It’s not to say that other adaptations of F4 have been unintelligent, per se, but rather that their futures are secured by their families, so it never seems like they particularly care about their education. I’m sure that this will still be the case in this version, but I like that school matters to them. The fact that Daoming Si isn’t being portrayed as a complete idiot who mixes up idioms is refreshing as well. They’re all still fundamentally the same characters, but this added layer makes them more interesting to me.

I’d like to end all of my reviews with three final thoughts: who I think was the shining star of the episode (or the episode MVP); who I thought was the absolute worst in this episode (or LVP — least valuable player, natch); and which scene I rewatched over and over. There’s always one.

Episode MVP:

Without a doubt, Shancai. I have a feeling that I’ll probably say Shancai a lot, because I love her. She’s spunky, fearless, and loyal. Her willingness to walk up to F4 and challenge Si to replace her phone, even after she’s heard that she might end up eating slippers, is fantastic. This character is a huge reason for why I continue to be a fan of this story, and can really make or break the adaptation in question. I’m rooting for her to achieve all her dreams and win all the boys’ hearts. You go girl!

Episode LVP:

If you thought I was gonna say Daoming Si, you’d be wrong. He’s a jerk, obviously, but I’ll save him for another day (I’m sure). Out of the gate, it’s hard to pick an LVP, but I’m gonna have to choose Qing He, if only because he’s not terribly interesting to me. His loyalty to Shancai is admirable, but I know that I would personally find his clinginess overbearing if he were my friend. That being said, I’m looking forward to watching him grow up a little and gain a bit of independence. Hopefully.

Most Rewatched Scene:

In an episode of introductions and set-ups, it’s hard to pick a scene that I want to keep watching over and over again. In future episodes, this spot will likely be reserved for super cute moments, but since we’re not there yet, I’ll go for the next best thing: Shancai and Si’s encounter on the stairwell with the cake. I love this moment for so many reasons, but mostly Shancai standing up for her friend and telling Si exactly what she thinks of him. I like that they’ve already had one encounter prior to this (unlike other versions, where the Makino character has watched F4 from afar and seethed, but never spoken to them directly). We also get the first mention of “pineapple head”, which holds a special place in my heart (even though I’m pretty sure that Si’s hairstyle is culturally appropriative…but that’s another gripe for another time).

[exosmutxoxo]

Dangerous Woman (Part 6)🌙

A/N: I’m finally back with Part 6 after what seems like forever! I’m sorry to keep everyone waiting, so I hope the moodboards I posted kept everyone satisfied last night hehehe (there’s more to be posted, not to worry!). In this part, there is a lot of emotional manipulation, so please be warned! Take everything lightly, okay, my babes? Enjoy, and please leave some feedback when you’re done! x

Pairing(s): Chanyeol x Reader

Warnings: Emotional manipulation, mentions of firearms, slight violence, asshole Chanyeol

Genre: Thriller(?)

Summary: Just Chanyeol being an asshole and Luhan freaking out.

Word Count: 6976

Soundtrack: Bad Things // MGK, Camila Cabello

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | PART 6

Luhan is awakened by incessant meowing in his ear, accompanied by the soft pad of paws across his bare stomach. With a groan, the drug lord rolls over onto his side and buries his face further into the pillows, drowsily ignoring the meowing which just seems to increase in its volume.

Something soft and fluffy swishes across his face, tickling his nose and he emits a startling sneeze, bolting upright as a result. Rudely jolted awake from his dead-like slumber, Luhan glances around him grumpily, searching for the source of his disturbance. A ginger cat is seated on his hunches beside him, tail flicking from side to side urgently while repeated meows spill from him as he gazes up at the drug lord with murky eyes.

Lu.

Luhan’s earlier cloud of grouchiness lifts immediately and he gathers Lu in his arms, stroking the cat behind his ears lovingly while rocking him back and forth. “Hello there, baby”, the drug lord coos. “What’s wrong? Are you hungry?”

To his utter surprise, Lu leaps out of his arms and pads over to the other side of the bed, flicking his tail frantically. (Y/N)’s side of the bed, to be exact. And to his sprouting anxiety, Luhan realizes that (Y/N) is nowhere to be seen.

Sure, she has a reputation for making a run for it in the middle of the night, leaving behind nothing but a hint of flowery perfume in her wake. But to actually leave her beloved cat behind? That is nothing like her at all, which is why the anxiety continues growing in the pit of Luhan’s stomach.

Turning to Lu nervously, the drug lord leans forward. “Where is she, Lu?”

