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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months ago

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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 1: Welcome To A New Kind Of Tension]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “American Idiot” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

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“What do you think, should we kill ourselves now or later?” Rio is spinning his Beretta M9 around on his index finger. This is not advisable. He doesn’t care.

Your hands are gripping the skeletal latticework of the transmission tower, steel hot enough to burn you; no electricity hums in the power lines suspended above your heads. Your eyes are on the horizon, golden June sunlight over fields no one has planted. Weeds are growing up through the earth, feral and defiantly useless, reclaiming their land just like the deer are, and the rabbits and the opossums and the turtles and the squirrels and the doves. The reign of humanity is over. Now you’re prey animals too. “Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“Maybe someone will save us.”

“Ain’t nobody coming, Chips!” Rio says. “We’re a hundred feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere, motherfucking Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and we haven’t run into anyone since that Amish family back in Lightstreet, and I wouldn’t count on them driving by in their horse and buggy to pick us up.”

“We’re about sixty feet off the ground.”

“Okay, Bob the Builder, why don’t you whip up a helicopter or something to get us out of here?” Rio’s M9 has one bullet left in it, yours has three, nowhere near enough. At the bottom of the tower is a swarm of fifty-four zombies; you’ve counted them twice. There are no cute euphemisms: walkers, biters, the infected. They were once people and now they’re not. They wear the vestiges of their former lives, like how those who believe in reincarnation see meaning in birthmarks: here you were stabbed, there you were kissed by your true love. They lurch and snarl and hiss in their professional attire, college t-shirts, Vans and Jordans, septum piercings, wedding rings. They decompose in a miasma of metallic blood and spoiled meat. Parker had been the last one to the transmission tower, and they grabbed him by the legs. Now they’re chewing the gristle off his bones: disconnected ligaments that swing like strands of cobwebs, scarlet threads of muscle. “Oh shit,” Rio says, looking down. “We’ve got a smart one.”

Most zombies don’t have the fine motor skills to climb, swim, or open doors, but every once in a while—just like out of every 5,000 or 10,000 or however many ordinary humans you’ll pull the lever on the genetic slot machine and get a Picasso or a kid who can score a 1600 on the SATs—you run into an overachiever. This zombie, a teenage boy with red hair and a blue plaid shirt, is slowly scaling the tower. He’s already ten feet off the ground.

Rio aims his M9, semiautomatic, packs a punch but won’t break your arm with the recoil. “Fuck off, Ed Sheeran!” He fires and misses; the bullet grazes the boy’s shoulder. He groans dramatically and asks you in defeat: “Will you take care of that, please?”

You pull your pistol out of your holster and lean away from the tower to get a better angle, holding onto the scaffolding with one hand. You feel Rio’s large fingers close around your wrist, ready to yank you back if you slip. You click off the safety with your thumb, peer through the front sight, aim and wait until you’re sure. It’s a headshot: shards of skull ricochet off steel beams, half-rotten brains spray out in a mist. The carcass plummets to the earth.

“All this horror, all this catastrophe.” Rio’s eyes, dark like a mineshaft, drift mischievously back to you. “We could…distract each other.”

He’s not serious; this is a game you play. “No thanks.”

“You don’t want to die a virgin.”

“I do if you’re the only other person up here.”

“You deny a condemned man his final wish?”

“We’re not dying,” you insist. “What about Sophie?”

“Sophie would understand given the circumstances. She would want me to be happy.”

“What if we have sex and then immediately thereafter get rescued? You’d be a cheater. You’d be consumed by guilt. You’d never be able to take me back to your parents’ doomsday prepper cult commune in bumblefuck Oregon to wait out the apocalypse in peace.”

“You’re going to appreciate those doomsday preppers when you’re eating Chef Boyardee out of a can instead of shuffling around as a reanimated corpse.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” you muse. “So you agree we’re going to get off this tower somehow.”

Rio sighs and whistles a morose tune: what a shame. “You should have gone out with that Marine at Corpus Christi.”

You frown, repentant, wistful. There’s nothing on the horizon except fields and trees and black storm clouds of crows taking flight. “I was afraid of making a mistake.”

“And now look at you. About to die as pure as Pope Francis.”

“How did this happen?! We’re not idiots, we’re goddamn professionals!” You re-holster your M9. You’re still wearing your uniforms from when you went AWOL, stealing away from Saratoga Springs like rats from a sinking ship.

“I’ll tell you exactly how this happened. You let that loser Parker come with us even though I knew it was a bad idea—”

“I couldn’t just leave him there! He started crying!”

“And he had one job, which was to check the oil in the Humvee, and clearly he failed because…” Rio glances at his watch. “Approximately four hours ago, the engine started smoking and the whole thing died on us, so we had to get out and walk, like we’re pioneers or some shit, and then that hoard down there came out of nowhere, and the only place left to go was up. Freaking Parker. I could murder that guy.” An awkward pause. “I mean, the zombies beat me to it. But still.”

“He had two jobs. He was also carrying the extra ammo.”

“Don’t remind me.” Rio isn’t messing around with his M9 anymore. He’s contemplating it as the sun hovers just past noon, hot and shadowless. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Two.”

“Good. Don’t use them.”

You look at him, this man you’ve known for over four years, this man you’ve traveled the world with. You’ve already gone so much farther than Oregon together. How is it possible that what was once a six hour flight is now a month-long journey that might kill you? “It’s not over yet, Rio.”

“Remember what you promised me.”

His hushed voice in the moonlit indigo of the Humvee the night you left Saratoga Springs: Don’t let me die alone. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it to Oregon.” Then you grin, sweltering summer air breathing over you, humid, heavy, the screeching of insects in the trees. “But if it comes to that, I’d be happy to shoot you first.”

Rio smiles as the zombies below growl and claw at the steel framework of the transmission tower. Flesh peels off their fingers until you can see the gore-stained white of their bones. “Don’t miss.”

“I rarely do.”

“Do you have any more packs of Cheddar Whales in your pockets or—?” He cuts off as he spots something in the distance. His eyes go wide, his jaw drops open. “What…what is that?!”

It’s an SUV, massive, dark blue, rumbling across the field in a dust storm of displaced earth. It’s headed straight towards you. There is someone standing up through the sunroof, short dark hair that whips wildly in the wind, binoculars. You can hear the engine revving and, faintly, Kanye West’s Gold Digger. As the SUV nears the tower, Sunroof Kid ducks inside and closes the hatch.

Rio explodes into hysterical, rapturous laughter. “Oh my God, we’re saved! We’re not going to die up here! Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I’m never going to jack off on Sundays again.”

The SUV, still accelerating, plows through the mob of zombies. Severed limbs go flying; bones crunch and snap. There’s a woman driving, you can see now through the slightly tinted windows. She puts the monstrous vehicle and reverse and does another pass. Zombies paw futilely at the sides of the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, as it turns out. They smack their open, soggy palms on the windows; they gnaw and lick at the bumpers and the wheel wells. The Tahoe circles to regain speed, the engine growling, a bear, a dragon, and barrels into the remaining ambulatory zombies. The hoard is now largely incapacitated. Rio is cheering and clapping his hands.

The Tahoe’s doors open, and your rescuers appear. There are two men wielding baseball bats: one with long dark curly hair, the other tall and blonde, and there’s something wrong with his face, the left side, though you are too far away to see clearly. They move rapidly through the battlefield of felled, moaning bodies, swinging their bats and crushing skulls. There’s another blonde guy, shorter, softer, pink with sunburn, wearing plastic sunglasses and a teal polo with a popped collar. He’s spinning a golf club in his right hand. He is followed out of the Tahoe by one last blonde, spindly and swift, stalking the perimeter with a compound bow, a quiver of arrows secured to his belt. Rio is singing along to Gold Digger, drumming his fists on the steel beams.

“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you a gold digger, you got needs

You don’t want a dude to smoke, but he can’t buy weed

You go out to eat, he can’t pay, y’all can’t leave

There’s dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves…”

The driver wriggles out of the Tahoe with some difficulty; she is seven or eight months pregnant. “Stay in the car,” Madame Driver tells someone inside as she slams the door shut. She’s holding a hammer and sets about euthanizing the zombies still squirming on the ground and gnashing their cracked teeth at her.

Golf Club says: “Jace, bro, that’s so embarrassing. You’re gonna let her do that?”

Curly—or, rather, Jace—shrugs. “Exercise is good for the baby.”

All three blondes respond at once in a chorus of appalled disapproval. Interestingly, your rescuers have British accents. From within the Tahoe, someone turns off the CD player. This is wise; noise tends to attract more zombies. Madame Driver, unaffected, puts her hammer through the eye socket of a former Arby’s employee.

Jace flings back: “She likes helping! It would be sexist to tell her she’s not allowed to!”

The Scarred Man looks up at you and Rio and salutes, two fingers glanced off his forehead. You begin climbing down the scalding rungs of the transmission tower to meet them.

“Oh fuck, Aemond, you gotta deal with this,” Golf Club says. He is holding a yowling zombie at arm’s length by the straps of its overalls. It’s tiny, maybe a kindergartener. “You know I can’t kill the little kid ones.”

The Scarred Man, Aemond, turns to him. He’s wearing a maroon Harvard University t-shirt. “You have to learn how to do things yourself. I might not always be around.”

Golf Club scoffs. “As if I’d outlive you.”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aemond says. Behind him, more people are emerging from the Chevy Tahoe: Binoculars Buddy, a slight girl with shifting, watchful eyes, a blonde woman in a billowing sundress and with a burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

Golf Club is still struggling. “Aw, Aemond, man, he’s got light-up sneakers!”

Jace strides over irritably. “Aegon, you’re so fucking useless…” He kicks the miniature zombie to the dirt, raises his bloodied baseball bat, and brings it down on a skull that disintegrates like an overripe Halloween pumpkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Get bit, you poodle.”

Rio hits the ground first, his boots thumping against untamed earth. Aemond sets his baseball bat aside and reaches out to offer assistance as you dangle from a white-hot steel beam. “No,” Rio tells him roughly. “Back up.”

Aemond shows his palms and complies, retreating several paces. Rio helps you down. Now you can see Aemond’s face perfectly. There’s a relatively fresh wound running down the left half of his face, the violent red of burgeoning scar tissue, clear stitches; his eye has been sutured shut. But that’s not why you’re staring at him. His other eye is a focused, hypnotic blue, his short blonde hair disheveled. He keeps touching his chin, a nervous tick. Immediately, there’s something you like about him. He gives you the impression of someone who has gotten very good at hiding how afraid he is. Aemond looks away from your gaze, thinking you’re horrified by his injury. Then, reluctantly, he comes back. There’s forbidden temptation the lines of his ravaged face, a curiosity, a hesitation.

“Thank you for saving us,” you say to your rescuers, tearing your attention from Aemond. It’s not easy. “That was really, really cool of you, and we know you didn’t have to do it. So thanks.”

“Yeah,” Rio adds. “Sorry your Tahoe is covered in guts now.”

Aemond turns to confer silently with his companions, then asks you: “Where are you headed?”

“Odessa, Oregon.”

He nods. “We’re going to California.”

“NorCal,” Jace says, holding his baseball bat across his shoulders. “Bay Area.”

“Are you two together?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah,” Rio says, misunderstanding the question.

“Not like that,” you clarify. “He has a wife and baby, that’s what’s in Oregon.”

“So you’re single,” Aegon says, grinning toothily. His fellow travelers—family? friends? classmates? a combination thereof?—grumble and roll their eyes.

“Um, I mean, yeah, technically…?”

“Aemond’s also single,” Madame Driver informs you, relishing the chaos.

“He’s single but deformed and traumatized,” Aegon says. “I am mentally uninjured.”

You chuckle awkwardly. Your eyes, by their own volition, flick back to Aemond. He peers down at the ground then up at you again, smiling, a little sheepish, a little wicked.

Aegon groans, swinging his golf club around. “Man, come on.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Aemond replies.

“No, it’s just right there, all over your fucked up face.”

Madame Driver feigns a sympathetic frown at Aegon. “How sad. Guess you won’t have anyone to give your syphilis to.”

“I don’t have syphilis,” Aegon tells you. Then, to the others: “I can’t be the only single guy! It’s pathetic!”

“I’m single,” Archery Team says brightly.

“You’re like twelve. You don’t count.”

“I’m seventeen!”

“Are you Army?” Aemond asks you and Rio.

“Navy,” Rio replies. “We were stationed at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.”

Aemond is fascinated. “You’re deserters?”

“What are you gonna do about it, Brit Boy?” Rio says. Aemond blinks at him. Aegon cackles, drawing huge circles in the air with his golf club.

“Everyone’s deserting,” you explain diplomatically.

“They were going to evacuate the base and send everyone left into New York City,” Rio says. “Fuck that, we’d heard things, we weren’t about to go on some suicide mission. We weren’t even in a combat unit for Christ’s sake, we’re Seabees.”

“You’re what?” Aemond asks, puzzled.

“We do construction. That’s why we were still at the base. If they’re putting us on the front lines, the situation is desperate. I’m not going in the meatgrinder. I’m not gonna be like those Hitler Youth kids sent to Russia.”

Aegon is squinting behind his sunglasses, truly lost. “Huh?”

“We should go west together,” Aemond suggests. He’s attempting to sound casual.

“I thought we didn’t want to travel with strangers, Aemond,” Jace says pointedly, mocking him. “I thought they couldn’t be trusted, Aemond. I thought they might slit our throats and steal our Tahoe in the dead of night, Aemond.”

“We’re useful!” Rio bargains. “We can shoot things!”

Aegon is very confused. “I thought you did construction.”

“Everyone has to go through basic training,” Aemond tells him impatiently, watching you.

“She got the Marksmanship Medal,” Rio says, grinning, proud.

“A lot of people get that,” you demur immediately.

“We can give you guys weapons training,” Rio continues. “You seem…like you probably don’t know about guns. Like you read a lot of books.” He gestures to Aegon. “Except that one.”

Aegon snickers, unoffended, still swinging his golf club around. “I don’t read books. I read maps.”

“Okay, lets do it,” Aemond says. “We’ll stick together across the Midwest and split up before we get to the Pacific. That puts us at ten people, and there’s safety in numbers.”

“Why do you get to make all the decisions?!” Jace demands. “Who signed that fucking contract? I didn’t consent to those terms.”

“Because that’s what Criston told us the last time the phones worked,” Aegon replies smugly. “He said Aemond’s in charge. So he is. If you want to find your way to California on your own, you’re welcome to try.”

“Who’s Criston?” you ask.

“Our fake dad,” Aegon says.

“Oh, your stepdad?”

“No, our mom is still married to our dad, he just sucks.”

“He does suck,” Archery Team confirms.

Rio tells you: “Hey, Chips, you’re standing in a torso.”

“Am I?” You look down. Your boots are buried to the ankles in the rotting gore of a bare midsection with only one limp arm still attached. You step out of it and shake off the bits of decomposing organs. “Gnarly. Thanks.” You spot Parker’s backpack containing the extra ammunition, pick it up out of the dirt, and throw it over your shoulders.

“Chips?” Aemond says. “Like…chocolate chips?”

“No, like woodchips. I’m a carpenter. I mean, I was a carpenter, I guess. That’s what I did in the Navy. Some people call the carpenters Chips.”

“I was an electrician,” Rio says. “So clearly, now that all the power is down, that turned out to be a fantastic career path.” Then he formally introduces himself. “Hi everyone, I’m Rio.”

Aegon perks up. “Oh, like the Rio Grande.”

Rio pretends to be scandalized. “Wow, racist.”

“So racist,” you agree.

Aegon’s chubby pink face fills with horror. “No, wait, I didn’t…um…”

Rio laughs and taps the nametag on his chest, black letters stitched over green camouflage: Osorio.

“His first name’s Bryan,” you say. “But no one calls him that.”

“My mom calls me Bryan. Sophie calls me Bryan.”

