#she is a dick‚ that seems to be a common theme for our cat

[squid--inc]

my sister: cleans the kitty litter box because I've fucked up my foot, and she leaves

our cat: shits on top of the litter, barely covering it, so I'm forced to smell it from the couch, and will have to limp over and try to clean then get up somehow to was my hands.

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 6

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it's own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV. There's non-explicit smut in this part!

Summary: You're Peter's classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don't know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you're lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: Remember that questionable morals remark? Yea, this chapter is the reason. Y/N, girl, you gotta stop... But at least it's kinda funny. Okay, it's pretty damn hilarious.

Beta read by the lovely and patient @miscmarvelwritings ! She is amazing. I larb her. 💙

"And then I was like 'No Way!' and he was like 'Totally' and that's how I met Tony Stark," I finished excitedly, opposite a laughing Mr. Davies. The story of how I met Iron Man was a total hit with the teacher and my vigorous mimicking of the facial expressions that described my feelings during the time had my teacher busting a gut something loud. 

"I honestly have some trouble believing that but - hey, what the hell, he's a billionaire superhero, it's basically expected for him to be a little strange," When his laughing fit was over, Mr. Davies reminded me he was, in fact, a psychology doctor. There was serious brain power under that easygoing attitude.

I expected detention to be bearable in his company but Mr. Davies rose above expectations, welcoming me with another cup of tea and some colouring pages. Admittedly, I contemplated stealing some - those mandalas were really captivating.

"Oh, he's strange alright, but nothing I can't handle," I twirled a pencil between my fingers. 

Mr. Davies grinned knowingly, too knowingly for my comfort, and I had no choice but to make a stone face before looking him in the eye. 

He smirked. "So, anything else interesting for you going on?" 

"Nah, not much. Really looking forward to being done with high school and going out into the bigger world, y'know."

"You turned 18 already, right?" I nodded in confirmation. "Maybe get a job, something part-time? OsCorp always hands these leaflets out, they're looking for lab assistants."

I wrinkled my nose. "I don't need a job. Plus, I'm sure Bruce-err, Doctor Banner would smash me if I went to work at OsCorp," I glossed over my slip-up, hoping Mr. Davies would do the same. But no such luck happened.

"Right. Me and Bruce, we actually go way back," He smiled, stirring his tea. I perked up in interest. "We studied psychology together, sat next to each other in half of our classes. It's a shame what happened to him but I hope he's happy now," Mr. Davies was smiling earnestly, looking out of the window where rain had started flowing down on the glass.

"Really? That's cool," I said, lacking anything else to add to his statement.

"He used to skip classes and always lost his glasses even though they'd be on top of his head," My teacher continued. "Banner was actually quite a rowdy student," He added with a smirk.

"Hah, he still routinely loses his glasses, although he wears them on a string around his neck now," I chuckled fondly. Bruce was such a dork.

I chatted with Mr. Davies some more, just casual conversation about everything and nothing in between. His parents were hippies, he had two moms and one dad and according to him, Thor was very overrated. I didn't even notice we were up in each other's space until our knees brushed when Mr. Davies - "Call me Will" - was showing me the pictures of his cats, dog and lizard. I figured that as the hippy child, personal space was kind of a foreign concept to him - and that rang true, I've seen Will give out more shoulder grabs and high fives than anyone else sans the gym teacher.

The clock's ding announced 6 PM and I quickly gathered my things, hastily saying goodbye. I was stopped though.

"If you don't mind a quick stop at my house, I can drop you off. It's pouring buckets outside and I would hate you to get sick," Will spoke casually. 

Technically, I knew he was bending some rules of conduct. But it was also 55° outside and the water coming from the sky was unlikely to be warm. So I caved without any guilty conscience, obediently following Mr. Davies -Will- to the parking lot where a new-ish Jeep Cherokee proudly stood amongst several older, less gently used cars. With New York city traffic being the way it is, I didn't text Bruce yet, fully expecting for the trip to take a whole hour if not more. 

Thankfully the parking gods were merciful and Will managed to find a spot right across his two-story townhouse. "You're welcome to come in if you feel comfortable, I just need to fetch some documents," He said.

And that's where I fucked up. I nodded affirmatively, I followed him through the door and made myself as comfortable as I could on his living room couch. It was a cozy home, his iguana chilled opposite me in it's terrarium and the little mutt that was his dog really reminded me of the atrocity that my parents used to own before they had me. It yipped and yapped, wagging it's bushy tail at me and demanding pets.

The steaming tea mug was dutifully placed in my hand by Will who hopped upstairs immediately after that, skipping steps. I watched the man with a benign stare: he'd removed his sweater and I could see the defined muscles of his back and the admirable backside that he possessed. There was no harm in looking respectfully, right?

I was halfway through my mug when Will came back down, brandishing a truly impressive stack of manila folders, setting it on a nearby table before sitting down on the other end of the couch, maintaining a respectful distance between us. We chatted some more and the more he spoke about his current research, the more passionate he became; by the end of his truly epic description of the effects that anti-depressants have on the learning process of depressed adolescents, I was mesmerized by the way his pink lips formed words.

Sitting with my calves tucked under my butt, leaning against the armrest , I was a goner. He caught my eye, diverting his own stare from my exposed legs to the side, blinking furiously. It calmed my spirits somewhat, knowing that I wasn't the only one affected by the sudden change of atmosphere in the room. My mug landed on the low table with a loud clang as I leaned forward, the sleeves of my sweater accidentally brushing against his leg.

Will cleared his throat and I startled, tilting my head up towards him in confusion. He was staring at me with a mix of fear and delight in his eyes, like a boy preparing for his first kiss. I would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation if the darkness in his stormy grey eyes didn't make my own breath do somersaults somewhere between my lungs and my esophagus.

Fifteen minutes later, both my sweater and my panties were thrown somewhere in the furthest end of the room and those thin lips were making me see stars. For some reason he was convinced I'd had only typical teenage disappointing sex up to this point and was really eager to show me what a grown man can do. I mean, I wasn't complaining, he was really, really good with his mouth - but I didn't have all night, so I flipped the tables and showed off my own oral skills until he had to bodily remove me from his dick and lift me onto it. Every movement felt surreal, like I was living in a dream. Despite my common sense yelling expletives at me, I kissed Will back with twice the heat and none of the finesse, each of us reaching the peak nearly in sync.

"Can I get that ride to the tower now?"

Will let out a decidedly unmanly squeak when he realised where exactly he'd be taking me after we did what we'd done. I smiled at him in hopes of calming down the man but it seemed it came out more predatory. He shivered, his dick twitching within me.

I texted Bruce the same time I was getting into Will's car. My brain was still somewhat in a state of shock and I used the brief moment to tidy up my hair and makeup, taking note of my sex-flushed face. I only hoped I didn't stink like man-sweat and Will's cologne. 

Another realization was startled out of me: that was my first time having had sex without a condom. I was on birth control since I was fourteen so pregnancy wasn't a scare; currently, I was more worried about the mildly uncomfortable, wet feeling in my panties where my teacher's cum had pooled out.

Yikes. That moment Will took a careful monitoring of my facial expression and it took me a lot to keep it somewhere between neutral and happy. Internally, I was freaking the fuck out, torn between horror and incredible arousal.

It morphed into full fledged mortification when I saw Bruce's lab coat from afar, the man standing next to the entrance door. Having had a dumb moment, I texted Banner that a former schoolmate of his was the one giving me a ride and it really shouldn't have been a surprise that Bruce would go downstairs to greet Will.

'Fuck you, you dumbass,' was my approximate train of thought, directed at myself, when all three of us gathered, hiding from the cold rain and the autumn wind under the safety of the roof. Both men shared a brief, warm embrace before Bruce's arm snaked around my waist.

"You go upstairs, okay? I don't want you to get sick," Banner said, eyeing the disastrous weather.

I looked at Will, finding his eyebrow cocked at Bruce's frivolous gesture and a faint flush blossoming on his face. The man shuffled awkwardly, giving me a small wave and a tight-lipped smile before turning his attention back to Bruce. I wished him good night, hastily retreating into the safety of the elevator.

"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fu-u-uck..." I chanted under my breath, acutely aware of the blossoming bruises on my hips where my teacher held me, the dampness of my underwear. 

The elevator doors opened, revealing the common room couch being occupied by Wanda. Peter, Wanda's brother and the two resident super soldiers setting the table for dinner. Tony was off bickering with Loki and Strange by the coffee maker and Thor was standing outside on the patio, doing something very strange with his hands and his hammer. Was he summoning the shitty weather?! The audacity!

"Hey," Wanda greeted me quietly. Her eyebrows raised upon seeing my face full of perplexed confusion. "You okay?.. Wait, what? Tell me you did not!" As my internal crisis reached its peak, I remembered that a) Wanda is a telepath and b) There were other people in the room.

One ungraceful landing next to her later, I turned my bleary stare onto her. "Oops?" I offered in the way of explanation. What was I supposed to say if I didn't know for myself what the devil possessed me to fuck my social studies teacher after school? He was fucking hot, okay.

The witch smirked, obviously following my defensive internal monologue. "Oops?" Her tone was laced with gleeful sarcasm.

"I'm a human disaster," I groaned, finally caving in and palming my face. Wanda began snickering. "I have zero impulse control," I continued wallowing in self-pity. The redhead just cackled harder.

"I feel so attacked right now," Tony's voice loudly announced the man's presence. I was thankful for the distraction, happy that today, out of all the days, he decided to make the situation about himself. "I am the resident hot mess and nothing you do will change that. Or get out of my tower," He made a dramatic gesture, waving along everybody to the table.

At the dinner table, with Peter on one side of me and Bruce on the other, Wanda's speech was clear. "I think you two are about on the same level, Tony," Her tone was dry. The looks she cast me were cheeky at best and downright gleeful at worst. Not only was she the resident telepath but also, apparently, a huge drama fan.

I, on the other hand, felt like a fish thrown out of water. My mind was still jumping between astounded and horrified like a rabid rabbit and Bruce's excited remark about seeing a former schoolmate only worsened the anxiety. My brain was telling me EVERYBODY knew EVERYTHING whereas in reality, it was only Wanda and it didn't seem like she was upset enough to give up my dirty little secret. If anything, the witch seemed almost impressed. And that dry, mildly interested facial expression only solidified when she put two and two together: my teacher, whom I fucked, also known as Bruce's former study buddy.

"I have some spare sweatpants that might fit you," Wanda directly addressed me as we were finishing up the wonderful chicken roast courtesy of Clint and Bucky. Nobody batted an eye at the sudden exclamation, evidently used to being around someone who could hear their thoughts. 

I nodded, mentally waving a big, red thank you note. With sparkles. And hearts. Wanda chuckled.

"Hey, did you change your perfume?" Peter's innocent remark made me nearly freeze in my spot. 

Kill Bill sirens started playing in my head on repeat as I heard Wanda choke on her asparagus, inadvertently drawing attention to the three of us. Peter looked at us in confusion: Wanda kept on gasping, but it seemed like the dam had finally burst and she was laughing in earnest, snorting, loudly, as I engaged my willpower to stop myself from doing the same. Needless to say, it was a spectacular failure and now both of us were bent over our dinner plates, absolutely losing it - much to the concern of the adults present at the table. The rest of the team was growing concerned.

"Oh my god, your FACE!" Wanda's incoherent mumbling and the accusing finger pointed in my direction did it.

"A lady doesn't... kiss... and tell...." I fervently gulped the oxygen as I tried to articulate my thoughts into something comprehendible. The hysterical laughter won by a wide margin.

"Who's the lucky guy?" Natasha seemed to get the gist, relaxing immediately and picking up her fork to continue her meal. 

I shook my head, unable to form a coherent thought, much less a sentence. Bruce chuckled from somewhere beside me and just like that, the tension broke. The adults in the room traded knowing looks, chuckling and snorting amongst themselves. 

The moments I needed to calm down went to waste really quick: my first laughing fit over, I took one look at Wanda and yet again, both of us were puffing out our cheeks to try and prevent another hysterical fit. 

"Whew," I exaggerated, eyes wide and looking ANYWHERE but at Wanda.

"What a wild ride," She snorted and I put a palm over my face, shaking my head in... 

Disappointment at myself? I wasn't disappointed. Now that I got over the WTF factor, I found the situation to be pretty damn hot. Will was hot. Eh, whatever. 

My casual mood of zero-fucks-given began returning. After few of the last bites of potatoes, I was prepared to face  Natasha. I looked the Black Widow dead in the eye as I firmly stated: "And for the record? We are NOT having this conversation."

She elegantly arched her eyebrow whilst everybody else held their breath. "That bad, huh?" The retort was immediate.

I allowed myself to radiate a bit of that newly acquired smugness I had begun to feel: "You have no idea," I hoped my smirk was as devious as I wished it to be.

"Alright, heartbreaker, colour me impressed," Natasha nodded in affirmation. We shared another meaningful look and reverted back to our plates with the menfolk observing us akin animals at a zoo. 

Somewhat amazed, slightly afraid. Bruce's stare was somewhat concerned, too: he contemplatively eyed me from the corner of his eye, the same way I eyed him, checking out the fact that he appeared somewhat annoyed. Like a proper father would, I suppose. 

Luckily for me, I finished off the remaining food and drink quickly, with Wanda being my saviour once again as she all but bodily dragged me into the elevator, promising to return me to the science den in no more than an hour. Tony went to complain but was promptly stopped by Natasha inconspicuously reaching for the butter knife: the engineer knew how to pick his battles. I didn't doubt that Romanoff was going to hear "all about it" second-hand from Wanda and I was fully prepared to face the redhead spy's judgement. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, escaped that clever woman.

A quick shower and a change of clothes later, I sat on Wanda's couch, nervously fiddling with the two sizes too big sweatpants, occasionally stopping to straighten the plain white tank top that just barely fit me. I washed my hair but didn't  dry it before Wanda was impatiently telling me to hurry up: the mess sat atop my head held up by a single scrunchie.

"Okay... Where do I start?" She asked me, looking like the cat that ate the canary. 

"Don't start," I stopped her with a raised palm. "It was a casual, one-time thing and I've no interest in pursuing that shit on the reg," I answered honestly. The fact that he was my teacher simultaneously worsened the situation and made me elated. But ultimately, I didn't want to risk the trouble that would come along with this mess. Besides, I had no feelings for the guy whatsoever. As I've said previously, it was just bad impulse control on some teenage hormone steroids.

"You're a strange one," Wanda's penetrating gaze made me shiver. "You live without a care in the world but at the same time, your mind is always all over the place. It is interesting."

"Uh, thanks? I guess?"

"I think we should try being friends," The witch remarked after a brief moment of awkward silence. I stared at her, dumbfounded. "Because of my powers, I can literally see through people and predict what they will do before they even think about doing it. With you, it's not like that," She explained, her Slavic accent making a full guest appearance.

"So...you want to be friends because I'm a fucking mess?" I couldn't help but feel a little offended. The occasional shitty decision aside, I didn't think of myself as that bad.

"I want to be friends because I like you," Wanda fondly rolled her eyes, standing up from the couch and motioning for me to follow. "Now let's get you to Tony or he'll blow a gasket. He's already insufferable as he is."

@another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem

[mostlycompetentwriter]

Sunshine

F/M Pairing: Y/N x Han Jisung (Stray Kids)

Word Count: 12K

Genre: Married Life AU

Warnings: Smut and Language

Summary: Y/N has loved Jisung for her entire life and she would never dream of marrying anyone else. Of course, their life together isn’t always perfect, but they’ve always managed to overcome every obstacle standing in their way.

Note: Feeling soft for Jisung these days...

I was only 8-years-old when my parents divorced. 

My mother, thinking herself circumspect, blamed it on my father’s long hours at work. But she wasn’t there the night I decided to wait for my father, watching him come home in the dead of night to quietly clean the lipstick painting the side of his cheek. I remember catching his eyes from the bottom of the staircase and the guilt in his eyes was impossible to dismiss.

Those kinds of unfortunate secrets are difficult to hide because they demand to be seen. 

Thereafter, I can recall memories of sitting in different offices, listening to my parents bicker while their lawyers did their best to satisfy bitter clients, especially when it came to their daughter. I was a particularly harsh point of contention, but full childhood custody was granted to my mother who did everything in her power to push my father out of our lives, even packing up our belongings to move to the opposite side of the country. And New York City was just as intimidating as my childish imagination had perceived it to be. My first impression was unforgettable, a city that was large and confusing, constantly streaked with traffic and heavy with the low-set of smog in the mornings when the sun could barely filter through the landscape of skyscrapers.

My mother and I moved to the suburbs and started renting a modest home with the idyllic front yard and friendly neighbors who greeted us with dishes containing different foods upon our arrival. I had always been shy and introverted, choosing the comfort of my mother’s legs whenever a stranger would knock on our door, occasionally offering my mother a flirtatious smile. Like the older man who lived across the street who often made a habit of coming over to talk to my mother in the living room while I hid away upstairs, listening to the sound of their laughter.

Eventually, I could no longer pretend that something strange wasn’t happening, especially when my mother’s new friend brought over his two sons. They were both around my age, sporting thick accents that reminded me of the man on television who liked to wrestle with crocodiles. My mother’s friend introduced them as Chan and Felix, encouraging the three of us to get along because we would be spending a lot of time with each other. My childish innocence didn’t quite understand what that meant, but I wanted to do the very best for my mother.

Even so, I was still hesitant at first because Felix seemed to dislike the idea, ignoring me in exchange for his video games when I would come over to their house. Thankfully, Chan was more willing to comply, sharing his books with me since we both liked to read and the couch in his bedroom was extremely comfortable. He had a wide variety of mysteries and thrillers and my impressionable mind would latch onto those exotic stories and themes, picturing myself in the place of the heroine who somehow managed to always know exactly what to do in the most formidable of situations.

Eventually, Chan invited me to accompany him and Felix to the park to meet their other friends since I was having trouble making them on my own. Felix, of course, remained opposed, very nearly throwing a fit had it not been for his father who scolded his son for being so inconsiderate. Not that I was necessarily excited at the idea of meeting their friends since I would have preferred staying inside to read. Nevertheless, my mother was insistent that we get along, so I reluctantly followed Chan and Felix who were talking about some sort of new comic book that they were both reading. It was all very decidedly boyish things and I had no interest in superheroes who ran around in capes when the real heroes were the common female protagonists of my books.

“Everyone, meet Y/N,” Chan had introduced me, pushing me forward to greet the seven other boys who were all looking at me like I was some sort of extraterrestrial specimen.

One of their older friends, with a messy head of black hair, immediately crossed his arms. “No way, Chan,” he protested, glaring at me with intimidating dark eyes.

“Girls aren’t allowed,” another boy agreed, nodding his head with enough force to send his bangs flying into his eyes.

I retreated into myself with each subsequent insult and dismissal thrown my way. It was enough to ostracise even the most outgoing of individuals, but I was quite frustrated because I had tried to resist coming along from the moment Chan first proposed the idea. “I didn’t want to come anyway,” I snapped at the boys, surprising each and every one of them as I stormed away to plant myself down on one of the park benches.

I could hear Chan calling my name but I had decidedly had enough of those boys, including Chan despite the inherent kindness he had previously shown me. In fact, they could have fun without me doing whatever it is that nasty little boys liked to do in the park. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway, even if they had opened their arms and begged me to play along. Of course, I was still deeply hurt that they had dismissed me so quickly, but I had always been a prideful child, which is why my first instinct was to lash out when I noticed a shadow had fallen over my wilted form. “You don’t have to be nice anymore, Chan,” I said, turning away from the approaching boy.

“I’m really sorry.” 

I glanced up in surprise when I realized that the voice was much brighter than Chan’s gravelly tone. Instead, I met a pair of unfamiliar brown eyes from beneath a fringe of blonde-colored hair. The boy held out a flower, a wilted dandelion that had nearly lost its pappus, as if in a gesture of appeasement.

I accepted it from him hesitantly. “Thank you.”

“They shouldn’t be so mean,” the boy continued, waving at his friends who were busy arguing over a silly football. “You’re really tall so you might be able to catch Minho’s long passes.”

I paused at his comment. “Do you want me to play?”

“Of course,” the boy grinned, smiling as brilliantly as the sun bearing down on the two of us. “My name’s Jisung.”

I returned his smile. “It’s nice to meet you Jisung.” He offered me his hand which I gratefully accepted, holding on to him with an unrelenting grip because I had a feeling that I would never want to let go.

This might explain why, years later, I was still waking up next to him in bed with an expensive ring on my finger courtesy of dozens of saved paychecks back when Jisung worked overtime in college. On this morning, in particular, the sound of my alarm might have been enough to wake me up, but the unexpected presence of my husband’s hand groping my chest provided the necessary catalyst to blindly reach out for my cell phone. I silenced the unwelcome disturbance, allowing a low groan when I reached down for his hand because leave it to Han Jisung to feel me up even when we were both sleeping. “What are you doing?” Jisung asked when I tightened my fingers around his wrist, loudly protesting when he squeezed my breast in return. 

“It’s too early for that,” I whined, especially when he started to rub his hard cock against my ass.

“Just let me put it inside for five minutes,” Jisung pleaded, his other hand roaming down to tug on my panties. 

“What good will that do?” I asked him, slowly wriggling away from his arms despite the show of childish outrage from my immature husband who still sometimes forgot that he was an adult.

“You’re gonna make me show up to work like this?” Jisung pouted, expression painted with his betrayal as he watched me walk around our bedroom. 

“Take a cold shower,” I said, tossing a towel in his direction. 

“Y/N,” Jisung said. “Let’s think about the practicalities of the situation. We haven’t had sex in a week and my dick feels like it might fall off at any moment.”

“And if we look at this situation scientifically,” I added. “I doubt your dick will fall off because that’s assuredly impossible.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Jisung asked in an exaggerated fashion, burying his face into our nicest set of pillows.

“Because I’m meeting Seungmin and Jeongin for lunch and you have a field trip to chaperone. Plus, I don’t want to listen to Changbin complain to me on the phone tonight when you show up to work late again.”

“Seungmin and Jeongin are more important than me?”

“Lunch is more important than you,” I corrected him with a smirk, reaching for my bag. “Have a nice day at work, babe.”

“No kiss goodbye?” Jisung questioned even as the door to our bedroom shut soundly behind me.

Being amongst the youngest, me, Seungmin, and Jeongin frequently made a habit of eating lunch together on Saturday afternoons. It was a traditional affair, primarily allowing the three of us to gossip about the others without fear of reprimand. And ever since our Freshman year writing lecture, we’ve enjoyed greasy fast food while commenting on everything from Chan and Changbin’s sudden obsession with the gym to our theories that Minho was secretly married to a rich aristocrat who supplied him with the endless amount of money he spent on his cats.

“Hey!” Jeongin protested when I reached over to steal a piece of his steak.

“It looks better than mine,” I attempted to justify, speaking over a mouthful of food which my mother would normally offer criticism.

“Felix has been acting weird lately,” Seungmin randomly commented, a frown confusing his features as he scrolled through his phone.

I chewed the stolen beef before asking, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he only ever gets like this when she’s back in town.”

I let out a heavy exhale, understanding exactly why Seungmin was concerned. “How long?”

“A week or so,” Seungmin said. “He never comes out with us anymore.”

“Does Changbin know?” I asked, sliding my plate aside in exchange for this piece of juicy gossip.

