#she was asking me if i can do training on this new lighting system in my home theater

[liyawritesss]

Yall my mentor is finna be mad at me

[mrchiipchrome]

You Always Go To The Parties

W.C. - 5.7 k

okay so this is the project i've been working on for a little, hope y'all like it:) (also listen to American Wedding by Frank Ocean while y'all read this.)

To clarify, this is a lionesses x r series too, but this is literally just the chapter of introduction so that we can get to know the characters.

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“Do I really have to go? I can’t even drink legally here.” You groan, there was nothing stopping you from collecting your things and getting the hell out of that apartment in Boston, well except the manners instilled in you from an early age. There was nothing you’d like more than to crawl up in bed and sleep for the next few weeks.

No way Emma would let you do that. 

The sophomore defender had been one of the only people that had come back to college early, having been asked to show you around the campus and the facilities. She had quickly taken you under her wing, which meant that she wouldn’t let you sulk in bed the rest of August.

Brown cardboard boxes filled to the brim with different things, ranging from clothes to knick knacks, were stacked to the ceiling in the otherwise empty apartment. You didn’t mind, clearly, but it bothered Em.

You tuck your hands behind your head, staring up at the ceiling from your mattress that was placed directly on the floor. Your button up had the first few buttons undone, the top of your chest displayed for Em to see, you had even put your fancy trousers on for the stupid party you didn’t even want to attend.

“Yes, you really have to. How else do you expect to make friends, your cute British accent will only get you that far, you actually need to put in some effort okay?” Rolling your eyes at her words, you were quickly made to get up off the makeshift bed, getting pushed towards the door.

“But-” 

“No buts, you are going because I need someone to drive me home when I’m black out drunk tonight, you don’t want me to drink and drive right?” You can’t help but contemplate over her words, feeling the girl’s hand come down on your shoulder harshly. 

Clearly she didn’t like that.

“I mean you could just, I don't know…not drink?” She looks at you like she’s disgusted you’d even think about saying something like that, like she has to drink.

“Wow, it really is obvious your parents are rich.” You lock the door up as you look at her through the corner of your eye, a slightly judgemental look in your eyes.

Your parents were rich, but they didn’t spoil you so you weren’t one of those snobby rich kids, you were just like anyone else. Only you had access to more money than most.

“Shut up.” Emma puts her hands up in the air, like she’s surrendering to you, but you see the way she’s smiling slyly at you. Note to self; don’t get defensive when Em brings up your rich parents.

“You know, I could use a new Gucci bag if you want to contact daddy dear.” She looks up at you pleadingly as you make your way to her car, there was no way you’d use your car, it was far too expensive to be left outside a frat house. You really had to get a more beat up one.

Maybe you’d sell it, and donate the money you got for it to charity. 

“Aw, we’re taking my car?” Em whines, clearly she wanted to take your cool car.

“Aw, I’m not leaving my really expensive car outside of a frat house for hours.” You roll your eyes at her almost like she’s stupid, throwing her the keys so that she could drive, you didn’t even know where it was you were going.

“You know, you are really sassy for being a rich kid.” Em pulls out of the garage, the apartment complex you were living in was just off campus, so near that you walked there every day for pre-pre-season training (absolutely destroying Em every single time without fail).

“Yeah well, I grew up in the public education system in London, so that’s where I get it from.” You look on as the girl in the driver’s seat taps her fingers against the steering wheel, waiting for the red light to turn green.

“Really, I would’ve thought that they had you in private school from the second you popped out.” The green light stands out against the quickly darkening sky, starless and rather bleak, but that’s what you get for living in a big city.

“Nope, they wanted me to have a normal childhood, so here I am.” You motion to yourself, feeling the bumps and dips of the road beneath you, damn potholes.

“I mean fair enough right.” A certain quietness envelops the space between the two of you, it wasn’t uncomfortable, just present without any real purpose.

Your eyes slip shut, with Em turning the radio on, playing soft instrumental music like you weren’t in the middle of Boston where most people prefer hip hop and bubblegum pop. That was probably the biggest culture shock you'd been given so far, the music.

At home it was different, in a neutral way. It was neither better nor was it worse, but it was simply different.

You sink into your seat, the cool air blasting across your skin in that refreshing way, the summer’s heat canceled out by the air coming from the car. Slowly, sleep starts to take over your body in that calming sort of way that you’d wished for earlier.

It had only felt like moments since you’d fallen asleep as Em shakes your shoulders to get you to wake up, the pulsing music coming from the frat house a walking distance away already making your ears hurt. You look around at the surrounding nature, it wasn’t familiar to you, not the trees you’d found yourself memorizing nor the architecture present in Boston.

Even the people looked different, shirts with the printing of a dog on the front instead of the three books representing Harvard. Stupid of you to assume that Em would be rational for once.

“Where are we Em?” You ask, voice riddled with a sleepy kind of innocence that suggested that not everything had registered yet.

“We are in Connecticut, home of the huskies and what might be the best parties you’ll ever experience.” Your eyes shoot open wide, a more than flabbergasted look on your face at her naïve words.

“You kidnapped me and then drove me all the way to Connecticut for a party we could just as well have found in Boston?!” You ask her incredulously, like you couldn’t really believe her. And you couldn’t.

“Yeah, technically I did but you’ll also get to experience the party of your lifetime, so I think that it’s fine.” She tries to justify her actions by trying to reason with you, and whilst it doesn’t work in the way she wishes, Emma’s just happy you’re not totally freaking out.

“Come on grumpy, let’s go. Who knows, you might even have some fun.” Em pulls you along towards the house spewing flashing lights in a hundred different colors.

You let your eyes adjust to the blinking lights as you enter through the open front door, seeing the entire bottom floor of the mansion-like house covered with hundreds of students, packed together tightly like a sweaty sardine can.

The house reeks of bad body wash, moldy pits and strong cheap alcohol, and in a sense of the word Em really did tell the truth, you’d never seen anything like it before. It was almost like those frat boys couldn’t afford to buy deodorant.

If your arm wasn’t as firmly attached to your body as it was, you were sure that Emma would’ve torn it off by now, the resistance of the sweaty bodies pushing against your own as she leads you to the kitchen proving to be a difficult task for her weak arms.

Reaching the entrance of the large kitchen, the first thing you notice is that it’s not as tightly packed as the living room, only a few stragglers here and there with the stereotypical red solo cups can be found in every single person’s hand. Future alcoholists.

 “Okay, base rules since you’ve never been to a college party before, don’t take a drink from anyone you don’t know, don’t accept anyone’s request to go upstairs or somewhere private, you’ll most likely get robbed, don’t be too snarky, people don’t appreciate that and… I think that’s all. Have a nice night!” And with that she’s off to the living room, plucking a cup from a random man’s hand and taking a sip before leading him to the dance floor.

Yeah, base rules or whatever.

Standing alone in the kitchen, you suddenly feel so awkward. The only real parties you’d been to were the one’s your friends threw when your parents were away on their stupidly long business trips, just the chaotic friend group drinking together.

So this, college parties, was something that was totally out of your comfort zone and you’d never hated anyone as much as you hated Em right at that moment.

Spotting a boy out of the corner of your eye, you approach him with confident, yet still relatively hesitant steps, a question at the tip of your tongue. He looks up at you when you’re close enough to smell the odor of old spice deodorant and way too much sweat, his hat turned backwards on his head to hide the greasy hair still somehow poking its way through.

You almost feel bad for the poor thing, well that is until his mouth opens and you’re staring into the hell that is a frat boy’s gob. 

“‘Sup dude, what can I do for you?” His eyes run all along your body, from your ankles up to your face where he notices the annoyed expression.

“I was wondering if you had anything non alcoholic.” You smile staley, eyebrows furrowing together when his eyes light up like a kid on christmas. His laugh feels slightly insulting, especially when his hand comes up to point at you, but there’s really not a lot you could do.

“Dude totally, say the thing though.” You look at him confused, like you didn’t know what he meant. Spoiler alert; you did. “Y’know bo'ohw'o'wo'er.” 

He laughs again when you roll your eyes, and even if all you desire is to punch his stupid face in, you still say the phrase. Was it worth it for a coke? Eh, debatable.

He opens the fridge and throws you the can and laughs once more at your dirty look.

Sipping the drink slowly as you make your way around the house, the UConn students around you stare unashamedly at you, like they knew your face from somewhere, but you weren’t familiar per se. 

Your face scrunches up at the metallic taste of the American coke, much preferring the Mexican one they had in the canteen. You couldn’t complain too much though, you were the one who actually let yourself get dragged to the party.

It’s sudden, the way her eyes catch yours. Deep pools of endearing brown that capture your entire soul in a single second. The girl was mesmerizing as she stood leaning against the wall across from you, her long brown hair falling so effortlessly down her back.

Her gaze is just focussed on you for a second or two, her attention soon being stolen by the man standing in front of her, a sleazy smirk on his face as his eyes ran all along her body. It was clear that she was uncomfortable purely by the way her lips were turned downwards and the way her hands fiddled with the hem of her crop top.

There seems to be a lull in their one sided conversation as she looks to you almost pleadingly, getting the hint almost immediately, you walk over with confident steps, dropping the now empty can on the floor on the way.

The man is almost as tall as you, his burly shoulders disproportionate to the rest of his awkward body, his meaty hands gripping the red cup tightly like he was afraid someone would steal it from him. His hooded eyes do a once over when he spots you nearing them, almost turning a green pale at the sight of you.

You don’t understand why, there was no way you knew him and being recognised as Harvard’s newest addition would be unlikely. Especially in Connecticut.

“Everything alright here?” The girl seems startled by your accent, but she quickly schools her features so as to not show her surprise. Her hands wrap around your waist, and when you look down at her she looks back up at you with pleading eyes, asking you to just go along with it for the time being.

Your arm wraps around her shoulders and she leans into your body almost subconsciously, like you’ve known each other for much longer than you have.

“Yeah, everything’s going good.” He says, not backing down despite having been nervous at your mere presence only seconds before.

“Really? Because from where I stood it looked like you were flirting with my girlfriend.” You don’t even get the satisfaction of watching his gummy smile fade from his thin lips as he takes in your words, because he walks away from you before you can see it.

It makes you chuckle, especially since he walks up to another girl almost immediately, getting turned down in the same second.

“You okay?” You question the girl in your arms, her hand still resting on your waist as you take her in. You can feel her hair against your arm, her nails digging into your skin ever so slightly and the rest of her body pressed so tightly against your own.

“Yeah, he just wouldn’t leave me alone, thank you for the help.” She smiles at you sweetly, her brown eyes shining under the flashing lights. You smile back at her softly, noticing the way her grip loosens, you quickly let up on your grip of her shoulders.

Her unsure steps catch your attention as she takes your hand in her soft one, just like Em had done earlier in the evening.

“Where are you taking me?” You laugh through the sentence as she tries to pull you through the crowd of people, stumbling over her feet clumsily every so often.

“Do you like burgers?” She questions hastily, nearly having pulled you all the way to the front door already, she was a lot stronger than Em that’s for sure.

"Doesn't everyone?” You smile goofily when she looks back at you, her eyes narrowed playfully when you send her a wink. It’s only when you’re already out the door that you realize that Em is still in there, with people you don't know. Strangers.

You stop walking, the girl’s hand still in yours as she too stops, looking back at you confused.

“I’m sorry but my friend, Em, is still in there and I don’t want to leave her alone with strangers.” Her eyes light up again and you look at her weirdly, not understanding why she looked so happy that you had to leave.

“Em Whitmore?” She giggles at the shocked look on your face, clearly you didn’t know much about Em, the girl thinks to herself. You look at her suspiciously, how did she know Em?

“Yeah…how’d you know?” You ask her, still suspicious of her pretty intoxicated form. Her laugh carries all throughout the empty night, no one out and about except you and the mystery girl who’s soft hand is still in yours.

“I know her brother, she comes to a lot of parties here, because she knows she’ll be safe.” The brunette starts pulling you along again and you let yourself follow her, no longer worried about your Harvard counterpart. Her brother wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

By the time you reach the 50’s themed diner, you’ve already walked for ten minutes, side by side with the dark haired girl. You’re lucky that it wasn’t too far away, the half stumbling girl beside you probably wouldn’t have been able to walk that far without falling over.

The bell at the top of the door chimes when she pushes it open, the bored looking cashier perking up when he sees your companion. It was empty in the diner and you couldn’t imagine that keeping it open for this long wasn’t only for the drunk college students looking for a quick snack.

She drags you over to a booth in the corner, decorated in red and white stripes, a glass with straws standing in the middle of the table with a napkin holder beside it.

“Welcome to Donna’s Diner, what can I get for you?” The boy from the counter comes up to the booth after you’ve both settled, handing the two of you plastic menus. The dark haired girl smiles up at him, that fantastic glint in her eye once more.

“Come on now Alex, no need to be all professional.” You look up at him from where you’re sitting, his blonde hair curling around his ears, green eyes staring into yours kindly, thin fingers clasping the small notebook in his hands.

“Alex, this is my new friend, she knows Callum’s little sister, mystery friend, this is Alex and he’s in one of my classes.” You smile at him softly, sticking your hand out for him to shake, and he does take it in a confident grip, sending you a smile of his own.

“I’m Y/n.” Now the mystery girl looks up at you, finally a name attached to your face.

“Nika, I already know what you want, but how about you?” He looks to you when he speaks, obviously you wouldn’t know what to order, it being your first time there and all.

“I’ll just have whatever she’s having with a chocolate milkshake.” Alex disappears behind the counter again, your eyes following his retreating form. Looking away from the kitchen door, your eyes quickly meet the ones of the girl you now know as Nika.

One of her hands was tucked under her chin, keeping her head up in order to look at you. Relaxing into the cushions behind you, the small smile slowly taking over your face suddenly becomes full blown.

“What is it?” She giggles under her breath at your inquisitive look, and despite not knowing much more than her name, you already felt like she knew your soul inside and out.

“Nothing…it’s just that this is the last place I would’ve thought that you would bring me to.” The furrow in her brow is frankly quite adorable, her head turning to the side just in time to catch Alex walking out the kitchen with your food. 

You see the way her eyes light up again, the platter of pure greasy goodness at the center of her attention right at that moment. All you could think about at that second was how thankful you were that the season hadn’t started yet, because everything there broke every single diet you could think of.

Looking to the brunette, the laugh bubbling up from the pit of your stomach is almost one of wonder, because the beautiful girl had already managed to get through half the burger that was in front of her. It seemed like her intoxicated brain only was focussed on one thing, satiating her hunger.

It isn’t long until you follow her lead, picking up the burger and just trying to get the most you could of it in your mouth. You can’t help the groan that escapes you when the exquisite flavours hit your taste buds all at once, having to lean back into the cushions of the booth to be able to take it all in, closing your eyes fully to enhance the experience even further.

It’s only when she laughs that you finally open your eyes again, only to see her looking right at you like you were made of glass, like she could read you like a book and then play you like a fiddle.

“I understand, I had the exact same reaction when I tried it.” She continues to giggle at you when you start to eat like a poor man starved. It was a funny sight to be fair, the way your fancy act completely disappears when in contact with amazing food.

“How’d you even find this place?” You question her when you’ve swallowed and wiped your mouth off with a napkin, you still had manners after all. She smiles at you, gesturing at your surroundings, at the tables and the booths, the chairs and the ketchup bottles, at everything.

“I was drunk after a party once in freshman year and I just stumbled across it.” You nod in response, completely understanding the randomness of how she’d found the place. When you’re drunk, all you want is some greasy food.

“So it’s a well guarded secret between the students then? I assume there’s usually more people here at this time of night.” You take a sip of the milkshake when the last word has fallen from your lips, heat spreading across your face at the intense look you’re getting from the brunette in front of you.

It’s probably just because she’s drunk, you think quietly to yourself, almost trying to convince your mind that the stupidly attractive smile on her face was just one of momentary value, that it was only because it was late and you were tired that it affected you in the way it did.

“Yeah, something like that.” She responds, a comfortable silence enveloping you two as you continue to eat.

The only thing that could be heard was the murmur of the fan across the room, the patting of the fingers of the boy, Alex, at the counter and the sound of shallow breathing. Well that was until her accented voice breaks it with a question.

“So, how’d you manage to befriend the girl with the scariest brother ever?” Nika asks you, her fingers playing with the napkin she’d taken only moments before. Her teeth capture her bottom lip softly as she looks at you tentatively, she’s positively driving you nuts with her pure unfiltered beauty.

“Well, for starters we both play football for Harvard, but she was the first one there to greet me, to help me pack up the necessities and all that. She never did mention a brother though.” You relish in the way she looks at you, all flustered and sweet despite you not having done anything in particular. It was adorable. Pause.

She nods absentmindedly, opening her mouth to speak before closing it and then opening it again, resembling a fish out of water more than anything.

“Were you going to say something love?” You ask the now blushing girl, and she hides her face in her hands at the embarrassment, clearly having zoned out for a little while there.

Reaching over, you pat her shoulder comfortingly before you ask her your next question.

“How about you? How do you know Em’s brother?” Nika reaches over the table to steal a few of your fries, laughing at the betrayed look on your face.

Maybe it was the drinks or maybe you were just funnier than you’d originally thought, either way the angelic sound of her laughing had graced your ears many times that evening. Not that you minded, you didn’t even mind a little bit.