Lu cocks his head to the side, meowing pitifully. Then he leaps off the bed, padding out of the room and into the hallway outside, to which Luhan obediently follows. The ginger cat scampers over to a nearby framed photograph of Chanyeol positioned on a hallway table, his hackles raising abruptly as he lets out a venomous hiss at the sight of the innocent housekeeper.

With that, he jumps onto the table and swipes the photo frame off the tabletop with a dismissive wave of his paw, causing the entire frame to smash into a million smithereens as it falls with a deafening crash.

Inhaling sharply, Luhan pivots on his heel and rushes down the spiral staircase and to the kitchen, shoving the door open frantically. “Chanyeol?” He yells out, holding his breath as he anticipates a response. Any response.

But all he gets in response is the echo of his own voice bouncing off the walls and reverberating throughout his ears, combined with the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Chewing on his lower lip, he swipes the cordless phone off the nearby counter and hits speed-dial on his housekeeper’s number, the dialling tone filling his ear.

The person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

With overwhelming frustration, Luhan slams the phone back down on the countertop and emits a string of curses in Mandarin. “God damn it, Chanyeol!” He yells at the empty ceiling, fists clenched.

Angrily, the drug lord reaches for the phone once again, intending to ring (Y/N) up and demand to know if she’s unscathed but he pauses right in his tracks after realizing that even after so many years, he still has no clue to what her number actually is. The brothel she works at doesn’t permit any direct communication between the call-girls and their clients, which is why they hired a receptionist to answer all the calls.

Wait. Receptionist.

Oh Sehun.

At the thought of (Y/N)’s best friend, Luhan feels a tidal wave of utter relief flooding through him. Not enough to calm the tightening knot of anxiety deep within him but still calming all the same. With a much clearer mind, the drug lord rushes up to his room with Lu scampering at his heels loyally, his car keys already dangling from the cat’s mouth.

Lu earns a scratch behind his ears for his helpfulness and Luhan proceeds to tug on some fresh clothes taken straight from the cupboard, stooping down to scoop the ginger cat into his arms lovingly. “Let’s go and find (Y/N), shall we?” The drug lord croons.

He gets an approving meow in response.

Sehun is hysterical by the time Luhan finishes relating the entire story of (Y/N) getting kidnapped by his own housekeeper. Choking on his mouthful of bubble tea, the young receptionist swings his legs off the tabletop of his desk and bends over, clutching at Luhan’s arm dramatically as he proceeds to cough half a lung up.

“What?” Sehun finally croaks out when he’s done with his coughing fit. “Are you trying to tell me that my cinnamon roll just got whisked away by Chanyeol, your housekeeper? That would be hilarious if it wasn’t so fucking creepy”.

“I’m not kidding”, Luhan says earnestly. “When I woke up, (Y/N) was gone and Lu here started hissing and spitting at a photo of Chanyeol”.

“Oh, fuck. If Lu hates this Chanyeol dude, then so should we. He doesn’t sound like good news. But my question is, why would your housekeeper want anything to do with your girlfriend?”

“How the hell should I know?” Luhan snaps. “Bloody hell, Sehun. Instead of waking up to breakfast in bed and good ole’ morning sex, I had to wake up to the news that the first girl I brought home got kidnapped by my fucking housekeeper”.

Sehun shoots a glare at him, like as though it’s Luhan’s fault that (Y/N) got whisked away in the middle of the night. With a sniffle, the receptionist folds his arms over his chest and lifts his chin with an air of defiance. “Why are you acting as though this concerns only you? (Y/N) means the world to me too, you know”.

Luhan emits a groan at the petty remark. “Good God, stop acting like such a child”.

“A child?” Sehun snaps back indignantly, taking a step forward and glowering down at the drug lord leeringly. Despite his much lower status as compared to Luhan, the receptionist is seemingly threatening as the taller man’s features settles into a stone-cold expression, lips pinched together tightly. “Don’t act like such a big shot, Luhan. You may be the biggest fucking drug lord in this damn country but that doesn’t give you the right to roll up in here and bite my head off. In case you haven’t realized, I’ve been with (Y/N) through all the shit she’s endured for the past few years. You’re nothing special. You’re still just a client despite the feelings you harbour for her. So don’t think you can barge in here and tell me what to do or how to act when it comes to my best friend”.

That shuts Luhan up instantly. A tension-filled silence descends upon the two men like a blanket, the drug lord dropping his gaze and awkwardly fiddling with his cufflinks just to give his hands something to do.

Sehun, on the other hand, lets out a weary huff and hesitantly places his hand on the drug lord’s shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze. In response, Luhan flinches defensively and coldly shrugs off the other male’s grasp. “Is it true?” The drug lord asks gruffly.