Changbin’s sister, better known as the object of Felix’s most intimate desires, has managed to whole-heartedly capture Felix in some sort of deadly trance. My step-brother, notoriously known for being a playboy in college, became whipped around Changbin’s sister, following her around like a lost puppy begging for attention. “Of course he does,” Seungmin replied. “But he says that Kara hasn’t tried to contact Felix at all.”

“Obviously,” I snorted. “Changbin thinks Kara is the epitome of perfection. His little sister can’t possibly do wrong in his eyes.”

“I think Felix shares his opinion,” Jeongin commented, trying to sound perfectly serious while he sipped on his chocolate milk.

“We’re having a family dinner tomorrow night,” I said with a sigh. “It’s a good opportunity to interrogate my step-brother.”

“Please, Y/N,” Seungmin said, eyes round and soft. “Felix always tells you everything.”

“And you can immediately tell us in the group chat,” Jeongin chirped happily.

“Of course!” I agreed, reaching over to ruffle Jeongin’s hair until my phone abruptly started ringing. “Yes, Hyunjin?” I sighed into the other end.

“Y/N! We have an emergency!”

I rolled my eyes at his theatrics. “It can’t be that bad.”

“We don’t have straws! I repeat, the cafe has no straws and people are asking for straws, Y/N.”

“Jesus, Hyunjin,” I groaned. “Just go next door and buy some straws.”

“Y/N,” Hyujin huffed impatiently. “There is a bigger problem here and you don’t even realize! That kid you hired last week? I think he’s out to sabotage the cafe. I put him in charge of ordering supplies and guess what isn’t supplied?”

“The damn straws,” I muttered, suddenly having a million regrets for agreeing to open the cafe with Hyunjin in the first place.

“Now you finally understand.”

I carefully lowered the phone from my ear, cupping the receiver to look at Seungmin. “Do you mind coming with me to the cafe? I’m supposed to have the day off but Hyunjin’s losing his shit over straws.”

“Sounds like Hyunjin,” Seungmin smirked. “I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Hyujin,” I repeated into the phone. “Please don’t scream at that poor kid, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

The cafe was originally supposed to be an independent endeavor until Hwang Hyunjin found out about my plans and demanded some sort of involvement. Despite our friendship, I was still hesitant to consider Hyunjin as a business partner, especially considering his performances in the lectures we shared in college. Hyunjin was the type of student to arrive to class five minutes before the professor, desperation clinging to him persistently while he begged me to explain the homework assignment. Nevertheless, Hyunjin somehow graduated from the business school at the same time as I did, albeit without the honor’s recognition, proving himself despite the doubts of nearly everyone in our friend circle with the exception of Jisung who always managed to see the good in everyone.

Shortly after graduation, Hyunjin and I took out a small loan from the bank to open our cafe in a very strategic location close to a nearby university. From the beginning, I had primarily handled the more elaborate side of our business ranging from accounting and point of sales to ordering supplies and handling employees. Hyunjin, on the other hand, took care of the creative aspects including designing what he deemed an “elegant” menu while also trying out new recipes that our mostly college-aged clientele greatly enjoyed in the form of free samples. 

“Y/N!” Hyujin gasped as soon as I walked in the door with Seungmin and Jeongin. “Well?”

I held up a grocery bag full of the straws I had just purchased. “It’s fine, Hyunjin.”

“It’s not fine,” Hyunjin protested, walking over to yank the bag free from my grasp. “I’ll have you know that one of our usual customers left us 4 instead of 5 stars for satisfaction.”

“What will we do?” I deadpanned. “Where’s the new kid? Did you scold him thoroughly?”

“Of course I did,” Hyunjin said, pointing to the kitchen. “I sent him to wash dishes.”

“He’s a cashier.”

“It’s punishment, Y/N,” Hyunjin said. “We can’t have him thinking he can get away with potentially damaging our public image.”

“These kids will still get their morning coffee,” I said. “They don’t care if we’re out of straws as long as they have somewhere to loiter around all day to finish their essays.”

“That’s another thing,” Hyunjin said. “I think we definitely need a bigger place and I know the owner next door said something about moving out.”

“Renovations are expensive,” I said. “And you don’t know if the landlord would be okay with us tearing out the wall to expand.”

“What if I found out?”

“Talk to Seungmin instead,” I suggested, tugging the younger boy forward. “I’ll see about this new guy you’ve decided to torture.”

“Punishment, Y/N!”

I rolled my eyes because I was still frustrated that I had to come into the cafe because of the worst excuse for an emergency in the history of mankind. But what else did I expect from Hyunjin? “Remember to breathe, Y/N,” I whispered to myself. 

Back in the kitchen, our newest employee, donned in his decorative jacket courtesy of Hyunjin’s obsession with bright uniforms, was currently bent over the sink with thick gloves pulled up to his elbows. I felt bad for the guy because it was obvious that he wasn’t used to doing something like this. “Hey, kid,” I said, surprising the younger boy who immediately dropped one of the cups back into the sudsy water. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

“I-I don’t mind,” he stuttered, eyes wide as he held tightly to a sponge.

“It’s not your job,” I insisted, carefully taking the sponge from him like he was a deer that might dart away at any sudden movement. “I’m sorry Hyunjin told you to come back here. To be honest, he was probably trying to avoid this work himself.”

“But I messed up the order,” he said, hanging his head. “It’s my fault.”

“Not it’s not and don’t let Hyunjin tell you otherwise,” I said. “Next time, call me if you’re having trouble with the order.”

I reached into my bag to pull out my business card, holding it out for his reluctant hand which was still slightly damp from his unexpected dish duty. “You’re not mad?” he asked reluctantly.

“No way,” I reassured him. “I used to work during college too, you know. I kinda get it, kid, so don’t worry about anything.”

His smile was sincere, looking at my card like it was the key to the world. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Get back on register,” I encouraged him. “That’s what I hired you for, and next time Hyunjin gives you any shit, you just let me know.”

He nodded enthusiastically, vacating the kitchen as if he was actually thrilled by the idea of returning to the register. I knew all was well when I could hear Hyunjin’s shrill voice from the other room: “Y/N!”

Jisung managed to beat me home and I walked inside to find my husband laid out on the couch with a glass of orange juice in one hand. “Headache,” Jisung pouted at me.

“Take some Advil,” I said with a smirk, ignoring the way his hands reached out for me in exchange for the possibility of a snack from the kitchen.

“Y/N!” I heard him groan my name. 

“Sungie,” I returned his call. “I hope this isn’t some sort of elaborate set-up because we have dinner with my mother tomorrow night.”

Jisung was silent in the next room and I shook my head while dumping a sample of chips into one of our plastic bowls. I came back out into the living room to find Jisung rolled over onto his stomach, face buried into the cushions of our sectional. “Baby,” I cooed, trying to lure him out from his hiding place.

“I forgot about the dinner,” Jisung said, voice muffled against the furniture.

“I figured that,” I said, somewhat sympathetic to his plight. For as long as I could remember, Jisung had always feared our family dinners mainly because my mother had a personal vendetta against him. Ever since he first stepped foot on the porch wearing a rented suit for Junior year prom, my mother had deemed him unworthy of my time. Her feelings only worsened when she found out that Jisung was majoring in elementary education. “A teacher, Y/N! That boy isn’t going to be able to support the two of you!”

Subsequently, every visit to my mother’s house meant that Jisung had to listen to my mother read statistics on how poor and destitute teachers were in the city. Meanwhile, Felix also received the same treatment from his father who was absolutely horrified when he found out that his youngest son wanted to open a dance studio with Minho. It didn’t help that my step-father loathed Minho because he found him and Felix in the back of Minho’s corvette smoking enough weed to satisfy the entirety of our high school. 

It was a complete contradiction because while Jisung and Felix were constantly reprimanded, Chan and I were bathed in compliments and adoration. “Channie,” my mother would smile. “How are your cases?” Chan was some kind of small claims lawyer in the upper Bronx which meant he made enough money to buy a Rolex for every day of the week while driving an expensive Tesla. 

“And Y/N,” my mother would address me. “How’s the cafe?”

“We always do well around Finals season,” I told her.

“That’s wonderful darling!” she would always say while glaring in Jisung’s direction who would visibly falter under my mother’s judgemental stare. “How are your...kids, Jisung?”

“They’re great,” Jisung would laugh nervously. “I had to stop one of them from eating a bottle of glue the other day.”

I would laugh and affectionately run my fingers through Jisung’s hair while my mother remained statuesque-still. “How amusing.”

The pattern persisted to this day and I knew Jisung tolerated the dinners for my sake, but he always protested in different ways. For example, last month Jisung agreed to babysit our neighbor’s Pomeranian because he thought I might allow him to stay at home. And I almost let him get away with his impromptu plans when I remembered that Jisung would have to make dinner on his own and I was horrified by the idea of Han Jisung anywhere near my kitchen.

“Tell your mother I’m dying,” Jisung said, pulling me from my thoughts. “That should make her happy.”

“Han Jisung,” I scolded him, reaching down to gently massage his leg. “I’m not leaving you home alone. You’re prone to more kitchen fires than anyone else I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ll order takeout,” Jisung said, kicking his foot out against my thigh. 

“If you’re gonna act like a child, then I’ll have to treat you like one,” I said, giving his ass a firm smack before rising from the sectional.

Jisung jolted at the unexpected contact, raising his head to briefly consider me. “What was that?”

“Do you not want to play?” I returned, grinning when Jisung immediately sat upright from his position on the sofa, leaning forward in expectation. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

“Perhaps if you decide to stop being so stubborn about the dinner,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of him.

Jisung’s eyes grew wide with lust, hands reaching out to pull my head closer to his crotch. “I’ll go to as many dinners as you want, babe.”

“That’s better,” I smirked, efficiently undoing his belt. “It’s only for a few hours.”

Jisung was ecstatic, pulling down his jeans and underwear. “I’ll just sit with Felix in the dining room alone.”

“Is that so?” I asked, curling my fingers around his hardening cock. 

Jisung nodded, hair falling into his eyes as he watched me with rapt attention. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him recently.”

“What a good sport,” I teased, jerking his cock a few times because I liked the way Jisung’s eyelids would flutter with his pleasure. But he was being remarkably good, so I decided he had earned an end to his apparent sexual frustrations. I took in the tip of his cock, running my tongue along the slit dripping with milky white pre-cum. 

“Please,” Jisung begged, grip unrelenting on my hair as he encouraged me to swallow more of his cock, slowly taking him in until I could feel him at the back of my throat. “Can I do it?” Jisung asked with desperate eyes and I nodded once, giving him the permission he desired to move my head up and down the length of his erection, warm and rigid against my tongue. I made sure to moan around him because I knew the resulting vibrations felt really good, enjoying the sounds of Jisung’s grunts as he fucked my mouth.

While Jisung did a majority of the work, I tried to amplify his pleasure when I could like running my tongue along the prominent vein on his cock or using my teeth to drag against the fleshy part of him. My fingernails dug into his thighs, leaving behind marks that would probably vanish after a warm shower. Tears were steadily streaking down my cheeks courtesy of an instinctual reaction to Jisung’s cock repeatedly sliding in and out, hollowing my cheeks to accommodate him. “It feels so good,” Jisung said, palms clammy as one hand came to fan against my cheek, wiping away the smeared streaks of my mascara. 

Throughout our years together, I had learned a lot about Jisung including his apparent oral fixation when it came to sex. Jisung loved when I gave him a blowjob as I discovered for the very first time locked away in the Janitor’s closet, tasting Jisung on my tongue for a few seconds before he was cumming down my throat, apologizing incessantly for not being able to last longer. As if I really cared because I was quite proud of myself for breaking him down so quickly. But as much as Jisung liked to receive, he also loved to give and feeling his tongue on my pussy was a guilty pleasure, watching Jisung eat me out like he belonged between my thighs. 

“Cumming,” Jisung warned me, grip tightening as his hips stuttered, pubic hair brushing against my nose while the bitter taste of his cum was swallowed down with effort because my throat was now incredibly sore.

Jisung fell back against the couch, fingers pushing my hair back from where it had fallen messily into my face. I shakily climbed into his lap, kissing him greedily because there was no better sight than Jisung completely spent after a good orgasm, especially when it was because of me. “Is that better, baby?” I asked, pecking him on the nose.

“I love you,” post-orgasm Jisung told me entreatingly, eyes swimming with tears as he proceeded to plant dozens of soft kisses against the exposed skin of my collarbones.

Jisung pulled into the driveway of my mother’s house with a morbid expression. “It’s not too late to cancel, right?”

I ignored his comment, opening the door to step out into the bitterly cold evening. “Babe, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

“No need to pretend,” Jisung grumbled, reluctantly following me to the porch where I hit the doorbell, smoothing down my skirt because my mother always liked it when we dressed up for these dinners.

But the last thing I expected to see on the other side of the door was Kara, especially a version of Kara dressed in an appropriately sized skirt. “Y/N!”

I’m sure my expression of shock matched the one present on my husband’s face as we both took in the sight of Changbin’s little sister. “Kara?” I questioned stupidly, holding tighter to Jisung’s sweater because I needed something to ground me in the reality of this unanticipated situation.

“You guys look great!” she declared. “Come inside!”

“Of course,” I said softly, pulling Jisung behind me as I stepped into the foyer, shrugging off my coat which Kara took from me to hang in the closet like she had been doing it for years. 

“Y/N!” my mother squealed, interrupting the unanswered “why are you here?” hanging between the three of us.

“Mom,” I said, accepting her hug with a wince because my mother was never gentle in her affections.

“And Jisung,” my mother frowned, eyeing my husband up and down. “What the hell are you wearing.”

Jisung looked down at his corduroy pants which I had warned him repeatedly to destroy. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Oh nevermind with you,” my mother said dismissively, reaching out for Kara. “Look, Y/N, Felix brought home a very nice friend. Are the two of you acquainted?”

“She’s Changbin’s sister,” I told my mother. “Why would I not know her?”

“Oh don’t give me that attitude,” my mother said. “Kara was just telling me about the marketing firm she works for! Isn’t that impressive?”

“My brother’s jealous,” Kara said. “He’s stuck working with kids all day, isn’t that the worst?”

My mother giggled at Kara’s comment while I reached behind me to give Jisung’s hand a reassuring squeeze. I didn’t even need to see my husband’s face to know that he would be fuming over Kara’s words. “I think you can do Felix some good too,” my mother said, now leading Kara towards the kitchen. “That boy is an absolute mess sometimes.”

I found Chan in the living room, eating his way through most of my mother’s groceries. “Channie,” I said, hurrying Jisung along despite the way his feet drug against the carpet. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Chan barely glanced up from his food. “What is it?”

“In private?”

Chan offered me a blank look to which I grabbed his hand, forcing him to the opposite side of the room and away from any potential eavesdroppers. “Why the hell is Kara here?”

“Beats me,” Chan shrugged. “Felix said they’re just friends.”

“Just friends my ass!” I hissed at him. “Chan, you know how stupid Felix gets around her! Since when has Felix brought any of his ‘friends’ to one of these dinners?”

“I don’t want to get involved, Y/N,” Chan said. “It’s really none of our business.”

“But does Changbin know she’s here?”

Chan shrugged helplessly. “How should I know? I don’t see Changbin much these days.”

“Ah, you’re useless,” I declared. “There’s a potentially catastrophic disaster unfolding right in front of your eyes and yet food is more concerning to you.”

“Of course it is,” Chan nodded solemnly. “Why do you think I sacrifice a Sunday night at home to drive an hour over here?”

“What a good son you are,” I said, pinching one of his cheeks. “I’m sure your father would be pleased to hear that.”

“Y/N, I seriously don’t know anything about Felix and Kara,” Chan said, smacking my hand away. 

“Listen to me, Chan-”

I broke off when my mother suddenly entered the room with Kara on her heels, holding out a tray of cheese and crackers. “Appetizers!” my mother exclaimed, immediately chastising Jisung when he accidentally dropped one on my mother’s coffee table.

“Leave it alone,” Chan warned me, sparing me no further attention as he joined the others in the living room. I followed him to the couch where I planted myself between my step-brother and Jisung, eyeing Kara suspiciously as she sat herself directly on Felix’s lap, arms wrapped around his neck. 

“I think your mother likes me the least tonight,” Jisung whispered anxiously into my ear.

“That’s because Felix has something shiny and new for her to mess with,” I said, patting his thigh soothingly. 

“Everyone, help yourselves!” my mother announced, ushering my step-father into the room with a glass of wine in hand.

I handed Jisung a plate. “Do me a favor and keep the food where it belongs.”

Jisung pouted at me. “You act like I’m clumsy on purpose.”

“I don’t need to feed you, do I?” I asked him, ignoring the way he reached down to pinch my waist in warning.

The remainder of our dinner progressed slowly, more so than usual because my mother seemed to have hundreds of questions for Kara. In fact, as opposed to Jisung and Felix being the objects of my mother’s contempt, that title seemed to belong to everyone excluding Kara. Chan and I were rarely spoken to, and Jisung was only addressed when my mother complained that he was chewing too loudly. “Do you see my son-in-law?” she complained to Kara like they were old friends. “He’s never had good table manners.”

I held tightly to Jisung’s hand when I felt him tense next to me. “Jisung’s always been that way,” Kara replied with far too much affection for my liking.

Her comment forced me to recall the very first time I ever met Kara back during my third year of high school. She was a year younger than Jeongin, so she came into our high school as a shy Freshman with only Changbin as an ally. And Changbin loved to brag about how smart his sister was, claiming that she didn’t even need to study because she could memorize everything the teacher said in class. But Changbin hadn’t been exaggerating and I had been slightly jealous of Kara’s easygoing nature, seamlessly inserting herself into our lives as if she had always belonged there. The truth of the matter was that Kara had been attending a private school for most of her life because of her higher intelligence. The school was located hours away from where we lived so we never saw Kara except in brief passing when she came home on the weekends. However, Kara insisted that she wanted a normal high school life, so she enrolled at our local public institution with the goal of making new friends and getting a taste of what her brother always talked about in their long phone conversations.

At first, Kara stuck tightly to Changbin’s side, but it didn’t take long for her to open up to the rest of our group, including Felix whose crush started the moment Kara first walked through the doors. My poor step-brother was enamored, jealous when Kara would start dating some of the older Seniors. Of course, it didn’t help that Changbin remained adamant that Kara never dated any of his friends because they were, in his words, completely unworthy. So, with the exception of the unfortunate incident of Junior prom, Kara obeyed her brother and only showed the other guys affection in the form of a pat on the head or a gentle shove when they said something funny.

By the time I graduated with Hyunjin, Seungmin, Felix, and Jisung, Kara had become another pillar in our dynamic, even appealing to the older ones like Chan and Minho. Yet, when Jeongin finally entered university with the rest of us, something changed with Kara and she no longer hung out with us as much as she had before. Then, there was the matter of her attending college in an entirely different state, only coming to visit sporadically when Felix would bend over backward to make sure she attended one of his fraternity parties. By the time I graduated from college, Kara was more or less nothing but a distant memory, only coming into fruition on rare occasions. Thus, seeing her here today was definitely disorienting, especially since it was only because of Felix that she was here in the first place.

“Kara, you’re such a wonderful girl,” my mother said. “I can’t believe we haven’t met before.”

I rolled my eyes because my mother seemed to forget my Junior year of high school almost as much as I did. “You’ve been such a gracious host,” Kara said to my mother.

“It’s getting late,” my mother sighed, glancing at my step-father who was moments away from passing out on the couch. “We should get to bed, but the rest of you are more than welcome to stay and chat. I know I took up a lot of the conversation.”

“That’s an understatement,” Jisung muttered.

“Anyways, I’ll call you later on this week, Y/N,” my mother said, offering me a lazy wave before collecting Kara into one of the tightest embraces I had ever seen.

Once my mother and step-father had wandered up the steps, Kara came back into the room with mischievous eyes. “Let’s play a game,” Kara suggested, urging us all around the coffee table. I groaned when Jisung pulled me back into his arms, burying his face into the side of my neck like he was prone to do when he was the slightest bit tipsy. 

“No more alcohol for you,” I said, swiping the bottle away from my husband who protested half-heartedly.

“What do you suggest?” Felix asked, looking at Kara with starstruck eyes.

“Maybe truth or dare?” Kara said, squealing like she had forgotten that everyone around the table now had a full-time job.

“Why not,” Felix said, reaching for his discarded bottle of Corona. “Would you like to go first?”

Kara giggled when Felix leaned in closer, lips teasing her exposed collarbones. “Keep it PG,” I requested, glaring at Felix.

“Okay,” Kara said, taking the bottle and placing it onto the table. 

“If someone can dare me to get laid, that would be nice,” Jisung said and I reached around to elbow my husband in the side for his smart comment.

I watched as the bottle spun around in its defined circumference before landing on Chan who groaned loudly. “Truth or Dare, Chan!”

“Truth,” Chan said, picking up his bottle of beer. “Knowing you’d guys, I’d be forced to drink the rest of this on a dare and I have to be at the office at six.”

“Are you seeing anyone, Chan?” Kara asked, leaning in close like she was about to hear a juicy secret. Of course, I knew better than anyone because I was often the recipient of Chan’s late-night phone calls when my step-brother would complain to me about his sadly lacking love life.

“No,” Chan huffed, reaching out to give the bottle a powerful spin. “I’m always single.”

I reached across to pat him tenderly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Channie, there’s a girl out there waiting for you!”

Felix let out a drunken squeak, turning to look at Kara with a smile. “Truth or dare, Felix?”

“Dare,” Felix said, bouncing up and down from his spot on the floor like a loose spring.

“I dare you to...

“...call Changbin,” I spoke over Kara, enjoying the identical looks of matching horror on their countenances.

“What?” Felix questioned, intoxicated brain undoubtedly having trouble keeping up with the flow of our conversation.

“Call. Changbin.” I repeated, much slower this time to leave no room for a potential misunderstanding. Unsurprisingly, Kara hesitantly shook her head at Felix as if asking him to ignore my request. “Those are the rules,” I informed her smugly, watching Felix as he took out his phone with a shaky hand. He dialed Changbin’s number and we all sat forward in profound expectation of what was about to happen.

That is until Changbin’s voicemail picked up.

Kara snatched Felix’s phone and quickly hung up the call. “He’s not answering, so let’s move on to something else.”

I frowned as I sat back against Jisung’s chest, frustrated because Changbin had probably chosen an early night’s sleep in exchange for answering a friend’s important phone call. “Truth or Dare, Y/N.”

“Truth,” I muttered, folding my arms across my chest even as Jisung started to rub gentle circles into my hips as if picking up on my irritation.

Kara’s eyes narrowed. “Were you jealous when I kissed Jisung at prom?”

The room was dead silent following her vengeful question. My cheeks flushed at the reminder, feeling Jisung squirm uncomfortably behind me. It was a horrible thing to ask me, especially considering the circumstances surrounding the unholy night that Minho had silently termed “the worst day of Y/N’s life.” But I suppose that Kara felt warranted to ask me considering the fact that I had just tried to expose her to Changbin. “Of course I was,” I snapped at her, twisting the bottle while maintaining a penetrative staring contest with Felix’s love interest.

My shoulders relaxed when the bottle landed on Kara, and I quickly intervened before Felix could give Kara an easy way out of what was rapidly becoming a terrible mistake. “Are you dating Felix again?” I asked, watching as her eyes narrowed from my choice of words.

“It’s truth or dare, Y/N.”

“Are you afraid to answer the question?” I asked her. “Or are you just using Felix like always?”

Another long silence enveloped our gathered group. 

“I guess I don’t get a turn?” Jisung whispered into the tense silence of the room.

“Holy shit!” Hyunjin exhaled when I finally finished explaining everything that had happened at my mother’s house the previous evening.