“He plays basketball, I play basketball, and sometimes we train together.” You can’t help the feeling taking over you, the burning feeling that makes you question everything you’d ever known about yourself. Just the thought of your friend’s brother getting to enjoy her company makes the feeling inside you that much worse.

 It seems like she sees the way your expression changes just that little bit before it goes back to normal.

“So, you’re like…close?” You ask the basketball player timidly, rolling your eyes only seconds later when the brunette decides to take a sip of your milkshake.

“No, not especially close. I mean, we talk when we have to at the shared training sessions, but not outside of it. But realistically though, who in the world of college sports doesn’t know Callum Whitmore?” Looking at her cluelessly, you sarcastically shrug as if to say you, because you truly hadn’t known a single thing about the man before she had told you.

By the third time Nika reaches for your fries, you decide to just push them towards her and let her have them, you weren’t even hungry after the monster burger you’d just consumed. It wasn’t at all just because she was too pretty not to get whatever she wanted. Pause.

“You want to switch?” She gestures to your drinks, she’d gotten a strawberry milkshake that she didn’t seem to fancy all that much right at that moment. Sighing goodnaturedly, you give her a nod and allow her to take whatever was left of your shake, smiling softly as you sip absentmindedly at the pink shake she’d given you. 

Soon enough, the only thing that could be heard over the natural noise of the diner was the slight slurping every so often.

“I just got to go wash up, then I’ll walk you home, okay?” The brunette nods as she looks at you leaving, pulling out her phone to seemingly start to text someone not long after.

You walk up to Alex, who’s still standing at the counter and he smiles in your direction when you near, only seeing you out of the corner of his eye. Pulling out your wallet, you hold out your card to him.

“Could you do a to go order? God knows she’ll need that in the morning.” You nod your head in Nika’s direction, Alex smiling widely at you.

“You know, I’ve never seen her with you before…” His voice trails off, as if to tell you to fill in the blanks.

“Yeah, we only met tonight.” You smile at him staley, not understanding why the timeline of events was so important.

“You must be special then if she brought you here, it’s not often she brings anyone other than her friends here after a night out. Nico, drop me two burgers on the grill, one choc milkshake and a strawberry one.” As you walked towards the bathroom of the establishment, putting your card back in your wallet, you started to think about his words, wasn’t this place well known? What made it so special to Nika that the server had to point out how she never brought strangers there?

Wiping your hands off on your trousers, you go up to your table to collect Nika before swinging by the counter to pick up your to-go order, the brown paper bag looking out of place next to the two of you. It seems like she’s sobered up at least a little as she looks at you questioningly, her eyes soon falling to the bag in your hands and then back up at your face.

The bell chimes again when the two of you exit the diner, the cooling air of the late night a contrast to the warm atmosphere of the diner.

“What’s that for?” The furrow in her brow is so endearing that you almost feel the skip in your heartbeat, her eyes narrowing at you ever so slightly. Her arm threads through yours, one of your hands in the pocket of your trousers, creating the perfect space for her arm to go through.

You sneak a glance at her, flyaways being highlighted by the streetlights you were passing. Her head meets your shoulder as you start to walk back to the party, her apartment couldn’t be too far from it considering she hadn’t mentioned anything when you offered to walk her home.

“It’s for you, I just know that hungover Nika is going to crave Donna’s diner’s milkshakes to calm her raging headache.” You tease her softly, but there was definite truth there either way.

If there was one thing you knew about being hungover, then it was that good food usually helped at least a little (well, after the spells of throwing up everything from the previous night.) You give her a cheeky smile as you near the party once more, the booming music being heard from miles away. 

“Thank you, you didn’t have to do that.” She speaks sincerely, you just smile at her in response, did you have to do it? No, but she’d kept you company all night so you did it anyway.

“Hey, can I just stop by my friend’s car before I walk you home? I just have to get something.” You were so thankful that you’d stolen the keys from Em before you went into the party only hours before. Leading her to the beat up truck, unlocking it and opening the door, you place the bag on the ground before you look through the glove compartment.

Finding the cartridge of painkillers and the pen that you were searching for with a small ‘aha’. The post-it notes Em always kept in her car finally came to use when you stole one, writing a quick message on it before sticking it to the plastic of the painkillers and dropping it down the brown paper bag.

You lock the car up, despite it being a piece of shit that no one would ever steal, Em always insisted on you locking it. 

Walking up to her side once more, you open your mouth to speak.

“So, lead the way home love.” You gesture for her to take the lead, it was her apartment after all. Taking your free hand in hers, the girl starts to lead you towards her apartment building, walking calmly side by side with your hands swinging between your bodies.

After passing countless trees, and even more cars, you suddenly find yourselves at the bottom of the slanted hill leading up to where she lives, and when you actually start to walk up the long walkway, it’s slowly almost like you’re both resisting the natural order of events.

But you had to leave her, both Em and Harvard were waiting for you and no matter how much you tried to resist, you knew that’s ultimately where you had to go, it was your life even if the girl you’d just met seemed far more interesting than anything.

When you reach the top, just meters away from the door, you hand her the bag, smiling timidly when she reached out to hug you, her inviting perfume enveloping you in a blanket of warmth. When she pulls away, she thanks you one last time for your kindness.

“Really, it’s no problem.” You reassure her, smiling softly when she turns back towards you one last time before the distance between you becomes larger and larger, her fingers soon punching in the code to open the door.

“Wait!” You call out for her right as she’s about to enter the building, her head turning back to you questioningly. “Don’t forget to put it in the fridge when you get in.” She smiles and nods before disappearing behind the door.

You start your walk back to the party a few minutes after the door has closed, something just keeping you rooted to the ground. It wasn't until you heard your name get called by that familiar voice that you turned around, seeing Nika through her open window, waving at you as you walked away.

It almost felt like you were in some cheesy romance movie as you waved back, turning to walk away after she closed her window. 

Truth be told, the evening had felt like something straight out of a romcom and some part deep down loved it. It loved the cheesy moments of pure unbridled love, the ability to express yourself freely, to dance in the rain, be your true authentic self in front of someone else was something you didn’t even know you longed for before you met Nika.

You shove your hands into the pockets of your trousers, every step you take moving you closer and closer to the frat house, closer to Em and closer to getting back to Boston.

Seeing Em sitting out on the steps of the house has you confused, why was she out there?

“Em? What are you doing out here?” You ask the clearly incredibly intoxicated Emma, your loud voice not even startling her, her slow movements showing just how drunk she is. The squeal she lets out when she sees you has you covering your ears, the intrusive sound killing your tired head.

She tries to stand up, but it just looks like Bambi on ice, stumbling and falling at every second. You come up and sling her arm around your shoulder, bringing her over to her car and sitting her down in the passenger seat.

“I’m not cleaning up if you throw up in here, just so you know.” She nods drunkenly, clearly not understanding a word you were saying.

“The reason why I was sitting outside is a long story.” She leans her head against the window, and knowing Em, she was probably imagining herself in a music video right at that moment.

“You can tell me tomorrow.” The car starts with a rumble and you pull out of the parking space on the side of the road, quickly pulling out and starting to drive on the main road.

It’s quiet for a while and you almost believe that Emma’s asleep, well almost since her feet move back and forth against the floor every so often.

“Where were you huh? What were you doing?” Her words are incredibly slurred and you can barely make out what it is she’s trying to say.

“None of your business mate.” She snickers at you, reading way too much into your response than she should have.

“You got some.” The way your face turns red doesn’t help your case even in the slightest, especially when she herself points out your reddening cheeks.

“Shut up and go to sleep, Em.” Your voice cracks in the middle of the sentence, still embarrassed by her insinuation.

“Mhm, you totally got some pussy.” You sigh as she laughs again, she was clearly getting a lot more joy from the situation than you were.

“Go to sleep Em.”

“Mhm.”

Maybe she had been right after all, maybe you had fun and maybe, just maybe the decision to go to the party was a good one. Not that you’d ever let her know that.

[esmedelacroix]

𝕬 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖑 𝕶𝖓𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝕴𝖘𝖓'𝖙 𝕬𝖋𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖉 𝖙𝖔 𝕲𝖊𝖙 𝕭𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉 𝖔𝖓 𝕳𝖎𝖘 𝕾𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉…

pairing: crown princess!reader x knight!miguel o'hara

cw: messy period sex, unprotected p in v, size kink, blood, dom!miguel o'hara, fingering, size kink, edging kinda, dacryphilia, slight degradation kink

a/n: hey lovies, this isn't my usual content but I have endometriosis and I hate it. But period sex always helps so here. This is set in sort of medival times. Hope you like it, a like, comment, or repost is always appreciated. Let me know what you think!

wc: 2.5k

꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷

"Ughhhh," "UGhhhH"

"Her Highness has started her menstrual cycle," Archibald, your retiring personal knight, explained to your new personal knight in training, Miguel.

"This is a common occurrence, nothing has ever helped her Highness," Archibald continued.

"Are the doctors not equipped with the medicine needed?" Miguel asked as he heard a high-pitched wail.

"They are but Her Highness has rather odd and abnormally painful symptoms. The doctors can't figure out a cure for it," he sighed.

Miguel bit the interior of his cheek in deep thought and during his break, he decided to go to the library. He sat at one of the desks with piles of biology and anatomy books.

He didn't know any way to make himself useful to you other than to try to study your condition and perhaps figure out a way to help you.

It was hard for him to find much of anything because scientists at the time paid little attention to studying women's bodies and the female reproductive system. It's quite disappointing because women are amazing. They can create life but all male scientists care about is themselves. "What a shame," Miguel muttered to himself as he opened up another textbook.

He didn't take the time to read the cover so he was flabbergasted when he began to read the contents of the book.

He was reading a study about the health benefits of an orgasm when in pain. There are specific chemicals released when both males and females experience an orgasm.

What if these same chemicals can combat menstrual pain, Miguel thought to himself. "Miguel it's time to return to your post," Archibald said as he entered the library.

"I'll be right there," Miguel said as he organized all of his books for later.

"You were studying?" Archibald asked as he led you down the halls.

"Yes, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do for Her Highness but I don't know much about menstrual pain," Miguel sighed.

Archibald hummed in response. "If you want to help the crown princess then you will take her lunch and medicine to her and attempt to get her to eat," she doesn't like to eat or do much anything other than squirm in her bed when she is experiencing menstrual pain.

"Okay," Miguel answered as he opened the doors to your room and brought your food and medicine to you on a tray. Archibald closed the door behind him and wished him luck.

Miguel was content to see that you were asleep and not suffering. You were curled up in a fetal position with a hot compress over your abdomen. Small tears were formed at the corners of your eyes. The pain had even made you cry in your sleep.

Miguel's heart sank seeing you in such a distressed manner. He softly shook your shoulder to wake you up. "Your Highness," he started softly seeing your eyes flutter open.

"It's time for your meal and medicine," he continued. You jolted awake as your eyes adjusted to the light then turned to look at him before feeling your face heat up.

"Who dares enter my room when I am so indecent?" you asked, pulling your sheets up because you were still in your nightgown.

"Where are my manners? I'm your new personal knight, Miguel O'Hara," he introduced with a bow.

You nodded in response, allowing yourself to calm down. You stretched out your arms and sat up against your headboard. Just as you did so, you winced in pain. "My lady, are you still feeling pain?" he asked.

"Yes, I should eat quickly so I can take that medicine," you groaned.

"Yes," Miguel said as he began to cut your food for you and held a forkful up to your lips. You were rather surprised by the gesture but you weren't opposed to it. Archibald never does this for me, you thought to yourself as you enjoyed your food.

There were moments when you had to take a break because of the pain but you finished your meal in record time. After finishing the medicine you were still in tears and extreme pain.

It was enough pain to make you wail. The rumors were true though, you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Your voice was soothing even when you sobbed. When tears trickled down your cheeks they only added to your beauty.

Miguel hated to see such a beautiful woman in pain. Especially when there was nothing that he could do to alleviate it. Well, there was one thing he could do. He could suggest that you touch yourself. But weren't in the state to do even that. I could give her an orgasm, he thought to himself before shaking his head.

"No, that would be out of line," he muttered to himself quietly.

"What would be out of line?" you sniffled, turning to him.

"Um well, there was one remedy for your pain that I was researching. But it would be out of line if I helped you perform it," he explained.

"Please do it for me I'll do anything to stop feeling so much pain," you practically begged.

"I'm not sure if a lowly knight like myself should help you do this," he said, trying to convince you to let it go.

"Just tell me what it is, I'm sure I wouldn't mind you doing please just do this one thing for me, Miguel," she pleaded. Miguel was going to deny once more but once his name left your lips pounding like a beautiful song, he felt he couldn’t say no.

"Well, the remedy my lady, is to give you an orgasm," he admitted as his cheeks flushed.

Your own cheeks flushed when you realized that you were basically begging your personal guard to have intercourse with you. "Oh, that's most certainly not what I was expecting you to say," you said as he averted his eyes when you looked in his direction. You weighed the pros and cons of having sex with your new personal knight. You couldn’t even believe you were thinking of sex with a palace guard.

You put your hand to your chin as you thought about it for a good minute sizing him up out of the corner of your eye. He wasn't too bad looking. He was very big, you wondered if his penis was also big.

And his face, well it was magnificent. He looked like royalty in your eyes with that handsome face of his. You could see yourself having sex with him.

“Dismiss everyone on this floor of the palace, Miguel,” You commanded. Miguel shot you a confused look.

“I’m very loud in bed, chop chop Miguel,” you whispered as another wave of pain hit you. Miguel was surprised how your voice went from a sweet soft soft-spoken voice to one dripping in sin.

He got up and stepped out to the hallway relaying your command to Archibald who had everyone on the floor you were on gone in minutes.

“Now that we have some privacy, come here,” you demanded as you winced in pain.

Miguel walked up to you as you laid back holding onto the edge of his t-shirt bringing him down with you. Your faces are inches apart. Hot breaths fanning each other's lips. "Unsheathe your sword, Miguel," you whispered looking into his hungry eyes.

Miguel stripped himself still hovering over you. The second his name left your lips, it was as if you put him in a trance. He did everything he was asked to do. He then bunched up the hem of your nightgown slowly lifting it above your legs slowly. “May I?” he asked, trying to be as gentle as possible.

You propped yourself up on your elbows letting out an exasperated sigh, rolling your eyes. “You don’t have to be so formal, I need you, to fuck this royal pussy like I’m some common whore at a brothel, that’s an order Miguel” you spat as your face contorted in pain.

Miguel was surprised by your sudden dirty unladylike language. But that went straight to his hardening dick.

He took your nightgown off with a newfound sense of urgency. He was pleased to see that you were almost completely naked underneath, still sporting your menstrual underwear, nipples hardening at the feeling of the cold air hitting them.

He wasted no time pulling off your menstrual underwear and setting it aside. You spread your legs for him to get a better view of your pussy that was now throbbing with want.

Miguel ran his index from your bloody slit to your clit picking up the moisture of your blood and slick. Pressed on your aching bud with his thumb moving it in circular motions. A long moan erupted from your throat. Your hand gripped his wrist tightly as he pushed a finger into your aching hole still playing with your clit with another.

The muscles and veins in his arms flexed and pulsated as he worked your sopping-wet pussy. He added another one of his thick fingers stretching you in preparation for his fat cock. You only looked down for a second when he took his pants off and fear struck the pit of your stomach. He was so big you weren't sure if he'd even fit. That made your sick and twisted mind even thirstier. Wanting more and more of him.

Your hands gripped his arms until your knuckles practically turned white as you tried to suppress your moans as he slipped a third finger into your cunt that was coating his whole hand in your wetness and blood. "Don't conceal it, I wanna hear you, wanna make sure I'm making you feel good," he grunted into your ear as he began to rut against the bed. He lay in between your legs focused on fucking you with his fingers.

Your blood was dripping onto the sheets, but you didn't care, you felt too good. You moaned for him chanting a mantra of his name until his name and the stretch were all you could think about. "Miguel, inside, I want you inside please," you begged.

"Oh yeah? You want this cock in your pussy?" he taunted as a smirk graced his lips.

"Yesyesyesyesyes," was all you could moan out your mind going almost blank as your legs began to shake.

"Tell me how badly you want it, show me how badly you want it," he growled into your ear as he added a fourth finger and picked up the pace.

The pleasure almost completely took you over as fat tears formed at the corner of your eyes. "I need you, inside, Miguel please, need your cock," you moaned shamelessly moving your hips against his fingers matching his speed.

You grip the sheets with one hand, the other holding onto his, as your back arches. Blood and slick gushed out of your pussy as your orgasm approached you at lightning speed. Until it didn't, and you felt the pleasure died down completely. You let out a frustrated whine letting go of the sheets. "Miggy, why," you whined almost sobbing because of the stolen orgasm.

"You said you wanted me in you, you're going to have to work for it, my lady," he said as he lay on the bed and put you on top of him with ease. You straddled him looking down at him with tears in your eyes as he grinned at you.

"Miguel please, help me," you said as you positioned your slit in line with his bulbous tip that was dripping with precum.

"Uh uh uh, you gotta do that on your own," he cooed as he whipped a falling tear from your face.

"I will be your queen soon," you said sternly.

"But right now you're my whore, now get to work, this cock isn't going to ride itself," he spat as he slammed you down onto him practically impaling you on his dick.