“What?”

“About me just being a mere client to (Y/N). Am I just that? Nothing more?”

“Look, don’t get me wrong”, Sehun interjects hastily, instantly backpedalling. “(Y/N) definitely has her own emotional turmoil when it comes to you. I mean, sure, you’re drop-dead gorgeous and you definitely have way better fashion sense than all of her other clients. You’re rich, you smell great and you treat her with the respect she deserves. But seriously, you’re a real asshole at times. Maybe that’s why Chanyeol did what he did. He must have been thinking, ‘For fuck’s sake, what the hell does (Y/N) see in this rich asshole who already has everything. You know, I’mma just whisk her away to the middle of nowhere so Mr Drug Lord would have a good reality check’”.

“Ouch”.

“Ouch indeed”. Sehun tosses back his mop of blonde hair, clapping the drug lord on the shoulder once more. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to sit here and wait for (Y/N) to come running back to us, because we both know that’s not going to happen anytime soon”.

Luhan silently agrees, although he says nothing. He doesn’t have to, since Sehun is already marching out of the double doors of the brothel confidently, his shoulders squared back and his spine ramrod straight. From behind, he eerily resembles (Y/N) in every way; the boldness, the determination, the stubborn streak running through his veins. Best friends really are more alike than Luhan thought.

So with a sigh, the drug lord hurries after Sehun, falling into step with the receptionist meekly. “Look”, Luhan says with a grunt, shoving his hands in his pockets stiffly, “I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier on and calling you a child. It’s just…(Y/N) means everything to me. Do you get me?”

“Love propels people to act in atrocious ways”, Sehun responds kindly. “That’s how you know it’s real”.

“Chanyeol?”

“What?”

“Can I go back to Luhan?”

“(Y/N), you’ve asked me the same thing exactly eleven times and the answer is still no”.

“But why?”

“Because I said so”.

(Y/N) pulls a face at the response, bearing her little fangs at him from across the kitchen table as if threatening to bite him. “What kind of answer is that?”

“An answer you’ll have to accept, whether you like it or not”.

She pushes her glossy lips into a full-blown pout, a suggestive sight which sends all the blood in Chanyeol’s veins surging down to the area between his legs. He does his best to ignore the erotic sensation burning a path through him, irritably jiggling his leg beneath the cover of the table to hide his jangling nerves. But (Y/N) is far from finished.

“Or what?” She asks daringly, peering up at him from beneath her lashes. “You’ll make me?”

With his erection straining against the seams of his jeans, Chanyeol grits his teeth and calmly reaches for his cup of coffee, taking a leisure-like sip before setting it back down on its saucer once more. “I have a few methods of dealing with girls who can’t keep their pretty mouths shut”.

“Oh yeah? And what are those methods?”

Chanyeol clenches his fist beneath the table, trying to shove the intrusive and provocative thoughts out of his mind but to no avail. To be honest, he wasn’t planning for his morning to turn out this way.

All he wanted to do was get down to concocting a fresh plan to take down the entire Lu Corporations and spend some time making phone calls to his loyal assets who are as equally eager as he is to ruin Luhan’s life. What he did not expect was for (Y/N) to come stomping down from upstairs, dressed in his oversized shirt from the night before and with her hair all mussed up, dramatically fling herself into the nearby chair and pester him for the past five minutes while he attempted to have his breakfast and ignore her.

But (Y/N), being (Y/N), is not exactly the easiest person in the world to ignore. Not because of her persistent and repetitive questions. But because she seems to glow in the light of the morning sun, the sun’s rays reflecting the glossiness of her ebony hair and the flawlessness of her fair skin. Curled up in the chair next to him, her petite form seems even tinier and more vulnerable as compared to last night, and Chanyeol hates himself for noticing all of these insignificant details.

The entire situation is all wrong. He was supposed to whisk her away in the middle of the night, keep her locked up in his room and merrily go about his day by plotting and scheming against Luhan. And as for her, she is supposed to be weeping and begging to be set free. She is supposed to be raging at him, threatening him that she’ll run straight to the police for kidnapping her against her will and other similar empty threats. She is supposed to be kicking herself for making the mistake of sleeping with him the night before, lamenting about how she has completely and utterly betrayed Luhan’s trust.

Neither of them seem to be harbouring any feelings of guilt like they are supposed to do so.

Chanyeol has zero regrets fucking the living daylights out of her. He feels no guilt, even after sleeping with Luhan’s so-called lover. If anything, it’s his own petty way of getting back at the drug lord for putting him through hell for the past three years.