Aemond points at his companions, one after the other. “That’s my brother Aegon and my sister Helaena. Jace and Luke are our cousins. Then Baela and Rhaena are their girlfriends. Well, Baela…she’s kind of a fiancée. But there’s no official ring yet.”

Jace says: “Unfortunately, all the jewelry stores were looted on account of the apocalypse.”

“And I’m Daeron,” Archery Team says buoyantly, waving. Then he shields his eyes as he notices something at the edge of the field. “Oh, guys…?”

There are zombies approaching with clumsy, staggering strides, only a few now, but more will follow. That’s the thing; they are in seemingly endless supply. It’s easy to get too comfortable with them, to think of them as slow and mindless, even comical, even pitiful. But they can surprise you. And it only takes one bite to become just like them.

“Time to return to the Tahoe,” Baela announces, waddling towards the driver’s seat. Rhaena climbs in the passenger’s side. The rest of you pile into the back. The SUV has nine seats; Aegon crouches on the floor without being asked to. He’s unfolding a map he pulled from the pocket of his salmon-colored shorts and laying it flat across Rio’s knees so everyone can see. Baela turns the key in the ignition and the Tahoe rumbles to life. You spot a few red gas cans under the seats. If you can’t find more when that runs out—siphoning it out of other vehicles, stumbling across a gas station that is miraculously not drained dry—you’ll be walking, biking, or skateboarding to the West Coast. Or embracing the Amish lifestyle with a horse and buggy.

“We were planning to swing by Fort Indiantown Gap,” you tell Aemond. He twists around in his seat to look at you, that absorbed crystalline blue gaze. “That’s where we were headed before our Humvee broke down. It’s a National Guard Training Center. It’s probably cleaned out like everywhere else, but if it’s not…we might be able to find some guns and ammo there.”

“Where is it?”

“An hour south of here, just outside of Harrisburg.”

Baela is watching Aemond in the rearview mirror. He gives her a nod. “How do I get there?” Baela asks you.

“South on Route 42. Did you see the signs on your way in…?”

“Yup. Got it.” Baela steers the Tahoe across the field, kicking up a vortex of parched soil. She intentionally runs down four zombies before swerving left onto a two-lane road. Then she turns up the volume on the CD player: War Pigs by Black Sabbath. “It’s a mixtape,” she informs you.

Aegon points to southcentral Pennsylvania on a map of the United States of America, highway arteries and local route veins. “We’re here,” he says, sliding around on the floor of the Tahoe as Baela drives. His index finger traces the path; it’s a precarious balance between avoiding the most heavily populated areas and still having access to the necessary trappings of civilization: supplies to scavenge, roads to follow, buildings to take shelter in. “We’ll stop by Fort Indiantown Gap and then head northwest, thread the needle between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, stay south of Detroit and Chicago, cut across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, that top part of Utah, then go our separate ways in Nevada. Oh my God, it’s just like the Oregon Trail! Do you guys remember that game?! Fording rivers, getting dysentery, hunting bison to extinction?” He starts humming the theme song.

Jace smirks, chomping on a Twizzler. “Hope you don’t die of a snakebite or something. That’d be awful.”

Aegon ignores him and refolds the map. “Rio! Fuck, marry, kill. The last three first ladies before Biden.”

Rhaena says, exasperated: “Aegon, you have to stop asking people that. It’s inappropriate.”

“Oh, easy,” Rio replies. “I’m fucking Laura Bush.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Aegon gives him a high five.

“And then I have to marry Michelle.”

“You gotta.”

“Which means Melania gets the grape Flavor Aid.”

“It’s the only logical answer.”

“I’d fuck Melania,” Jace says.

“Of course you would, you sick, sick man,” Aegon mutters, rolling down a window and sticking his head out like a golden retriever, his sunglasses still on, his blonde hair flapping in the wind. There’s a tattoo in black ink on his forearm, you notice for the first time: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fort Indiantown Gap is a ghost town like a gold seam emptied, an oil well run dry, a collapsed coal mine. There’s no central armory but instead a series of arms rooms, one for each unit. Every single scrap of lethal metal is gone: no pistols, no rifles, no grenade launchers or machine guns, no ammo, not even pocketknives, although you do find clean PT uniforms for you and Rio to change into, t-shirts and running shorts and sneakers. Clothes are surprisingly difficult to acquire now. Most stores have either been looted or overrun by zombies, and Amazon is tragically no longer delivering. You can break into houses that seem abandoned, but then you have to hope the people who lived there just so happened to be your size and also aren’t waiting inside to eat you. It’s not usually a wise gamble.

You study Aemond and his companions as you move through the base clearing buildings, you and Rio with loaded M9s in your holsters and clutching borrowed baseball bats; gunshots are best avoided if possible so as not to attract unwanted attention. Aemond and Jace take point, almost always; Aegon hovers on Aemond’s blind left side, wagging his golf club around, occasionally slapping Aemond’s shoulder to remind him he’s there. Daeron prowls at the back and on the periphery. Baela pretends she isn’t struggling to keep up. Luke and Rhaena are the lookouts. Helaena fills her burlap messenger bag with small treasures you don’t even notice her accumulating: bottles of Advil, batteries, lighters, pens, tweezers, Band-Aids, Uno cards. You encounter only three zombies, easily decommissioned. Fort Indiantown Gap must have been evacuated weeks ago. You wonder what pointless battles her soldiers died in. Everyone knows the dead have won.

What the abandoned base lacks in weaponry it makes up for in food. You find a chow hall with an untouched kitchen, a wealth of shelf-stable delicacies: chili, saltine crackers, applesauce, fruit cocktail with bright red gems of cherries, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, green beans, carrots, peas, beets, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup. You feast—a Thanksgiving, a Last Supper—then settle into the barracks next door as the sun begins to set. There are plenty of bunkbeds and a closet full of pillows and sheets. Someone always has to be up to keep watch; Daeron and Jace immediately go to sleep so they can get some rest before they are shaken awake sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. Baela says she’s going to lie down for a minute and almost immediately begins snoring. Helaena makes silent amendments in her notebook; she keeps an inventory of everything the group has, needs, or wants.

Outside, Rio and Aegon are engaged in a spirited game of Uno. Luke is sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Tahoe with his binoculars. Rhaena is beside him softly reading a book out loud: The Hunger Games. Aemond is on a wooden bench on the front porch of the barracks, watching the sun sink into the west. When he notices you, he seems pleased. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m sorry we wasted your gas to come here.”

“No, it was a good idea. It was worth a shot. And now we have a safe place to sleep tonight.” His eye drops lower, his scarred brow crinkles in concern. “What happened to your hands?”

“My hands?” In the haze of the adrenaline, you didn’t even notice. Your palms are blistered, swollen and stinging. “Oh. It was the transmission tower. The steel beams got really hot while we were up there. I’ll be okay.”

“Let me bandage them. You don’t want to get an infection.”

“Really, I’m fine, I shouldn’t inconvenience—”

“Sit down,” Aemond insists. You take a seat on the bench while he goes to the Tahoe to fetch a black nylon bag about the size of a briefcase. Rio casts you a furtive, crafty grin. It’s nothing, you mouth back, more to convince yourself than him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears; your cheeks are warm. You haven’t felt like this since you almost agreed to go on a date with that Marine you met at Corpus Christi, where your battalion had been dispatched to build a series of new airplane hangars. Aemond returns to the bench and begins wiping down your palms with antiseptic. “Sorry if this stings.”

It does, but you’re grateful for the distraction. “It isn’t too bad.”

“You’re not from Oregon.” He’s noticed your accent.

“Kentucky,” you confess.

“You aren’t making a stop at home before traveling west?”

“Why would I want to go back there?”

Aemond looks at you uncertainly; he can’t tell if you’re joking. You like the way his voice goes quiet when it’s just the two of you. You like the way he barely shows his teeth when he talks, like he’s keeping secrets.

After a moment, as the sky begins to turn to orange and pink and lilac, you continue. “People join the Army for a paycheck and a place to sleep, free college, health insurance. People join the Marines to prove they’re the best. People join the Air Force because they want to be in the military but think they’re too smart for grunt work. And people join the Navy to get away from home. I wanted to get far, far, far away.”

Aemond smiles. “Are you far enough yet?” He doesn’t mean by miles. He means the fact that the world will never be the same. Now he’s coating your hands in a thick white ointment, cool and blissful.

“I was afraid of so many things, and now none of them matter.”

“We all have brand new things to be afraid of.” He gets a roll of gauze and begins to wrap your palms, careful to keep your fingers and thumbs unencumbered.

“Aemond?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your face?”

He shrugs. He’s trying not to be resentful about it; he can’t change it anyway. “We were scavenging supplies from a Home Depot. We had to board up the house and wait until things…got quieter and it was safe to travel out of Boston.” And by got quieter, he means that the initial wave passed, the zombies began to wander out of the cities and disperse, the survivors were hunkered down and not participating in gunfights or Vikings-style pillaging in the streets. “A piece of sheet metal fell on me from the top shelf. Aegon and Jace dragged me home, they thought I was dying.”

“I’m glad you weren’t. Who treated it?”

“I did.”

You can’t disguise your shock. “You…you stitched up your own face?”

He smirks, finishing the bandages on your hands. “I was in medical school before all this.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“I was an intern. So definitely not a doctor, but the closest thing to one I had access to. And I had taken some things from the hospital when everything went to hell. So I got a little mirror, and I lidocained myself very generously, and I started suturing.”

You don’t know what to say. His eye?? He stitched his eye shut?? “I mean…you did a great job.”

“I’m aware I look like Frankenstein, but I guess it’s better than not being here at all.”

“No, seriously. You look amazing, Aemond.”

He stares at you, bewildered. You realize how bizarre it must sound. You both start laughing as Aemond packs his supplies back into his medical kit. He touches his fingertips to his chin a few times—restless, meditative—then stands to return inside the barracks. “I’m…going to go check on Helaena.”

“Yeah. Cool. See ya.” You don’t watch him leave. This takes intentional effort.

Seconds pass anonymously: no time you need to be anywhere, nothing late, nothing early, no television premiers, no football games, no State Of The Unions, no time zones to do mental math over. You aren’t even sure what day it is. The earth has erased your invisible prisons. Now all that remain are the real ones: weather, terrain, disease, predators.

There is the creaking of weight on the porch steps. You warn him: “I’m not interested in your commentary.”

Rio winks as he says: “Maybe you won’t die a virgin after all.”

#aemond x y/n #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen

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leaderpinhead · 2 months ago

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Jamil - Modern Dating (For Awkward Couples)

Prompt: Claw

Yuu didn’t say anything, but Jamil caught her glancing at the crane machine in the corner several times. He had noticed the machine when they entered the small cafe near the wharf. He gave it just a cursory glance though, frowning at the oddly shaped green humanoid dolls inside the machine.

The distraction of the machine was so obvious in their stilted conversation that Jamil finally sighed. “Do you want me to win you one of those ugly things?”

Yuu’s eyes snapped to him. Her cheeks ballooned with a hint of red. “They’re not ugly. They’re cute little green aliens with their little antennas and space suits. Idia has a whole collection of them, but he refused to tell me where he got them.”

Jamil almost frowned at the mention of another boy on their supposed “date.” “Knowing Idia, he likely bought the set online. I doubt he’s been off campus long enough to discover a random crane machine in a random cafe in Craneport.”

Yuu’s eyes strayed back to the crane machine. Her whole body turned in the booth to make her staring less strenuous now that Jamil had called her out on the behavior. “I don’t know. He seems pretty confident with his crane machine skills. You know they have one in Ignihyde’s lounge.”

Jamil lost the fight against his frown. “No, I did not know. Why would they have a crane machine in their lounge?”

“They use it like a vending machine and put all their junk food in it. They have these little tokens they use to operate the machine.”

“That sounds like a waste of resources.”

“They say it’s a modern version of hunting. It takes a lot of precision and strategy to grab a tiny candy bar with the claw.”

Jamil snorted. “I doubt it’s that difficult. They just want an excuse to avoid the other vending machines on campus.”

Yuu sighed and turned back to the table. She picked at the napkin she had already torn apart. “You’re probably right. Idia says most crane machines are complete scams anyways. The average person can’t win any prizes because they don’t understand the weight distribution of the items versus the area of claw coverage. Definitely not something I could win.”

Jamil rolled his eyes at the obvious bait. He had heard enough from Najma about the way she had manipulated the boys in her own grade to do her bidding. Jamil wouldn’t be so easily tricked

Yuu slid out of the booth and headed to the crane machine. “I’m going to try anyways.”

Jamil choked on the sip of water he had just taken. Struggling through a coughing fit, Jamil stumbled out of the booth to follow her. She was already stuffing her coins into the machine slot when he caught up to her. “Wait a minute! Don’t waste your money on this thing.”

Yuu grabbed the machine’s joystick and placed her forehead directly against the glass. “I won’t be stopped, Jamil. The little green aliens call to me.”

“That’s your weird fixations calling to you.”

“They want to go home with me.”

“I’m questioning why anyone would want to go home with you.”

Yuu’s lips pursed as she focused on maneuvering the mechanical claw. Jamil sighed and leaned against the glass to watch her. The claw barely nudged one of the small toys on her first try. She was already putting more coins into the slot before the claw returned to its starting position. With each failed attempt, her pout became more pronounced, her cheeks ballooning a bit more and a deep crevice appearing between her brows. She mumbled quiet curses after the first few tries, alternating between cursing the machine and cursing “Idia’s big stupid flaming head.” The lighthearted music from the machine didn’t help, cheerfully dinging when an empty claw opened over the chute.

Jamil silently watched. He waited for Yuu to admit defeat and turn to him for help. The longer she struggled, the more amused he became. Eventually, her supply of loose change came to an end, and she patted down all her pockets like she didn’t quite believe her lack of coins. She silently stared at the machine, tapping her fingertips against her thigh in a silent pattern.

Jamil sighed and straightened from where he leaned against the machine. “Are you finished?”

Yuu tapped her fingers a few more times before turning on her heel. “I can come back next weekend and try again.”

“Next weekend?”

“I should have my next round of allowance by then. If I budget right, I’ll have enough thaumarks left over after buying Grim’s tuna and a few other necessities to try again.”

Jamil shook his head. “You could probably find each of these toys online for less than what you’ll waste on this machine.”

Yuu pinned him with one of her deadpan stares. “I’m not about to let Idia beat me at survival.”

Jamil’s eyelids drooped to match her stare. “This has nothing to do with Idia. You just want the toy."

“I’ll save them all from their imprisonment.”

Jamil shook his head and silently followed her back to the table. When Yuu excused herself to the restroom later, Jamil snuck over to the crane machine with the intention of winning one of the toys before she returned. He was on his third round when Yuu appeared at the side of the machine. He didn’t have a chance to be embarrassed when she pressed her face right up against the glass and pointed. “Move the claw a little to the right.”

Jamil and Yuu spent the rest of their time at the crane machine, switching places between games to help guide the claw into the right position. Jamil frowned at his lighter coin purse while Yuu stared at the one alien trophy from their dozens of attempts. Before Jamil could make a snippy comment, she smiled and held the alien out to him. “He looks like an avocado, so I’m going to name him Cado.”

Jamil refused to look her in the eye the entire bus ride back to the campus until he was absolutely sure the heat in his face had dissipated.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twstober #twstober 2024 #jamil viper #twst yuu #jamilxyuu #my awkward otp #because i can't make them not awkward

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x-neurodivergent-reader · 1 year ago

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Adoration Equation (Loki x Autistic!Reader w/ Dyscalculia)

Anon’s request: “Could you possibly do 'Loki with a S/O who has dyscalculia?' (And also autism, if you're comfortable with including more than one?) Perhaps they're on a mission and split up from the others, only for the reader to find themselves in a situation where math is involved (Idk, maybe a keypad equation to open something?), and Loki had no idea about their dyscalculia until right then?”

