#so hopefully they take that well and adjust accordingly

[hopelesshawks]

Nothing like reading a fic on ao3 and suddenly getting heavy sadomasochist and impact play in almost all of the smut scenes even though the smut tags were only “dom/sub”, “soft dom [insert character]”, and “sub [insert character]” to make me appreciate how well tagged/warned shit on tumblr is

[momobani]

Groundhog Day

THE WAY I hate YOU - chapter 5 - 10.9k

&team Nicholas x fem!reader - arranged marriage AU

SERIES MASTERLIST

Sum: the one where even coffee can’t save you. 

Warnings: swearing, sarcasm, a smidge of angst, mention of hospitals, implication of dysfunctional families, mention of wanting/not wanting kids, mention of food and alcohol, very suggestive stuff (smut separate chapter), mention of sex 

Soundtrack rec: Close - Nick Jonas, Tove Lo

Taglist: @nichoswag @seokka0o @sseastar-main @hyuckslvr @ssshasssh @wtfisgoingright 

A/N: please excuse the months of radio silence, sorry this took an age but i had to let this one cook properly, also life won’t leave me alone lol, it’s been hard lately, but hopefully this will get back on track at least a little <3

okayyy so there’s a bit of a formatting situation that needs explaining: basically the smut will be in a separate post linked within the chapter so that minors can just not interact with it and also the chapter doesn’t become 30k or some shit

You should have expected it really, at this point. 

You should have known you would be running late. Well, not you specifically, but your husband. 

“I told you to be ready by 2pm so we could leave.” you remind him as he runs around frantically, shirt still unbuttoned while he does his belt, toothbrush in mouth as he searches for a tie. 

You lean on the doorway and roll your eyes when he waves a hand dismissively in your direction. 

You decide you need to intervene.

“Go back to the bathroom, I’ll get you a tie.” you usher him away from his closet. He hums something that sounds like a protest but obliges and disappears.

You puff out your cheeks in thought, scanning the options Nicholas had laid out in the drawer of his closet. 

If you were your fashion diva husband, what would you do? 

He was wearing a light blue button up and black slacks, which were very simple, so the tie should bring something to the outfit. Your hand hovers over a silver tie with a tiny squares but settles over a dark blue paisley one instead. 

It would look better with his suit jacket, you think as you pluck your selection from its little cubby hole. 

You find Nicholas in the bathroom, toothbrush put back neatly in the little boba cup you used for both yours and his. He’s buttoned up the bottom three buttons but started focusing on his hair as if he just couldn’t settle on one thing to fix at a time. 

“Step back.” you say, squeezing in between the sink and Nicholas so he can keep doing his hair while you work on his shirt. He glances at you as if questioning if you really wanted to do this but you ignore him. 

You finish his buttons first, fingers nimbly popping the buttons through the holes while still holding the tie in one hand. Next, you reach up and pop Nicholas’ collar, threading the tie around his neck and bringing one end down the opposite side. 

Your hands move without effort, looping the tie into a knot and tugging it tighter so it goes into place. You notice Nicholas hasn’t put on cologne yet because he smells neutrally clean like the soap in your shower. You also notice that he’s finished doing his hair and is just looking at you as you work his tie. You stare determinedly at the tie and not up at him but you feel his eyes burning a hole through you. 

Nosy, you think. 

You leave the last bit for him to adjust and step away. 

“Thanks.” he says, tightening it accordingly. “How do you know how to tie a tie?” he asks, genuinely curious. 

You were about to walk out of the bathroom after inspecting your lipstick in the mirror but his question catches your attention. You look at him for a moment.

“Who do you think did Maki’s until he learned to do it himself?” you say before walking out. 

The thought sends you back suddenly. You remembered when you were a teenager and Maki was starting middle school, he had a uniform with a tie. Instead of going to your parents or the nanny that would sometimes take you to and from school, your tiny bean of a brother came to you, holding out his tie with a pout.

So of course you looked up how to tie a tie on the computer that sat in the living room, following the instructions on a Sunday afternoon as the sun set behind you. You practiced a million times, trying to get it perfect so Maki wouldn’t get laughed at by the other kids, that you were sure you could tie a tie in your sleep even to this day. 

You just hadn’t done it in years, but being married to Nicholas meant doing all sorts of things. 

Like running amber lights. 

You’re driving instead of him toward the charity event your companies were participating in, and you just want to make it on time. Your parents had already started asking if you were there yet, your mother especially blowing up your phone. You tell Nicholas to turn it on silent, discarding it to the depths of your bag. He obeys, popping it in swiftly. 

You’re almost there, mostly because you did run a couple of amber lights, and also took a shortcut through some small streets. 

“We should be careful when we get there, a lot of people will be looking at us.” you say. You’d been thinking about how to bring it up, the fact that due to the nature of a public event like that, you needed to be on your best ‘married’ behaviour. 

“Okay, Code Vermin it is.” Nicholas agrees. “Though, I doubt anyone will care about us, it’s a big event.” 

“Regardless, I don’t want to give my parents any reason to lecture me.”

“Got it.” 

When you arrive, you hand over your car to a valet (a charity event with valet parking? lifestyles of the rich and famous much? you could never reconcile the way that rich people did charity work while flaunting off their own wealth, but it didn’t matter since you were one of those rich people and you had to participate in the lunacy; leaving it would mean blowing up your entire life if you were honest) and make your way in, your arm casually draped around Nicholas’ own. 

As you walk into the venue, the parade of familiar faces begins. You switch into polite greeting mode and walk by, smiling and nodding and making small talk with whoever stopped you. 

The cause of today’s charity event was funding and equipping the new children’s hospital in your city. Since your companies largely dealt with pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, you were key figures in the very fabric of the event. 

Your mother spots you from fifty feet away and laser beams you in the back of the head until you feel something irking you and finally turn around to see her practically glaring at you and Nicholas.  

You automatically tug on his arm slightly to get his attention as he finishes chatting with some senior director of the hosting charity itself. You excuse yourselves and you steer Nicholas in the direction of your mother. 

“Get ready; the wolves are hungry today.” you mutter, smiling at some people you passed by. 

“About time, YN!” your mother hisses immediately when you’re within earshot. She switches her demeanour when she turns to greet Nicholas, smiling fondly at him. “Hello, Nicholas. Lovely to see you again.”

“Nice to see you too, Mrs L/N.” Nicholas says smoothly, extending his best son-in-law greeting smile.

“I was just wondering, when are your parents coming?” she continues as if you’re just an ornament or part of his outfit. You had to admit, you were a little grateful she liked him more because it meant he would take most of the heat today, although it made you feel guilty toward him too.

“They should be here soon, I can call to check if they’re okay?” Nicholas offers politely. Your mother shakes her head gently. 

“Don’t worry about it at all, dear, no need to bother them. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.” the response gives you whiplash but there’s truly no space in your heart for surprise because of course she wouldn’t mind your in-laws being late; everyone else got a free pass, but you, you were the bane of that woman’s existence as far as you were concerned. “Well, I’ll let you two go, the auction will be starting soon, so get some good seats if you can.” your mother says. 

“Auction?” you ask. This was the first time you’re hearing about an auction, though it was probably because you’d filtered everything you knew about this event out of your mind in order to stay focused on your work load. 

“Yes, YN, there’s an auction of art pieces, which will be one of the sources of donation. Please pay attention, hmm?” she smiles tightly at you and you feel a smile spread across your own face. It was ironic but it came naturally, the bitterness just about disguised in its artificiality. 

“Yes, Mom. We’ll get good seats.” you say. “Enjoy the event.” 

It was the automatic good-daughter-response that had been pre-programmed into your microchip since the matrix decided you had to be born into this family out of all the other families. 

Your mother seems satisfied and steps away to make conversation with someone else while you and Nicholas slowly make your way through the large hall and find the seating area set up for the auction. 

“You need me to oil your hinges, Ex-Machina?” Nicholas asks sarcastically, leaning his mouth closer to your ear, as you register into the auction and are handed a numbered paddle by the clerk. 

“No, that’s quite alright, dear.” you raise your eyebrow for emphasis. Nicholas rolls his eyes.

“Pardon my mistake; that was clearly Stepford Wives but make it ‘daughter’.” he says but still holds out his arm and you stroll to your seats in a manner that cannot be described otherwise than ‘nicely’. 

“And you married into the dysfunctionality.” you remind him. “Godspeed.” you add. 

In a few minutes, the event begins, most people finding their seats but a few stragglers sitting down just as the auctioneer stepped up to the podium. 

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to today’s main event.” the man begins. He’s wearing a clearly uncomfortable tux and a pair of those Mickey Mouse type of white gloves, even though clearly he’s not the one handling any of the pieces. “If I may introduce the first piece we shall be showing today…” and that’s when your brain hits the snooze button and you tune the world out.

You sit silently and listen to the numbers that are being called out as each painting, photograph print or sculpture is bought out. It’s mostly modern art from somewhat local artists but the calibre is higher than you expected. It all goes by very quickly, you think. You stare blankly, in a somewhat dissociative state until one of the final pieces is brought out.

It’s a photographic print of the silhouettes of what looks like two parents and a child between them, holding each of their hands as they walk away somewhere, presumably into the proverbial sunset. You hadn’t raised your paddle once yet since there was nothing you really wanted but something about the photo makes you reconsider. 

You think how ridiculous it would be bid on it since you had nowhere to put it at your apartment, so you don’t react. 

“I like this one.” Nicholas whispers to your left. You’re snapped back to reality. You’d almost forgotten he was sitting there since you’d both been so quiet the whole time. “We should get it, it’s cute.” he continues. 

“Is it?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he turns to you briefly. “it reminds me of my parents and I. Whenever we spent time together, I mean. Which wasn’t much, but still.” he shrugs.  

You let his words sink in. 

The auctioneer is done explaining the origin of the photo by way of introducing the photographer. The photograph is named ‘Another Place’ and you suddenly understand what you were feeling. 

Just as the auctioneer starts the bidding, you feel Nicholas wrap his hand around yours and raise it as you hold on to the paddle. You’re a tiny bit startled since you weren’t thinking about the object in your hand at all and you didn’t actually think that Nicholas would bid on anything. You look at him momentarily but he keeps facing forward, focused. 

It’s strange.

You don’t think to remove your hand from the paddle and just hand it to Nicholas. Instead he holds on to your hand while you let the echo of the voices in the hall fill the cavities of your head. 

The photograph wasn’t cute. At least not to you. 

In your eyes, there was something inherently melancholic about it. 

As if the photographer was missing something.

The name confirmed it for you more than anything. You could interpret it as homage to the happier times spent with loved ones like your parents, like Nicholas thought, but you could equally interpret it as wanting to go back to or imagining what could have been in another place or time. 

It makes a small part of you ache a little. 

The bidding doesn’t skyrocket so Nicholas keeps on raising your hand until the other bidders fall flat. They don’t seem to want the photo as much as your husband does.

“Going once, going twice…and sold, to the young gentleman over there. Number 88.” the auctioneer makes a note of your paddle before they switch to the next item. 

“Sorry, did you just buy that print?” you blink rapidly, feeling as if you missed the whole thing.

“Yeah, but if you really hate it, I’ll keep it in my office.” Nicholas promises. You shake your head, still unsure of what transpired. You didn’t have space at home but you’d probably make some if you tried. 

“It’s fine. We’ll keep it.” you say.  

The rest of the auction passes by in a blur, and then you’re going to find the photograph so you could claim it. 

You stand to one side while Nicholas handles all the paper work and signs the check. Meanwhile, you look at the photograph some more, noticing that the child’s silhouette seems to be standing closer to the father but has its head angled toward its mother, as if looking up at her. 

You wonder if that could be you one day. 

It seemed unlikely, since you didn’t necessarily feel like it was your calling. 

That and you were married to Nicholas currently. 

Then it occurs to you that you have no idea what he wants in life. What if you get stuck together for a long time? Then what happens? Do you try to make each other happy and what does that even mean? Could you give him what he wanted if he ever did want anything? Would you be enough for him? Would he be enough for you? 

“Ready to go home?” his voice breaks through to you with the clarity of shattering ice. 

“Yeah, let’s go.” you nod, doing your best to look like you weren’t just living through an existential crisis for five minutes straight. 

You find yourself reaching for Nicholas’ arm on your own, holding on with both hands because you weren’t sure you could make it out of the hall without stumbling or stuttering otherwise. You needed stability just in case your legs decided to give out from the burden of your thoughts. 

Nicholas gives you a soft smile when he catches your eye and it feels like the most natural thing to return it, even if deep down you were still shaken. 

But just for a moment, it was okay.

You didn’t have the answers but it was okay.  

*

It’s a Wednesday morning, just before noon, and you have no intention of picking up your phone when it rings on your desk as you wrestle with a box of paperwork except, you glance at your phone and read the caller ID.

Maki’s name is on display and you drop the stack of papers back into the box, hand flying to the device. 

Your little brother rarely called you out of nowhere, especially not when he’s supposed to be in school. 

“Hey, Maks, is everything okay?” you say hurriedly. You feel your stress levels rising as you wait for him to answer. 

“Hey, will you come pick me up from school?” he asks on the other side of the line. The request strikes you as very odd. He sounds okay but you obviously couldn’t be sure over the phone.

“Why? What’s wrong?” you press. 

“Just come pick me up.” he says. “Please? And don’t tell mom and dad.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Yes, I’m coming. Stay there.” 

You were about to have a meltdown. You were so worried about what on earth could have possibly happened for him to call you in the middle of the day and ask you to come pick him up. Could he be feeling sick and didn’t want to tell you? What could it be? 

You grab your jacket and bag and make your way out of the office, letting one of your colleagues know you were stepping out for an emergency. Well, you didn’t know it was an emergency but you just said whatever would get you out of that office quicker. 

You have to look up Maki’s school’s address since you basically had never been there and then drive in a way that would put the main characters of Fast and the Furious to shame. 

You throw your car in the nearest visitor parking spot and leg it to the reception of the main building. The school looks like a typical high school, except this is where all the smart, rich kids went and your brother was no exception. The kids all had crisp and perfect uniforms, the teachers looked impeccable too, and the buildings themselves were all but shining when you entered. 

You talk to the receptionist lady and explain that your brother had called you and she lets you into the foyer where there’s a seating area and several offices nearby. 

You knock on the door that the receptionist lady told you to and enter.

“Hello?” you poke your head in. You spot Maki sitting in one of the chairs around the table and open the door further, relieved to see he looked alright. 

“Are you Maki’s guardian?” the teacher sitting across the room says. 

“Yes, I’m his sister. Hello.” you say politely. 

“Hello. Please come in.” the lady says, gesturing with her hand. She doesn’t seem so stern but you feel like you’re in trouble for some reason. You slip into the chair next to your brother. 

“Is everything okay?” you ask, unable to take the tension any longer. The whole drive here, you felt like you were going to faint. 