As for (Y/N)? Well, she isn’t brooding like Chanyeol expected her to. Instead, she’s straddling the chair beside him and gazing up at him with her full lips pushed into a suggestive pout, painting a seductive picture of herself. And deep down, Chanyeol knows that it’s utterly impossible to ignore such an alluring woman like her, no matter how tightly he clenches his fists or how miserable his attempts are at trying to get rid of his eager erection.

“I swear to God, (Y/N). If you don’t shut that pretty mouth of yours, I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” She cuts in abruptly, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips. “Send me back to Luhan? Because you’re unable to tame such an annoying brat like myself?

“Nice try, princess”, Chanyeol sneers in response, slamming his cup back down on its saucer and causing it to clink sharply. “But letting you scamper back to Luhan isn’t anywhere close to my list of options on how to deal with you”.

“So which option are you contemplating now?” She cocks her head to the side, allowing stray strands of ebony hair to frame her heart-shaped face prettily. “We both know that you can’t keep me chained to your side forever. Luhan is bound to notice that I’m gone and he’ll definitely hunt you down”.

As cool and composed as Chanyeol wants to be, he can’t suppress the bitter knot of resentment in the pit of his stomach at the mere mention of Luhan’s name. Exhaling through his gritted teeth, he folds his arms on the tabletop and leans across to stare (Y/N) right in the eye. “Mention Luhan one more time and I’ll send him the evidence of what we did together last night faster than you can say ‘I’m not a whore’”.

That halts (Y/N) right in her tracks, her smug expression freezing up. Then in the next second, her fearful mask cracks and melts into one of rage and indignation. She gets to her feet, shoving the chair back so roughly that it topples to the floor with a deafening clunk, the sharp sound reverberating through the kitchen like the crack of a whip. “You recorded whatever we did last night?” She yells, lunging forward and grabbing him by the collar of the shirt. Her previously fair and milky-tinged cheeks are now flushed beetroot red, displaying every ounce of anger bubbling up in her.

Even now, with a five-feet tall call-girl throttling him by his collar and hurling profanities right in his face, Chanyeol can’t help amusedly thinking about what a sensual sight she makes. Standing tall and proud in his oversized shirt with the buttons undone far enough for him to catch glimpses of the astonishing curves of her perfect breasts and the milky-white skin of her prominent collarbones, her body seems to be carefully and artistically crafted by the gods themselves.

So obviously, it takes him a few seconds to register the sharp sting of the slap fresh across his face due to his absentminded moment of being distracted. The pain starts to settle in once he yanks his eyes away from her physique, his bewildered gaze travelling up to rest on her furious expression.

Before Chanyeol can comprehend his actions, he pushes his chair back noisily and grabs her by the arm, slamming her back against the kitchen wall whilst sliding his iron grip down to her wrist. A yelp escapes from her lips at the way he manhandles her but at the sight of his glare, she instantly shuts up for the first time ever since she entered the kitchen this morning.

“You don’t have much of a say in this, princess”, Chanyeol sneers down at her squirming form, locking his fingers around her tiny wrist. “Considering the fact that you were the one who threw yourself at me last night”.

“You’re fucking disgusting”, she spits back at him.

“Not as disgusting as the whore who slept with another man behind her lover’s back!”

He earns a kick in the shin for the remark, angry tears beginning to track down (Y/N)’s flushed cheeks as she struggles in his hold, feverishly twisting her wrist in his iron grip in a futile attempt to break free. He maintains his hold on her, albeit the stinging pain in his shin.

With his free hand, he reaches out and grips her jaw in between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to glare up at him through her tear-filled eyes. “Remember what I said last night, princess”, he warns, his words as smooth as silk. “As long as you’re under my roof, you abide by my rules. If I were you, I would watch my mouth, especially since your relationship with Luhan is on the line. One click and you’re fucked. Literally”.

She hisses at him, oddly resembling a provoked kitten. Whipping her head back and forth, she makes another futile attempt to escape from his grasp but Chanyeol subconsciously digs his fingers into her jaw possessively, earning a whimper from her.

Then he waits, saying nothing as he gives her the opportunity to ride out her own emotional storm. She screams profanities in his face, shoves him in the chest with her free hand, indulging herself in her own little tantrum while he just looks on fondly. Eventually, the energy is drained out of her and she grows limp in his grip, slumping back against the wall as the tears continuously roll down her flushed cheeks.

Some sick and twisted part of Chanyeol actually relishes the state she’s in; vulnerable, confused and although furious, she still seeks reassurance and comfort in other people. Just the mere sight of her woeful expressions causes his heart to speed up, beating in time to an intoxicating rhythm that his body seems to be growing accustomed to ever since he had the time of his life with her just the night before.