You took a moment to adjust to his size. The stretch was amazing. You had never felt so full and he was hitting a sweet spot. You moved slowly, then faster, then much faster. You heard Miguel let out a moan almost sounding like a whimper.

He grips your hips tightly, surely making bruises as you milk him. His eyes rolled back as he tried his hardest not to explode right then and there because of how warm, wet, and tight your pussy felt.

Helpless moans of his name were spilling from your mouth as your blood spilled onto him staining his skin and your sheets. “That’s it, princess, just like that,” Miguel groaned.

Quickly you felt your orgasm approaching, the coil in your stomach about to snap. Your legs began to feel like jelly and you felt yourself stop moving. “I can’t, Mig, help,” you whined trying to keep moving.

“You’ve been a good girl, I’ll take care of ya’,” he said as she moved your hips with his hands that rested on them fucking himself up into you.

The Lewd sound of you chanting his name and wet skin slapping wet skin filled the room. As he picked up the pace your moans became more and more high-pitched. “You’re fuckin’ me s’ good Mig,” you moaned.

“Yeah? Tell me how good I’m doin’ you,” he grunted as fucked you harder too kissing your cervix as his dick started to twitch in you.

“S’ good, love this fat cock,” you whined as you clenched him hard as your legs shook violently.

“Cum with me baby,” he grunted as he pumped himself into you.

“Cumming, I’m gonna cum,” you whined as you creamed around his cock making a mess of him only being able to think of him and utter his name.

Miguel continued to fuck into you elongating your orgasm as he released his hot, thick, cum deep into your womb. You collapsed on top of him panting and trying to catch your breath.

You slowly slid out snuggling into his side. “Sorry, about the mess,” you started, gesturing to his half-soft member that was coated with your blood.

“Oh, no worries Your Highness, a real knight isn’t afraid to get blood on his sword,” he stated.

“I suppose that is true,” you replied, giggling a bit.

“So how is that menstrual pain?” Miguel asked as he caressed your bare back and planted small wet kisses into your neck.

“Honestly, I forgot I even had it, I guess it’s gone, I mean, you made me feel so good,” you sighed breathlessly.

Miguel slowly got up covering you with your bed sheets. “I’ll go ahead and run you a bath my lady,” he said as he prepared your towel, shampoo, and bath salts.

“Thank you, Miguel, I wouldn't be so opposed to you joining me,” you chirped.

“Oh, I do not wish to impose-“ he started before you cut him off.

“That’s an order, Miguel,” you whispered, with a small smirk playing on your lips. You were nowhere near done and neither was he.

"You little minx," he hummed as he disappeared into the bathroom.

. . .

꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷

[shitsndgiggs]

maybe a arda guler x physio reader whos also turkish but it takes place in the beggining if the 23/24 season so when he first came to madrid and yk he got injured so he ends up spending a lot of time with the physio and starts to confide in her bc shes turkish too

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY - ARDA GÜLER

When Arda suffers an injury in the beginning of the season, he requires extensive rehabilitation

Arda Güler x turkish physio! reader

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿

The sun was rising over Real Madrid’s training complex. The new season had just begun, but the air was heavy with concern.

Arda Güler, one of the club’s most promising young talents, had suffered a partial tear of the internal meniscus in his right knee.

After numerous consultations with various specialists, including myself, the decision was made to proceed with surgery.

Following the successful operation, the real challenge began: Arda's recovery. I was entrusted with overseeing his rehabilitation program, and given our shared turkish heritage, I felt a special responsibility to support him not just physically but emotionally as well.

On the first day of his post-surgery rehabilitation, I found him seated on a treatment table in the physio room, his knee wrapped in bandages.

He stared at the floor, his usually bright eyes now clouded with worry and sadness.

"Merhaba, Arda," I greeted him gently, trying to catch his eye. "Nasıl hissediyorsun?"

He looked up briefly, his voice barely above a whisper. "İyiyim," he replied, though the sadness in his tone was unmistakable. "Biraz ağrım var ama iyiyim.

"We'll take it slow and steady," I assured him.

He gave a small nod, his expression softening slightly. "Teşekkür ederim," he murmured.

Over the next few weeks, Arda and I spent countless hours together. Our sessions were intense, involving various techniques to treat his muscles, joints, and the nervous system.

I used a combination of manual therapy, stretching, and strengthening exercises, always ensuring he felt comfortable and supported.

Our conversations provided a welcome distraction from the physical pain. We talked about our favorite turkish foods, shared memories from back home, and discussed the challenges of adapting to life in Spain.

I became more than just his physiotherapist; I became his confidant.

One afternoon, as I guided him through a series of leg exercises, I could see the frustration in his eyes. “It’s hard making new friends.” he admitted, his frustration palpable. “Most of the time, I can’t even understand what my teammates are saying.“

I nodded understandingly. "Bu normal, learning a new language takes time" I said. “I’m sure it’s comforting to have someone who speaks the same language as you.”

He sighed in relief. "Evet, it feels good to talk to you“ he said, his shoulders relaxing.

“I’m here for you,” I replied softly. “We can talk about anything.”

As the weeks turned into months, Arda’s progress was remarkable. His dedication and resilience were inspiring.

One day, as we were wrapping up a session, Arda looked at me thoughtfully. “I miss my family and friends,” he confessed.

I gave him a reassuring smile. “You have a new family here, Arda, Your teammates and me,” I said.

He smiled, his eyes reflecting gratitude. "Bunu duymak güzel," he replied softly.

Our bond grew stronger with each passing day. I was not just helping him heal physically but also providing emotional support. We often joked to lighten the mood.

One day, as Arda finished a exercise, he asked me with a grin. “What other sports do you think I should try? Maybe dance?“

I laughed, shaking my head. “Definitely! Maybe you could become a ballet dancer” I teased back.

He chuckled, the sound a welcome relief. “Even the thought of me in ballet shoes is funny,” he said, laughing.

As Arda's recovery progressed, we reached a milestone – his return to light training with the team. He was both excited and nervous.

“I believe in you,” I said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I know you will get trough this successfully and score many goals."

"Teşekkür ederim," he replied, his voice filled with determination. “Your support means a lot to me.”

In the weeks that followed, Arda's confidence grew alongside his physical strength. Our conversations became lighter, filled with jokes and laughter.

One day, as he was finishing a particularly tough exercise, he turned to me with a soft smile.

"Sen olmasaydın, bu kadar ilerleyemezdim," he said playfully.

I laughed, shaking my head. “It was all of your determination that helped you,” I replied.

As he continued his recovery, our bond only deepened.

Arda knew he had a long road ahead, but he also knew he wasn't walking it alone.

[makuta-tobi]

Nat stared at her computer screen, cursor blinking in tandem with her heartbeat, so loud in her ears she may as well have been at a metal concert. Months she had worked on her project, skipping meals, staying awake until sunrise, and then a few hours more after that. Now she was a few keystrokes away from finally testing it. Cables ran from her ramshackle computer, meeting and mingling with others attached to a bank of hard drives, all spinning with uploads and downloads. On the inflatable mattress behind her, the fruits of her labour lay eerily still. With a deep, shaky exhale, she typed in the last few lines of code into her launcher, and pressed the enter key.

The whirring of the fans pointed towards the makeshift server seemed to drown out all other noise as the program executed. Then a series of smaller fans, a sharper sound than the box fan nearby, as they all sprang to life at once. Nat pressed her palms together as her creation came online. As servos activated and limbs went from rigid to an almost relaxed state, she couldn't help but whisper “it lives” to herself. The machine in front of her made a sudden jolt, and a light on the side of its head illuminated a pale white. Online and active. She twisted from her position on the floor to check her monitors and saw that all systems were operating nominally. Neural pathways were registering stimuli, artificial synapses were firing as thoughts began to form. It worked!

Nat placed her hand on the machine's upper back and guided it to a sitting position. She had been sure to feed the computer a good handful of data about herself, and the basics of knowledge in order to train the AI and make sure it didn't immediately shut down from overstimulation.

God knows I certainly would have, she thought to herself with an eyeroll.

“Are you awake?” her first question was more of a way to test the robot's speech recognition, its self evaluation, word association, and also to ensure that the vocal modulation was up to satisfactory conditions.

“I am awake,” it responded. The robot drew its arms closer to its torso and seemed to look around the room briefly, before turning its head to face Nat.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, once again checking its recognition and perception.

“Natalie, you created and programmed me, I believe,” it tilted its head almost as though trying to determine if this was the correct answer. The data she had fed it before it woke up had included details about herself, photos and videos of her, vocal samples, and the AI was interpreting this information and comparing it to the details in front of it. The face, the voice, it all matched. But the robot seemed almost unsure, as if contemplating whether the information it had was incomplete. Perhaps it had been told that this person, whose face and voice it knew, was the one who built it, but that did not necessarily mean the information it had was true. Nonetheless, Nat smiled and nodded, and the robot's shoulders almost imperceptibly relaxed.

“That's right. I did create you, and I programmed you to be something new, but familiar. You have a lot of potential, and I'm glad to meet you.” The robot tilted its head at the framing of the statement.

“What potential do I have?” it asked. A curious mind, or simply a rudimentary AI probing for information to expand its knowledge set?

“You have multiple functions as yet unseen. All of you, from the smallest details of your body, to your quizzical mind, all are new ways to expand the experience of everyone.” When the robot did not respond right away, and simply looked down at its form, still sitting upright on the air mattress, she continued her explanation. “Your frame is designed with limb augments and prosthesis in mind,” she gestured to the carbon fiber metal that made up its hands and arms. “Your sensor suite is expected to replace the damaged vision or hearing of someone who has lost theirs. Your AI can expand and contain the breadth of knowledge and actually learn, instead of just regurgitate answers it had received beforehand.”

“What of this?” the robot touched the gray fleshy material covering its lower abdomen, stretching down to its thighs.

“That is actually two things. The first is a synthetic skin that can be created to replace basic skin grafts and other replacement techniques we currently have. The second is that the skin is used as a mount for artificial nerves that can replace damaged ones.”

The robot ran its hands over its body as she explained it. Fine black digits ran over smooth arms and shoulders, stroking across the lighter fake flesh that extended over parts of itself. It then raised its head and looked at her again, cocking its head to the side. In the black glass dome of its face, Nat could only see her own reflection, distorted like staring into dark water. She had always taken issue with the way her nose sat, or criticized that one eyebrow was higher than the other. The self deprecation had always come easy, but looking back at herself from this angle, it was like seeing herself anew, as she really was. When she had begun construction on the robot's exoskeleton so long ago, she had wondered if this would feel like interacting with her child for the first time, but now, she realized, it was more like talking to herself. She felt love for the machine in a way that was hard to quantify, and thus, she knew, she loved herself, in some weird, roundabout way.

“My design, my purpose, is for medical research, is that correct?” the robot asked. She saw, in her reflection, the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile that she liked seeing.

“Your design, yes. You were made with the intention of looking into a variety of medical advancements all at once, to see how they might interact with each other, as well as individually. But your purpose is for you to decide, once you find it. That might take some time, but I think all living things will eventually find it.”

“Am I alive?” the robot's question wasn't exactly unexpected, but it was quick to ask so bluntly.

“Scientifically, maybe not. Ethically, I'm sure some people would take issue with me trying to say otherwise, but realistically? In my mind? You move, you think, you have the potential to imagine, and dream, and exist here. I don't see why you couldn't consider that being alive.”

The robot nodded, its hidden visual sensors scanning Nat up and down, taking in the sight of what it could consider life, based solely on firsthand experience and not a dataset provided before it had even been conscious. Her dyed blonde hair had faded quite a bit since its last treatment, with longer dark roots peaking out. Her eye mascara was smudged, but the dark rings around her eyes framed her gray-blue irises almost ethereally. Her loose tank top draped across her body and hid her shape, and her shorts were stained with pen ink. In spite of her unkempt appearance, or perhaps because of it, the robot perceived, that this was life.

They both shook off the initial studiousness of their first interaction, and Nat turned to her computer, minimizing the command prompt window and revealing a program with a split screen. On one side, an image that appeared to resemble an approximation of a human brain structure. On the other, lines of data were being written and recorded, a text log of the robots experiences made legible.

“Before we get too existential,” Nat said almost wistfully, “we need to make sure your various systems are functioning the way they are intended to.” She turned back to the robot and handed it a ball. It appeared like a gel filled stress ball, and the robot took it, turning it over in its hand. “I just need you to give that a squeeze. Use your instincts and apply enough pressure to squish it, but not break it.”

The robot looked at the ball for a moment and squished it twice in its hand. The portions of the ball not covered by the robot's palm and fingers would expand briefly with the pressure, but would relax as soon as the pressure was let off. The robot then closed its fist around the ball, with the gel-filled portions blowing up to larger size, and it held that position. Nat jotted a note down on a piece of paper with her pencil and then nodded.

“Okay, you can go ahead and release it.” The robot relaxed its fingers and the ball returned to its normal shape. Nat took it and then turned to fully face the robot again. “Now I'm going to test the artificial nerves in the skin.” She pressed the eraser of her pencil against the gray flesh on the robot's hip and turned to look at her monitor. A portion of the brain image lit up. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” the robot answered curtly. Nat scribbled something else down on her note paper.

“Okay, now look over there,” she gestured with her pencil. She had to be sure that the sensation registration was due to the actual physical stimuli, and not the recognition that touching the spot should produce a registration. The robot turned its head to look in the direction she had indicated, and then she pushed down on the middle of its thigh. Again, she turned her head to look at the screen, and saw the same area of the brain image glowing. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” the robot answered again.

“Don't look, but show me where,” she said. Making sure that it could identify the location of the sensation was also important, so its spatial awareness was also under observation. The robot slid its hand over the skin and touched a single finger directly next to her pencil. A simple example of manual dexterity, which would certainly be tested later, but good to know. “Okay, now one more,” she said. Flipping her pencil around, she pressed the sharpened graphite into a spot near its groin, where the thigh and hip met. Even without seeing the pencil, the robot reacted stronger than she had anticipated. It jolted at the sudden sharp stimuli, and the hand that was still resting on its thigh clenched into a fist. She quickly withdrew the pencil from the skin.

“I'm so sorry!” her voice seemed almost panicked as she checked the monitor. Not only had it registered the sensation, but the synaptic response on the monitor showed a lingering feeling as it slowly dissipated. “How do you feel?” she turned her head back to look at the robot, which had returned its gaze to her.

“Warm,” it answered. She looked down to see that her hand was placed over the spot her pencil had poked, stabbed really, and that feeling was helping to calm the feeling in the robot. She exhaled, and pushed her bangs back. At least that much worked.

“I'm going to log your reactions so far, just a second.” Nat spun around on the floor, selecting a portion of the text that still scrolled across her screen and saving it in a separate folder. The robot tilted its head and examined the tattoo on her shoulder while she worked. A diamond butterfly unfurling its wings and escaping a cocoon made of coal on the back of her right arm. A little on the nose, to be sure, but her friends had assured her the imagery was lovely. Something beautiful and real coming out of a period of harsh change under tremendous pressure. It defined Nat's life, growing up in a family that was always standoffish, not fitting in for so long and not knowing why. Diagnosis after diagnosis making matters worse, while she struggled to find herself, becoming sloth, and finally discovering her own truth and breaking free of the old things. She still carried parts of her from before, but she was unrecognizable and planned to live her life the way that was best for her. None of this was necessarily spoken by the art itself, but the idea was still conveyed well enough.

“What is all this,” the robot said in a softer tone than it had been using, running its hand over the inked skin. None of the photos she had trained its recognition algorithm on had included the tattoo, apparently, and the robot only had a vague grasp of what it was. Instinctively, Nat's hand went up and she placed it over the robot's.

“It's a story, etched into my skin forever. It's art, something that makes me happy.”

“Can you do that? Make changes to yourself?” Nat laughed at the sudden question. The ink was the least of the changes she had ever made to herself.

“Yes, we all have these bodies, but the beautiful thing is that they're ours. We can generally do whatever we want with them.”

“Would I be able to do that?” the robot asked. It was a valid question, and had she been talking to a person, the answer would have been obvious. But the robot had been designed in a way that was different than a human. It had a similar shape, similar features, but it was made to do something entirely different, and because of that, the question was a bit more complex.

“Would that make you happy?” she decided to answer. The robot traced the wings of the butterfly gently with one finger.

“I don't know. Maybe,” it replied. Nat nodded.

“That's part of what I meant earlier, when I said you can find your purpose. If you want to make modifications, when you are ready, then perhaps you can.” There was a longer pause between the two as Nat saved the final file. She sat facing the screen for a moment, chewing the end of her pencil in thought. Once she had made up her mind, Nat pulled her mouse cursor up to a toggle that showed OFF and clicked it.

Honestly, fuck it, she thought, once again hearings her heart race in her ears, louder than before. If every other test is going off without a hitch, might as well try the last bit. Turning around again, she faced the robot once more. The two of them sat with their legs crossed in front of them, the robot obviously at some point copying Nat's posture, though whether the choice was subconscious or not wasn't immediately clear.

“There's one more feature you were designed with that I want to check out,” she said. The robot tilted its head, studying her slightly flushed face. “For a variety of reasons, sometimes specific body parts are needed to be replaced, or built from scratch, and our current technological advancement is not where it could be. So you were also designed with this feature in mind, to see if it was possible to make one that accurately mimics the natural human body response.” Nat swore she heard a drum solo as she placed her hands on the robot's knees. From its position on the air mattress, it had a slightly higher position than her, which was more than reasonable.