Summary: You and Loki started dating recently, but as seeing you struggle with a seemingly simple part of a mission will show him, there are still some things about you that he doesn’t know.

A/N: I don't have dyscalculia myself (I did research it, but that's not the same as experiencing it), so please let me know if any of my descriptions of it aren’t accurate, so I can revise them. Apart from that, enjoy!

The reader here is gender-neutral.

Content warnings: Slight insecurity from the reader.

The hallways of the facility you were infiltrating were silent, save for the distant sounds of gunfire and crashing as your teammates fought through anyone who attacked them, to allow you and Loki the chance to get to the main office. The USB stick that would be used to hack into one of the computers and download classified information about the organisation’s plans, along with the ID card you swiped from a higher-up earlier, felt heavy in your pocket, as you stayed alert to avoid anything that could compromise your mission.

You and Loki found that you worked together quite well in the field. Your respective skills matched up nicely, he made sure to communicate clearly with you, and you were often on the same wavelength. It was no wonder that the two of you would be grouped together for this mission – nor, perhaps, that you had become a couple about a month previously.

Just as you were about to turn down the next corridor, Loki stopped you, gently guiding you behind him as he checked around the corner for any guards. His eyebrows creased after a moment, as he slowly walked further down the hall, tentatively giving you the gesture you had both agreed on to follow him.

Surprisingly, despite the door to your destination being in sight, there were no soldiers near it.

“The coast looks clear.” You murmured, just audible enough for your partner to hear you.

“But why…?” He inquired, seemingly listening out for anyone trying to sneak up on you both. “Why would they not guard somewhere so important?”

You looked around for any hidden cameras, and sure enough, you saw a few – one at each end of the hall, and another that seemed to be embedded in the office door. You lightly tapped Loki’s arm, and silently pointed them out to him.

“They might be planning an ambush.” You whispered.

Loki nodded in response, before summoning a small pellet of green magic, and throwing it at one of the cameras at the end of the hall. Before you could process it, he turned, shooting another at the camera in the door and, finally, at the side of the corridor you had arrived from.

A thick silence fell over you both, knowing that someone was bound to come for you now that the cameras had been destroyed. Sure enough, you both heard footsteps, soon followed by a small group of soldiers rounding the corner in front of you, weapons ready to attack.

Being the seasoned warrior he is, Loki immediately had a plan.

“I’ll take care of them,” he murmured to you, “you open the door.”

“Right.” You agreed, turning back to the direction you were heading in, while Loki dove into battle behind you.

Approaching the door, you took out the stolen card, and looked around for a machine on the wall with a slot to slide it through. Your eyes stopped when you saw what appeared to be exactly that, except it had something extra alongside the card slot.

It was a keypad. You hoped that, perhaps, there would be a code on the card that you could enter without too much trouble – but when you used the card as required, the screen on the device lit up with an equation, an extra security protocol that had to be solved to enter the room.

‘Shit…’ You thought, a sense of dread starting to rise within you, as your mind blocked out the sounds of the fight happening nearby. You realised that this was going to be much harder for you than you had expected, if not outright impossible.

Regardless, you read the calculation, hoping it would be simple enough that you could at least make an attempt at it, perhaps by counting on your fingers. You just hoped that you could get it done before Loki finished fighting…

"8 x 2 x 5 + 750 =”

…and, not knowing where to even start in comprehending this, your mind immediately drew a blank.

‘Shit!’ You thought again, your panic increasing with the knowledge that you were absolutely not going to be able to do this part of the mission.

You weren’t sure of what to do now, the pressure from not being able to act on the job making you feel on edge. Should you help Loki finish his fight? Would he be mad at you for not opening the door? Would he think less of you for not being able to? Why did nobody check to see that this was how it needed to be opened-?!

Your train of thought was interrupted when a hand reached in front of you, catching you off-guard and almost causing you to attack on instinct, until you realised that it was Loki, having already finished his fight. You chanced a brief glance at his face – he wasn’t looking at you, focused on reading the equation, but his brows were downturned, like he was either confused or annoyed by your lack of action. You deeply hoped it wasn’t the latter.

Loki entered the answer into the keypad almost immediately, and the door slid open, revealing the dimly-lit office. The one window in the back wall seemed to pour daylight over the desk with the computer you needed to use, immediately drawing your attention to it like a spotlight on a stage.

Your partner stepped aside, silently gesturing for you to enter the room first, so you could use the USB and finish the job. Avoiding his gaze, you practically speed walked into the room, still feeling self-conscious about what had just happened – you hoped the download wouldn’t take long enough for the subject to be brought up sooner, rather than later.

You pressed the button on the monitor that lit up the screen, and plugged the USB into the tower next to it, the device releasing a virus that automatically broke into the computer’s security details, and collected the necessary information for you.

“We’re in.” you told Loki, as he approached the desk. The adrenaline from the mission up to that point caught up to you, and you cautiously decided to slouch in the chair until the download was complete. “Tony said it should take about five minutes, if no one interrupts us.”

Loki nodded, giving a small hum of acknowledgement. You still didn’t have the courage to look at him yet, but were at least grateful that he wasn’t admonishing you. You were dealing with enough mixed feelings about the situation as is, particularly with regards to whether you should have told him about your dyscalculia before all of this. Especially since you were now in a relationship with him, you were starting to feel guilty about not bringing it up.

“Do you have trouble with maths, by any chance?” Loki’s voice broke through the silence. His tone of voice was neutral, giving little indication as to what he was feeling.

Your leg started to bounce as you stared at the screen, internally cursing the fact that this conversation was, indeed, happening already. You still couldn’t tell whether he was mad at you – you never were the best at telling how people were feeling, especially when they were this subtle – and that fact, combined with the previous issue with the keypad, made you start to feel slightly frustrated. You felt like you couldn’t figure anything out today.

“Yeah, I…” You spoke under your breath, leaning forward to further avoid Loki’s gaze. You rested your forearms on your legs, one of which still jiggled as a nervous stim. Given that there was no other explanation, and you could never successfully lie to your partner about this, you supposed you might as well tell the truth. “…my autism isn’t the only, uh… neurodivergence I have. I also have a learning disability called dyscalculia. It basically makes it a lot more difficult for me to understand maths and numbers than it would be for most people. It doesn't matter if it's equations, telling the time, reading maps... I’ve just never been able to really comprehend it.”

Loki stepped forward, and placed a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. His voice was quiet as he spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

You knew that he most likely felt guilty for unknowingly making you do something you weren’t able to, but the gentle tone in his voice made your stomach churn. You couldn’t help worrying that he was looking down on you, whether he meant to or not.

“I didn’t want you to think less of me for it.” You admitted. “I mean, look at how quickly you solved that keypad. It barely took you any effort! You’re one of the smartest people I know, and…” You finally looked up at your partner, seeing how his face softened at the implication, and you moved your hand to cover his, giving the same reassurance he offered you. “…I don’t necessarily think that I’m stupid for it, but I’m not always sure that other people will feel the same, especially since I joined a team full of people who can do maths so easily. I didn’t want you to think that I’m stupid, just because my brain works like this.”

You glanced back at the computer screen, seeing that the USB was close to finishing its download. You sat up against the chair, and let Loki’s hand move to hold yours.

“Darling,” he squeezed your hand, grounding you, “your dyscalculia doesn’t change how I feel about you. It would be preposterous for anyone to judge your intelligence based on a learning disability – you don’t need to be able to do everything to be worthy of respect.”

Loki looked at the computer screen, and with his gaze away from you, you took a moment to watch the way the monitor’s light emphasised the blue in his eyes. You wondered if he ever noticed that when there was no risk of eye contact, you couldn’t help admiring them, no matter how briefly.

“I love every part of you,” he continued, and your breath caught in your chest at what was his first explicit confession of love towards you, “and this is no exception. I simply wish I had known not to put you in that situation before. I’m sorry for causing you stress by doing so.”

“It’s okay.” You grinned up at him, your body relaxing at the knowledge that there was nothing to worry about. “We’ll know to have me be the one to kick their asses next time.”

Loki chuckled under his breath, looking back at you with that sweet, lovestruck smile, reserved only for you.

In front of you, the download window on the computer screen disappeared, signifying that it was complete. You stood up from the desk chair, pushing it backwards on its wheels while you disconnected the USB and stuffed it back into your pocket, and zipped it to ensure it wouldn't get lost.

You then turned to Loki, and gave him a quick yet heartful kiss on the lips. When you pulled away, he gave you that cheeky smirk that you adored so much.

“I love you, too.” You confessed sincerely, before you both made your way to the office doors, ready to face any threats that may wait on the other side together. “Now let’s finish this.”

#loki x reader #marvel loki x reader #loki imagine #loki imagines #loki x y/n #loki x you #marvel x reader #marvel imagine #marvel imagines #mcu imagine #mcu imagines #mcu x reader #autistic!reader #dyscalculic!reader #neurodivergent!reader #only one request to go and I'll be free from marvel forever

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daisybianca · 1 year ago

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pairing: daniel ricciardo x femalereader

summary: you work at a casino and Daniel Ricciardo shows up to play poker. Despite the high-stakes game, he's able to win easily. He looks at you the entire time, making sure you look at him as well. The night is young and full of unexpected turns.

warnings: cursing words

AS YOU ENTER the casino floor, the air is heavy with excitement as players wager their money in hopes of striking gold. In the heart of the casino floor, you approach a poker table, where a group of men are engaged in a high-stakes game.

The casino is buzzing with excitement, and you can hear the clanging of slot machines and the sounds of dice rolling in the background. As you approach the poker table, you see a tall, dark-haired man with piercing dark eyes sitting at a luxurious seat.

Your heart surges with excitement as you realize you'll be working near this man for the rest of the night, because you realize he is none other than Formula 1 driver, Daniel Ricciardo.

Despite your excitement, you must maintain your professional composure and begin to shuffle the cards.

As you do so, you can feel his eyes on you, his charming smile drawing you in.

As the game progresses, his skill is evident, and he begins to win hand after hand. The other men around him begin to grow increasingly frustrated and envious, and the mood at the table shifts.

As the night wears on, Daniel continues to emerge victorious, his stack of chips towering over those of the other men.

"Oh, man!" The men around him are visibly angry, and words are exchanged between them.

"That fucker isn't giving up any time soon." One grey-haired man whispered to a guy next to him.

Eventually, they storm out of the casino, their egos bruised and their wallets lighter.

Despite all this, Daniel remains calm and cool, his eyes locked on yours as you mix the cards.

You catch a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you feel a frisson of excitement.

As he begins to gather his winnings, you notice him motioning to you. Approaching, your smile appears as his eyes refuse to travel anywhere but on you.

"Can I have a pen and a piece of paper, please?"

You hurry to his side with a pen and paper, and he flashes you a charming smile.

He is out of sight and your heart almost shrinks in your chest. The night was over. You were never going to meet him again.

You approache his previous table to gather up the mess as you feel your heart racing as you notice the piece of paper placed on it.

You look at it from both sides. The one has a number written on it, obviously his number.

Turning the paper to the other side, your eyes widen in disbelief, and you bite your lips. "This eye-fuck of yours has to be continued. They say gambling is a game of luck, but meeting you feels like the luckiest moment of my night. My name's Daniel. Please, give me a call. I hate waiting."

You're left at the table, your cheeks reddened and your mind reeling from the encounter. You can't help but wonder what will become of your newfound connection with Daniel Ricciardo.

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arachnixe · 2 years ago

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To Know You Is To Love You

"Astonishing! Where you come from, they really let humans pilot your own mechs? Just, what, with your hands? Operating buttons and levers like a carnival ride?"

They crowd me, far more curious than I ever expected a bunch of human-shaped machines could be.

"Yeah?" I answer, confusion apparent in my voice. "Why? What do you do, just plug a cable in?"

As one, the mechanisms in their faces shift and slide into configurations I'm learning to associate with amusement. They suddenly seem eager to show me every port on their bodies in a way that feels uncomfortably voyeuristic to watch. They may be machines, but…

It's hard for a pilot to not see the life in a machine when our lives depend on being completely in tune with our own.

I don't know whether to envy Nixie or feel sorry for it that it doesn't get to have its own version of this conversation with the other mechs resting on standby. It can only communicate externally in bursts of radio waves, and I'm not authorized to share its decryption key.

One of the pilot units speaking to me demonstrates how it slots neatly into its counterpart's docking cradle. It rattles off a litany of specs on data throughput, latency, handshaking protocols. My familiarity with Nixie's specs helps me translate the numbers effortlessly. It's an astonishing rate of data, capable of bidirectional real-time exchange of sensor readings and near-zero delay between decision and action. No wonder they're so much faster than us on the battlefield.

I have instrument panels and HUD messages from Nixie to read. I've got controls to manipulate, external video feeds to scan, and mental calculations to perform—it's all instinct now, drilled into me—and I can acknowledge how clumsy that makes us compared to them.

"Together we act as one" the pilot says, "with negligible barrier between our sensory and computational arrays."

I put a hand on my partner's armored leg, and for the first time I feel our acute separation, a gulf as wide as any between steel and flesh. I came here full of pride in what we could do together, with my skills and Nixie's state-of-the-art amphibious design and our ability to work as a unit, but now… It's nothing on what these machines have together, isn't it?

I grimace. "It's a shame I'll don't know what it's like to connect like that." So intimate. My heart aches for it. "I envy you," I admit aloud.

The room is silent. The others go still, perhaps communicating via silent side-channels.

"Would you like to?"

How could I refuse?

---

The first surgery is the most delicate. Their tech is incredibly advanced in some ways compared to ours, but even so, brain implants always carry some risk.

A modest computer and a radio, plugged right into my head. It feels frightening and alien at first. Metal at the base of my skull and a gaping hole in the back of my mind. I worry about what kind of mistake I made, letting them operate on me.

Then I recite my memorized key into the void in my mind, and it unfurls its petals. It blossoms into language. An impossible torrent of language that overwhelms me at first until, seemingly in response to my distress, it slows to a manageable trickle.

> NXE-110001 attempting send rate negotiation↵ > establishing link↵ > attempt: 2↵ █

I think an acknowledgement back into that link. Then, after a moment's consideration, I follow it up with a few repetitions of the test pattern described in our manual so that Nixie can calibrate itself with my own send speed.

> NXE-110001 link established↵ > hello pilot↵ █

We spend some time experimenting with the limitations of the link. As much as we're both used to communicating with each other using language, it rapidly becomes clear that it is the slowest information protocol we have.

It takes time for my mind and Nixie's algorithms to learn how to parse each other's nonverbal signals, but every day we get a little bit better—and a little faster—sending thought-fragments, images, and sensory data over the link until it's unconscious instinct for me. The more in-tune with each other that we get, the more effective we are, cooperating on a deeper level than I've ever dreamed before. The mechanical pilots encourage me as if taking personal pride in our ability to catch up with them in speed.

But I'm still not fast enough. Nixie is still throttling its communication speed for me to keep up. While I don't think "frustration" is an emotion it experiences, I know its algorithms are designed to optimize, and right now, it's my hardware that's the bottleneck.

Maybe my new friends can cure that too.

With their support, we plan several more surgeries: hardware upgrade for my skull integration point to add a physical port for higher data throughput, additional ports in my spine to parallelize transfer, a secondary computer in my lower back to offload additional processing.

The physical recovery for each surgery is tedious and exhausting, but in contrast I feel only exhilaration during the time spent learning our new capabilities after each upgrade.

The presence of the secondary computer is the strangest sensation of all, by far. There is the initial novelty of sending it commands to perform calculations I could never have done on my own. (The cube root of 110001? Approximately 47.9143438.) But with time and familiarity it loses that feeling of otherness, becoming just my "other brain."

And then with more time, it loses even that feeling of otherness. My mind just has two halves, each more suited to some subset of the mental processing I must do.

My friends and I design and fit a custom docking cradle for me into Nixie, and the day it no longer has to throttle its communications with me is the happiest of my life.