With a sigh, Chanyeol rubs circles on her back comfortingly, folding her into his arms. She stiffens instantly, her little sniffles filling the tensed air but nevertheless, her hands fist the soft material of his shirt with a sort of desperation he enjoys witnessing.

“You won’t really tell Luhan about what we did last night, would you?” She asks quietly, her voice trembling beautifully.

“If you’re a good girl, I won’t breathe a word”, Chanyeol promises, holding her quivering form close to him. “Will you be a good girl?”

“I will”, she whimpers. “But…are you still going to…?”

“Scheme and plot against him to take down Lu Corporations?” He finishes her question matter-of-factly.

(Y/N) nods meekly in response, peering up at him pitifully from beneath her damp lashes. He rolls the question around in his head for a while, weighing his options and silently contemplating on how to craft a diplomatic response for her. In the end, he gives up on trying to answer rationally and reaches for the first response that comes to mind.

“That depends”, he says slowly, resting his arm on the wall beside her head and staring down at her blankly.

She blinks up at him, obviously confused. “On what?”

“On how you behave around me”. He simpers, fully aware of how he’s playing around with her emotions. Oh well.

“I don’t quite understand”.

“Allow me to elaborate”. With a grin, Chanyeol entwines his fingers around her wrist once more and drags her away from the wall, leading her over to the kitchen table. Making himself comfortable in one of the chairs, he pulls her down onto his lap, hooking his arm around her waist protectively. In response, she says nothing, just keeping her hands neatly tucked in between her thighs as she quietly awaits his explanation.

Cracking his neck on both sides to relieve the tension, Chanyeol begins. “Basically, your attitude towards me mirrors mine towards you. If you’re going to be a brat, I’ll jolly well show you how bratty I can be and proceed to ruin your darling drug lord’s life. But if you’re good, I’ll treat you even better. Plus, the evidence of our night together will be safe with me”.

(Y/N) blinks at him incredulously. “Manipulative much?”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “I don’t see you having other options on display”.

She pinches her lips together tightly, averting her gaze away from his and staring out at nothing in particular. Shifting her weight in his lap agitatedly, a faraway expression falls over her facial features, making it seem like as though she’s deeply pondering and weighing out her non-existent options. Silence fills the entire kitchen, broken only by the aimless tick of the clock on the nearby countertop.

Then she clears her throat, turning her head back a fraction to look at him. “What do I have to do to be considered ‘good’?”

“Basically keep your mouth shut when I tell you to”.

She pulls her face at that, obviously already unhappy with the first rule of his household. Nevertheless, she gives a reluctant nod and restlessly swings her legs back and forth, her heels thudding gently against his calves. “What else?” She presses on.

Chanyeol snorts. “What, do you want a whole long list of household rules?”

“Yeah. So I’ll know exactly how to break every single one of them”.

A chuckle escapes his lips at her snarkiness. “Not really a wise decision, princess”.

“How can I be so sure that you’re not going to continue planning and scheming against Luhan behind by back? You’ll have me bent at your will while you ruin his life. That’s not very fair”.

The question catches Chanyeol off guard and for the briefest of moments, he falters. He stumbles over the cleverest responses in his head, frantically scrabbling for a loophole. In all honesty, he didn’t expect himself to get this far. But now that he’s where he is, he finds himself walking on a thin line between emotional manipulation and keeping (Y/N) in check. His true intentions were to use her as blackmail against Luhan, not to emotionally corrupt her.

“I guess you have to put your trust in me, then”, he finally murmurs.

He observes her reactions. From confusion to a faint flicker of apprehension to finally relenting, it’s like a slideshow of emotions playing on (Y/N)’s features and just for a moment, he feels his heart lurch into his throat at the sight of her conflicted state.

“Trust is not something to play around with, Chanyeol”, (Y/N) says quietly. She drops her gaze, flicking fleeting glances over his entire form and sighing as she does so. Her hand creeps up onto his knee, squeezing it gently and he stares at the side of her face in surprise, unsure of what she’s doing.

Her touch seems to burn through the material of his jeans, setting his skin on erotic fire. Everything she does seems to seep through the cracks hidden deep down within down his bruised and battered soul, slowly but surely pulling him out of the darkness and into the light of her presence. He doesn’t understand, he can’t quite put his finger on it, but with (Y/N), he’s willing to let his guard down even if it’s for a fleeting moment.

This feeling is revolting and he wants nothing more than to push it away and suppress it in the hopes that it’ll just disappear. But it won’t, and he knows it.