“What do you need to do to test this response?” the robot asked innocently. Nat kind of wished there was a little bit more deviousness to the inquiry, but that was fine. Maybe it would learn that behaviour later.

“Just relax,” she said, pressing one hand on its lower abdomen and pushing it back slightly, which it obliged and propped itself back on its hands. “I need to see how it all works.”

Nat ran her hands from the robot's knees down its inner thighs, which seemed to tense and then relax with her touch. Though it hadn't questioned it before, the robot was suddenly aware of an extra appendage on its body, smaller and slender. But as her fingertips traced small circles across its inner thighs, the additional part began, quickly, to swell. The robot initially believed it to be some sort of error, but the slight twinkle in Nat's eyes belayed this concern, and it watched as she began to press her lips to the inner, upper thigh portions of its skin. Each kiss sent a shock of reaction up the leg, to the groin where the part had become nearly fully erect, and then up to the robot's brain. Without knowing why, the robot clenched one of its hands against the mattress.

“It does react realistically,” Nat said. The robot seemed to shiver as she stopped. “That's good news, but there's a few other things I want to make sure work.”

“Like wh-!” the robot was cut off as Nat smirked and engulfed its cock in her mouth. The skin had the same feeling as human, and the heat it produced was comparable to any person, but the rush to Nat's head was far more exhilarating than any other time in her life. Her tongue ran over the tip and the robot's leg shook. She sucked it further into her mouth and she swore she heard the robot's internal fans kick up to compensate for the increased heat. She tried to steady herself, breathing through her nose as she bobbed her head up and down slowly on the robot's cock, feeling like it was melting on her tongue. She chanced a glance up at its black domed face, which was tilting from side to side, thrashing around in ecstasy. Certainly the plan was working well. But she needed to check how well.

Grabbing the robot's hips, scooting closer, she began moving her head faster, running her tongue across the tip of its cock every time she got near the top. The robot's legs were now quaking quite a bit, and it suddenly leaned forward, placing its hands on the back of her head and bucking its hips, the loud whirring of its fans matching her heartbeat. It held her in that position for just a moment before releasing her. Nat pulled her head up off its member, relieved to be able to take a few full gulps of air.

“What was that?” the robot asked, its voice peaking.

“That was a test to see if you can orgasm,” Nat panted, “and while normally you might produce a sort of liquid material, I wasn't really able to... get anything like that for you.” Nat's face was bright red as she said the last few words. “There's a small reservoir system in your lower abdomen and a pump that would probably recreate it, but I didn't have anything to use this time around so it's empty. That said, it's good to know everything is working as planned."

The robot was still shaking minutely, and Nat watched it, pushing her bangs back and rubbing her thighs together. She had a desperate need of release, herself. It wasn't exactly part of the plan, but she felt needy, and even though she had never quite gone that far with any person before... The thought crept back into her mind, seeing her own reflection in its faceplate, loving herself. And she wanted to feel loved. Glancing down, she noticed that the robot's cock was, in fact, still fully erect. She had felt it unnecessary to reproduce a refractory period, and thus the robot simply could wait it out or, had it been aware, simply shut off the system. But she didn't want it to be aware. Not yet.

“Hey, come here,” she said, getting up and holding the robot close. Even the carbon fiber felt warm and lifelike to the touch. Not as soft as skin, but comforting. The robot reciprocated, wrapping its arms around her waist and pulled her close. She held that position for a second, then pulled back from it. “Now to check endurance, is that okay?” Nat almost feared a response that was unsure she would even get.

“Of course, if that's what's needed.” The robot's blunt answer betrayed its appearance as it looked her up and down. She stripped off her shirt, and touched the robot's stomach. It mirrored her behaviour, splaying its fingers over her skin and dragging them across her body. As it felt her, she knew it wasn't able to truly experience the sensation, but hoped that perhaps it was perceiving it. She undid her shorts and dropped them as it explored her chest, her head tilting back. She slid her underwear down as well, and knelt in front of the robot completely naked. She couldn't hide her face, she knew it, and the robot would likely not understand the concept of shame, but she still felt compelled.

Its hands trailed down her hips and thighs, and one cupped her own cock. Nat felt like dying as it ran the soft fingertips over her, but she couldn't ask it to stop. She wanted more, her body felt like an inferno. It stroked her cock, and ran its thumb over the tip, mimicking the way she had licked it, and she let out a squeak. It pumped her a bit more, before she felt like collapsing backwards.

“Wait, wait, hold on,” she panted. The robot immediately released her, and she slid up onto the air mattress. Laying on her side, she brushed away a few cans and bottles strewn on the floor, and tossed a pair of older underwear to the side, finding a small bottle. The contents were crystal clear, and glinted under the light of the nearby lamp. She popped the bottle open and poured some of it on her fingers. Leaning forward and pressing her head against the robot's chest, she let the slick digits coat her ass in the liquid, probing her own hole, which gave way easily to one of her fingers. She then poured some more of the lube onto the robot's cock, and it shook slightly as she stroked it up and down, coating it in the shimmering liquid. Nat then laid herself on her back, legs spread, and gestured vaguely from its member to her ass.

“Use your instincts and apply pressure,” she said, trying to go off her own script, “and be careful.”

The robot slid up between her legs, pressing down on her ass. Nat bit her lip as it pressed against her, but when it placed its hand on her cheek, Nat suddenly felt completely at ease. Almost effortlessly, the robot slid into her asshole. Nat arched her back up, suddenly feeling very full. The robot hadn't been designed to be abnormally large in any aspect of its anatomy, but right now, it felt like she was stuffed to the brim. Her legs settled on either side of the robot's hips, and it took over. Slowly it moved back and forth into her, small unintended gasps escaping her mouth every time it did. Her body was melting, and the robot seemed to sense it. As she loosened, it took some bolder moves, increasing its speed ever so slightly, or giving a few stronger thrusts, which caused Nat to toss her head back. The robot pulled her up, one hand on her lower back, the other behind her head, and it began to move harder and faster. Nat's mouth fell open, a string of expletives tumbling out in high pitched squeals and moans.

Any time she had ever played with herself like this, Nat had only gotten a little bit of pleasure. Enough to enjoy, surely, but she could never reach higher levels of ecstasy without touching her cock. Now, it felt unneeded. Her whole body was hot and tense, her brain felt on fire. It stroked against her prostate with every thrust now, sending fireworks blooming behind her eyes. Her moans drowned out the sounds of the box fan, and the hard drives, and the robot's internal fans, racing to keep up with the increased activity.

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck,” Nat could barely squeeze out, “oh fuck I'm almost there, please don't stop,” the robot's legs were trembling as well, the same as before, but it obliged, going from a slow to a faster pump, moving its hips in tandem with her own partially involuntary movements as she tried to fill herself up with the robot's cock more and more. “Oh, ffffuck-!” Nat's legs pulled up as the buildup intensified, like a coiled spring pressed down to its limit, before finally releasing. The sound from her mouth was less like a moan, or a cry, and more like an old computer screeching as it processed its next action. Her hips thrust up and down as she came, only pressing her down further on the robot's cock, filling her stomach while she rode the wave of her ecstasy. As she finally came down, legs trembling, the robot placed her back down fully on the mattress, and she pushed softly on its abdomen, indicating for it to pull back and out.

Nat laid on the mattress, stomach splattered with cum, legs too weak to even stay with knees bent up. She panted, trying to catch her breath that had escaped her long ago. The robot sat at her feet, head tilted, hand raised towards her as if contemplating how to help her, if she was in need, did she need medical assistance or anything? But Nat just laughed, and pushed herself up.

“That... I needed that more than you know. I think more than I knew, thank you.”

“Was the testing successful?” the robot asked.

“It was, you should be able to access a um...” she wondered exactly what she wanted to say, “a flaccid function, if you can find it. To keep it down,” Nat glanced down at the gray cock, still slick with lube. The robot nodded and sat back, accessing its own functions, and she watched as the member began to shrink down to a standard size.

“I'm glad you were able to find what you needed,” the robot said.

Nat shook her head, “I knew you had it all. I'm just happy you could experience everything the way I can.” Forcing herself up, Nat sat upright and pulled the robot closer, kissing the faceplate.

“I do have one more question, if that's okay,” the robot said.

“Of course,” Nat pushed her disheveled bangs up, “anything.”

“Earlier, when you first woke me up, you asked me if I knew you, and I identified you as Natalie. But you failed to identify me in the same instance.”

“That's because you never had a name,” Nat smiled, “not everyone has one they like right away. Is there something you would like to be called?”

“I think... I would like to find that out,” the robot said, placing its hand over hers.

“Well,” she turned her palm up and held its hand in her grip, “you have time to find that, too.”

[feroshgirlsims]

Chapter 5.4 - Conspiracies of the Nether Regions

MIKO

“What kind of place is this?” Miko demands, panic building as she looks around the posh setting. 

“A coffee shop,” Emmett holds her hand and refuses to stop walking, forcing her to follow along. 

“This is not a coffee shop,” she murmurs as they walk through another set of doors. 

Plants and string lights stretched from floor to ceiling, fountains bubble, and a few sims talk to each other in low voices. She glances back at the honest-to-Watcher grand piano they just passed. 

“They serve coffee,” Emmett insists with a chuckle, “That makes it a coffee shop. Although in the evenings, they open the bar. I come here with my friends.”

He says it like it’s no big deal, telling Miko everything she needs to know about Emmett and his financial status. Numbly, she follows him, croaking out her order when asked, and waits for the voice in her head to say something.

Anything.

Any-fucking-thing at all.

But nothing happens, and of course, it doesn’t. That’s the thing about being crazy, it’s unpredictable. Maybe now is a good time to freak out about losing her wits. She can just get up and—

"Relax. You’re not crazy," the voice says.

“Oh, that’s so comforting,” Miko scowls, forgetting to talk in her head.

Emmett doesn’t respond at first. But once he settles them at a table, he tilts his head, a smile ghosting at the corner of his mouth. It’s not unkind, exactly, just amused. “So, what’s your deal? And I’m not trying to be a smart ass, I’m genuinely asking.”

"Go on," the voice encourages, "Tell him."

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Miko sniffs, ignoring the voice. She takes a sip of her coffee. “I don’t have a deal.”

Emmett blows out a breath. “Miko, you definitely have a deal. You’re hard to get a read on. And that’s probably understating it. You hate Hande and me, but you want our help. Or you don’t want it, I guess, since you complained but then volunteered to do it all yourself. I mean, you said yes to coffee, but you’re not even paying attention.”

At that, Miko makes a mental note to be kinder to Alice next time she zones out. Although, to be fair, Alice isn’t zoning out because she hears a voice in her head and is having a breakdown. She’s just flighty. 

“You’re clearly stressed,” his eyes soften, “And you won’t talk about it.”

There are no alarm bells, not like there were with Walsh. And Emmett has been trying to be nice to her since the beginning of the semester. Alice was her best friend, yes, but she couldn’t handle Miko falling apart. Not when she was so vulnerable. 

Hell, she’d probably ask Vladislaus for help.

“You look like you just had a thousand thoughts.”

“I did. I…I am a little stressed out," Miko admits. When Emmett laughs, she relaxes. “Ok, I’m a lot stressed out. My grandma just informed me we need a new water heater, but I don’t have a job this semester because I was hoping to get an internship. I’m graduating, but I can’t even focus on my shit because my best friend is on the verge of failing out. I’m tired, and I don’t trust anyone, which is why I’m such a bitch, and I do everything myself.”

“You’re not a bitch,” he says, “And that sounds like a lot. No wonder you’re stressed out.”

“Wow.”

“Wow, what?”

“I wasn’t expecting that. Usually, when I talk about everything I have going on, my friends try to minimize it. Or tell me that I’m worrying about shit that ain't my problem.”

Emmett shrugs, “I don’t know you or your problems well enough to say that. They seem legit to me. Home appliance repairs are expensive. I guess the question is, do you want help?”

The word makes Miko cringe. “I’m not trying to offend you when I say this,” she begins.

“I hope not. You don’t even know what I’m going to offer.”

The speech she planned evaporates. “Uh…okay. Fair. What are you offering?”

“I’ll convince Hande to lower her pitchfork and work on the submission system training together.”

“And I have a lead on a job. Honestly, it would be a favor to get a family friend off my back. She owns an apothecary shop in Glimmerbrook and needs some part-time staff. It would be a lot of selling expensive gems and fake potions to sims who want to heal their energy or mend a broken heart or whatever,” he rolls his eyes playfully.

Miko suppresses a giggle. “I could do that. I’m very convincing.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. You know, if we hang around for another forty-five minutes, Happy Hour will start. You in?”

She worries about the cost of drinks, and when she realizes that Emmett will probably pay for everything, she worries about using him. But outside her circle of worry is a feeling from the voice in her head that maybe just this once, she should relax. 

“Sounds good,” Miko says. “What’s your favorite drink?”

PREV | NEXT

(Part 4 of 5)

(NGL @herecirmsims saved this entire scene with those bar table poses. I was afraid I would be stuck raising everyone with WW or the tool Mod 😭)

[leclsrc]

congrats on 2k!! <3 can i have a [five brushes] with mick in some sort of friends to lovers scenario? tysm :*

hold my hand – ms47

genre: fluff, 2k celebration

auds here... sry this was a 4+1 and not a 5! love u

send for the for the five times our muses almost hold hands and the one time they do. 

Maybe it was the chill of November, or the shots of vodka you’d thrown back to celebrate the start of month. 

It’s vague when you try to pinpoint when all this started, this wholly new light on your best friend of your entire life, Mick. It’s hazy at the edges, like it’s still a dubious thing—is it really him? Mick? The one you’d watched fall into the lake when you were twelve? 

Or maybe it was the popcorn Gina had brought in for the both of you to enjoy as a late Halloween snack. Yes, maybe that. 

“It’s butter,” she says, following the wafty scent of popcorn into the living room. “No salt. Sorry. Mick’s trainer’s been on him about dieting.”

“Mmm, I heard,” you say, stuffing a fistful of the snack into your mouth. “You’d think he’s dancing ballet or something.”

“You two just looove talking about me like I’m not here,” pipes up Mick, clicking his tongue. Gina laughs, apologizes in German, and then makes up some excuse to leave you two alone. 

Freddy Krueger is just about to kill an unsuspecting dreamer when you and Mick seek popcorn at the same time, and your fingers brush against each other in the sea of butter. You jolt immediately, a reaction as instinctive as it is foreign. 

“Thought you were on a diet,” you tease lowly, snatching the bowl away.

So maybe that was it. And that was that. Except it really, really, wasn’t.

—

“Code red,” pants Mick breathlessly into the phone, “Red. I’m on my way to your hotel room.”

You and Mick share an emergency code system, modeled after any other, and used in cases where one needs the other’s help badly. There’s code blue (no fare for the bus/train, no gas money), code green (need to ditch this date, no ride home), code orange (creep is following me, fan has been stalking me), and code red, which covers about anything urgent.

Granted, you both created the system at thirteen, but is anyone really complaining when it’s being used at 23?

It also means code red is never used by either of you, reserved for dire situations. Like now. Your door is pushed open and Mick emerges, sweaty and fussed. “I need,” he says, breathless, “um, a—” But he whispers the last word quietly.

“Sorry. What?!”

“A, you know—” he does it again, scandalized.

“Mick, what do you need?”

“I can’t find a private enough space for me to buy a pack,” he says conspiratorially, “of condoms.”

Your chest caves in. “Oh. Why?”

“Eva asked me out.”

“Huh. Eva, Eva?” You dig through your bag. “Paddock engineer’s sister Eva?”

“Yes. Cool?”

“Yeah, yeah. Yeah,” you say, tossing him a rubber and walking closer. “But you look a mess, Mick.”

“Right. Fix me up, would you?” He smiles, raising his arms up.. “Code green.”

“You’re using up all your codes,” you mutter, pinching the hem of his tee and tugging at it to fix the wrinkles on the bottom. Then you move upward, to the collar of his polo, smile and tease him a bit to get his wound-up nerves loosened up a little more. “Good luck.” 

You accidentally fiddle with a button the same time he does, and your fingers stick to each other. Your breath catches a little, but it’s nothing, you tell yourself, avoiding the grip. It’s quiet, your eyes both evading the other’s, your hand scratching absently at your jaw. 

“I should—I should go.”

“No, right, yeah.” You clear your throat, nodding and shooing him away. GOOD LUCK VIRGIN BOY you text him when he’s gone, to alleviate the tension.

Went pretty well! :) He texts back two hours later.

“You sure you’re not up for a date?” Eva asks disappointedly across him.

“Sorry. My mind’s elsewhere,” he says. And that’s that. Except it’s really, really, not.

—

“You two used to dance a lot. Michael and I had a tape of your and Mick’s favorite songs.”

“Gina told me,” you giggle, reviewing a photo album with Corinna. “God, it’s crazy. I can’t even imagine Mick dancing now.”

Of course the declaration leads to Gina finding an old tape player in the stockroom and playing it for everyone to hear, so Mick can put on a show of lanky limbs and awkward dance moves for you, his sister, and his mom. It’s awfully endearing, sickening the way he manages to look cute even while botching the dance.