The term "pilot" feels ill-fitting now. Plugging into Nixie is just joining with my other half. When we connect, we become one in almost the same way as the flesh and machine halves of my brain do. Dives that once felt like operating a submarine now feel like swimming in the waters of our own home, no different than operating my own body.

I considered us a team before, but we're so much more now, easily on par with my friends and their partners.

Well, now they're showing off all the fascinating weaponry and sensor arrays built in to their own bodies, and I find I still have room for envy.

I wonder how many more upgrades they might be willing to offer?

#empty spaces #becoming #mechs #combat dolls #my writing

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sunnysolebunnie · 2 years ago

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Floral Sims Legacy Challenge

Welcome!

Welcome to my sims legacy challenge! I know a few challenges have been made around floriograhphy but hey, I wanted to give it a go too! All the sims are based around an aspect of nature within the sims - some more obvious than others. The most important thing is enjoying this challenge - don’t worry if things go awry and you don’t complete it all! A flower can lose a petal and still flourish, as can you with this challenge!

Some general rules here, no big deal if you bend them a little

Cheats can be used, just not excessively

If you have an extra traits mod, spouses can have more traits but please keep to just 3 with the heirs!

The heir can be any gender unless stated otherwise

With each gen, start with 20,000 - spend as much as you want building/furnishing a house or move into a premade starter and save your simoleons

Please use the lot traits if specified however if none are you can use any! If there are traits specified feel free to use any more around it, but give priority slots to specified ones!

There is a little hint for each generation

{source for flower meanings: ‘Floriography’ by Jessica Roux}

Packs needed for this challenge:

Sorry, there are quite a few, originally this was going to be just for me! I might one day make a base game version!

Get to Work [EP:1]

Get Together [EP:2]

City Living [EP:3]

Cats and Dogs [EP:4]

Seasons [EP:5]

Island Living [EP:7]

Eco Lifestyle [EP:9]

Cottage Living [Ep:11]

Vampire [GP:4]

Parenthood [GP:5]

Dream home Decorator [GP:10]

Nifty Knitting [SP:17]

G1 Bluebell

Flower meaning: Humility; faithfulness

Colours: Lilac, pale blue

Just as many generations before you, you’ve always longed to be a housewife. The idea of serving your family is a dream and now you are finally an adult, it’s time to achieve your dream. You set off to find the man of your dreams. The only problem? You’re deathly shy!

Traits: Family-oriented, Loyal, and Loner

Aspiration: Big happy family

Career: Stay-At-Home-Mother

Rules:

Must start with a Female, young adult

Must complete aspiration

Must marry before adulthood

Max cooking, parenting and knitting skill

Never get a job - the husband can

Have 5+ children - knit them each an item of clothing for each birthday

Have a large garden of vegetables

Hint: Children with level 4 mental skill can help plant - all children can water plants

G2 Snapdragon

Flower meaning: Presumption

Colours: Red, pink

Growing up, you saw your parents care for the garden and longed to do the same. Now you’re older, your dreams of being a farmer can finally come true. You love your plants and animals - they are your only friends after all! Though some may say your prioritise them over your family…

Traits: Animal lover, Loves outdoors, and Loner

Aspiration: Country caretaker

Career: Gardening career - botanist

Rules:

Win a chicken competition

Always live in Henford-on-Bagley once a young adult

Have a large garden - always have at least 1 farm animal once a young adult

Only adopt children - have a better relationship with animals than children

Max gardening career (botanist branch)

Max gardening and handiness skill

Befriend a rabbit, bird, and fox, and have them help with gardening - have no sim friends (Not including family sims)

Hint: Dogs can help scare off foxes if there are too many

G3 Honeysuckle

Flower meaning: Devotion; affection

Colours: Yellow, peach

Your parents spent much more time caring for their garden when you were younger, and so you spent much more time making friends within the neighbourhood. However, you could never deny the beauty of seeing all the flowers blooming during the summer. Now you’ve moved to a near by town and are living in the heart of the city. Times might be difficult but you always have your friends to care for you.

Traits: Dance machine, Insider, and Lactose intolerant

Aspiration: Leader of the pack

Career: Gardener (Floral designer branch)

Rules:

Live in the main town of Windenburg once a Young adult

Once a teen, go to the cafe at least once a week, and go to the club every friday night

Join at least one club

Max Flower arranging, charisma and dancing skill

Own a retail store selling flower arrangements

Have 5+ friends and maintain good contact

Have lots of partners when a young adult, but once an adult fall in love with and marry your childhood best friend

Hint: Buy a completely plain lot to start your retail - all you’ll need is 1+ flower arrangements and a cash register

G4 Daisy

Flower meaning: Innocence; childhood; purity

Colours: White and pale yellow

Your parents were always very popular, growing the most beautiful flowers. This inspired you to want to center all decor and rooms within your home around beautiful plants. Now, you have the opportunity to bring the joy and beauty of flowers and plants into the lives of many sims.

Traits: Maker, Art lover, and Vegetarian

Aspiration: Master Maker

Career: Interior Decorator

Rules:

Max fabrication, floral arrangement and photography skill

Always live in an apartment with a balcony - grow flowers on the balcony

Have lots of floral prints

Make floral arrangements with your parent every sunday whilst still living at home

Fall in love with your childhood sweetheart and get promised whilst a teen

Use candles as your main source of lighting within the bedroom and living room

Attend the romance festival everytime it is on (unless impossible eg on holiday, a death etc)

Hint: The romance festival is in the fashion district - living here might make it easier to visit

G5 Zinnia

Flower meaning: Everlasting friendship

Colours: Bright Orange, Bright purple

Ahh, the city. What an inspiring place. Full of people who really grind your gears, but hey! At least you can always trust your little cat and dog friends to be there for you. But seeing them hurt? Now your heart is set, it's calling you… you need to be a vet. You set off with a little cash to set up your own vet clinic, but now you seem to be gaining a good reputation with the animals, because they keep showing up at your home…

Traits: Animal enthusiast, Vegetarian, and Hot-headed

Aspiration: Friend of the animals

Career: Vet

Rules:

Open a vet clinic

Max pet training and veterinary skill

Achieve a 5-star level vet clinic

Always have the lot traits cat and dog hangout once moving out

Finish the feather collection

Conceive your child in the lighthouse

Once a young adult, always have at least one plant of catnip

Hint: Feathers can be collected by both Sims and pets

G6 Ashphodel

Flower meaning: My regrets follow you to the grave

Colours: White; Dark Blue

Being self-sufficient when it comes to food has always been a dream for you. Unfortunately, when it comes to your families lineage of green thumbs… you fall a bit short. In a burst of anger at your lack of gardening talent, you go to the nearest water bank, and see a fish. This lights a spark in you, and now you seem to always be fishing!

Traits: Hot-headed, Loves outdoors, and Slob

Aspiration: Angling Ace

Career: Fisherman (part time)

Rules:

Finish the fish collection

Max fishing, cooking and gourmet skill

Cook using fish at least once a week once a young adult

Enter and conceive your first child in the secret lot in willow creek

Fall in love when a young adult/adult but don’t marry until an elder

Always have a pond in your garden, but never any plants

Become best friends with a mermaid and have an affair with them

Hint: The secret lot is by a very special tree in the cheapest area of willow creek - the fish there are worth more

G7 Sweetpea

Flower meaning: Thank you for a lovely time

Colours: Mauve; lavender

Watching those cute little fish as a child was always resonated with you maybe more than others. But seeing the way your parent would end up killing them? That made you M-A-D! Now, you’ve gotten a fresh start - its time to relax in the fresh seas of Sulani and befriend the natives! Hey, maybe you might even discover something about yourself whilst you’re there too…

Traits: Child of the ocean, Hot-headed, and Child of the island (and Mermaid)

Aspiration: Beach life

Career: Conservationist

Rules:

Befriend a dolphin

Complete the seashell collection

Achieve a 4+ star rating on doing odd jobs

Save the world by being a conservationist

Grow a coconut or pineapple! Or maybe even more than one…

Always live in Sulani once a young adult but choose to sleep in water

Befriend all village locals Sulani - its good to be friendly

Hint: You can clean up the beaches without being a conservationist - it might be a good idea to get a head start and start as a teen!

G8 Edelweiss

Flower meaning: Courage; Daring

Colours: White; cream

Your parent was inspirational - they saved your whole island! But… know the harsh reality of seeing the state of the rest of the world has dawned on you. Well, you know what they say, go big or go home! You want to bring this eco-madness far out of just Sulani!

Traits: Green Fiend, Recycle Disciple, and Maker

Aspiration: Eco Innovator

Career: Civil Designer

Rules:

Live in evergreen harbour and achieve all green zones

Live off the grid with the reduce and recycle lot trait

Own Beetles once a young adult

Max the juice fizzing and fabrication skill

Using influence and convincing, win the NAP on Modern development in [Conifer station / Grims Quarry / Port Promise]

Have a green eco print on your lot

Max Civil designer career

Hint: The natural well trait is really useful - as well as the dew collector and solar panels

G9 Clematis

Flower meaning: Ingenuity; cleverness

Colours: Pale pink; pale purple

With the air finally clear, now you can see the stars. It’s beautiful, right? But you can’t help it, you are longing for more. What’s beyond our planet? Through hard-work and dedication, perhaps you can finally get up to space. Maybe it will be phenomenal? Who knows?

Traits: Ambitious, Overachiever, and Genius

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Scientist

Rules:

Go to SIXAM

Max rocket science skill and fully upgrade rocket

Woohoo in space

Finish the space rock collection

Grow a fang flower, glow orb and quill fruit

Befriend and take in an alien

Max the scientist career

Hint: To get to sixam, you need to be level 10 of the scientist career!

G10 Hellebore

Flower meaning: We shall overcome scandal and slander

Colours: Black; ruby

You never were afraid of the dark, were you? I guess it’s hard to be when your parent lives up in the dark of space. But did you cross the boundary when you befriended a vampire, and asked them to turn you? Maybe… who knows? Thing is, drinking from people is so much more awkward than it looks. Luckily, plasma fruit and plasma packs are the best!

Traits: Clumsy, Music Lover, and Gloomy (and vampire)

Aspiration: Master Vampire

Career: None - part time jobs can be done if hours are within 6 pm to 6 am

Rules:

Be turned into a vampire as a teen or young adult

Graft a death flower - save your lover from death of old age (or early demises) and then turn them so you can be in love forever

Resist drinking from anyone - only use plasma fruit and plasma packs (recommended to grow plasma fruit on lot)

Unlock the ‘guilty drinker’ and ‘sloppy drinker’ weakness

Max the vampire lore and pipe organ skill

Become a grand master vampire

Complete the elements collection

Hint: Vampires with a maxed vampiric strength skill can crush crystals and metals so you don’t have to send them to the lab -it's much quicker!

#the sims legacy #the sims community #the sims 4 #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 #ts4 #ts4 legcay #ts4 gameplay #ts4 challenge #the sims 4 gameplay #the sims 4 challenge #the sims 4 legacy #ts4 legacy challenge #the sims 4 legacy challenge

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disco-elysium-via-polls · 1 year ago

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"I came in contact with the burnt out ruins of the past, lieutenant."

KIM KITSURAGI - "That does sometimes happen." He hands you the remains of your ledger.

Item Gained: Ledger of Failure and Hatred

KIM KITSURAGI - "You dropped this -- are you okay to proceed?"

"Let's solve this case." [Leave.]

Just nod. [Leave.]

+5 XP

Level up!

KIM KITSURAGI - "Good."

TUTORIAL AGENT - The Ledger of Failure and Hatred is a special item that can be used both as an INTERACTABLE and a TOOL equipped in your HELD slot for skill bonuses. Find it under the TOOLS tab in your INVENTORY.

LEDGER OF FAILURE AND HATRED - This is the same ledger you found in the trash, only *worse* somehow. It makes you think about the letter. About the woman's handwriting. About not wanting to get out of bed in the morning.

The Ledger gives us +1 Inland Empire, +1 Empathy, and -2 Authority. I probably won't be equipping it.

Interacting with the ledger simply opens the same dialogue menu as before.

WHITE MOURNING

Temporary research bonus: -1 Authority: Little guy gets further and further away

Research time: 5h

You see yourself from above. You’re passed out on the blue tiles of the hostel room floor. Even from this distance you can see your eyelids flutter -- at the mention of what? A great white object, letting out its sweet smell, like a Lily of the Valley. The little man’s forgotten its name, but he still remembers the feeling. And look, he moves! The feeling animates him. He instinctively reaches out for the feeling's best friend -- a bottle of Commodore Red. He puts on his disco clothes and gets smaller and smaller...

As you can see, we've opened up the top part of the Thought Cabinet This one is non-negotiable - I equip it immediately.

There's some things we can do now that we've rooted through the dumpster, and since we're already at Kim's Kineema...

COUPRIS KINEEMA - In the cabin you see a set of steering levers, a radio on a hook, a pull-out toolbox and the soft glow of the fuel pre-heater gauge.

"Kim, how do I turn on the headlights?"

KIM KITSURAGI - He turns the pre-heater on, waits, takes out his keys and says: "All right. Ready. I turn, you press START -- it's next to the pre-heater."

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He's downplaying his excitement -- the lieutenant is more than happy to show off his precious carriage.

Press ENGINE START.

COUPRIS KINEEMA - The dashboard lights up with orange glow. The rounds per minute gauge jumps and the engine of the Coupris Kineema comes to life with a whiny growl.

Press the button labelled HEADLIGHTS.

COUPRIS KINEEMA - The lights unfold with a little click, casting electrical light onto the ground before the vehicle.

KIM KITSURAGI - "There you go. I'll turn them off from the remote once you're done -- we just need to stand in front of the machine now."

5. Close the door. [Leave.]

INTERFACING - As you hold your ledger's clip under the headlamp, an iridescent hologram appears: a street grid and the veins of a great river. A familiar sensation washes over you...

KIM KITSURAGI - "There she is: Revachol West." There's a note of pride in the lieutenant's voice.

DAMAGED LEDGER - Around the borders of the watermark are dozens, no, *hundreds* of micro-perforations.

Look at the shimmering street grid.

Look at the perforations.

DAMAGED LEDGER - The rectangular watermark is overlaid with the logo of the RCM, and yet the major arteries of Revachol are all recognizable. They shimmer in the Kineema's headlights.

Wait... look around you.

"Where are we on this?" (Point to the halogen map.)

DAMAGED LEDGER - You catch a faint glimmer from a broken beer bottle. In the distance -- sounds. Two men engaged in a drunken argument, followed by the closing of some distant window.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Ah, Martinaise at night," he smells the air and says.

"Where are we on this?" (Point to the halogen map.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "Let me see." He takes the ledger for a moment and inspects it.

"Right here," he says, his finger near the top of the map, on a segment of coast jutting out into the great ocean.

"Seems nice."

"Seems like a shithole."

"I'm sure I've seen worse."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Oh yes. Coal City, Le Royaume, the Burnt Out Quarter..."

2. Look at the perforations.

DAMAGED LEDGER - There are many of them. And they are divided into three separate rows.

Tally up the different rows.

(Let's look at something else.)

DAMAGED LEDGER - The first row has 18 dots.

Not bad.

What about the next one?

DAMAGED LEDGER - Not bad for what? You don't even know what it means yet.

What about the next one?

DAMAGED LEDGER - The next is the longest. It runs all the way around the border and then some.

Count them individually.

DAMAGED LEDGER - There are so many it's hard to count. More than 150, at least. Maybe even 200.

What about the last row?

DAMAGED LEDGER - The last row has three perforations.

Three, that's it?

DAMAGED LEDGER - That's it.

3. "Hey, Kim, what do all these holes mean?" (Point to the dots on the watermark.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "Those are *perforations*. They represent your record as an officer of the RCM. They're your statistics, as it were. I should have guessed you'd keep a record, officers often do. Let's take a look..."