“If anything, I know what to do when it comes to trust”, he whispers, “especially after having mine fucked up countless number of times”.

“I’ll put my trust in you on one condition”, she says.

“And what’s that?”

“You’ll tell me everything you’ve planned. From whatever schemes you’ve plotted to take down Lu Corporations to whoever you’ve contacted, you’ll tell me everything down to the tiniest detail. Then we’re fair”.

Chanyeol hesitates for a while, mentally weighing his options for what seems like the thousandth time this morning. Being with (Y/N) is like a perfectly calculated game, a game where you can rely only on your mind. It’s exhausting, it’s draining, but as much as the mental turmoil makes Chanyeol want to scream at the top of his lungs, he’s loving every bit of it. He’s relishing the chase, the precious time spent on dissecting every single word that (Y/N) utters.

So he takes the plunge, keeping his fingers crossed that (Y/N) will catch him when he falls. “Alright”, he breathes. “I’ll tell you everything”.

This should’ve been the biggest mistake of my life. Sleeping with Chanyeol should’ve sent spasms of guilt through my veins, especially since I’ve considered myself to have pledged my heart to Luhan.

I should be locked away in my own mind, desperately clinging onto the memory of Luhan, the so-called love of my life. But somehow, I find myself fully indulging in Chanyeol’s presence, hanging onto his every word like as though my life depends on it. With my chin cupped in the palm of my hands as I gaze up at him absentmindedly while he natters on, I feel my little heart speed up. Just a little bit. But it sped up, nevertheless.

We’ve been here for hours now; Chanyeol sprawled out on the couch with a can of beer in his hand, and me lying on my front on the carpeted floor, propped up on my elbows as my gaze fixates itself on his form.

In the span of the last few hours, we’ve been talking about nothing and everything all at once. We came to an agreement that we’ll truthfully answer whatever questions are thrown at each other and so far, I’ve poured out my entire life story to him about how I started out as a call-girl. I told him about my desperation as I scrabbled for the last cent I could get my hands on in order to make a living for myself, I told him about the loneliness that would creep up on me in the dead of the night, I told him about Sehun, I told him about I came to adopt Lu.

Then we switched and it was his turn to speak. He confided in me about how his sister cut off all ties with him when he started working in Luhan’s household and how that caused the bitter resentment in him to worsen until it poisoned every fibre of his being. When I asked him if he knew what his sister is doing now, he’d just shrugged and taken a hasty gulp of beer from the can in his hand, the wound in him obviously still raw.

So I’d brushed that aside and quickly moved on to the topic of Lu Corporations and what he plans to do next.

“Nothing at the moment”, Chanyeol says now, levelling his gaze with mine over the top of his beer can. “Since we made an agreement”.

I cock my head to the side inquisitively. “You said that Kim Minseok, Do Kyungsoo and Kim Junmyeon are involved in the scheme of taking down Lu Corporations. Do they know that I’m here with you now?”

“Yeah. I’ve already informed them”.

“So what now?”

He shrugs. “They’ve agreed to hold off their plans until I give them the go head. So your dear Luhan is safe, for the moment at least”.

I have no idea what to say next, so I just drop my gaze to the floor sheepishly. Silence descends upon us, thick and tensed and in the distance, I can hear the faint ticking of an unseen clock, accompanied by the restless drumming of Chanyeol’s fingers against the arm of the sofa. I feel his stare resting on me, boring into my slumped shoulders intensely. It’s all so overwhelming that the hairs at the back of my neck start to stand on end, alerted by his unwavering attention.

Thankfully, he breaks the silence. “Say, why don’t we go for a night ride?”

I jerk my head up in surprise. “Ride?”

He nods, flashing a shit-eating grin in my direction as he crushes the beer can in his grasp. The deafening crackling sound of it rings throughout the living room air like a warning siren and I have to do my best to not wince visibly.

“Yes”, he says serenely. “A ride. Just you and me. What do you say?”

It’s my turn to shrug. “Why not? It’s better than being all cooped up here”.

When Chanyeol first suggested going for a night ride, I honestly expected an innocent little bicycle parked outside the house, ready and waiting for the both of us to clamber on and wobble down the pavement and into the sunset.

Instead, I catch a glimpse of the sleek beast of a motorcycle coolly leaned on its side as he leads me outside by the hand and upon catching sight of it, excitement courses through my veins, sending me spiralling into an adrenalin-filled paradise.