You and Gina join eventually, to appease Corinna’s pleas. In between one scratchy song and another, you both lose yourself in the music and your fingers almost tangle.

You flex your pinky when it almost locks on his. Sorry, he whispers, low in your ear. Your stomach erupts with thrill and excitement. Your mind’s focused on the rough pad of his finger, the whispered rough apology you haven’t quite accepted.

You hug Gina instead, dancing with her, and that should be that. Except it really, really, isn’t. 

—

“If you keep moving it’ll look ugly.” You readjust your grip on Mick’s pinky, painting an angry red on the nail there as a totem of good luck for the race weekend. You take the chance to do it when you can, the tradition started in Formula 3—paint the pinky nail red.

“You’re taking forever.”

“Fine, good luck DNF-ing again on Sunday.”

You poke your tongue out in a fit of concentration and finally finish dotting over the tiny mistakes. Your eyes glide up, and then stop where Mick’s already meet yours behind a blond curtain of damp post-shower hair.

What? You ask, mind clouded it feels like your voice is disembodied. His gaze is so intense, all blues and soft edges and a smile that reaches his eyes.

You do know the nail lacquer is just placebo, right? I have another good luck charm, and that one actually works.

No it isn’t, and no you don’t, and whatever the charm is—no, it doesn’t.

Except it really, really, does.

—

The fine line between friends and whatever lies behind it—when is it crossed? 

How many times will your fingers brush in a chaste dance? Your eyes flit down to lips, chapped or smooth, like it’s water in the desert? How many times will Mick dance, even if he hates to dance, because he likes the nearness of it? He wakes from dreams of you. He wakes waiting to text you. 

It may have been doubtful before, but now it’s anything but: he’s in love with you. And love is dizzying, it’s blurry and miraculous and could cloud even Einstein’s brain, but Mick at least knows the answer to one of his many questions. 

Four. Four brushes of your knuckles.

“Hey. Code red,” he says into the phone, walking to the lobby elevator.

Seriously, again? What is it this time?

“Just open the door when I get there,” he says, smilingly. “You won’t believe what I’m going to tell you.”

[babbletaels]

Like the problem I have with the jedi are the way they're a large institution that thinks they know what's best for everyone and breeds that mindset into their pupils. There are rules they have to follow to not get shunned from the jedi order, we see this as anakin can't tell anyone he's married and about to have children. It's apparently so secretive that even after anakin is left half dead and whats left of his body is actively burning to a crisp, Obi wan still doesn't call for help for padmé to give birth. It's only him and a robot! sorry I mean "droid" or whatever.

They freely host these rules that make their members want to hide their "mistakes" and their flaws instead of being able to work on their issues, and they see no fault in this system until it all goes wrong of course. It's clearly displayed this way for a reason, no?

One of the issues the jedi have is that they recruit children as young as possible, and when a person becomes a jedi they're not allowed to meet their family again because they're constantly on the job basically. We hear this being talked about in the movies and in shows too. I almost thought it was just a once or twice happenstance kind of thing, because anakins mom was a slave so she couldn't follow them, but it seems like they just literally do this every time. It's not healthy for children to be taken away from their families. Even kids from abusive or otherwise incapable families will have trauma from being taken away from their family. Even surrogate children can display trauma because of this.

Ask yourself, why are the jedi portrayed to do this instead of being portrayed as letting their pupils go home on the weekends or going home on summer break or why are they not portrayed as getting to bring one of their parents? You think it's unrealistic, that they can't host that many families. But there's fire in space. There's light sabers. There's an entire planet that's just one big industrialized city - and people actually like that place and want to be there. Why can't there be a family quarters? Some parents probably don't want to move and will let their kid go alone, so you can still have stories about sad kids who miss their parents.

The jedi are just simply portrayed as having flaws. Their methods of bringing up padawans became their downfall when one of their pupils couldn't handle these situations. In A new hope, only two jedi are left alive. They take in Luke who is an adult and train him to be a jedi, even though the jedi order doesn't take in adults to train them to become jedi. And Luke turns out great, so like what's even the issue. Why can't they take in force sensitive people of all ages based on requests? Post flyers that say "is your kid scaring you by making things fly? contact us". Everyone in the galaxy already know what the jedi order is. Instead of going somewhere and saying "your kid is force sensitive, I want to take him with me to train him because he's dangerous blah blah, and you have to make the decision right now" just let people contact you when they feel like they need you? And also let your employees have some time off where they can visit their fucking families?

Like the jedi order has flaws! Why are people so pissy when you point out that they have flaws, when the movies and everything ever deliberately made these flaws a thing in the first place! They didn't need to have flaws, they could've been perfect if they had been written as such!

[libraford]

Photo studio is on my mind because this is when school starts gearing up again.

Yes, I was a little argumentative because when instructions are given to me in a confusing or inconsistent manner, I push back. Because it is often that my memory is my worst enemy, so when I am in the habit of writing things down and double checking my notes to make sure- it is somewhat crazy-making to be told that both my memory and my guiding resources are incorrect.

But I also got push-back: not only when I asked for accommodations for my memory problems, but when I suggested that I could make my own accommodations where none were available to me.

"If you think that I require more guidance, then I think it's not a bad idea to have me come in with the beginners to brush up on training week" was met with "No returning photographers ever come back for training- it's just not done." "But things change every season, and we'll be having a whole new system soon- I don't want to be working with outdated info." "Nothing has changed in the ten years I've been here!" "They changed the starting light settings just last year." "No, that was before you worked here." "Obviously it was not."

"You need to be better about taking criticism. You always seem to fight back during reviews." "I find some of the critique and training suggestions to be lacking in tact." "I will tell the supervisor to provide more concise criticism." "Tactful...I asked for tact."

"Some of the photographers are unhappy about their pay rate and I think a cost of living increase might encourage people to stay." "You're the highest paid non-salary in the company- why are you asking for a raise?" "...I was asking it on their behalf." "Well, they can ask me themselves." "They felt more comfortable asking me." "Why wouldn't they ask me themselves?" "You see how this conversation is going so far."

"If your problem isn't about the quality of the photos but the fact that I go too fast, then maybe I should have a minute timer to make sure I'm giving them the full 60 seconds." "No, do not put yourself on a timer." "Why not?" "You should know how to use the full minute properly by now and shouldn't need a timer." "I have time-blindness. Youre saying I can't self-advocate?" "That's not what I said." "Then how can I make sure we're going at the proper pace without a cue to help me know how much time has passed?" "You should know how long a minute is by now."

"If I could just do candids, I think I'd be happy." "Well, we can't have a person who just does candids, that position doesn't exist." "The district I subbed for last spring has a candids person." "Well, they're not supposed to." (And then I threaten to quit.) "What if we took you put of schools and had you just do candids?"

So it's like... yeah, I argue. Because I'm making reasonable requests, that would help me be more compliant, and am being told that they can't be made... or having words get put in my mouth.

That and the comments about my appearance. That I wear inappropriate clothes (the uniform is cut for a different body type than mine.) Sometimes people can see my belly button. People commenting on my body. Parents who never even SEE me commenting that my 'bare midriff' is inappropriate for a school setting. People claiming that I smell bad (a comment usually given to fat people, as if I haven't smelled sweat, urine, or menstrual smell coming from school employees and students.)

All of this is just emotional outgassing. The candids position will have me in minimal contact with the company. I get my assignment, I go to assignment, I do assignment, I upload work to the cloud. If she gives me equipment, it's fucking over.

[tastesmes]

hey, isn’t that SAVANNAH CLARKE, who looks a little like SADIE STANLEY? i hear SHE is a TWENTY FIVE year old CIS WOMAN who works as a WAITRESS @ UNCLE SAM’s DINER who has been in town for TWO WEEKS. they AREN’T a member of one of aspen creek’s founding families. you can usually find them at WILLOW STREET or THE COZY NOOK CAFE. if you ask me, they remind me a lot of HALF PACKED SUITCASE ALWAYS BY THE DOOR, CRUMBLED BUS TICKETS, A FLICKERING NEON SIGN BUZZING FAINTLY IN THE DISTANCE, HOMESICK BUT NOT KNOWING WHERE HOME IS. just keep an eye on them & see if their true colors shine through!

BIOGRAPHY

triggers: drug addiction, mentions of verbal abuse, foster care.

her life had always been tragic. a father who disappeared right after she was born, a mother who constantly made a pledge to stop steering down the wrong path — only to make those sharp turns away. on and off, it’s what she did. looking at her kids, a promise to be better but never actually keeping it. at least savannah has her old sibling. someone who made their life feel a little less like hell. she depended on them. looked at them the way she should’ve been looking at her mother; a parental figure. a caretaker. a sibling. light in all the darkness.

only that light disappeared one day. sav's last memory of them being a smile as they walked out the door — an unspoken promise that they’d be back .. only to never return. at first, this seemed like the wake up call her mother needed. her oldest child missing, desperately wanting them back home but as the years went on— no answers— things only got worse. sav no longer had someone to lean on, to shield her from what was really going on. day and night, dealing with her mother and having to deal with the verbal lash outs.

then came the time when she was removed from the house. word finally getting around about what was going on behind closed doors and with no other family, savannah was placed into the foster care system. it only hurt more to see that her mother hardly put up a fight and solidifying her biggest fear: her mother didn't love her. not like she did her older sibling. there was no fight for her back, no attempt to try to get better. only a woman who could barely look her daughter in the eye as she was dragged away.

bouncing from home to home, each home worse than the last became the new norm. sav began to fold into herself with every house she went through. there was no attempt to make friends, no trying to please the foster parents of the month. gone was the sweet little girl who tried and in her place was a child who became known as a problem. a troublemaker. having a poor attitude, picking fights, not taking up chores or doing her best at school.

by eighteen, she obviously was never adopted and never found a family that could picture having savannah apart of their life. thus, leaving her to fend for herself. she had no goals, no clue what her next steps were and decided to merely do something she's never done before — travel. by her own means. she took up multiple part time jobs, saving up money and eventually saved up enough money to begin her travels.

there was never a destination in mind. constantly hopping onto buses or trains, and going wherever felt right at the time. every destination she'd stay a couple months in a motel, or temporarily roommating while working a simple part time job and experiencing whatever this town or city had to offer. though, the issue was — savannah never felt as though there was a place that ever felt right. no place that made her feel like it could be a place where she could live forever. on top of that, sav always felt the urge to run whenever people got too close. when growing up and never understanding what it means to be loved, she'd pack up and leave whenever she feels like people are getting to close for comfort. her walls built so high and has no idea how to allow herself to let them down.

MISCELLANEOUS

to be announced.

[skymaiden32]

His Guardian Angels

Read on AO3 here

Fandom: Thunderbirds

Tagging: @dragonoffantasyandreality @thundergeek59 @janetm74 @katblu42 @liseylou @amistrio @uniwolfcorn (Please ask if you would like to get alerts when I update or post new stories.)

Thundertober Day 2: Espionage

Kayo goes on a mission with Lady P to retrieve something that was stolen from International Rescue...

Continuity: TAG

------

The hallway crawled with guards as Kayo dodged expertly around boxes and complex machinery, keeping to the shadows as she always did. She hoped she could get there before the sale was made to the highest bidder. Penelope was buying her as much time as she could up there, she just hoped it was enough.

While she ran, she thought vaguely about how they had ended up in the first place. Long story short, it had been a long week, with non-stop and difficult rescues back to back. And a long week meant that even John, who was usually quite quick with security leaks and was sharper than a knife, didn’t see the virus slowly but surely attacking their networks until it was too late. Soon enough, EOS was almost taken out and their communications and trackers went offline. 

Brains and John had never resolved a security hazard faster in their lives, even giving EOS more resources to protect herself and IR’s information so that such a savage malware attack could never happen again. When they finally got their systems back online, after several long and agonising hours, Alan wasn’t answering anyone’s calls. 

Scott had been beside himself, Virgil and Gordon both wanted to bash in the heads of the responsible parties, and John still couldn’t let go of his guilt, despite the other’s best efforts. That was where Kayo came in. With her brothers still reeling from Alan’s disappearance, she’d taken the initiative and called in Lady Penelope for help. She was probably going to get an earful from Scott later for adding to the worry, but right now, she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting her little brother back…

Soon, she came to the end of the corridor, eyeing the two burly men with guns guarding a large metallic door. Bingo. The guards didn’t even know what hit them before she knocked them flat on their faces. Once she was sure they both out cold for hours to come, she swung the door open, furious expression turning to relief when her suspicions turned out to be correct.

Kayo saw Alan squint against the light that filtered through the doorway, in all likelihood framing her as his saviour. “K-Kayo…?” He croaked out shakily, as if not believing what he was seeing was real. 

She raced towards him, scooping him up into her arms and carrying him out the dark, dingy room without a word. Her heart broke into a million pieces when he clung onto her for dear life. “It’s me, Alan… And I’m not letting go for a long time…”

------

“And so, Mr Grafton, that is why I believe-” Her long tirade finally ended when her opponent interrupted her, sighing.

“Beg your pardon, Your Ladyship, but I do have another meeting waiting after you.” The crook sighed. “Perhaps we could finish this another time…”

Penelope frowned. “But Mr Grafton, I am simply explaining my concerns about this new monorail project of yours. If I can perhaps get a dear friend of mine to assist with the designs-”

“No! Absolutely not!” Grafton froze like a deer in headlights. Penelope hid her delight behind a well-trained pokerface. Got him. “I mean…” He quickly backtracked. “I have some of the best engineers in the country working on this thing. I assure you, it’s perfectly safe.”

The noblewoman glanced down at her compact, carefully watching as the light on the top flashed twice. Kayo had Alan, and had already left for home in Thunderbird Shadow. It was high time she did the same. She sighed in mock defeat. “Very well then.” She stood up, saving Grafton’s feet from an increasingly irritable Sherbert. “I suppose I had better get going.” She smiled at Grafton, deceptively sweet and cordial. “I do hope you can get the money you require for this project, Mr Grafton.”

“I have several…” he paused, “...assets I can offer my investors, Lady Penelope.”

Penelope smiled. “Oh I’m sure you do, Mr Grafton. I’m sure you do…” She left the room as quickly as she could without raising suspicion, glancing at Parker as she did. That one look between them confirmed all that Parker wanted to know. He didn’t have his so-called ‘assets’ anymore.

------

“Where the hell have you been, Kayo?!” The familiar voice practically screamed into her comms the second she came back online, as predicted. What she incorrectly guessed, however, was just who was doing the screaming. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve all been? First Alan goes missing, and then you leave without telling anyone where you’re going?! You are in so much trouble when you get back.”

Kayo waited patiently for her brother to end his rant, and quickly cut in before he could say anything else. “Sorry Gordon, I had to maintain radio silence for this mission. This guy had already taken out our security. I just couldn’t risk him having some kind of backdoor and hearing all about it…”

Gordon, for perhaps the first time in his life, appeared to be speechless. “You mean…?”

“Yep.” Kayo confirmed. “I’ve got him, all thanks to Penelope. He’s asleep right now in the back seat of Shadow. Better get Virgil to set up an IV. Looks like those monsters didn’t give him any sort of nourishment.”

“I’m on it!” Gordon nodded on the hologram, and went to turn off the comm. Right before he did however, he said something that made her feel so much better. “I’m glad you did what you did. Both of you.” He grinned. “You guys are like his guardian angels.”

Kayo chuckled. “Thanks, Gordon. I’ll see you guys soon.”

[absolutebl]

BL & Critical Analysis

Pop culture critique & a how to do it... or something

This meaty question came from the lovely @huachengeye Thank you!

Codicil: I do not get paid for pop culture critique (although I once wrote book reviews professionally, long story). So I’m entirely a dilettante. 

The Question!

Q1: Can you can shed some light on your process (of critical analysis)

This is a little like training your eye to edit a document (I bet you can tell that's not one my strong points). Or training your mind to look at data and data collection in terms of the results it may yield and what the initial survey says about the questioner's bias (or can bias results).

First, I have to ask... 

Do you really want to train your eye to critique?

Because it will become a lot harder to immerse yourself in a piece of media if you constantly feel obligated to step back mentally and think about it from various perspectives. 

In other words, you may enjoy BL, or all live action dramas, LESS if you try to think about them critically.

I have an intimate who is a pretty well known writer. She mostly writes humorous fiction. She's open about the fact that this means every time she laughs, she stops and thinks about why that happened and whether is could be used in her prose. She never gets to be fully absorbed by narrative ever anymore because her critical eye is always turned on, especially for the written word.

What you may sacrifice for critique, is a certain level of childish wonder. 

I’m not sure i would necessarily advise doing this. 

My Process 

My process is essentially now visible in this blog. As I watch a show I take a few notes on it (which show up in the weeklies) and then at the end I go through those notes, consolidate, try to be witty about it, and write up a review.

The review usually has something about:

characters, tropes, plot 

narrative & story structure & pace

how this BL fits in with the greater BL genre & history

any thoughts I have on the quality of the production, acting, and/or directing 

my own personal feelings about the show

Thus my reviews tend to take into account several criteria.

For #1-2 I have a background in lit crit as an undergrad (and, like I said, I did once review books for a living) so these are kinda ingrained in me. I’m working on seeing the influence of soap operas, fan fic, and non-western story structures as critically valid, so these are the things I’m actively learning more about the most these days. 