“Yes, everything is fine. I just needed to call a parent or guardian in since Maki fell asleep in class this morning. It’s not the sort of thing we take lightly around here.” she informs you. 

You blink, thinking your ears failed you. Fell asleep in class? You swivel your head toward your little brother, who has subconsciously shrunk a smidge, which isn’t really possible since he’s not exactly a tiny child any more. 

“You fell asleep in class?” you repeat, addressing Maki. He nods quietly. “And you couldn’t tell me this over the phone?” you sigh. You ignore the teacher is there for a second. “Do you know how worried I was?” you demand. For a moment, you think you sound like your parents so you tell yourself to cool off and take a step back. 

The teacher clears her throat gently. “You see, miss, it’s not really a problem per se, we just needed to let you know and see if there’s anything going on at home that might have been the cause.” she clarifies. “We also think it’s best to send students home when they are not in their top form.”

“Right, I see.” you hum. “There’s nothing I’m aware of that could be the reason.” you say. You cannot discern the mix of relief and annoyance with the situation. What could he have been doing instead of sleeping and how could it have made him so tired that he fell asleep in class? At least it wasn’t worse, you said to yourself. 

“If students are unable to pay attention, then we find it best to give them some time to step away and come back when they can. Maki hasn’t done this before, so we won’t make a big deal out of it, it’s purely procedural that you were needed here today.” the teacher reassures you. 

“Yes, thank you. I’m sorry about that.” you apologise on Maki’s behalf. “It won’t happen again, right, Maki?” you question him. 

He nods, staying very quiet and very obedient. It was a world away from the vibrant, loud and mischievous Maki you knew. He must be really tired then, you decide.  

“Right, well, thanks, Miss. I think we’ll get going now.” you say, standing up and grabbing a hold of Maki’s backpack, which he was wearing the whole time he was sitting down. You pull him up by the bag, the way a mother cat carries around her kittens by the scruff of the neck, except when you pull him up to stand, he kind of towers over you a little since he’s growing up into a giant.

The two of you leave the office but Maki informs you he needs to get some stuff from his locker, so you follow him through the corridors to find it. You try your best not to have horrible war flashbacks to your own time in high school as you walk further in. By the time you reach it, the bell rings signalling what you assumed was the lunch break. The noise feels like a punch in the gut. 

Suddenly the hallways are flooded with students, teenage boys running around and milling about like tiny ants in a colony, except most of them are like a head taller than you, which makes it doubly terrifying. You feel awfully out of place and old if you were being honest, even if they were not that much younger than you. 

Maki rummages around his locker for a moment before you find two boys coming towards you. You think you’re blocking their lockers so you think to stand over on Maki’s other side but he notices and waves them over. 

“Hey, you guys, did we have math homework?” he asks them. You stand awkwardly to one side but nod politely at the kids. 

Your brother’s question gets ignored as the two boys fixate on you and one of them particularly stares at you in awe. You should have just waited for him outside. It makes you feel even more awkward and you clear your throat, directing the noise at Maki so he does something. He gets the hint and introduces them as his friends Taki and Harua. 

“Hi, aunty, you’re so pretty!” the one introduced as Harua, who was staring at you, gushes. The corners of Taki’s mouth droop down and he smacks Harua on the back of the head, dubious. 

Maki stops short and gives Harua a stank face. “Dude, bro, that’s my older sister!” he corrects.

But it’s too late.

The word ‘aunty’ echoes through your mind. It sends you reeling, mouth agape. You imagine your head unscrewing from your body like a lightbulb or one of those lego men and floating into outer space all while explosions and bombs go off in the background, very much in a poorly made, greenscreened fashion, all accompanied by a full orchestral and choral rendition of Verdi’s Dies Irae. You choke on spit just a little but purse your lips in order not to cough like crazy. 

Harua pales impossibly and you think he starts quaking like a newborn Chihuahua.

“It’s okay, kiddo.” you reassure him. “I suppose I am on my way to becoming a fossil.” you mutter to yourself, only half-sarcastically. 

“S-sorry aun- I mean noona, I- noona, sorry.” Harua stutters out and lowers his head a little, and you worry he might just burst into tears. 

“Don’t worry about it.” you try your best to seem friendly but you’re not sure it works. Instead you try to make Maki move faster. “I have to get back to the office, sweetie, hurry up.” you tell him. 

It seems to do the trick because Maki grabs one last textbook and shuts his locker. Harua seems completely mortified so he barely looks up at you as he and Taki bid the two of you goodbye and you leave.   

Once you’re sat in the safety of your car, you exhale laboriously.

“Quit it, will you?” Maki asks. “Harua didn’t mean it, he just got confused. You don’t look like an aunty at all.” 

“Gee, thanks.” you deadpan. “I didn’t even say anything, you didn’t have to go there.” you mumble as you start the engine. 

“Noona, c’mon, doesn’t Nicholas tell you you’re beautiful all the time? Don’t you know it by now?” Maki shakes his head in disbelief but you know it’s directed at you, not Nicholas. You wanted to tell him, as a matter of fact, no, Nicholas did not say such things nor did he need to. 

“‘Kay, first of all,” you pause. “I know my worth isn’t tied to my appearance and I don’t necessarily need to hear it from other people, although compliments can be nice. Secondly, insecurity still happens, regardless of what anyone says. Alright?” you explain. “The two states can co-exist. I know I don’t look like an aunty, but it was still shocking.”  

“Okay, got it.” Maki raises his hands in defeat. 

You’re driving but you realise that you don’t know where you’re going. 

“Wait a sec, where am I taking you?” you question Maki. 

“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad.” he begs, giving you puppy eyes from your passenger seat. You hadn’t thought about that yet but you don’t say that. “Just drop me off somewhere. I won’t do it again, just this once, just don’t tell them.”

You think for a moment. “Tell me why you fell asleep and I’ll consider it.” 

“I stayed up all night studying.” he says. You scoff loudly. 

“As if, lil bro, you think I was born yesterday?” you say, making a turn without thinking. 

“I’m serious! I did stay up all night studying since we had a test…” he exclaims. 

“A test?” you prompt him to keep going. 

“A test I didn’t study for.” he finishes, talking in tiny. It finally clicks and you nod.

“Right.” you say. “Did you at least take the test?” 

“Well yeah, but-”

“Good, just don’t do that ever again.” you warn. Maki nods enthusiastically. “Fine,” you concede. “you can stay in my apartment until it’s time for you to actually go home.” 

“Yes!” Maki cheers. “Thanks, noona, you’re the best!”  

You get home and while you’re in the elevator, it occurs to you that this was the first time Maki had actually visited you here. You just hoped that there was nothing weird there that might make him think something was off about you and Nicholas. 

You had been pretty successful in quashing his suspicions, not that you thought he had any since he hadn’t expressed anything in a while, so you really needed to keep up the facade. It might be hard considering he was going to stay in the apartment for a few hours.

You make a mental note not to let him see your separate bedrooms; that would be hard to explain. 

You punch in the code to your door and open it, ushering your little brother in before following. 

“Here’s some slippers.” you bring a spare pair out of the shoe rack and plop them in front of Maki. 

You rush into the living room to make sure that it was at least somewhat clean but you’re startled by a wild Nicholas that’s standing with his back to you in the kitchen area. He’s cooking something at the stove, a pair of massive headphones on and you swear under your breath. 

You skirt around the edge of the couch and make a bee line toward your husband. He seems to notice you in his peripheral vision as you practically run at him, making him jump out of his skin and drop the pair of chopsticks in his hand with a clang against the surface of the stove.

“Shh!” you hiss at him, putting a finger in front of your lips, glancing back at the foyer. Nicholas slides the headphones off his head, letting them hang around his neck. He looks more confused than you’ve ever seen him before. “Maki’s here!” you whisper. 

“What? Why? What’s going on?” he whispers back, alarmed at the new information. You shake your head dismissively. No time to tell the whole tale. 

“I’ll tell you later, but he’s here so act normal!” you conclude just as Maki makes his way through the door. 

“Oh hey, Nicholas hyung!” Maki’s face lights up when he sees your husband and you feel a little strange - your brother never greeted you like that. 

“Hey, buddy, how are you?” Nicholas switches up immediately, seamlessly, as if the shock of your arrival had never happened. He meets your eye for a second before properly looking at Maki, who deposits his backpack on the couch and comes to sit at the counter.  

“Y’know, normal.” Maki shrugs. You narrow your eyes at your little brother. 

“Not normal, you don’t normally get kicked out of school.” you scold him slightly. 

“You what?” Nicholas does a double take. Maki seems annoyed at you, as if you said the wrong thing. Well, you weren’t about to lie to your husband about something petty like that. 

“Eh, noona makes it seems worse than it is. I swear, I didn’t do anything bad.” he pouts. 

“He fell asleep in class.” you tell Nicholas, as if he had any authority in the situation. Nicholas visibly relaxes. 

“Oh, the way you were talking, I thought it was something serious. I used to fall asl-” Nicholas starts to say but the way you glare at him changes his mind. “I mean I never did that, that’s really, yeah, that’s not good.” he trails off, bringing a hand to massage the back of his neck. 

“Anyways, I’ve decided to let Maki stay here until he needs to go back home.” you say. “Is that okay? I didn’t think you’d be home actually.”

“Yeah, stay, it’s cool. I got home because my meeting was cancelled.” Nicholas replies, but is looking at you without blinking and you know something’s up by the way he keeps glancing at the hallway. 

“Okay, great.” you pick up the hint and turn to Maki. “We don’t have a lot to do here, Maks, but you can just watch TV for a while, right?” and you all but lift him out of his seat and steer him toward the couch. 

“Yeah, I like TV-”

“Awesome, knock yourself out.” you seat him at the couch and turn back to Nicholas, walking back across the room. 

With the background noise of the TV, you don’t think Maki will hear you if you whisper. 

“What?” you all but mouth when you’re close enough. Nicholas’ eyebrows raise so high they might ascend to the heavens above (your ceiling).

“Don’t you think he’s going to get suspicious?” he whispers back. “What if I say something dumb and he realises this is a sham?” 

You knew it was a real risk to let them hang out unsupervised for a long period of time but without you there for damage control, Nicholas was just going to have to deal with it. 

“I’m sorry, I promised him he can stay. You can figure it out. Just don’t talk about me or us.” you instruct. Nicholas nods, realising there’s no alternative. 

“Fine, just hurry back.” he pleads. 

You definitely weren’t sure you wanted to leave the two of them alone. Would the house burn down if you did? Could they handle it? This was inevitable, really, it was going to happen at some point. 

“Right, if he starts to get annoying, just threaten to tell my parents.” you forgo the whispering, moving toward the hallway.

“Oh? Kay?” Nicholas frowns, not quite understanding. 

Maki senses you’re about to exit and turns around to listen. 

Shit, he’s watching. 

You turn back to face Nicholas and he almost runs into you. You give him a slight smile. “Call me if there’s any problems.” you say sweetly, as if you’re not risking shattering the fabricated relationship you were thrown into. “Now, lean down.” you mutter. 

Nicholas lowers his head innocently and you lean in, planting a swift kiss to his cheek, making up the charade. If he’s surprised, Nicholas doesn’t show it because he straightens up and acts like it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

You don’t dwell on it and turn to Maki next. 

“Listen to Nicholas, okay?” you warn. “Be good.” you say, directing it to the both of them. 

“Yes, Mom.” Maki drawls sarcastically. Your mouth drops open at the tone, then again, you didn’t have to wonder where exactly he picked it up from (you, most likely). You stick your tongue out at him as you walk away, Maki mirroring you almost instantly. 

You glance at Nicholas, who’s kind of standing still in shock at the display of sibling affection, not quite sure what to do with himself. 

“This house better be intact when I come back.” you call behind you as you walk out of the door. You really hoped everything would be okay. 

The entire time you were at work, you were anything but focused. You had minutes of good concentration before your mind wandered to how your husband and your brother were getting along. There was a few times where you even picked up your phone with half the mind to call and check but you realised how maniacal that really was so you put the device down on the other side of your office while you worked so you wouldn’t be tempted to slide into control freak mode. 

As soon as the working day finished, you rushed out of there, ignoring the sound of your coworkers still tapping away on keyboards, clipping and filing papers together, or the wistful sighs of those stuck doing overtime. 

You willed yourself to still follow road safety, in a carefully executed exercise of self-control, instead of mimicking your earlier attempts at cosplaying Vin Diesel behind the wheel. 

The familiar sound of the password unlocking the front door finally came as you yanked open the handle and swished through the corridor quickly, kicking off your shoes haphazardly in the process and padding across the floor barefoot. 

There was noise coming from your living room which you’d heard about a half-way through the hallway and you’re fascinated when you enter and find the boys sitting on the couch, controllers in hand and still oblivious to your arrival. 

They were playing video games. 

You breathe a sigh of relief. That’s pretty neutral and doesn’t require any intellectual conversation. 

“Yaaa, where you going, lil dude? That was never a short cut!” Nicholas chuckles, eyes still glued to the screen. 

“It is too!” Maki argues. “Just ‘cause you’ve never heard of it, hyung.” you can hear the cheekiness behind his provocation. 

“Hey, I don’t need to know stuff to be good at this.” Nicholas insists. 

You look closer at the screen and finally put two and two together; they’re playing Mario Kart. 

You can’t believe it - you’d been worried about nothing. And as a bonus, your husband now had a video game buddy, as it seemed. You decide to clear your throat and enter the room.

“Hey, I’m back.” you say. “What did you guys get up to?” you quiz nonchalantly. They both greet you, almost a little surprised since clearly they weren’t paying attention to you coming in. 

Great, a thief could have walked in and out and nobody would have heard a damn thing. 

“We just hung out. Nicholas hyung made lunch then we played video games and well, that’s it.” Maki says, lifting the controller in his hand as evidence. You nod.

“Great, good, awesome.” so you were hyperactively checking your watch for no reason. You were glad to know it was a great use of your time (not). 

“Maki’s really good at this game, YN. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have invited him over sooner so we could play.” Nicholas comments. 

“Well, if it’s about video games, Maki, you can always come around.” you say, only slightly strained at his forgetfulness - it was only a few hours ago that you were freaking out about your brother possibly figuring out he’d been lied to. Well, not lied to exactly, just … left in the dark about the nature of your marriage. 

“Really?” Maki seems really excited to hear he’s got a free-for-all to your house at any time. “That’s great, I’ll come on weekends so we can play, hyung!” he says and for a moment you feel a swell of emotion overcome you; you hadn’t seen Maki this happy and excited for a long time. And he certainly didn’t get this animated when he was hanging out with you. It made you feel like marrying Nicholas wasn’t so bad after all; it had its silver lining. 

“You guys hungry?” you change the subject. “I’ll make dinner.” you say, leaving your bag on the couch. 

“I can make it, if you want.” Nicholas offers over his shoulder. 