“She’s a total bitch,” I said. “Everyone knows that we don’t talk about that night.”

Hyunjin nodded in agreement. “Do you remember the ugly suit I wore?”

I glared at my friend. “You’re not helping and we have customers.”

Hyunjin offered me a salute, returning to the register to accept another order while I aggressively wiped down our counters. One of our waitresses watched me with a gaping mouth until I turned to glare at her. She quickly picked up her tray to retreat back into the crowd of college students. 

Now, let me start by saying that Junior year prom was never something I was looking forward to attending. The only reason I even went was because Han Jisung asked me to go and my attraction for him had skyrocketed by this time, to the point where I found myself staring at his ass whenever we had gym together and he decided to demonstrate the correct technique for a pull-up. Our friends deemed our relationship inevitable, the romanticized soulmates who met as kids and grew up together with agreeable personalities. Of course, it also helped when puberty hit and suddenly Han Jisung looked less like the little boy I played with on the playground and more like a man whose dick I really wanted to taste. 

For a lot of my classmates, Prom meant an unsanctioned night away from the school where they could lose their inhibitions when someone inevitably spiked the punch bowl. There were no school officials present at the event, only volunteers, and since it didn’t take place on school grounds (but inside of a nearby YMCA) everyone could basically do whatever they wanted without consequence. Thus, the next day’s rumor mill was spinning with tales of romance and deceptions, break-ups and hook-ups, and even the occasional wild story of someone stealing from the radio store next door.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Jisung asked me nervously the moment we first walked inside.

“Sure,” I told him, affectionately adjusting the cute bowtie he had chosen for the occasion, cheeks rosy red as he hurried away.

“Y/N!” Hyunjin said, taking Jisung’s place in front of me. “You look great!”

“So do you,” I told him honestly, appraising his suit which likely cost a thousand dollars just to rent for this one occasion. “Where’s your girl?”

“Who knows, she was just meant to be arm candy,” Hyunjin said dismissively and I snorted at his explanation. “I only came here for the drama and the alcohol.”

“Anything interesting so far?” I asked, grinning when I saw Jisung accidentally knock the punch ladle into the floor.

“Changbin came with a Freshman,” Hyunjin said. “I talked to them earlier and he’s definitely only interested in her ass.”

“How crude,” I remarked. “What about the others?”

“I guess Seungmin and Jeongin came with each other,” Hyunjin snickered. “And I haven’t seen Felix yet.”

I paused. “Felix is coming?”

“It was a last-minute thing,” Hyunjin explained. “Apparently, Felix is bringing someone he really likes.”

“I didn’t know Felix was interested in anyone,” I said, with the exception of Changbin’s little sister, of course.

“It’s getting late,” Hyunjin remarked. “He might have been lying.”

“He wasn’t dressed when I left the house,” I said, remembering the sight of my step-brother teasing Jisung and I from behind our parents while they took an endless amount of pictures while relentlessly questioning Jisung about his appearance.

Speaking of which, I graciously accepted the punch Jisung offered me, taking a sip before wincing. “I think someone added way too much.”

Hyunjin reached for my drink, sniffing the rim before downing the rest. “Not too bad.”

Jisung watched him with wide eyes. “Isn’t that strong?”

“Not strong enough,” Hyunjin complained. “I’m going to find something better. Have fun you two, make sure you use a condom if you’re gonna fuck.”

I glared at Hyunjin’s back as he disappeared into the crowd.

Yes, Prom might not have been high on my list of priorities, but the way Jisung was currently kissing me definitely made it more appealing. After ingesting an appropriate amount of alcohol, a tipsy Jisung had latched himself to my side, whispering rather inappropriate things into my ear before I inevitably found a place where we could be alone, safely tucked away inside the locker room. I drug Jisung to a bench where I immediately straddled his thighs, kissing him with enough force to throw him off balance, hand splayed across my hip as he forced his tongue inside my mouth tasting strongly of alcohol. I struggled to pull in enough oxygen to counter the dizziness threatening to send me falling into the floor. Jisung certainly wasn’t helping matters, squeezing my breasts spilling over the neckline of my dress while pressing sloppy kisses to my throat, erection hard through his dress pants and I had never felt hornier in my entire life. And that includes the time Minho bought me a vibrator for my birthday as a joke but I still tried to use it and ended up masturbating to the thought of Jisung fucking me on my mattress. 

“You feel so good,” Jisung whispered to me now, rolling his hips into mine as he sought additional friction. I held tightly to the lapels of his jacket because it felt really nice through the thin fabric of my dress when he would move just right, pressing against my clit with a wonderful pressure that nearly made me cum before he could even put it inside.

“Sungie,” I panted into his ear, tasting every inch of his beautiful honey-golden skin. “Please fuck me.”

“Can I?” Jisung asked, thrusts growing erratic as if affected by just the thought of his cock hot and heavy between my thighs. “Yes, of course, baby. I’ll do that for you.”

“Condom?” I managed, reconnecting our lips because I was quickly coming to the realization that Jisung was a wonderful kisser. 

“Shit,” he cursed against my mouth. “I left them in the car.”

“I’ll get them,” I said, reaching deep into the pocket of his suit pants for the key, inadvertently brushing against his cock. 

Jisung moaned loudly. “Hurry back, baby.”

“And this!” I said, standing up from his lap to reach into my cleavage to pull out a piece of fabric.

“That was in there the whole time?”

“Not important,” I said, shoving the fabric at him. “Put this on?”

“What is it?” Jisung asked, unraveling the cloth.

“A blindfold,” I said and he looked up at me with evident surprise.

“Why do you want me to wear a blindfold?”

“Just put it on, please,” I begged him.

“Why?” Jisung whined, a complete contradiction to the mess he looked with an erection still prominent in his pants. 

“I don’t want you to see me,” I said, blushing at the thought of Han Jisung seeing me naked because I was certainly nothing like those busty girls in the porn magazines I found under his mattress.

“Okay,” Jisung grumbled, probably because he was just as aroused as I was even if that meant doing something that might seem utterly ridiculous to anybody else.

“Don’t take it off,” I warned him, glancing over my shoulder to see Jisung tying the blindfold in place. 

Satisfied, I silently rushed back into the gym, making my way to the exit despite the obscene displays taking place all around me courtesy of several pairings of passionate couples. I did my best to ignore them, even though I was pretty sure I saw Hwang Hyunjin in the center of the dance floor, shirt unbuttoned and chest exposed for everyone to see. But Hyunjin loved to be at the center of attention, so I left him to entertain the majority of the women flanking to him like a magnet while I jerked open the door to Jisung’s Sudan, finding the condoms across the dirty backseat of his car. 

I grew even more excited just by looking at them, hiding them carefully in my hand as I rushed through the parking lot in my haste to find Jisung again. At this point, the party was in full swing, music loud and pounding, testing the acoustics of the YMCA which probably never hosted anything else this insane and chaotic before. But I was on cloud nine, ready to finally have sex with someone I had been crushing on ever since Jisung had shown off his abs to a doubtful Changbin. However, when I re-opened the doors to the locker room, I stumbled in my heels as I was greeted with an unfortunate visual. An unforgettable image of Kara on top of Jisung, kissing him passionately while she practically forced him to grope her chest. “Y/N,” Jisung moaned, apparently completely unaware of who was actually grinding on his dick.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” I finally shrieked, completely horrified at the display that would forever engrain itself into my subconscious.

Jisung immediately pulled off his blindfold, eyes widening in shock when he unceremoniously dumped Kara into the floor who loudly protested. “Y/N?”

“Jisung,” I said, looking back between him and Kara with panicked eyes and a broken heart. I had never felt so betrayed before in my entire life, and there had been moments when I felt downright disgusted with my poor choice in men. But Jisung was more important to me than the casual flings from my past, which probably explains my sudden desire to escape the situation that was forcing messy tears through the mascara clumping my eyelashes together. I left Jisung behind in that nasty locker room before losing myself to the crowd of my classmates.

There was only one person I wanted to see, and I found Hyunjin now re-clothed, talking to some other girls when he first saw me approach. He greeted me cheerfully, only realizing my condition once he stopped to notice the tears falling freely from my tired eyes. “Y/N,” Hyunjin said, expression falling as he pulled me into his arms tightly. “Why are you crying?”

“I saw her with Jisung,” was all I managed to get out before Hyunjin’s eyes were practically blazing with fury.

“That little shit,” Hyunjin cursed, grabbing my hand and leading me through the partygoers who were too busy drunkenly grinding on one another to notice the two of us. “Changbin,” Hyunjin said, interrupting the older boy who was currently fingering the edges of a freshman girl’s panties, practically dry humping through their clothes. 

“What is it?” Changbin snapped at Hyunjin, eyes narrowed until they landed on me. “Y/N,” Changbin said, tone much softer as he abruptly dismissed his date who whined about their loss of contact. “What happened?”

“Jisung needs his ass kicked,” Hyunjin said and Changbin needed no further encouragement.

“Where the hell is he?”

It was frigidly cold in the parking lot and there was way too much going on around me. I could barely handle the yelling between Changbin and Felix, my step-brother having found us outside with Jisung trailing behind him, but Hyunjin was arguing with Seungmin and Jeongin, refusing to let Jisung close to me. This night was rapidly becoming one of the worst of my entire life and that says a lot because I had once watched my own father walk out of the house without so much as a goodbye.

“Get out of the way, Felix,” Changbin suddenly growled, fists balled at his sides.

“It’s not his fault,” Felix tried to explain. 

“Why is Y/N upset, then?” Changbin demanded, shouldering his way through Seungmin and Jeongin who were certainly no match for a physically stronger Changbin.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Felix said. “It’s Kara’s fault! She didn’t need to take things that far-”

“Kara!” Changbin interrupted, now even more furious than he was before. “Did you do something to my sister?”

“Not him,” Seungmin suddenly interfered. “Kara and Felix got into a fight and Kara snuck into the locker room to get back at him.”

Changbin took a step back, suspicion bright in his dark eyes. “What did you say?”

“I thought it was Y/N,” Jisung finally spoke up, eyes wet with tears. “She didn’t say anything to me. She just came over and I was waiting for Y/N!”

“What happened to my sister!” Changbin growled.

“She kissed me,” Jisung said, flinching a little when Changbin tried to charge at him, intercepted by Seungmin and Jeongin who held him back by his with as much force as they could manage together. Jisung turned to look at me, gaze entreating as he reached out a hand. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I thought it was you.”

I shook my head, refusing to even look at Han Jisung because my heart was hurting in my chest and the night just continued to grow more and more confusing. “I’ll take care of Y/N,” Hyunjin finally said, sending Jisung a nasty glare before guiding me further and further away from the source of my pain.

But don’t ever let anyone tell you that Seo Changbin didn’t have a soft spot for Han Jisung because, at the drop of a hat, the older boy would immediately be at my husband’s side. And I thoroughly took advantage of this when I asked Jisung to invite Changbin over to our house for dinner one night, the two of them arriving together with Changbin clutching tightly to his sleeping bag. “I guess you’re spending the night,” I remarked.

“Why wouldn’t I? We work at the same place,” came Changbin’s usual response, tossing his bag onto the couch while he followed Jisung into our bedroom, complaining about something to do with the air conditioning. “Your apartment is so much nicer than mine!”

I finished cooking in relative peace, making sure to keep Changbin’s wine glass constantly full because a tipsy Changbin was much easier to deal with than the serious version who would likely explode when he heard my story. “So nice of you Y/N,” Changbin said as he slurped his spaghetti. He and Jisung were always messy when it came to pasta so I tried to ignore their nasty habits. 

“Changbin,” I said, studying the older carefully. “I heard Kara was visiting.”

Changbin shrugged, shoving more food into his impossibly small mouth. “She’s been staying at my place.”

“Really?” I asked. “Why haven’t we had a chance to meet her again.”

Changbin glanced up at me. “You don’t even like, Kara, so why would I bother?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “She’s your sister, of course, I would be interested.”

“She stays busy a lot,” Changbin said.

“With who?”

“With work,” Changbin said, taking another long drink of the expensive wine I bought just for this occasion. 

“She could have come tonight,” I said carefully, but I had been apparently pushing too far because now Changbin was suspicious.

“What are you getting at, Y/N?”

I took a deep breath, sensing Jisung watching the two of us over a mouthful of noodles. “I saw Kara the other day at my mother’s dinner.”

Changbin paused, considering me with a scowl. “What?”

“She came to our dinner,” I repeated. “With Felix.”

And with the exception of Jisung’s chewing, the room had grown relatively silent. “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

Changbin turned an accusatory gaze at Jisung who just rapidly shook his head and drank more wine. “Probably because she didn’t want anyone to know,” I said. “I think your sister might be trying to start something with Felix again and we both know how badly that turned out last time.”

Changbin dropped his fork, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “So nice of everyone to keep me informed.”

I relaxed a little because Changbin wasn’t reacting as violently as I thought he might. “I wanted to be sure and I got the information I needed today.”

Changbin sighed. “What information?”

“Minho looked through Felix’s phone at their dance practice,” I said. “He saw some messages with Kara. Apparently, they’re going to dinner tomorrow night. Isn’t that nice?”

Changbin’s jaw clenched as he took in this news. “And I’m assuming you have something planned?”

“Maybe,” I said with an innocent shrug. “It could be that Minho, Hyunjin, and I happened to make a reservation at the same place.”

“You’re gonna spy on them?”

“Would you rather us not?”

Changbin scoffed, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Are you asking me to come?”

“Only if you want to.”

“Well of course I do,” Changbin grunted impatiently, reaching down for another forkful of spaghetti while I sat back in my chair with satisfaction.

“This is surprisingly classy of Felix,” Hyunjin remarked, rolling down the window of Minho’s SUV to perch a pair of binoculars on the end of his nose.

“Aren’t you taking this too far?” Minho asked his friend.

“These?” Hyunjin asked, adjusting the lenses. “How else am I supposed to see what’s going on?”

“This is my sister we’re talking about,” Changbin spoke up, tugging at the frayed sleeves of his borrowed jacket.

“And Y/N’s stepbrother,” Minho added.

“I don’t claim him by blood,” I said, reaching over to slap Changbin’s hands. “Stop messing with that, you’re gonna ruin it, and this is Jisung’s nicest coat!”

My husband in question had opted to stay at home since he was probably the smartest out of all of us when it came to potential confrontations. “You’re rich enough to buy him another,” Changbin grumbled.

“He doesn’t wear them,” I said. “I buy him all sorts of clothes, but they always sit in his closet.”

“Who’s he trying to impress at an Elementary school?” Hyunjin snorted.

“Can’t we just go inside already?” I asked, slowly massaging my throbbing temples.

“Yeah, but can you shimmy the lock on your door?” Minho requested. “I’m pretty sure it’s broken.”

I accommodated his request before the four of us walked into the restaurant with an air of nonchalance. Nothing but four friends since childhood deciding to eat out together for a gourmet meal. It reminded me of college when the four of us shared the same lecture, a one-time occurrence because Minho forgot a general education course, and we always ate together because it ended in the early evening. 

Of course, there was always the matter of the other three using me to find the answers to our homework assignment because they didn’t feel like completing the calculations.

The hostess inside the restaurant greeted us, checking Hyunjin’s reservation before leading us to our table. “Do you see them?” Hyunjin asked, deciding not to be so discreet in the distracting way he moved his head around, surveying the restaurant landscape with a sharp eye.

“This is so stupid,” Changbin grimaced. 

“Are you too cool to eat with us?” Minho joked, gasping when he noticed the free wine samples menu.

“I’ll look around,” I said. “Give me five minutes.”

“And then what?” Hyunjin asked even as I was already moving away, sticking to the outskirts of the finely decorated tables. According to Minho, Felix and Kara should have already been at the restaurant for half an hour, probably weighing the consequences of keeping their new affair a secret from the rest of us. But I had no intention of letting them sneak away with anything, determined to get to the bottom of whatever relationship Felix was attempting with Changbin’s little sister, the same person who had openly scorned and rejected Felix in the past. This really demonstrates just how powerful a crush can be when it involves someone as determined as Felix.

“Aha!” I murmured quietly, discovering the couple together near the private dining room at the back. Reaching for my cell phone, I sent Minho a quick text message, waiting for a moment or so before I could see the three boys carefully making their way to my hiding spot. 

“Ridiculous,” Changbin muttered, but he let out a disappointed sigh when he saw his sister and Felix together. “I guess you were right.”

Changbin was squatting down in front of the display of plants, peeling back the branches to find a better view. “Damn, Changbin,” I said, reaching down to give his ass an appreciative slap. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“Keep your hands to yourself,” Changbin snapped at me. “It’s not my fault that Han’s flatter than his vocal pitch.”

“Burn,” Hyunjin remarked while I scoffed in response.

“Jisung is a great singer.”

“Yeah, the kids are so impressed,” Minho giggled, ignoring the glare I sent him over my shoulder.

“They can’t be dating,” Changbin said. “I would have known about this. Kara would have told me!”

“That definitely looks like a date to me,” Minho teased Changbin.

“Unless friends share five-star meals now,” Hyunjin commented, glancing at me. “Interested in eating out again tomorrow, Y/N?”

“Only if you pay,” I replied dryly, watching Felix and Kara with intent.

“I can’t stand this,” Changbin declared, attempting to blow our cover by rising to his full height. 

I desperately tugged on his shirt. “They’ll see us!”

“I don’t care,” Changbin grunted, pulling away from me only to march down the staircase to where Felix and Kara were laughing together over a meal of what appeared to be filet mignon and cabernet.

“Should we watch or get involved?” I asked, grinning when Felix finally realized that Changbin had spotted them. The all-consuming look of existential dread passing across his features was well worth the price of admission, including an outrageous gratuity fee.

“Definitely watch,” Minho nodded, tossing an arm around my shoulders. “You did good, Y/N.”

“Unless Changbin causes a scene,” Hyunjin remarked.

“I hope he does because I can record it for Jisung later,” I said, letting out a satisfied grin when Changbin stopped at their table.

Minho was one step ahead of me, pressing the record button at the top of his phone. “Maybe we’ll become YouTube famous!”

“I can’t believe you told him,” Felix snapped at me later. The six of us were outside the restaurant, having decided to pull Changbin and Kara away from the reproachful eyes of the upper elite who wanted to dine in peace. 

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m looking out for you.”

“By outing me to Changbin?”

“Of course,” I nodded, watching as Kara received a stern lecture from her older brother. “You can’t honestly be considering a relationship with Kara?”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Felix asked. 

“You must have a selective memory,” I said. “Or did you forget what happened in high school?”

“That was a long time ago!”

“She also used you during college. Don’t tell me you think she came around campus just for your company?”

Hyunjin, from somewhere to my right, let out a low whistle. Minho stood next to him, taking in the drama unfolding around him with eager eyes. “I don’t care about any of that!” Felix protested. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Felix,” I said, lowering my tone. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Well you’re doing a really bad job with that,” Felix snapped.

“It’s not because I don’t want things to work out,” I said. “I just know who she is and what she’s capable of.”

“Is that so?”

“You were too, Felix! Everything she ever did to you was always in an effort to hurt you. That’s why I have to interfere, to make sure that she doesn’t do anything like that!”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t care. You aren’t my real sister, so stop trying to act like it!”

His words were crushing and I suddenly felt equivalent to the world’s smallest person as I watched Felix walk away into the haze of city lights.

Jisung was sunshine and he once told me that he would do everything in his power to make me happy, even getting down on one knee to propose at our college graduation ceremony, nervous hands sliding a beautiful ring onto my finger. Jisung always knew when I was feeling sad or angry, dropping everything that he had been working on to make me feel better. Like in instances such as this, when my step-brother publicly disowns me, walking away without looking back once to assess the damage he had made of my fragile heart. “I deserved it,” I told Jisung, closing my eyes against his chest as I enjoyed the soothing water of the bath he prepared for me. 

“No, you didn’t,” Jisung countered, wrapping his arms tightly around my middle. “You thought you were helping him.”

“I guess I have no right to interfere,” I said. “Even if I’m worried that Kara will only hurt him again.”

“And she might,” Jisung agreed. “But I think Felix can handle it. Sometimes, you forget that he’s all grown up.”

“I ruined our relationship,” I said. “Felix won’t ever talk to me again and Kara is probably mad at Changbin.”

“Felix can’t avoid you,” Jisung said. “You have the same friends.”

“Ha,” I snorted. “You don’t know Felix very well. If he sets his mind to something, then there’s nothing that can stop him.”

“Actually, I do know Felix, and that’s why I’m pretty sure he’ll call you any day now and ask to talk.”

I turned around in his arms, trying to see any hint of teasing in Jisung’s brown eyes. “Why do you think that?”

“Because Felix respects you, even if you make him mad,” Jisung said, surprising me with a gentle kiss. “He told me all the time when we were younger that he thinks you’re one of the coolest people he’s ever met.”

“Felix said that?”

“Yeah,” Jisung nodded. “And I completely agree.”

“You’re obligated to say that,” I said. “Marriage and shit.”

“But I’ve always meant it, Y/N,” Jisung insisted. “You have a really good heart and you always have our best intentions in mind, even if that means you feel the need to spy on your step-brother.”

“Now it sounds creepy,” I complained.

“I can’t imagine you dragging around Changbin, Minho, and Hyunjin, hiding behind tables in the middle of an expensive restaurant.”

“That’s funny because I can’t imagine you in an expensive restaurant at all.”

“Really?” Jisung grinned, digging his fingers into my sides. “Try saying that again.”

I squealed in his arms, pleading for mercy. “I thought you wanted to relax?”

“This was all for you,” Jisung said, pulling me onto his lap. “I think we should go to bed early.”

“I am tired,” I smirked.

His cock was hard against my lower back. “What if I let you ride my face?”

“Then you’ll be the best husband in the world.”

The following Saturday, Jisung’s prediction came true when Felix’s name flashed across my phone screen while I enjoyed lunch with Seungmin and Jeongin. “It’s Felix,” I hissed at them before taking the call. “Hello?”

“Y/N,” Felix’s deep voice greeted me on the other end. “I hope you’re not busy.”

“I’m just having lunch,” I said, waving my hand at Seungmin who was attempting to mouth imperceptible words at me from across the table.

“I want to apologize for the other night with Kara,” Felix said. “At dad’s house and at the restaurant.”

“I’m sorry too, Felix,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told Changbin about his sister.”

“No,” Felix sighed. “But Changbin deserves to know the truth. He called me the other day and told me that Kara had left the next morning. She didn’t even bother telling him where she was going.”

I felt my heartbreak for my step-brother. “I didn’t think she would do that.”

“You don’t have to be nice, Y/N,” Felix said. “Everything you said about Kara was true and I should’ve listened.”

“I never did any of that to teach you a lesson, Felix.”

“Yeah,” Felix murmured into the phone. “It doesn't matter anymore. Kara’s gone and I’ll have to move on.”

“But I still feel really bad,” I said. “Maybe we could all hang out tonight? Like we did before we had adult things to worry about.”

Felix chuckled. “I think that sounds nice.”

“Keep your hands away from the food,” I scolded Jisung, giving his ass a firm slap before directing him out of the kitchen. “This is for the party tonight!”

“But it smells good,” Jisung complained.

“You can have as much as you want later,” I said, frowning at Changbin from across the room. “Are you trying to break my mother’s vase?”

The older boy scowled at me. “I can’t reach, alright? You were the one who asked me to decorate.”