I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before and the fact that the golden opportunity is presented right in front of me, I immediately jump at the chance. As soon as he holds a helmet out to me with a smirk on his face, every single niggling doubt hidden away at the back of mind flies out the window and I grab it with both hands eagerly, yanking it down over my head. It’s a little too big for me, slanting over to one side clumsily but Chanyeol just laughs, rapping on top of the plastic with his knuckles cheekily as he straps on his own helmet.

Holding out a hand to me, he helps clamber over the awaiting bike and once I’m all set, he makes himself comfortable in front of the handlebars, flexing his fingers over them confidently. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he raises his eyebrows back at me. “All set?”

He takes my nod as a cue and once I wrap my arms around his waist tightly, I feel the engine purr to life, sending spasms of adrenalin through me like poison coursing through my veins. The bike pulls away from the sidewalk sharply, zipping down the empty road at breakneck speed and leaving skid marks on the tar-black ground in our wake.

The wind whips through my hair and roars in my ears like a thunderstorm. Dust swirls around us, almost blinding me even behind the face-shield of my helmet but that doesn’t deter me; instead, I keep my eyes wide open despite the biting dust, greedily drinking in the sights and the smells of my surroundings. The bustling city looms in the distance ahead, beckoning to us with its neon nightlife and I can’t resist leaning forward, propping my chin on Chanyeol’s leather-padded shoulder.

“Faster!” I crow in his ear over the deafening roar of the engine, never loosening my grip around his waist.

He adheres to my command, pushing the bike way past its speed limit and sending us flying down the long stretch of road. With the wind clawing mercilessly at my face and the intoxicating scents of leather and exhaust fumes filling up my senses, I’ve never felt so alive in my entire life.

I lose myself in the moment, completely and utterly indulging in the thrill of the night ride while Chanyeol expertly zips in and out of the traffic, effortlessly manoeuvring the bike to his heart’s content. We zoom through the city at the speed of light, whizzing past cars and vans and trucks recklessly and earning a few yelled Korean profanities after us.

Chanyeol just laughs manically at it all, never faltering. And for one heart-stopping moment, he looks absolutely beautiful.

In the flashing neon lights of the city, his beautifully crafted facial features are reflected, flaunting the reckless mischief in his dark eyes and the devilment in his heart. This man is morally corrupted, emotionally manipulative and burning with raging vengeance and resentment. His eyes are wild, showcasing an untamed beast who wants nothing more than to release itself.

And it looks like I’m his source of release.

In spite of it all, lustful passion clutches at my heart. I shouldn’t be feeling this way. I shouldn’t be having the time of my life with a daredevil of a man I barely know, the same man I slept with out of impulse. I shouldn’t be secretly aching for him in a way I’ve never ached before. It’s like my mind, my heart and my body are at war with one another, each part battling with the other for dominance and sending me into an emotional frenzy.

Luhan never made me feel this way.

Guilt doesn’t even have time to eat at me before Chanyeol breaks abruptly, almost sending me flying over his shoulder. Blinking at my surroundings, realization dawns on me that in the time I’d spent mulling over my own thoughts in the privacy of my mind, we’d weaved our way out of the city and have now pulled up in front of an abandoned-looking warehouse. From my observations, it looks like we’re on the outskirts once again and I inwardly question myself on what is it with Chanyeol and his obsession with the outskirts of the city.

He proceeds to tug off his helmet, turning around to face me in the dim moonlight and I feel my heart backflip into my throat at the sight of the unreadable expression lingering on his features. Without a word, he yanks the helmet off my head and grabs my hand, leading me through the front door of the warehouse.

Upon entering, my eyes slowly adjust to the interior as the door silently slides shut behind us on its hinges. The entire building is bare, devoid of furniture and belongings. Dirty beige walls surround us. A whiteboard is hooked up nearby, covered in hasty scrawls and scribbles which I can barely make out due to the unsightly handwriting. Besides that, a long wooden table accompanied by a set of chest drawers stands in the centre of the entire room. For what purpose, I have no idea but I’m not really interested in it either.

I tilt my head back to stare up at Chanyeol inquisitively, absentmindedly admiring his great skyscraper height from my own five-feet state. “Chanyeol?” The name leaves my lips like a tremor and I clear my throat sheepishly.

He barely reacts, already striding over to the wooden table on his long legs, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket. Wrapping his hand around the handle of the top drawer, he yanks it open noisily and pulls out a large and flat suitcase, dumping it on the tabletop authoritatively.

I hover by his side curiously, eyeing the suitcase warily like as though it’s going to explode at any given moment. Without a word, Chanyeol clicks the case’s locks and flips it open, revealing its contents to my bare eyes.