“No, no, you made lunch, it’s okay, keep playing.” you reassure him. You just needed a minute to yourself so cooking would suffice. 

“Alright,” Nicholas agrees but he keeps looking at you, as if he noticed the look on your face. You meet his eye and turn away quickly. You didn’t want him to think you were feeling weird about stuff since you weren’t. Much. 

“Maki, call home to let them know you’re here.” you call over the noise of the video game. It was getting late, about the time he’d go home from school. 

“Okay,” he groans quietly but does as you said obediently. You felt like you were nagging all of a sudden. 

You wondered if you’d been replaced as the favourite sibling now that Nicholas was in the picture. Were you jealous of your husband? What a dumb thought. 

You shrug to yourself and wash your hands. 

*

Sometimes you did wonder why you bothered waking up at all on your days off.

It was more of an instinctual thing; it was your body clock waking up for you, telling you that you just had to keep doing that thing where you opened your eyes and then dragged your body out of bed, regardless of whether you had work that day or not. 

So you do, you get up, and your natural routine of getting coffee first thing takes you to the kitchen where you spot Nicholas already at the machine, brewing the first lot of the day. He’s still in his pyjama pants but has not been bothered to put on a shirt yet, his hair all tousled and fluffy from sleep.

“Morning.” you say. You pick out a mug from the cupboard and situate yourself next to the machine, to wait for the coffee to be ready. 

“Hey,” Nicholas responds. It’s surprising since it’s morning and you usually tend to get communication via strange noises from him at this time of day. You glance at him for a moment, trying to discern if something’s different but you just watch his back muscles as he reaches for the milk from the fridge. It’s harder than you’d like to admit to take your eyes away and focus on whether the coffee is done yet. 

The machine does its usual whirring and whatnot but you can’t figure out why it seems to be taking an age. You stand with the empty cup but tense up when Nicholas materialises behind you, reaching over your head to get the box of cereal in the cupboard above you. His bare skin comes into contact with yours and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

His body is warm against yours and it’s overwhelming. 

You realise you’re holding in a breath you didn’t know you’d sucked in, only letting it out when he stepped away. You purse your lips and try your best not to mind that, whatever it was.

But you do mind. So much. 

Your eyes wander back over to Nicholas as he fixes up his bowl of breakfast. He’s not doing much but you just watch him, mesmerised for some reason. It’s weird for sure; it’s not the first time you’d seen him without a shirt, so what on Earth was going on? 

You tear your eyes away but you’re incredibly aware of his every move. He glances at you, as if he can feel your nervous energy permeating the air in the kitchen, but doesn’t say anything. 

You forgot you were waiting for that damn coffee machine, you fingers tapping against the counter, eyes shifting around. You look at the numbers on your digital clock - had they changed at all since you came in? Was your mind playing tricks on you? Maybe it was just too early in the morning. 

“YN?” you hear behind you and you whip around, almost too fast, only to be shocked at how much closer Nicholas was than you thought he would be. He doesn’t say anything else, but assess you, trying to read you. “Are you okay?” he asks, looking at you with concern. 

“Yeah.” you breathe out, inaudibly. 

Except it’s a lie. 

It’s not okay. You can’t seem to focus on anything but Nicholas and the tension between you, thick and intoxicating, a fog that you could cut through with a knife. You hate it; it’s too hot and stuffy all of a sudden and you feel your chest rising and falling with every breath. 

Nicholas takes a slow step toward you, and then another and you attempt to step backwards but are blocked by the edge of the counter against your back. And then you’re standing too close, closer than explainable, close enough to see the colour of his irises in detail or the soft skin of his cheeks or the slight parting of his lips.

You weren’t proud of it but for a moment, you considered closing the space between you and kissing him. It was completely primal, this urge that came from nowhere in particular, an impulsive thought that could be converted into action if you just lost control for a split second. 

But you didn’t decide to lose control. 

Nicholas did.

And you followed, falling into him like a domino.

You think it seems almost natural, reasonable even, when Nicholas leans down and smashes his lips against yours. So natural that your arms curl around his shoulders immediately, grabbing hold to keep you locked together as you kiss intensely, mouths moving in sync as if you’d rehearsed this exact scene a million times. 

There’s a vague beeping noise somewhere in the background, and if you were paying attention, you would have spared a thought that it was your stupid coffee finally ready, but nothing could permeate the bubble the two of you were in.             

Nicholas swipes a paw to your left at the empty mug, his own abandoned next to it, and sends them flying off the counter. You don’t even hear the crash of ceramic against the tile floor because his hands are wrapping around the back of your thighs and he’s lifting you up to perch you on the counter, his mouth never leaving yours. 

You shuffle to accommodate him standing between your legs, wrapping them gently around his waist, keeping him flush against you. Your nighty rides up your thighs, revealing your underwear underneath and Nicholas’ hands make the most of it by running up the sides of your legs, gathering the material and slipping under to hold your bare hips. 

There’s not a single comprehensible thought in your head while you make out with your husband, except for maybe you liked having his tongue down your throat a little too much. That and your awareness of what you were feeling between your legs, exacerbated by the way your hips moved against Nicholas’. He was only wearing pyjamas and you could definitely feel something there. 

You can’t keep your hands still, your fingertips eager to touch every inch of his broad shoulders, reaching to his back and then finding purchase in his hair as Nicholas detaches from your mouth only to skim over your cheek and jaw on his way to your neck. You’re breathless while he pays special respect to sensitive skin of your neck, kissing it hotly and biting down gently, the intent of leaving a mark clear in his actions. 

You all but melt at how good it feels, relaxing in his arms. A low moan escapes your mouth while he’s busy finding your sweet spots. Then another.

“N-nico…” you can’t help the breathy stutter that your throat produces. It seems to catch his attention because he hums against you, acknowledging your reactions. 

Without a word, you kiss him again, guiding his mouth back to yours with one hand. He catches your wrist with one of his hands and holds it there while the other reaches down between you. You’re just about aware enough to know that he’s pulling at the strings on his pyjama bottoms. You shimmy further to the edge of the counter in response, reaching down too, fingers clumsy toward your underwear but before you can do anything-

Everything disappears.

You startle awake, half-jumping out of your skin with clarity that you’d been dreaming this whole time.

You straighten up, lifting your head up from your desk, recognising the familiar decor of your office. You feel almost dizzy and completely dazed from your sleep. Moreover, there’s an uncomfortable heat radiating from your skin, as if you’ve spent too long in a sauna or taken a shower that was far too hot for far too long. 

You swallow thickly and sigh, shaking your head. 

You had to calm down, it was just a dream. Nothing to worry about. None of that happened, everything was okay. 

Everything was-

“Are you okay?” 

You all but scream when you hear Nicholas’ voice behind you. 

“Wh-when did you get here?” you stammer, turning around to glare at him. You watch as he picks up a folder off your shelf, opens it and deposits a stack of papers inside. 

“I was here? The whole time?” he informs you looking back at you, scepticism on his face. “We’ve been working for hours, you must be really tired.” 

“Oh,” you try to calm down. “right.”

“Right.” Nicholas says. “So how was your nap? I didn’t wake you, did I? You seem surprised.”

“I, uh,” you pause to think. “had a scary dream.” you finish and get up. Scary might be an understatement; those kind of thoughts? About Nicholas? Definitely terrifying.  

The safest thing your brain could think of doing right now, was getting a cup of coffee. That should wake you right up, and you hopefully you can put this whole thing behind you. 

“I’m sorry, that sucks.” he hums sympathetically, picking out another folder from the shelf. You glance back at him while you start making your coffee. It’s really strange seeing him in your office - he tended to stay at his own at Wang Enterprises. But what’s stranger is that no matter how much you wrack your brain, you cannot remember what it is that you were working on right now. 

What kind of nap made you forget hours of past events?

You’re lost in thought as you pour the coffee, staring into space. 

“Woah! Hey!” Nicholas exclaims. “Watch it!” 

You snap out of it just in time to lift the jug before the cup overflowed. Your heart is racing from the sudden scare and you put it down quickly. 

“What the hell is going on with you, YN?” Nicholas asks, already by your side, taking your hands away from the counter and inspecting them in case you burned yourself. You look at him blankly and shrug. 

“I must have overslept.” you say lamely. He rolls his eyes, seemingly annoyed but you can tell he was just worried. When had you started to read him so well? 

“I’ll say.” he mutters, letting your hands go then scanning the table to check for any spillages. You were in an office after all; coffee spillages were the most common hazard. “Do you need a wake up call, Mrs Wang?” he quizzes, leaning closer to inspect your face.

“This feels like a trick question.” you blurt out loud. He was still up close, not making a shift away even when he chuckles at your response. 

“Gosh, YN, you’re such an over-thinker.” he says. “We should work on that.” he hums, still looking at you intently. 

“How?” you mumble, still drowsy. 

“Like this…” he trails off, stepping closer to you. You’re starting to feel a sense of deja vu and it’s because his face is literal inches from yours. Maybe it was because of your dream, but somehow you were desensitised to him being in that proximity and didn’t try to create any distance between you.  

You almost start panicking, but it’s more of a dull afterthought. “Don’t think.” he whispers, lips hovering over yours.

It’s too late to think, you note. 

You move, catching his mouth with yours, reaching up to hold his cheek for balance. 

And then you’re stumbling back, Nicholas guiding you toward your desk, lifting you to sit on the edge, papers flying as you swipe a hand back to make space. 

Was it sleep deprivation? Was it complete and utter lack of self-control? You had no idea, but you didn’t need to be told twice about not thinking; all you could comprehend right now was how badly you wanted to keep kissing Nicholas. Nothing else mattered in that moment.

He seemed to share that thought because he made no effort to de-escalate the situation despite you two being in your office, in broad daylight, with presumably all your co-workers outside. 

If you were using your brain, you’d worry what they would think if they found the two of you - the daughter of the chairman and her husband from the merging company - behaving like a couple of crazy teenagers during office hours. 

But you weren’t using your brain. 

You were using your hands, pulling at Nicholas’ tie to undo the loop and throw it to the side. Your fingers found the buttons of his shirt easily, popping each one from top to bottom, then sliding the garment off his shoulders. One of his hands had made itself comfortable squeezing your thigh, shoving your skirt up to expose your leg.

Your hands wander up and down his torso, trying to memorise to feeling of every inch of skin, as if it was the most important thing in your life. His hands rest in your bunched up skirt, thumbs playing with the skin just covered by your underwear and you just want him to get rid of it already. 

But he doesn’t; instead he keeps teasing the skin around it, fingers meandering over your thighs and hips. You whine into his mouth in protest, hoping he gets the message. 

And you wonder if he might have if it wasn’t for the distant beeping sound that gradually became louder and louder.

You open your eyes with gasp when you finally wake up.

The beeping sound is loud and clear and coming from your nightstand. You smack your phone to snooze the alarm and sigh.  

This time you’re in your bed, the ceiling of your room above you, and early morning sunlight streaming in through your window. 

You’re panting, chest rising and falling rapidly, way too hot and sweaty under the covers. You thrash around wildly, as if fighting your blankets until you’re sure that this is definitely reality and you’re 100% awake now. 

So all of that…all of it, was a dream?

You clamp a hand over your mouth to muffle the panicked squeak that almost escapes you. You have to sit up and attempt to calm down. 

It wasn’t real, none of it was, thankfully, none of that had occurred in real life, you tell yourself. It was all in your imagination. 

“It’s not real.” you whisper out loud. 

So why did it feel so real, if it wasn’t? 

There’s real heat radiating off your skin, a slight sheen of sweat over it and your covers are a mess and there’s a very real ache in your core, one that you wish you couldn’t feel right now. You reach down and find your fears confirmed with the slick that you find drenching your underwear. 

For a hazy moment, your brain jumps to the image of Nicholas smirking at you, amused at your circumstances if he found out. 

He’d never let you breathe if he knew. 

Then your brain jumps to the image of him lapping it all up with his tong-

“No!” you exclaim. “Stop thinking, just stop.” you will yourself, massaging your temples with two fingers. You hurry to get up and try to snap out of it, chugging the water you’d left on your nightstand. As you drank, you realised how parched you were - you needed to rehydrate after that horror episode. 

You needed to take a shower too but you decided to make a cup of coffee first, since caffeine was the next best thing if you didn’t want to start your journey to alcoholism at 7 in the morning, though it may be justified after what you just experienced. 

You glance in the mirror before leaving the room, seeing the ratty, oversized t-shirt you slept in crumpled but falling to just underneath your thighs. Now that you think about it, you should have known it was a dream because you definitely wouldn’t wear a nightdress that nice to bed.

You smooth over your bedhead a little and shrug; the faster you get coffee, the faster you can wash this whole nightmare away. 

You poke your head out of the door first, listening out for any movement. 

There’s quiet sounds coming from the kitchen, so Nicholas was definitely awake. Before you? He must have meetings or something. You decide to brave it and just get in and out. 

You creep up the hallway and practically sneak into the kitchen in your own home since you didn’t want to alert him to your presence. He’s got those giant headphones on with his back to you as he cooks something in a pan at the stove. 

You felt a bit exposed in your little t-shirt and damp panties but you knew he’d seen you in less, in fact, he’d seen you na-

Do not go there, you willed your brain. Now’s not the time to remember embarrassing shit.

You get to the kitchen and Nicholas notices your movement, turning to greet you.

“Morning.” he slides the headphones down to rest on his neck. He looks at you for a moment and you think this is it, he knows, he’s a mind reader, but then he turns back to his food without a word.   

“Hey.” you find a mug and get to the coffee machine. You knew you could practically do this in thirty seconds flat, so you moved as if you were running late for a meeting (it was simply a hypothetical situation but it wouldn’t hurt to practice it like a drill). 

“You want?” Nicholas asks, tipping the pan towards you to show its contents. He’s frying eggs. 

“No, thanks.” you say quickly and snap the button on the machine. You can’t help but tense up as if he’s going to say something more. Could he tell what happened? Could he sense there was something wrong with you?

“‘Kay,” he says. “Can you get me a mug too?” he asks, keeping his eyes on the eggs. 

“Sure.” you grab one as the machine whirrs. So far, so good. You were acting normal. Totally unsuspicious. 

The machine finishes its thing and you pour the cups, putting sugar into yours by habit. Your stomach growls so you decide to get some toast too even if that means staying in the kitchen longer. 

You busy yourself on the other side of the counter but look up when Nicholas moves to pick up a coffee cup. He picks it up and takes a sip. You realise it’s the one you poured for yourself with the sugar. Why didn’t he notice? He usually didn’t have sugar in his. Actually he usually had an iced Americano but that’s a whole other thing in itself. 

“Something wrong?” he asks when he finds you watching him.

“That one had sugar in it.” you say. 

“Oh.” he looks at it, as if he would be able to tell by looking at it. Dumbass. “Sorry, here.” he hands it back to you and you take it, putting it on the counter. 