“Please help him,” I said, sending Jisung rushing to hang up the streamers before Changbin could possibly sabotage our apartment. The others were due to arrive at any moment and I was already unprepared, food still cooking and my husband and his friend proving to be completely inept at decorating. I wanted everything to be nice for Felix, but honestly? He shouldn’t expect much from this crew.

Graciously, the arrival of Hyunjin brought about an extra few inches of height, allowing the streamers to hang gracefully from the mantlepiece. “What would you do without me, Y/N?” he inquired innocently, handing me the cake he had brought from our cafe.

“I’d need to buy a step ladder,” I teased him, rushing back into the safety of the kitchen to avoid his retaliation. In the meantime, Jisung happily answered the door for our other guests, ushering them inside to crowd our living room. Sadly, our apartment was never meant to be large enough to accommodate this many guests, but it was strangely cozy with all of us together. 

“It’s been a while,” Chan remarked to Changbin. “Why don’t we do this sort of thing anymore?”

“Beats me,” Changbin replied. “But Y/N has a nice selection of wine.”

“I’m glad that’s the reason you come around,” I remarked, bringing out the final tray of food to fill out the rest of the table. “Whenever Felix gets here we can eat.”

“He shouldn’t be so late,” Minho said, trying his best to sneak a cube of cheese from the corner.

“Patience my friend,” I said. “It will make everything taste so much better.”

“Not with your cooking,” Minho teased, protesting when I threw my oven mitt at him over the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room.

“You’ll never change,” I remarked.

“Why would you want me to?” Minho asked, ignoring my glare when he grabbed a handful of popcorn.

“Do you want to be suspended from my house?”

“Jisung would never allow it,” he said, whining at my husband. “Right, Sungie?”

Jisung looked back and forth between the two of us. “You two are sometimes worse than my kids at school.”

Before I could offer a compelling comeback, the ringing of our doorbell paused our conversation. The sound indicated Felix’s arrival and Seungmin was the first to greet him, holding him close as they entered the dining room. “Nice of you to join us,” I said, handing my step-brother a plate. “This is all for you.”

“I’m honored,” Felix said, accent thick as he abruptly pulled me into a vice-like grip that nearly knocked me off my feet.

“Too much,” I choked out.

“Don’t kill my wife,” Jisung joked, intervening before Felix could possibly squeeze any more oxygen from my lungs.

The remainder of the evening passed by with a nostalgic tone, the nine of us gathered together in the living room to watch anime on TV while Hyunjin complained about our newest hiree again. “Hey,” he said, snapping his fingers in my direction. “He already had two strikes. One more mess-up and he’s gone.”

“He’s just a kid, Hyunjin,” I said. “Remember when you used to work at Starbucks? I’m surprised you even managed to stay on for an entire year!”

Hyunjin protested loudly over the laughter of 8 other people who clearly remembered sitting in Starbucks on Campus just to watch Hyunjin mess-up orders while whining at the customers to slow down when he was in charge of the register. “He gave me a macchiato when I asked for an Americano,” Minho said. 

“One time, Hyunjin closed the store an hour early because he forgot about our project,” Seungmin interjected much to Hyunjin’s chagrin who was now very much embarrassed.

Jisung pulled me closer to him on the chair next to the fireplace, watching our friends talk with obvious affection. “I think Felix is happy.”

I nodded my agreement, observing him from afar. “We did a good job.”

“You did a good job,” Jisung corrected, leaning in closer to whisper directly into my ear. “I love you, Y/N.”

“Love you more,” I said, gripping tightly to Jisung’s hand with no intention of ever letting go because our hold on another had never lessened from the very first day we met as kids, unaware that we would be sharing the rest of our forever together.

[alexiessan]

Never alone - Chapter Twenty Two - Soulmate AU

AO3

Previous - Here - Next

Master List

Alya apologized to Marinette and Damian the next day. Her apology to Marinette was genuine, but to Damian, it was mumbled and barely heard, but the youngest Wayne — known as Grayson to their classmates — didn’t say anything and gave her a pass.

The designer was happy that her boyfriend was willing to let this one slide, but she had a feeling that it would be the only time. If the reporter did something like that again, he probably would tear her a new one.

Alya had asked her if it was ok if Claude and she switched placed so she wouldn’t have to sit with Nino, as it was too awkward to do so. Selfishly, the Eurasian girl told her no. She enjoyed sitting next to Claude, and if Alya wanted to be friends with her ex-boyfriend in the future, it would be better that she didn’t let things be awkward for too long.

The journalist protested a little, but seeing that her friend wouldn’t change her mind — and because of the glare that Damian sent her way — she relented.

At the end of the week, Alya confided that it was a good thing that Marinette refused because while it was awkward, Nino and she talked things through and agreed that they wanted the other in their life. They decided that they would work things through and do their best to be friends.

The dark-haired girl was happy to hear that and apologized to her best friend for being selfish in the first place, but the bespectacled girl waved her off.

“You’re allowed to be selfish from time to time, you know? Plus it’s not a big deal, and it ended up helping us in the end. Not to mention, I was selfish first when I asked you to sit somewhere else so I could sit with Nino.”

They left it at that and while the Ladyblogger obviously hurt, she showed that she was willing to move on and be happy for her ex-boyfriend.

Meeting one’s soulmate was a happy moment, after all.

Working with Chloé was, surprisingly, pleasant.

Marinette remembered the Chloé from middle school, who made Sabrina do her homework for her and wouldn’t lift a finger and help them.

This Chloé was different. When they met, the blonde greeted her with a smile — a genuine one, not the smirks she was used to back in the days — and went to work immediately. She had a list of different topics they could work with that was in theme with what they picked, and even had some in common with her own.

They quickly agreed on a topic and, still having a lot of time ahead of them because they were so efficient, started doing their research.

They talked a little too, learning to know each other despite having been acquaintances for years now.

At the end of their study session, Marinette could say, and believe, that she and Chloé could be friends if they put enough effort into it.

Marinette lay on the bed next to Damian, exhausted but with a smile on her face, happy that this time, their… activities didn’t get interrupted.

At least, in the Wayne’s apartment, no one could barge in uninvited, and Dick respected them enough to knock and wait for an answer before coming in.

He didn’t want to see things that could scar him for life, he told them.

Marinette closed her eyes and smiled as Damian brought her closer to him, kissing the crown of her head. They were silent for a bit, enjoying each other’s presence when her soulmate cleared his throat.

“Have you seen Chat Noir since our last discussion?”

The blue-eyed girl pouted, not wanting to talk about business when they were relaxed like that, but knew that they had too.

Readjusting herself so she could see him better, her hand found its way on his chest and traced an invisible path.

“No, I haven’t,” she sighed, watching her hand move on his chest. “And I can’t seem to catch Adrien in school either. Max told me that he was in class, except when he has photo shoots scheduled, but when he’s there, he’s distant with everyone and keeps silent unless the teacher asks him a question.”

“It doesn’t look good,” the green-eyed boy — no, man — admitted, his hand rubbing circles on her back. “I hope he’s not going to turn on us.”

“I hope not,” Marinette breathed. “Did the voice correspond with Gabriel?”

The youngest Wayne nodded, and the French girl deflated.

“I see. So I was right all along. We could have stopped years ago.”

A hand on her chin forced her to look up into Damian’s eyes.

“Hey, now. It’s not your fault. You didn’t have any proof, and it’s not like you can barge in the man’s house without any evidence, hero or not. You didn’t have the means to look into it like we could. Don’t blame yourself,” he said and kiss her forehead to comfort her. “We’ll talk about a plan to take him down once we finally get hold of Agreste Son.”

Marinette chuckled at his unwillingness to call Adrien by his first name.

They stayed silent for a few minutes.

“So, you’re leaving at the beginning of May,” the fashion designer broke the silence, a sad smile on her lips.

“Yeah,” he breathed, cupping her jaw, “but I won’t be gone for long. I plan to go to University here, in Paris.”

The petite girl perked up. “Really?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but I still need to go back to take the tests and for graduation. And I need to make arrangements with my father since Robin won’t be there for a few years.”

“Graduation, huh?” she beamed, “It’s a pretty big deal in the US, right? With speeches and all the families, the students on the stage to receive their diploma and the gowns?!”

He chuckled. “Yeah, all that. How is graduation here?”

Marinette shrugged. “Eh, you know. We take the Baccalauréat, the, when we get the results, we go back to school, sign a paper and they give us our grades from the test and that’s it.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? I mean, I know we make a big deal out of it, but it seems anti-climatic.”

“I know, right?” she exclaimed, then looked at him. “What about prom?”

“It’s around the time of the test. I wasn’t planning to go.”

She gasped. “What? Why? It sounds amazing. In the movies and TV shows, there are always so many events, it makes me so envious.”

Damian frowned. “You don’t have a prom?”

Marinette shook her head. “No, we don’t. Some schools put a little something together, but not a lot. You know school is just that: school. No clubs, no sports teams, no big graduation, no prom. It’s boring.”

Damian smirked at her. “Well, I wasn’t planning to go to my prom, but now that I know that you won’t get to live it, I might just take you to mine.”

The black-haired girl laughed. “And how would we do that? You know I’m not supposed to use the Miraculous for personal reasons.”

“Not even just once?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Alright, maybe just once. But can you even take someone outside of school?”

He nodded. “I just have to fill in some paper.”

She smiled at him. That smile that she knows makes him weak. “Do you really mean it?”

“Of course.”

“Alright, then! I would be happy to go to prom with you!”

They kissed, long and deep, and started their earlier activities again, Marinette’s giggled filling the room.

It was after they got dressed and decided to watch a movie in the living room that Tikki appeared in front of them.

“Marinette, Chat Noir is trying to call you,” she said, looking serious.

Not waiting another moment, Marinette transformed and stood in front of the white wall so that she could have a neutral background.

“Hey, Chat. Haven’t seen you in a while,” she greeted him when she answered his call.

Chat looked so tired at the other end, it made her heart break at the sight.

“Ladybug. I need to talk to you. Alone, if possible.”

Ladybug could see Damian frown from the couch, not liking the demand.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

The cat-themed hero sighed. “I would rather not tell you over the phone. Meet me at our usual spot.”

With that, he hung up, not giving her a choice.

“You’re not going to let me go alone, right?”

Damian scoffed. “Of course not. I’ve texted Grayson. We’ll go with you but we’ll stay out of sight.”

Ladybug sighed. “Alright, then.”

For the first time in a long time, Ladybug’s instinct failed her. She had no idea what was waiting for her when she would meet with her partner.

Adrien hadn’t slept well in a week now. How could he, after what his father showed him?

His mother, his sweet, beautiful, and kind mother was in a coma, lying in a coffin of glass.

Just like Snow White. Except, here, a kiss from her husband won’t wake her up.

Apparently, the damaged Peacock Miraculous was what put her in a coma.

But why, in the first place, did she have the Miraculous? And what was she using it for?

But this was why his father became Hawkmoth. Why he wanted the Cat and Ladybug Miraculous. So he could make a wish and had his family whole again.

It was everything Adrien ever wanted.

But, was he ready to take the risk? Who knew who would pay the price for their selfish wish? What if Ladybug fell into a coma to make up for his mother’s awakening? What if something even bigger happened and not just once, but hundreds, thousands of people paid the price?

Adrien wouldn’t be able to live with that.

But… His mother.

His mother that he loved so, so much and that loved him back as much.

Tears slowly fell out of the model’s eyes as he put his Miraculous back on his finger for the first time since he took it off a week ago when he went to confront his father.

“Kid, what’s wrong?”

Adrien let out a sob and didn’t try to contain his tears.

“It’s him, Plagg. My father is Hawkmoth.”

The black Kwami has never looked so sad. Floating to him, he squeezed himself between his chosen’s neck and shoulder, silently bringing him comfort.

Only when Adrien cried himself dry did he break the silence.

“What are you going to do.”

The blonde’s face lost all trace of confusion and insecurity, leaving a determined boy.

“I know what to do. I need to contact Ladybug for that,” Plagg’s eyes widened in fear. “Plagg, claws out.”

When Ladybug arrived on their spot — the rooftop of a warehouse a little bit outside of the city, away from the prying eyes of curious civilians — Chat Noir was already there, humming a song to himself.

“Chat Noir?” she called, catching his attention.

Chat Noir turned around, smiling at Ladybug.

Well, if she could call that a smile. It was more a grimace, to be honest.

“Hi, Ladybug. Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”

He stood up from the edge of the roof and made his way to her. Slowly, he took her hand in his, giving it a little squeeze.

“You and the birds were right, bug. Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste. But he’s not just that. He’s my father.”

Ladybug didn’t say anything, sensing that he wasn’t done. His hand squeezed hers a little harder, but she kept silent.

“He… He’s doing all that for my mother. To bring her back. She fell into a coma years ago and… And he’s taking desperate measures to bring our family back together,” he said, catching his breath. Ladybug could see him tear up.

“I… I want my family back together. I love my mother so much, you have no idea.”

She didn’t like where this was going.

“I want nothing more than having my family as a whole.”

The red-clothed hero took a step back, but Chat Noir’s hand brought her back closer to him.

“But,” he started, releasing her. “I’m not sure I could leave with the consequences of the wish,” he admitted.

And then, he took his ring off.

“I’m sorry, Plagg, Ladybug,” he said, crying silently as he petted Plagg for the last time. “But I can’t be Chat Noir anymore. I can’t promise that I wouldn’t turn on you one day. I’m too weak. So I’m giving you my Miraculous back, so I can’t give him the power he needs.”

He put the ring in her hand, closing it in a fist.

“And I know you will have to take him down. That I’ll have to live without my father. And it’s alright I understand. I forgive you, even if there is nothing to forgive, but I don’t want you to beat yourself over it. My father is a criminal, and he needs to face charges like every other criminal.”

She opened her mouth to speak but he raised his hand, silently telling her to stay quiet.

“I’ve always imagined that we would take Hawkmoth down together. That we would then reveal our identity to each other. But then, I always imagined us to be soulmates, and we’re not. I… After that, I don’t want anything to do with the Miraculous. It’s what put my mother in a coma in the first place, and it gave my father the power to terrorize the city.”

He took a deep breath.

“It’s better that I never know your identity,” he smiled, wiping his tears.

This smile was real.

“This is goodbye, My Lady.”

She opened her mouth to protest but he put his hands on her mouth, not letting her say a word.

“Please, don’t speak. I’ve made up my mind. Nothing you could say would change anything. Don’t make this harder for me, please.”

She nodded and he stepped away, to the edge of the building where a ladder was for easy access to the roof.

“Goodbye, then.”

And he left.

Ladybug let a shaky breath out, not realizing what just happened. The ring in her hand seemed to weigh so much and to burn.

A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she turned around to see Robin, a grim look on his face. Without a word, he took her in his arms, letting her know that he was there for her.

The heroine wanted to cry. It has been so long since she allowed herself to feel strong emotions that weren’t positive.

But Hawkmoth could still take advantage of her, and she wouldn’t let him.

So she just hugged Robin tighter, nodding at Nightwing that stood behind the vigilante.

She would cry later.

Tag List: 

@bigpicklebananatree​ @animegirlweeb​ @crazylittlemunchkin​ @northernbluetongue​ @cutechip​ @justafanwarrior​ @iloontjeboontje​ @resignedcatservant @maribat-is-lifeblood​ @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff​ @toodaloo-kangaroo​ @mikantsume​ @dast218​ @amayakans​ @zestyzealot​ @lunarwolfspn​ @corabeth11​ @marinettepotterandplagg​ @olynix​ @aestheticnpoetic​ @hot-neighbour-nextdoor​ @thehufflepuffranger-blog​ @k-poplunardreams​ @tis-i-beanbandit​ @bluesimani​ @laurcad123​ @notmycupoftea26​

[arkus-rhapsode]

Eden’s Zero Chapter 1 Review

Hey guys, now before I dive into this already longer than usual review, I did wanna take this time to mention something. Its been no secret that I turned on Mashima and FT pretty hardly after the end of FT and some of you may be aware that I was moderately active in the fanbase with putting out my reviews and such. That said some may liken that shift in mentality to me not liking how the story went and a common critique of fans is that when what they’re fans of doesn’t gel with what they want they wanna destroy it. As if the fan has ownership of the source of the fanaticism.

I admit there are times that I’ve question decisions on Hiro Mashima’s end and has posted rewrites, but that’s not me doing it out of a sense of ownership. I’m doing it because I have a standard. Being a fan of something and letting your disappointment get to you and fester into salty, bitchy purest is one thing, but being a person who’s judging what a series puts out and actually caring about the quality of what’s in the popular media is important. FT got negative reviews in its latter half because it was that bad. By the end of the series it was legit that bad. Now I don’t say that is someone who was in the fanbase and hated Hiro’s decisions cause they weren’t mine, I hated them because it was bad writing. I’m a reader with standards, as are all of you, and in the digestion of media we make distinctions between good and bad. I make this claim with more concrete surety now that I’ve been around longer and have reviewed more series than just FT, I think it be harder to believe if I made this case when I was just starting and all I was talking about at the time was FT.

Some of you might remember when I first started out on MHA, my second chapter I ever reviewed I had found it boring and mundane and to date its my least popular MHA review and I still stand by that assertion. I hold everything to the same standard, and that includes FT. The reason I write this is that while throughout this review I will mention comparison’s to FT’s first chapter (and yes, even ways Eden’s Zero improved on it), but I will be holding it to the same standard. So this entire review won’t be me holding a grudge against Hiro, but it will be me holding it to the same standard as I do everything I read. That out of the way lets dive in.

We open on a hill side and met our MC named Shiki. Beside him is the mecha demon from the cover page and what they see is a... dragon. Yeah, Hiro I thought you wanted this to be wholely original?

On the hand I actually like this scene in the sense robo demon here is actually encourging actual adventure (something FT lacked) and its kinda amazing listening to this demon looking guy talking about friendship, yet on the other hand, damnit Hiro. Is this the only thing how to write about? Like damn man.

We cut to the future where we see our main female Lucy-I mean Rebecca! Y’know I could make a Rebecca from One Piece joke, but she’s kinda already a bit of a decisivee figure so I’m not gonna bother.

I mean its okay. Its just castle theme park. Also Rebecca we find out is apparently a youtuber. Look if DBS can have GodTube then I can put up with Blue Cate (Aoneko) website. Also yeah Happy here, no sugar coating its just Happy. Also Rebecca here purposely made her skirt short. Just because you point out the sexualization in canon doesn’t make it better, ya still drew it, Hiro.

We see that the theme park is full of robots and each one acts as an assist in sending the guest through some kind of medieval simulator. And if anyone has seen Westworld you know where this is heading. To be fair I love worldbuilding so please, explore!

So we find out Rebecca’s dream is to have one million suscribers and now here’s where I gotta give props to Hiro because he actual made a dream for a character that doesn’t seem like it can be achieved a chapter from now. Granted this seems a bit hard to actually quantify, but this dream could potenially evolve into something of why she wants the suscribers and could be like Nami making the map of the world that getting video of unknown locations may actually be worth something to the general population.

We see that Rebecca chooses to go on a monster hunting quest and they encounter...

...This thing. Also it seems Rebecca’s character quirk is she really likes cats I guess? But this doesn’t last long as someone crashes down on mecha cat.

Okay that was kinda funny. I mean if this was FT would’ve actually gotten the panty shot so maybe Hiro has learned his lesson! Also note that wrench!

Oh god damnit Hiro. So this tarzan guy after acting like an animal is knocked out by Rebecca. Y’know it took about 60 chapters before Natsu got all up in Lucy’s chest, guess we’re cutting straight to the chase here.

Okay is joke with here just going be about here short skirt? Damning it with faint praise here, but at least he still hven’t flashed us them yet. Also Tarzan here is the only human on the island.

We get some scenes of Shiki here wanting to be friends with Rebecca cause she’s a human and Rebecca isn’t interested and she returns to the Granbell town where Shiki is there and the robots know who he is.

Shiki’s expressions and creepy advances really gives off this tinge of sci-fi horror, unfortunate Hiro doesn’t really go that route and we’ll get to it. Also that wizard looking robot from the color page is also here.

They then have a party where the robots all celebrate them having a costumer for the first time in so long they have a party being nice to Rebecca and lavishing her with stuff outside is robot that looks like Robin Hood and he reports to his boss this machine king.

Oh look, Hades if he was a robot.

We see Shiki trying to bond with Rebecca and it leads to him expressing he wants to leave the kingdom and see another country, but we also learn he’s in charge of fixing this and the robots are acting up lately. We find out that the one who was talking to Shiki and is his “Grandfather” was called the Demon King a robot designed for playing that role in the park.

Umm Rebecca... That’s being a dick. So you don’t like it, so you decide to cut it, cause it bothers you. You could’ve framed it like, “If he fixes you up then maybe he needs better vision” or “He’s been so nice to me, let me do something for him.” And what makes this worse s that Shiki is asleep, so she doesn’t even consult his feelings. Like seriously, that’s not being a good friend . But for contrivances sake I’m sure Shiki will wake up and love it, won’t he?

Huh? I was wrong instead we got shitty 80s comedy. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

Y’know I said I’d give Hiro atleast two free fanservice moments for his first 3 chapters. He’s now used all of them up in a single chapter. Also Rebecca is tied to a stake while robots with torches surround her along with the machine king.

Shiki is also there and here’s something that did remind me of rave, the tightness of the first chapter. Everything seems to flow like one continuous story and doesn’t seem to do some dumb interlude like FTs first chapter did with that awkward moment where Lucy leaves Natsu and she’s just randomly in the park reading.

The King wants to use her ship to leave this world and we get som kind of motivation out of him.

Oh wow, for a first chapter villain that’s actually a really deep thing to unload. That as amusment park hosts they must’ve just been seen as pleasure tools and with no one around these robots who seem to be senstinent must’ve felt betrayed and...

Oooooor you cut out all moral ambiguity by just saying they have a virus. Sure. Trust me, this is where it gets stupid really stupid. And that’s the inconsistency.

So these robots I guess are like the ones from the Animatrix where they just kinda develop sentience out of nowhere. But unlike Animatrix it doesn’t seem to imply when they developed this sentience and that they began to think they were being abused.

Tired of Friendship already, it ain’t leaving.

So why do you hate humans? They abandoned you I guess, but there’s not other robot saying “hey our times were fun together” no everyone is like they left us to rot  so we hate them. Not like Humans did anything legitimate bad. We actually see that at the end of the chapter that there is some sort of central battery on the park that all robots are hooked up to. You could make their reason for hating humans that. That even though they left these sentiment robots still had a little kingdom to themselves, but realized that its all just going to end one day and humans didn’t even bother to unplug them. They’re existence is literally knowing when they’ll die, imagine that as why they harbor negative emotions and maybe Shiki actually fixing things might’ve actually been prolonging their lives so maybe that be why they kept him around. This whole sentience things just feels like Hiro wanted to do a trope of crazy robots and ended using multiple to fit the whatever story purpose at the moment.

You do run the planet, dumbasses. This entire plane, apparently for hundreds of years, has been solely controlled by you. Maye this should be rephrased as, going to the place that built you to get revenge or as I spoiled with the battery we’ll take the ship to get more power for our kingdom?

Shiki doesn’t do anything and kinda lets the robots just wail on him as he found out all things in his life were a lie. Then Rebecca gives a friendship speech. A stupid stupid friendship speech.

You’re right, Rebecca! Too bad we didn’t see that. I’m serious we barely see memories of Shiki with any robot outside of the demon king and Michael so there’s no weight to this conflict. We only get the vague sense they raised hm, but there’s no moments of Shiki really laughingg and enjoying their company outside of the party with Rebecca which rather is made more for getting Shiki to like Rebecca for this moment.