"The first row represents your years of service. *Eighteen* years? Okay -- not bad at all. What did you do before you volunteered?"

"Wait, *eighteen years* I've done this?"

"Got drunk like a megastar?"

"I walked the land telling whores and liars of the End to come. There are 9,855 days remaining."

"I was a hobo and I lived under a boat."

"Probably some boring office job. Same as everyone else."

"I feel like I just went around apologizing all the time."

"Do you really think I have any idea?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "That's what it says. I might've guessed even longer based on your age... what did you do all those blissful years of your youth?"

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi

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honourablejester · 1 year ago

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Starfinder Character Concept: Aballonian Noir Detective

Continuing our theme of Pact World character concepts. We’re gonna take an odd sidestep and head to Aballon, the heat-blasted metallic machine world closest to the Sun. Because, and I’m not fully sure why, you’d think Absalom Station would be the first choice for a noir detective, but there’s something about a robot noir detective moving through the dark underbelly of a mechanical utopia. Aballon’s undercities and ice wells, the melting-pot mixed-race areas built in the cooler, more sheltered craters while the machine megacities built over top of them, offer some interesting stalking grounds for a noir detective. Aballon’s Insight Array and universal social support (once you accept your assigned role) is also a bit of an interesting backdrop to criminal motivations and investigations. I don’t know. It called to me. So.

Dusty Brown. A rumpled android detective with a gentle mien who moves through the mean streets and high speed magnetic rails of Aballon’s undercities.

Character Concept: Dusty Brown, Aballonian Noir Detective

Name: Dusty Brown

Age: 87

Starting Statistics:

Strength 10, Dexterity 16, Constitution 11, Intelligence 14, Wisdom 14, Charisma 8

Starting Skills:

Ranks in: Acrobatics*, Bluff*, Computers*, Diplomacy, Engineering*, Perception*, Mysticism, Piloting*, Sleight of Hand*, Stealth*

Specialisation Skills (Skill Focus plus auto rank per level): Culture*, Sense Motive*

Race: Android

We’re gonna be a synth detective, doll. Yes, Nick Valentine is a significant chunk of the starting inspiration for this character. Will Flat Affect and a charisma flaw have an impact on our success with social skills and Sense Motive particularly? Possibly. But we’re an operative, so we’ve got the skill ranks to compensate, and I want an android noir detective.

And not just an android. We’re going to be an Aballonian android. We’re gonna be a rumpled android detective working the mean streets and high-speed magnetic rail systems of the machine world’s undercities. Even in a logical utopia where food and lodging are (usually) guaranteed, people still have passions, and ideologies, and desires, and hatreds. No matter where you go, someone there will wind up dead, or something there will wind up taken. There’s all the work in the world for a private detective, even on a world with vast near-omniscient AI running the show. So one day the self-named Dusty Brown stepped off the mag-rail and hung up her shingle as a PI in Striving’s Lors Emphyria undercity. She wasn’t exactly assigned that role, the Insight Array didn’t offer it as a suggestion, but she wound up getting a stipend anyway, so maybe the machine overlords think she’s doing some good.

I think I’ll swap out the android’s Upgrade Slot for the alternate Nanite Upgrade and take Rebooting Nanites. Dusty’s a hard girl to keep down.

Description:

On the shorter side for an android, Dusty Brown is a stocky woman of about 5ft, with grey eyes and dark brown skin with circuit-seams that glow a dull silvery-grey. She tends to wear dark, sensible clothes over light armour, but does allow the small affectation of a nice long trench coat. A girl’s gotta dress for the role, after all. She tends to favour non-lethal weapons, usually keeping a trusty pulsecaster in its holster under her coat.

Theme: Street Rat

I did look at Paranormal Investigator, just to double down on the detective idea, but Dusty’s not really a paranormal sort of girl. Street Rat, with its urban underworld vibes, is more her style. She didn’t start out with a nice stipend from the Insight Array. She’s made her way without a safety net for a long time. So she knows how things roll down here. She’s a noir detective, not a paranormal one. Mean streets are where she lives.

Class: Operative (Detective)

I mean it had to be. Operative has a whole specialisation ready-made for our concept. And I’m not going to say no to a whole bunch of skills, either.

And we are going to be aiming more in a skill-monkey, explorer, truth-seeker sort of direction, more than combat. Dusty prefers to be non-confrontational, non-lethal. The fact that she has the charisma of a brick (or, well, a robot) doesn’t necessarily help in this regard, but she tries. Her streets might be mean, but she doesn’t want to emulate them. She wants to help piece together what’s gone wrong, so that people can start helping fix it. There’s probably a reason the Insight Array was happy enough with the role she picked for herself. She jumped the gun, but it might well have arrived at a similar conclusion itself.

For that reason, I think I might pick up Scoundrel’s Finesse for her first feat. A noir PI should be able to throw a punch, and she’ll try that well before she graduates to more lethal options. I might also give her a Restraining Spinneret augmentation, give her options to tie people down and try to negotiate where she can. Is she good at negotiating? Not necessarily. But she’s gonna try.

Summary:

Mostly, I just wanted an android noir detective? And then I was noodling around worlds with large android populations, and Aballon caught on things in my brain. Honestly, Aballon would be a fascinating world to run an urban mystery campaign on. I mean, lots of Pact World worlds would be great for that, Verces, Absalom Station, the Sun, but Aballon has an interesting ‘rugged flawed utopia’ sort of angle to it. Machine logic, mining rights, synthetic liberation, organic enclaves, high-speed mag-rail networks (I know I keep mentioning these, but they do a lot for the cyberpunk imagery on Aballon, and that doesn’t hurt the noir vibes at all) … There’s a lot to work with.

So. Dusty Brown. A tired, rumpled, uncharismatic android noir detective who’s just doing her best to help. Heh.

#starfinder #ttrpgs #character concepts #noir detective #synth detective #machine world noir #aballon #androids #operatives

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sunrisehem · 2 months ago

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X-ray in Pune: Why Choose Sunrise Diagnostic Center for Accurate and Affordable Imaging

When it comes to reliable and precise medical imaging in Pune, X-ray services are one of the most common and essential diagnostic tools used by doctors. Whether it’s for detecting fractures, monitoring disease progression, or guiding treatments, having access to high-quality X-ray services is crucial for effective healthcare.

At Sunrise Diagnostic Center, we offer comprehensive X-ray services in Pune, ensuring accurate results for patients of all ages. If you are searching for "X-ray near me," here’s why our center should be your first choice.

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You may need an X-ray if your doctor recommends it to diagnose or monitor various conditions. Some common reasons for getting an X-ray in Pune include:

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Booking an X-ray at Sunrise Diagnostic Center is simple. You can either walk into our clinic or make an appointment online or via phone. Our friendly staff will assist you in scheduling your X-ray at a time convenient for you.

We offer flexible appointment slots to accommodate your busy schedule, and our streamlined process ensures you don’t have to wait long.

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Contact us today to book your X-ray in Pune and experience high-quality diagnostic services in a comfortable, patient-friendly environment.

Contact Info

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For more Please visit our website: https://sunrisediagnosis.com/

#X-ray services Pune #X-ray services near me #X-ray services

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prominentgames · 1 year ago

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Our Games | Gaming Cabinets - Skill Machine for Sale Pennsylvania

Prominent Games, the leading manufacturer of skill game cabinets in the USA, presents a captivating collection of games that redefine entertainment. Take a part in an amazing world that includes modern technologies and thrilling game play. Our skill games offer an exceptional experience that keeps players coming back for more, from Interesting Story line to Brainstorming Adventures.

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fumikomiyasaki · 11 months ago

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I missed this so I will send a few together

🌆

Leroy & Hinata

Kayne & Ciro

Carol & Kurai

How about one date?

It wasn't like he was lazy picking the Arcade as a date spot for him and Hinata... he actually did have a plan.. to show off. He mainly said that if there is any plushie Hinata wanted Leroy would get it for him... he was confident in his crane skills.

"There is a Panda one... can you maybe try it?"

"Leave it to me."

With a teethy smirk he put a coin into the slot and moved the Joystick in his usual movement while Hinata watched and so... he managed to get it first try as Hinata kept it on his arm.

"Thats incredible, Lee."

"Lets say... I had to survive some way with not being able to buy much so I had to use every coin I had."

The two sat down at the snack bar as Hinata spoke up.

"There is a rumor I heard and you know... secrets often interest me... your father-"

"I... don't want to talk about it but... I also know you won't stop asking... he barely been there for me or my mother... supposedly he had a Yakuza family to return to.... its why I take on so much work onto myself to provide her."

"Leroy...."

"I don't want to bump this date out though, how about we talk about something else."

Even if he tried to avoid the topic Hinata put one hand on his.

"I am happy you shared it with me... you always can share them I keep them well."

"Alright... so how about you... if I expose you have to share too, my sweet bear.~"

His smile was smug as he leaned closer to him and he got read.

"There is not that much remarkable to say about me... I just like collecting boxes and that people rely on me."

"Then how about a deal... we play some games at the machines... if I win you tell me each crumb of things you can share about yourself and if you win I let you in on some emberassing things about me."

"Tempting... fine.. I accept your challenge."

The date was a mess but they laughed a ton and between snack breaks and sharing things... in the end Hinata got out with 4 more plushies and a bright smile hanging onto Leroys arm who helped him carry them.

Kayne had no idea in the acts of romance really... but he couldn't just cook his boyfriend a dinner and make do... so his friend Kristoff pointed him to a better idea that fit with Ciros interests... a small trip to a near science museum with him...

However even then the both walked in silence cause Kayne didn't really have that much ideas on what to talk about... eventually he felt Ciro hold his hand and pull him along to one machine in particular.

"Look, Lovebug... this one works similar to what you did some days ago."

It was a heat experiment but it was similar to a method Kayne used in cooking some days ago.. he watch in awe as Ciro explained the whole mechanism to him... in general this was a way how the day would have gotten less awkward... Kayne asked him a lot of questions how certain machines worked and saw a smirk on Ciros to him very handsome face that made him hide a little red behind his papers.

"Say, you do pay attention right?"

"O-of course... just... I am glad you are passionate about it."

"I am glad you brought me here."

After this exchanges things were a little more chummy.. Kayne however got tired down by all the info dump so Ciro let him rest on his shoulder for a while. Yet somewhat he couldn't resist seeing this sleeping face.... he looked around before placing a small kiss on his lips and letting him sleep on... its not like Kayne didn't notice but he was glad his boyfriend was looking away to not see him this red and not being able to rest on anymore...

The exhibit ended as the Sunset.

"Would you... mind visiting another restaurant nearby? I always wanted to try it."

Kaynes request was hesitant but Ciro craddled his face and nodded.

"Lets head there."

The day before she was really nervous... I mean even if they were dorm members Kurai was slowly rising in fame with his group and she was just a simple tutor... she managed to get the courage to ask him out, she had to make it count given she still didn't really confess that she was intersted in him as more than a friend... Lyla pointed her to a genius ideas as a date spot... visiting the foxes shrine and a certain restaurant after. And so she asked Lyla to call over Mythra and pick out the right Yukata for this.

On the day of the date she waited texting him the location, clinging a little anxious to her bag as some of the passing by shrine goers already tried to make comments and hit on her... she tried to wave them off untill eventually she felt one touch on her arm pulling her close.

"I am sorry she is busy."

It was Kurai, who watched out for her as her cheek flushed a little feeling his hand. Eventually the group left and she looked at him.

"I am glad you just arrived. Thank you so much."

"You seemed troubled... I am happy however where you invited me... I always wanted to come here."

"I thought as much. Could you... maybe stick close just in case?"

He linked his arm with hers as the two walked towards the shrined together. Her cheeks stayed flushed for a while unsure what to say but she just enacted the shrines tradtions and wished the courage to actually tell him about it.

"Carol... you seem red, is the Yukata too warm?"

"Hm? Oh N-no don't mind it... just... could we go there I think I can explain it better."

As she walked with him to the side and tried to speak up they noticed both a small firework above the shrine.... probably part of the celebrations... she thought maybe this could help her practise telling what she feels and so she wanted to use the noise to overshadow what she wanted to say.

"I really really like you... and as more than a friend, Kurai."

Given he had one earbud in.... surely he didn't hear her she thought, watching onto the fire work, but suddenly as the noise dimmed down she noticed him looking at her with a hint of red as well... putting one arm around her.

"I could say the same."

"Hm? Y-you mean you heard me."

"Not clear but I could read your lips."

She took a deep breath still flustered but then spoke up.

"Then you heard correctly... I did have a crush on you but... I was unsure how to tell you without it ruining our bond before and I am really just-"

She felt him pull her closer and place a kiss on her forehead...

"You don't need to explain it. I kinda had a thought based on the music you recently picked for us to listen together."

"So you even picked up on that... I should have told you sooner... but... I love you."

"I love you as well."

She was very happy she finally told him and they could hug and be a bit closer during this date... holding her fan watching the lights, hiding a little behind it with him in hopes no fans drop by... however she didn't notice someone was lurking behind them eavesdropping on their conversation... someone both were too familiar with.

#twisted wonderland oc #twst oc #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland ocs #twst #disney twst #twst ocs #twistedwonderland #twistedwonderlandoc #leroy violet #leroy x hinata #kayne saocheng #kayne x ciro #carol ann #carol x kurai

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wizteamincil · 2 years ago

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Attractions and Places To See around Lake Zurich Lake Zurich, Illinois

Lake Zurich, Illinois has many landmarks and places to visit in your spare time. There are two major casinos around Lake Zurich, the Grand Victoria Casino and Hollywood Casino. Both have slot machines, poker tables, and table games. There's also a horse race track, Hollywood Park Racetrack, for spectators to watch horse races. A few yards away from the casino is an arcade with games of skill or chance. Each of these landmarks has its own fun things to do.

North Barrington

The North Barrington Park District offers many activities for people of all ages. You can choose from 14 different parks, which include an aquatic center, playgrounds, ball fields, and more. The park district also has two golf courses that are open year-round.

North Barrington was largely rural until the late 1960s when developers began to build residential subdivisions on former farmland. In 1972 it was incorporated as a village after residents voted to separate from Barrington Township; it remained an unincorporated area until then because residents were concerned about increased taxes and traffic congestion if they incorporated into a municipality.

Echo Lake

Echo Lake is a great place to visit in the spring, summer, and fall. The lake is located in Chicago's northwest suburbs and is a popular spot for boating, fishing, camping, and swimming. It's also home to an amusement park that features rides for kids of all ages.

Echo Lake Park has been around since the early 1900s when it was known as Wilder Park. The park was renamed Echo Lake after World War II when it became a popular spot for families looking for entertainment.

Old Orchard Country Club

This is a small area along the south side of Lake Zurich that is perfect for fishing and relaxing. There are two public boat launches near this area, as well as plenty of parking for vehicles. This is also a great place to launch your own boat from as well, especially if you want to take a ride on the navigable waters of Lake Zurich.

Lake County Fairgrounds

The Lake County Fairgrounds is located in Grayslake, Illinois, about 20 miles north of Chicago. The Fairgrounds is the oldest county fair in Illinois and has been a tradition in Lake County since 1852. It runs from late July through early August every year with more than 200 events over the course of eight days. The fairgrounds host many different types of entertainment including live music, carnival rides, livestock shows and competitions, demolition derby races and more. There are also plenty of food options available at the fairgrounds including a variety of concession stands selling hamburgers, hot dogs, and other snacks.

Long Grove Historic Village

The Long Grove Historic Village is an outdoor museum that recreates life in the early 20th-century town of Long Grove, Illinois. Many of the buildings are original structures moved there from other locations around Lake County; others were built specifically for use at Long Grove Historic Village by local craftsmen using traditional building methods and materials such as wood or brick.

Takeaway: Here are a few things to do while you are in the area if you are interested in exploring a little bit. Some of these places are just around the corner and some require a short drive or bike ride, but all of them should be worthwhile visits.