Normally you wouldn’t care about sharing mugs since you were married - like technically - but you weren’t strangers, that’s what you meant, but right now you looked at it, thinking about how his lips had been there and that yours would be too-

Your toast resurfaces and you almost keel over in relief. Time to get the fuck out of there. 

You throw the bread on a plate and attempt to scat, bumping into Nicholas, who had silently moved to your other side, raiding the fridge. Luckily, you hadn’t picked up the hot coffee yet, or you would be wearing it right now. 

Nicholas is just as startled to find you up in his grill, milk carton forgotten in the fridge as he lets the door fall shut. 

So you stay for a split second, a Mexican standoff.

The eerie deja vu begins again and this time you’re determined to call the shots. You could not allow yourself to just fall into his arms. Not that he had any clue about all that, of course. But you did, your body did and it was starting to react as soon as Nicholas was near you.   

At the risk of your own demise, you make the first move. 

“Your eggs are burning.” you lie and watch as his eyes widen and he rushes back to the pan. In the meantime, you snatch the cup and plate and run.

You make it to the safety of your room and rest your back against the door, exhaling deeply.  

Oh god, that’s bad. That’s very, very, truly not good. 

You’re having weird thoughts about your husband, but then again, who were you really supposed to have those thoughts about? Jake from accounting? That guy Sunghoon across the hall? Heesung from your tort law class? No. 

It kinda checked out that you were somehow into Nicholas - at least on a subconscious level. He was something else entirely. He’d just made your brain short circuit and you had no idea why. 

Well, you did. He was Nicholas. He was your husband. 

And you could totally have sex with him, since that’s what married couples did, even fake ones such as yourselves probably did. You had to think about it - could you bring this up to him? It’s not like you hadn’t talked about it before. 

You’d have to establish boundaries - it’s not like you were in love with him - it would be like a friends with benefits thing at most, nothing to freak out about. 

Your husband was stupid fine; a total smoke show, who could really blame you for thinking like that? It’s a miracle you held out this long, right?  

It was true you’d lasted this long, but you also had your pride on the line - you weren’t the type of person to beg or to ask for anything, so how could you even consider asking him if he wanted to have sex with you?  

You knew you should just forget about the whole ordeal and move on.

So why couldn’t you?

*

Another day, another bullshit situation waiting to happen.

Work was slow and you were more than ready to leave since you’d had enough of office noise and the never-ending pile of paperwork that seemed to arrive in your email inbox every five minutes like clockwork. 

You wanted nothing more to leave but there was still some time left in the work day. 

Your email pinged as if on cue, and you sighed before clicking on the icon on your computer screen. 

You stopped short. This was totally unexpected. 

It was from the people you were negotiating with over the contract you’d lost. They had sent you an email containing a copy of the list of things you’d lost with the meeting notes. They had also requested a meeting next week to go over the revised stuff. The most shocking part of all was perhaps that it was all serious; it was definitely not some kind of passive-aggressive attempt to humiliate you, as there sometimes was in corporate relations (you would know, your legal team was often the one who started that sort of thing, you weren’t proud of it). 

You emailed them back immediately thanking them and confirming the date, then apologising profusely that you’d lacked on your end. You hesitated for a moment, but asked why the sudden reminder of the details from the first meeting. 

The email wooshed away and for a while you forgot about it. 

You were packing up your things to leave when the reply came. 

“Dear Mrs L/N…blah blah blah…” you muttered. “…your husband got in contact and explained that there was a logistical mishap with your papers and got the edits off of us…” you sit and stare at the screen. 

Your what had done what now? 

You took a moment to process. 

According to them, Nicholas had found their contact information and told them that there was a problem with your notes, and they just gave them to him?

What had he done? Surely no one would do that, right? Even for their wife? And why would they have allowed that? What could he have possibly said to them to make this happen?

Probably just told them his full name with a flash of that charming smile and voilà - they probably fell to their knees and begged him to take the edits. Regardless, he’d got them…for you.

You were a little winded, if you were being honest. You’d had so much anxiety over what had transpired with the contract, that you’d tried to block out most of it until you had to actually work on the matter. 

But Nicholas had tried to help you behind your back. Why didn’t he tell you? Probably because he knew you’d never let him to do that for you, yet it was probably the nicest thing any person had ever done for you. Saved you more humiliation and strife so you didn’t have to endure it. 

He really did that for you.

You felt like crying and screaming but like in a happy way for once. 

You couldn’t wait to go home and- and what?

If you saw Nicholas right this very second, you couldn’t trust yourself - you’d probably do something dumb like hug him or kiss him. Or both. 

You had to make it up to him, to thank him. 

So you did the only thing you could think he would really love.

…

The warmth that wafted through your apartment was far too strong for this to become a surprise but you kept cooking, making dish after dish, still on a high over what Nicholas had done for you. 

People didn’t tend to do a lot of nice things for you, at least not genuinely and with good intentions - usually it was because of your money - so when someone did, you always remembered and internalised it. It made you want to do good things too. 

It hadn’t escaped your attention that between you and Nicholas, the language of gratitude and affection was food, so it wasn’t difficult to pick out your thank you gesture. 

The front door beeped open and you heard the shuffle of slippered feet coming toward your kitchen.

“My god, it’s a sauna in here! What are you doing?” Nicholas exclaims when he comes through. 

“I’m fulfilling our beautiful kitchen’s purpose.” you state. “Did you have dinner yet?” 

“Nope, I’m starving.” he says, already eyeing the dishes on the table as he washed his hands. 

“Good, sit down. I made it for you.” you say, turning back to the stove, mostly to avoid Nicholas’ inquisitive eyes. 

“And to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asks, sitting down.

You turn and look at him. For a moment you think about how to phrase it, your tongue poking out your cheek. 

“Thank you for getting the contract back.” you say earnestly. You watch as recollection appears on his handsome face, and he nods modestly. 

“It’s alright; it’s the least I could do.” he replies. You smile fondly at him. 

“What did you end up telling them? I really am dying to know because I know you definitely didn’t tell them the truth.” you chuckle. Then you hesitate. “You didn’t, right?” you start to sound panicked.  

“No, of course not.” Nicholas reassures you. “I just told them our dog ate the contract.” he gives you small shrug. You think you misheard him. He must read into your reaction because he rushed to correct himself. “I’m joking! I just told them it blew away through an open window. It’s totally plausible, airing out offices and such.” 

You sigh in relief. “Alright, even I could believe that. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Nicholas hums. “Now, tell me all about this feast.”   

~

CHAPTER 5A - ADDICTED (smut MINORS DNI)

also memes!!!!!

~

a/n: thanks for reading, feedback is always appreciated <3 welp things are finally getting real for YN lol, hope that helps. also fun tmi - i looked at a photo of nico and went ‘hey husband’, then the next one of euijoo and went ‘hey husband’s husband’ lol, might explore this dynamic more tbh

*copyright 2021- © momobani 

[artykeldeo]

how i do my (coloring) shit

ok so literally nobody's gonna see this im just doing a tumblr post so i can compile as many fuckin images as i want

first step: do ya line art. bf from friday night funkin is gonna be our subject fo today note: put the white highlights on a separate layer

aight you followin? step two. ya phlat colors

set your lineart layer's blending mode to multiply (shown in the flat lineart color as well) while my lineart color is usually a very deep navy blue, this can also work with black

step three: make a clipping layer/lock the transparency over your line art and then color that shit to make it pop

i unhid the clipping to give you a general idea of what i did to help with my color picking. i hueshift depending on what i want it to look like and go from there. if i dont like the color, i adjust the saturation and/or the value to help with that there's no method to my madness, i just kinda do what i think looks good LOL

step four: shading time! use dark saturated tones to help with making it pop.

here's what the layer blending looks like at normal with 100% opacity

note how i'm mixing in multiple different colors that seem to mirror the tones in the lineart! not required, but helps keep a piece cohesive. mix in different values to really help with this!

step four addendum: this is not required at all but i definitely like the look of it. take your shading layer and duplicate it. take both shading layers to 100% opacity

now gaussian blur the duplicated layer to however you want the thing to look!

and then adjust accordingly!

there's nothing i do this for other than to give a softer look to my shading without wasting my time blending it lol

step 5: highlights :3 this is what REALLY makes the colors go off

do the same thing you did with your shading to add some more interest in the highlights! you can see this particularly where i did the hat highlights

you're basically done here LOL! buuuuut... if you're feeling quirky, you can read below for some extra stuff to make this boy pop!

have fun colorin shit!

EXTRA STEPS!

extra step one: ok so bear with me. y'all remember that fuckin pizza trend? u know this one

ok well do that and blur the hell outta it

also not required but might help: duplicate the pizza layer and use your different blending modes

lineart layer uses the pin light blending option at 100% opacity, the color layer uses overlay blending option at 70% opacity

extra step two: use highlights like you're using a white gel pen on a traditional piece

bada bing bada boom. there he is. the beeper!

hopefully this was coherent enough! if y'all have any questions, rb this post and ask in the tabs OR ask in my ask box! thank you guys so much!

[giovanni-solos]

Hello, How Are You?

- Day 3: Highschool au (with a smidge of the Sunset prompt)

Fair warning, I didn’t exactly write all of the day prompts yet so I’ll be going on hiatus until I’m off school for the weekend and have more free time, so maybe I’ll be dual posting missed prompts with current ones then? Hopefully i will. I’ll try.

And if not, this week has been a lot of fun and actually helped me distract myself from a lot of stressors. Seeing everybody come together for another DazAtsu week was fun and I’m glad to have been apart of it!

Read it on Ao3 or, right here.

The bell rings to signify the start of the break, Atsushi is pulled from his thoughts by the sound, still messing with the longer strands of his hair. Some of his peers put their tables together, others text friends to meet them here in class and a few walk out. Atsushi looks out the window at the clouded sky and watches them move slowly when his phone buzzes.

He pulls his phone out of his bag and looks at the message Dazai sent him, a low quality image he found somewhere on the internet followed up by “mom made extra food for you today, come eat”

With a fond smile and a soft sigh Atsushi gets out of his head, heading past the sliding doors into the school halls. He finds Dazai at the stairs already waiting for him with a smile and two small boxes, extending one to him as they meet on the steps.

“How was math? Bad?” Dazai asks him as they sit in the corner against the wall.

To which Atsushi replies in disdain; “I won’t be surprised if we both fail it this year and get held back”

“No no, I meant like the teacher. Is the teacher strict?” Dazai clarifies for him, Atsushi shrugs still unsure of that. “Well, hopefully not..”

They open up their lunches and dig into their food, occasionally stealing bites from eachother as they sit in comfortable silence. Not a lot of other students pass by this staircase, and for the past two years this is where they’ve been eating since the pair of boys met during their first year. It was a very stereotypical experience, they crashed into eachother and mixed up some stuff they were bringing to their teachers, and then just happened to keep meeting there.

“What university will you go to after graduation?” Atsushi explains, pausing before taking another bite of his food.

Dazai hums in thought, he hasn’t even bothered to look into any that are nearby and now Atsushi’s asking him?? He’ll know the truth just from the look on his face. “Uhh… isn’t it kind of early for that?”

“Well, I don’t think so.” Atsushi closes up the small container Dazai handed to him “I mean, I want to plan accordingly so I can keep being around you, you know that right?”

“Because you’ll get lonely without me pestering you?” Dazai asks smugly.

“Exactly that, yeah.”

“So you want to go to university with me?” The brunette chuckles. He doesn’t think anybody is nearby, he reaches out and interlocks his arm with Atsushi’s and scoots closer. “Are you sure?”

Atsushi nods happily at him and adjusts in his spot. “Of course I’m sure, because I know good things will happen if we both keep working hard together”

They’re close now, Atsushi has his arm around Dazai’s shoulder and their faces are mere inches apart. They hear the bell chime again telling them to return to their classes and both scramble to gather their things before parting ways again.

…

Atsushi is sitting back in his classroom daydreaming through the last ten minutes of school. The bell to go home rings and he’s the first to jump up from his seat and bolt out the door despite his teacher telling him to walk. Even Dazai can hardly catch up to him when Atsushi runs by to get outside.

“You’re too fast!” Dazai claims as he holds onto Atsushi’s bag, barely catching his breath. “Can’t we slow down???”

Atsushi pays him no mind, running to the crosswalk and crossing the street. They stop there and Dazai leans against a wall panting and out of breath.

“I-” Dazai gulps, standing up straight “listen I know you have to pick Kyouka up but can’t you slow down??”

“But I’m always right here when she gets out.” Atsushi comments as he heads toward a separate gate, “it’s my job to walk her to the station wether I go home or not”

Dazai wheezes, but he doesn’t complain again.

They wait together for a few minutes before a short looking girl runs up and hugs Atsushi from behind, his sister Kyouka who they gaurd on her way to the station. it’s a quiet walk, and when the station is in view she runs off on them to head home. While Atsushi however keeps following Dazai, and without her to look after that’s where all his attention goes.

“Want to stay for dinner tonight?” The brunette asks him kindly, “you can even stay after. The servers won’t finish updating until later so we’ve got time to kill.”

“Hmm. Sounds like a plan.” Is Atsushi’s quick response, they hold hands as they walk along the less crowded streets. the sun sets along their horizon and their shoulders bump together. This is all they need, a quiet moment to themselves.