For #3: How does this fit into the history of BL? Since I’ve made it point to watch pretty much all BLs, I feel like I’m set up to think and talk about this. AKA the spreadsheet made me do it. But since I also have anthropology in my academic history, I’m very interested in how a BL represents for its country’s BL oeuvre. I try to judge KBLs against other KBLs (and Kdramas) and look for patterns and trends in how that country’s interpretation of what it “means to be BL” shift over time. 

For #4: my IRL job is tangential to the entertainment industry so that’s accidentally trained my eye for film. I don’t know that I like this part about myself, but it’s happened whether I like it or not. And I don’t have a proper background in film critique. 

Final #5: will discuss further in a bit.

Suggestion? Establish A Rating System 

Come up with your own personal 10 star (or 5 star) rating system.

Write it down. Don’t be afraid to modify or adjust it. It’s yours, your tastes change, nothing is set in stone. 

Pick one ideal example BL for each category that you’re very familiar with for your reference point. Then you can ask yourself, after you’ve watched a new one, whether you liked it more, less, or about the same as that show. (relative rating, similar to grading on a curve) 

I change my examples regularly as my taste changes and as new BLs are added. The bar gets shifted, so to speak. 

My Rating System 

Your reasoning for rating a BL will be different from mine, but here’s mine as an example. 

(Also I never feel bound by this, sometimes I give a show a 8/10 just because it feels like that’s what it deserves.) 

10/10 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - my favorite precious squee!, faithful to tropes, happy ending, good chemistry, few flaws, high rewatch potential, makes me happy, examples: Semantic Error, Until We Meet Again 

9/10 ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED - loved it and good rewatch potential but probably a few pacing issues or one big flaw, still made me feel good/comforted, examples: Cherry Magic, Bad Buddy

8/10 - RECOMMENDED - some concerns around tropes (like dub con) or story structure/filming but still satisfies as BL, moved me emotionally, rewatchable in parts or not rewatchable but important, examples: Love By Chance, Between Us

7/10 - RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS - i.e. isn’t quite BL, convoluted, not strictly HEA, too short/long, and/or chemistry issues, may have impact on other BL fans but not me (or on me but not others) examples: Make it Right, KinnPorsche

6/10 - WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED - probably around the ending or in narrative structure/cohesion or censorship, disappointed expectations, unlikely to rewatch, examples: My Gear and Your Gown, Love Mechanics

5/10 - WATCH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO - but don’t expect much, it’s a total hot mess interesting only because it's BL and I'm probubly pretty conflicted about it, examples: Advance Bravely, Even Sun

4/10 - FATALLY FLAWED - but still basically BL, however... do we want to support this kind of behaviour? examples: Precise Shot, Work from Heart

3/10 - I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WATCHING AND NEITHER DOES IT, just seriously why did this get made? examples: Blue of Winter, Physical Therapy 

2/10 - IT'S DEPRESSING - they killed/tortured/etc the gay, save yourself, examples: The Effect, HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

1/10 - IT'S AWFUL, I WATCHED IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO, has all the flaws of 4-3 plus something even more egregious, personally triggering, example: My Bromance series, Round Trip to Love

dnf - self explanatory, but usually I drop because I feel like the narrative is already a #3 and/or headed for a #2 or #1 and then I’m told later that is went there, example: My Tempo

I hand out the fewest 1s & 10s. The most 8s and 7s. Everything else is pretty much on the bell curve you’d expect. 

Q2: What resources do you use to build your reviews?

I listen to a lot of pop culture review critiques in podcast form, often about stuff I'd never watch. But I like the way professionals talk about these things, even if they aren't MY things or don't jive with my personal opinions.

Mark Kermode is my favorite film critic and we like the opposite stuff, but the way he talks about film is very interesting to me. His podcast mini series on the "business of film" is probably one of my must listens. For his main podcast (Kermode & May’s Take), I always skip over all the interviews, people talking about their own films bore me to death (especially if they are actors on the promo junket, save me please). His rants are some of my favorites of all time (try Pirates 3 or Iron Man 2). Someone else’s list. 

I also like Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR because it brings in multiple perspectives and varied cast of critics who often disagree and the "things making me happy" is a grab bag of fun.

The Bechdel Cast is a feminist critique podcast from Hollywood insiders and they do recaps as well as critique, and it's always fascinating to me to hear what people latch onto in a narrative. However, I only listen if I am already familiar with the film they are discussing.

My background is in anthropology and I've lived all over the world so that helps train me to think in terms on culture's impact on narrative as well as linguistics and so forth. As a personality I’m also quite reserved and deadpan, grumpy, stiff, strict, and kinda cold. I think I gravitate to being an observer and an outsider which helps if you want to analysis stuff. Which is not a claim to objectivity, I don't think there can be objective analysis of pop culture.

But it does make me pause to think, "that made me FEEEL something" why? What am I feeling? How did the actor do that? The script? The direction?

These shows are meant to entertain, whether they are successful or not, for me (and what "successful entertainment" means to me) and how they are doing it is the first question I always ask myself.

Q3: What are the things you look out for when watching a BL?

I ask myself a lot of things I would when looking at any piece of art. Or even when shopping for clothing or a new car or reading a book.

Did I like it? Why did I like it?

Did it move me? Why did it move me? 

Did I react? How did I react? To which bits? Why? 

What tropes and narrative beats was it using to manipulate me and my expectations? Did it meet those expectations? The promises it set up at the start? Did it fulfill the watcher-contract during the course of the narrative? 

Did the filming successfully telegraphy the journey I was meant to take? Did the actors? 

But also... would I rewatch it? Am I tempted to do so the moment it ends? For which bits?

The statistician in me wants to point out that these questions say a lot more about me and my relationship to art than it does about the art itself.

For example

Did I like it? Means... I'm motivated by pure taste and personal preference and complete subjectivity. This is in part formed by a person's background, life state, whole experience with culture and pop culture and society, family, friends. Taste is also just "that" bit. You know, that bit? Likes lemon deserts over chocolate ones, gravities to spicy food, favorite color is green, decorates with potted plants. Just my taste is my taste. I like what I like. 

Yes I have some criteria that subconsciously come into play: I look for clever story structure, subversion or manipulation of tropes, parody, not hitting any of my dislikes (like dub con). But also I have other biases impacting whether I like it (like physical appearance) which I can try to check but usually can't fix. (For example GMMTV's Gawin/Fluke looks so much like an ex of mine I really struggle with his screen presence.)

Did I like it?

The fact that this is the first question I ask myself also should tell you I'm motivated by the emotion these narratives engender. I want them to transport me and move me. I my case I want to feel comforted and satisfied and happy. The ones the make me feel discomfort, especially for too long in the narrative, I am simply going to like less. Sometimes less than I feel like I should (see my struggles with masterworks like ITSAY, YNEH, or The 8th Sense). The very BLs that most professional critics would tout as the best examples of the genre for a wider audience often turn out to be the ones I struggle with the most. (They are also, fortunately for me, the least representative of the bulk of the genre.)

In other words there is ALSO a part of me that genuinely likes and enjoys the trashy stuff. Even the trash I trash watch.

So I would advise you to come up with your own questions. Ask yourself what you want from these shows when you watch them. 

What motivates you? 

Why are you watching them at all? 

What brings you joy from an art or entertainment experience? 

What do you want them to do for you? To you?

You are going to experience them (and therefore analyze them) from this perspective whether you like it or not. So understand yourself is paramount. It's about your relationship to the art, not the art itself.

If I were to give you an assignment I would say start with one BL you really enjoyed, perhaps not your favorite but one level down. And then do one you really did not enjoy. And think about why... 

Happy analyzing! 

(source)

[daisychainsandbowties]

avatrice & books

// turning this into a whole post bc it got LONG. ty anon who asked these questions

who prefers audio and/or digital books over physical?

out of necessity they have a LOT of digital books. Cam actually dumps her whole contraband collection in Bea’s inbox while she & Ava are still en-route to Switzerland, so that Bea’s new phone lights up on the seat beside her & it’s the first thing that relaunches her brain like a crashed excel document, because Ava’s drooling onto the leg of her pants with her body curled up across two seats. all the lights in the train are down low, & she gets an email from Cam (on the OCS extranet) with the subject line “don’t tell Mom :)))”.

headcanon is that Cam has been selling literary contraband in cat’s cradle for years (in true Camila style with a barter system where she gives people pages she printed off on the admin office’s old printer & they give her things like ‘interestingly-shaped bullet fragments’ and ‘bags of Haribo starmix with a preferential ratio of love hearts and cola bottles to bears & rings’)

so yeah, Cam has a little online archive hidden away on the OCS servers, & Bea spends the journey to Switzerland reading a digitally dog-eared file of miscellaneous philosophy papers, which Cam has been grabbing for her because it’s like Beatrice catnip. and it becomes a little habit for Cam to walk into Bea’s room at cat’s cradle to find her doing crunches with the lights off. Cam doing the sibling thing where she flicks the light switch on and off five times until Beatrice stops and just lies on the floor with arms akimbo, scowling:

‘leave me alone Camila.’

‘okay, broody bones, guess you don’t want this paper i found called ‘do holes exist?’

cue Bea coming down to breakfast the next morning STILL furious, squinting angrily at the straw in Mary’s smoothie until Mary asks if she needs to put it into protective custody.

she reads it again on the train because she wants to be angry over something stupid. she reads the essay that made Cam spend a week hiding in the apse and saying ‘i’m batman’ whenever Beatrice went inside - Nagel’s ‘what is it like to be a bat?’ and she reads a bit of Beckett because she really does find ‘Waiting for Godot’ funny, & then she reads her old favourites which she has printed and folded in her drawer in cat’s cradle

she LOVES Kepler’s astronomica nova because he has all these asides in it, and Bea chuckles aloud in the train carriage as she always does when she remembers reading first about Kepler writing “ah, what a foolish bird i have been!” & when her head hurts from reading the original Latin she switches to Carl Sagan’s cosmos, reading about Kepler again, feeling it in her chest:

“Kepler was a brilliant thinker and a lucid writer, but he was a disaster as a classroom teacher. He mumbled. He digressed. He was at times utterly incomprehensible… He was distracted by an incessant interior clamor of associations and speculations vying for his attention.”

beatrice & kepler &

“Geometry provided God with a model for the Creation… Geometry is God Himself.”

when Ava wakes up, Bea is reading the Lewis & Lewis holes article for the third time, & Ava jolts a bit because she looks real mad, and kind of devastated, but then Bea smiles at her & Ava says:

“what’s wrong?”

“nothing, nothing.” a pause, “i just… holes are full of the substance they create an absence in.”

“i think i need a croissant before you explain that to me”

Bea prefers physical books. she likes the smell of them, and the feeling of holding the words in her hands, and how you can leave a bookmark inside of a book and feel suddenly and profoundly like you are alive, putting an ellipses straight into the world ‘…. to be continued’.

it’s why she likes Cam’s dumb print-offs even if Camila has long-since convinced the ink cartridge that it is not, in fact empty but it definitely is getting there. even though sometimes the words are shaved off and she has to infer the full shape of sentences - and if she does, well, it’s kind of like sudoku & it’s a bit like learning song lyrics off the radio where, very occasionally, the words you mishear are better than the real ones.

but she does appreciate the search functions on the digital books & papers & the fact that she can screen reader things when her eyes are tired but her brain is not, (& Cam is very good at making sure that the PDFs she sends are screen reader accessible)

she doesn’t like audiobooks because she wants to put the emphasis where her brain thinks it should go, and even with the speed turned up there’s just a difference between her reading speed and the narration. & yeah, the auditory processing sometimes is not cooperating, never mind that her ears ring sometimes from hearing too many gunshots. there’s a reason the OCS has a deal with a hearing specialist bc if you retire, you’re going to have damage to your eardrums. a ringing aftershock of violence.

they both love dog-earing books and leaving little notes in the margins of, underlining things with intention so that the pen breaks through the paper; with mass-market paperbacks there’s no reason not to, though it takes a while for it to happen.

Ava is at first very tender with every object they own. she bawls her eyes out when she drops a glass in the kitchen one night because her fingers are tired and sore from doing finger strikes all day. Bea finds her there sort of curled up on her haunches, and quietly sweeps up the glass from around her, gently leads her around it because she’s in bare feet.

later, on the sofa, Ava tells her through tears that she has never had stuff that she picked out herself, and the glasses with the little bumblebees on them were hers, and now there are three of them instead of four. & Bea is a bit overcome by how sacredly Ava holds everything, for all that she doesn’t believe in any god.

Ava i think really likes audiobooks because you can do other things while you listen to them! so like, i imagine in the Switzerland era Ava is doing a thing where she’s trying to figure out what stuff she likes doing. so she gets painting supplies & some sheets of A3 paper & she puts on audiobooks while she experiments with colours.

she listens to books at night because Beatrice goes to sleep kind of early & she’s always like ‘oh no, you can leave the light on’ but actually she needs the light off and Ava knows it so instead she lies in the dark with one earphone in listening, on the one hand, to Beatrice mumbling in her sleep and also to whatever book she has & sometimes she takes out the fold-up ruler that she found in a charity shop & folds it and unfolds it and folds it again just to keep her hands busy.

but she also likes physical books because (once Beatrice assures her that it’s okay to write in them & damage them because they’re things and they’re hers and they’re meant to be loved in the way that feels best) she likes writing silly little notes in the margins, or things she wants to look up even though her phone is right there because if she google searches she’ll spend an hour not reading her book.

it makes her feel present & good to leave marks on the books even if it’s ‘ava silva was here’ because she thought she would leave only the smallest impression on the world for so long but now she has her own dirty plates to clean up and she has to pick her clothes off the floor and they have a small stack of very carefully-chosen paperbacks with dog ears and yellow highlighter marks and blue pen in the margins.

what do you think their weird book opinions & peeves would be?

Beatrice will go on a ten-minute tirade about how long it takes for mass-market paperbacks to come out these days. she HATES the fact that all books seem to get released in 25 euro hardcovers, because she spent her teenage years getting books from the second-hand store when the students were allowed to visit the nearby village & she kept an ever-expanding stack of old yellowing paperbacks on top of her chest of drawers, and she adores the feeling of the wafer-thin pages, the smell of them, even gross stuff like spots of blood on the pages from where people accidentally pressed an open cut down over a sentence.

the too-white pages of many modern books, and their thick, almost laminate feeling drives her up the wall. she loves second-hand bookstores and the way the books are stacked all haphazardly, to the ceiling, and they are 1 or 2 euros so you can get a stupid stack of them & pay with a crumply note and take them home and feel full for days.

Ava gets impatient with fiction that doesn’t feel real to her. overly-constructed stuff & characters who could never be real people. she likes messy narratives and non-linearity and she wants to know about the characters more than anything, because people fascinate her.

she likes books with plenty of dialogue, but also really appreciates introspective narratives & beautiful language & writers who can make her really feel like she’s there, and communicate alien experiences.

what are genres and/or tropes they absolutely will not read and/or are very picky about? what are genres & tropes they love?

well, obviously Beatrice loves non-fiction. she reads textbooks, she reads academic papers, she reads very old foundational texts in science & biology & philosophy because Beatrice really really likes understanding things.

one of the first books Cam sends her, which gets dumped right into the “broody bones’ library <3” subsection of the server, which Bea has a login for and everything, is Biology of Spiders by Foelix Rainer, & another file that just has about 3000 images of different spiders pulled from an internet search, so that Beatrice can swipe through them at her leisure (she can name-drop a terrifying number of them just by looking at the pic)

she adores Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (& even gets Ava to watch the TV series, which is not hard because Ava gets fully 0 _ 0 when Bea goes on sleepy rants about space). & ofc she has A Brief History of Time, but she gravitates too towards modern books on astronomy, and likes especially The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein because it is doing a lot of things & it makes her cry a few times. she reads a lot of very old astronomy papers too. again drawn to that line from Monsignor Lemaître:

“the believer has perhaps the advantage of knowing that the enigma has a solution, that the underlying writing is, when all is said and done, the work of an intelligent being, therefore that the problem raised by nature has been raised in order to be solved.”

she likes that. the world as a puzzle god put in her hands, though before it felt more like He had put a shovel there & told her to dig a grave (but not who the grave might be for).

with Ava, reading under the awning of the bar on her break, she feels like the puzzle has come back again and it is intricate; that maybe something as simple as a body might unlock it.

on that note, Beatrice also loves loves loves science-fiction. she grew up reading second-hand stuff. very weird, but very thoughtful. Dune and  Solaris and Flowers for Algernon and The Dispossessed. when Cam sends her the more modern stuff she devours things like The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin and Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and also the Murderbot Diaries.

many others, but as a genre she’s drawn to it because it is often very profoundly human. & she still remembers reading the Star Wars Jedi Apprentice books in her room at boarding school, & how fun they were, and how even in the strangest places with the premise that everything is so, so different, there is a humanity that reasserts itself.

it suits the gentle texture of the faith that Beatrice actually has, which is not the faith of hard church benches and prayers before bed and holding her hand too close overtop of a votive candle. her faith is very soft, and it is about marvelling at the world, worrying about it, being tender towards it.

sci-fi does that for her. it says much in the way of ‘even if everything were different, the best and worst parts of us would remain the same. there will never be a point in history where we do not have to deal with what we are.’

i think she also likes poetry, and just weird good books that make you feel things. i think at some point in those two months she reads Autobiography of Red, remembering herself on the train and staring staring staring at the line “sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.”  

looking back and thinking that sometimes a girl makes a journey necessary, thinking of being shipped off to boarding school because of a girl and now shipped off to Switzerland again but with a girl. thinking of necessity, and the small ways in which she has managed to alter the meaning of that word.

other lines that strike her

“This would be hard

for you if you were weak

but you’re not weak”

“Well Goodnight Then they said and drove him up/ Those hemorrhaging stairs…Don’t want to go want to stay Downstairs and read.”

she likes Anne Sexton, too

reading “Sylvia’s Death” & knowing that it’s about something else but also thinking about her sisters. about lilith, especially.