Shiki remembers what his Grandpa the Demon King said and just blows them all away.

We see Shiki’s hand and apparently he has these marks indicating he has Ether gear. The power system of this series.

You’re sentiment! You have out grown your programming! You can choose to have a concept of friendship.

So they fight with shitty action scenes (If I can give Horikoshi a hard time for how he draws his fight choreography, then I sure as hell will give Hiro the once over.) Happy manages to save Rebecca and like Happy from early FT, he basically spots off exposition on powers.

So is it like a literal gear? Because Happy afterward destincties as the Gear of Gravity, so is it like a devil fruit? Is ether in all humans, but this specific gear brings it out in a certain way? If its internal then I guess its like the magic circuits from Fate? And then every of has their own unique variation like Nen? Like cause Happy gives it the distinction of Gravity it doesn’t seem like Shiki gives a reason why he has this power. I’m hoping \its like devil fruits, literal gears you implant and then it brings out your ether in a certain way.

Shiki punches out the machine king and cause a massive collapse.

Credit where credit is due, Hiro actually did build up the reveal of this power throughout the chapter and its actually really well done. Kinda reminds of something Oda would do with subtly building up a devil fruit power without revealing it. Like Crocodile drying out a flower but it isn’t stated his power is specifically sand.

They then flee when the other robots rally and Shiki takes Rebecca back to her ship.

This scene would actually be really nice if we actually saw more young shiki actually having fun with the machines and not a being a creeper with them.

Shiki and Rebecca take off and we see the universe.

Not gonna lie, that’s a really pretty shot. Like damn, I could get behind this.

It seems like worlds in this universe are basically like kingdom hearts worlds. They’re not real “worlds” so much as they are islands in space.

Sure, keep the mystery alive why don’t you, no that be too much.

Well great place to end the chapter. Little dry of a first story, but I definetly see that has room for improvment and there is something-Wait this isn’t the last page? But what else is there to talk about. There’s nothing left-

Oh for fuck sake. That’s right they were trying to send SHiki away. Because apparently these robots thought there was no way to restore battery life even if stayed.

Here’s a tip, ifyou really care, and had such a close bond, maybe tell him to leave? Tell SHiki the truth that you guys are tied to a battery and instead of Shiki vowing to leave for the stars so he can make 100 friends (I’m not kiding that’s his actual goal here). Then this would be an interesting goal.

But no, you have to act like human hating jackasses and shatter the boy’s entire reality, just so you he would go out and “change the universe”

This would be a really nice scene with a very nice amount of character development starting point, if we actually saw their past. All we know is they raised Shiki, but its never really seemed like they’re loving or caring or Shiki openly gets upset if one of them had a problem. Again the biggest flaw with this chapter is that it sacrifices seeing one potentially interesting relationship (Shiki and the robots) for another one (Rebecca).

So we end on this page which reveals that Shiki’s goal is to have a hundred friends. Not going to say something snarky I just realized this is the same motivation as Yuki from future diary. Like before the crazy yandere shit.

Post Chapter follow up:

Lets be positive and look at the good stuff in this chapter. The first thing great about this chapter is it improved upon two of the biggest failings in the first chapter FT. Goals established and world building. Not only does this set up force Hiro Mashima to actually world build (literally) but each person in the first chapter has a goal that doesn’t seem like it can be accomplished quickly. It means we can have investment in the story.

Another thing I’ll give is Shiki is an okay MC. He has more personality than Natsu, but not as much as Haru and this first chapter is about him. Its easy to understand that Lucy is often considered the MC of FT because it literally focuses on her for the story than Natsu. But this chapter had a healthy balance.

Also the power system at least seems to have some definition. Unlike how anyone could have magic yet normal people just don’t choose to use it like in FT. Ether Gear seems to be a powersource that only a select few can use. Now we need to see first if there are ways of combating it like technology or such so a non ether gear person can still fight.

It also has its own unique aesthetic. Ft is a pretty generic fantasy world. It doesn’t have the bleakness of bereserk or the Japanese aesthetic of naruto. You could say Black CLover, Fairy Tail, and Seven Deadly sins all had their first chapter happen in the same world and I’d have trouble arguing it.

Now on to the crappy stuff. This series suffers from the usual Mashima foibles such as the sexual harassment, the stupidly way it tries to justify and give all conflict happy ending, not actually bothering to have a situation drawn out ad built up too, etc. I mean for the first conflict of the chapter its a heavy one, these guys raised SHiki yet their own mentality is against humans so Shiki has to choose, but instead of actually answering that question, it turns out there was no real conflict and the machines were just faking.

As for my like for Shiki, I flat hate Rebecca. She is so pointless and useless. Look I will defend Lucy and she actually can d things. First chapter she saved Natsu by using aquarius. But Rebecca? She’s just all of the bad traits of post timeskip Lucy. She is used for pointless fanservice, does nothing contribute, and becomes a mouth piece for friendship.

Speaking of friendship as a concept and goal here, Hiro just rewrite what you mean. Have deeper meaning than friends for once. There is ways you could take the motivation “I want to make 100 friends” in a compelling way. Prehaps Shiki is going out to make his own world where he can make a happy place for people where they can laugh and cry in harmony. Like story telling wise its pretty weak.

Like me personally, I would’ve taken the first chapter like this, the robots are sentinet and they are nice to Shiki and Rebecca and they have genuine fun together. They gradually reveal that they are shutting down maybe one starts acting wonky and tries to hide it and maybe the machine king is the real bad guy. He has sentinece and hates humans and he wants to eliminate SHiki and Rebecca and that’s because they’re shutting down. The other robots say they don’t care they were abandoned, they were mad at first but Shiki showed them that why they loved catering to humans. King and Shiki fight and they all reveal they’re shutting down and Shiki cries he doesn’t want them to go. The robots say its inevitable and they don’t hpw to recharge the battery and Shiki vows to leave the planet and search for a power source to bring them all back. Then that’s shiki’s goal and it even can cause questions like “Is it worth all this for machines?” or “who designed them maybe we can figure out the right substance to power them up?”

or if Hiro wanted to go a more darker route. Have the machines have no sentience and literally be dolls for the King who turns out to be a human who stayed here on Granbell and made his own little kingdom. Make it a bit meta on how Shiki’s only friends were just hollow imitations of people who were only friends because that’s what their programming dictated and they can all be switched off. It be meta as critiquing Ft and how all the guild characters basically had no conflicts, all got along, and were just friends with no depth or reason.

This all highlights the issue with Hiro Mashima and that’s he is not a good a writer. Hiro is an incredibly talented person and can come up with incredibly unique ideas and looks, which is why his cover pages are the best things he puts out because its him free forming. But writing. He has a limited scope on that and stuff like sci-fi and fantasy can be very morally grey things. But Hiro doesn’t seem to understand tragedy in the sense that its tragic because a person fails or dies unsatisfied. But he only seems to know how to write painfully obvious concepts like “save the world” or “friendship” instead doing a concept like “what it is to be a hero” like MHA does which can have a variety of answers to it.

So what’s the final verdict? Well I actually am going to do something different than usual. I’m going to say what I though the quality was compared to FT and then to what I’d consider this work compared to anything else.

In comparison to FT, Eden’s Zero gets a Final verdict of 8/10

Improves on a lot of FT’s first chapter flaws

Created a more unique environment for a story

And actually has a lot tighter narrative

But in comparison to everything else...

Final Verdict: 5/10

Even if it wasn’t Hiro, its a pretty generic start (some names aren’t even all that inspired like Machine King, Demon King)

Potential to grow into something better is there

Nothing is outright offensive

Cool concept

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E23 (June 19, 2018)

Welcome to tonight’s Talks Machina. Today’s preshow: the weather throughout the Dwendalian Empire. I’m sure this isn’t foreboding at all. Tonight’s guests: Matt & Emmy-award-winning Sam Riegel. Sam has a prepared bit for the opening that he just found out he was supposed to prepare. He gets out, “How many... light bulbs...” before BWF has pity and throws us to the title screen.

Tonight’s announcements: New M9 shirt in the new CR store at shop.critrole.com. The show also now has their very own dedicated Critical Role Youtube & Twitch channels--however, don’t worry, as it’ll still be broadcast in all current locations as well. After Dark will continue to be available on After Dark only. There also will not be any Talks Machina or new Critical Role episode July 3 or July 5, as they’ll be making the move to a new studio during this week. (Marisha’s stepped down at G&S to make this move to full-time CR management as well.) There’s a summary post of these announcements with a FAQ on critrole.com, if you need more information.

Before we can get to CR Stats, Sam interrupts to ask Matt why they’ve never had an NPC with a French accent. Matt, answering in an excellent French accent, explains that they’ve not come across any regional areas that are analogous to France yet. He suggests they visit the Menagerie Coast.

CR Stats! The M9 have now officially rolled 99 natural ones. Nott’s in the lead with 22. Sam only has one d20 that he rolls, and he thinks Laura’s bad luck is rubbing off on him.

The M9 have now been traveling together for about a month. Matt, deadpan: “They’re such a tight-knit family.” He does like that everyone’s getting to see the ground-floor development and occasionally has to remind himself to set the scene because he gets sucked into the roleplay.

Kiri has imitated people 82 times--Sam loves Matt’s imitations.

The D&D Beyond theme song was a greater achievement than the Emmy (per Sam): “It was a thing that I just came up with...that became the anthem for a generation.” The Emmy is a bucket list, pinnacle professional achievement, but he loves that he got to write & make the theme song. (Also: two years on one cartoon vs. fifteen minutes on a song.)

Matt has a tumultuous history with the Streamys. He directed a web series ten years ago and was invited to contribute to a big montage...only to find out right before the show that it had been cut from the program altogether.

The battle with the Merrow played out fairly close to how Matt had envisioned it, although the players’ positioning led to some interesting situations. It was more challenging in certain moments without Nott, especially when Matt was trying to decide how certain events would play out. Sam sidebars to point out how much he loves it when a battle changes halfway through (either due to traps, additional enemies, or the map changing). Matt says there are many battles they’ve had in the past where certain traps were never triggered. However, you can’t do it too often or it becomes expected. (Matt does feel bad when he’s rolling well and the PCs are rolling badly.)

Nott’s water thing Sam invented during the game (because he thought it would be funny, natch), but he’s come up with a backstory since then that explains why she’s so afraid of water.        

Matt plays out combat as designed even when a PC suddenly decides to not participate--unless it’s a new group that doesn’t fully understand D&D combat yet, and it would impact their enjoyment of the game. He wants people to understand that there are consequences with character choices. 

Sam often finds it bothersome when they know they’ve missed something in game, especially when it’s an important story beat. It’s the worst when Matt gives them multiple chances to succeed, and they still end up failing all of them. Matt confesses sometimes he makes them roll checks on general knowledge they’d have known anyway just to make them feel a certain esoteric skill was useful for once. 

Nott feels terrible she sat out the Merrow fight only for Caleb to come close to death. Sam: “Nott feels awful about it. Sam Riegel feels great about it! I love situations where it doesn’t look like it’s going well.” Plus, the night before she also got Caleb in trouble with the bowl thing. BWF’s a little worried it’ll affect their relationship.

Matt claims that Kiri was not at all related to wanting to prove he could do Jester’s accent. He rolls for random encounters when they’re traveling, and Kiri was one he’d considered to demonstrate the presence of kenku, while also highlighting that non-Empire people are moving away from the conflict. He half-expected them to ignore her altogether. 

Matt reveals that Kiri has six (6) (SIX) hit points. “She’s practically a baby bird!” Sam has a retroactive panic attack that they’ve been bringing her to all these battles. Me too, bud. Sam accuses Matt of “not having brought anyone worthy of taking a baby bird off our hands.” Matt: “You haven’t even looked!” They wonder together about the possibility of a baby bird orphanage in Hupperdook.

GIF of the Week! @justjamesearle. It’s long and perfect and details the Fjord whack-a-mole death saga with the venom splashes. 

Nott’s opinion of Kiri hasn’t changed at all with the reveal that she heard/repeated her conversation with Caleb. Sam thinks Nott should have known better than to talk with a recording device in the room, especially since she only ever repeats it when it’s hilarious or well-timed. “It’s hard to live with a soundboard.”

Matt keeps a list of notes of what Kiri can say. It’s super fun, and he sometimes gets so caught up in conversations he forgets to write down things for her to repeat later.

Nott wished Kiri hadn’t repeated the facts from her backstory, but she’d never considered being aggressive towards “little RiRi” (oh God it’s too adorable). She still doesn’t like a lot of attention. Both BWF & Sam applaud Matt for giving them little prods to reveal backstory.

Dagon, Matt & Marisha’s bird, provides a lot of inspiration for Kiri. Matt talks about being a bird owner after growing up with cats and dogs, and reveals that wanting to utilize that knowledge was part of why he introduced kenku.

Nott finds Beau the exception to her general mistrust of the group, which is why she let her care for Caleb after the last fight. She feels Beau has been weirdly sensitive and protective even through her lens of abrasiveness, and she respects that she hasn’t spilled the beans about Caleb’s backstory.

Fanart of the Week! @obeymybrain, which is a great group portrait in four vertical-column stylings after the Haunted Mansion from Disneyland.

If the troll hadn’t been slowed by Caleb, Matt thinks the group would have permanently lost someone. Matt loves the new monsters that are punishing to melee characters. He thinks they did a good job damaging it at range at first, and Sam waxes poetic on all the options they didn’t pursue instead (like Saran-wrapping the door before it came running out). Oh, what could have been.

Sam’s love for Liam is stronger than Nott’s love for Caleb, because “...Liam kisses back.” They’ve known each other half their lives now.

If the M9 pursue dynamite as a common battle tactic, Matt may need to prepare for his builds to be destroyed more often. It’s still limited by the relatively new availability of blackpowder and has a high possibility of backfiring depending on their rolls.

Nott wishes she could tell everything to Caleb, but is limited by the realities of their show, since it’s hard to find a time that’s not full of dick or drug jokes. There’s been times they’ve been alone together but Caleb hasn’t asked any questions; Sam thinks “He needs to do some Marisha-style questioning. That is an inquisitive monk, and I love her for it.” Matt points out it’s a critical aspect of her character that she wants to know everything.

Matt played out the last Fjord moment in front of the whole group in part because it would have interrupted the flow to have everyone leave, and in part because he trusts his players not to metagame now that they’re all learning bits and pieces of each other. He liked the visceral smash-cut of the vision to the party watching Fjord jam this thing into his stomach.

Matt does have to juggle all the party’s backstories since it’s such a large group; some will be long-game just because of the natures of their stories. He likes to drop threads as they go, though, so everyone feels more connected to their world. Players feel like the stakes are higher when they can see their stories reflected and affecting the living and breathing world around them.

Nott wasn’t particularly bothered by Molly immediately forgiving the bandits right after they hurt her. “They’re just dumb. They’re just dumb and they need to go. They’re too dumb to hurt.”

Matt knew the outline of Hupperdook before the party ever heard of it. Now that they’ve expressed interest in it, he’s begun filling in the details since it looks likely that they’ll visit it soon. It helps that they’re limited to speed of foot & horse; when they can start bamfing everywhere in later game, it gets a lot harder. Matt’s advice in that situation is to give the town a unique social structure or aspect, to make a bold choice that will cause it to stand out in their mind. It helps if you can ask what the players are looking for, then “yes and” based on what they’re seeking (he builds an idea of two competing taverns poaching clients from each other off a spur-of-the-moment request from a player asking if there’s an inn nearby).

Sam does rehearse his more performative ads ahead of time. He usually writes them the day of over lunch, although lately he’s been trying to get them done on Mondays and Tuesdays so he’s not as stressed on Thursday.

There’s no specific inspirational character for the Gentleman. Matt wanted to create an outside-the-law businessman who wasn’t your typical ~thief-lord~ while still seeming unique against the world. He wanted him to be charismatic and domineering, welcoming until you crossed a personal or business line, in which case he’d immediately put you in your place. 

Nott still considers her old goblin tribe a threat to her & is reluctant to confront them. She does feel a little more prepared now that she has more allies, but is hesitant to meet old demons & old memories. Matt sidebars to point out that a lot of these character backstories could be self-driven, since there’s nothing keeping them from visiting Nott’s hometown now. They could pursue it at any time if they wanted.

The firearms in the world are a direct result from Percy & Ripley; she dealt them out in heavy trade areas like Marquet, which results in the technology being distributed in a way that now impacts the M9 in their world. They’re still limited by materials, though.

Matt loves the joy on Tal’s face every time they mention firearms are readily available in Wildemount.

Everyone’s distraught over Tal’s Vicious Mockery in the last episode. Bless his heart. Matt: “Sometimes you come out of the gate and realize you’ve come out without your pants on. You commit, and you walk away.”

Sam misses giving inspiration on a regular basis. He also has a lot of insecurities over his current inability to contribute to a battle with much more than crossbow bolts. BWF: “Just sent Nott to a bard college.” Matt: With a -3 charisma, I think you’re taking inspiration away from people.”

Favorite M9 voice to mimic as Kiri? Partially Jester, because it’s just funny, Nott is shrill and ridiculous, and has lately been enjoying mimicking Fjord for the few times he’s been echoed.

The Nott voice is not hard at all on Sam; it’s mostly falsetto, which BWF says he usually talks in off-camera all the time anyway.

After Dark: After This

In CriticalRoleLand, Dani would like to see Vex’s Flying Brooms. BWF suggests a waterslide that ends in Vex’s & Percy’s bathtub; Matt suggests it be a goldfish ride that goes over the side. He also likes a teleporting ride that goes into Umbrasyl’s belly, and Sam comes up with a dunk tank for heckling Tary.

Matt talks about that viral Youtube video with the weather forecaster naming the city that’s like 100 characters long. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, that’s the one.

Nott’s Tinder profile? “Short, green, looking for mean. Buy me a drink and I’m yours.”

Matt wouldn’t be surprised if this campaign does eventually touch on family in the same way the first one did. However, Sam feels so far it’s much more about identity, and Matt tacks on regret & making amends. He also thinks trust & learning to accept help from others is still developing, since so many of these characters have been hurt in some way.

VM had a lot of very classical heroic archetypes; this campaign is full of many more human, subtly complicated characters. Matt loves the contrast.

The eyes. The EYES.

Sam agonizes that in his Friday retellings of the campaign’s story to his six-year-old son, it drives him crazy that he can’t answer his son’s questions as to why something happened. His son does ask “does Matt Mercer know?” and Sam is glad he can say yes.

Sam loves the idea of the world hinging on the bandit troupe they keep running into. I debated troop or troupe there, but given the hysterics they keep causing, I’m sticking with troupe.

If they met, Nott would steal every single thing from Taryon Darrington. Except that lame book, of course. “That’d be amazing. And! Possible! We’re on the continent, right?” Sam rubs his hands together gleefully...until Matt points out Taryon’s been relegated to NPC status & Matt would be the one controlling him now.

Matt usually prepares a guest for the show by meeting with them ahead of time. Depending on how much (or if ever) they’ve played before, he helps them build a character and teaches them the basics of the class. Mark, obviously, didn’t need that introduction, so instead they focused on loose backstory and finding ways to integrate that backstory into the existing world. When it’s time for them to actually play, they’ll discuss in advance a way to bring their paths across each other, such as Cali looking for a specific relic at the same time that the M9 were going to be investigating a safehouse full of stolen relics. As soon as they meet, it’s hands off. (It can be hard to get someone out of the group if they for sure can’t return the next week.)

MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END OF CAMPAIGN ONE IN THE SECTION BELOW.

BWF jokes that last campaign Joe Manganiello just showed up and said, “Hey, so, I’m playing Arkhan,” and that was that. Actually...that’s pretty close to what really happened. Matt & Joe did meet for a long evening in Joe’s kitchen in advance to discuss backstory & motivations, after which he finally managed to convince Joe’s wife, Sofía Vergara, to play a small game with him, Joe, and Marisha. Sam laughs that at Matt & Marisha’s wedding, they had two sentences with Joe before the conversation immediately devolved into D&D and Joe’s wife rolled her eyes out of her head.

They did discuss that Joe wanted to steal the hand at the end of the last campaign. “You don’t have the Hand of Vecna, the Hand of Vecna has you.” They had a long conversation about Arkhan’s denouement after that episode.

END OF MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS.

And that’s all for the night! Have a lovely week, and is it Thursday yet?

[writing-about-larry]

When his best friend tried to shove a piece of paper right under his nose, Harry was quick to bat it away. 

“Lou please, I’m trying to work, I was really getting somewhere with this one tricky sentence,“ Harry groaned, not lifting his glance from the various sheets piled in front of him. His small desk space was littered all over with books, pencils, and even more books, most of them battered and their pages yellowed by their sheer age. 

“There’s a reason I like working in the library, you know?“ Harry sighed. “It’s nice not having Peppermint constantly step on whatever it is I’m working on and demanding attention every second.“

Harry finally looked up at his best friend, and found that there were indeed some similarities between his cat and Louis. He was giving Harry the exact same glance Lucy liked to fixate him with when Harry denied her access to his desk. 

Apart from that, Louis was equally irresistible. “What do you want?“ Harry asked, marking the spot where he left off translating with his finger. 

“Look!“ Louis proclaimed excitedly and way too loud for any common library, and once again held a piece of paper right into Harry’s face. Their library, however, was luckily far from common and on top of that, Harry and Louis were - as usual - hidden away in the dimmest corner. Harry took the sheet into his own hand and waited for Louis to enlighten him further about what exactly he was looking at. 

“I just looked up that one commentary, you know, the one Payne wants us to read for Latin Literature III, about Juvenal?“

Harry nodded, urging Louis to continue. Meanwhile, he inspected the paper and the scribblings on it further. 

“Yeah, and this fell out!“ Louis finished the story excitedly. 

“So why don’t you put it back in and read the damn commentary? You could bring it over when you’re done, I need to look some things up as well, for example-“ Harry said, giving the sheet back to Louis. 

Louis didn’t let him finish his sentence. “But Harry, no, honestly, you haven’t even taken a proper look at it! It’s written in some sort of code,“ he said, lowering his voice as if he were telling Harry a secret. 

Harry sighed. “Louis, there are so many weird people in this library studying weird languages. Somebody must’ve forgotten their notes in this book, happens all the time. We’re probably one of the most normal people, just studying Latin. D’you remember that one guy sitting in our spot last time? The one with the fat metal chain round his neck and the satanistic-themed shirt with… what… ancient Viking runes on it or some shit? There’s so many strange people around.“

“I’ll bet you that this is no known language, it’s a code!“ Louis insisted, holding the paper back into Harry’s face. 

“You must’ve read too much The Three Investigators or Five Find-Outers or something when you were little, Louis. Let it go and just fetch the commentary, please.“

Louis sighed, but let Harry return to his translation homework. “I’m taking a photo of it, though, and I’m gonna find out what this is,“ he insisted. 

“You do that,“ Harry mumbled. 

X X X

“Have y’all gotten anywhere with that damn translation homework yet?“ With a thump, Niall sat down next to Louis and Harry in the lecture hall, spreading his things all over the writing surface and interrupting their conversation. 

“Hi to you, Niall,“ Harry greeted Niall. “And no, I got stuck at a particularly terrible sentence, I’ve got no idea whatsoever what it’s supposed to mean.“

“Sounds like it might be an ancient dick joke once again,“ Niall joked, poking Harry in the ribs. 

“Might well be, I’ll leave it up to you to detect those. Everyone should do what they do best,“ Harry was quick to respond. 