[osarina]

hi carina !! havent been in ur inbox for a while, hru :)) i hope ur well >^< !!

i'm mainly here to ask if u have any writing tips/advice bc ur lit one of my fave bsd writers ever i adore all ur works sm and recently i've hated everything im writing ajkrnjekncvej SO IM WONDERING IF U HAVE ANY ADVICE CEJFCNJ (hopefully this isnt strange eabfihri)

you dont hafta answer this is u dont wanna btw !!! have a great day mwah <333

REDDDDDD MY SWEET LOVE BUG i've been doing okay!! work hasn't been as awful as i expected it to be, i rlly got lucky with my boss HAHAH - how are you doing?? you had exams right?? i hope they all went well!! sorry it took me so long to answer this one, but i wanted to actually be able to give u a good response so it had to wait until i had time i fear

IT'S NOT STRANGE, ur so sweet im giving u the softest forehead smooch. i'm sorry to hear you've been feeling that way about your writing though - i get it, trust me i do LOL, i go through days and weeks where i literally am revulsed by every word i put down in a doc. actually, i just went thru it like 2 days ago while writing the first chapter of civilian dazai so it's all fresh in the head LOL

honestly, i think the most important tip i have is really basic but u should never force yourself to write just for the sake of getting something out. like, i've done it before and whenever i do, i'm soooo unhappy with the results that it usually makes me go through a huge writing slump -> this happened with uu6 actually, i was so busy but i was trying to force the chapter out on time that i ended up rewriting it like 3 times because i hated it so much. finally i decided to move on to write some pmzai drabbles to clear my head & then came back to uu6 when i started feeling it again and behold, it came with ease. sometimes when i want to write but none of my wips are doing it for me, i'll literally conjure up a huge list of tropes and just read through it until one pops out to me LOL and then ill work on that

another i think basic piece of advice is reading. whether its fanfics, or novels, or whatever. whenever i have trouble liking what i write, i find something to read. reading is actually how i taught myself to write HAHAH my go tos are fantasy/scifi- tolkein, martin, herbert, rf kuang, i've been meaning to read sanderson but haven't had the time yet. honestly, in general, if i have free time and i'm not writing something, 9/10 i'm reading something.

i think plotting is also really important!! even for like one-shots, sometimes i get so lost in the writing that i lose focus of what the fic was originally supposed to be about and that frustrates me into deleting everything i've written. so something i do is i list out all of the scenes i want to see in a chapter or a one-shot before i start writing it so that i don't lose focus.

dialogue is a huge hurdle for me - sometimes i struggle to figure out whether or not my dialogue is realistic, so LOL sometimes i just sit there and speak it out loud, acting out a conversation with myself to see if it flows properly and then adjust accordingly. sometimes i do it for like descriptions/narration too if i think the narration isn't flowing or is too clunky. reading things out loud is a go-to way for me to figure out what's wrong with my writing.

and then lastly, this is more of a mental thing than anything else, but i've just slowly had to teach myself not to be too hard on myself. like i'll get so mad if something doesn't come out exactly how i envisioned it, and it used to genuinely make me so disappointed that i couldn't bring myself to write for days. so i've just slowly been working myself into a mentality telling myself that it doesn't have to be perfect to be great, yknow. and ten times out ten, you're seeing faults in your writing that no one else will take notice of.

so the whole tldr:

only write what you WANT to write, dont force urself to finish/write something

read when you can, whether its fanfic or novels or whatever u can get ur hands on

plot things out so you don't get lost

read things out loud that aren't making sense

work on not being so hard on yourself

[sicknessbysalem]

tw emeto, treatment, mentions of serious illness, single dialogue mention of another character suffering an overdose, self doubt

for all of those lovely readers who have been so eagerly waiting to figure out what’s up with kostya, here is your fic.

*kotyonok means kitten, there is other Ukrainian dialogue in the fic but it is answered to in english

if you have requests/comments/questions/concerns, send an ask (please i beg)

Kostya wants to hide in his hoodie the minute Amanda comes into the room.

Well, technically, legally, it’s Lana’s hoodie. Lana’s hoodie from high school at that. When he played sports, Kostya couldn’t remember which one right now.

“I’m sorry Kostya,” She said.

Kostya was sure that Amanda was a wonderful woman outside of the hospital. Really. But right now, shes the last person he wants to see. In fact, he tells himself he hates her. And in this kind of moment he does.

“It’s procedure,” Kostya said, giving in.

Amanda nodded, “Has anything changed?”

Kostya thought for a second. Anymore his thoughts were hazy. Days and nights blurred together. He couldn’t think.

Thankfully he doesn’t have to. Lana looks at him and offers a reassuring smile, “You want me to start?”

Kostya nodded, pulling up his sleeve so Amanda had access to the vein she needed.

“So, then Lana,” Amanda said, “Anything new? The same?”

“The things I know about are the fatigue, the nausea, the lightheadedness, and the lack of appetite,” Lana said, shrugging.

It’s enough for Kostya to take over, “Headaches, sensitivity, cold a lot, lots of feeling like I might pass out but…”

“Have you passed out at all since last week’s appointment?” Amanda asked.

“Sunday afternoon,” Lana answered. Lana heard Kostya sigh defeatedly and click his tongue. “We went grocery shopping. And yes, yes I know he shouldn’t go out more than he needs to but-“

“It’s alright Lana,” Amanda said, “What happened?”

“He was fine… like at the store and everything, it was after we put everything up he just…” Lana tried to explain.

“I remember getting dizzy and grabbing the counter, next thing I know you somehow moved me and I was waking up on the couch.” Kostya said.

Amanda frowned, “Sounds like overexertion.”

Kostya nodded slowly.

“What about everything else?” Amanda said, “Bruising? Nosebleeds? Or your gums when you brush your teeth?”

Kostya nodded, “They don’t happen as much. Well, I mean I was anemic before this all happened so I’m used to bruising and my gums bleeding. I had a nosebleed… I think Monday?”

“Did you feel dizzy or anything after?” Amanda asked, getting Kostya set up.

“Dizzy, but I sat down and Lana grabbed some water so I was fine,” Kostya said.

“I think you’re down to get another round of blood work next week,” Amanda said, “We’ll see how the disease is behaving. Better, worse, the same. And we’ll adjust your treatment accordingly.”

Kostya nodded, “I’m just ready for it to be over… I don’t like feeling sick all the time.”

“Unfortunately thats what the aplastic anemia does,” Amanda shrugged, “It’s not cancer. But things like leukemia and others… well, they do the same. But, that’s why you get these sessions.”

Kostya nodded again, “I know. I just…. Hate it.”

-

The sterile hospital room was filled with the soft hum of machinery as Kostya settled into the treatment chair.

At first, Lana's touch was gentle and comforting, his hand softly petting Kostya's hair as they waited for the treatment to begin.

At the start. There was small conversation. Kostya hated silence when he was here. He hated it.

“How’s your album coming?” Kostya asked, shifting to look up at Lana.

“Slowly,” Lana said, “Lex is great. Soren too. The girls are phenomenal. But it’s still not the same without you.”

“Hopefully after next week’s blood work they might clear me to go to the studio and work again,” Kostya shrugged. He really hoped they would. He missed working in the studio. Missed going with Lana. Missed everything.

Lana continued stroking his hand over Kostya’s bangs, “Hopefully. But I promise, nobody is upset about you not being able to work. Well, nobody but you.”

“It just sucks,” Kostya said, “I mean Lex was back after three months and I’ve been out for six… it sucks.”

“I know,” Lana said, “But Lex’s situation was different than yours is right now. Neither were worse or better. But they are different.”

“Still, feels shitty that he was able to go back to both music and paramedic work in less time than I’ve been away because of-“

“You have aplastic anemia,” Lana said, “You get chemotherapy three times a week. Lex suffered an overdose that miraculously did minimal long term damage. You both lucked out to an extent, he’s alive and functional as before and you have this, not leukemia. But what you’re going through takes more out of you than Lex’s circumstances did to him.”

Kostya nodded. Lana was right. It wasn’t fair to compare his circumstances to Lex, he knew that. But it still messed with him more than he wanted to admit.

Lana continued petting his hair and Kostya leaned into the affection, grateful for Lana's comfort.

As the clock ticked on and the treatment round progressed, Kostya's symptoms started to show up.

First there was no conversation on Kostya’s end. Lana was talking, Lana always talked to fill the silence. The chemicals coursing through his veins left him feeling dizzy and nauseous, a familiar yet unwelcome sensation that he had grown accustomed to enduring.

Lana noticed the subtle shift in Kostya's demeanor, the way his breathing became shallow and his complexion paled.

He continued for a little bit, talking and petting Kostya’s hair. But as soon as he felt sweat on Kostya’s forehead, he stopped. Sensing that physical contact might exacerbate Kostya's discomfort, Lana withdrew his hand, giving Kostya space while still remaining by his side.

Kostya appreciated Lana's understanding, knowing that Lana was trying to support him in the best way possible.

"You're doing great, kotyonok," Lana whispered, offering words of encouragement as Kostya closed his eyes, trying to focus on something other than the queasiness in his stomach.

But Kostya's condition continued to deteriorate despite Lana's efforts to provide comfort. His nausea intensified, accompanied by waves of dizziness that left him feeling disoriented and weak. He struggled to maintain his composure, his hands gripping the armrests of the treatment chair tightly as he tried to ride out the discomfort.

Lana's concern deepened as he watched Kostya's distress escalate.

"Kotyonok, you look like you’re going to be sick…" Lana said gently, his voice filled with worry.

Kostya forced a weak smile, trying to mask the severity of his symptoms. "I'm okay, Lana," he replied, his voice trembling slightly.

He hoped that convincing himself he wouldn't be sick would somehow keep the nausea at bay, but deep down, he knew it was a losing battle.

Lana's voice faded into the background as Kostya's focus shifted to the overwhelming urge to throw up. He clenched his jaw, trying to hold back the inevitable, but his body had other plans.

As the minutes passed, Kostya's condition only worsened. The queasiness in his stomach became unbearable, and he could feel the telltale signs of an impending bout of vomiting.

Lana heard Kostya’s breaths grow more shallow. Panicked. He was already on his feet grabbing the basin when Kostya finally spoke up.

"I-I think I need..." Kostya's words were cut off as he leaned over the basin, retching uncontrollably as the contents of his stomach emptied in a violent upheaval.

Lana's heart ached at the sight of Kostya's suffering. He wanted nothing more than to take away his pain and discomfort.

"It's okay, kotyonok. Let it out," Lana murmured, his voice filled with empathy. He knew that this was part of the harsh reality of chemotherapy, a necessary but grueling process that took a toll on Kostya's already fragile health.

Instinctively, Lana found himself starting to rub Kostya’s back. A lapse in judgement. Kostya reached far enough to nudge Lana’s hand off of him, hoping that was the last of the vomiting but knowing there was more.

Lana's heart sank as Kostya nudged his hand away, a silent indication of his discomfort with physical contact during moments of nausea. Lana immediately withdrew, cursing himself for the lapse in judgment. He knew better than to touch Kostya during these moments, but his concern had momentarily overridden his better judgment.

"Oh kotyonok… I'm sorry," Lana whispered, stepping back and giving Kostya the space he needed to cope with the intense nausea.

He felt a pang of guilt for adding to Kostya's distress, even unintentionally.

Kostya continued to retch into the basin, his body convulsing with each wave of sickness. Lana watched helplessly, wishing there was more he could do to ease Kostya's suffering.

After what felt like an eternity, Kostya's stomach finally settled, leaving him exhausted and drained. He leaned back in the treatment chair, his breathing labored and his face pale.

Kostya felt dizzy. Almost lightheaded even. Throwing up took more energy out of kostya than he was sure he had, and the thought of getting up and getting out to the car, let alone going home, felt like more than Kostya could handle.

And yet he wanted nothing more than to go back home. To lay down in his room. To be anywhere but here and sleep all this off.

His breathing was the first thing he noticed. It was shallow, breathless. More than usual. Definitely because of the lack of energy, existing alone was taking too much energy.

“Hey… kotyonok, you okay?” Lana asked softly.

Kostya shook his head, “meni… meni ne po sobi…”

Even though it was his mother tongue, the words felt so foreign coming out.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Lana said softly, grabbing Kostya’s hand and rubbing his thumb on the back of Kostya’s hand, “But we can go home soon and you can sleep this off.”

Kostya shifted, pulling the hood up, covering his eyes. Lana's worry deepened as he observed Kostya's exhausted state. The toll of the vomiting was evident, and Lana wished he could do more to alleviate Kostya's discomfort.

Just then, a gentle knock on the door signaled the arrival of a nurse. Amanda is back.

"Excuse me, Kostya," Amanda said softly as she entered the room, her voice carrying a reassuring tone. "We're almost done with your treatment. I know it's been tough, but you're doing great."

“He got sick, and he’s exhausted,” Lana said.

“Ya mozhу hovoryty za sebe,” Kostya said.

“You’re so tired you’re speaking Ukrainian,” Lana said, “I don’t doubt Amanda is smart but I highly doubt she can speak Ukrainian. I don’t think she’ll be much help if you speak for yourself.”

“I can see that,” Amanda said softly, “Are you still nauseous Kostya?”

Kostya managed a weak nod.

The nurse approached Kostya's chair, carrying a small tray with a cup of water and a packet of anti-nausea medication.

“I have some medication here that should help with the nausea," she explained, handing the packet to Kostya. "It might make you feel a bit drowsy, but it should provide some relief."

Kostya accepted the medication gratefully, pulling his hood back and swallowing it with a sip of water. He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes as he hoped for the medication to take effect soon.

"Thank you, Amanda," Lana said softly, as Amanda started getting Kostya ready to go, "We appreciate everything you do."

Amanda smiled warmly. "It's my pleasure. Just remember to take it easy for the rest of the day, Kostya," she advised before leaving the room.

As the effects of the medication started to kick in and Kostya's nausea gradually subsided, Lana felt a sense of relief wash over him.

“Do you want to wait it out?” Lana asked, “Or do you want me to help you out of here?”

Kostya hummed, thinking, before sighing softly, “Ya khochu piti…”

“Okay, we can leave,” Lana said, helping Kostya stand. “I’ve got you. I promise.”

[salvadorbonaparte]

weighing in on the ppl telling you not to study in the US—I am living in Germany now for my MA and studied undergrad in the US. I would actually argue the academic rigor in the US is a strong contender for why you might want to go! But there are some very important things to consider about the state of public transport wherever it is you’re going. My US uni had a uni bus system and technically buses within the city area, but cars were and are the main way to travel in most US small-medium (and even large!) cities with the exception of a select few. Can you reach a supermarket with a bus? Is it a cheap one or overpriced because they are taking advantage of folks without car access? Can you reach medical facilities or a PCP in your plan with transport? Is accommodation easily accessible within the areas public transit serves? These may not necessarily be deal breakers for you (they weren’t for me, it was fine), but people do ride share or taxi to these locations because of the difficulties associated with getting to them. Obviously, if you’re in NYC, this will not be an issue, but prices will be like nothing you’ve experienced before (but hopefully your compensation is adjusted accordingly!! If you have any thoughts on commuting into NYC from NJ, I have lots of experience lol).

Separately (and I’m sure you’re doing this), look and see if the PhD students have had any recent complaints or strikes. My uni (comparable to Amherst as a public institution) recently had a several week strike over working conditions for PhD students. May be worth seeing if they’ve made any gains, or if folks have long standing issues with the administration. Just food for thought, I’m sure most unis or locations have their own issues, and I really cannot deny that within the US itself you will be able to practice quite a few languages if you’re lucky.

Happy to answer any questions you might otherwise have, and good luck! I’ve been following you for what feels like ages, and your MA application journey really inspired me with mine :)

The places I'm looking at are NYC and Amherst and the first has a good public transport system and the other a free public transport system I've been told works well enough (and my standards are low by now).

I've actually thinking about commuting from NJ and would love some input. I'd be getting a fair amount of money but I know it's also a very expensive city.

My undergrad uni had like three strikes while I was studying there so I'd be able to handle that. I've been told Amherst is unionised which sounds good.

[thana-topsy]

You mentioned liking character healing and improvement arcs..

If Neloth DID magically spawn out of spite, would you try to fix him or would you back off? Why?

If you’d fix him, what do you think it would take? Do you personally believe it would work?

Though Neloth being alive isn’t realistic at all (I hope.), this is an on earth irl scenario

Oh what a fun question and I'm going to take it way too seriously... so unhinged rambling below the cut.