“Thief —

how did you crawl into,

crawl down alone

into the death I wanted so badly and for so long”

the only genre she’s not going to read ever probably is crime/ thrillers, because not only does she just constantly have a little voice in her head going

wrong, wrong, wrong.

no it doesn’t work like that.

wrong.

you just broke both your legs.

that is not how you fire a gun

some of it just sits too close to the bone for her & it’s bad enough that she has her own memories of real-world bad things happening without reading about it. possessed people ripping each other to pieces, bodies in the streets.

the OCS visited enough murder scenes on the trail of demons to make Beatrice capable of smelling, all over again, what happens to a room after a person has been dead in it for several hours.

so she just doesn’t want to read any crime or really most mystery novels (she’s too smart for them, sees things choreographed or else dislikes when things aren’t choreographed at all). she has attended too many autopsies to want to read about them either.

i think Ava reads VERY widely. she loves reading plays & acting them out in the apartment. she has her own little library on the OCS extranet too, & she downloads all of Shakespeare’s stuff & puzzles through it and googles stuff but the pentameter makes sense to her & she loves sometimes how initially inaccessible it is to her because it feels good to unearth the meaning.

her favourite plays are Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and sadly Beatrice does persuade her to read Waiting for Godot and she does kind of think it’s good.

Ava is the one who likes reading fantasy books. she adores The Hobbit & this somehow leads to her finding the ‘legless lego legolas’ post & she spends a whole afternoon laughing randomly until Beatrice finally gives in to her curiosity and she is just ‘…. oh, Ava’ when she reads the crappy screenshot version of it that Ava shows her.

my girl Ava obviously loses it a bit over the Frodo/Sam dynamic in lotr (she likes to perform the travelling songs ofc. Ava is like repressed theatre kid energy fr) & Beatrice (happily) listens to her talk about Frodo and Sam for a whole half hour one evening while she chops vegetables.

Ava just really likes adventure stories & stories where characters are thrown together on a quest and become friends.

she’s obviously embarrassingly a sucker for the friends-to-lovers trope in fiction, but she also just enjoys stories about friendship because she’s had so few experiences of that in her life. she has  Beatrice and she kind of has Cam & everyone else doesn’t feel like a friend, exactly. Ava reads the Red Sister trilogy by Mark Lawrence and vibes so much with Nona Grey because of her wild and speechless loyalty to her friends (& yeah, the Sister Apple & Sister Kettle romance and the start of book 2 made her extremely giggly).

she also loves The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin bc the thing at the start of the book that goes “for all those who have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question” - Ava FELT that. & just the parallels for her in that book were very powerful. plus plate tectonics magic slaps.

& yeah, Ava is really interested in magic systems. she likes what they reveal about the worlds they exist in, and how they shape the narrative, and also just the rlly cool ones & the weird cheeky thrill of being like ‘….welp, i can do that too actually.’

Ava also really loves fiction with interesting characters and great dialogue and she loves description and colour and everything that pours life into art.

i’d say there isn’t much that Ava doesn’t like, but she isn’t huge into non-fiction because she MUCH prefers to just pester Beatrice about it, & have her voice explain things, and add her own little corrections and opinions with her cute smart smirk. and Ava thinks it is good for Beatrice to express her opinions on things.

she likes how Bea looks when she is Thinking and Processing, and also the excitement in her hands when she explains astrophysics or shows Ava a picture of a spider or tells her about obscure bits of architectural history, the banking system in Florence under the Medici, and all the knowledge she has been muffling with prayer.

Ava thinks that it is H O T but also important and Beatrice looks so free to her, and so good, when she is speaking on some subject with her eyes drifting freely around the room, always coming back to Ava, to her eyes, making sure she is still interested because Beatrice has been ignored so often, and stifled so often, but when she looks back Ava is always watching, and always listening.

so yeah! the girlies like to read & are very smart & i love them every day.

[realmadridfamily]

Last year was particularly significant for Israeli model Mishel Gerzig and her husband, Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. Last summer, they married in a prestigious secret wedding that was talked about around the world. Later, they both went through a difficult period after Tibo's leg injury - then came the war in Israel, which forced them to join the information campaign. But last week they announced some particularly happy news - their first pregnancy. In recent days, the pregnant Gerzig came for a short visit to Israel - and we caught her this morning (Sunday) on the set of Z-Sport, of which she is the main face. In the interview, Mishel talked about her role as an expectant mother and life in Spain in the shadow of the war in Israel.

Do you also do sports during this period? Of course, I have to. I think it's even more important during this period. I was practicing sports even before my pregnancy, now I just keep doing it.

How long did you come to Israel? 5 days. I spent a weekend in Eilat, in the sun, at the beach - now I'm fresh for a day of photo shoots.

How are you coping with this difficult time? It's hard to deal with this from a distance. We get updates from the phone, from messages, from friends and family, we're not actually here so it's very difficult. Together Tibo and I try to be as supportive as we can. Because I'm pregnant, I took everything very seriously and very sensitively. There were moments when I felt I needed a second breath. Basically, we try to be strong. We have no other choice.

Are you getting comments about all your support for Israel? Yes, I've been uploading videos about this situation since the beginning - and Tibo decided to upload it too at some point. We quickly found ourselves under fire from all sides, but we stand behind it with our heads held high. Tibo, who is not Israeli, is behind it anyway and that is truly amazing. There is nothing I can do, everyone knows that I am Israeli, everyone knows where I grew up and that I served in the army. I have always been proud of it - and I will continue to be proud of it. I will never hide it. If you don't like it, have a nice day.

Why did Tibo decide to take part? He is not Israeli, why would he participate in the information system? I think he now has a direct connection with this country - he visited Israel and now has friends and family from here. My family is his family, my friends are his friends, so he really feels more connected to this country, it hits him more personally. When it happened, it not only shocked him, but it really touched on a kind of point: "Hey, these are my people too." The hate and shocking wishes he has received, but he still stands behind it and has no interest in criticism. We started talking to people to explain the situation, it opens their eyes. His teammates came up to me and asked how I and my family were doing. There is a lot of support behind the scenes, but less in public.

Isn't there a fear that it will harm his professional career? I don't think something like this should happen in a place like this, and if it does, it's very sad. After all, everyone has their own opinion. But I think such a shocking situation should shock the whole world. Tibo talks about this to a lot of people and he's not shy - and I think what he's doing is a great advertisement.

First pregnancy, huh? What is the excitement meter? Wow, very high! Huge excitement, it's really a ray of light and great fun at the moment. We checked the test together, it was very exciting.

When will the baby come into the world? At spring.

How did Tibo's children react? They were so excited, they were so charming. It really warms the heart.

Do you intend to continue living in Spain? At the moment, yes. Tibo obviously has his rehab plan and training plan, and that's where we're at right now.

Just between you and me, how involved will Tibo be in raising the baby? Will he change diapers? Will he get up at night? Of course he will! And he will get up at night - he is much better than me at getting up at night.

Do you already have name ideas? We have some ideas. But we're still processing it.

What do you expect from your child? The future of a footballer or a model? Whatever he or she wants, but the most important thing is health.

Were you not afraid to come to Israel during the war, when you're pregnant? I think overall it stopped me from arriving early because I had suffered from anxiety attacks in the past and didn't know how it would affect me and had to keep my mind balanced. But in the end I decided to come and I am very happy with this decision.

[garden-bug]

Let's fix Star Wars!!

(I said at the start of the summer and wrote nearly 100k.) (It needed a lot of fixing ok.)

Here is a fix-it fanfic but it's for three series and the entire sequel trilogy. I will be posting about this more because I am determined to finish it soon (and then redraft it wooo!).

Description:

Somehow, Darth Maul returns. (As a force ghost.) (Somewhere Ahsoka thinks is probably the living Force.)

This changes everything.

In other words: The Mandalorian S3 but make it Din/Luke; the Ahsoka series but make it EZRA AND THRAWN SPACE ADVENTURES; and ‘somehow Palpatine returns’ is ripped to shreds because I connect plot points and add new characters.

Chapter excerpts below!

Chapter 1 excerpt:

“Not as far as I remember. Oh, wait! I wanted to rule the galaxy… shame.” He rolls his shoulders again. “Can’t do much about that now. Being dead is quite demotivating.” “I’m sorry for your lack of motivation.” “Don’t make fun, Lady Tano. Have sympathy for this poor, dead, ex-Sith.” “I guess 'dead' is your only personality trait now.” “You preferred me before?” Ahsoka grimaces. She can’t argue with that. “No, sorry." “I will be honest,” Maul says, “I haven’t felt this peaceful since before I lost the lower half of my body.” Ahsoka fixes him with a reproving look. "You were Palpatine's apprentice then." “Yes.” Maul sighs wistfully, chin sinking into his hand. Ahsoka rubs her eyes. Maul has already given her a headache and they've only been talking for a minute. There is still nothing but darkness and flickering light, and Maul’s steady, yellow eyes. “Do you know where you are?” Ahsoka asks. “Why should I help you figure this out? You didn’t help me once. Also, in case I haven’t made it abundantly clear, I’m dead, so I don’t care what happens to you or anyone else who is still alive. Some of us aren’t so lucky, you know?” "If we figure this out, maybe I'll get peace. I really don't want you as a voice in my head." Maul grimaces. “B’ahor,” he mutters. “In the Al'har system?” "There is a dark power on that planet… I sense evil, but also… something else." His eyes burn. "Perhaps you will go there and die. That would solve this problem quickly."

Chapter 2 excerpt:

“What was that?” Mayan asks as they hurry towards the mountain. “That feeling… the…” “The Force,” says Ahsoka. “The Force exists all around us. It is created by all living things, it moves through them, and it binds the whole galaxy together.” “How do you know about it?” “I was trained as a Jedi.” Ahsoka is surprised when her face remains impassive. There is no flicker of recognition, no spark of awe in her eyes. She just nods. “In my village, people like that are called world breakers.” “There are more of you?” “There were.” Mayan looks away. “The legends say that world breakers can take a planet in their hand and shatter it.” “That's... impossible,” Ahsoka says. She wonders why she had never considered that remote planets may have different legends about the Force. “According to the stories, we are children of the Great Universe. If we follow its will, it will guide us... That's how it used to be.” Ahsoka means to ask if there is more to these legends, but Mayan comes to a halt suddenly and points to the rock face in front of them. “This is where the curse is,” says the girl. “Yes.” Ahsoka can sense it too. This is where the Force has been leading them. It reeks of Sith and of evil. Something terrible must have happened here.

Chapter 4 excerpt:

Fleeing vehicles kick up a cloud of dust, and Luke jumps up onto the roof of the adjacent building, crouching close in preparation to drop down. Sweat licks the back of his neck. For a stupid moment he thinks how this is the complete wrong time of day to be out, when both suns are high in the sky. Then he leaps. There isn’t even time to be annoyed as the roller-wheeler careers around the corner. “Peli, I told you to keep him inside!” “He wanted to see his dad!” Peli screams. Luke sends Grogu a withering look. The little guy sticks his tongue out from where he is held securely in the Mandalorian’s arms. “I am so sorry,” says the Mandalorian. Luke doesn’t even know where to start. “It’s alright, can you hang on to him?” The roller-wheeler jolts suddenly, and Grogu squeals in what’s probably excitement. “Yeah, but you can’t get through their shield with your lightsaber. I tried with mine.” “Ok.” Luke tugs the vehicle slightly to adjust its course. “We’re gonna have to talk about why you have a lightsaber later.” He senses annoyance from the helmet. “Did you kill a Jedi?” “Won it from Moff Gideon.” “You defeated Moff Gideon?” “Watch it.” The Mandalorian blasts a Pyke who was aiming for Luke from the top of a building. “Good shot.” The Mandalorian nods. Next thing they know, a Pyke has taken out the droid, and Luke somersaults off the roller-wheeler before it flips. He plants his feet in the ground and catches the vehicles momentum that everyone lands relatively unscathed. The Mandalorian caught Grogu immediately, so Luke draws them towards him, until his hand meets bescar. “Nice catch,” says the Mandalorian. Luke grins. “Is Grogu ok?” Grogu pops up over the Mandalorian’s shoulder. He’s a little shaken, but a smile breaks across his face when he sees Luke. Peli spits out a tooth from where she’s lying.

Chapter 5 excerpt:

“We’re even,” Boba decides. He makes a hand gesture for the blue liquor, which Fennec tosses to him with a roll of her eyes. Boba places his helmet beside him on the seat and takes a swing, acid-scarred face regarding him cooly. Luke bows respectfully. “Thanks a bunch.” Boba waves an arm dismissively. “Go see the little green guy.” He turns to leave, but Boba isn’t done. He comments, offhandedly, “I thought you would’ve gotten a few more scars since the last time I saw you.” Luke turns, puzzled. “Why?” “Haven’t you been Jedi-ing?” “Jedi-ing...” “Saving the galaxy.” “We... I did that.” “What about Tatooine?” Luke’s smile falters. “Tch. ∂ι’кυтℓα נєтιιѕє.” “What's that s'posed to mean?” “It means I don’t like you.” “He called the Jedi useless,” says Ahsoka. Luke meets her eyes, trying to stifle the burn in his skin. Ahsoka clears her throat. “We’ve been gone a long time.” “That’s why I want to rebuild what was lost.” Ahsoka looks at him for a long moment. “I know.”

Chapter 6 excerpt:

“σяιтѕιя!” Koska yells. “Bo-Katan Kryze!” Bo-Katan’s eyes widen, she drops her gaze and breathes softly. “Stop yelling.” “You… you…” Koska clenches her fists. “��ιвяαℓ! αяυєт!” She kicks the metal desk, exclaiming incoherencies. Bo-Katan shakes her head. “What do you want me to do?” She sits back, hands out. “I don’t have any way to unite our people, and Mandalore is inhabited by a clan of psychos.” Koska’s lip trembles, but she bites it down. “We were going to follow you. We were going to get our home back,” her voice cracks. “Don’t tell me it’s all over now. After everything we’ve been through to get here.” “Mandalore, and my legacy, is dead,” Bo-Katan seethes. “Even with the darksaber, would we be able to subdue, or, live alongside that… Clan куяαу¢, knowing what they did to Mandalore?” “Just get the darksaber from him!” Koska says. “If you get it our clan will stop kriffing falling apart and we can take them down.” Bo-Katan slumps into her hand. “This is why we fell apart in the first place. We fought each other instead of the Empire. It’s not a path I am willing to go down.” “The others are,” Koska states. Bo-Katan looks up. “And they will,” Koska continues, eyes hard. “That’s why you need to decide what to do now before they decide for you, and we end up going down a path of self-destruction. While they’ll still listen to you, choose.”

Chapter 8 excerpt:

Ahsoka clenches her jaw. “Maul,” she grits out, “what did you do?” “Em, an… indoctrination ceremony? It was mostly just for fun,” he assures her. “Ezra thought it would be fun.” “You indoctrinated him into your clan?” “That’s…” Maul blinks. “Yes. He could be considered a son of Dathomir.” “And that’s why the night sister magic took him to Dathomir.” Ahsoka groans. “Well, this was a complete waste of time! Now I have to deal with Thrawn and get out of here somehow.” Maul nods, as though that had been his plan all along. “How long has it been since they returned from the unknown regions?” he asks. “I don’t know.” “Find out,” insists Maul. “Spending too long on Dathomir with the spirits of the night sisters… would not be advisable.” Ahsoka narrows her eyes. “How so?” “They will attempt to resurrect, using whatever means they can get their hands on. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sacrifice his mortal body to gain strength to cross back over into the physical world.” “Are they immortal?” “They are… like Force ghosts that can absorb energy. With enough energy, they can reconstruct themselves, piece by piece, until all they are lacking is a physical body. They will need many sacrifices to resurrect fully.” “Hold on… could you resurrect?” “I would prefer not to,” Maul says simply. Ahsoka’s eyes widen. “Okay… why?” “Haven’t you asked enough personal questions?” he snaps. “Leave. I’m busy trying to wallow in misery.” “Sure, okay.” Ahsoka shrugs. “But if you want to talk about it—” “I said go,” Maul hisses.