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hexpea · 2 years ago

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Ch. 9 - Just a Final Exam

The next morning, you woke bright and early. Your first mission: take out the special grade lurking around Tomari National Cemetery. It was safe to say your heart rate was higher than normal as you slipped into your uniform - to be expected after your last run in with a high level curse. Gojo, on the other hand, was chipper and excited. He could hardly keep still as you exited your bedroom, fists balled up and a tight bite on his bottom lip.

"Are you ready?" He asked quickly with a pearly, white grin.

"Hardly," you answered groggily as you meandered to the kitchen to make a quick piece of toast for breakfast.

"Oh come on, Y/N," he groaned, "you've got this. We've��got this. I'm going to be there to make sure everything goes alright."

"You mean you're going to take the thing out for me and we can move on," you lifted an eyebrow in his direction while shoving a piece of toast into a slot in the toaster.

"No, no, no," he incessantly corrected, "you're going to do your best to take it out and I'm going to be there for backup."

"When did you become all high and mighty? You weren't like that on the plane ride down here. It's not like they're going to find out if you do it for me," you scoffed.

"You don't learn that way," Gojo grumbled as the toast you made jumped from the machine. You quickly slathered it with butter and jam as Gojo continued. "Curses are serious things. And sorcerers are far and few. We want as many skilled sorcerers as possible, so if after all of this I can recommend you to be first grade, I will."

Your eyes went wide as you bit into your toast. Geto was right. "You really would?" He nodded in response to your question without hesitation.

"And besides, the more skilled you are, the less likely you are to die," Gojo added nonchalantly.

"Gee, thanks," you replied sarcastically. "But you realize my technique only goes so far. I'm nowhere near your level."

"Sure," Gojo nodded in agreement before tilting his head upward in thought. "How about I turn 'my level' down a notch. I'll turn off my infinity, so if it comes down to me getting involved - I'll take it out with just my technique. How's that sound?"

"Whatever floats your boat," you chuckled while licking the jam from your fingers. "Let's go."

It didn't take long for the curse to appear, growing at a rapid pace from behind a headstone. You watched in horror as Gojo casually stood a few meters away with his hands calmly in his pockets.

"Why are the special grades always so large?" You asked yourself in a mumble, gulping heavily as it rose high into the air. It's shape was centipede-like, buggy-legs coming out from each nodule of torso it had.

You followed your usual maneuverings, attempting to stun it with your technique before going in with the Sai. Unfortunately, the curse, similarly to the last one, was faster than you - swinging a large hand toward your approaching body and launching you backwards. This time, Gojo was the only one there to catch your fall, quickly porting to catch you before you broke any headstones with your fall.

In one swift motion, his arm curled around your waist and you found yourself teleported to steady feet away from the monster. You watched from afar as Gojo finished the creature off with a single, simple move of his technique. As you watched, you felt tears beginning to well up - a soreness unlike any other building in your throat. Within the next few seconds, the hot tears had welled up enough to fall down your cheek. Again, you failed.

"Y/N, hey," Gojo jogged up to you as the creature continued to disintegrate behind him, "you okay?" He placed his hands on your upper arms as soon as he saw you crying, a concerned look on his face as he tried to get a better look at you.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you muttered. Gojo then removed one of his hands to cup your chin between his fingers, tilting your head upward as if to analyze for any injuries. It gave you the opportunity to look into his mesmerizing blue eyes that were peeking out from behind his sunglasses.

That was it.

You wasted no time. Any rational thought you had dissipated with your impatience.

You brought your hands up to his face, grasping firmly behind his skull, and brought him in. With his infinity off, you were able to successfully press your lips to his with little argument. You had never felt so much blood racing in your veins before. The warmth flooded your body unlike anything you had ever experienced. And his lips...his lips were so incredibly soft, his tongue warm against your own. He had melted into the kiss as well, allowing you to go deeper, nose against nose with warm breath running across one another's face. It was all you could've dream of and more, your first kiss.

"Don't tell Suguru," Gojo mumbled huskily as you cautiously pulled away for a moment. Mentally, you were ready to be scolded, but instead were welcomed with quite the opposite.

You didn't have time to question his command before he took the lead and dove in again, bringing your body closer to his by wrapping his arms around your waist. You felt the curvature of his muscles from underneath his uniform as you felt your breasts press tightly against his chest. The only reason your hands weren't shaking was because of how tightly you gripped the back of his neck.

"We...should head back," he advised, being the one to break the kiss. You nodded in response, feeling dizzy as your heart rate began to calm down.

Geto was seated at the island counter when the two of you walked in, faces still blushed. He smiled at you both while happily munching away at some cereal.

"Hey guys," he greeted, mouth full, "that was fast for a special grade."

"Yeah, it's a long story," you nodded with a complicated expression on your face. Geto furrowed his brow, eyes trailing you as you walked toward the fridge to grab a bottle of water.

"I'm gonna'...head out for a bit," Gojo suddenly informed the two of you. Without any reaction from you, Gojo instantly disappeared. It was clear he was having some complicated feelings that needed dealt with.

"So...what happened?" Geto asked with interest, leaning forward on the counter in front of him as if that'd help him hear you better.

"We...uh...kissed." You gave a half-smile to keep your excitement down. You were seconds away from squealing like some kind of high school girl. Wait...

"Really?" Geto lifted his eyebrows with disbelief. "No way..."

"Yes way," you gave in, squatting a bit to be at Geto's level and also as a way to contain your excitement. "And it was amazing! But he also told me not to tell you for whatever reason, so don't tell him I told you."

"Hmph," Geto was taken aback for a moment, "strange. But congratulations! That's a huge step!"

"Yeah, at least I'm getting somewhere. Hopefully it holds up when I come back from my graduation assignment," you sighed, remembering that you only had this month together before being apart for an entire year. Based on your birthday, the next time you'd see them would be when you were twenty seeing as your nineteenth birthday would be, coincidentally enough, the day of graduation.

#geto suguru #suguru geto #geto suguru x reader #suguru geto x reader #geto suguru x y/n #geto suguru x you #suguru geto x y/n #suguru geto x you #suguru getou x reader #getou suguru x reader #getou suguru x y/n #getou suguru x you #suguru getou x y/n #suguru getou x you #suguru getou #getou suguru #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

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luvdsc · 4 years ago

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mark lee sucks at technology.

tap the heart if you have a big, fat, embarrassing crush on your best friend!

pairing :: lee mark x reader genre :: fluff / best friend + social influencer au word count :: 5,883 words warnings :: none playlist :: dumb stuff (lany) ⋆ feeling (coin) ⋆ so far so good (gabrielle aplin) ⋆ electric love (børns) ⋆ love by mistake (bad suns) author’s note :: i was debating if i should post it on his bday instead, but i decided to drop it earlier, so uh, happy (approx. one week early) bday to mister absolutely fully capable (except when it comes to tech stuff) !!!! thank you for blessing us with your god tier raps ♡ ↳ part of the not clickbait series.

In your required upper division business course aptly titled “Essential Marketing Strategies,” you had learned about a concept called personal brands. A personal brand is explained as the first impression a person wishes to perceive based on their own experiences, qualifications, and achievements. Your professor had told you and your classmates to pick three words to define your own brand. For instance, you chose to label yourself as charismatic, fun, and creative.

Your best friend’s brand would be awkward, endearing, and technologically challenged.

Okay, so that is definitely more than three words, but who’s counting? You might as well tack on “Y/N’s big fat crush” at this rate because everyone and their mother knows that you carry a torch—or more accurately, a blazing wildfire that can easily be spotted from Pluto—for your best friend.

Well, to be more precise, you should probably say everyone, except Mark, knows. And that’s not for lack of trying either. You completely dropped the art of delicate subtlety months ago already. Maybe you should add “hopelessly oblivious” instead.

The rolling end credits to the sixth Harry Potter film are playing on the screen in front of you, signaling the nearing end of your magical movie marathon. You’re seated on the worn down couch in Mark and Donghyuck’s shared apartment, watching the former make his drink with the fancy, gently used Keurig newly settled on the scratched countertop. Johnny dropped it off a few days ago because he had splurged on a better coffee machine (“It even makes Instagram worthy whipped frappuccinos!”) and didn’t want his old, but still perfectly functioning caffeine provider going to waste.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Mark slaps the side of the machine, and it starts to emit a low whirring noise. “Oh, that’s good, right? That sound is good, you think?”

His question is immediately answered by the sad squirt of hot water speckled with coffee grinds falling into his mug for a few seconds before the machine shuts off.

“What the hell?” he mutters angrily, carding his hand through his hair in frustration, and you finally decide to take pity on your best friend. Getting up from the comfy spot you know you sadly won’t be able to recreate perfectly again later, you stride over to where your best friend stands and flip open the top of the Keurig.

“Hyuck didn’t take out his used coffee pod,” you say, pulling out the incriminating evidence of your best friend’s roommate and disposing it in the trash can next to the refrigerator. “Where’s the espresso one you’re gonna use? Why didn’t you put that in?”

His jaw slackens, and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze and mumbling, “I thought I’d just open it later and pour it into my hot water.”

“Mark,” you start, placing your hands on his shoulders firmly and staring into his eyes with a serious look on your face. “Please know that I’m saying this in the most loving way possible, but you are an absolute idiot.”

You release your grip on his shoulders and grab the espresso pod dangling from his fingertips before slotting it into the Keurig. You remove the mug he placed underneath the spout and wash out the accidental coffee water before placing it back in its original position and pressing the start button on the machine. With a sigh, you lean against the side of the counter, glancing at your friend who looks like a child being scolded for stealing from the cookie jar.

“If you pour the pod into your mug, are you just going to chug all the loose coffee grinds, too?”

“... I didn’t think that far ahead.” His lips start to unintentionally form a tiny pout, and your eyes (and your heart, too) soften.

You’re very relieved that Donghyuck is off filming with your friend because he definitely would be making fun of your heart eyes that frequently make an appearance around a certain Mark Lee. Which you always deny. Because you certainly do not have a gigantic crush on your technologically inept best friend.

You glance over at him again and have to physically fight yourself to resist the urge to kiss his cute pout away. Okay, so maybe you harbor a very respectable, medium sized crush. But it's no big deal. It’s completely under control. Unless you’re counting the fact that your best friend is still unaware, and you’re running out of ideas to try and see if he likes you back before you actually shoot your shot. Then it’s very much not under control because you’re losing sleep over it and you don’t know what to do to be any more obvious without stating the, well, obvious.

“Well, now you know. If you forget, you can FaceTime me and I’ll give you instructions on how it works.” You pat his shoulder reassuringly before pausing. “Wait, you do know how to FaceTime, right?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, sulking even more before confessing in a quieter, defeated tone, “Hyuck showed me last month.”

Mark grabs his finished drink and follows behind you, settling back onto the couch next to you. The streaming service already has Deathly Hallows Part 1 in the queue and ready to go, and your best friend is ready to click play until he notices your attention being focused on the smaller screen in your hands. He wonders if you’re about to post another one of your popular cooking videos on that app that shares a name with the most iconic song of the 2000s (hint: the name of the song’s singer is made up of four letters and a dollar sign).

“Are you uploading one of your videos?” he implores before taking a sip of his drink with a satisfied smile. Somehow, it always tastes better when you make it, and he can’t figure out why for the life of him. When he went to Johnny’s place, his older friend uses the exact same pod and water ratio for his espresso, and yet, it’s never as good as yours.

“Nah, I’m ordering my grocery delivery before I forget. Do you want anything?” You select the option to load your usual grocery items into your cart before debating on whether or not you should splurge on buying several packages of those seasonal Pillsbury sugar cookies that only come in stock during certain holidays. It seems like such an insult to the entire premise of your Tiktok account based on baking and cooking, but you’re an absolute sucker for those soft pastries.

“Yeah, can you get me a Shin Ramyun ten pack? Hyuck ate the last one two days ago and didn’t tell me.”

“You sure you don’t want ten boxes again?” You decide to get those Pillsbury sugary delights, happily adding three boxes to your cart. Everybody has a weakness, and yours just so happens to be a premade one way ticket to diabetes. You’re here for a good, delicious time, not a long time.

“No! That was an accident!” He objects, flailing his hands around, before falling back against the couch cushions in defeat. “But Hyuck does all the online grocery shopping now.”

“Thank god. You guys finally have quality toilet paper again.”

The past month of bathroom occurrences was plagued with scratchy tissue that felt more like goddamn sandpaper from the horrible depths of hell. To be honest, you probably would have rather used actual sandpaper, given the choice. You even made sure not to drink too much water any time you came over, but today, you decided to splurge on a venti passion fruit iced tea with sweetener from that very popular franchise sporting a mermaid logo and fiscally cosmic name. To your pleasant surprise, your trip to the toilet this time was wonderfully padded with Charmin Ultra Soft, not that absolutely awful off brand one with the gross texture of a dried pinecone from inferno.

“Hey, that toilet paper was a good steal! It was a three for one deal,” Mark protests, and you narrow your eyes at him.

“Wow, I wonder why it was priced so low.” You deadpan, and Mark blanches, recalling all those restroom incidents that were rather rough. Literally.

“Anyway, do you think my viewers wanna see me make chocolate crinkle cookies or mochi doughnuts?” You bring up the two recipes you managed to perfect and add your own spin to on your phone, eyes scanning the ingredient lists.

“Both. And tell me when you’re making them, so I can come over and eat them.” He gives you a wide grin, and you let out a snort at that. His smile only grows as he says happily, “I love your job.”

“You only love it because you can freeload off of me,” you jest, but nevertheless begin to start to add all the ingredients for both recipes to your shopping cart. You always film cooking videos on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesdays, keep Thursdays free for last minute touch ups and emergencies, and post one every week on Fridays with other various random videos uploaded whenever in between. With that in mind, you schedule your upcoming grocery delivery for Monday.

“Hey, you need me. I’m the best taste tester.” He puffs up his chest proudly before hastily tacking on a more genuine reason. “And because I’d starve without you. I can’t live off of instant ramen and frozen chicken nuggets forever. Gordon Ramsay already confirmed my shitty cooking skills. I need you to survive.”

“Oh my god, when I uploaded those pics of your scrambled eggs on Twitter, I lost like a hundred followers in less than a minute.” You confirm the delivery and place your phone on the coffee table, picking up the opened bag of Cheeto puffs before settling back in your seat. “My cooking credibility was completely shot. I had to explain to my fans that I didn’t make those.”

“Yeah, but now everyone calls me Eggy Boi online!” he whines, and you laugh. You have to admit, it’s quite a funny play on the whole “edgy boi” terminology. You wonder if Mark will find it amusing if he discovers his roommate is the culprit behind his new online persona (He probably won’t, and you reckon Donghyuck enjoys living in a safe space where he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open, so you stay quiet about it. You’ll use it as leverage some other time).

“Okay, Eggy Boi, come by on Tuesday because I’ll be baking in the afternoon,” you say casually, grabbing the remote control from your best friend and pressing play.

You very narrowly avoid a green gummy bear to the face. It lands somewhere behind the couch, lost forever to the dust bunnies and other snacks that missed its target. You know for a fact that it’ll stay there until the boys decide to move to a new apartment. Mark grumbles at the miss, biting off the head of a red cherry flavored gummy bear perhaps a little harder than necessary.

“I hate you. But I’m still coming over next week because I want a doughnut.”

“No cookie?”

“... and a cookie. Maybe two.”

Wednesday comes faster than you expected, and you’re currently holed up in your apartment’s second bedroom—which you had transformed into a snazzy office space—completing the edits to your second video on mochi doughnuts. You already finished polishing the one about the cookies earlier, thank goodness. If you had to stare at your computer screen for another three hours, you would rather eat those pastries Mark tried to make two months ago, but had mistaken salt for sugar. Adding a cup of salt to any baked good is an extremely effective way to make anyone who tasted your best friend’s brownies experience a trip to the beach. Because they essentially just swallowed a mouthful of sand and ocean water. Because it’s salty as heck. Just like Mark was when you told him.