So for one, I absolutely love healing and redemption arcs, and I've written quite a few, but never does it actually involve "fixing" anyone. Saying "I could fix him" is a fun meme, but an absolutely bunk practice. It implies that I am somehow the arbiter of what someone should be like, and that it is within my power to mold them into my perfect idea of who they should be. It takes away the other person's agency completely. So while I'll use it jokingly, and while I (as the author) have godlike control over my characters in a sense, once I put them onto the page with their own logic and motivations, I just stick them in scenarios and then they play things out according to the logic and motivations that I've given them. In this sense, they have the closest approximation to "free will" as any fictional character can feasibly have. Obviously, plots are plots, and I, as their God, have my own motivations and ideas, but I'm a very flexible God, and if they react in a situation that takes the plot in a different direction, I adapt accordingly.

OKAY BUT TO YOUR ACTUAL QUESTION: If Neloth turned up on my front porch tomorrow, in our world, would I try to fix him? Obviously my answer is 'no'. I think Neloth is wonderful the way he is. But I would attempt to befriend him and earn his trust. And...I'd probably try to get him back to his reality.

In this scenario I can only assume his connection to Magnus has been severed by crossing into our reality. So he's magic-less, which will be a pretty traumatizing thing to experience, especially for someone like Neloth. It may very well kill him, if my headcanons about magicka extending his life are proven to be true, and if that was the case, I'd just make him comfortable until he either died or I could get him back to Tamriel.

If he isn't immediately withering away, we'd probably be able to settle into a routine as begrudging roommates after a bit of an adjustment period. I think through the trauma of losing his magic and being in a situation that is entirely out of his control, he'll be a little difficult to be around at first. Probably very unpleasant, honestly. But I think I could teach him about our world and get him interested in science to the point that he'd keep himself occupied and probably would take up experimentation. I feel like the man would love theoretical physics.

Would we fall in love? Probably not. And besides, I have a husband, and while he likes Neloth, I don't think he feels that way about him. So we won't be bringing a third into our marriage, not even a Telvanni wizard.

Hopefully I'd be able to get this poor elf back to his reality, but if not I'd love having him in my life, in whatever capacity, until he didn't want to be in my life anymore.

Thanks for such a fun question and for enabling me! I am out of control.

[tjemegames]

HSR: 2.4.1 AS, 2.4.1 PF, & 2.4.2 MoC Recaps

Another patch has come and gone which means it is once again time for me, your resident yapper, to talk about my endgame experience.

As previously mentioned in my last EGC recap post, the format for these has changed; I’ll be walking you through my thoughts and feelings for the last cycle of all three modes in this post. The sections were drafted out on the days that I completed the challenges (unlike past recaps), so you’re getting a better insight this time around.

I’ve also started filming my clears for the highest level of each mode because it seemed like a fun thing to include: the videos are meant to be a visual representation of my struggles/triumphs within the hardest parts of endgame. These videos are not guides; they’re just the raw footage of my completion runs, and solely intended for the enjoyment of anyone who might be interested in that type of thing. The videos are hosted on my YouTube so I’ll embed all three of them here (the section headings will also lead to them just in case something glitches out) for quick access.

As always, apologies for the image distortion: long photos and Tumblr do not mix well.

Alright, with all that out of the way, the yapping begins under the cut!

2.4.1 Apocalyptic Shadow

Dominated Evils was a very fitting name for this cycle of AS. Overall, it wasn’t very difficult to complete; I got my twelve stars within a total of three challenge waves!

I probably could’ve finished with two waves, but I decided to try the follow-up buff; relying on Aventurine was not the way to go here, I should've changed to the basic atk + additional dmg to weakness broken enemies buff. I won’t lie to you, DHIL dying (I wasn’t paying attention to my shield duration) and Hanya being slower than Tingyun during my initial attempt were also large factors in needing to reset. Once my relics were adjusted accordingly, I was able to put in a decent attempt.

Aventurine was very helpful for resisting Kafka’s domination and avoiding being frozen by the elites. I'm glad that the eff res buff from his shields worked in my favor on this side; if DHIL had gotten cc’d it would've set me back even more than I already was with the bad plays I was making. I should've reset when I messed up my rotation at 1655 AV, but I was being stubborn, so it is what it is.

Here are the builds I used for IV-I:

The Doomsday Beast felt much easier to deal with. Not sure if it’s because the team was better or simply because I was able to dispel any cc that happened with Gallager. The ease could also have been attributed to the fact that I didn’t have to think about skill points (thanks to Boothill’s e1) and knew exactly how my rotation was going to go regardless of how things played out. At the end of the day, this side carried the overall run and, ultimately, got me 27 points over the score that I needed to get. I could always try again to see if a better score is attainable, but I’ve already gotten the rewards so there’s no incentive left to make that worthwhile.

These are the builds I used for IV-II:

800 jades down, and two more endgame modes left for this cycle. Hopefully we’re in for another queen sweep!

Oh hey, look who’s back. Aha. So, there may not have been any incentive to try for a better score, but that didn't stop me from being motivated into doing so by the DHIL clear one of my discord friends did. Since I'm not usually one for “casual gaming” (which is not causal in the slightest), I only gave myself 12 reset attempts to achieve as high of a score as possible on IV-I:

First three resets: +203 points, bringing me up to 3198

Next three: +97 more points, taking me up to a grand total of 3295 (yippee!)

Last six: absolutely abysmal, I got endlessly cc’d and DHIL/Tingyun got obliterated every other run

Sadly, I couldn’t get to 7K points like I had been hoping, but I’m still pumped to have gotten as close as I did. And, on top of that, taking a second crack at IV-I allowed me to get new (shorter, far less embarrassing) footage of my DHIL clear. Doing so meant that I had to re-edit and re-upload the video for it; that was probably for the better though, nobody needed to watch me poorly battle Kafka for twelve minutes...

Anyway, that’s officially a wrap on AS for this patch!

Um, hey again. When I was reviewing the challenge data for the last set of attempts, I realized that I never changed my chosen buff for the first side (please hold for the internalized screaming at my unintentional self-sabotage.) Naturally, I gave AS one more shot with the correct buff equipped:

First reset: +46 points, bringing me up to 6973

Final reset: +153 points, making a grand total of 7126 (yippee! but with more excitement)

Over 7K points achieved! I'm free, for real this time. Can't believe I let the casual gaming demons get to me for Apocalyptic Shadow of all things. I think it's safe to say that I've sufficiently played though this mode for this patch. I'm interested to see what they do with the next one. My money is currently on having to fight Yanqing. We'll see if I was right about that in the next one of these.

What’s poppin’? It’s been two weeks, and I found myself back in AS because I rolled a great new piece for my resident dragon boy, Mr. Daniel Heng, the cuntiest dragon on the silver rails. I can’t add the build showcase here—I’ll hit my image limit early if I do—but trust me when I say it was a solid upgrade: the head rolled well enough to bump me up by 51 places on the SeeleLand leaderboards. I’m currently ranking in the top 1% of DHIL players (in my area) using the same build—number 26 to be exact! The new ranking motivated another set of runs out of me and I was able to increase my overall AS score by 102 points:

IV-I: Kafka vs e2 DHIL, e2 Hanya, e6 Tingyun, e0s1 Aventurine (3515 points)

IV-II: Doomsday Beast vs e2s1 Boothill, e1s1 Ruan Mei, e1 Bronya, e6 Gallagher (3713 points)

Totaling out for a final grand score of 7228 points with 25 cumulative challenge attempts! Great stuff, a genuinely fun time: Apocalyptic Shadow is quickly working its way towards being my favorite of the endgame modes. Since I’m quite satisfied with how everything played out, that’s a wrap on this section!

I also recorded a Honkai: Support Rail bonus run of IV-I with E4 Dan Heng (4-star) if you’re interested in seeing that!

2.4.1 Pure Fiction

Words of Deceit was [redacted colorful complaining]. I didn't think it was possible for my hatred towards PF to increase, but here we are. I’ll admit that it was partially my fault for being both sleepy and hangry. I’d argue that it was mostly the whimsicality's fault for being rather ineffective overall, felt like sabotage to me. It's fine though, I managed to obtain all twelve stars within ten attempts (yippee!)

Clearing this time around would've been a lot worse without team suggestions from discord—big shoutout and thanks to the folks there for their encouragement and assistance!

So, this PF was the fastest I've ever cleared. It was also the most frustrated I've been whilst playing this mode. Usually, the struggle only applies to stage IV; this time around, stage III was the reason for my infuriation. I sincerely don't know what came over me, but I was malding enough to have to force myself to go back to sleep. I tried four different teams and couldn't hit 60K points: the closest I came was just over 59K and that was with all of my focus and Frankensteining together better builds for every character that I tried to use. It was tragic to say the least. Ultimately, sleep, food, fresh eyes, and the 8th attempt were the saving graces that allowed me to move on to the true challenge, stage IV.

Stage IV took significantly less tries; I only ended up taking two attempts to get the three-star clear! Aside from having to change my buffs and making sure that my speed tuning was right for IV-II, I didn't have to put in all that much effort. Still a bit baffled by that if I'm being honest: I thought I was in for a very tumultuous experience considering how the previous stage had gone. Thankfully, that was not the case, and I can move on from this for the time being.

These are the builds I used for IV-I:

Some of Herta’s stat information is incorrect because she was actually lvl 60 at the time of this run; Fribbels only generates maxed out showcases and I wanted the pictures to match. :)

These are the builds I used for IV-II:

Not the best, not the worst. I got it done and that's really all that matters. Another 800 jades added to the Sparkle funds!

Well, well, well, look how the turn tables. Hello again, it's been a few weeks since wrapping up my clear. I pulled Sparkle, motivating me to go back into PF for some casual gaming (I know, two endgame modes in a row—I've stumbled down a dark path this patch.) This third round of attempts went much worse than I was hoping for. I did manage to get a better clear, so I decided to have that be my representational video instead. It took so many tries that I'm afraid to go look at the updated info on Hoyolab. I think it's better for my overall happiness and sanity if I let that remain a mystery—high score chasing at its finest (I have so many regrets. Why did I do this to myself?)

In the end, I was able to increase my score by 4129 points:

IV-I: Kafka vs e1s1 Ruan Mei, e0 Seele, e0s1 Aventurine, e6 Herta (40000 points)

IV-II: Cocolia vs e1 Bronya, e6 Asta, e6 Gallagher, e6 Serval (27805 points)

I went through a good amount of team lineups, relic swapping, buff changing, and character upgrading to make this happen. Desperate times called for desperate measures, I was so hung up on getting a better clear that I leveled Herta to 80 and 6/10/10/11'd her traces. I had not planned on doing that for at least a couple more patches since her relics are still a bit trash, but it was the most effective option that I had at the time. Doing so made getting to 40K points on IV-I possible, which was most of the point increase, so I'd say it was worth it.

Now, IV-II was painful. I can't explain my thought process here because there wasn't really one to begin with. Serval gaming is fine for what it is. I genuinely do not think that it was possible for me to hit 30K on this side at all. Don't doubt that I tried every sensible double dps comp that I could, because I did, and failed miserably. Swapping Aventurine and Gallagher didn't work; using Sparkle didn't work; hell, even stealing the entirety of Seele's team didn't work! I don't know what else I could've done… and I'm over it, so we're moving on.

At the end of this excursion, I don't have anything good to say about PF. It does not spark joy for me. Hopefully that changes some day; Himeko will save me once she decides to grace me with her presence, she is the vital unit that I am missing to achieve greatness. Until then, I'll just have to ride with it. I'll keep working on my characters and, eventually, clearing will go better for me.

That's a wrap on this section. I'm 1000% burnt out on PF after this whole ordeal. I don't want to think about it anymore.

2.4.2 Memory of Chaos

The Big Sleep was a snoozefest: I got all twelve stars without any resets this time around! And I four-cycled floor XII for the first time! You absolutely love to see it. I can't believe that just nine months ago I couldn't even get through floor VIII without wanting to cry from frustration. Oh, how the times have changed.

Since this challenge flew by with ease, I don’t have much to say about it. I was a big fan of the buff this time around; I love it when the buff is universal and aligns with pretty much anyone I want to play with. I foresee a lot of casual gaming in my future.

With the help of my newest addition, Sparkle, I was able to clear the first half with renewed efficiency. Daniel and Hanya have been separated after nine months of partnership, it feels so good to no longer have to hyperactively think about my skill point usage. I knew that Sparkle was going to be a large upgrade for my DHIL team, but I didn’t think she would shave off four cycles worth of turns (and I haven’t even finished her build yet! Like huh??? She’s great, I’m a big fan.)

Here are the builds I used for XII-I:

The second side faired just about as well as the first. Boothill shredded Aventurine down before he even got the chance to take me into a showdown. As much as I love Aven, I hate his boss form, so it felt incredibly satisfying to enact my revenge on him after struggling so much against him the first time he was introduced into endgame. No more are the days of having to make Jingliu brute force her way through the dice rolls (thank the Aeons!)

These are the builds I used for XII-II:

Another one for the books! Got the final 800 jades for this patch, this time to be added to the Feixiao funds (yes, I’m pulling for her now. You may call me a hypocrite this once. I will be betraying Danny boy by going for a new and improved wind hunt unit. This is a stain on my pride as a four-star Dan stan; unfortunately for him, Feixiao’s hot, clever, strong, one hell of a badass General with dope animations and a back tattoo that fucking glows, brother. What kind of gay would I be if I didn’t at least throw a solid 50 or so pulls in her direction? Have you seen the lesbian kryptonite of a banner lineup that’s coming in 2.5?? It’ll be a miracle if I go into 2.6 with any savings at all!)

Surprise, surprise, the prodigal gamer returns. Did you really think I was going to one and done this mode after casual gaming all patch long? Not much to report aside from going back in with my original teams to try for a cleaner run. My efforts were well worth it, I managed to shave off a cycle from my original clear, netting me with my first ever three-cycle in MoC 12 (yippee!)

Whoop whoop! We're officially wrapped on all the endgame modes for 2.4! What a yapfest this was, I cannot believe I prattled on for this long. If you made it all the way here, thanks for sticking with me until the end. I'll catch y'all in about six weeks for the next recap.

[bboisawesome]

Probably lmk season 4 spoilers. I type things and rant without thinking so, just a fair warning.

We good?

Okay….

First things first…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

WHAT!?!?

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN!!! HOW DO I BEGIN!?!?

I just wanna say, I might have missed certain contexts because I watched English sub on YouTube, and I was freaking out the whole time. So if there is something I miss or misunderstand that might be why.

I guess some simple thoughts is where I’ll start?

Official monkey MK design!! How are y’all feeling about that one!?!? My boi was glitching and I felt real bad for him!

I couldn’t really tell if they were trying to say he was also born from a stone, or if Monkey King somehow made him? Or…what? Or if it was purposely vague just so they could do the whole, “It doesn’t really matter who you are, you are who you choose to be thing.” I was slightly confused and freaking out.