“Oi! Now I’m getting a reputation for being the local dick joke expert?“ Niall asked, feigning exasperation. “All it takes is finding a boyfriend and pointing out what was definitely a dick joke in class once?“

“Well, mate, better deal with it,“ Louis piped up. “I haven’t even started on Juvenal yet, but I dug up that commentary and-“

“Not again,“ Harry groaned and shot a desperate look at the clock. If he was lucky, the lecture would start soon and he would be spared to hear all of the so-called mystery Louis had discovered. 

Harry had no such luck, it was still five minutes early; however, Niall seemed little more interested than Harry himself, which filled Harry with some hope that Louis might let it go soon. 

Five minutes early became five minutes late, became ten minutes late, became fifteen minutes late. Around then, everybody in the lecture hall started checking their phones for e-mails that might announce that the lecture had been cancelled, some people left the lecture hall, some others started busying themselves with other work. 

Harry checked his e-mail as well, but turned up empty-handed, just like everybody else. 

“Maybe Rexha had an accident on her bike,“ Niall suggested to explain their professor’s absence. “She nearly ran me over with it last time, did I tell y’all? She’s a crazy biker and I was just walking through the underpass, totally oblivious, not harming anyone, and suddenly she just-“

Niall was interrupted by said professor bursting into the lecture hall, her coat flapping, her usually neat hair completely messed up and sticking to her forehead. She did give off the impression of just having narrowly escaped an accident. Without a word, she dumped her satchel on the lecturer’s desk and only then looked up at the now-silent students. 

“Dear students, I have a very sad announcement to make. As you might notice, I am deeply affected and distraught, but I understand that you must and deserve to know as well. Nothing more than a mere half hour ago, Mr Payne was found in his office, dead. We do not know anything more as of yet, and I ask you not to jump to any conclusions and make any unjustified assumptions. All of his lectures will of course be cancelled until further notice, although this certainly is not our first concern now.“

“What? That can’t be true,“ Louis exclaimed in shock, a bit too loudly. Mr Payne had been a favourite for almost everyone at the department, although he insisted on burdening the students with insane amounts of homework. 

“I’m afraid it is, Ms Tomlinson,“ the professor addressed Louis. “I don’t want to believe it, either, but I am afraid that we have to accept this fact. As I cannot answer any questions you might have, let us now turn our attention to ancient Roman culture, as we must. I am sure that it would have also been in Mr Payne’s interest to continue this lecture as best as possible.“

X X X

“Again, Lou, this is not The Five Find-Outers, he probably had a heart attack or something,“ Harry repeated. “As terrible as it is, it’s not getting better if we start circulating conspiracy theories.“

“It’s not a conspiracy theory, Harry. People do get murdered, you know? It doesn’t only happen in horror movies,“ Louis insisted. 

“I agree with Harry,“ Niall said, “maybe he read a shockingly terribly student essay and, you know… No, sorry, that was actually tasteless, sorry. Payne was a good sport, despite all that homework. I’m just trying to wrap my head around all of it.“

“You’ll see soon enough that I wasn’t just fantasising, I’m sure!“ Louis repeated.

“Okay, Lou, you can say told you so when that happens, alright?“ Harry tried to settle his best friend, “we’re all just in shock, that’s all.“

X X X

The rumours that Mr Payne might not have died a natural death spread all throughout the department like a wildfire. Still, it was expectable, what with Mr Payne still being young and not known to be seriously ill. As could have been expected as well, Louis was in the middle of all the theories, although he didn’t spread his thoughts beyond their friend group. 

Only two days after the news had started spreading, Harry saw him in the library, bent over the fat commentary he had fished the sheet of paper out of. 

“Busy conspiring again, are we?“ Harry joked when he sat down next to him, setting down his laptop and a few books of his own. 

“Yes, and I might even be getting somewhere,“ Louis replied. 

Would you like to see this continued? Would you like to see this continued for you? 

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[ichibri]

@supernovaecastaway Okay, here's a bit (or a lot, oops) about my wip novel "Prince of Hell" that's I've been developing for 7ish years now. But first, just a heads up that there's lots of dark themes in it including: murder, suicide, self-harm, torture, abuse, sexual assault, mentions of pedophilia, etc. It's about hell and demons, folks, so it's not always so pretty. Also, lots of religious/mythology undertones. Okay, warnings aside, here we go. Under the cut cause it got long

There are three separate, parallel planes that make up this world - Heaven, Earth, and Hell. They're all connected by one ruler, that being whoever possesses the Tablets of Destiny. Currently that's the Almighty (God, pretty much. But because every person has different beliefs and views them differently, the Almighty goes by many names and takes many forms, pretty much whatever name/form the person looking at them believes in). And then we have Lucifer who rules Hell and is plotting to steal the Tablets to gain control of Heaven and Earth, because he's power hungry and is sick of having to bow to the Almighty and their archangels. But the story doesn't actually focus on Lucifer. His plotting is from the background and slowly builds until it collides with the main character's story (which I'll get to). Okay, but world building. So Heaven and Hell are built on death and sin. Everyone dies and everyone has sin. Even the tiniest baby and the sweetest old lady have sin. So everyone is punished. Whether they lived a godly life or have blood-stained hands, their journey of death starts in the bottom layers of Hell (There's 10 layers altogether. The top 3 are residential/agricultural/livable layers, but the bottom 7 are various levels of punishment). The greater the sin, the harsher the punishment (torture, pretty much). And the whole idea is that the human souls must ascend through the layers of punishment while keeping their souls intact. Once their penance is payed, they're allowed into Heaven as angels and given a chance at reincarnation if they so choose. But if their soul breaks down under the torture, they mutate into beasts and become demons that are stuck in Hell (and if they're devoured by other demons, it's over for them. They die die and their soul doesn't get to return to Earth). The whole idea of the punishment system is to reward the good and ensure "pure" souls continue the cycle of life by eventually returning to Earth. But that system is greatly flawed. Because it doesn't judge goodness. It judges how strong someone's soul is. For instance, a child's greatest sin could be stealing a candy bar from a store. That's about a level 2 punishment. But their soul is young and fragile and more easily broken. So they end up in Hell. Whereas a serial killer could have a soul of steel. They are so unbreakable in their depraved ideals that they survive the punishment and are given sanctuary in Heaven. And in most (if not all) modern religions, the greatest sin someone can commit is suicide. So level 7 punishment - the harshest, practically unsurvivable torture - is reserved for the souls who are already vulnerable. It's a flawed, rigged system, and it leads to lots of morally gray characters. And as the main chara finds out throughout the story, nothing is as black and white as it seems. Okay, gonna move on to the main five characters cause I could babble forever about the structures of Hell and Heaven, basically yeah, Hell isn't all bad and Heaven isn't rainbows and unicorns. Some would argue, they'd prefer Hell.

Angelo

Our main character. Nicknamed Angel by Pantera as a rude joke that eventually sticks and turns into a term of endearment. He's a human who didn't actually die, per se. One night, he and a buddy (Ryan, his crush) got drunk at a college party, and because Ryan was far more wasted, Angelo was the one to drive them home. Only, it was icy and snowing and they crashed. Ryan was dead on impact, and in his guilt, Angelo begged to trade his life for Ryan's. Normally, that wouldn't be enough to summon a demon, but it was the night of the December solstice (one of the days - along with Walpurgis Night, Halloween, and the solstices and equinoxes - in which demons can freely cross into Earth).

So Angelo sells his soul to a demon and he's taken to Hell to be auctioned off (Souls are mainly seen as pets/property in Hell, a luxury as well because the contracted souls never go through punishment. They're often used for "entertainment" or labor or plain old devouring). Angelo was on the fast track to being a warty old frog demon's toy before Prince Ian swooped in and quietly saved his ass.

Thus begins Angelo's everyday life in Hell, and he slowly discovers the demons around him aren't as scary and cruel as he expected they'd be.

And he's got a plot line of growth where he realizes he probably shouldn't have thrown his life away for Ryan (because Ryan wouldn't have done the same for him, which he finds out when he uses an oracle pool to check up on Ryan). He gradually finds that love he was looking for in Ian. They have one of those relationships were they start as friends and then they see the other doing something utterly mundane and think "god, I'm in love with him."

Prince Ian

One of Lucifer's chosen heirs (There's 50 altogether. They work in the punishment levels and are encouraged to devour and fight among themselves so that only the strongest survive. If one dies, they're quickly replaced with another demon. It all ties in with Lucifer's secret plotting to steal the Tablets).

I'm gonna be honest. His human name is Ian, but it's not what he goes by cause he doesn't remember his name/past life (which is common for newborn demons. As they devour souls and each other, they lose their beastly instincts and slowly remember themselves and their humanity, and their physical forms get less beastly and more humanoid too). Except he's not newborn. He was a contracted soul like Angelo, but Lucifer put him through the tortures of Hell to break him and mold him into a stronger general. Didn't really work. Pretty much just gave him anxiety, depression, and daddy issues.

But anyway, yeah, his original name was Prince Neko (I know, cringe. I was a much bigger dweeb in my early hs years when I first started working on this story). Ian is the character I've been overhauling the most, so I haven't picked a new name for him yet. But it'll probably still be cringy and cat related somehow, cause his demon form closely resembles a cat (again, he's getting redesigned, so nothing about his look is really set in stone yet), and Lucifer is the one who named him, and well, Lucifer is a dickbag. Like major pile of useless old dicks. [Edit - his new name is Kotě and yeah, he’s still got a cat design]

Anyway, Ian's story arc is pretty much about him trying to remember who he is and finding proof of his past, most recent life. Because Lucifer pretty much has him brainwashed into thinking he was this cruel, ruthless, bloodthirsty person. And although we see none of that in Ian's character (he's a soft, kindhearted soul), he's so lost as to who he is that he believes anything Lucifer tells him (he's got a stockholmy relationship with Lucifer).

Jagger

Femme nonbinary. In a polyamorous relationship with Murciélago and Pantera. Ian's attandant (similar to Angelo, Jagger was saved by Ian. As a newborn demon, they were almost devoured. Ian saved them, and they've been together ever since). Very stoic and loyal. One glare from them can shut up the nastiest of demons. But their bark is bigger than their bite. They're more of a 'knowledge is power' person than a 'punch first and ask questions later' person. They'd rather avoid and strategically retreat from physically combative situations than start a brawl in the streets.

Jagger's sin was murder. They killed their mother. They were already an adult when the incident happened, living and working on their own. They came home for a visit and noticed their little sister (like a 15yr age gap between them, so lil sis is about 12) was acting strangely. She was quiet, reserved, and flinchy where Jagger knew her to be this really cheerful and bubbly little kid. Jagger had a gut feeling something was wrong, so they starting coming around more often, dropping by unannounced to check in. And on one of those visits, they walk in on their mother beating their sister within an inch of her life, and Jagger grabs a kitchen knife and fights off their mom, eventually killing her. Jagger never knew their mom to be violent (she wasn't loving, but she never raised a hand to Jagger) so Jagger curses themself for not noticing sooner and for distancing themself in adulthood. Long story short, the lil sis went off to live happily with an aunt and uncle and Jagger was killed a short few weeks later in a prison brawl. Hence why Jagger would rather avoid altercations altogether, because they regret not getting to live out a life with their lil sis.

Jagger's character design is still up in the air. They're one that's getting a major makeover, so all I've decided on in is they're gonna be more beastly than I originally intended (sue me, Ima a monster fucker now, hs me would probs be appalled). [Edit - lol, yeahh did I say beastly?? More like furry, oops. They’re design is now based on a honey badger, so they maybe appear soft and cuddly, but when they bare their teeth, they’re quite rabid]

Prince Murciélago

Surprise, surprise, he's a bat demon. Nicknamed Ciel. But Pantera calls him Mercy (it's a sexual innuendo & others assume it's because Ciel begs for mercy in the bedroom but really, Pantera's the one doing the begging). He's pretty quiet and reserved, doesn't really stand out other than, you know, giant ass bat wings. But he comes off as lanky and frail, and physically, he is. But mentally, he's the one everyone comes to for comfort. He's the one dishing out heartfelt advice and a shoulder to cry on and the very best hugs.

And considering his sin was suicide, he's come a long way from the newborn demon who was broken and just looking for someone stronger to devour him (it was Pantera who he came across, and well, Pantera is a rough guy but he's not cruel. And long backstory short, Pantera and Jagger brought Ciel into their relationship and it become the 3 of them). As a human, Ciel was a poor rural farmer without much to his name. He struggled with depression and eventually decided to end his life by ingesting crop pesticides. But now, after finding a family with not only Jagger and Pantera, but also Ian and the rest of Pantera's faction (more on factions in a bit), Ciel is the mental strength of the group. And more often than not, he's the backbone holding everyone up.

Prince Pantera

My main squeeze, my man, the love of my life! And also the most quietly tragic character in the story (of course). Nicknamed Tera. Of the main five, he's been in Hell the longest (died the youngest tho). His design is based around a black panther. He's broad, hulking, just this crude, big buff burly beast of a dude. [Edit - his beef had been cut back a bit, lol. Imagine a Shiro-level of buffness. Broad shoulders, dorito-like, still beefy but not like muscle-head beefy] He's the muscle of the group, but surprisingly, he's not good in fights. Kinda sucks at them actually. He just knows how to take a punch so he ends up outlasting his opponents with stamina. But also gets the shit beat out of him along the way.

And okay, to understand most of his character and decisions, you have to know his human life (thus he comes off as a sketchy, ruthless and rather heartless guy at first). Pantera's sin was murder, and he was only 17. He was the eldest son of a single mother, and he had 2 little sisters and a little brother (ages between 7-10). After his father died, his mother remarried in order to keep the family afloat and have a breadwinner in the family (gotta remember, Pantera lived in an older era where woman stayed at home to raise the family). Anyway, his step-father was scum, downright fucking evil and deserved the torture kill that Pantera gave him. Because Pantera found out his step-father was molesting his younger siblings. His mother couldn't do anything to protect them, so Pantera took it into his own hands. And he tortured the guy. There's a scene where he's talking to Angelo about what humans consider sins to be (like being gay is a sin) and Pantera just says, "I'm not here cause I like to suck dick. I'm here cause I cut one off." So yeah, his sin was murdering his step-father. And a couple days after, Pantera was hunted down and killed by his step-father's gang of friends.

So now, Pantera's role is protector. He protects his found family, he protects the weak, he protects those who cannot fight for themselves. And he has no qualms about getting dirty and staining his hands in blood to do so. But there's more to his protection than just fighting and killing (altho, he's stationed in the level of Hell that rapists and pedos go to, and Pantera makes sure none of them get out of alive. When he fails to break one of their souls, he falls into this dark depression and those are days where Ciel becomes the backbone that supports Pantera the Protector).

But yeah, remember when I said Lucifer was a bag of dicks? He's downright scum. Lucifer comes off as this open minded, super accepting ruler of "be whoever you want to be". But there are no boundaries to that. Wanna be a rapist? Lucifer has no qualms with that, cause he is too. Wanna kill every soul you come across? Go for it, no one's gonna stop you. And when Lucifer wants something, he gets it. He's known to prey upon his heirs and take them to bed whether they want to or not. Pantera's experienced it and has heard gruesome tales from other heirs. So Pantera's protections extend to protecting Ian and Ciel from Lucifer's sexual appetite. Meaning Pantera takes their place. It's one of many deals he has with Lucifer, because Pantera would rather he suffer and be hurt than to allow anyone he loves to go through it again.

But those deals he has with Lucifer are hidden. Because he has lots of other deals where the nasty, cruel jobs meant for Ciel, Ian, or other weaker heirs are given to him instead. He also has one where he became Lucifer's dog to ensure his siblings souls didn't go through punishment and got a fast track to Heaven (despite knowing that meant he would never get the chance to see them again). So there are scenes where Angelo believes Tera is betraying the group because he sees the two in hushed and/or suggestive conversations, but it's really just Pantera making sure his family remains safe and whole, even if that means sacrificing himself to keep it that way. And okay, I could go on forever about Pantera and how much he's willing to give up for his family, but on to the factions of Hell. 

Factions

There are 3 main factions among the heirs. The leaders are Pantera, Toro, and Anzu. (Lucifer names his heirs, it's part of breaking them down to groom them into his generals. And only the strongest generals inherit the names of old (like Anzu, Azazel, Bahamut, etc.)).

Pantera's and Anzu's factions are constantly at each other throats, because Pantera's believes in the strong protecting the weak because everyone, regardless of status or power, deserves to live a peaceful life. They believe in helping your fellow demon and giving to those that need it. And his faction isn't afraid to get their hands dirty to protect those beliefs and ensure the safety of all.

But Anzu's faction follows Lucifer's belief, but to an even more extreme. They believe in the strong conquering the weak and taking whatever they want. They thrive off chaos and cruelty. They prey on anyone who's vulnerable, including members of their own faction. Think of them like the people in The Purge movies who go out and murder everyone instead of just getting a months worth of free groceries.

Lastly, there's Toro's faction. They are neutral. Their belief is every demon for themself, they don't really care unless it personally affects them. Mainly, they just want to remain out of the cross-hairs of the power struggle between Pantera and Anzu. But when push eventually comes to shove, most chose to align themselves with Pantera's faction.

And the factions eventually play a role in Lucifer trying to steal the Tablets. Which is why Lucifer tends to fan the flames between them, because again, he greatly encourages in-fighting to assure only his strongest generals remain at his side. But the split of the factions will determine whether he succeeds, because lets be honest, Pantera would rather hand control of Hell over to an archangel (he hates archangels okay, they treat demons like garbage even though most the archangels have worse sins than the demons) than let Lucifer rule the entirety of their three worlds.

And okay, bonus character! 

Princess Zaba

That’s her as a little clay charm I made. She’s a tiny little dart frog demon (like only 2cm tall). She wears cloaks that Ciel makes for her, and she lives in a little vivarium made up like a dollhouse. Her sin was suicide. She felt her existence didn’t matter, and now she’s so small that most demons don’t even notice her. She covers up her insecurities with sarcasm though, and is close friends with the main five (especially Pantera). She likes riding around in their pockets. 

And okay, that’s all for now, lol. It’s long enough, and honestly, I had a hard time congesting it to just this. Cause trust me, I could on and on about this story and it’s characters for hours. I just love them so much.

[lightsandlostbells]

Druck episode 1 reaction

I’m really enjoying Druck so far! My ideal remake would be to start with a new script and story, for sure, but this one seems very in line with Skam’s principles and style. I found myself looking forward to upcoming clips.

Clip 1 - Jonas gets on a soapbox

I really love that they revamped Jonas’ opening monologue to something that is apparently relevant to German teenagers and potentially lays out some of the themes covered in the show, and that it kept the rough, raw look of the visuals.

THEY LOOK. AGE APPROPRIATE. Thank Godddd

One of the things with Skam France and Skam Italia is that a lot of people reacted by saying, “wow, they’re all so beautiful” and internally I was like nnnnnnnoooOOOOO that’s not the point but I didn’t want to be a dick about that. 

Lol at the same song playing when Leonie walks across the yard being the same song in the Skam Italia trailer. According to Wikipedia, “Bad Girls” has also been used in Skins, Gossip Girl, and 90210. It is to teen drama shows what “Hallelujah” is to sad crying scenes.

Well I immediately bought this Isak (Matteo?) having a crush on Jonas, just saying.

As far as cutting to Matteo similar to how Skam France showed Lucas … I preferred this because it’s not giving away Matteo’s feelings. Lucas definitely had a vibe that ~Something More was up that the audience should suspect. This wouldn’t have pinged me, as a new viewer, that Matteo has a secret that Hanna doesn’t know. Like I could have bought he was just bored of watching his friends make out.

Clip 2 - Hanna and Jonas in the bedroom

So Hanna and Jonas have great chemistry so far! They definitely have that easy, established couple feeling and seem comfy with the physical affection.

Youth by Daughter is such a Skam song that I’m sort of shocked it hasn’t been used already.

I was hoping for another glimpse of Matteo but I will accept his love of memes.

Is the Hero Party Druck’s version of Russ? Sounds like. Is it a party where people dress up as superheroes?

Clip 3 - Amira’s introduction

Um, YES. Good job, Druck.

This scene was a brand new spin on an existing clip! This is really what I want to see - taking the old material and making it fresh and distinguishable.

So the theater kids were changed into a refugee welcome group, and of course they assumed Amira was a refugee. I liked that they established this specific commentary.

The girl from the club gives Amira a little smile after she explains the purpose of the group as if to be like “we help people like YOU” and Amira’s just like yep … not this shit again.

Amira! Loved her immediately. She and Hanna probably just did their homework in companionable silence after this encounter, but it’s already pretty cool that the Sana character is the first one of the girl squad established (other than Eva/Hanna).

There’s a sign for a party in the background, is that the Hero Party?

Also, I like Hanna making a self-deprecating joke about herself being the one who needs tutoring. 

But honestly, how lovely that Amira got to share this moment with Hanna and even make a joke about white Germans. Because you know plenty of white people Would Not Get It.

Aside from his cultural obtuseness, I’m kind of fond of that dude and his giant hair.

Clip 4 - Matteo gets a ticket to the love nest

Well this remake just came out and said what I thought was always implied, that the reason Jonas doesn’t want Matteo to be alone is because of his family. I don’t mind this dialogue being forward since “weird family” could pertain to a lot of things, not necessarily serious (I don’t know what the exact words imply in German). Like, his family could be really into hunting for cryptids. It’s vague enough not to take it too seriously.

Listen, while I love Hanna and Jonas so far and think they have terrific chemistry, I could totally ship Jonas and Matteo. Jonas just seems really fucking excited about Matteo coming with them.

Where the fuck did Matteo come from???? It was like he teleported. We saw right over Hanna’s shoulder before he appeared and no one was there.

Though I see he took a pic of them while they were chatting that he posted to IG, lmao.

I kinda like this casual loungey, come up and sling an arm over your shoulder Matteo. He definitely seems the most chill of the Isaks so far.

ALSO they did the whole thing of Matteo watching them leave, HOWEVER this is why it works for me here more than in Skam France: they don’t show his face. They don’t make it seem like he has a secret. I definitely think you can infer that, but I also think you can infer something more simple, such as how it’s symbolic of how he’s the third wheel in this relationship. I think OG Skam did that best by having Isak trail after them, but this wasn’t too OTT. 

So it looks like we’ll be getting the full cabin episode, not just a weekend?

Clip 5 - Party

The title card being for Monday is a pretty big mistake, though I saw that the official account responded to it and apologized.

Hanna singing as she’s getting dressed is a really nice touch. We all have our getting-ready-to-go-out anthems.

Mia is already feels more like Manon than Noora, in that she’s a got more of a softer, sweeter initial vibe. I did like that they showed her watching Hanna get dragged by Leonie and deciding to cheer her up. And that they had her clarify that she had to leave (for some unspecified reason) because it was always kinda funny that Noora made a dramatic first impression and then disappeared into the night, leaving Eva wondering “who is that mysterious yet sexy stranger...”

Vilde (Kiki?) giving an actual description of Sam makes sense, like damn, there could be a dozen Sams in that club. And having the mix-up still happen is a bonus.

But most importantly, obviously, is that Kiki thinks girl Sam is extremely hot. Look, one of these remakes has to deliver on gay Vilde. Don’t keep dangling the carrot and then taking it away. plz.