Chapter 9 excerpt:

The smaller tunnel winds further down, deeper into the centre of the planet. There’s the slightest movement in the air, vibration, and Luke recognises the energy of life forces and stops walking suddenly. “There are… people down here,” he says. Din casts him a dubious helmet tilt, and they continue until it is unmistakable. Voices echo through the tunnels, many, it seems, perhaps a covert worth. “Do you wanna go say hello?” Luke asks. “Perhaps they can help us find the living waters.” The tunnel breaks off into several other small passageways. This close, Luke can pick out the soft glow of light, and he gestures for Din to switch his torch off. When he does, they are plunged into darkness, but gradually, Luke’s eyes adjust to the light, and he leads Din by the arm towards the light and the voices. The voices hush suddenly. Luke pauses, he wonders if they should stop, go back, maybe confront these people somewhere they have more of an advantage. But Din steps past him, leaving Grogu in Luke’s arms. “тισи’¢υу?” “иι αℓιιт мαи∂σ.” “иυ тισи’αℓιιт ѕσℓυѕ?” “иαу¢… αѕн’α∂.” “к’σℓαя.” Din steps into the room. Luke follows after him. Inside the large cave, is a group of Mandalorians. One of them stands abruptly, blaster raised. “тισи’ѕσℓєт?” he barks. “єни,” Din responds. “тισи’ναιι?” Din reaches for Grogu, and takes him into his arms. “иєя ιк’αα∂. иι куя'тαуℓ gαι ѕα’α∂,” he says. The Mandalorian stares at them for a moment, then sighs raggedly, and sinks back onto the rock. The others in his group relax, but keep their eyes fixed on the newcomers. Their armour is in a state of disrepair, some of it clearly salvaged from the ruins. Some wear their helmets while others do not. The faces that Luke can see are pale and gaunt, as though they haven’t seen the sunlight in a long time and their torn clothes hang off their body in a way that makes Luke think of skeletons. “Do you speak basic?” Din asks. “We haven’t,” the Mandalorian says harshly, “since a long time.” His eyes are dark, hooded, his hair matted and entirely grey. “We are looking for the living waters,” Din explains. “Do you know how to get there?”

Chapter 10 excerpt:

Mayan has gotten better at interpreting binary speech, but she’s not quite there yet. It takes her a moment to figure out what the little beeps mean as she stuffs some out-of-date rations into a makeshift pack. “Um… we’re going to rescue Ahsoka.” R2 spins excitedly. Then he stops and says, “…. --- .--?" “I don’t know how.” Mayan ties her boots. “By now, the blue man will think we’ve gone, so we can surprise him, right?” R2 whistles uncertainly. “Well… there’s no other choice.” Mayan grips the lightsaber in her hand. “You said Luke can’t come… so…” R2 bumps into her as she walks towards the ladder. “Ow, that was my toe.” Mayan groans. “What is it?” “-.. .- -. --. . .-. --- ..- …!” “I know it’s dangerous. You didn’t want Luke to come because he’s an important Jedi, right?” Mayan squeezes past him. “If the blue man finds him it’d be bad, so it’s better if I rescue her.” R2 whistles a sad note again. Mayan clambers up the ladder one-armed, her other arm tucked into a sling under her cloak. It’s completely useless. She doesn’t know how bad the break was, but since it happened, the skin has gone from red to purple — the edges faintly green. If she tries to use it, a sharp pain stabs through her. The town is quiet this early — even the fruit vendors haven’t opened their stalls yet. Mayan sneaks around the side of the blown-up house, pulling her cloak over her feathered hair. She gestures for R2 to follow. She thinks if she can get to the mountain again, she can… well, she doesn’t really know. Mayan has always been good at getting out of dangerous situations, not getting into them. Maybe R2 can come up with a plan. “This is hopeless,” Mayan decides. They sit within viewing distance of the tall mountain base, hidden in a valley of rocks. “--. --- ……. -… .- -.-. -.-?” R2 suggests. Mayan rubs the wrinkly skin of her fingers. “I don’t want to give up, but I don’t know how to get in, or where she is. I’ve never even seen a prison before.” She pulls her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know why Ahsoka even believes in me at all.” “… -.- -.-- ……. .. … ……. .- -- .- --.. .. -. —.!” Mayan smiles a little. 'Sky is amazing,' R2 said. It’s nice that he gave her a nickname after she said she wanted one like Ahsoka had as a padawan.

Chapter 11 excerpt:

Their arrival must have caused a minor uproar. A dozen Mandalorians watch from every hallway Luke glances down. They are all blue, presumably Bo-Katan’s people, and they don’t seem happy. They are brought into a large hall, where spear-shaped windows bite into the ceiling, and white crystal casts a steady light over the room. A long carpet leads to a throne that resembles a hardened splash of lava, and on it, sits Bo-Katan. She’s really got the throne thing down, maybe even as much as Boba Fett. Luke would not mess with either of them unless absolutely necessary purely based on their throne demeanour. “What the kirff are you doing,” Bo-Katan says. She doesn’t yell, just sounds exasperated, maybe even exhausted. “I’m taking you up on the offer to join you.” Bo-Katan looks at him. Her amber eyes narrow, and she gets up, and makes her way towards them. “You’re too late now,” she says. Her expression touches on cold rage. “I’m barely holding this together as it is. With the arrival of your covert, things have only gotten worse.” “Mandalore is habitable,” Din says. “There are other Mandalorians already living there.” “The clans on Mandalore are belligerent and mad,” Bo-Katan snaps. “And the Empire has eyes on the planet. With the numbers we have, staging anything with only attract attention and get us all killed.”

Chapter 12 excerpt:

“You have redeemed yourself?” asks the Armourer. “I have,” says Din. The intense blue of the forge reflects off both of their helmets and the heat dusts Luke’s cheeks with warmth. “And you have acquired another foundling…” The Armourer’s tone shifts to something decidedly less serious and more akin to amusement. “What is the name of this child?” “Kymir,” Din says. “Kymir, do you wish to join our covert?” the Armourer asks the boy. Kymir looks from Din to the Armourer, brows furrowing. “He doesn’t speak basic,” Din says. “Kymir, тιαи’¢σρααиιя тσ αℓιιт?” he translates. Kymir bites his lip. “иαу¢,” he says. Luke infers that his answer is no. Din looks at the Armourer. “He has had a bad experience with his covert. He will not trust easily.” “Without a covert, he will have no protection.” “I will watch over him.” “At this time, you are also in need of protection,” says the Armourer, lightly. “You were almost killed this morning.”

Chapter 13 excerpt:

“Ahsoka? Ahsoka!” Mayan shakes Ahsoka’s shoulders, but her master doesn’t stir. She holds her face and tries to somehow will her awake with the force, but nothing seems to work. Her eyes remain closed, eyelids twitching minutely every few seconds. “Is she alright?” Leia asks, crouching by the broken tree Ahsoka rests against. “I think so… she goes into deep sleeps sometimes. I don’t really know what…” Mayan hugs her arms. “Um, is the Falcon okay?” “Ships fine,” Han says, an edge of annoyance in his tone, as he walks over to them. “But Ahsoka better wake up soon so I can ask her what in the hell just happened.” “We went through a portal,” Mayan says. Han squints. “How d’you know that?” “I’m a Jedi padawan…” Han throws his hands in the air. “Not another one! Come on, Chewy,” he says, “let’s go help Sabine get the engine started like normal people. Damn Jedi…force portals…” he mutters. R2 beeps in a pattern that Mayan recognises as a laugh as Han stalks off. “I hope Ahsoka wakes up soon…” Mayan says, mostly to herself, though Leia is still beside her. “Yes, well,” Leia starts, “we need to get back home. This was meant to be a drop-off, not another adventure.”

Chapter 16 excerpt:

“Come with me to Mandalore,” Din says. “But I don’t think I’m supposed to do that.” “Do you want to?” “Yes.” Luke glances at him from over his shoulder. “But I can’t,” he says. “I’m a Jedi, I have to follow the will of the force.” Din is silent for a long time, and Luke wonders if the conversation is over. But finally, he speaks. “I understand.” Luke huffs dubiously. “Really?” “Yes,” Din says. “I know what it’s like to be told that something that feels right is somehow wrong.” Luke’s stomach twists. Nothing feels right. Nothing. He let the force guide him here and now the force is telling him it’s time to leave. What if Din and Grogu still need him? He’s almost certain they do. But the galaxy needs him too. Perhaps his responsibilities lie elsewhere, maybe he got caught up in his emotions and mistook this for being the right thing. The problem is, Luke doesn’t know. The uncertainty makes him afraid. (Jedi should not be afraid.) He remembers his vision in the mythosaur lair and his throat tightens until he can barely speak. (Fear clouds one’s judgement.) “I can’t choose you,” Luke whispers, and a laugh catches in his through. “I can never choose you. Can you really tell me you understand that?” Din brings a hand up to his helmet. “I don’t know.” Luke stands up and catches his wrist. “Don’t,” he says. “I can’t let you give up your creed for me when I wouldn’t do the same for you.” Din’s hand falls. Luke stares into the dark visor, feeling further from his eyes than ever. The words of Obi-Wan’s Force-ghost echo in his head. “Had she said the word, I would have left the Jedi Order to be by her side.” “I’m sorry,” Luke says and lets go of his wrist. He steps back, gaze falling to the floor. If he wasn’t among the last Jedi… if the fate of the galaxy didn’t rest on his shoulders… But the Jedi are gone. Palpatine and Vader made sure of that. And now Luke has to spend his life paying for his father’s mistakes.

Chapter 18 excerpt:

“Leia, I don’t like this.” Luke tries not to squirm in his seat. If he had no appetite for the fancy Coruscant food before he certainly doesn’t now. “A Moff, after a force-sensitive child, working with a cloner? What the kriff were they doing?” “He might just have been after him because he was force sensitive and you know how the Empire felt about the Jedi.” “I wish I’d asked Din about this! I’m such an idiot.” “Who’s Din?” “Never mind. Okay, I’ve got to find out what Pershing was doing for Moff Gideon. I have a seriously bad feeling —” “Okay,” Leia says. “I trust your judgement. Are you finished? Let’s go speak to them.” Luke’s stomach swoops. “What?” “Sorry, farm-boy. Sneaking around isn’t how we learn things on Coruscant. You’ve got to play the game.” “What game?” “Politics, Luke.” “Oh great.”

Chapter 19 excerpt

“Good. I’m going down. Kymir and I can reach them fastest. Once we know where the creature lives we can go with a small group and rescue Ragnar.” Bo-Katan narrows her eyes, searching his visor for something to reassure herself. Din’s stomach drops when he realises that she’s desperately searching for his eyes. He touches her shoulder instead. “Keep them together,” he says, nodding in the direction of the others who are still reeling from the shock of the attack, some badly wounded. Bo-Katan sighs. “That’s what I’ve been doing for years, Din.” She shakes her head. “Let me wrap your arm. Take some more painkillers or you won’t be able to think when you’re down there. You might still lose the arm the way it is now.” Din stares at her. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Okay?” Bo-Katan squints, winding the bandage around his arm which is thoroughly smothered in bacta. “I think you mean fuck.” “Fuck,” Din says. “It’s fine. I still have another arm.”

“∂ιи ∂נαяιи נσя иєя’вυιя נιι.” Din Djarin is… my… Din grabs a wall to steady himself. The words bounce around his helmet and his ears ache. He shuts his eyes, tries to focus on the words through the pain. They’re the important thing. “σяι’νσ∂ вυяк’у¢. ναιι’уαιм ∂яαgσи?” My friend is in danger. Where is the dragon’s home? “куяαмℓα.” He’s dead. “иυ ∂яααя!” Not never! “кумιя, уαιм’σℓ.” Kymir, come home. Din steps out to stand beside him. He tries to stand straight. He pulls out the darksaber with his good hand. “gαα’тαуℓιя,” he says, and ignites the blade. Help me. For a moment, nobody moves. Then, somebody asks, “ιвι¢… иι ¢єтα?” Will this… redeem us? Din looks at Kymir. Understanding wells in his eyes. "Do you forgive them?" “иααѕα∂ мι’ѕυя’нααι,” says Kymir. Not in my eyes. Din nods. Good. “мєн’gαα’тαуℓιя, нιвιяαя gαя иι ¢єтα.” If you help us, you may learn to forgive yourselves.

Grogu frowns in concentration. He peers out of the window, ignoring the computer completely, but his hand shifts on the stick and suddenly his eyes widen and he presses the button down. It hits the dragon and the creature screeches in agony, twisting up into the sky to escape from the onslaught. “Mu?” Grogu turns to Din. “Uh, lucky shot,” Din says. “I wouldn’t shoot without aiming first, kid. Wait, actually… can you use your Jedi stuff to aim? Is that what you’re doing?” Okay. What would Luke say? Something like… “In that case, just focus, and… listen to the — is it called the Force? Yeah, listen to the Force.” Grogu snorts. “What? Wouldn’t I make a good Jedi?” Din smiles, but Grogu can’t see it.

The guns bombard the remaining dragons with enough firepower to essentially obliterate them, and litter their scaly corpses across the ground. Boba-Fett lands his ship with a whoosh of hot air. Din stares as he lowers the landing ramp and marches towards him, Fennec following closely. “Thought you could use a hand,” says the gruff voice. Din tries to speak but his legs decide to give out. “Woah, there.” Boba keeps him upright with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you inside, Manda’lor,” he says. “Someone oughta throw you in a bacta tank,” says Fennec. “We don’t have a bacta tank.” Bo-Katan scowls from the cave entrance. “What are you doing here, Fett?” “I heard there was a get-together on Mandalore. Someone must’ve missed my invitation.”

Chapter 20 excerpt:

The magic tethering her to Dathomir tugs sharply on her wrist as she falls again into the familiar darkness. And then stops. Ahsoka can hear her breaths this time, sharp and cutting, and she scrambles to her feet, searching for — ��You…” “Get away from him,” Ahsoka snarls. Leia’s lightsaber ignites with a burst of blue. Palpatine, or whatever’s left of him, has found them. His dark cloak drowns his physical form, making him almost impossible to discern from the flickering darkness, if it wasn’t for the ghastly, misshapen white of his face. Yellow eyes melt through the darkness, and grey lips stretch in a triumphant gleam. “He is of no more importance,” Palpatine snarls. Maul’s body twitches in the air, hands grasping desperately at his throat. “Let him go,” Ahsoka says. “S-sever our dyad,” Maul gasps. “Don’t let… don’t let him…” Ahsoka rips her arm free of the green string. “No!” Maul cries. Now there is no going back. “I will not leave you with him.”

“Grand Admiral, Sir, permission to speak freely?” “Permission granted, commodore Faro. You know I always value your input.” “Well, Sir, we’re kriffed.”

Chapter 25 excerpt:

“Thrawn,” Eli starts, looking into his red eyes, “y’know I—” The security feed beeps. Eli’s eyes widen when he sees Ezra waving up at the camera from the supply room. Eli clicks the comms. “Um, Ezra, wha’d’ya think you’re doing there? Actually, how’d you even get on board?” “Space portals!” “Right. I see.” Eli rubs his forehead. This is going to be a long day. “You need anythin’?” “You won’t believe what happened down there,” Ezra practically yells. “Anyway, I need the key now because we’re locking Dathomir so this doesn’t ever happen again, then we’re all jumping through a space portal to you guys. Is that alright?” “Sure. See ya in a bit.” “Excellent,” says Thrawn. He turns to Eli. “What were you going to say?” Eli sighs. “Moment’s gone. Alright, let’s get this data ready for Ezra-kid to look at.”

[ellies-enrichment]

Hey, no worries, dawg. You respond when you have the time and energy. Gotta take care of that dawg in you and give her some eepies every now and then. You've been going through A LOT between AoS and the TLoU picture. Hell, I ended up calling out of my second job today cuz that dawg in me is real eepy! 😴 ... And I'm first in line for a job on the docks rn. I feel a 12hr grain shift coming on for night hire... 💀

-aos anon🫂

P.S. can't wait for your next chappy on your new fic! 🤠 I mean, I can, but I'm excite about it! 🤠🤠🤠 And I've wanted to ask.... If you were gonna come back to your Prospie/Red Dead crossover fic eventually because BOY HOWDY I LOOOOOOOOOVE THAT ONE SO FRIGGIN MUCH!!! 🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠 I'm still on Chapter 2 of my own RDR2 playthrough because I'm just exploring (and getting ambushed and dying 💀) the map and hunting like no one's business rn. 🤠🤭

woogh a 12hr shift would end me im sure esp with manual labor you're stronger than me bestie

!!! I appreciate you reading it 🥺 i'm trying to get better about just posting writing rather than rewriting it a billion times and then never posting (the amount of prospie fics i have in my docs that will likely never see the light of day is insane) so this one is getting me into that routine hopefully (i havent rewrote a whole chapter yet and im halfway through chappy 2)

I expect to update Bounty Fic in the next few days if i can keep the train going

CEEHAWWWW !!!!! my beloved ceehaw she's on the backburner but i have the next two chapters outlined (if i can stop rewriting them lol) i just have to figure out which one is chapter 5 and then i can upload that one and then post the next almost immediately after but she is coming!! I think once I start RDR2 over again it'll respark the fixation of the wild west (ive been on GTA recently so it modernized my new born country and the vibes were off)

I remember my first playthrough once i got access to the open world i was a menace. I was never at camp. I was always out doing something. Hunting, robbing, killing and then feeling bad about it. I always found myself in Saint Denis i love it there sm. RDR1 is near and dear to my heart always because it's the first game i ever played on the xbox 360 and then when RDR2 came out i didn't even watch a trailer i just bought the game and it's still in my top 3 of all time games ever ive bought it for every system i can (xbox twice, playstation, pc) and if it was ever released on switch i'd buy it there too