Either way, I was screaming the whole time. I died when MK called Pigsy his dad, because yes! He is. And my boi Pigsy really had the gall to say he was more of a godfather!?!?!? MK says you’re a dad? You’re a dad!

Which also, MK kind of went ahead with calling Azure Lion Uncle, soooo…confirmed Wukong dad as well?

MK getting all the dad’s and uncles. Kind of jealous. Even if some of them are causing issues. Especially Azure. Not cool dude.

They really heightened the MK angst this season and AAAH!! I can’t handle it!

Seeing the crew with the old crews weapons and stuff was super cool too! I like how during the training scene they had qualities that their past lives or ancestors or whatever hadn’t learned or learned as quickly. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t also learn from the past. Mei is awesome, but I agree girl has to plan ahead more and stuff. I love her to death though.

Pigsy’s was nice to see. (Also soup bending from my man Pigsy.) He may be a bit tough on the outside, but he really does care for his friends and family, and I love that! Now he just needs to get super strong to help them out!

Calling Tang out was funny. My poor useless scholar shall be useless no more! Flex those brain and courage muscles boi! It was so cool to see more of Tang’s abilities!

And Sandy was perfect all along. I always knew it. 😌 I love how the dude kept sticking silver stars on him. 😂😂 His only flaw? Maybe being a little TOO nice. But, even Sandy knew that and can probably adjust accordingly. He had that character growth in season 2. 😂

Usually I like torturing characters I like, but seeing MK suffering and sad made me sad, and I just wanted someone to hug him. Which he got when reunited and getting his friends out of heaven! So I’ll take it! My boi was still glitching though. Someone gotta do something about that.

There was just so much, I can’t even think of it all or what I want to say or do, besides screaming. Plus I was a little confused in places because I am dumb and it is late. I am definitely gonna rewatch a couple times, and absolutely rewatch when the dub comes out! So maybe my thoughts will be in better order by then? Hopefully I’ll process it more by the time the special or finale comes out? Whichever it may be?

Until then, sorry for my insane ramblings. I just needed to process and yell some more.

I don’t even know how I’m gonna sleep or go to work tomorrow like a normal person! Especially after that cliffhanger!!! AAAAH!!

Definitely gonna look for something to draw too! I need to draw something! Okay, okay…I’m chill. I’m cool. See y’all later, and I hope you can process this new season well.

[justagalwhowrites]

Im thinking of writing a book, do you have any tips to get started? Just planning out the plot, characters and whatnot

OMG HI BESTIE!

I'm so excited for you to write a book!!! That's amazing!! It's going to be fabulous :D

So I may not be the very best person to ask about this? My creative writing is all pretty intuitive but I can share with you how I think about stories (both fics and novels) and how I approach writing. Hopefully you find it helpful?

To start with, I decide the kind of story I want to tell. This is often very vague at this stage (for fics, it'll be a universe I find interesting.) Using Lavender as an example, I started with "What would it be like for someone to love Joel through his trauma?"

Then, I think up a character I want to write (all my books and fics have female POV main characters so I'll be using she/her pronouns throughout for this.) Who is she as a person? What are her core drives? What's made her into the person she is today? What does her daily routine look like? What about her makes her friends go "Oh that's so her thing"? What is going to drive her to action? For Doc, she's defined by her loving and caring nature. She tries to overcome her feelings of abandonment and loss by loving people very hard. She loves the soft and beautiful things about life and tries to make the sad, dismal things in her life better by making them beautiful. She appreciates small things and often finds motivation through small things. She is a caretaker by nature and will do damn near anything to help someone, especially if it's someone she loves.

Next, I pick a starting point and and ending point for the story. Usually, the starting point is right around the time that things change in a characters life and the core conflict/arc is going to be introduced. The end point is when that is resolved. For Lavender, the story starts just as Doc and Joel first start to become more than friends. I'll keep quiet about where it ends for now :)

Then, I look at what changes need to happen to a character to get them to the end point and make them who they are to meet that resolution. I'll design plot points accordingly. For Doc, I wanted her to be able to empathize with Joel's trauma, so I put in McCarthy, the death of Jessica and the miscarriage. Then thought through how she'd respond to those things, how Joel would respond to those things, etc. I wanted to make sure they stayed connected and tried to create an immersive reality with the QZ so I set up some conflicts within the QZ for them to navigate and tried to place those conflicts appropriately in the story. I wanted Doc to have some romantic ties outside of Joel that would drive Joel to reflect and start to change, hence the Tommy arc. All things designed to drive the characters forward through the plot.

Finally, once I think I've got the big plot points down and I think I know how I'm getting characters from point a to point b, I just kind of write it out. Sometimes a conflict will rise and resolve in a chapter, sometimes it will take 3 or 4. I try to not force it and let the characters drive the action. My plots stay a bit fluid because of this - I don't like shoehorning characters into unnatural places. That can lead to some unplanned detours, though! (In Beskar Doll, Din and Doll weren't supposed to actually have sex until after the Tatooine arc but it ended up happening damn near 10 chapters sooner because it just didn't make sense for them to NOT do it anymore. Things adjusted accordingly.)

Anyway, that's kind of my method! I'm not sure I can fully recommend it but it does work really well for me. I think you need to kind of decide if you want character or plot to be the main driver of your action and kind of plan accordingly? For me, it's always felt like the characters can exist and do things without the plot so that's where everything kind of flows from.

Thank you for asking! I'm sorry this was 1.7 million years long but I hope it helped. Love you!!

[hasufin]

Battle lines and very small amounts of chemicals

It was on Monday that I realized I am unexpectedly on the front lines of the war against trans people.

How could this happen? I'm not trans. I don't even really identify as "queer". I am, on paper, completely acceptable to the rightwing authoritarians; I'd just need to put on a red ballcap and mouth "Jesus" a few times to get them to think I'm one of them.

Now, don't get me wrong - I certainly try to be an ally. Was strongly in favor of gay marriage when that question came up, and I'm in favor of healthcare for everyone, thanks. Which very explicitly includes trans people. But, well, I didn't think I personally was anything like being targeted. Yet I am. And how can this happen?

Well, on Monday I went to see a massage therapist, to hopefully get some help for elbow pain. I went to a place nearby that a neighbor recommended - decent sized place, plenty of LMTs, associated with a larger company. As a new patient, I gave them a fair bit of medical information: mostly just the usual ass-covering. Do I have a history of heart disease? Epilepsy? Do I realize that someone will in fact touch my body? &c.

One of the questions - and, again, I don't believe this was in any way meant to be discriminatory, just a broad liability question - was whether I am taking HRT.

And it clicked that, yes, I am taking hormone replacement. Very literally, I am. Just not what they were asking about.

I take levothyroxine. It's a synthetic hormone, most often called synthroid. It's used to treat hypothyroidism: when your thyroid is not producing enough hormone to regulate your metabolism properly. It's a pretty common drug; once I started it I found out that my brother and mother-in-law are both on it. I know it was a big deal for some people, but it's had no real effect on my life: every couple of months I go in and my doctor and I look at my labs and see whether my TSH numbers have gone down and T4 has gone up, and we adjust the dose accordingly. It's the first time since college that I've looked at anything in micrograms, though.

Aside from that the big effects have been that the pharmacy has trouble keeping track of the different prescriptions - their system shows the prescription for 125 mcg and 137mcg both as "Levothyroxi...." so that's fun. And I have to take it an hour before eating in the morning, which is inconvenient and the "solutions" to that always seem to assume my big problem is the 30 seconds between waking up taking the pill and not the 3600 seconds after that. But I digress.

The point is, I am very literally taking a hormone replacement. As part of an ongoing therapy. Hormone Replacement Therapy. That's what it is.

Every pseudo-concern that anti-trans people lob at the idea of HRT and gender-affirming care would actually apply to levothyroxine, too. There is only a finite amount of data on it (true of every drug, but hey, they want it to sound scary). There are risks. There are side effects. And, yes, I could probably stop taking it and not die.

Typically they avoid this - so far - by being nakedly bigoted, by banning it for specific people. Which is pretty obviously and wildly prejudiced. We wouldn't accept "Jewish people are not allowed to drive on Saturday" or "Black people can't buy sunscreen", but "Trans people can't get hormone replacement" is being allowed to slide past.

But mark me, the people pushing these things do not care. They will get stopped on their banning colored people from the drinking fountain. And they have no compunctions on tearing down the drinking fountain and closing the public swimming pools. They will absolutely try to ban an entire class of medication just because someone they have never met might have a slightly better life from it.

And if you imagine it won't affect you... I'm sorry, you're wrong. It can and will. You might not even connect it at the time, but you'll have a condition that's treatable with hormones, except you can't get them. Your mother will be unable to join you on a vacation because she's always tired now. Something. And that's the world these people want: one that's dragged down to the level of their bigotry, because they cannot abide even the chance that the people they hate might experience anything good.

[aikoiya]

Arcane Prompt - JayVik x Female Who Struggles With Emotional Blunting

JayVik x Fem!Reader who struggles with dysthymia, her symptoms being anhedonia (lack of enjoyment), apathy, & lack of motivation. Generally very stoic due to past trauma, she's working through it slowly.

This tends to make her a very level-headed, down-to-earth, rational, logical, & reasonable person, who tries to see both sides of an argument before making decisions. She operates on logic & is a very introspective person. Is often the mediator in fights due to these things. Often, she will sit down with one side of the argument to listen to their perspective before approaching the other side to relay their feelings in a way that the other can understand. Then, she'll listen to the other argumentor to get their perspective & feelings before relaying that to the first in a way that they can hopefully understand as well. All the while giving comfort when needed.

This tends to make her come across as a bit of a busy body & nosy, but honestly, she just wants people to understand each other.

In this way, she becomes a middlewoman or fight translator.

Very much enjoys debate, especially civilized debate where both sides are open to each others' arguments & willing to admit when the other has a point, thus adjusting their perspectives accordingly. Is quite skilled in diplomacy, but does not dance around issues. Instead being very forthright & honest, at times even being very blunt.

Will give a little chuckle of appreciation if she thinks a joke is clever or witty enough even if it didn't quite strike her funny bone.

Has high emotional intelligence or intuition due to the years of her trying to overcome her own lack of emotions despite having very low empathy. Legitimately wants to be a good person if for no other reason than because she wants to.

Despite having blunted emotions, she tries to be an empathetic & compassionate person despite typically not feeling much for those around her. Going out of her way to try & understand the perspectives of those around her.

She can feel, just not very much unless a chord has been struck inside her just right.

Like, you know you're funny if you have her breathless & in tears from laughing. I can see Jayce & Viktor both becoming enamored with her genuine laugh & becoming determined to make her make that sound as much as possible.

Though, on the flipside, when she cries, she's very quiet & tries to refrain from making sound. A silent sufferer.

Or when, like say, a new installment of her absolute favorite book series comes out & she becomes a giggly, wiggling mess to express her excitement.

Other than in these specific situations, her emotions are little more than twinges.

Sassy & kind, enjoys making dry jokes because even if she has trouble feeling, she likes to see others smile & laugh.

If either of her boys are going through things, pays expressed attention to them & makes sure that they know that she's there for them. Making herself emotionally available for them. Is well versed in the art of comforting & easily steps into the spot of someone's rock. Even if all they let her do is sit there with them quietly, holding their hand as they process their emotions.

Her motivation is very, very low due to her condition, so it takes a herculean effort on her part to move forward. Despite that, her determination is insane, so that helps. However, because of this, her forward progression feels empty at times.

She resents her emotional bunting, wishing that she could feel more as she finds that it hampers her enjoyment of life. Yet, despite this, she still tries to live her life as full as possible.

Studies psychology & neurology in an attempt to better understand herself & others.

Because of this, Reader is very, very against Viktor getting rid of his emotions. It's one of the few times that she actually feels the heat of real anger in her chest because it's like he thought her struggles were inconsequential.

So, she laid it out like he was a 3 year old. No emotions means no motivation or desires. No motivation or desires means no moving unless you have to. Then, if he actually manages to get rid of all his physical needs (which is impossible with the current level of technology; as it stands, organic brains are still FAR superior to anything technology could make for information storage, data processing, logic, & problem solving, at least in terms of space; which would mean that he'd still need blood, oxygen, food, & sleep to keep his brain alive & healthy due to the brain being made of cells & cells require oxygen to work correctly, while the brain requires fuel from food, which is broken down into usable nutrients by the stomach & then brought to the brain via the blood; meaning he requires, at the very least, his brain, heart, lungs, & stomach), he won't move at all unless he has an internalized program forcing him to do things. At which point, he'll have stripped away his own free will, turning himself into a big, metal puppet.

Reader: "If you won't listen to the woman who personally experiences a lack of emotion & struggles with it daily, wishing with what little want that she can muster that she could really, truly enjoy life again. Then, maybe you'll listen to the woman who's been studying the human mind for years & can back up what she says with scientific facts. Oh, wait! They're both me! Maybe emotions do color one's logic, but only if you let them control you rather than the other way around. It's better than living a drab, colorless life where nothing really, truly matters to you! I live in quiet dread that I might one day wake up & feel absolutely nothing for anyone or anything especially you & Jayce. I can live with your other augmentations. I'll miss your skin & your warmth & your heartbeat, but I'll move on eventually if you get rid of them, but please, Viktor, don't get rid of your emotions!"

All as quiet tears slowly begin to trickle down her cheeks.

Viktor will have never seen her so distressed before in all the time they've known each other.

[enjoycameralife]

Asakusa, Tokyo

and my trip to Tokyo comes to an end with a full day of wandering around waiting for my midnight flight back to KL. like all of my last days during any overseas trip, i was exhausted and running on fumes, doing my utmost best to get through the day without collapsing. photography usually isn’t much of a priority on my last days, but i had so much time to kill after checking out of my hotel that i decided to spend a few hours walking around at none other than the biggest tourist attraction of Tokyo - Asakusa. throughout my week-long stay, i’ve noticed that there has yet to be a full-blown invasion of foreign tourists in Tokyo. however, for some reason Asakusa was packed to the brim with all manners of local and foreign tourists, it certainly felt more packed that it used to be before the pandemic. getting around the place was without a question a chore, but i still walked along the edges, photographing the place (and mostly the people) in its post-pandemic glory. you could tell that the tourists were glad to be here in Tokyo - i most certainly was. after Asakusa, i spent the rest of the day hanging around in Ikebukuro, meeting up with an old high school friend for dinner, and making my way to Haneda Airport only to find out that my midnight flight was delayed a couple hours.