I LOVE Amira and this seems like a major change in characterization from Sana? Not that Sana was allergic to fun, but I have a hard time seeing her show up at parties without her squad. Amira is actually present at parties and dancing - alone, it looks like - which is something I wondered about Imane in Skam France. What made Imane want to get in on Daphne’s party? If they go with another “the girls are planning to throw a party” plotline as a way to do russ, then it’s a decent setup for Amira to actually be seen partying. But I really hope that they take this shift in characterization to greater depths and don’t just kind of adapt Sana’s dialogue and personality around Amira. I really want to see a distinct character develop, and this is a good start.

I instantly want to see more of girl Sam and I kinda love that she’s the character with the distinctive lipstick on this show.

Kiki being like “you both have the same name, you’re both black, we get it, super funny” and asking them to leave - damn, congrats on making the worst first impression of the Vildes? Even if I get that she’s upset at the moment.

Penetrator (?) Sam seems a bit dorkier and less like a douchebro. But maybe I just feel that way because he’s posing with his cat on Instagram.

Liked that they put in Hanna sitting in front of the mirror taking off the makeup, her hair messier, as a contrast to the fun sexy getting ready scene. Just some quiet reflection of the bummer kind. That’s always how it feels after a party that turned out to not be so fun. At attempt was made to be social … and the attempt had limited success.

Changing Hanna’s parent from a mom to a dad (assuming there’s only one parent around) is a small yet potentially interesting change. Especially because conventionally, relationships between daughters and mothers are considered to be tighter than relationships between daughters and fathers, though this is by no means universal. I’m quite excited to meet Hanna’s dad and see how the parent-child dynamic plays this time around.

General comments:

From what I can tell, some of the Druck actors are in their teens and some are in the 20-22 age range. Because overall these do seem to be younger, inexperienced actors, I’m more inclined to be lenient on their performances than the other remakes. I think this is fair - Skam France and Skam Italia cast older actors to play teenagers, and in the case of Skam France many of them had already been in movies and TV shows (not sure if it’s the same for Skam Italia), so I do have higher standards for their acting. If they are going to sacrifice authenticity, then it better be for the sake of talent, otherwise what’s the point?

I mentioned this in a Skam France post too but I find it distracting that the clips end with a title card, even though they might not be able to do anything about it. It’s just a little reminder that you are watching a TV show and it takes away from the immersive experience.

One thing I noticed on Instagram is that a lot of the characters seem to have pictures of them when they were babies/little kids. That’s pretty typical for people to post on social media, it was just common enough that it caught my eye. (Hanna/boy Sam/girl Sam/Kiki, if you want to look. Cuuute).

I saw some people thought Matteo was too obvious in his feelings for Jonas, but while I thought the chemistry was there, I personally didn’t feel that it was too distracting.

On that note, I’ve been thinking about whether it’s OK to show characters other than Hanna’s (Eva’s/Emma’s) POV and I think what generally works for me is:

a) does this shot reveal something that our main girl couldn’t pick up on from the rest of the context of the scene 

b) does this shot reveal something that the audience shouldn’t yet know 

c) is this shot taking over our main girl’s big emotional moment. 

If so, not a good idea. Basically I think what works for me is brevity and ambiguity.

The reception to Druck seems to be very positive so far, going off the tag’s content. I think the enthusiasm is support for the idea that many Skam fans aren’t 100% opposed to the remakes as long as they feel like the show captures the spirit of the original series.

However, it would have been interesting to see what the reception would have been if Druck premiered first - is it that Skam France was more polished than some people preferred, and Skam Italia had some aspects from the casting and the trailer that turned people off, that Druck seemed like a strong alternative? Or if Druck premiered first, would we be more cynical about it? (I think this could have been true to a degree, but there are also some changes, like Amira’s introduction, that might have intrigued the fandom.)

I am feeling good about this show but I’m also trying to keep my expectations in check, lmao. If I expect it to completely revamp the Skam S1 storyline I’ll probably be disappointed; however, what I hope for it is at least some minor changes in characterization that create distinct, consistent personalities and that they write the script forward from these changes rather than contorting the story to fit them, if that makes sense.

I think calling it Druck is in itself a good sign, in that it seems more indicative of wanting to create a clear identity outside of a Skam remake and appeal to German teenagers. “Skam” is not a word that means anything to French/Italian viewers unless they know the original show.

[scottmapess]

Buy Bitcoin Now? Tomorrow? When is the Best Time? [explained]

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I buy Bitcoin in the morning, I buy bitcoin at night, I buy bitcoin in the afternoon, it makes me feel all right. I buy Bitcoin in time of peace and more in time of war. I buy that going before I buy Bitcoin and then I buy some more. In this video, I want to discuss the topic of when is the right time to buy bitcoin? Should you buy bitcoin now? Tomorrow was yesterday. The best day to buy bitcoin in Benalla missed out on buying bitcoin because your cat got sick. Thanks, Mr Sparkles. Dick. I know that this is a confusing topic for many people out there in crypto, especially for newer investors. So this video is intended to address some of the common and really practical ideas that people use to decide when to buy Bitcoin and really not just bitcoin. This can easily be applied to really any of the major cryptocurrencies. Me, for example, I’m regularly stacking both theorem and bitcoin with the occasional altcoin by blessing. Just keep it simple and use bitcoin as our example here, because as we all know, bitcoin is the king of the markets. Now, before I break down those tips for you. If you are new to crypto and you’re wondering about not just when to buy bitcoin, but also where to buy bitcoin, how to buy bitcoin, what do you do with it once you’ve bought it? How do you send it? How do you mind it? How do you store it? All of that stuff and more. Then check out my course. Cryptocurrency explained. It will take you through all of these basic themes and more with step by step tutorials and practical resources. There is a link down below where you can learn more. So just a few quick notes that I want to give you before we dive into those practical tips about when to buy bitcoin. So always remember to have an exit plan in mind when entering any investment. Bitcoin is no different than that. Why are you buying a bitcoin in the first place? Is it to trade for more dollars later? Is it for some kind of a short term investment? Is it a long term wealth preservation tool? Or maybe, just maybe you are buying bitcoin as a permanent exit from Fiat? It’s a lot of bitcoin holders who think that way. Now, one of the most common mistakes that people make when buying crypto is not having a plan for what comes next. So make sure to think about that before you buy your bitcoin. OK, so here are the methods that you could use to determine when to buy bitcoin. Now, the first part is actually to do with technical indicators. And no, I’m not talking about trying to catch those hourly moves around the charts, the day trade or anything like that. I’m talking about actually a macro perspective here that will be beneficial for investors versus the movies that are more beneficial for traders. Some really great buying opportunities to watch for on the daily time frames are the following. Historically, there’s been great times by bitcoin. So the long term moving averages, so getting bitcoin under the 200-day moving average can be a good opportunity. The 200-week moving average that has been an absolute historical opportunity for people to get in and to buy bitcoin for the long hold. Also, the daily RSI can flash some really great buying chances for you as well. Oversold conditions, in general, have been good, but especially when the RSI is under-20. It has been a great opportunity. Under-23 has also had been a pretty good opportunity for buyers. They can also watch for bitcoin to, you know, bounce off big lines of historical support as well. But those are some of the big ones that you don’t know a lot about technical analysis. Those can still help you. Now there are obviously many more short time frame reversals and all that stuff which can represent a good time to buy bitcoin. But. These bigger macro trends, they can be very, very effective in these buy signals might only flash once or twice a year if that. So it might mean you have to sit on the sidelines for quite a long time waiting for one of these buy signals to come through. But you have to understand that in general, it’s actually better to simply be in the market than to be sitting on the sidelines all the time hoping that a dip will come. The next indicator is fear. Yes, fear. Human emotion is often a very good indicator of when a market is ripe for buying. You see, when the fear index gets low and it hits extreme fear levels, that usually means it’s a great time to buy. It’s also psychologically the time when people are least likely to buy. When you don’t want to buy is when it’s in extreme greed. That is when most people buy your greatest risk-reward potential comes from buying when there is blood in the streets when there is fear in the streets buying when everyone else is greedy. That is a very risky time. This is the psychology of how most investors operate and think, counter-intuitively, that you will do well. And while buying based on the fear indicator alone is far from being a full-proof method. Historically, buying under 20 on the fear meter has been a rather good play. Buying under 10 on the fear meter has been a very effective time to buy bitcoin historically. And of course, the classic time to buy bitcoin is to buy the dip baby. You know that classic situation waking up. Oh, man. Bitcoin’s down 20 percent today. Get my chips out and go buy some dip. Yeah. Seems like a great time to buy, right? And often it is, but not always. You see, dips are made for buying in an uptrend in a downward trending market. Buying dips can actually be a painful proposition. Which leads me to the best method for buying bitcoin. Dollar-cost averaging. You see, if the chart stuff is all just over your head, you don’t need to worry about that. You can just stack SATs and chill. You see, the crypto markets are notoriously wild. So if you just keep it simple and make a weekly buy off, let’s say $50 in the long run, that’s going to put you in a great position on your bitcoin investment. Because being in the market is damn important. And yes, if you know-how, then timing a massive dip or buying during some rare market event that will get you more bitcoin for your buck. But buying weekly is incredibly effective and is the easiest way for most people to get involved in the market. Just look here at the results of buying 50 bucks a week for a year versus two years. So one year of buying $50 bitcoin will give you around 0.3 3 bitcoin with two thousand six hundred fifty dollars invested, whereas two years of consistently buying bitcoin will give you 0.8 one bitcoin with five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars invested, which is of course significantly more bitcoin in your wallet than just one year of dollar-cost averaging. Now, of course, you try to think, well, two years dollar-cost averaging. She can be around 0.6 six bitcoin, right? But no, you would have stacked zero point eight one bitcoin in that time because dollar-cost averaging lets you take advantage of low price moments over time and thus you actually have a greater chance of increasing your total holdings, giving you more bitcoins. You can of course even combine dollar-cost averaging with other more advanced strategies. For example, you might only dollar cost average into bitcoin when bitcoin is under the 200 day moving average saving that the 50 dollar amounts that you would put in weekly when it’s over the 200 days moving average to put in it later when it drops back below that 200-day moving average. Now, obviously, that’s, of course, a risky strategy and being in the market is probably more important than trying to again time the market for most people since the price can stay above. For example, a 200 day moving average for a very, very long time when the market starts trending up, which is again why dollar-cost averaging every single week, regardless of what is happening in the market. Price up, price down. Yet just buy bitcoin. It is such a good method for average investors. It takes all the guesswork out of buying bitcoin. Now another way to actually dollar cost average into bitcoin is to put your dollars into a block FYE interest account and set the payout to bitcoin. So you make 8.6 percent annually on your dollars with the interest paid out to you in bitcoin. And at the end of the whenever you decide to take your money out, you can just take all those dollars back, straight back to your bank account. And there is basically a no loss way of stacking bitcoins. They just get bitcoin paid out and you get all your dollars back. It is linked down below if one learns more about block fi. So the final point for today. Anytime is a good time to stack bitcoin. The old saying goes the best time to buy bitcoin was yesterday. The second best time to buy bitcoin is today. Sure, some people buying bitcoin will just be doing that short term play to get more dirty dollars. And if you buy today, it might go down tomorrow. But being in the market is important because, for many bitcoin enthusiasts, bitcoin is an escape from fiat. Cash-out your dirty, dirty dollars for some nice clean bitcoin. Join the finance revolution. Take that long term view. Do not think about where bitcoin will be next week or tomorrow. Think about where bitcoin will be in five years or in 10 years. Yeah, a lot of price action could happen between now and then. And if you’re a trader and you know how to trade, you can take advantage of those opportunities. But the real winners long term are those that buy and those that hold their bitcoins anyway. Those are just my two cents. She’s of course, my question for you. How are you stacking SATs? What is your strategy? Where do you buy? Are you concerned about the fees when you buy? And do you have any tips for new investors on when they should buy bitcoin? Thank you so much for watching today’s video. I really appreciate your support of the channel. If you hit that thumbs up button, they’ll be massively appreciated by bosses over at YouTube. And of course, if you’re new around here, subscribe to the channel. Hope you’re having an awesome day wherever you are out there in the world. Long live the blockchain and peace out. The next time.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/buy-bitcoin-when-is-best-time-explained/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/04/buy-bitcoin-now-tomorrow-when-is-best.html

[heatherrdavis1]

Buy Bitcoin Now? Tomorrow? When is the Best Time? [explained]

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I buy Bitcoin in the morning, I buy bitcoin at night, I buy bitcoin in the afternoon, it makes me feel all right. I buy Bitcoin in time of peace and more in time of war. I buy that going before I buy Bitcoin and then I buy some more. In this video, I want to discuss the topic of when is the right time to buy bitcoin? Should you buy bitcoin now? Tomorrow was yesterday. The best day to buy bitcoin in Benalla missed out on buying bitcoin because your cat got sick. Thanks, Mr Sparkles. Dick. I know that this is a confusing topic for many people out there in crypto, especially for newer investors. So this video is intended to address some of the common and really practical ideas that people use to decide when to buy Bitcoin and really not just bitcoin. This can easily be applied to really any of the major cryptocurrencies. Me, for example, I’m regularly stacking both theorem and bitcoin with the occasional altcoin by blessing. Just keep it simple and use bitcoin as our example here, because as we all know, bitcoin is the king of the markets. Now, before I break down those tips for you. If you are new to crypto and you’re wondering about not just when to buy bitcoin, but also where to buy bitcoin, how to buy bitcoin, what do you do with it once you’ve bought it? How do you send it? How do you mind it? How do you store it? All of that stuff and more. Then check out my course. Cryptocurrency explained. It will take you through all of these basic themes and more with step by step tutorials and practical resources. There is a link down below where you can learn more. So just a few quick notes that I want to give you before we dive into those practical tips about when to buy bitcoin. So always remember to have an exit plan in mind when entering any investment. Bitcoin is no different than that. Why are you buying a bitcoin in the first place? Is it to trade for more dollars later? Is it for some kind of a short term investment? Is it a long term wealth preservation tool? Or maybe, just maybe you are buying bitcoin as a permanent exit from Fiat? It’s a lot of bitcoin holders who think that way. Now, one of the most common mistakes that people make when buying crypto is not having a plan for what comes next. So make sure to think about that before you buy your bitcoin. OK, so here are the methods that you could use to determine when to buy bitcoin. Now, the first part is actually to do with technical indicators. And no, I’m not talking about trying to catch those hourly moves around the charts, the day trade or anything like that. I’m talking about actually a macro perspective here that will be beneficial for investors versus the movies that are more beneficial for traders. Some really great buying opportunities to watch for on the daily time frames are the following. Historically, there’s been great times by bitcoin. So the long term moving averages, so getting bitcoin under the 200-day moving average can be a good opportunity. The 200-week moving average that has been an absolute historical opportunity for people to get in and to buy bitcoin for the long hold. Also, the daily RSI can flash some really great buying chances for you as well. Oversold conditions, in general, have been good, but especially when the RSI is under-20. It has been a great opportunity. Under-23 has also had been a pretty good opportunity for buyers. They can also watch for bitcoin to, you know, bounce off big lines of historical support as well. But those are some of the big ones that you don’t know a lot about technical analysis. Those can still help you. Now there are obviously many more short time frame reversals and all that stuff which can represent a good time to buy bitcoin. But. These bigger macro trends, they can be very, very effective in these buy signals might only flash once or twice a year if that. So it might mean you have to sit on the sidelines for quite a long time waiting for one of these buy signals to come through. But you have to understand that in general, it’s actually better to simply be in the market than to be sitting on the sidelines all the time hoping that a dip will come. The next indicator is fear. Yes, fear. Human emotion is often a very good indicator of when a market is ripe for buying. You see, when the fear index gets low and it hits extreme fear levels, that usually means it’s a great time to buy. It’s also psychologically the time when people are least likely to buy. When you don’t want to buy is when it’s in extreme greed. That is when most people buy your greatest risk-reward potential comes from buying when there is blood in the streets when there is fear in the streets buying when everyone else is greedy. That is a very risky time. This is the psychology of how most investors operate and think, counter-intuitively, that you will do well. And while buying based on the fear indicator alone is far from being a full-proof method. Historically, buying under 20 on the fear meter has been a rather good play. Buying under 10 on the fear meter has been a very effective time to buy bitcoin historically. And of course, the classic time to buy bitcoin is to buy the dip baby. You know that classic situation waking up. Oh, man. Bitcoin’s down 20 percent today. Get my chips out and go buy some dip. Yeah. Seems like a great time to buy, right? And often it is, but not always. You see, dips are made for buying in an uptrend in a downward trending market. Buying dips can actually be a painful proposition. Which leads me to the best method for buying bitcoin. Dollar-cost averaging. You see, if the chart stuff is all just over your head, you don’t need to worry about that. You can just stack SATs and chill. You see, the crypto markets are notoriously wild. So if you just keep it simple and make a weekly buy off, let’s say $50 in the long run, that’s going to put you in a great position on your bitcoin investment. Because being in the market is damn important. And yes, if you know-how, then timing a massive dip or buying during some rare market event that will get you more bitcoin for your buck. But buying weekly is incredibly effective and is the easiest way for most people to get involved in the market. Just look here at the results of buying 50 bucks a week for a year versus two years. So one year of buying $50 bitcoin will give you around 0.3 3 bitcoin with two thousand six hundred fifty dollars invested, whereas two years of consistently buying bitcoin will give you 0.8 one bitcoin with five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars invested, which is of course significantly more bitcoin in your wallet than just one year of dollar-cost averaging. Now, of course, you try to think, well, two years dollar-cost averaging. She can be around 0.6 six bitcoin, right? But no, you would have stacked zero point eight one bitcoin in that time because dollar-cost averaging lets you take advantage of low price moments over time and thus you actually have a greater chance of increasing your total holdings, giving you more bitcoins. You can of course even combine dollar-cost averaging with other more advanced strategies. For example, you might only dollar cost average into bitcoin when bitcoin is under the 200 day moving average saving that the 50 dollar amounts that you would put in weekly when it’s over the 200 days moving average to put in it later when it drops back below that 200-day moving average. Now, obviously, that’s, of course, a risky strategy and being in the market is probably more important than trying to again time the market for most people since the price can stay above. For example, a 200 day moving average for a very, very long time when the market starts trending up, which is again why dollar-cost averaging every single week, regardless of what is happening in the market. Price up, price down. Yet just buy bitcoin. It is such a good method for average investors. It takes all the guesswork out of buying bitcoin. Now another way to actually dollar cost average into bitcoin is to put your dollars into a block FYE interest account and set the payout to bitcoin. So you make 8.6 percent annually on your dollars with the interest paid out to you in bitcoin. And at the end of the whenever you decide to take your money out, you can just take all those dollars back, straight back to your bank account. And there is basically a no loss way of stacking bitcoins. They just get bitcoin paid out and you get all your dollars back. It is linked down below if one learns more about block fi. So the final point for today. Anytime is a good time to stack bitcoin. The old saying goes the best time to buy bitcoin was yesterday. The second best time to buy bitcoin is today. Sure, some people buying bitcoin will just be doing that short term play to get more dirty dollars. And if you buy today, it might go down tomorrow. But being in the market is important because, for many bitcoin enthusiasts, bitcoin is an escape from fiat. Cash-out your dirty, dirty dollars for some nice clean bitcoin. Join the finance revolution. Take that long term view. Do not think about where bitcoin will be next week or tomorrow. Think about where bitcoin will be in five years or in 10 years. Yeah, a lot of price action could happen between now and then. And if you’re a trader and you know how to trade, you can take advantage of those opportunities. But the real winners long term are those that buy and those that hold their bitcoins anyway. Those are just my two cents. She’s of course, my question for you. How are you stacking SATs? What is your strategy? Where do you buy? Are you concerned about the fees when you buy? And do you have any tips for new investors on when they should buy bitcoin? Thank you so much for watching today’s video. I really appreciate your support of the channel. If you hit that thumbs up button, they’ll be massively appreciated by bosses over at YouTube. And of course, if you’re new around here, subscribe to the channel. Hope you’re having an awesome day wherever you are out there in the world. Long live the blockchain and peace out. The next time.

Via https://www.cryptosharks.net/buy-bitcoin-when-is-best-time-explained/

source https://cryptosharks.weebly.com/blog/buy-bitcoin-now-tomorrow-when-is-the-best-time-explained

[jeffrmayhugh]

Buy Bitcoin Now? Tomorrow? When is the Best Time? [explained]