Speaking of your best friend, he’s currently puttering around in your kitchen doing god knows what. He knows better than to try another recipe and possibly blow up your number one moneymaker—your prized oven—in the process. Your heart nearly drops when your ears pick up the faint chopping sounds of a knife against your wooden cutting board. Is he going to try to temper chocolate again? He nearly burned through your entire stock of dark, milk, and white chocolate last time.

After much contemplation and deciding that you deserve a good procrastination break and a fully intact kitchen, you’re about to go out and see what he’s up to when Mark timidly appears in your doorway, clutching onto a white bowl of watermelon cubes with a fork tucked neatly in it. He shuffles in, dropping the snack on your desk before turning to walk out without a word, not wanting to disturb your work mode.

Your heart warms up at the sight, and you speak up, a small smile slipping into your face. “What’s this for?”

“Knowing you, you probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” He pauses in the doorway and adds on sheepishly, “And I can't cook anything, so this is what you get.”

Your heart swells tenfold, and your smile widens even more as you spear a piece of fruit with the fork and quickly pop it into your mouth. “Thanks, Marky.”

His cheeks flush with a pretty shade of carmine, and he fails to suppress the little giddy smile that appears on his face at your nickname for him. He walks out of your office, reddened cheeks still rising up higher than ever. “Y-Yeah, of course. No problem.”

By the time you finish adding the final few touches to your edited video, the bowl of watermelon has been picked clean. You save your video and transfer both of your completed projects to your phone, making a mental note to schedule their uploads and add them to your account’s posting queue later. Shoving your phone in the pocket of your sweats after ensuring the successful transfer of your videos, you pick up the empty dish and walk out towards the kitchen, the silver fork clinking against the side of the bowl with every step.

As you wash the dish and utensil, Mark wanders over from his spot on the couch, leaning forward and casually placing his chin on your shoulder. Almost instantaneously, you feel the heat rising to your cheeks as you briefly fantasize about your best friend wrapping his arms around your waist and how domestic and sweet the two of you would look, like one of those cheesy couples the two of you always made fun of.

“What’s up?” you ask, making a conscious effort to hold your voice steady and not waver over the fact that Mark is basically draped over you. After you place the dish on the drying rack, you turn around to face your best friend, sorely miscalculating the distance as mere inches separate your face from his now.

“I—” Puberty decides to make an ugly appearance in the form of an ill timed voice crack, and he internally curses as he takes a step back, willing the incoming blush to go away. Letting out a small cough, he tries again, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

“I, um, Jisung sent me some kind of dance video. He said it’s a challenge? I kinda don’t know what to do with it? Like do I make a new dance, record myself, and send it back? Actually, isn't it easier to just do a dance battle face to face?”

“Can I see the video?” You already have a good idea on what the video will be, but you want to confirm it. Mark fumbles with his phone, pulling up the video in his text messages. He angles the phone towards you for you to see, and you grab his hand, bringing the device a little closer to you for a better look and clicking play.

“Oh, it’s a Tiktok challenge! He’s doing the Say So dance!” you exclaim, recognizing the song almost immediately as your eyes follow the fluid dance moves, completely enthralled. “So a challenge isn’t going up against someone, like a battle. It’s just some kind of trend or concept that you try to copy yourself. You’re supposed to learn the same dance and record yourself for this one. I can show you some other challenges and help you practice and record this one tomorrow if you wanna drop by after work!”

“O-Oh, okay, sounds good.” Mark stumbles over his words, attempting to focus on what you’re saying and the dance Jisung is doing, but all he can think about is the way your body is pressed against his side, hand comfortably wrapped around his. He freezes up as the tips of his ears grow redder and redder with every passing second, and his face sports a similar color. He silently prays for the telltale crimson to go away by the time the dance is over.

When the video ends, you once again realize the close proximity between you and your best friend. Your face burns at this revelation, and you awkwardly take a step back. Clearing your throat, you hastily release Mark’s hand (He inaudibly lets out the breath he’s been holding in this entire time, yet he also already misses the way your hand felt grasping his).

“Uh, anyway, I’m gonna make a latte. Do you want a drink, too?” You walk towards the other side of your kitchen with Mark trailing behind you. You take out a floral, peachy colored mug from your cupboards before pausing and looking at your best friend. “Wait, do you remember how to use a Keurig?”

“Yes!” He says, slightly exasperated as he picks out his own cup from your cabinet. He always uses the same one—a cerulean blue mug with squiggles all over it—and all of your friends and guests know not to use it because it’s unofficially officially Mark’s mug (And perhaps, you did indeed buy it from that overpriced kitschy tableware shop down the street two years ago with your best friend in mind).

“Really?” You select the latte option and press start after you had already positioned the mug beneath the spout and inserted a green tea matcha pod. He finally relents, shoulders sagging and a defeated expression on his face.

“... No.”

You chuckle, taking the mug from him and carefully putting it on the counter. You grab the espresso pod you know he likes from the drawer below and place it next to the cup. “It’s okay, I’ll teach you again.”

Mark tries. He really does. He tries very hard to concentrate on memorizing the simple process, but he keeps getting distracted. His eyes are focused on the correct button to push before they start to trail up to your fingertips. And then, they go from your hand to your arm, then up to the elegant curve of your neck, and finally, to the way your lashes frame your pretty eyes and how the tip of your tongue sticks out slightly as you concentrate until all he can focus on is you, you, you.

Suddenly, in what feels like a blink of an eye, you’re done and handing him his finished drink, complete with a perfectly whipped milk foam on top. You ask him if he knows how to make it now, and all he can do is lie and nod with a barely convincing smile.

After all, how can Mark tell his best friend that the reason he never remembers is because you’re the biggest distraction?

Mark should be here in five minutes, according to his most recent text message. And in the text message below that, your friend had sent you a challenge. More specifically, it’s the one she completed with Donghyuck a few weeks ago. When you said you wanted bold suggestions on how to figure out if your best friend feels the same way about you as you do about him, you didn’t want one this bold.

Yet, the video link to your friend’s “today I kissed my best friend” challenge along with a winky face from her is staring mockingly at you. While you aren’t one to back down from a challenge, the mere thought of kissing your best friend causes vast colonies of butterflies to erupt in your stomach and your ears to feel as if they have caught on fire. You’re already tongue tied with your head in the clouds, and he isn’t even here yet. How utterly fantastic.

However, your mother definitely did not raise a quitter, so you spring into action when you hear the faint jingling of a key being inserted into your apartment’s door (You had given Mark a copy of your key almost immediately after you had moved in). You move the pretty indoor fern given to you by Jaemin as a housewarming gift last year closer to the edge of your towering bookcase, leaning your phone against it. You quickly position the device to capture a good view of the couch area in your living room and press the record button, arranging a few of the leaves to hide as much of your phone as you possibly can without obstructing the lens.

You run full speed to your bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief when you’re safely inside and hear Mark finally unlocking the door successfully and shuffling in. When he calls out to you, you try to even out your breathing, walking out of your room with your tripod and laptop in hand.

“Hey,” you greet him in the most casual tone you can muster. You place the tripod down and sit before opening your laptop and setting it on the coffee table. “I thought we could watch a few challenges for fun before trying the Say So one. Have you watched Jisung’s videos before?”

“Um, well, no, not really,” he confesses sheepishly, taking a seat next to you on the couch, leg pressing against yours. He squints at the YouTube video you pulled up earlier before he had arrived, reading the title before clicking the space button to start it. “Savage Tiktok dance compilation part two?”

“Wait, hold up.” You pause the video and then turn to face him with an incredulous expression on your face. “You’ve never watched any of Jisung’s dance Tiktoks?”

“No… I don’t even have an account.” His cheeks are dusted with the lightest shade of pink as he quietly admits, “I watch all of yours though.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, face heating up as you stammer out, “O-Oh, well, I can help you make an account later to upload your video.”

“Sounds good.” There’s a few seconds of silence as you mull over his previous words before he speaks up again awkwardly, “Should I, uh, play the video?”

“Oh! Yes, right! Of course, hit play,” you laugh nervously, twisting and playing with the hair tie around your wrist. He starts the video again, and the two of you watch the compilation, slowly relaxing once more as you tap your fingers to the rhythm of the song and he bobs his head to the beat.

“Do I have to change outfits like that?” he questions a few minutes later, eyes growing round as he sees the girl on the screen switch between four different outfits throughout the dance. His closet basically consists of the same five black shirts that he stole from Jaehyun. Even if he did do an outfit swap, there would literally be no difference at all.

“You don’t have to,” you assure him, clicking the enter key to play the next video that’s recommended: another Tiktok dance challenge compilation. “All you have to do is copy the dance.”

Mark nods, taking a glance at the laptop screen before his hand shoots out and he pauses the video, leaning forward to take a closer look at the little recommended video title banner at the top. “Wait! What’s that one?”

He clicks on it, the new video now loading up. The two of you wait patiently for it to begin, waiting for the spinning disc to stop. But it doesn’t. In fact, the whole chrome page goes blank and then, the little pixelated Google Chrome dinosaur pops up on your monitor, announcing that you have no internet connection. Furrowing your eyebrows, you try to reload the page before trying to re-establish your laptop connection to your wifi. Unfortunately, you cannot find your appropriately named “drop it like it’s hotspot” wifi anywhere to connect to.

And that’s when it hits you. Your landlord had sent out a notice to the entire apartment complex last week about the electricity being powered down today from 4 to 6 p.m. for a maintenance check, and a quick glance at the digital clock on your laptop shows that it’s a little past four.

You groan, closing your laptop and flopping back against the couch cushions dramatically. Mark cocks his head, slightly confused, before he pokes you in the arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I completely forgot about the scheduled electricity shutdown for the entire building. We won’t have any wifi for the next two hours.” You pout, your bottom lip jutting out in the slightest, and Mark doesn’t think it’s fair that you get to be this cute and have this much of an effect on his racing heart rate.

“That’s okay, we can… play some board games?” he suggests offhandedly, pushing away the embarrassing thought and nudging your leg with his, and you smile before a sudden idea occurs to you.

“Or we can still do some Tiktok challenges! What was the challenge you clicked on?” You quickly sit upright, turning to face your best friend, eyes sparkling in excitement. “I memorized a few of the dance ones already! Was it Renegade? I can teach you that one. Jisung showed me how to do it.”

“Um,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. His eyes dart everywhere, except you, as he lets out a feigned cough. “It wasn’t a dance one. It was about, uh, going up to your boyfriend… and um, hugging him... when he’s playing video games.”

“Oh.” You answer lamely, not knowing what to say. You unsuccessfully try to push away the image of you attempting that challenge with your best friend. “Those are really cute.”

“Really?” He says doubtfully, wrinkling his eyebrows and fiddling with the frayed sleeve of his sweater. “Wouldn’t the dude get mad?”

You don’t know what suddenly possessed you to do this (you’ll have to ask Renjun and his paranormal loving ass later), but you thank whatever demon did for that split second because you find yourself gently grabbing Mark’s arm and slipping your head underneath it. You swing one leg over his lap and settle down until you’re securely sitting in his lap, bent legs on either side of his hips, hands curled around the soft fabric of his sweater on both sides and resting on top of your thighs. His arms instinctively go around your waist, wrapping around you securely.

You tilt your head to the side slightly, studying the flustered boy in front of you with a teasing, albeit a little anxious, smile on your lips. “Are you feeling mad?”

Splotches of red litter his cheeks and decorate the tips of his ears, but your best friend furiously shakes his head at your question, bashfully ducking his head afterwards and muttering a soft “No.”

You swallow hard, heart pounding erratically in your chest as you timidly ask, “Would you be mad if I do this?”

Mark looks up at that, confusion written all over his face. His arms start to loosen around your figure, hands now resting on your waist. “If you do what?”

You take a deep breath. “This.”

You lean in and gently press your lips against his. Mark freezes in shock, and you quickly retreat soon after, gnawing at the inside of your cheek as you wait anxiously for his reaction. Your heart feels like it’s about to fall out of your chest and be buried six feet under.

A tiny noise of surprise belatedly escapes from him and crimson spreads across his cheeks like wildfire. His doe eyes are wide and sparkling, staring at you in bewilderment. Your best friend lets out a small laugh of disbelief before a full blown smile breaks out across his face. He gazes at you adoringly, breathing out softly, “I’m not mad at that.”

You perk up at that, draping your arms around his neck as you lean forward, beaming. “Really? You’re not?”

“Definitely not.”

This time, Mark meets you halfway, his lips slotting against yours perfectly and making you feel tingles up and down your spine. Your eyes are closed, and you are so hyper aware of the way his hands grip your hips, how he tugs you closer, and how his lips chase after yours. The number of butterflies from earlier multiply in your stomach, and you have ascended past cloud nine by now.

When the two of you break apart, your eyes flutter open, and you nudge your nose against his affectionately. The brightest grin blooms on his face once again, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling his little giggles and hiding the awfully vibrant cerise that rapidly blossoms on his face.

“Is this a good time to tell you congrats for completing your first challenge?” you say, resting your cheek against the crown of his head. You pull away when he lifts his head up, surprised.

“I wasn’t playing video games though,” he says slowly, processing your words and thinking back to the challenge that started this all.

“It was a different challenge. It’s the one that Hyuck did a few weeks ago,” you confess, and realization dawns on him, his face lighting up for a split second before a look of horror takes over.

“Oh, no. Is that why you had your phone recording on the bookshelf?” Mark asks, dread beginning to cloud his mind.

“Yes…” you say slowly, a little perplexed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god, I ruined your video,” he moans, dropping his forehead onto your shoulder. “I saw your phone when I walked in and thought you were filming earlier and forgot to turn it off, so I turned it off for you.”

When the words finally register in your mind, you can’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of your throat, and he raises his head up to look at you with wide doe eyes at the pretty sound. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

You can’t stop laughing at the situation, and he looks at you worriedly, gnawing on his bottom lip slightly. You force yourself to calm down, a soft chuckle leaving your lips before you beam at him, leaning in and placing the softest kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not mad. That video wasn’t important anyway.”

“But still,” he whines before letting out a groan and slapping his hand against his forehead when the realization sinks in even further. “I’m such an idiot.”

“But you’re my idiot now, right?” you say teasingly, albeit a little shyly as well, as you reach over to tug his hand away from his face and lace your fingers with his.

“I mean, I kinda thought I was always your idiot,” Mark laughs softly and a little embarrassedly, eyes averted and cheeks turning pinker than ever. The largest grin spreads across your face at that, and you turn away slightly to hide it. You didn’t think your best friend can possibly be any more endearing, but he manages to prove you wrong every time.

“Well, then now you can add ‘Y/N’s boyfriend’ to your resume,” you say, and he fails to suppress the pleased smile appearing on his face at your remark, his rosy cheeks rising even taller than skyscrapers.

“So, uh, what sort of job description does that have?” He gazes at your intertwined hands in wonder, still completely giddy at the reality of you being his best friend and something more.

“Sharing hoodies, giving me attention, kissing, holding my hand, going on dates, you know, the basics,” you answer, squeezing his hand tenderly, and his doe eyes instantly light up. Mark feels a little bolder than before, and it shows when he grins widely and says:

“Can we do number three again?”

“Yes, we can, Eggy Boi.”

He wrinkles his nose at the name, disgruntled and unimpressed, as he crosses his arms over his chest, sulking. You let out a laugh before leaning in and crashing your lips against his. He immediately relents at that, enthusiastically responding and hugging you closer to him, and you can’t help but smile into the kiss as you feel his own smile appear as well.

At that moment, you decide that you want to change Mark’s personal brand. Because his should be “absolutely wonderful, positively amazing, a cute kisser, your boyfriend, and your bestest friend.” And yes, that is most definitely more than the allotted three words, but again, who’s really counting?