--

in the end, the entire trip felt a little bit of a mixed bag for me. for one, the ravages of age is slowly creeping up on me, and i can’t seem to travel like i used to before the pandemic. years of being a sedentary shut-in definitely didn’t do well for my body, furthermore, expectations for this “return to travel normalcy” was at an all-time high that you cannot help but feel some levels of disappointment at the end of everything. i did all that i came to do in Tokyo - i took a whole lot of photos, bought all the stuff i wanted, visited the places i had intended to visit, met up with my old buddy, ate most of the food i wanted to eat. admittedly, the little stomach upset i had the day prior soured most of the trip for me, and i couldn’t do much about it but hole myself up in my hotel room for half the day. i guess when it comes to future travels, i have to allow myself some room for unexpected incidences - what more with my body experiencing a certain amount of degradation, it comes with the package. furthermore, this trip was mostly planned on the fly - thinking that i would attempt to adapt my plans on the fly like i used to, but lately my indecisiveness has gotten the best of me, leading to increased levels of anxiety and me ultimately wasting a lot of time and energy trying to pull myself together. but it’s something i’ll have to take note of in my future travels - to be more better prepared, to travel with a more open mind, to set priorities and adhere to them, and perhaps to give myself more room for error and to be able to adjust accordingly. when the next trip comes around, i’ll hopefully be more mindful and prepared. but it goes without saying that i enjoyed a good portion of my one week stay in Tokyo, and look forward to travel to Japan (or anywhere else) in the near future.

[books-are-my-life-stuff]

Alright, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, while jamming to the sick tunes of the Master remixes of Kalos Elite Fours, I’m gonna note down things to prepare for Kalos Champion Stadium, based from Absol’s notes. This is only for personal references because I was screwed up so hard in Sinnoh CSMM that I had to make these notes for Hoenn CSMM (though very brief notes) and that helped me a lot in order to prepare for what’s to come. However, feel free to check as well, as I unintentionally made this post from brief notes to detailed notes because there are just so many things to watch out for.

Tl;dr bring your debuffers, at all time.

1. Diantha

Flying-weak Diantha: She has Critical Shield, possibly she’s gonna use that before her sync move, taking her down two turns earlier is mandatory. She also has Discourage 2, Trip Wire 2, and Stout Heart 3. Debuffing her attack and the sides seems like a great choice. Luckily she doesn’t seem to have Sentry Entry x2 or such, so I can use Anni Steven against her.

Ground-weak Diantha: Has Head Smash with Recoil Removal 9, it’s gonna hurt. And Ramming Speed, to hurt even more. She also has Team Debut Dash 1, possibly a passive to buff herself and her team’s speed during entry? So Ramming Speed is a free multiplier for her. Her team partners also have Ramming Speed. She also has Satisfied Snarl 9, coupled with Ripple Effect 9, along with Trip Up 4 and Weigh Down 4. She’s possibly going to screw up Naomi, as she’s very reliant on special attack and speed buffs. Debuffing her is a great choice, but needs to be careful of her debuffs as well. Basically, this is gonna be a very tough fight. Oh, and she also has Tough Sync 3. And Impose 1, not sure what Impose 1 does. All in all, a lot to watch out for, and using Naomi doesn’t seem to be a great idea. Gotta look for alternatives.

Steel-weak Diantha: Towering Force, and Tough Cookie (Tough Cookie applies to her partners as well). With Healthy Advantage 4, Team Pinpoint Entry 1 and Team Sentry Entry 1. She only has Lessen Paralysis 5, so paralyzing her is a good choice, and of course debuffing her defenses as well. Moves are Iron Head, Icy Wind, and Hyper Voice. Moves-wise hopefully not too threatening? But it’s still a challenge, especially for Steel-types who are mostly very physical-oriented.

Poison-weak Diantha: Has Fairy Zone, possibly she’s gonna use it before her sync. Has Draining Kiss with Master Healer 2. Lessen Poison 7, so poisoning her is a way to go. Also has Trained Mind 3. I forgot if it’s less resistance on Defense or Special Defense, but yeah whatever it is, adjust accordingly. Fall Iris might be great for this though.

2. Wikstrom

Fighting-weak Wikstrom: Steel Zone, but his movesets doesn’t have Steel Zone. I’m assuming it’s the passive called “Steel Surroundings” that he has, possibly setting up Steel Zone on entry? Aura Cynthia is the best answer here. He has Metallic Power 3 (his sides also has this one passive alongside gauge acceleration) to buff up his Earthquake, Thunderbolt, and Flash Cannon. Lessen Confusion 5, Quick tempo, Team Pinpoint Entry 2, and less resistances on Defense, Special Defense, and Speed debuffs. Although the game recommends defense down, it seems like this stage wants you to use Knight Diantha, if you have her. One of the sides has Steel Beam so gotta be careful of that.

Fire-weak Wikstrom: Hah, trying to stop Anni N and SS Red, I suppose. He doesn’t stop you if you have SS Hilda, though. Has Struggle Bug, and Discourage 1. Weak to burn as he only has Lessen Burn 7. Has Sentry Entry 1 AND Stoic 9, coupled with Towering Force and Tough Cookie. He also has Special Shield+X Attack All+X Defense All, possibly set up before sync. The sides have Satisfied Snarl 9 and Ripple Effect 9, to discourage you from using Special Attackers even further. So, yeah. He buffs defense upon entry, can consistently keep his defenses buffed, and he has multipliers to take advantage of that. This stage needs VERY aggressive defense debuffs. Otherwise, finish the stage really quick and bring a tank that can take lots of hits as it’s gonna be painful without aggressive defense debuffs. Physical-build Silver might be needed here.

Ghost-weak Wikstrom: Remember SS Morty’s  Group Afflicter's Advantage 1? I don’t remember the effect because I’ve been using SS Morty on autopilot mode basically, so I’ll restate the effect: “ Raises the Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def, and Speed of all allied sync pairs by 1 stat rank the first time the user's Pokémon uses a status move each battle.”, gotta be careful of that. Not just that, he has Wise Entry 2, Sentry Entry 2, Tough Cookie, Smart Cookie, and the best part? Rising Tide. Yes, that’s right. He mostly uses physical moves, and has less resistances on defense debuffs (both defenses). This is...a very dangerous stage. Seeing this much buffs he can apply on himself with DPS multiplier and Rising Tide as the icing of the cake? I don’t even know if I want to use Morty for this. Anyway, aggressive debuffs. That’s the name of the game here. Actually, a lot of these Kalos stages need aggressive debuffs, huh?

(these three are the only stages for Wikstrom as of now, because he’s fighting-weak again at Week 4, maybe it will be updated if/when there’s other stage of him)

3. Malva

Water-weak Malva: What is this, Moltres CS version? Everyone has Charging Sun 5, one of the sides have Terrify 1. 

There are just too many passives there so I’m just gonna put the screenshot. Get rid of the sun. She sets it upon entry and after sync. Her Special Attack cannot be debuffed and she has Overheat, so be prepared for huge hits. Strangely she has Lessen Trap 7 but the game only recommends to increase crit rate which means “good fucking luck” so...yeah. Get rid of the Sun, careful of the burn, and sweep this stage fast.

Dark-weak Malva: A little less extreme than the previous one, but she has Acute Senses 4, and Lessen Confusion 5, so bring someone who can confuse to take advantage of that. Oh, and make sure to confuse the sides too, they also have Acute Senses 4. She has Team Pinpoint Entry 2 to ensure moves hitting, and Catalyst. This is possibly to encourage using Sidney.

Rock-weak Malva: Oh boy, Sentry Entry x2. A lot of passives to take note for so here it is: (note that the sides all have Charging Sun 5, and one of them has Sunburst to set up Sun upon entry)

Surprisingly she’s...weak to Bertha’s Stealth Rock? Finally there’s a use for that. This stage basically screams for Bertha to be used. Classic Blue is good for this fight, but be careful for his poor defenses.

(these three are the only stages for Malva as of now, because she’s Rock-weak for Week 1 and Week 3, maybe it will be updated if/when there’s other stage of her)

4. Drasna

Psychic-weak Drasna: Here are the screenshots for Drasna’s passives alongside the sides:

(The other sides have same movesets and passives except X. Sp. Def All is replaced with X Speed All)

Poison is absolutely going to land in this stage. There’ll be lots and lots of poisons this stage. Either your tank has to have infinite Full Heals or other means to clear statuses, or make everyone immune to it (like using Bede’s trainer move on them). Speaking of Bede, he might be a good answer for this stage, but Drasna also has Trip Wire 2 and Slow-mo 9 to hinder your gauge further if you bring Bede (because Bede is very slow). Flinch and generally Sp. Atk debuffer are good answers for this, and anybody who can counter statuses. Probably Sycamore+Bede is a good answer for this?

Dragon-weak Drasna: Bring your special attackers for this. No, she doesn’t have Sentry Entry x2, but she has Terrify 2 to discourage your physical attacker, she and everyone has Smart Cookie, Drasna herself has Wise Entry 2 and Brute Wits. Everyone in this stage is using special attacks as well, so bring your SS Brendan, and Bede too if he’s not used yet. Cyrus, Zinnia, SS Serena, are great for this.

Ice-weak Drasna: SHE HAS 15 PASSIVES?? ARE YOU FOR REAL?? Anyway, here it is:

And here are the passives for the sides:

With weakness to paralysis and Atk+Sp Atk+Speed debuffs, and passives that increase damage  this is likely meant for SS N. Of course, SS N by himself is too slow to debuff, so better bring auxiliary debuffers for this. Or, just, you know, don’t die...?

Fairy-weak Drasna: Why does Drasna have tons of passives? Here it is:

Not as extreme as Ice-weak, but anyway, this is for SS Wally. If you have him, then go for it and use his Buddy Move as soon as possible. And quickly confuse her as well. If Drasna sets up Dragon Zone (possibly before sync), replace with Fairy Wish. All the sides also have multipliers accounting for Dragon Zone, accelerating move gauge and powers up moves by 20% when the zone is dragon. One of the sides have Dragon Shift Hyper Voice. So, yeah, this is SS Wally’s stage, but you gotta be quick.

5. Siebold

Electric-weak Siebold: Lots of passives again, so there you go:

I think this stage is for SST Red? Not that SST Red cannot solo the entire game by himself anyway, but still. 1/5 SST Red should be good for utility here, as he can apply paralysis to disable Healthy Advantage 4. As an additional note, everyone in this stage has Healthy Advantage 4 and Tough Cookie, so debuffing defenses are mandatory. Siebold cannot buff his Special Defense and he has low resistances of special defense debuffs, so this is meant for special attackers again, though maybe not as extreme as Electric-weak Aaron? Who knows. Siebold can debuff everyone’s speed consistently though, so Hau might not be a great idea here. Dunno if my 1/5 SST Red can do it here or if this forces me to invest on him. If you have Ash, then the stage is set for you too.

Bug-weak Siebold: At long last, Sentry Entry x2. This is a stage that Subway Bros cannot cheese easily. I mean, I guess you can if you just brute force it since SC Emmet is so powerful anyway, especially if you have him 3/5, but who knows if it’s different on practice.

But this is, above all else, a stage for SS Hilbert. The sides don’t have passives, only Siebold that you need to watch out for. Crit-ing is important because Siebold has barriers that won’t leave, or get rid of them with Defog. Make sure to outdamage his gradual healing too.

Grass-weak Siebold: Okay, I gotta put screenshots of Siebold and the sides’ passives here, because the sides are also important to watch out for in this stage.

On a Roll 1 Muddy Water, on everyone. Yeah, you’ll be suffering a lot of accuracy debuffs in this stage, which is very annoying. Everyone is mostly using special moves, so bring your special tank like SC Jasmine and such. Siebold is vulnerable to special attack and special defense (and speed I think?) debuffs, so it’s recommended by the game to use special attackers. I kinda want to try using Erika, but it’s a bit difficult with constant accuracy debuffs like this...

(these three are the only stages for Siebold as of now, because he’s Electric-weak for Week 1 and Week 3, maybe it will be updated if/when there’s other stage of him)

[greenleebuchanan]

“And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack All around the world was waking, I never could go back.”

Greenlee Buchanan

A Ravenclaw studying at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry 

Hogwarts Legacy MC Roleplay Blog

     Muggleborn, Greenlee Buchanan’s parents, Aileen and Bernard, were weary of letting her embark on a journey they hadn’t the faintest idea about. So weary, that it took several years before they even allowed her to embark on it. It took the persistence of Professor Eleazar Fig appearing every year to try and grant their permission before they reluctantly gave in on the conditions that he would mentor her before she embarked on her journey in Hogwarts finally as a fifth year. Fortunately, he had always left her materials to study with each time he showed up so she wasn’t completely lost when she started under his tutelage. The school year approached swiftly and Greenlee began a journey that she had no means of comprehending just how intense it would be nor the potential she had just below the surface. 

II More information on her journey in the game and some basics below~ II 21+ Mun II WIP - Will update along the way II 

Basics

Name  —  Greenlee Buchanan Age  —  She is aged sixteen as of the fourteenth of January. Zodiac — Capricorn MBTI —  INFJ House  —  Ravenclaw  Abilities or powers — Ancient Magic, Dark Magic, Spellcasting Physical Appearance  — Green eyes with bits of blue, red hair, a variety of freckles scattered across her face, a scar that is travels down from her eyebrow to just below her eye, roughly 5′4 Wand - Fir Wood ; Phoenix Core ; 10′’ Length ; Hard Flexbility  Patronus - TBD

Just some small Gameplay Notes but just so there’s a general idea of her personality and how her relationships played out in the game. Obviously, this is just a reference!

Greenlee chooses to learn everything that she can. She is willing to help her friends but doesn’t mind asking for compensation when it is a lot more than she agreed to. She’s ever curious and always ready to go somewhere if it means she can learn something new. She often let’s that get in the way of her rationale and will usually go along with what her friend wants even if she was cautioning them moments before. 

Sebastian  — She helped Sebastian throughout his quest to save his sister, believing that it was better than to try than to do nothing at all. She empathized with both Solomon and Sebastion, but was ultimately on his side. Her thoughts aligned with his regarding access to all knowledge rather than restricting it thus him taking the fall for her in the library set a solid foundation for their friendship. She urges Ominis to not turn him in the end.  Ominis  — She butts heads with them due to his constant remarks about her making waves and they exchange remarks but she always chose to want to keep him in the loop whenever Sebastian suggests otherwise. She tries to mediate between him and Sebastian when prompted. 

Natty  — She cautioned her to heed her mother’s warnings but helped her whenever needed. They are good friends. 

These relationship notes are just a little basis for how she interacted but obviously muses can vary from canon so I will adjust accordingly and dependent on the timeframe within the rp. 

— — — — — — — — — —

So  — not sure if anyone is interested in rping with a character that is the MC, but I wanted to give a try anyways! I created her with the mindset of creating an OC and played as such as well. She is her own individual, not the mun. 

I don’t have any particular rules, just the usual ones! I am 21+ though so I greatly prefer rping with 18+ individuals. 

I will likely default into during the school year but open to doing post-game ending as well!.

Mun usually goes by Elspeth~

Anyways, hopefully we can have some fun!