Sleek guns lie encased in the suitcase, glittering dangerously in the glaring fluorescent lights of the warehouse. For a fleeting moment, I feel my heart stop at the sight of the firearms in our possession, my breath sticking in my throat.

Albeit dangerous, the guns still bask in their own twisted beauty, their metal coats shimmering temptingly. One of them in particular, its rose-gold coat winking directly at me, snags my attention right away and I have to resist the urge to reach out and close my fingers around it, my skin itching for a touch of the cold and heartless steel.

Instead, I force myself to focus on Chanyeol’s side profile, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I take short and quick breaths. “What are all these for?”

“Are you afraid?” He breathes, turning his back on the firearms and cornering me against the edge of the table, his large form covering me entirely. His large hand closes over mine, his touch searing straight through my skin and causing sparks of heat to shoot right down to the area in between my legs.

Suddenly, everything is spinning. I grip onto the edge of the table tightly, my knuckles fading to a ghostly shade of white. “Afraid of what?”

He gestures to the guns with a vague wave of his hand. “This. Me. Are you afraid of me?”

“Am I supposed to be?” I catch myself whispering.

“You wanted to know every single aspect of my schemes against Lu Corporations and I kept my promise. I’m revealing to you everything related to my plans. The guns are part of it”.

I’m at a loss for words. I asked for this, I demanded of him to disclose every aspect of his schemes to me but now that the curtains have been pulled back, I’m so blinded by the truth that I don’t even know how to react. Fear plays a large part of my emotions here but the question is, fear of what?

Definitely not fear of Chanyeol, because if I did fear him, I wouldn’t be allowing myself to be tugged into the cage of his arms, my cheek pressed against the cool front of his leather jacket.

If I feared him, I wouldn’t be tilting my head back in pure bliss and indulging myself in the sinful sensation of the kisses he’s leaving along the line of my jaw, my back arching with want. He kisses a fiery path down my neck, pulling out a mewl from my parted lips.

No, this is definitely not fear of him. I can’t quite put my finger on it but my mind refuses to think any further, clouded by the lust lingering in the air. As his large hands grip my hips and lift my entire form onto the table, my name dancing on the tip his tongue as he does so, I let out a groan.

Chanyeol’s lips are absolutely intoxicating, dragging both of us down into the pool of passion as he licks a fat strip down the length of my flushed neck. He’s completely vulnerable, his eyes glazed over as his fingers weave their way down to the area in between my legs. With that, he cups my clothed womanhood with the palm of his large hand and my hips buck up instinctively at the physical contact, desperate sounds tumbling from my lips like a waterfall.

Through it all, his attention is entirely on my body and the intoxicating way it bends to his will, to his touches, completely oblivious to everything else around him. And just like that, like as though it has a life of its own, my hand subtly stretches out and closes around the nearby rose-gold gun.

With that, I press the barrel of it against Chanyeol’s chest, trembling as he raises his head from my neck with his eyebrows cocked up. The glint in his eyes tell me that he’s far from afraid, even with death only a pull of a trigger away.

A smirk pulls at his lips as he glances down at the gun against his leather jacket, visibly shaking in my hand. Now I know what I fear.

I fear hurting the man who manipulated me into this situation in the first place.

I have no idea why. I don’t really want to know why. All I know is that I’m shaking like a leaf and Chanyeol’s malicious laughter does nothing to aid me in this fucking situation.

I could pull the damn trigger, I could just end him. I could end his schemes against Lu Corporations, I could keep Luhan safe.

And yet, I do nothing. My finger dances on the trigger but my mind dances on the thought of having Chanyeol by my side, instantly betraying my feelings for Luhan. But then again, I already betrayed him when I slept with the man standing right in front of me right now.

“Just fucking do it, (Y/N)”, Chanyeol taunts, pressing his chest up against the gun’s barrel. “Get rid of me. Go on, here’s your chance”.

And yet, my grip on the gun falters as soon as he utters those words, my trembling fingers slackening and growing limp. Breathing hard, I hardly react as Chanyeol grins and proceeds to snatch the firearm from my grasp, shoving the barrel of the gun against my jaw roughly, his finger hovering threateningly close to the trigger.

“You had the opportunity to get rid of me, princess”, he sneers. “You should have taken it”.

I should have.

The icy steel pressed against my jaw sends shivers through me and I shut my eyes, the blood roaring in my ears as I brace myself for the end. There is absolutely nothing holding Chanyeol back from blowing my brains out and yet, I have the fucking nerve to feel relieved when he pulls the gun away from my jaw, dipping his head to drop a kiss on the exact spot where the barrel was just a second ago.

“Guess you’re stuck with me, then”, he murmurs. “You made the right decision”.