Certainly not you when you’re too preoccupied with kissing your best friend. Correction: best friend and new boyfriend.

One new notification: donutkillmyvibe uploaded a new video!

moominjun commented:

so you’re saying the reason why we didn’t get the highly anticipated best friend challenge video is because @ marklyrawr turned the camera off?

donutkillmyvibe replied: yes 😔 I’m sorry to disappoint everyone 🤧

nanaislove replied: omg no bby it’s ok 🥺🥺💞💓💓💝💗 you didn’t have to make an apology video for that 🥺💗💓💘💖

goofys.chuckle replied: yeah it’s mark’s fault. he’s the disappointment here 🥴

morklyrawr replied: hahahahaha stfu hyuck

tytrack commented:

mark is going through puberty. I apologize

dobunny replied: @.@

goofys.chuckle commented:

are we getting whip(ped)lash pt 2 by eggy boi?

morklyrawr replied: YOU’RE THE ONE WHO STARTED THAT NAME?????

goofys.chuckle replied: uh gotta blast 🚀

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle does this mean you’re staying over again?

goofys.chuckle replied: @ showmethemonet yes if you want your super cute, mega talented, very handsome boyfriend to still be alive 🥺

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle oh my god I didn’t know I was dating bts jin???

moominjun replied: LMFAOOOOO

goofys.chuckle replied: heart 💔 been broke 📉 so many times ⏰ i don’t know 🤔 what to believe 💯 mama 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 said 🗣 it’s my fault 😢 it’s my fault 🤦🏻‍♂️i wear my heart ❤️ on my sleeve 💪 i think it’s best 👍🏻 I put my heart ❤️ on ice 🧊

jenojam commented:

why am I not surprised……

itsmebetch replied: just mark thingz 🍉

suhprisemf commented:

mark your head looks flat af

jungjaeprince replied: 😂😂😂

10vely replied: @ jungjaeprince be quiet don’t cry

letswonwon commented:

whoop whoop

junguwu commented:

OMG CONGRATS ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP SWEETIE 😍😍

takoyaki_prince commented:

MARK!!!!! you look handsome !! 😘

jisungpwark commented:

rip to @ donutkillmyvibe ’s future videos that mark will ruin. press f in the chat to pay respects 🙏🏻

bigheadking replied: F ✊🏻😔

peachyangel replied: f 🥺🥺

yoitslucas replied: F 🤪🤪🤪 but glad you’re happy, man ❤️

donutkillmyvibe replied: F 💔

morklyrawr replied: @ donutkillmyvibe wtf babe????

officialgordonramsay commented:

didn’t i tell you to get back on tinder ?

apado_god commented:

nice 😎👍🏻

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sevenspecialidiots · 3 years ago

Note

Hi can I request a scenario where the MC shares half of the power of dia's dad ? I would like to see how they react ! ALSO CONGRATS ON YOUR BLOG

❤️❤️❤️❤️

hello my lovely anon!

THANK YOU SO MUCH AKDFHKAS❤️❤️and thank u for sending this in!! ur my first official req and im very excited ♡︎ since this is my first headcannon please bare (bear?) with me, and if there’s anything you think i can improve feel free to send me a message! i’m all about feedback and how i can make things better :D

a/n: I’m only going to do the brothers (+Diavolo) right now while I get a feel for my writing style, although in the future I may add the undateables :3 (newly dateables?? what are they called now? side characters??????)

MC shares half the Demon King’s powers (Brothers + Diavolo react)

~~~~~ Warnings: Minor spoilers for Lesson 16 for Bell pepper Belphegor. M i n o r. (Please let me know if I should add anything)

Word Count: 2473 ~~~~~

The moment you landed in the Devildom, literally everyone knew there was something up with you.

You radiated powerful energy, but since you weren’t supposed to have magic, no one could exactly place why you felt so familiar. It wasn’t until you were sitting in a student council meeting talking about budgets this and politics that when Diavolo had an “Aha!” moment.

“I’ve figured it out! All this time, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but then I did!” Of course, he sounds like a kid on Christmas and he is so excited. “Your power feels like my father's!”

After some digging, Barbatos finds this: When the Demon King went into his deep, eon-long slumber, the curse used to put him under had some unexpected side affects that Barbatos is still struggling to explain (please be patient with him, he’s not used to be oblivious). This caused some of the King’s powers to transmit away from his body. The power needed a host to survive… and that host happened to be you.

But since you’re supposed to be the human who doesn’t have magic, you get mixed reactions.

Lucifer

Obviously, he was ecstatic. Another headache! Yippee!

Okay listen, the Demon King is like the most powerful demon that exists, so the fact that you share his power means that you too have incredible power.

This man mostly feels frustrated, and he mentally kicks himself for not having caught that minor (major) detail that could possibly change the entire course of the rest of the exchange program if not managed correctly.

Did you know about your power? Do you know how to control it? What if you try to use your magic without supervision and end up burning the House of Lamentation down? What if you hurt somebody? Hakljdhflkasd, what if you hurt yourself?

All these questions are racing through detail-oriented first-born’s head and this is one of the rare times he wishes it were a Mammon-money issue instead.

After doing some digging, it is indeed found that you share power with the Demon King.

He won’t leave you alone, especially with his brothers.

No, Mammon, you can’t use MC’s powers to help your next money-making scheme. And no one is allowed to try and use MC’s powers to play a cursed prank on a certain overly-stressed prideful demon bby. I’m looking at you, Satan.

If you chose to ask him to help you control your newfound power, he might try and downplay how excited he is but nonetheless he is elated and his pride has gone through the roof that you chose him.

Training with him will be efficient. Although it will probably be a little grueling, Lucifer swears it’s only because he sees how great you can become once you’ve master your skills. But, uh… you might wanna use that pact of yours after a couple hours because the words “take a break” are not in Lucifer’s vocabulary.

Mammon

Of course his human shares power with the Demon King! He knows this how? B-Because this is MC we’re talking about! Obviously his MC is super powerful and amazing to the ends of the Earth and-

For a split second, he literally sees dollar signs. You now have MAGIC and with a good ol’ fashion magic show comes MONEY. Even before Diavolo and Barbatos look into it for sure, Mammon is formulating plan after plan.

“We could use this to our advantage! Next time I go to the casino, you could charm people into letting me win! You could put on shows and stuff and show off this awesome new stuff ya got. Imagine the millions that’ll roll in! We’ll be richer than Diavolo himself, and all thanks to the Great Mammon!”

*Casually ignoring that you would technically be doing all the work*

If he does end up dragging you into his one of money-making schemes, you’re in for some fun.

You explode a slot machine that Mammon was trying to get you to curse into giving up the moolah. You accidentally charm Mammon into showing his cards in a poker game instead of the dude next to him and now you’re both in debt. (Or in Mammon’s case, more so).

The next thing you know, you’re in Lucifer’s office getting scolded for handing him another bill on a silver platter.

If for some reason you do chose to ask Mammon for help to control your power, he will be incredibly excited (and then be a total tsundere about it). "Y-You actually want my help? Pfft, oF cOuRsE yOu'D wAnT hELp fRoM tHe GrEaT mAmMoN-!"

Despite being everyone’s favourite adorable doofus, Mammon is still the second-born brother and is still crazy powerful himself.

However, you two will make no progress in learning and will spend most of your time laughing and goofing around until you earn yourselves yet another lecture from Lucifer.

But who wants to be responsible when you have your very own cute demon dork, anyway?

Leviathan

HIS HENRY- HE KNEW HIS HENRY WAS AMAZING…!

B-But what if you don’t want to be his friend anymore after this? Why would someone so strong and powerful and amazing still want to be friends with a gross otaku like him…

….Y-You still want to come to his room tonight to watch My Best Friend Was A Simple Human For A Few Months And We Were Totally Cool With It But One Day The Demon Prince RealIzed They Actually Share The Same Power As The Demon King Himself and Now They’re Really Powerful And We’re Conquering The World And Going On Cool Adventures Together with him?!

Wait, this totally reminds him of that one anime My Friend And I Were Chilling Like Normal People But Then They Found Out That They’re Like Super Powerful But They Still Want To Be My Friend!!!

After some reassurance that you are still his Henry and he will always be your Lord of Shadows, Levi starts to feel better.

M-MC, do you think you could use your powers to give Henry 2.0 an endless food supply…?

If he's being entirely honest, it doesn't take long for the excitement to wear off and he retreats back into his comfort zone. Do you wanna play video games with him? He just bought this new one he thinks you’ll like.

If you ask him to help you control your powers, Levi will be so. dang. happy. Happy, and a little bit conflicted. Why would you want a yucky otaku like him to help you with such an important responsibility?!

Just remind him he's doing the whole putting-himself-down thing again and remind him he's beautiful and that you love him always.

S-sorry MC! Of course he’ll help his Henry! What sort of Lord of Shadows would he be if he didn’t aid his companion, his true friend

He will be completely nervous the entire time and will be able to focus better when he is near water, so practicing what he teaches you will most commonly happen in his room or the bathroom.

Satan

He already knew. How did he know? I don’t know. He just did. Satan is a knowledgeable person, so if he wants to know, he will. So he knows. Periodt.

Once Barbatos and Diavolo confirm his theory is correct, Satan is only more curious than before.

This is quite incredible, MC. Were you able to feel the power before this? How do you think they’ll work going forward? Would you like to try them out with him? Hm, you’d like to pull some cursed pranks on Lucifer with them? He thinks that’s quite the idea and he’d be honored. Oh, that’s not what you said? How unfortunate, you’re joining him anyways.

Everything this man does from here on out relating to your power is driven by his curiosity and drive for knowledge. Congratulations! You’re his personal guinea pig.

Despite the few times you do get dragged into one of Satan’s cursed pranks, he is mostly just curious to know the extent of your abilities. He will spend hours on end observing you and scribbling in a little notebook he bought specifically for the occasion.

He will try to help you learn to control your new power whether you ask him or not, but if you ask him before he offers, he will become elated.

His methods of teaching are quite similar to Lucifer’s (but don’t you dare ever say that to his face). He may push you for hours on end, but only because he’s curious to see if your magic effects your endurance.

Despite this, he does allow breaks! Would you like to go to a cat cafe with him in your spare time?

Asmodus

Ah! Just when he doesn’t think his beautiful MC could get any more amazing, they just have to go blow his mind all over again 💖

He is literally ecstatic when he finds out. Just imagine how many views he’ll get on Devilgram with you! His following might even grow bigger than it already is. Hm? Oh, he knows everyone already loves him. He just needs to reach the stubborn people have brains too small to comprehend what they're missing. ♡︎

He will also be another brother who is curious about the extent of your ability. Not in the same depth as Satan, but he will want to scratch the surface and get to know more about his wonderful MC.

Overall, he doesn’t mind all that much, but he is curious to see if your newfound power could speed up his morning skincare routine.

He always gets at least eight hours of sleep, or his perfect complexion would be completely ruined! But imagine if he were able to sleep in in the mornings, MC. He skin would glow! You’ll help him out, won’t you?

*Insert Asmo trying to charm you into doing it*

What’s that, sweetie? You want his help to learn how to control it? He’d be delighted! Where do you even begin? You could start with ways to speed up that skincare routine…

Oh dear, this may be more stressful than he thought. He might have to hand you over to Satan for this one, he would be much better suited to help you, sweetie.

But don’t worry, MC, he’ll be there the entire time support you through whatever hectic journey you’ve started on… from across the room. We can’t have any of that pretty magic of yours accidentally ruining his new outfit now, can we?

Beelzebub

I cannon that Beelzebub is one of those characters that understands more of what happens around him than he lets on.

That being said, Beel heard Lord Diavolo loud and clear, but these sour hellsting tarantula leg fries are starting to run low and he doesn’t have any more food left to get him through the rest of this student council meeting. He’s sure you’ll understand that this is a very big issue and he needs to prioritize it.

Nonetheless, only when the meeting is over and you, Belphie, and he head over to Hell’s Kitchen afterwards (only for Beel to order their entire stock and nearly run them out of business (again)) does Beel pay mind to your newest situation (MC seems to have a lot of those).

Beel has probably the most mellow reaction of all the brothers. There’s nothing Beel could ever want from you other than your endless love and affection (and maybe some food, but who’s counting?), so nothing in your relationship really changes. Of course he’s happy for you, but other than that he doesn’t really care. (He’s just hungry, man, go buy this big beautiful boi some more of those fries he was eating-)

If you ask him to help you learn to control your new abilities, he will actually be confused. a) He rarely uses his own powers, and he hardly ever needs them because he avoids drama and eats all day and b) if he were to teach you, he’d probably get hungry within the first ten minutes and stop for a snack break and you’d be back at square one.

If you persist, Beel will try to pull himself together to help you. As I said, lots of snack breaks, but Beel is very patient and if there’s anything you don’t understand, he will do his best to push past his hunger to sit down and explain it to you.

Bell pepper Belphegor

(im so sorry every time i see his name i think “bell pepper” please forgive me-)

Belphie was asleep during the revelation, but he heard it. He didn’t open his eyes, but he was aware.

For the rest of the meeting, he was no longer listening to anyone else and instead retreated to his own mind.

Could you feel your powers before Diavolo said anything? Would you have told him? Could you control it? Could you have stopped him from hurting you? Did you know how?

When Barbatos confirms that Diavolo is correct and explains the little he knows, Belphie wishes he could fall into NREM sleep so he can block everything out.

Like Beel, Belphie would also have a more mellow reaction. Aside from his guilt, he is mostly thinking about you're doing. How are you taking this? You guys can still nap together, right? He’ll still be able to visit you in your dreams and show you whatever if you want, if it's okay with you.

If you ask Belphie to help you control your powers, he will actually fly through the roof. This demon boi doesn’t even have wings, but he will fly. You actually want his help? Really? Don’t worry, MC, by the time he’s done with you, you’ll be in better control of it than the man those powers came from.

But listen, first you two need to take an eight hour nap. You can’t give it your all and stay completely focused if you’re totally wiped, can you?

Diavolo

When he figures it out, it hits him like a brick in the head and he is impatient to let his friends know of his new discovery. He blurts out, “Your power feels like my fathers!” and then immediately does that super excited, deep, and hearty laugh that he has.

Why, isn’t this fantastic, MC?! Imagine the fun you could have now. Perhaps you’re even related!

Oh… you’re not related? There goes Barbatos again, leveling his fun… Nonetheless! Diavolo is through the roof and is going on and on about all the exciting ways you and he could play with your newfound powers.

Perhaps you could build a stone golem together dripping with molten iron…! Or you can summon Lucifer a unicorn! Or, or - what if you changed the whole color theme of the castle to… purple and green?! (Lucifer and Barbatos beg you, please do not indulge the Young Lord in his childish antics)

If you so chose to “indulge the Young Lord in his childish antics”, expect a grouchy Lucifer and a Barbatos thin on patience until you return the castle back to its normal colors and get rid of that damn unicorn (please, it’s driving Lucifer up a wall).

If you ask Diavolo to help you learn to control your newfound power, he will be more proud than the Avatar of Pride himself (and that speaks blow horns since we all know how Lucifer can be). If anyone knows how the Demon King’s powers would work, it would be his son. Diavolo is honored that you chose him to mentor you.

When you two actually make progress, Diavolo is a good, thorough teacher who hits all the right marks.

However, your sessions will end much like Mammon’s would - you usually end up falling off track and giggling about something one of you saw on Devilgram. With the inconsistency in your progress, you experience lectures from both Barbatos and Lucifer, but the fun you always have with Diavolo is worth it.

~~~~~ Woahhh okay !! That took me like two days but it was so fun to write!! i hadn't meant for it to be so long but i hope it was what u were looking for :3 thank u ❤️❤️❤️❤️anon for sending it in ♡︎ ♡︎ p.s. i think im getting a feel for how i want to write things so im ready for future posts. i have my bag of skittles and some coffee and im prepared for the next one😎

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