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I buy Bitcoin in the morning, I buy bitcoin at night, I buy bitcoin in the afternoon, it makes me feel all right. I buy Bitcoin in time of peace and more in time of war. I buy that going before I buy Bitcoin and then I buy some more. In this video, I want to discuss the topic of when is the right time to buy bitcoin? Should you buy bitcoin now? Tomorrow was yesterday. The best day to buy bitcoin in Benalla missed out on buying bitcoin because your cat got sick. Thanks, Mr Sparkles. Dick. I know that this is a confusing topic for many people out there in crypto, especially for newer investors. So this video is intended to address some of the common and really practical ideas that people use to decide when to buy Bitcoin and really not just bitcoin. This can easily be applied to really any of the major cryptocurrencies. Me, for example, I’m regularly stacking both theorem and bitcoin with the occasional altcoin by blessing. Just keep it simple and use bitcoin as our example here, because as we all know, bitcoin is the king of the markets. Now, before I break down those tips for you. If you are new to crypto and you’re wondering about not just when to buy bitcoin, but also where to buy bitcoin, how to buy bitcoin, what do you do with it once you’ve bought it? How do you send it? How do you mind it? How do you store it? All of that stuff and more. Then check out my course. Cryptocurrency explained. It will take you through all of these basic themes and more with step by step tutorials and practical resources. There is a link down below where you can learn more. So just a few quick notes that I want to give you before we dive into those practical tips about when to buy bitcoin. So always remember to have an exit plan in mind when entering any investment. Bitcoin is no different than that. Why are you buying a bitcoin in the first place? Is it to trade for more dollars later? Is it for some kind of a short term investment? Is it a long term wealth preservation tool? Or maybe, just maybe you are buying bitcoin as a permanent exit from Fiat? It’s a lot of bitcoin holders who think that way. Now, one of the most common mistakes that people make when buying crypto is not having a plan for what comes next. So make sure to think about that before you buy your bitcoin. OK, so here are the methods that you could use to determine when to buy bitcoin. Now, the first part is actually to do with technical indicators. And no, I’m not talking about trying to catch those hourly moves around the charts, the day trade or anything like that. I’m talking about actually a macro perspective here that will be beneficial for investors versus the movies that are more beneficial for traders. Some really great buying opportunities to watch for on the daily time frames are the following. Historically, there’s been great times by bitcoin. So the long term moving averages, so getting bitcoin under the 200-day moving average can be a good opportunity. The 200-week moving average that has been an absolute historical opportunity for people to get in and to buy bitcoin for the long hold. Also, the daily RSI can flash some really great buying chances for you as well. Oversold conditions, in general, have been good, but especially when the RSI is under-20. It has been a great opportunity. Under-23 has also had been a pretty good opportunity for buyers. They can also watch for bitcoin to, you know, bounce off big lines of historical support as well. But those are some of the big ones that you don’t know a lot about technical analysis. Those can still help you. Now there are obviously many more short time frame reversals and all that stuff which can represent a good time to buy bitcoin. But. These bigger macro trends, they can be very, very effective in these buy signals might only flash once or twice a year if that. So it might mean you have to sit on the sidelines for quite a long time waiting for one of these buy signals to come through. But you have to understand that in general, it’s actually better to simply be in the market than to be sitting on the sidelines all the time hoping that a dip will come. The next indicator is fear. Yes, fear. Human emotion is often a very good indicator of when a market is ripe for buying. You see, when the fear index gets low and it hits extreme fear levels, that usually means it’s a great time to buy. It’s also psychologically the time when people are least likely to buy. When you don’t want to buy is when it’s in extreme greed. That is when most people buy your greatest risk-reward potential comes from buying when there is blood in the streets when there is fear in the streets buying when everyone else is greedy. That is a very risky time. This is the psychology of how most investors operate and think, counter-intuitively, that you will do well. And while buying based on the fear indicator alone is far from being a full-proof method. Historically, buying under 20 on the fear meter has been a rather good play. Buying under 10 on the fear meter has been a very effective time to buy bitcoin historically. And of course, the classic time to buy bitcoin is to buy the dip baby. You know that classic situation waking up. Oh, man. Bitcoin’s down 20 percent today. Get my chips out and go buy some dip. Yeah. Seems like a great time to buy, right? And often it is, but not always. You see, dips are made for buying in an uptrend in a downward trending market. Buying dips can actually be a painful proposition. Which leads me to the best method for buying bitcoin. Dollar-cost averaging. You see, if the chart stuff is all just over your head, you don’t need to worry about that. You can just stack SATs and chill. You see, the crypto markets are notoriously wild. So if you just keep it simple and make a weekly buy off, let’s say $50 in the long run, that’s going to put you in a great position on your bitcoin investment. Because being in the market is damn important. And yes, if you know-how, then timing a massive dip or buying during some rare market event that will get you more bitcoin for your buck. But buying weekly is incredibly effective and is the easiest way for most people to get involved in the market. Just look here at the results of buying 50 bucks a week for a year versus two years. So one year of buying $50 bitcoin will give you around 0.3 3 bitcoin with two thousand six hundred fifty dollars invested, whereas two years of consistently buying bitcoin will give you 0.8 one bitcoin with five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars invested, which is of course significantly more bitcoin in your wallet than just one year of dollar-cost averaging. Now, of course, you try to think, well, two years dollar-cost averaging. She can be around 0.6 six bitcoin, right? But no, you would have stacked zero point eight one bitcoin in that time because dollar-cost averaging lets you take advantage of low price moments over time and thus you actually have a greater chance of increasing your total holdings, giving you more bitcoins. You can of course even combine dollar-cost averaging with other more advanced strategies. For example, you might only dollar cost average into bitcoin when bitcoin is under the 200 day moving average saving that the 50 dollar amounts that you would put in weekly when it’s over the 200 days moving average to put in it later when it drops back below that 200-day moving average. Now, obviously, that’s, of course, a risky strategy and being in the market is probably more important than trying to again time the market for most people since the price can stay above. For example, a 200 day moving average for a very, very long time when the market starts trending up, which is again why dollar-cost averaging every single week, regardless of what is happening in the market. Price up, price down. Yet just buy bitcoin. It is such a good method for average investors. It takes all the guesswork out of buying bitcoin. Now another way to actually dollar cost average into bitcoin is to put your dollars into a block FYE interest account and set the payout to bitcoin. So you make 8.6 percent annually on your dollars with the interest paid out to you in bitcoin. And at the end of the whenever you decide to take your money out, you can just take all those dollars back, straight back to your bank account. And there is basically a no loss way of stacking bitcoins. They just get bitcoin paid out and you get all your dollars back. It is linked down below if one learns more about block fi. So the final point for today. Anytime is a good time to stack bitcoin. The old saying goes the best time to buy bitcoin was yesterday. The second best time to buy bitcoin is today. Sure, some people buying bitcoin will just be doing that short term play to get more dirty dollars. And if you buy today, it might go down tomorrow. But being in the market is important because, for many bitcoin enthusiasts, bitcoin is an escape from fiat. Cash-out your dirty, dirty dollars for some nice clean bitcoin. Join the finance revolution. Take that long term view. Do not think about where bitcoin will be next week or tomorrow. Think about where bitcoin will be in five years or in 10 years. Yeah, a lot of price action could happen between now and then. And if you’re a trader and you know how to trade, you can take advantage of those opportunities. But the real winners long term are those that buy and those that hold their bitcoins anyway. Those are just my two cents. She’s of course, my question for you. How are you stacking SATs? What is your strategy? Where do you buy? Are you concerned about the fees when you buy? And do you have any tips for new investors on when they should buy bitcoin? Thank you so much for watching today’s video. I really appreciate your support of the channel. If you hit that thumbs up button, they’ll be massively appreciated by bosses over at YouTube. And of course, if you’re new around here, subscribe to the channel. Hope you’re having an awesome day wherever you are out there in the world. Long live the blockchain and peace out. The next time.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/buy-bitcoin-when-is-best-time-explained/ source https://cryptosharks1.tumblr.com/post/615935797598863360

[cryptosharks1]

Buy Bitcoin Now? Tomorrow? When is the Best Time? [explained]

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I buy Bitcoin in the morning, I buy bitcoin at night, I buy bitcoin in the afternoon, it makes me feel all right. I buy Bitcoin in time of peace and more in time of war. I buy that going before I buy Bitcoin and then I buy some more. In this video, I want to discuss the topic of when is the right time to buy bitcoin? Should you buy bitcoin now? Tomorrow was yesterday. The best day to buy bitcoin in Benalla missed out on buying bitcoin because your cat got sick. Thanks, Mr Sparkles. Dick. I know that this is a confusing topic for many people out there in crypto, especially for newer investors. So this video is intended to address some of the common and really practical ideas that people use to decide when to buy Bitcoin and really not just bitcoin. This can easily be applied to really any of the major cryptocurrencies. Me, for example, I’m regularly stacking both theorem and bitcoin with the occasional altcoin by blessing. Just keep it simple and use bitcoin as our example here, because as we all know, bitcoin is the king of the markets. Now, before I break down those tips for you. If you are new to crypto and you’re wondering about not just when to buy bitcoin, but also where to buy bitcoin, how to buy bitcoin, what do you do with it once you’ve bought it? How do you send it? How do you mind it? How do you store it? All of that stuff and more. Then check out my course. Cryptocurrency explained. It will take you through all of these basic themes and more with step by step tutorials and practical resources. There is a link down below where you can learn more. So just a few quick notes that I want to give you before we dive into those practical tips about when to buy bitcoin. So always remember to have an exit plan in mind when entering any investment. Bitcoin is no different than that. Why are you buying a bitcoin in the first place? Is it to trade for more dollars later? Is it for some kind of a short term investment? Is it a long term wealth preservation tool? Or maybe, just maybe you are buying bitcoin as a permanent exit from Fiat? It’s a lot of bitcoin holders who think that way. Now, one of the most common mistakes that people make when buying crypto is not having a plan for what comes next. So make sure to think about that before you buy your bitcoin. OK, so here are the methods that you could use to determine when to buy bitcoin. Now, the first part is actually to do with technical indicators. And no, I’m not talking about trying to catch those hourly moves around the charts, the day trade or anything like that. I’m talking about actually a macro perspective here that will be beneficial for investors versus the movies that are more beneficial for traders. Some really great buying opportunities to watch for on the daily time frames are the following. Historically, there’s been great times by bitcoin. So the long term moving averages, so getting bitcoin under the 200-day moving average can be a good opportunity. The 200-week moving average that has been an absolute historical opportunity for people to get in and to buy bitcoin for the long hold. Also, the daily RSI can flash some really great buying chances for you as well. Oversold conditions, in general, have been good, but especially when the RSI is under-20. It has been a great opportunity. Under-23 has also had been a pretty good opportunity for buyers. They can also watch for bitcoin to, you know, bounce off big lines of historical support as well. But those are some of the big ones that you don’t know a lot about technical analysis. Those can still help you. Now there are obviously many more short time frame reversals and all that stuff which can represent a good time to buy bitcoin. But. These bigger macro trends, they can be very, very effective in these buy signals might only flash once or twice a year if that. So it might mean you have to sit on the sidelines for quite a long time waiting for one of these buy signals to come through. But you have to understand that in general, it’s actually better to simply be in the market than to be sitting on the sidelines all the time hoping that a dip will come. The next indicator is fear. Yes, fear. Human emotion is often a very good indicator of when a market is ripe for buying. You see, when the fear index gets low and it hits extreme fear levels, that usually means it’s a great time to buy. It’s also psychologically the time when people are least likely to buy. When you don’t want to buy is when it’s in extreme greed. That is when most people buy your greatest risk-reward potential comes from buying when there is blood in the streets when there is fear in the streets buying when everyone else is greedy. That is a very risky time. This is the psychology of how most investors operate and think, counter-intuitively, that you will do well. And while buying based on the fear indicator alone is far from being a full-proof method. Historically, buying under 20 on the fear meter has been a rather good play. Buying under 10 on the fear meter has been a very effective time to buy bitcoin historically. And of course, the classic time to buy bitcoin is to buy the dip baby. You know that classic situation waking up. Oh, man. Bitcoin’s down 20 percent today. Get my chips out and go buy some dip. Yeah. Seems like a great time to buy, right? And often it is, but not always. You see, dips are made for buying in an uptrend in a downward trending market. Buying dips can actually be a painful proposition. Which leads me to the best method for buying bitcoin. Dollar-cost averaging. You see, if the chart stuff is all just over your head, you don’t need to worry about that. You can just stack SATs and chill. You see, the crypto markets are notoriously wild. So if you just keep it simple and make a weekly buy off, let’s say $50 in the long run, that’s going to put you in a great position on your bitcoin investment. Because being in the market is damn important. And yes, if you know-how, then timing a massive dip or buying during some rare market event that will get you more bitcoin for your buck. But buying weekly is incredibly effective and is the easiest way for most people to get involved in the market. Just look here at the results of buying 50 bucks a week for a year versus two years. So one year of buying $50 bitcoin will give you around 0.3 3 bitcoin with two thousand six hundred fifty dollars invested, whereas two years of consistently buying bitcoin will give you 0.8 one bitcoin with five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars invested, which is of course significantly more bitcoin in your wallet than just one year of dollar-cost averaging. Now, of course, you try to think, well, two years dollar-cost averaging. She can be around 0.6 six bitcoin, right? But no, you would have stacked zero point eight one bitcoin in that time because dollar-cost averaging lets you take advantage of low price moments over time and thus you actually have a greater chance of increasing your total holdings, giving you more bitcoins. You can of course even combine dollar-cost averaging with other more advanced strategies. For example, you might only dollar cost average into bitcoin when bitcoin is under the 200 day moving average saving that the 50 dollar amounts that you would put in weekly when it’s over the 200 days moving average to put in it later when it drops back below that 200-day moving average. Now, obviously, that’s, of course, a risky strategy and being in the market is probably more important than trying to again time the market for most people since the price can stay above. For example, a 200 day moving average for a very, very long time when the market starts trending up, which is again why dollar-cost averaging every single week, regardless of what is happening in the market. Price up, price down. Yet just buy bitcoin. It is such a good method for average investors. It takes all the guesswork out of buying bitcoin. Now another way to actually dollar cost average into bitcoin is to put your dollars into a block FYE interest account and set the payout to bitcoin. So you make 8.6 percent annually on your dollars with the interest paid out to you in bitcoin. And at the end of the whenever you decide to take your money out, you can just take all those dollars back, straight back to your bank account. And there is basically a no loss way of stacking bitcoins. They just get bitcoin paid out and you get all your dollars back. It is linked down below if one learns more about block fi. So the final point for today. Anytime is a good time to stack bitcoin. The old saying goes the best time to buy bitcoin was yesterday. The second best time to buy bitcoin is today. Sure, some people buying bitcoin will just be doing that short term play to get more dirty dollars. And if you buy today, it might go down tomorrow. But being in the market is important because, for many bitcoin enthusiasts, bitcoin is an escape from fiat. Cash-out your dirty, dirty dollars for some nice clean bitcoin. Join the finance revolution. Take that long term view. Do not think about where bitcoin will be next week or tomorrow. Think about where bitcoin will be in five years or in 10 years. Yeah, a lot of price action could happen between now and then. And if you’re a trader and you know how to trade, you can take advantage of those opportunities. But the real winners long term are those that buy and those that hold their bitcoins anyway. Those are just my two cents. She’s of course, my question for you. How are you stacking SATs? What is your strategy? Where do you buy? Are you concerned about the fees when you buy? And do you have any tips for new investors on when they should buy bitcoin? Thank you so much for watching today’s video. I really appreciate your support of the channel. If you hit that thumbs up button, they’ll be massively appreciated by bosses over at YouTube. And of course, if you’re new around here, subscribe to the channel. Hope you’re having an awesome day wherever you are out there in the world. Long live the blockchain and peace out. The next time.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/buy-bitcoin-when-is-best-time-explained/

[pastelgayfairy-blog]

What Are The Best Tv Shows On Netflix

Best TV Shows on Netflix Right Now Scattered one of the better TV shows on Netflix are more and more of the streaming platform’s own original series. Watching TV on Netflix has gotten better and better as the support continues to add to its amazing catalog of network and cable collection, not to mention the proliferation of flashy Netflix originals. In reality, the business that spent its formative years in an effort to to see films has since become in the world’s main enabler of binge-watching. Our listing of the greatest shows on Netflix is here to help you discover the next TV series to devour, and we’ve appeared through the enormous catalog (USA only, sorry) to find these suggestions.

Breaking Bad

Creator: Vince Gilligan Stars: Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul Giancarlo Esposito Network: AMC One of the things that created Breaking Bad one of the alltime greats was the writers did a phenomenal job introducing plot lines, complicated themes and tips, and then weaving them all together for an excessively fulfilling conclusion. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when the display asks the audience to hold on tight until the end to see where it’s all going. In that way it’s similar to The Wire, a show that didn’t hammer its audience within the the pinnacle constantly with flashy occasions, but requested for patience as all the plot threads gradually untangled. And with Breaking Bad’s narrower focus, the stakes and emotional ties we have using the story and figures can be significantly higher.

Sherlock

Creators: Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat Stars: Rupert Graves, Benedict Cumberbatch Mark Gatiss Network: BBC One h-AS only to seem in the sterling monitor record of Steve Moffat to witness a showrunner godin the creating. The guiding hand behind such English hits as Press Gang and Coupling, Moffat has acquired the most attention for resuscitating Dr. Who into the Anglo Saxon ambassador of science fiction. But Moffat and frequent collaborator Mark Gatiss transcended their best work with Sherlock, the BBC drama that hi Jacks Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic sleuth into the present with awe-inspiring intelligence and type. Calling Sherlock a TV series is a tad misleading, although; the series h AS created two seasons consisting of three 90 -minute episodes each. In other words, a feature film has been averaged by the Sherlock group every 90 days since the Summer of 2010. The immaculate second period dug deeper into the psychological faultlines of Holmes, played with sterile arrogance by Benedict Cumberbatch (or as Seth Meyers mentioned on SNL, the only real man with a name mo Re preposterous than Sherlock Holmes). When the audience wasn’t trying to piece together the secret of the week, we were discovering fleeting clues to the guarded humanity of London’s best “Consulting Detective,”typically to the chagrin of longsuffering accomplice John Watson (Martin Freeman) and volatile love curiosity Irene Adler (Lara Pulver).

Dear White People

Creator: Justin Simien Stars:: Logan Browning, Brandon P. Giancarlo Esposito, Bell, DeRon Horton, Antoinette Robertson Ashley Blaine Featherson Network: Netflix Based on creator Justin Simien’s 2014 indie, Netflix’s unique series—narrated by Breaking Negative and Better Call Saul’s Giancarlo Esposito—replicates the pungent humor of the movie without ever see-ming stale, or static: Its knives are sharp, and they’re pointed in every path. Though its primary goal is white privilege, in forms both egregious (black-face events) and mundane (calls to finish “divisive”politics), Expensive White People, established on the campus of a fictional Ivyleague university, is even funnier when it turns to the information on the black students’ individual and ideological choices, transforming the the idea of the “problematic fave,”from the McRib to The Cosby Present into the engine of its own entertaining, incisive comedy.

The Fall

Creator: Allan Cubitt Stars: Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan, Valene Kane, Séalinín Brennan Bronagh Taggart Sarah Beattie Network: BBC Let it be known that before he was Christian Grey, Jamie Dornan proved his performing chops and charisma as a disturbingly undisturbable murderer in this superb psychological thriller. Dornan’s mild mannered husband, father and grief counselor (!) is on the list of most terrifying onscreen serial killers in recent memory. Paul Spector is a stalker, as exacting and methodical as his eventual pursuer. Enter Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson, a British detective superintendent called to Belfast to look into a spate of gruesome murders. As the cat-and-mouse sport intensifies, Anderson’s characterization is its own triumph: analytical, uncompromising, reserved, but brazenly sexual on her own terms, completely unfazed by the politicking and dick-swinging of her male colleagues. That we know the identification of the killer from the show’s first frames, but can’t t-AKE our eyes off the screen is a testament to the stealth creep with which The Fall operates.

Amy TV Show

The Office (U.K., U.S.)

Creators: Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant; U.S. edition developed by Greg Daniels Stars: U.K.: Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook, Lucy Davis, Oliver Chris, Patrick Baladi, Stacey Roca, Ralph Ineson, Stirling Gallacher; U.S.: Steve Carell B, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer. J. Novak, Oscar Nunez, Brian Baumgartner, Angel A Kinsey, Ed Helms, Creed Bratton, Phyllis Smith, Leslie David Baker, Kate Flannery, Mindy Kaling Networks: BBC, NBC Ricky Gervais’ immortal Brit-Com deserves full marks for establishing this comedy franchise that killed the laugh monitor and introduced us to a hilarious bunch of paper-pushing mopes. Defying expectations that it could pale in comparison, NBC’s Workplace became an institution unto it self. While displaying much more heart in relation to the gang could muster in old England at its best, the American model was just as awkward as its predecessor.

Parks and Recreation

Creators: Greg Daniels Stars: Rashida Jones, Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari, Adam Scott, Rob Low-E, Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza Network: NBC Recreation and Parks began its run as a relatively common mirror of The Off Ice, but in its third-season, the student became the master. As it’s fleshed-out with oddballs and unusual metropolis quirks, Pawnee has become the greatest tv town since Springfield. Today, the present flourished this yr with a few of the most unique and interesting figures in comedy. With one of the one of the biggest creating staffs of any present, Re Creation and Parks is only got better with time.

30 Rock

Creator: Tina Fey Stars: Judah Friedlander, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit Network: NBC The religious successor to Arrested Development, 3 Rock succeeded where its competition failed by mainly ignoring the real process of making a television show and instead focusing on the life span of one one person responsible of the procedure, played by display creator Tina Fey. 30 Rock never loses track of its own focus and generates a remarkably deep character for the its circus to spin around. But Fey’s perhaps not the only one that makes the sequence. Consistently spot-on performances by Tracy Morgan—whether frequenting strip clubs or a werewolf bar mitzvah—and Alec Baldwin’s evil plans for microwave-tele-vision programming produce an ideal le Vel of chaos for the show’s writers to unravel every week. 30 Rock doesn’t have intricate themes or a deep concept, but that stuff would be in the way of its own goal: having probably one of the most of the most regularly funny shows on Television. Suffice to say, it succeeded.

Arrested Development

Creator: Mitch Hurwitz Stars: Ron Howard, Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, David Cross, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Alia Shawkat Networks: Fox, Netflix Mitch Hurwitz’ sit-com about a “wealthy family who lost every thing and the one son who'd no choice except to keep them all together”packed an entire lot of awesome into three short seasons. How much awesome? Well, there was the chicken dance, for starters. And Franklin’s “It’s Maybe Not Simple Being White.”There was Ron Howard’s place-on narration, and Tobias Funke’s Blue Man ambitions. There was Mrs. Featherbottom and Charlize Theron as Rita, Michael Bluth’s mentally challenged love curiosity. Not with every loose thread tying s O flawlessly in to another act h AS a story line that is comic been therefore perfectly built, since Seinfeld. Arrested Development took self-referencing post modernism to an intense that was absurdist, jumping shark but that was the level. They even induced the initial shark-jumper—Henry Winkler—as the family lawyer. When he was changed, normally, it was by Scott Baio. All of the Bluth family members was one of the better characters on tele-vision, and Jason Bateman performed a man that is straight that is brilliant to all of them. And after years of rumors, the present came ultimately back to Netflix for a fourth season—different in both construction and tone, but nevertheless, a gift to enthusiasts who'd to say goodbye to the Bluths alltoo so-on.

Orange is the New Black

Creator: Jenji Kohan Stars: Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon. Harney, Michelle Hurst, Kate Mulgrew Network: Netflix Orange is the New Black is completely suited for the Netflix shipping program, if only as it might have been agonizing to wait a week for a new episode. But there’s more; the construct felt cinematic and compared to your average show, and I couldn’t help but feel that the all-at once release airplane freed the creators to make some thing less episodic and more free-flowing. Taylor Schilling stars as Piper Chapman, a woman living a content contemporary existence when her past rears up abruptly to tackle her from behind; 10 years earlier in the day, she was briefly a drug mule for her lover Alex Vause (the the wonderful Laura Prepon), and when Vause needed to plea her sentence down, she threw in the towel Piper. The story is based on the real-life events of Piper Kerman, whose e-book of the same title was the inspiration, but the truth is that the screen version is miles better. Schilling is the engine that drives the plot, and her odd blend of normal serenity combined with together with the growing rage and desperation in the late turn her life has taken strikes the perfect tone for a lifetime inside the women’s jail. Within the first few episodes, jail is treated like an almost-quirky novelty she’ll have to experience for 15 months, along with the wisest option director Jenji Kohan made (and there are many) was to heighten the stakes so that what starts as an off kilter journey quickly assumes the severe proportions prison lifestyle demands. And as fantastic as Prepon and Schilling are together, the cast is therefore universally outstanding that it almost beggars belief. You can find too many characters who make gold making use of their constrained display time to mention individually, but suffice it to say that there’s enough comedy, pathos and tragedy here for several exhibits. The reality that they fit therefore effectively into one makes OITNB a triumph .

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Creators: Tina Fey Stars: Sara Chase, Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess, Jane Karkowski, Carol Kane, Lauren Adams Network: Netflix NBC has made any number of mistakes over the years, but few greater than shelving Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s 3-0 Rock follow up, before punting it over to Netflix. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt wound-up becoming one of the highlights of a great year for TV comedy. The fast-paced and flip sit com showcased breakout performances by Office vet Ellie Kemper as the titular former “mole woman”attempting to make it on on her behalf own in New York, and Tituss Burgess as her flamboyant and put-upon room mate, Titus Andromedon. (NBC has recently tri Ed to make it up to Kemper for dropping the ball on this by planting her in the guest host chair at Today—too little, also late, peacock peddlers.) Throughout the first season’s run, some writers and critics seemed deadset on finding some kind of flaw to pounce on using the present, zeroing in on the way in which the minority characters are re-presented. This may be a wild generalization, but I feel this was an organic reaction to perhaps one of the most of the most feminist sitcoms ever produced. Kimmy Schmidt is definitely upsetting the natural purchase of your network sit com that is typical. The show’s titular character is defining her li Fe on her own conditions and by her own standards. For many reason that still freaks out some people so they dismiss it or find some way to poke holes in the automobile for that idea. That is what makes the prospect of a second time so exciting. As the show can go in a myriad of directions that are different, so too can Kimmy Schmidt. Now that she has put the awful time in the bunker to mattress, she is able to face a brand new day with enthusiastic embrace of life-experience mindset, and that smile. Sorry nit pickers and network executives; Kimmy Schmidt will make it after all.